Jacob's Clatter

More on Sisyphus

2005-12-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

How many people can hear the tragic story of Sisyphus and not have some kind of visceral response to it? There is a part of everyone that feels human empathy for him, but moreover, we say to ourselved that, yes, our lives take his form in many ways. And this is an absurdity to say the least. Naturally we ask, "How does he do it?"

"...It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn." -Albert Camus

Gibberish of the Vulgate

2005-12-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

I wish that every word out my mouth were of some weight, some value in the way of more deeply exposing the Jake that I've worked so hard to create walls to protect. Likewise, that every question to cross my lips would be in an effort at gaining a similar understanding of another. In fact, I wish this so much that I find myself very annoyed when people try making small talk in an attempt at warding off that universal phobia; the fear of silence. This bothers me because if the silence-filler is there for the sake of being there, it mocks our need for collective discovery and self exposure. It becomes simply an activity, much like chewing gum. Silence isn't golden; gold is far too common. We place it all over ourselves in the form of jewelry, donning it proudly and confidently. We embrace gold. I see silence more like pewter, which is somewhat common, but not-so-sought after (probably because people figured out it wasn't such a hot idea to be eating off of a lead alloy). Born out of my frustration over this phobia of ours, I began to wonder what monkeys would talk about, were we to give them that ability without actually lending them any of our "humanity." I figured their newfound speech would involve something very similar to what we call "small-talk" - gossip, anecdotes, etc.

"So, yesterday I was swinging from this tree, you know - the one right next to my uncle's communal nest - and wouldn't you know it, I completely missed my next branch and fell to the ground. Boy am I feeling it today! I don't even think I'll have the energy to groom my mate for ticks!" Perhaps I am the only one that finds humor in this scenario, but I don't mind because it is merely servicing to make a point. Several years ago I had even come up with a term for this sort of speech, along with its definition:

Monkey Talk: Denotes the partaking of two or more individuals in meaningless or inane conversation, with the sole purpose of saturating uncomfortable silence with words that bear no distinguishable semblance of being unique to the character of our humanity, therefore concealing our storehouse of emotions, yet ultimately illuminating our apprehension toward their exposure.

It is fascinating to read the likes of Frye and see that mokey talk/gibberish of the vulgate is seen as problematic. I want the "descriptive" to pass away so often. However, my cynicism slowly melts away as I begin to learn more and more about the value of small talk, in its ability to lead toward more meaningful conversation. But without that purpose, that goal, I will continue to write it off as our response to, what I call, being uncomfortably relational. We are built with the need for relation with each other, yet we don't always know how to respond to that need. Perhaps this is cultural thing, with the advent of technology and such. I suppose I just wish we weren't so afraid of exposure, of letting ourselves, these identities we put so much stock in, be open to public mockery. Sure, we will get burned, but the rewards of mutuality between persons are immeasurable.

Class Paper

2005-12-10T09:49:00.000-08:00

The most profound impact on how I view my world, above anything that fell upon my ears this semester, was caused by the discrepancies between the respective views on suffering held between the classical and biblical traditions. In my opinion, the question of why we suffer - and how well it is answered - holds paramountcy in so many things within our lives, such as the choosing of our faith systems, which in turn affects our decision making process. Albert Camus might have agreed. He ruminated constantly over the question of whether life was or was not worth living, or, in other words, whether our suffering nullifies the abundance of life. This question is put through a litmus test within just about every world view and religious doctrine. Why do we suffer? A poor answer is apt to turn away anybody who is searching because we are all familiar with the potency and carnality of pain, and we want it qualified.

I was recently perusing through one of my textbooks, when a single sentence leapt up at me, firmly held my fascination, and swept my mind up in thought. “We suffer so that the bards will have something to sing about.” What a poetic thought! My mind whirled! It appeared to be more than some truism you simply nod your head at, an unavoidable conclusion, but rather it felt like a swaggering challenge, daring you to believe it. That same evening I struck upon a metaphor, one that accepted that challenge, when walking down a snow-laden path lined with evergreen trees. I remember being in awe over the sad beauty of those trees with limbs drooping and touching the ground under the weight of the frigid snow. I had the sudden temptation to shake one of them, allowing its boughs to bow up in freedom, successfully ridding it of its burden, but, pausing, I dared not. Why? First of all, because it would no longer have the majestic quality that invoked my empathy and adoration from the start. In this sense, I was that bard with something to sing about; the trees were beautiful! However, that was not the only reason I would stay my hands. More importantly, that tree would have looked painfully awkward amongst the rest still caked in snow, almost as if they, like us, needed to have their suffering qualified, to know that their burden represented not a mere vanity of the gods, a whim, poetic as that may be.

