Restart with the New Year

Ok, let's get this conversation started again. I am unsure when the January meeting is taking place. I put a guess on the books of the RFB column. So far I am enjoying War of the End of the World. It reminds me a lot of current American politics, odd considering it was published in 1981, of course that is when the right started to take control with the beginning of the Reagan Era. I think it will be a great discussion in February when we will have both the Llosa book and Pedagogy of the Oppressed to discuss and compare. Themes are similar, and not just because War of the End of the World takes place in Brazil.

I like the various agendas and viewpoints which come into play. I also like not knowing anything about this time period of South American History other than that they had been tossing out the European powers, and thus have to find their own way politically. I like that Gall is reading the religious rebellion as if it is a rebellion of the underclass. So far he can't seem to reconcile the conflict of his beliefs and what he is hearing out of Canudos.

Anyway, I have no idea if anyone reads this anymore or checks on it. But there you go.

I really love this book group by the way.

Manhood

Wow. This book nails the experience of my life on the head thus far. A balm to my manhood.

Silence

I am sorry I missed the Silence discussion, too. I probably will reveal too much in this post, but I might as well since we cannot conceal even when we try. I read the book last year, so the following are more of my residual impressions than reference to specific textual events or narrative.

Any book where clergy or spiritual leaders wrestle with suffering and faith and God attracts my attention. What is is to give your life away to serving a being that seems so, well, silent? Deus absconditus. The absent God. The hidden God. In my experience, however, I find that doubt and hiddenness drive me to faith and revelation-- to the Ur of existence. It is the theology of the cross, to use a Lutheran theological category. To hide something is to reveal it. Why would God come in the most obvious and predictable anyway for only the high and mighty to see? Why not come via cross? Silence? To speak of God is only to get it wrong anyway, properly understood. And what is it, at least in the Christian tradition, that the God who creates becomes creature, and then suffers? Most of us avoid suffering; but who enters it when you do not have to? The cross, doubt, darkness all remain compelling reminders to me of God's presence. Pomp and circumstance, the glory of kings and presidents, powerful corporations and churches all remind me of evil and pride. Thus, God's problem: How do you convey you are a being of humility and compassion? To announce it calls attention to yourself, undermining who you essentially are (I am more humble than thou art). To not announce it is silent, yet true to character.

I don't know. I just think God seems to be more present where human beings say God is not; and God is less at where people seem to think God is. No wonder Jesus hung around the seemingly most apparently anti-god people of all (sinners!), since that is where God is most at work. True teachers find their deepest meaning and purpose among the ignorant, not the educated.

Silence

I'm sorry I missed the discussion of this book. The few things I've seen in about it seemed to center on questioning the nature of God, or arguing Rodrigues' belief: ie, did he ever truly believe, had he lost his faith before he was tested, etc.

It seems to me that, yes he was questioning the nature of God which is rational vs the total dogma which he had been taught - but he was also questioning that dogma. His 'apostasy' was a result of the realization that God didn't require that of him (or care?), but more along the lines of Jesus' words ".. feed my lambs ..", realized that his duty was to humanity, God's children. From there the question would seem to be 1) was this simply a rationalization on Rodrigues' part, or 2) a true epiphany of God's true will?

Nathan

Bravo Richard!

Silence is a great book. I have already finished it. Awesome. Thoughts to come....

The View From Here: Lynda Barry : Poetry Documentaries : Video : The Poetry Foundation

The View From Here: Lynda Barry : Poetry Documentaries : Video : The Poetry Foundation

from "Four Walls" by Ian McGilchrist

I read this this morning in the current issue of Poetry magazine:

When I left the world of academic English literature it was not because I was any less passionate about poetry, but because I did not want to spend my life operating on my friends. I thought I might kill them. Later I learned of Ted Hughes’s dream about the fox that came to him, singed and smelling of burnt hair, put its paw on the essay he was writing, leaving a bloody mark, and said, “You are destroying us.”

for more of the article on the effects of poetry and psychology go here