Because I’ve been reading and enjoying George MacDonald’s Sir Gibbie, a Victorian novel about a blessed mute (thanks to Lani Irwin for the alert), I was delighted to come across a MacDonald Advent poem. It was recommended by Victoria Emily Jones on her blog Art and Theology.
In “That Holy Thing,” MacDonald discusses the surprise of the messiah arriving, not as a conquering king, but as “a little baby thing.” That’s how God works in the world, he observes–which is to say, not in any way that we can predict. We try to tailor God to our needs, only to realize that His or Her vision is far broader than we at first imagined.
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans,” says mystic Carolyn Myss. Or as MacDonald puts it, “My fancied ways why shouldst thou heed?/Thou com’st down thine own secret stair.”
That Holy Thing By George MacDonald
They all were looking for a king, To slay their foes, and lift them high: Thou cam’st a little baby thing That made a woman cry.
O Son of Man, to right my lot Naught but thy presence can avail; Yet on the road thy wheels are not, Nor on the sea thy sail.
My fancied ways why shouldst thou heed? Thou com’st down thine own secret stair; Com’st down to answer all my need, Yea, every bygone prayer!
Along with Jones’s Art and Theology, I should also thank Missy Andrews of A Literary Advent, who appears to have alerted Jones to the poem. Andrews provides some biographical context, knowledge of which makes his observations about God even more impressive. Andrews reports that MacDonald experienced numerous tragedies, including the loss of several children. Nevertheless, she says that he “never doubted the love of his divine Father:
For his deep faith in God’s love for him, he credited his relationship with his earthly father, who not only taught him the doctrines of grace, but also modeled them to him. Macdonald’s life was full of waiting and suffering. His Diary of An Old Soul chronicles many of his petitions and meditations, reflections which return again and again to divine love, attention, and wisdom.
And further:
The poet notes that his own travails and petitions, his own desperate need of God’s intervening help, is denied in its immediacy as well. For, although the Son of Man’s own presence alone can help to “right the lot” of the poet, his coming is not visible by road or sea. In this way, MacDonald acknowledges that his own expectations, like those of his spiritual forebears, eclipse his ability to see the Lord’s coming in his own circumstances. He acknowledges the differences between God’s ways and man’s, in faith acknowledging that the Lord answers man in his own ways and times, keeping secret His approach, but stealthily accomplishing man’s every need, answering his every prayer through the mystery of incarnation. This incarnate Child, the Son of Man, replete with humanity and no stranger to suffering, suggests a remedy for all who wait and suffer.
God, as MacDonald enthusiast C.S. Lewis notes of Aslan, is not a tame lion. God may “com’st down to answer all my need,/ Yea, every bygone prayer!” but it will not always be in the way we anticipate.
To herald in the new month, for this week’s Sewanee Messenger poem I posted the first three stanzas of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” After all, the poem takes place in “bleak December.”
The poem may be more famous for its mesmerizing rhythm and spooky atmospherics than its content, although the poem has a narrative arc to it. The speaker starts off mourning his lost Lenore, perhaps hoping that volumes of “forgotten lore” will bring him some “surcease of sorrow.” By the end of the poem, however, the prospect of darkness beyond the grave has overwhelmed whatever consolations he hoped to find, and he descends into madness.
The bird of ill omen, a symbol of inner depression, is perched on a bust of the goddess of wisdom, which neatly captures the Poe dichotomy between madness and reason. The same author who gave us the mad killer in “Tell-Tale Heart” also created the cerebral Auguste Dupin, who uses his powers of “ratiocination” to solve gothic mysteries.
But upon closer examination, as Michel Foucault has demonstrated, madness and reason are not so much opposites as fellow travelers. The most vivid literary example I can think of is Dostoevsky’s supremely rational Ivan Karamazov descending into incoherence. One also finds the split in Poe characters. After all, the “Tell-Tale Heart” narrator sounds perfectly reasonable as he first logically explains his killing and then goes about systematically hiding it. It’s when we, in our Enlightenment arrogance, think that we can banish our inner shadows that we fall prey to them.
Anyway, Happy December.
The Raven By Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;— Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?” This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”— Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore— Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;— ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore— Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.” Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er, But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er, She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted— On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore— Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting— “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!
