Jellicle Cats Are Black And White

As a kid I was a long term subscriber to Cricket magazine. It was a wonderful magazine full of real literature, but packaged for kids. Clifton Fadiman, the initial editor/publisher, assumed that talking down to children wasn't really necessary. In its pages I made my first acquaintance with Isaac Bashivas Singer, Lloyd Alexander, Langston Hughes, ee cummings, Carl Sandburg, Pamela Travers and many other brilliant writers.

At some point during our subscription, we purchased a recording from the magazine of some of its top pieces. Included among the gems on this disk was TS Eliot reading his own poem, Jellicle Cats. I loved the poem; soon I had it memorized and would recite it, even imitating his British accent. To hear him you'd never know he was born in St Louis, Missouri, just a few hours drive from where I live.

Never did it matter to me that I had no clue what "terpsichorean powers" were. I was in high school before I thought to look it up and learned about the muses,

Remote From Anything The Builders Intended

To what end do we suffer? To what end, really, do we fall on our faces? For what good are sin and folly and loss and waste?

We make such fools of ourselves! I'd hate to be in the same room at a party with the me of twenty years ago! I'd hide my face and pray that no one recognized us as the same guy!

Our past is, thank God, past! It is done! It will no longer plague us!

Jesus died to take it away as far as the east is from the west, etc.

And yet; and yet; and yet. . .

Was it all for nothing? Were we simply awaiting what Francis Thompson calls "love's uplifted stroke" in which our pasts vanish?

And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years--
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.

Had I Leant My Eyes Unduly?

This is, I think, only the second time that I've posted an original poem of mine on here. I don't normally like to do so, but in honor of my friends Devika and Wan Dee I will do it. This is a first draft, so I totally welcome the harshest criticism while I work toward a final version.

When I wrote this I somewhat used Edna St Vincent Millay's poem Renascence as a jumping off point. You will notice similarities in our beginnings, but not much more. If you click on her name below you can see her poem.




Glimmer

Two tall pines and a sugar maple
Upside down in the pond I see;

It's Academic

Someone just told me (in an email) that the type of writing I do sounds rather academic. I responded that some of it is, but that the most academic writing I've done (Covenant And Community) has changed me in countless ways. She asked me to explain. Here is my response.



To begin with, you need to understand that I’m religious, Christian. That’s why I do theology.

For years I had seen my religion as being primarily between myself and God.

Hast thou no scar?

When God was converting Saul (Paul), he didn't suggest that anyone tell him how much rosier his life would be with Christ. Instead he promised Ananias that:

"I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Acts 9:16

That was God's appeal to Saul? Is that how we sell the Gospel? Paul later seemed to assume that suffering for Christ was a proof of our usefulness to him.

"Are they servants of Christ?-- I speak as if insane--

Profoundly Emptied Souls

This is from a book that I am not allowed to review until the middle of the month, but then I will post a review on here. It is a most excellent book, so stay tuned. Until then, I can't wait to post a quote or two.


When we adopt an ideological approach to Christianity,

That's How I Believe

Here is a snippet from BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, by Evelyn Waugh. Charles Ryder, the atheist, and Sebastian Flyte, the Catholic, are discussing religion.




"Oh dear, it's very difficult being Catholic."

"Does it make much difference to you?"

"Of course. All the time."

"Well, I can't say I've noticed it. Are you struggling against temptation? You don't seem much more virtuous than me."

"I'm very, very much wickeder," said Sebastion indignantly.

The Weight of an Apple

David Bazan is making a production of losing his faith. Never mind that he is one of the great poets of our time; never mind that he is a groovy musician; never mind that he is a college party philosopher. Never mind that I suspect he gets drunk at breakfast. His questions are serious, and I think they are valid.