Everybody wants their suffering qualified. So my question became this: Does the biblical tradition offer answers beyond muse-like inspiration, and does it qualify pain and answer Camus’ question of life’s ultimate justification? Obviously, the Bible is rife with people going through pain and questioning God’s justice, embarking on treks of theodicy. Look no further than Job, the Ecclesiastical Teacher, or Paul the Apostle. However, assuming the existence of God and embracing the existence of suffering, I would simply have to refuse pat answers and Pollyanna attitudes from anyone.

Here is an example of such attitudes in form of a short story: Bread gets delivered to my workplace in shallow, plastic crates stacked eight feet high. Thanksgiving Eve, there were eight of these stacks delivered to our store, totaling roughly two-thousand loaves of bread. This meant I would have to be uncommonly industrious if I was to complete this monstrous task amidst the throngs of last-minute shoppers. I was only seconds away from completion when, wheeling my towering load of extra bread into the back room, the edge of a crate got stuck on something that sent the tower off its axis. In slow motion, I watched as five hundred neatly stacked loaves came tumbling down. I immediately smothered my urge to feel sorry for myself. However, after picking bread up one-by-one, the strangest thing happened; an enormous amount of frustration built up inside of me. I picked up a loaf and threw it against the wall. I punched a nearby box with all my might, kicking another on the ground. It had been a long time since I felt that angry. I felt like a child. My manager walked in, saw the mess, looked at me with a warm smile and said, "It's only bread, just keep telling yourself that, it's only bread."

That, to me, was a pat answer. I thought that, yeah, optimism works well when trials are as small as scattered bread, or spilt milk for that matter. But we do cry over spilt milk. Why? I believe that sometimes optimism acts as a safeguard against pain and “the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt,” according to Thomas Merton, and seemingly the Bible as well. Suffering is seen as mandatory (1 Thess 3:3 - “you know quite well that we were destined for them (trials)). In fact, the very act of being alive demands of you the fine art of making use of your suffering (Romans 5:3 - “...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces character).

However, why would you want to make use of your suffering or live in a world that demands it of you if that world is void of hope? There would be no reason for it, I thought. In fact, I would go so far as to say that suicide should be a permissible option if this were the case. However, obvious and innate in most everyone is the knowledge that this is wrong. Albert Camus said that there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. “Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” Without any doubt in my mind, hope has everything to do with answering this question. Ironically, Camus believed that life is ultimately meaningless, drawing upon Sisyphus as a sort of hero who found meaning from within meaninglessness. Sisyphus was a king of Corinth condemned forever to roll a huge stone up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again on nearing the top, according to Greek tradition.

A distinction must be drawn here; biblical-hope and a Sisyphus-like, circumstantial, cyclical resolve are such very different creatures. Biblically speaking, one is as fluid and ebbing as the tide, and the other is a solid ground on which to stand. Take, for instance, two men representing this dichotomy, Andy and Red from the Shawshank Redemption:
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Andy joined his friends in the Shawshank prison cafeteria after having done four weeks in solitary confinement. He told them how music kept him going, kept him from insanity. "It was in here," he said, pointing to his chest. "That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you. Haven't you ever felt that way about music?"
Red, his closest friend, said, "I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here."
"Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget."
"Forget?"
"Forget that there are places in the world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside that they can't get to, that they can't touch. It's yours."
"What're you talking about?"
"Hope."
"Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It's got no use on the inside. You better get used to that idea."
"Like Brooks did?" Brooks had killed himself.
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Red is what you might call a realist. Life was indubitably contained within stone walls (suffering), and to hope that you could somehow free yourself from those walls was to be delusively walking in a dangerous optimism. To an extent, he was correct and was hitting close to home. I think that we, as Americans, do the same. We all think that as we take our next step it will somehow bring us closer to happiness, whatever that looks like. We live frantically in the moment just to get to the next one that might be better. What if we were told that there wasn’t better, while on this earth? Would we adopt the heroics of Sisyphus and continue pushing the boulder up the hill?