We arrived safely in the Atlanta airport yesterday and are now safely ensconced in Buford, Georgia, where Toby, Candice, and their four children live. When I think of flying, I am often put in mind of the protagonist’s sad discovery at an early age in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon:
When the little boy discovered, at four, the same thing Mr. Smith had learned earlier, that only birds and airplanes could fly, he lost all interest in himself. To have to live without that single gift saddened him”
Flight, as I’ve noted in a previous post, is an important theme in Morrison’s novel, and by the end of the book Milkman has indeed found a way to fly. I share today, however, a more positive take on airplanes:
High Flight (An Airman’s Ecstasy) By John Gillespie Magee
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or ever eagle flew — And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Ronald Reagan quoted the final line after the Challenger disaster, and Magee suffered a similar fate, dying from a mid-air collision. While my flight over didn’t evoke quite the same ecstasy in me that it does in Magee—I didn’t, for instance, feel as though I touched the face of God—nevertheless flying continues to thrill me every time I’m in the air.
Now, following our encounter with the delirious burning blue, we just have to recover from jet lag.
German School, A Teacher and His Pupils (late 18th century)
Wednesday
We fly back to the United States today after a wonderfully fulfilling month in Slovenia. While you may not find my list particularly edifying, I record it here for future reference. Suffice it to say that I loved every minute.
–Shakespeare – Classes on Twelfth Night, King Lear, and The Tempest
–Post-colonial or Anglophone Literature – Classes on (1) the colonialist mindset (Ryder Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mine and She, Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; (2) the resistance (Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth); (3&4) Nigeria (Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus); 5&6) India (Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things); (7) South Africa (Nadine Gordimer’s“Once upon a Time”); and (8)Jamaica (Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf).
—Literary Theory – Class on my book Better Living through Literature: The Power of Books to Change Your Life
—Canadian Literature – Class on “Nasty Girls in Margaret Atwood” (with mentions of “Circe/Mud Poems,” Edible Woman, Lady Oracle, Cat’s Eye, Robber Bride, and Alias Grace)
Medieval Literature – Class on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
—Philosophy Seminar – Sessions on (1) Literature and Life and (2) Michel Foucault’s ideas on parrhasia
—General English Language courses – Two classes on American film, film genre, and films recently viewed at the Ljubljana film festival
—English pedagogy – A class on teaching literature
—American Literature – Class on Emily Dickinson’s gothic poems
Speaking truth to power is the subject of a series of classroom lectures by French philosopher Michel Foucault. It’s also the focus of a two-person panel I’ll be joining later today with Eva Bahovec, a member of the University of Ljubljana’s philosophy department and a long-time friend. Fearless speech (“parrhesia” as the Greeks called it) is of particular interest to Eva, who focuses on it in her own work on feminism. Today you get some of my initial thoughts.
I appreciate how Foucault, famous for exploring the workings of power in criminality, abnormality, sexuality, and other charged topics, leans heavily on literature in his parrhesia lectures. The subject of fearless speech also shows up in a number of the Greek playwright Euripides’s plays.
Parrhesia is what I strive for in my own communications, I should note, and it is also the ideal that Socrates and Plato aspire to. As Foucault describes it, in parrhesia the speaker
uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.
Foucault also describes parrhesia as
a form of criticism, either towards another or towards oneself, but always in a situation where the speaker or confessor is in a position of inferiority with respect to the interlocutor. The parrhesiastes is always less powerful than the One with whom he speaks. The parrhesia comes from “below,” as it were, and is directed towards “above.” This is why an ancient Greek would not say that a teacher or father who criticizes a child uses parrhesia. But when a philosopher criticizes a tyrant., when a citizen criticizes the majority, when a pupil criticizes his teacher, then such speakers may be using parrhesia.
Parrhesia is particularly important in a democracy because, as Foucault notes, it is “an ethical and personal attitude characteristic of the good citizen.” Think of how we rely on frank and open speech to insure the smooth running of an organization or a community. How else can we hope to assess our challenges and arrive at solutions? We’re aware, of course, that sometimes our leaders will shade the truth—or perhaps flatter us rather than confront us with unpleasant facts—but in those cases it is up to us to invoke the ideals of parrhesia in order to arrive at a solid basis for action.
The same applies to being truthful about ourselves. Indeed, in his lectures Foucault quotes at length from the Roman philosopher Serenus about the importance of counteracting our own prejudices, which often stem from self-interest. He recommends that we seek out people who will function as tough-love parrhesiastes so that we can grow into our full potential.
Authoritarian figures like Donald Trump are dangerous because they seek to jettison the parrhesiastic ideal altogether. Experts on authoritarianism such as Timothy Snyder and Ruth Ben Ghiat point out that fascists seek to undermine truth so as to leave us vulnerable to their emotion-laden fabrications.
