AKMA’s Random Thoughts

The rest of us serve mainly as props for Pippa as she moves through a life that closely resembles a fluid, on-going performance art installation. She devotes a large proportion of her time and energies to just this sort of work — installations, constructions, depictions, contraptions, elaborations. She approaches the world as one version of a reality on which she might improve with a different, more off-center, more interesting re-presentation. She doesn’t displace, disfigure, or over-write the world, so much as she remixes it with idiosyncratic rhythm and color.

For instance, last night Margaret and I went to a pot luck for Seabury faculty and staff, after which we had considered sneaking upstairs to watch a DVD, cozy in bed. Whilwe were away, our daughter made our bed, prepared sumptuous snacks for each of us which she left on the lap desk that we use to hold up the TiBook (itself currently on leave in Indiana, helping Jane finish her coursework), and then added models of Margaret and me, dressed in our nightwear, with cut-out faces. Walking into your bedroom, flicking on the light, and seeing yourself already in your bed (albeit a flatter, black-and-white yourself) casts a markedly peculiar perspective on personal identity.

She’s master of a small conceptual-art repertory company, in which I’m honored to be a player.

That reminded me that Seabury has now, firmly (I believe), scheduled the Winslow Lectures for April 20-22, 2005. The series will be entitled “State of a Theological Art: Four Scholars in Search of a Hermeneutic,” unless we come up with something snappier before then. My long-time friend Steve Fowl will give one of the lectures; my more recent friend Francis Watson will fly in from Scotland to give another; my friend and neighbor to the west, Kevin Vanhoozer will give a third; and I’ll give one, as my inaugural lecture as a professor at Seabury. We have a tentative arrangement to publish print versions of them (with responses), and I’ll see about webcasting/archiving the lectures themselves.

For anyone with an interest in the theological appropriation of the Bible, the series should be pretty exciting (I realize that I cut the possible compass of the apodosis severely by so restrictive a protasis, but honesty obliges me. . .). Steve and I tend to view questions of theological interpretation in one way; Kevin and Francis a different way; and we all like to wrestle hard with ideas. Mark your calendars and, if possible, find your way out to Evanston for a few days. We’ll be holding the lectures in conjunction with the installation of our new dean, so it’ll be a feast of ideas and rituals.

I positively delight in fortuity. I’ve done some of my best, most productive research by wandering aimlessly around library stacks, gazing absently at book covers, pulling down peculiar titles or examining works that produce improbable combinations of authors and topics. I miss the liberty to stroll, to meander intellectually, more than almost any other cost of my furious busy-ness.

So it came as a stupendous delight to me that, at the recent SBL meeting, I had the chance to browse through a recent number of New Blackfriars, a journal to which I subscribed back in the days when it was a simply-produced, desktop-published bimonthly without the backing of any corporate megapublishers. Nowadays, under the umbrella of Blackwell, it has more professional production values, and I’m sure it costs more, but they still publish articles that tickle my theological synapses, and I relish each opportunity to read it.

At the meeting, I read along in the sample issue until I hit an article that captivated me: “Some Liturgical Implications of the Thought of David Jones,&#8221 by Christopher C. Knight (New Blackfriars  85 (998), 444-453). The title sounds pedestrian enough, but what knocked me out were the following paragraphs:

When some of [his essays] were collected together, in a volume entitled Epoch and Artist, its editor, Harman Grisewood, chose to put on the title page an unattributed quotation: “He placed himself in the order of signs.” It was an entirely appropriate quotation, for this was precisely what Jones had done throughout his adult life, both as artist-poet and as Christian. In Jones’ view, it was the sign-making nature of the human condition that made possible both human creativity and the sacramental understanding that was central to his faith.

