At the Panera Bread in Jordan Creek mall they have something called "Artists on the Rise." For everything almost, visual artist, musicians, writers---I am thinking about applying. As a writer. My theme would be grief and loss, and I would want to give a talk...here is a jumbled mess. I don't even know why I'm posting this! Give me feedback if you make anything from this. (:
Grief and Loss
Literature and Emotions
emotion: an intense feeling. (i.e. concentration of feeling)
feeling: experience.
Classifying loss:
The Christmas Tree (movie, 1969) http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800047601/info
"After a Great Loss a Formal Feeling Comes" by Emily Dickinson
"Dream Songs" by John Berryman
"A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
occurs in the conclusive scene---the logical consequence of a reasoning process.
time duration in two senses: one, that time has been spent and attention or affection aimed at a subject cut off; and two, that the loss was inevitable or logical.
Manifestations of loss:
Change
Death
Parting
Questions ("Why" I moan and rave)
Peace: freedom from disturbing thoughts or emotions
Disturb: to interfere, i.e. to change.
Peace: to be disturbed, moved, and settle again.
Love: to see through its enchantments and yet be not disenchanted.
C.S. Lewis AGO: "A masterpice of rediscovered faith which has comforted thousands."
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. (T.S. Eliot)
Eureka (I have found)
Let it go.
~~
As I said, just a mess now.
Showing posts with label C.S. Lewis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C.S. Lewis. Show all posts
Monday, March 1
Tuesday, February 16
As freezing persons recollect the snow.
"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
-C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain"
"After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?
The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go."
Emily Dickinson
...
Vincent van Gogh, 'Sower with Setting Sun'
http://www.cord.edu/faculty/andersod/vangogh_sower_millet.jpg
Tuesday, February 2
how He loves
C.S. Lewis on becoming a Christian:
"At the moment what I heard was God saying, 'Put down your gun and we'll talk.'"
Three hours. Of history class on women and oppression and confusion. Strange laziness from no food and stress. Hmp. Well. Hopefully this blog won't come out jumbled---
Someone had noted a superiority that comes from religion. From his view, it is someone looking on another and judging, of saying that THIS religion is the only one, that it is right and therefore everything is wrong. To quote from an essay (on footbinding, kind of a different subject) by Patricia Ebrey, "With the child abuse construct [of footbinding] we are moving more toward pity, which of course also assumes a position of superiority as it empathizes with those viewed as victims." To say something is wrong means to claim to be 'enlightened' relatively.
What about the other side? What is it about us humans that does not want to be proved wrong, perhaps 'unenlightened'? To me that seems a big issue.
Also, I do not see Christianity as such. As religion, or even, really, as a 'moral' guide. It does not tells us what we can do, but what God can do. What he will change. Christianity (actually, Christ), in one sense, tears down those rules. God knows---he really knows we can't do anything good on our own. We can't.
Isaiah 64:6 (New International Version)
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
We are deprived. We are depraved. We are oppressed. That is real oppression, that war that wages in our hearts and vies for our attentions, our selfishness and our ingratitude. (much like my thoughts and actions this hectic morning, I'm afraid. 'Nother story.) Our very self is in opposition against God and makes us miserable. Christ will make us understand ourselves, our nature.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
C.S. Lewis
I think what people are truly missing, what they don't know about Christianity, is that God really loves us. He really does. He REALLY loves us. He loves us! He's jealous for us! That's what this is really about! You can't down play it. I once heard a pastor say, "I think that we concentrate too much on the loving side of God, we need to mention more God's wrath." But aren't they related? God's incredible wrath on sin, his repulse and (frankly) hatred of sin is demonstrated in that he would send his Son--himself---to kill it, because he does not want any of us to live with sin! He created us to live with him, to feed of him, to be satisfied in him. His love is our motivation for living in a certain way, of not wanting any part of our lives to be wrapped around ourselves, but to embrace him fully.
"All my self-imposed wants and rights melt before the flame of a loving God."
"Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" Romans 2:4
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17b-19
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWgeUrD4MHI
When I think about just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me...
"At the moment what I heard was God saying, 'Put down your gun and we'll talk.'"
Three hours. Of history class on women and oppression and confusion. Strange laziness from no food and stress. Hmp. Well. Hopefully this blog won't come out jumbled---
Someone had noted a superiority that comes from religion. From his view, it is someone looking on another and judging, of saying that THIS religion is the only one, that it is right and therefore everything is wrong. To quote from an essay (on footbinding, kind of a different subject) by Patricia Ebrey, "With the child abuse construct [of footbinding] we are moving more toward pity, which of course also assumes a position of superiority as it empathizes with those viewed as victims." To say something is wrong means to claim to be 'enlightened' relatively.