Then there was Andy. The catch was, he wasn't speaking about an optimistic hope, but rather a deep-seated knowledge that couldn't be taken from him. He knew there was more than what he was living just beyond the walls, and this very knowledge is what gave him life, kept him going, even in solitary confinement. Fittingly, the film is called the Shawshank Redemption. The Bible speaks of our Hope being in our ultimate redemption, the restoration of our glory in Christ, and that this is what gives meaning to everything we do, say, and hold close to us. It makes life worth living in spite of our suffering. C.S. Lewis wrote, “I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to the other country and to help others do the same.”

Historicity of Jesus

2005-11-12T08:50:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on objections urged toward the historicity of the Gospel accounts:

Many scholars assume that the sayings of Jesus as recorded by the Gospel authors were embellished or even fabricated. The two stand-out reasons that I have seen are (1) that they weren't written until well after 70 A.D. and (2) the oral tradition of his life would have been greatly evolved by that point. First of all, we can be safe in saying that at least Luke was written before 62 A.D. because his book of Acts stops abruptly with Paul waiting on his appeal with the emperor of Rome. The best conclusion would be that he was still waiting on a response and the event was current. They were written, easily and in lieu of Paul's writing, within one, or even the same, generation. Of course, this is speculation... but in this game, that's what most of it will be -educated guesses (just look at the debate over the Gospel of Thomas). Secondly, Jewish oral tradition is not something you take with a grain of salt; they were renown for the astonishing and fastidious care they took when passing down oral tradition. It is too easy for us, outside of that culture, to assume the "telephone" effect. Rabbis would often memorize the entirety of Hebrew scriptures. There were a few heretical churches that knowingly changed Christ's account, but they were hardly accepted amongst the establishing church. Just something to keep in mind.

If one fact about the life of Jesus could be agreed on, it's that he was crucified. However, if we were to chuck out most of what we thought he didn't do or say (if we were to believe the Jesus Seminar) and strip his story of self-referential, Messianic claims, then there would be little reason for his crucifixion in the first place. He would successfully be reduced to a sagacious hippie, in my mind. He would no longer be controversial. John Meier said, "A tweedy poetaster who spent his time spinning out parables and Japanese koans, a literary aesthete who toyed with 1st-century deconstructionism, or a bland Jesus who simply told people to look at the lilies of the field -- such a Jesus would threaten no one, just as the university professors who create him threaten no one."

Of course, my bias is showing. But then again, whose doesn't?

Mythic Reality

2005-10-30T19:06:00.000-08:00

Poet David Whyte: "Myth reveals to us what we are capable of."

What distinguishes literary fantasy from plain old fiction? Certainly, both are a muse-inspired acts of creation. However, fantasy is uniquely defined by its indulgence of our emotional needs and desires. Myth could easily be plucked straight from the morning dew of our minds. Something is lacking. A piece is not fitting. We cannot explain it. We cannot account for it. Lore, myth, and fantasy now become our go-to for surreal exploration of possibility. Entirely necessary. Entirely purposeful.

Take, for example, the animated features of our youth. There are very few people who can say they weren't raised on the Disney classics, which were magnificent in their ability to let loose our imaginations, giving credence to our ideal that life holds far nobler meaning than what we observe. Dragons were slain, stepmothers were evil and were dealt with as such, might upheld the right, and truth was never diluted or dissolvable. This was such a powerful tool in showing that life could not merely be expressed in the descriptive or conceptual. Even the married mother will have a heart swell when Snow White sings, "Someday my prince will come." Someday? Mom, aren't you married? I guess we all believe, rightfully, in a reality that isn't entirely and tangibly our own.

There are a slew of books that draw upon this collective desire to live lives of transcendence. It makes sense that when speaking of a woman’s heart, her deepest longings, they will often say that she wants to be fought for and rescued from the tower. This medieval archetype moonlights as the woman's need to be seen as beautiful, valuable, and worth every bit of the fight. I think men will feel a rise of passion when they read these words. We long to be that man who is defined by valor and driven by beauty. Our hearts compliment theirs. What craftsmanship!

