"Sometimes I wish I still went to church. But the boys picked up early on that I wasn't really connecting with the creeds, like I think you should if you're going to say them. And I couldn't satisfactorily answer their excellent questions. But I'm still somehow the "mascot for God" in our family, because I sometimes want to say grace or go to a church service, or talk about the Mystery in some form or fashion! That qualifies me, among this apostate crowd! Of course I do believe every second that God exists and wishes me and everyone else every good and perfect thing, and I am thankful for these blessings in a pretty steady stream of beatitudes. It's a faith that just comes out, moreso than goes in, if that makes sense." (gmail: 8 / 28 / 06)6. Subversive murmurings and how I feel about repeating some so - called truths about mysteries that I can never really be sure about, e.g.:
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God -- yes7. I know that everyone is always quoting the "Faith, Hope, and Love" part, but I have always liked the "Knowledge" part best:
of one being with the Father -- no
He will come again in glory -- okay
to judge the living and the dead -- no
his kingdom will have no end -- yes
We believe in the Holy Spirit -- yes
who proceeds from the father and the son -- no
We believe in the resurrection of the body -- well, not really
and the life of the world to come -- surely yes, in some way or another . . . (such as, "then shall I know . . . ")
"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity / love."I actually do believe that "now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." I like to think that someone out there somewhere knows more about me than I know about myself, and that one day I'll be able to see the complete picture of my own life in a way that I just don't have access to right now. One day my partial (i.e.,"imperfect") knowledge of this entire puzzling, chaotic universe shall be made whole (i.e., "perfected") and that will be heaven.
1 Corinthians 13: 9 - 13 (KJV)
Edmund Leach: "Apart from the fact that Christ is already wearing his crown and the Madonna is not, the two figures are represented as virtually identical; they might as well be twins." (from the essay " 'Why did Moses have a sister?' 57)
Jessamyn West:
"'God's only begotton son,' said old Eli Morningstar, leaning across the fence rail in his earnestness. 'Why only one, Jess Birdwell, and why a son? Whyn't a daughter? Something fishy there, Jess Birdwell, and the more you think on it, the plainer it becomes. Something mighty fishy. Something mighty fishy.'"
(from The Friendly Persuasion, 151)
At first glance, I saw this painting as a somewhat out of the ordinary depiction of the conventional Annunciation, with Mary going quietly about her business and the angel Gabriel appearing on the stairs to announce Mary's momentous role in the upcoming birth of Jesus.
But, no! This lowly, lonely, and no doubt tired handmaiden is scrubbing clothes on a washboard and the "angel" in white has not wings on her back but comes bearing yet more laundry!
1. Thanks Patricia Henley:
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what it wags. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting." [emphasis added]
by T. H. White, 1906 - 64
in The Once and Future King, Chapter 21 (p 183)
"For each day, she thought, she needed a whole other day to contemplate what had happened and store it away, get it out of her system so that it did not keep her awake at night or fill her dreams with flashes of what had actually happened and other flashes that had nothing to do with anything familiar, but were full of rushes of colour or crowds of people, everything frenzied and fast" (58).
from Brooklyn (2009)
by Irish novelist Colm Toibin (b. 1955)
"In the long narrow office . . . the room full of practical ideas, the young patent clerk still sprawls in his chair, head down on his desk. For the past several months . . . he has dreamed many dreams about time. His dreams have taken hold of his research. His dreams have worn him out, exhausted him so that he sometimes cannot tell whether he is awake or asleep. But the dreaming is finished. Out of many possible natures of time . . . one seems compelling. Not that the others are impossible. The others might exist in other worlds." (6 - 7)Although some of the worlds seem so far - fetched, in one way or another each one provides an illustration of life as we currently know it and time as we humanly experience it:
"Suppose time is a circle . . . time is like a flow of water . . . time has three dimensions . . . there is mechanical time and there is body time . . . time flows more slowly the farther from the center of earth . . .Time is visible in all places . . . cause and effect are erratic . . . time does pass, but little happens . . . The world will end . . . Everyone knows it . . . Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone . . . the passage of time brings increasing order . . . a place where time stands still . . . the center of time. From this place, time travels outward in concentric circles . . . Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images . . . A world without memory is a world of the present . . . a world of changed plans, of sudden opportunities, of unexpected visions. From this world, time flows not evenly but fitfully . . . in this world time passes more slowly for people in motion . . . " (8 - 93)In the world where "time flows backward" (105), Lightman transports the reader to the Nobel Prize for Physics award ceremony in Stockholm -- a nice touch since, in fact, Einstein was unable to attend in December 1922. But in this world, at last, he gets to accept the honor personally, rather than sending a diplomat in his absence:
"Imagine a world in which the people live just one day . . . a world where time is a sense, like sight or like taste . . . Suppose that people live forever . . . Suppose that time is not a quantity but a quality, like the luminescence of the night above the trees just when a rising moon has touched the treeline. Time exists, but it cannot be measured . . . In this world, no person can imagine the future . . . In this world, time is visible dimension . . . In this world, time is discontinuous . . . In this world time is a local phenomenon . . . In this world time is not fluid . . . For time is like the light between two mirrors . . . In time, the past never happened . . . For the children, time moves too slowly already. They rush from moment to moment anxious for birthdays and new years, barely able to wait for the rest of their lives. The elderly desperately wish to stop time . . . They yearn to capture a single minute at the breakfast table drinking tea . . . " (107 - 175)
"A middle-aged man walks from the stage of an auditorium in Stockholm, holding a medal. He shakes hands with the president of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, receives the Nobel Prize for physics, listens to the glorious citation. The man thinks briefly about the award he is to receive. His thoughts quickly shift twenty years to the future, when he will work alone in a small room with only pencil and paper. Day and night he will work, making many false starts, filling the trash basket with unsuccessful chains of equations and logical sequences. But some evenings he will return to his desk knowing he has learned things about Nature that no one has ever known, ventured into the forest and found light, gotten hold of precious secrets. On those evenings, his heart will pound as if he were in love. The anticipation of that rush of the blood, that time when he will be young and unknown and unafraid of mistakes, overpowers him now as he sits in his chair in the auditorium in Stockholm, at great distance from the tiny voice of the president announcing his name." (105)Lightman intersperses Einstein's time - motion dreams with moments of camaraderie between Einstein and his best friend Michele Besso:
"Einstein has been explaining to his friend Besso why he wants to know time. But he says nothing of his dreams . . . 'I want to understand time because I want to get close to The Old One.'
Besso nods in accord. But there are problems, which Besso points out. For one, perhaps The Old One is not interested in getting close to his creations, intelligent or not. For another, it is not obvious that knowledge is closeness. For yet another, this time project could be too big for a twenty - six - year - old.
On the other hand, Besso thinks that his friend might be capable of anything.
'I'm making progress,' says Einstein. . . . 'I think the secrets will come.'
'I think you will succeed with your theory of time,' says Besso. 'And when you do, we will go fishing and you will explain it to me. When you become famous, you'll remember that you told me first . . . ' " (52 - 53, 98, 147)