What about the other side? What is it about us humans that does not want to be proved wrong, perhaps 'unenlightened'? To me that seems a big issue.
Also, I do not see Christianity as such. As religion, or even, really, as a 'moral' guide. It does not tells us what we can do, but what God can do. What he will change. Christianity (actually, Christ), in one sense, tears down those rules. God knows---he really knows we can't do anything good on our own. We can't.
Isaiah 64:6 (New International Version)
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
We are deprived. We are depraved. We are oppressed. That is real oppression, that war that wages in our hearts and vies for our attentions, our selfishness and our ingratitude. (much like my thoughts and actions this hectic morning, I'm afraid. 'Nother story.) Our very self is in opposition against God and makes us miserable. Christ will make us understand ourselves, our nature.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
C.S. Lewis
I think what people are truly missing, what they don't know about Christianity, is that God really loves us. He really does. He REALLY loves us. He loves us! He's jealous for us! That's what this is really about! You can't down play it. I once heard a pastor say, "I think that we concentrate too much on the loving side of God, we need to mention more God's wrath." But aren't they related? God's incredible wrath on sin, his repulse and (frankly) hatred of sin is demonstrated in that he would send his Son--himself---to kill it, because he does not want any of us to live with sin! He created us to live with him, to feed of him, to be satisfied in him. His love is our motivation for living in a certain way, of not wanting any part of our lives to be wrapped around ourselves, but to embrace him fully.
"All my self-imposed wants and rights melt before the flame of a loving God."
"Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" Romans 2:4
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17b-19
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWgeUrD4MHI
When I think about just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me...
Friday, January 8
my quiet time today...
...(which, to say, was not quiet at all. A CD mixed with songs by some of the artists sprinkled in my "favorite music" list.)
This year I commited to reading the Bible in a year. I have caught up thus far, but that had to include a day where I had to read three days' worth in a night. Yeah. But today was---good, interesting...
Genesis 19. Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed.
I think that this passage fascinates people. I have read (a few) different poems on this situation, most specifically, Lot's wife looking back.
So, God's angels have told Lot's family that they need to leave Sodom and Gomorrah, as God was to destroy the city for its wickedness.
Anna Akmatova's take (trans. Max Hayward and Stanley Kunitz):
This year I commited to reading the Bible in a year. I have caught up thus far, but that had to include a day where I had to read three days' worth in a night. Yeah. But today was---good, interesting...
Genesis 19. Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed.
I think that this passage fascinates people. I have read (a few) different poems on this situation, most specifically, Lot's wife looking back.
So, God's angels have told Lot's family that they need to leave Sodom and Gomorrah, as God was to destroy the city for its wickedness.
"By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah...But Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt." (Gen. 19:23-26, NIV)
Anna Akmatova's take (trans. Max Hayward and Stanley Kunitz):
Lot's Wife
And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.
And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.
I cannot suppose I know what is going on in Lot's wife's (could we give her a name?) desires or mindset, or anything else.
Maybe I will start out what I know to be true:
The Old Testament God is the same God of the New Testament who is the same God of right now and forever.
Yet, there is the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
Somethings I do not know:
What I mentioned, Lot's wife, what compelled her to look back and what was that difference between her and the remander of Lot's family.
It is not a matter of whether or not I 'agree' with Akmatova's poem. Phonetically it is beautiful (though translated) but I know that, if taken to represent what was going on, very biased. Maybe I too am looking at it with bias.
But already the first two lines have painted a picture that we know not to be true. The Bible is so devestatingly honest of the weakness of man. Yes. The great men were not perfect men. They walked with God---let him guide them, did things out of faith even when they were so weak.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Akmatova's poem isn't very overdone, but it does have the tint (I think?) of a mocking, ridculous man, overlooking his wife in the back, her eyes following "the red towers of (her) native Sodom." I don't want to propose the opposite in her.
"Looked back." I do not know what is meant completely by it, but---
Like an onion (yes) there are different layers to this. What can looking back say about her trust? Her faith (will God do what he says)? Her desire?
There is also a physical, literal act of turning back and looking. I think that it was C.S. Lewis (I am thinking in his book "The Screwtape Letters") that it is absurd to suppose that what you do in your physical life and the way you appear and act 'on the outside' has no bearing or effect on the spirtual, 'on the inside.'
"Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and in spirit." (1 Corinthians 7:34)
I know that this passage talks specifically about unmarried women, and obviously Lot's wife---wife. At the same time, there must have been a conflict of where her devotion lies.
Hm..more later (as I say). There's so much I could ponder on paper (or computer screen) about what I've read today. I will come back tonight.
{Yes, well, the New Covenant was something I did not fully grasp, didn't fully comprehend (do I think I do now? Is that even possible??) until probably this summer.} I will blog this sometime in the future.
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