An instance of parrhesia as central to democracy gets voiced in the Euripides play The Phoenician Women. Jocasta is welcoming back one of her sons, who has been exiled by the other:
Jocasta: This above all I long to know: What is an exile’s life? Is it great misery? Polyneices: The greatest; worse in reality than in report. Jocasta: Worse in what way? What chiefly galls an exile’s heart? Polyneices: The worst is this: right of free speech (parrhesia) does not exist. Jocasta: That’s a slave’s life–to be forbidden to speak one’s mind. Polyneices: One has to endure the idiocy of those who rule. Jocasta: To join fools in their foolishness–that makes one sick. Polyneices: One finds it pays to deny nature and be a slave.
The Greeks spoke also of the importance of parrhesia in authoritarian situations. Distinguishing “monarchic parrhesia” from “democratic parrhesia,” Foucault says the situation involves people telling the sovereign what he or she needs to know, regardless of the consequences. A good king or tyrant, Foucault observes,
accepts everything that a genuine parrhesiastes tells him, even if it turns out to be unpleasant for him to hear criticisms of his decisions. A sovereign shows himself to be a tyrant if he disregards his honest advisors, or punishes them for what they have said. The portrayal of a sovereign by most Greek historians takes into account the way he behaves towards his advisors—as if such behavior were an index of his ability to hear the parrhesiastes.
I think of how President George Walker Bush had an advisor who, living in New York, would fly in to tell him unpleasant truths. Bush recognized that he needed someone not part of his inner circle if he was to face up to certain realities. Donald Trump, by contrast, surrounds himself with sycophants.
While King Pentheus in The Bacchae is a bad king in other respects, at least we see him using parrhesia properly in Euripides’s play. The episode involves a herdsman who is bringing him bad news about the rampaging women:
Herdsman: I have seen the holy Bacchae, who like a flight of spears went streaming bare-limbed, frantic, out of the city gate. I have come with the intention of telling you, my lord, and the city, of their strange and terrible doings–things beyond all wonder. But first I would learn whether I may speak freely of what is going on there, or if I should trim my words. I fear your hastiness, my lord, your anger, your too potent royalty. Pentheus: From me fear nothing. Say all that you have to say; anger should not grow hot against the innocent. The more dreadful your story of these Bacchic rites, the heavier punishment I will inflict upon this man who enticed our women to their evil ways.
As Euripides’s plays progress, instances of parrhesia, which have seemed straightforward, become more complicated. In Electra, for instance, the daughter—planning to kill her mother for having killed Agamemnon—subverts the “parrhesiastic contract” between monarch and subject (she herself being at that moment in the latter position). Clytemnestra has just told her, “Use your parrhesia to prove that I was wrong to kill your father,” at which point Electra, after confirming that in fact she won’t pay a price for her fearless speech, proceeds to unload:
Electra: Do you mean you’ll listen first, and get your own back afterwards? Clytemnestra: No, no; you’re free to say what your heart wants to say. Electra: I’ll say it, then. This is where I’ll begin …
After her accusation, however, comes the killing.
Issues surrounding parrhesia become even more complex in Euripides’s Ion, for reasons that I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that the playwright is picking up on various themes regarding fearless speech, both for democratic and authoritarian societies. As Foucault sums up the issues raised,
Who is able to tell the truth? What are the moral, the ethical, and the spiritual conditions which entitle someone to present himself as, and to be considered as, a truth-teller? About what topics is it important to tell the truth? (About the world? About nature? About the city? About behavior? About man?) What are the consequences of telling the truth? What are its anticipated positive effects for the city, for the city’s rulers, for the individual?, etc. And finally: What is the relation between the activity of truth-telling and the exercise of power?
If truth-telling can lead to positive political outcomes, then we in the United States have reasons to feel pessimistic given how falsehood has become so prevalent in certain quarters. To find our bearings, however, there is one resource we can turn to: literature.
In a 2018 New Yorker essay, Indian author Salman Rushdie, responding to the torrent of lies emanating from the Trump White House, pointed out that the classics will always remain relevant because of their commitment to truth. At a time where political con artists face few constraints to manufacturing their own realities, we find in good literature a “no bullshit” zone, a friend that will have our deepest interests at heart.
Poetry as parrhesia. Now that has a nice ring to it.
Further thought: Because, in our cynical times, we long for authentic speech, one should add to Foucault’s exploration the danger of faking parrhesia. To quote the saying ascribed to comedians Groucho Marx, George Burns, and others, “Sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
As I was walking through the Ljubljana city center late Friday afternoon, the Christmas lights–which are always turned on the Friday before Advent–suddenly lit up, creating a sense of magic. This is the season that captures our belief that divinity can enter our lives. As Isaiah puts it, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom.”