The quotation chosen by Grisewood was not, however, one that had originally referred to any artist or poet in the usual sense. It was in fact from the work of the theologian, Maurice de la Taille, and it referred to Christ himself. What de la Taille had meant when he talked about “the order of signs” — in relation to the intrinsic link between the last supper, the cross, and the anamnesis of the eucharist— became a central aspect of Jones’ understanding. For, as Jones noted in his essay, Art and Sacrament, de la Taille’s thinking had “shed a sort of reflected radiance on the sign world in general.”

Oh, baby! “He placed himself in the order of signs.” How cool is that? It immediately became a vital point of reference for the lecture I’m working on for next spring.

Better yet, when I got home to Seabury and investigated our holdings of Jones’s works, I found that Seabury owns one of a scant 350 copies of Jones’s essay, “Use & Sign” (Ipswich: Golgonooza Press, 1975; ours is hand-numbered copy 342). The short essay hits several points I will surely cite later, but it pleases me especially because its style reminds me of one of my favorite authors.

When Mary Maudlin fractured the alabaster of nard over the feet of the hero of the Christian cult, Sir Mordred at the dinner party asked: ‘To what purpose is this waste?’ But the cult-hero himself said: ‘Let her alone. What she does is for a presignification of my death, and wherever my saga is sung in the whole universal world, this sign-making of hers shall be sung also, for a memorial of her.’ A totally inutile act, but a two-fold anamnesis (that is, a double and effectual re-telling). First of the hero Himself and then of the mistress of all contemplatives and the tutelary figure of all that belongs to poiesis. The woman from Magdala in her golden hair, wasting her own time and the party funds: an embarrassment if not a scandal; but an act which is of the very essence of all poetry and, by the same token, of any religion worth consideration.

The notes of that rhetorical melody remind me of Tom’s writing, and the rhythms and harmonies of the Tutor’s gilded lash. As I draw on Jones in preparing my lecture, I’ll be hearing my friends — which will make my preparations all the more satisfying, and which can only strengthen, enrich the result.

I forgot that I owe Jason, a Seabury alum and former student of mine, a link to his blog. I almost typed, “his new blog,” which would have been true when he politely asked me to link to him, but now is no longer true since I took so long to get around to acceding to his request. His most recent entry continues a six-part transcript of his interview with Tom Wright, of which the first part appears here. And I’ll add you to my blogroll, too, Jason.

I owe Frank an answer to the question, “Why do I blog?”

That’s complicated, but the best answer would be that I started blogging as a lark, out of a clear blue sky. I continued blogging because I fell into such lovely conversations with friends such as David, Halley, Tom, Shelley, Chris, Jeneane, Doc, Steve, Gary (and, of course, Frank) among others. Those conversations have died down in some ways — we don’t run into multi-day, multi-blog hash-it-outs as much as we did a couple of years ago — but these friends are still around and blogging strong.

I keep blogging because it’s become part of what I do: part of how I learn, part of how I write, part of how I teach, part of how I think, part of how I keep up with technology.

Oh, and I owe both Joi and Frank observations on current creationist controversies. That’s tricky, because I enjoy watching disputes between evolutionists and creationists as an ongoing drama in intellectual history. I won’t simply align myself with either party; that would take much of the fun out of watching. I remain especially intrigued by the problems evolution hasn’t solved, I am unconvinced by the ways that some “evolutionary” discourses overplay the strength of their theory and data, and I hesitate to endorse whole-heartedly the “evolution” ideological complex that has borne along some awfully unsavory fellow-travelers. At the same time, most of “creation science” is flat-out not science, the arguments in behalf of “intelligent design” (ingenious circumventions of previous fallacies though they be) miss vital points on their own, and the underlying premise — that the Bible must provide a kind of oracular anticipation of scientific knowledge — strikes me as a monumental category mistake. So I’m no creationist, so sirree, but I’m not a card-carrying “shocked, shocked!” evolutionist. (We used to get into stressful situations when other home-schooling families assumed that we held our kids out of school to avoid the “E”-word.) I relish the puzzles and complexities more than either of the proposed answers.

