The other day I received my CD-ROM from New Advent: The Summa, the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Church Fathers, and other odds and ends of ecclesiastic writings. I browsed over to the article on Luther this morning, which was extensive if not balanced, and took a glance at the one on Calvin as well. The sectarian scholars of a century ago looked askance at Luther (not surprisingly; I suspect even Lutherans did so then and do so now) but were rather respectful towards his rival. No wonder; Luther's a hard man to like and his unlikeableness fairly drips from his biography, and from his bibliography. Possibly the most unlikeable thing about him, though, is that there is absolutely no way we can mistake him for a man of our times, or potentially in sympathy with them. He is exceedingly foreign to us. Of course, the same is true of Saint Francis, or Abelard, or Raphael, or Dante, but we always manage to latch onto a little facet of their personalities which helps us maintain the illusion that they are more like us than different. But what is normative for us is not the measure of all men; maybe it shouldn't be the measure of any of them. Or any of us.
]]>Things I Discovered This Year: Speaking of Faith; Dead Like Me; the GIMP; Scrabulous; Miro.
Things I Rediscovered This Year: 3 Fast, 3 Furious;Taoism; King Crimson; Powell & Pressburger; Joan Miro.
Best Development in the World of Entertainment: The Bonzo Dog Band reunion.
Worst Development in the World of Entertainment: The ubiquity of Presidential campaigning more than a year in advance of the election.
Friends Who Went Away: Pat; Sarah; Stu.
Friends Who Turned Up Again: Bill; Linda; Debbie.
Friends Who Died: Steve Worowski; Barbara Neill.
New Friend: Sarah.
New Task: Stephen Ministry.
New Path:
When I was a child I was surrounded by books. My father was a reader, and my mother was a reader, and my brother was a reader, and my brother was a reader. Books about Shaw and Russell and Buber and Tillich. Novels by Agnes Sligh Turnbull and Mazo de la Roche and Ben Ames Williams and Frances Parkinson Keyes. Thrilling adventures by Burroughs and Wells and Howard and Verne. The Harrad Experiment. Stranger in a Strange Land. Darker Than Amber. Bug Jack Barron. Beneath the Wheel. Naturally enough, I read one. I read The Phantom Tollbooth.
I reread it recently and I have to admit, it didn't cast the same spell on me. But I have read many books since then. There have been only a handful of days in the past forty years when I couldn't have affirmed that I was “reading a book”. Or two, or four, or five. Right now I am reading one by J. P. Marquand, and one by Merton, and one by Chesterton. For better or for worse, I am a reader.
About
the oldest piece of unsolicited advice in the history of the world is
that of the Delphic oracle, “Know Yourself.” Strangely enough,
one of the best ways to get to know yourself is to know others, and
one of the best ways to know others is to shun their company, and
read. It has all of the advantages of socializing, and none of the
handshaking.
It is one of the comic tragedies of the human condition in the 21st century that we enthusiastically embrace habits while vigorously eschewing disciplines. I came up with that platitude while walking in the woods this afternoon, and thought it might easily be expanded into a thought-provoking entry in this journal, and fulfill my obligations to the Holidailies people another day. But it's not much of an idea yet; I'd have to articulate the distinction between “habits” and “disciplines”, which seems tiresome (i.e., it would require disciplined thought and disciplined writing); and it's getting late and I'd rather get this over with in time to watch some television (Scrubs, which I've gotten into the habit of watching in the evening, though it is plainly a poor use of my time, and only intermittently rewarding in terms of entertainment value). I'm not sure I fully understand why driving to work invariably becomes a habit, but walking to work is, potentially at least, a discipline. I did feel more virtuous last week when circumstances forced me to walk to work, but I didn't start voluntarily walking to work once I got my car back on the road. (Parenthetically, let me observe that several co-workers of mine routinely drive to work, though they live within a half-mile of the place. I have seen X, for instance, walking her dog within twenty feet of the place, then take him home and drive back for work. Not to pass judgment. It just goes to show the persistent power of habit over our behavior.) Nor do I, upon awakening, exercise, study the Bible or the Tao Te Ching, catch up on my correspondence, or clean up the kitchen; instead I make a little coffee to wake me up and idle away an hour on the internet. I guess I'm just not the disciplined type, which is about as good a reason as I can think of for giving up. So, to hell with Holidailies! There'll be no entry today; maybe tomorrow.