To mark the moment, here’s a lovely C.S. Lewis poem. Although it is set in the spring, it captures the Advent longing:
What the Bird Sang Early in the Year By C.S. Lewis
I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear: This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.
Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.
This year time’s nature will no more defeat you, Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.
This time they will not lead you round and back To Autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.
This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell, We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.
Often deceived, yet open once again your heart, Quick, quick, quick, quick! – the gates are drawn apart.
J. D. Roybal, “San Ildefonso Pueblo Corn Dance” (1961)
Friday
Julia and I have just a few days left in Slovenia, and while we missed having Thanksgiving at home with family and friends, former students made up for it by treating us to a feast in the Slovenian town of Kamnik.
Milan Mandeljc, now an inspired English teacher as well as author, told us the challenge of finding a turkey for the occasion. It’s not that there aren’t turkeys in Slovenia, but normally they are sold in parts. Milan said people looked bewildered when he told them he wanted the whole bird, and eventually he found one.
In any event, Milan and two other former participants in the St. Mary’s exchange program gathered around and told stories about their time in America. Some we had never heard before. Meanwhile, I shared why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
Part of the joy is that it is so much quieter than Christmas, sneaking into our lives before commercialization goes full blast. I talked about the intensity of Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, and that leads me to repurpose a blog post I wrote eight years ago. It shows Leslie Marmon Silko warning about how Native Americans are being corrupted by American materialism.
First, given all the downsides of commercialization, it’s good to remind ourselves that exchanging gifts is not in itself a bad thing. We give gifts at the darkest time of year to affirm our belief that life is bountiful, even though the dark, cold days indicate otherwise. Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity all have their festivals of light, another way of affirming this belief.
In her novel Ceremony, however, the Laguna Pueblo author demonstrates what happens when people become distracted by flash and glitter and neglect their spiritual roots. Throughout her work, Silko reframes old Pueblo tales to address current problems. One of them is about a conman who comes into town and impresses everyone with his magic.
The people become so mesmerized by this figure that they neglect Mother Corn, who angrily packs up and leaves. The wasteland drought that follows is Silko’s metaphor for both the spiritual and the environmental devastation that results when a culture forgets what is most important.
Throughout Ceremony, Silko applies the old tales to current developments. In this case, the conman’s magic is white people’s technology, which so dazzles the Indians that they forget about the deep wisdom to be found in their age-old customs. As the wise old Josiah says to the book’s protagonist before telling him the story,
“[T]here are some things worth more than money.” He pointed his chin at the springs and around the narrow canyon. “This is where we come from, see. This sand, this stone, these trees, the vines, all the wildflowers. This earth keeps us going.” He took off his hat and wiped his forehead on his shirt. “These dry years you hear some people complaining, you know, about the dust and the wind, and how dry it is. But the wind and the dust, they are part of life too, like the sun and the sky. You don’t swear at them. It’s people, see. They’re the ones. The old people used to say that droughts happen when people forget, when people misbehave.”
In the upcoming holy-day season, we too must remain mindful of our mother corn altar. We must not forget the god or spirit or belief system that grounds our lives. Telling our age-old stories, including the one about a god who was born in humble circumstances two thousand years ago, is a way of doing this.
Here’s Silko’s story:
One time Old Woman K’yo’s son came in from Reedleaf town up north. His name was Pa’caya’nyi and he didn’t know who his ather was.
He asked the people “You people want to learn some magic?” and the people said “Yes, we can always use some.”
Ma’see’wi and Ou’yu’ye’wi the twin brothers were caring for the mother corn altar, but they got interested in this magic too.
“What kind of medicine man are you, anyway?” they asked him “A Ck’o’yo medicine man,” he said.
“Tonight we’ll see if you really have magical power,” they told him.
So that night Pa’caya’nyi came with his mountain lion. He undressed he painted his body the whorls of flesh the soles of his feet the palm of his hands the top of his head. He wore feathers on each side of his head.
He made an altar with cactus spines and purple locoweed flowers. He lighted four cactus torches at each corner. He made the mountain lion lie down in front and then he was ready for his magic.
He struck the middle of the north wall He took a piece of flint and he struck the middle of the north wall. Water poured out of the wall and flowed down toward the south.
He said “What does that look like? Is that magic power?”
He struck the middle of the west wall and from the east wall a bear came out.