And I owe my Early Church History class a final exam. No, I won’t forget.

I owe David notice for his terrific response to Dinesh D’Souza on authenticity.

I owe the Tutor a similar notice for his observations on family values and the state of the culture.

All that doesn’t begin to catch me up on obligations — but it helps correct the perilous spiral of behindness I had slipped into.

Did I mention that I’m picking Margaret up at O’Hare tomorrow morning? And that she’ll be home for a whole month?

The jury reached a decision this afternoon after deliberating for an hour and a half, or so. I have a lot to say about the experience, but would rather touch on salient points at unpredictable intervals, or drone on over coffee or beer, than compile a long-winded narrative of the trial that has been fulfilled among us.

One short retrospective comment, though: Evidence of injury is not the same as evidence of negligence. That’s the premise that enabled the jury to reach a relatively direct conclusion.

DRMA: Time for Peace by Digital Underground, Paris, Sway & King Tech; A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel by U2; If Love is a Red Dress by Maria McKee.

Today’s supposed to be the final day of my jury service. We’ll see.

I’ve been surveying the usual suspects, web sites that comment on the present unhappy controversies in the Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion. Although I respect and sympathize with Archbishop Rowan Williams, I have the sinking feeling that his hopeful outlook may not be as well-founded as he seems to think.*

I wish I thought we Anglicans could keep together. I will be overjoyed to find that I’m wrong, and I will grieve deeply if “churches will go their different ways, even to the point of competing with one another.” What causes me unease lies in the tone of the observations I find on the various contending sites, and especially on the unwavering confidence the various speakers reflect. I’m especially uneasy when I ask myself, “How would we (or ‘they,’ however ‘we’ and ‘they’ get constructed) know if we (or ‘they’) were wrong?”

For it seems, on the face of things, that of two people saying mutually-contradictory things, one or the other will probably have erred. And if I’m right, if there’s no evident way one or the other party discerning that they might be wrong, how would either recognize their error and seek correction? The disapprobation of the preponderance of Anglican provinces won’t demonstrate that the (majority of the) U.S. church is wrong about sexuality, any more than it demonstrated that the (majority of the) U.S. church was wrong about ordaining women. Since the Windsor Report seems to treat the process leading to the ordination of women (which has become at least a tolerable difference) as exemplary, the U.S. church has some reason to think that its course leading to the consecration of Gene Robinson may mark a parallel path.

But if the (majority of the) U.S. church has gone fatally astray, how are they to know it? One can’t simply repeat that the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals is non-biblical; plenty of what has become common practice was once deemed unbiblical. One can’t invoke the Vincentian canon quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est (“that which is believed everywhere, at all times, by all”), not unless one wants to roll back the ordination of women and the possibility of remarriage after divorce (to name but two prominent non-universal points). And even the Windsor Report allows the possibility that the Spirit might effect radical change in the church’s course. That concession obviously doesn’t require that anyone think sexuality constitute such an instance of Spirit-led radical change; at the same time, it evidently holds open the possibility, the mere possibility that the (majority of the) U.S. church’s understanding of sexuality does represent such a surprising change. That being the case, what would count as a reason for the (majority of the) U.S. church to reverse course?

This, I fear, constitutes the inauspicious moment at which the Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion find themselves. On one hand, perhaps the “instruments of unity” can convene a collegium of trusted figures who can conduct deliberations about a way forward without setting any preconditions relative to the outcome. But would the Every Voice Network trust Kendall Harmon even if he were willing to take part in an open-ended conversation? Would the Anglican Mission in America trust me, if I so volunteered? If on a lovely day everyone agreed to trust all who entered the conversation, would that trust survive an outcome that some portion of the Body perceived as inimical to the truth?