Yet it is important to note that Disney represented, in their simplest forms, our most elegant and poetic thoughts, which unfortunately are not mirrored to precision in our earth-stricken reality... in and of themselves. When the knight gets to the top of the tower and flings wide the doors to the imprisoned princess’ chambers, he does not show conflict over whether or not he is wanted. Never is found a brooding knight. What an absolutely strange thought. After all, there is a witch, an evil stepmother, a dragon as her watch-guard, and a house of stony seclusion as her keep - of course he is wanted! Isn't he? Well, despite the valor and despite the hard-fought victory, he might never make her happy. Perhaps it is because he is too short and flares his nostrils incessantly.

Fantasy works to take away these unnecessary conflicts. Oh, there are dilemmas all right, but only the types that serve as a means to a wonderful end. And that is exactly why life doesn't look the same; we do not pick our conflicts like a health-nut at a buffet line. Our dreams take the form of a one-man-show, while life is really a webbing of millions of dreams spun together into an amalgam of confused direction. So what is my point? That only God can make heads or tails of our desires into one, delicate balance, and give us peace when hope winds up being just what its name implies. Fantasy is important because it teases out a "life more abundant." God, in turn, would have us fall in love with this even more fantastic reality.

Clyde Kilby said, "Myth is a lane down which we walk to repossess our soul."

The Crown

2005-10-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

Reading through the Classical tradition within Calasso's text, I find that fascinating would be an understatement. Even though it can be a bit graphic, frustrating, or even offensive in its ideology, there is an undeniable recognition of the human condition throughout, even avoiding much of the misogyny that plagued the patriarchal societies of yesteryear. One particular passage leapt off the page when I read it:

"There was a time when hierogamy and sacrifice were the same thing. In the course of history, this unnameable unity gradually split into two. In the beginning, the primordial god would copulate and kill himself at the same time. Men recalling this feat could hardly emulate it if they wanted to survive and were thus forced to divide it into two phases: sacrifice and marriage. But the flavor of marriage lingers on in the sacrifice, just as the flavor of sacrifice lingers on in marriage. A tangible object unites the two events: the crown. One is crowned whether going to the altar as a victim or going as a bride. And that crown is the constant, never articulated heart of tragedy: the misconceptions, recognitions and double meanings that tense the tragic nerve all derive from the primordial double meaning contained within the crown." - The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

Wow. This blows me away. If this indeed was within the Classical tradition, Greco-Roman cultures would probably have had a profound understanding of the Apostolics, specifically the subtext and the symbolism within. Christ, at once, embodied both images contained within the crown. I think we, today, have such a dim concept of what this means, having a savior who is both the tragic and the sublime, the sacrifice and the bride, together becoming the token of love fully expressed.

Jacob, Rachel, and Leah: Part One

2005-10-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

Jacob is a man who knows what he wants and is enough of a schmuck to work fourteen years to get it. Let us examine the artwork representing these women, Rachel and Leah, to see if they were worth the wait. Of course, their allure was in their character... not their looks, right? Well, let's just assume the best of Jacob, my namesake.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah. 1855. Watercolor on paper. Tate Gallery, London, UK (left). Jacob and Rachel. 1515-25. Oil on canvas, GemÃ¤ldegalerie, Dresden (below)

"Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured." - Genesis 29:17
Sorry, Leah, tender eyes aren't going to cut it. Jacob is sure sounding more and more shallow to me.

But wait, there's hope. "And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her." - Genesis 29:20
Surely this is no shallow love of Jacob's; it was a love comprised of labor, commitment, and sacrifice. Or perhaps his priorities were just a little skewed, and good looking women were hot on demand.

From the Loggia di Raffaello. 1517.

Here we find Jacob pining over Rachel. But when will Leah get her due? Oh, I think God knew what he was doing far more than did Jacob. Stay tuned for my next entry. Sorry, no pictures... but lots of talk about "open wombs" and "beguilement."

2005-09-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

Jacob lives! And thus he has started his very own blog dedicated to Dr. Sexson's class on the Bible and Classical Literature. I will be back!