“What do you call this?” he said again. “Yes, it looks like magic all right,” Ma’see’wi said. So it was finished and Ma’see’wi and Ou’yu’ye’wi and all the people were fooled by that Ck’oo’yol medicine man, Pa’caya’nyi.
From that time on they were so busy playing around with that Ck’o’yo magic they neglected the mother corn altar.
They thought they didn’t have to worry about anything They thought this magic could give life to plants and animals. They didn’t know it was all just a trick.
Our mother Nau’ts’ity’i was very angry over this over the way all of them even Ma’see’wi and Ou’yu’ye’wi fooled around with this magic.
“I’ve had enough of that,” she said, If they like that magic so much let them live off it.”
So she took the plants and grass from them. No baby animals were born. She took the rainclouds with her
While the images are all in keeping with the old stories, we can imagine the Ck’o’yo medicine man as modern technology. Maybe the water pouring out of the wall is indoor plumbing. While not bad in itself (obviously!), it can prompt us to take water for granted. We forget where it comes from and what a gift it is.
Since arriving in Slovenia, I’ve been hearing about water shortages in parts of its coastal regions. Certain municipalities in southern California have also been running out of water. Climate change promises to make the situation worse.
Keep in mind that, to keep the Mother happy, we need to change our relationship with her. We can’t survive if she marches off with her rainclouds.
Kirt and Westall, The Angel Raphael Relates the Story of Creation to Adam and Eve
Thursday – Thanksgiving
Reprinted from Nov. 28, 2010, slightly revised
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I share here some of Milton’s insights into gratitude, starting with the prayer that Adam and Eve offer up to God in Book IV. They have been working in the garden and now are walking hand in hand to their “blissful bower.” Before an evening of lovemaking (Milton somewhat controversially believed that there was sex before the fall), they turn and in unison offer thanks to God. Milton describes their thanksgiving as “adoration pure”:
Thus, at their shady lodge arrived, both stood, Both turned, and under open sky adored The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven, Which they beheld, the moon’s resplendent globe, And starry pole: “Thou also madest the night, Maker Omnipotent, and thou the day, Which we, in our appointed work employed, Have finished, happy in our mutual help And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss Ordained by thee; and this delicious place For us too large, where thy abundance wants Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground. But thou hast promised from us two a race To fill the earth, who shall with us extol Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake, And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.”
In contrast to Adam and Eve, Satan thinks that gratitude is all about puffing up the ego of God. God has given the world infinite gifts, which in Satan’s eyes puts everyone in eternal debt. To quote him directly, we incur “the debt immense of endless gratitude,/So burthensome still paying, still to owe.” Satan focuses on owing because he himself is a supreme egotist. As he sees it, the powerful give gifts in order to display their power. He cannot realize that God has given us gifts, not because he wants or needs our praises, but because the ability to praise him is itself a gift. When we express gratitude, we ourselves experience joy.
Actually, Satan is not dumb (after all, he has been the archangel) and understands to a point. In the soliloquy I am referring to (in Book IV), he acknowledges that our gratitude to God is not a burden. In a moment of honesty that makes him interesting as a character, he acknowledges that expressing gratitude is not a burden at all—that we want to give thanks. In the very act of giving thanks, we are discharged of the debt–or as Satan puts it, we are “at once indebted and discharged.” Here’s the passage in its entirety:
I ‘sdained subjection, and thought one step higher Would set me highest, and in a moment quit The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burthensome still paying, still to owe; Forgetful what from him I still received And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but til pays, at once Indebted and discharged; what burden then?
Once he acknowledges that he has been in the wrong, does Satan turn from his evil and repent? Obviously not, and the remainder of the soliloquy is a series of rationalizations about why he will continue doing evil.
I conclude with one other expression of gratitude in the poem, this one coming from God’s angels. Through them one sees that praising God fills one up. Theirs is the joy of musicians who have found a subject that inspires them and propels them to great heights. To repeat the point from earlier, God doesn’t need musicians singing praises to him. Rather, he has given them a gift—the chance to be filled with God’s joy—that will allow them to find fulfillment:
…their golden harps they took, Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet Of charming symphony they introduce Their sacred song, and waken raptures high; No voice exempt, no voice but well could join Melodious part, such concord is in Heav’n. . .
Thus they in Heav’n, above the starry sphere Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent.
Even if you don’t believe in God, trying thinking of the matter this way: Ask yourself what it is that provides you with deepest joy. What inspires and fills you up, giving you a sense that you are filling your highest purpose? Whatever it is, label it God.