This is the man who sang a couple years ago:

"i could buy you a drink
i could tell you all about it
i could tell you why i doubt it
and why i still believe"

Soak Into My Pores

In discussing the way that different authors in the Old Testament are constantly quoting, arguing, and alluding to each other's writing, Walter Brueggemann says:


Those who are outsiders to the text may spot only the most explicit quotations, but those who are situated deeply and imaginatively

Christ At All Hazards

Gerard Manley Hopkins was converted to Roman Catholicism as an adult, and soon committed himself to the strict life of a Jesuit monk. Along with his renunciation of the world, he renounced poetry, though he secretly longed to be reunited with it, until such a time as his superiors would give it back to him. In fact he burned most of his earlier poetry (what a loss to the world!).

In reality, there was nothing in the vows that forbade poetry. He was free to pursue a literary life and be a devout Jesuit. It seems that he turned his back on poetry in some sort of extrapolation of a vow of silence. He makes a couple of veiled references to a similar idea.

But while he longed to return to poetry

A Perfect And Absolute Blank

A dear old friend and I have been arguing for more than a decade now. I will give you first his side and his reasons.

He is the pastor of a small church. Intentionally he has created in the church a very non-churchy atmosphere, and he has succeeded in attracting a good group of the down and out of our society. As he desired, he is building a church almost entirely composed from people who did not grow up in church and have very little knowledge of the Bible.

Such Thought Possessed The Nameless Artist's Mind

Paul the appostle once looked at an altar dedicated TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. This unknown god, he told a group of philosophers and religious speculators, was not unknown to Paul. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everthing else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth:

Barrage Of Calculated Effects

When Packer uses the word "should" in the following, he means it in the sense of "would."



"If we regarded it as our job, not simply to present Christ, but actually to produce converts--to evangelize, not only faithfully, but also successfully--our approach to evangelism would become pragmatic and calculating. We should conclude that our basic equipment, both for personal dealing and for public preaching, must be twofold.

Where Love Is There God Is Also

This is meant to follow a couple of posts by http://myopicpoets.blogspot.com/ John W. May on the work of Christina Rossetti.

Christina Rossetti's attitude toward the religion that was the very center of her life and her art was highly meditative, one could even say that it was mystical. In this she was emphatically out of step with the Anglican Church of which she was a part, and indeed with all of Western culture in the nineteenth century. It was a time when "progress," "science," and "conquest" were quickly becoming the religion both in and out of the Church. The humble introspective spirit she displayed shines all the more brightly for its being so rare in her day as it is in ours.

God's Self-Revelation

God’s Image as Self-Revelation

When God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness,” notice who was taking responsibility for making us in his image. God himself was. This point is very important for a couple of reasons. First, God will not fail in this proposal any more than he fails in any other proposal. Because God decided to make us to be his image, we will finally fulfill that role and become that which we were created to be.

Equally significant to the present discussion is the fact that God is proposing to make us in his own self-image.

Eavesdropping on Theology Class

I recently learned that my book, Covenant and Community, has been assigned as required reading for a course on "Theology of the Human" at Trinity College, University of Toronto. The course, as I understand it, is the "what," "how," and "why" of being human, all from a biblical perspective. Thus it perfectly corresponds to the book, which is a study of the "what," "how," and "why" of God's image.

I would be curious to eavesdrop

Before the Law

Does God love us and save us because we obey him, or do we obey him because he loves and saves us?

It's an ancient question, to which we all know the answer, but I think the following quote is both concise and potent. Perhaps it is so potent because it is so concise.

Who Rouses Us From Sleep

Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.'
"Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked,

Take Words

"At certain hours we recall our minds from other cares and business--in which somehow or other desire itself grows cool--to the business of prayer, admonishing ourselves by the words of our prayer to fix attention upon that which we desire, for fear that what had begun to lose heat might become altogether cold, and be finally extinguished if the flame were not more frequently fanned."

"When you pray you need piety, not verbosity. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him

My Own Good, Profit and Pleasure

"Every man, whatsoever his condition, desires to be happy. There is no man who does not desire this, and each one desires it with such earnestness that he prefers it to all other things; whoever, in fact desires other things, desires them for this end alone."

"He who is good is therefore good that he may be happy; and he who is evil would not be so, if he despaired of the possibility of being happy by that means."

"But to know where to find this thing desired of all; that is disputed among them, that divides them."