In short, can we imagine a way that the various participants in this period of reflection could envision themselves shown wrong? If not, shall we go our separate ways?** Or — to propose a tedious, painful, equivocal, but characteristic alternative — shall we convene a series of meetings, conferences, publications, emendations, synods, commissions, study groups, and task forces until such time as the issue no longer seems as neuralgically sensitive?

* Students in Early Church History — note Abp. Williams’s words:

God became human, said the teachers of the early Church, so that humanity might become ‘divine’ – not by any confusion between God and his creation, but by creation being made into a transparent vehicle of God’s loving purpose and healing action, and most of all by men and women becoming God’s adopted sons and daughters.

Here he alludes to Athanasius, Ad Adelphium 4 and De Incarnatione 54; it’s a very handy thing to know, and it’s vital to bear in mind Abp. Williams’s apposite reservation about not confusing God and created humanity.

** My liturgy professor, the Rt. Rev. Jeffery Rowthorn, used to tell of the first official meeting of an Archbishop of Canterbury (Anglican) with an Archbishop of Westminster (Roman Catholic), at which the Archbishop of Westminster supposedly observed, &#8220Isn’t it wonderful, you and I both worshipping the same God, you in your way, and I in his?”

So that which fills my day, I won’t be able to talk about. See you later. . . .

I usually give myself a free pass on exercising on Sunday. Getting out the door to church is complicated enough even without an additional allotment of a half hour, and I can easily and piously enough rationalize the day of rest. But this morning I reckoned that I might miss exercise either Monday or Tuesday in order to get down to jury duty on time. (I decline even to consider the possibility that the case won’t close on time.)

The soundtrack for my exercise this morning was terrific: “Lullaby,” by the Judybats; “Move On,” by Mike Doughty (from the Future Soundtrack for America fundraiser for MoveOn.org); and U2’s “Even Better Than the Real Thing.” (I caught Richard Thompson’s “Beeswing” as I was folding the laundry as I cooled off.) The tempo of the songs varied, but was steady enough to keep me pedaling, sometimes quite rapidly, and they’re sing-along-able enough that I could pant out the parts I knew by heart as I was laboring.

Here’s a side note about our recumbent exercycle: the other day I lifted my self off the seat by gripping the sides of the seat and pushing up. As a result, my legs moved more freely (the seat evidently hinders my hip muscles) and my weight shifted to my extremities (my hands, holding my upper body, and my feet, which were pedaling). I can go much faster and more comfortably in this position, which also presumably gives my upper-body muscles something to do.

“Lullaby” is one of my long-time favorites. I enjoy compositions that involve sequential changes in melody, tempo, or verses, so the modulation in “Lullaby” from the quiet introductory section to the faster, louder second half pleases me. The lyrics (in the extended section) are strong, though they might be even stronger if they had found substitutes for several cliches and improbable clauses (Might there be an alternative to the eke-syllable in “where the innocence it goes”? How many rock operas are there to occupy one’s afternoons?). “Move On” ambles agreeably through Doughty’s version of patriotism, and “Real Thing” distracted me from my odometer well enough to elicit an extra tenth of a mile from me.

I have begun to detect concrete benefits to exercising, which makes the nuisance more bearable. No six-pack, at this point, but at least I’m moving away from the amorphous blob toward which my middle was heading. Not yet slender enough to fit into my wedding suit from twenty years ago, and perhaps my body has permanently changed away from that shape — but it’s been a while since a pair of pants felt too tight. That’s progress.
Continue reading “Soundtrack”

Last night’s performance of Twelfth Night went swimmingly. more than a dozen partisans of Si’s Malvolio showed up (including Jane, Bruce, Carolyn, Kyle, Heather, Sky, Susie, Laurel, Beth, Nick, Myra, David, Monica, Emily, and of course Pippa and me), and the Thin Ice Theater rewarded us with a delightful evening’s entertainment.

(Further photographic evidence at my flickr site.)

Si is relieved to have made it through this show — but he’s already looking forward to playing Felix Unger in The Odd Couple in March.