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August 11th, 2005

Words from an old friend

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Rashômon

Last night I dreamed that Christopher who is now not going by that name but it kills me to try to call someone a different name arrived here unexpectedly. In the dream I cried and cried and cried - and NOT because I was sad. I wonder if that dream might one day come true? But I'll try not to cry.

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Voice from the past

So you called tonight. How long? Six years? It doesn't seem possible. Spur of the moment drives to Leavenworth, arguments in the kitchen, dinners eaten on the floor in front of your computer. Six years ago? More? Unthinkable. Your voice still sounds the same and can still lull me into that same complacency that says let's just drop the important and do the urgent; fly far from here. No, it's awareness into which you lull me. I know how quickly nine months pass and six years of silence take their place. Maybe seven. I haven't yet counted. Long time. I do read. I do lie on the grass and think sometimes. Not often enough, you'd say.

Your voice brought back so many good memories. I wish you to return.

Tears aren't always bad, young upstart. This post is for you. I raise my glass to you. The contents are unworthy, but the gesture means the same. Here's to you. To you coming home one day. To friendships that do not yield to the pressures of time. To loving forever. To understanding. To your mood not being my responsibility, but my concern. Here's to you. To children being a direct deposit by God Himself into the eternal bank account of our soul. To the means by which they are acquired being a non-issue. To life. Where there's life, there's hope. I will pray that God smiles on you and grants you a speedy end to trouble. God bless you. God bless you. God fill you with hope. God fill you with life.

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C.S. Lewis once gave the advice to never move away from one's friends. Good advice, that. A few simple words from a long-time friend, one who knows me as only a few others do, and the world is disassembled and rearranged. Home is where? A locality? An emotional frame of reference? A state of the heart? It is hard to be out of the presence of those one loves and by whom one is loved, even as one is in the presence of other loves. The heart yearns for home even as one is already home. In this life there is too much division—space and time are too real. Love is made more poignant by loss and longing. And all these words are so much static of the soul, the heart, as interpreted by the mind. There is only one faithful expression of all of this: I sigh.

January 25th, 2005

The House

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Rashômon
The house was dark, and filled only with silence. No spirit echoed through its halls, no memories drifted from room to room.

The young woman who chanced upon the house this night saw only the glimmering chances of her own hopes. She had passed by it many times before, but only now did it become a reality to her. She thought of the children that could enliven the recesses of its space, the lights and hangings which could bring color to its dark walls, of the history that it could one day possess, "if only..."

This thought she carefully, tidily folded into the back of her mind, laying it down next to many other such neatly preserved possibilities, thoughtfully marking it with its own unique color, scent, and texture. Each possibility was charmed, but only a handful were ever to be retrieved and put to use. For now it was time to return to the small rooms she already inhabited, those past futures which had come upon her unlooked for, almost unrecognized if not for the chances of necessity.

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January 21st, 2005

Of dreams, an interior reading

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Rashômon
A complimentary conception of dreams -- or perhaps an inner layer to their meanings, since all things can be read internally: An aspirational dream as theotic allegory, i.e. an allegory of our essential yearning towards "theosis", or the becoming at one with Christ.

A story has building blocks, one of them being plot, another setting, characterization, etc. Not one of these things -- not even the dreaded message -- *is* the story, but all are servants to the story. And the story transcends any mere conglomeration of parts. The story is itself only pointed to by the individual parts, it is a suggestion that only completes itself within the mind and heart of the reader, with each reader necessarily completing the story differently according to his abilities and openness.

A dream is a chapter, a verse, a mere phrase or word or letter of our personal story. And our personal story alludes always to our erotic attraction to the Bridegroom, which is both a innate property of our creation and a response to the Eros He exibits toward us. (Get yer mind out of yon gutter. Eros was a god before he was demeaned into being merely the servant of the fiercely unasuageable pudenda.)

A dream is something received. A fantasy is a dream entertained in the mind alone. A goal is a dream made into purpose. The Theotic Dance is a dream that has become breath.

[Elicited by the good Adam's Telling Words about dreams.]

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January 19th, 2005

A Slowly Passing Thing...

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Rashômon
She whispered with a tinkling silver breath -- the moisture condensed to fog and lay low on my heart. "It is not always as you fear... do not raise the shadows." The shadows. Plato's cave. A fire behind our eyes giving voice and echo to what can never be known.

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December 6th, 2004

Which Literature Classic Are You?

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Rashômon

Yes, ok. It's one of these cheezy quizilla things. But I thought the outcome was interesting. I happen to be just finishing up the book that I am.

The name of the rose

Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose. You are a mystery novel dealing with theology, especially with catholic vs liberal issues. You search wisdom and knowledge endlessly, feeling that learning is essential in life.

Which literature classic are you?


Update

I was commenting on this with a friend and had the following exchange.


J. says:
i hold the belief that what we are drawn to is ultimately what is most important to us... whether we realize it or not
J. says:
so that makes sense
Tuirgin says:
Yeah, of modern authors Borges and Eco seem to be the most important to me -- and I see a lot of corollaries between them.
Tuirgin says:
Interesting as neither are terribly spiritual writers. But they are writers of mystery, the absurd, and encyclopedic knowledge.
J. says:
somehow i think that fits
Tuirgin says:
Yeah. Maybe it's the mature me. The one that is beginning (just beginning) to feel comfortable in my own skin. The one that senses that the urgent life and death spiritual questions need to take a backseat, not out of lack of importance, but because they are comprehended best in an oblique fashion.
J. says:
yeah, i like that interpretation

Update

I should clarify what I mean by "backseat". Unfortunately, the best clarification I can think of is a passage of Doctor Zhivago in which Z contrasts Pushkin and Chekhov with Gogol and Dostoevksy, the unfortunate bit being that I don't currently have the text at my fingertips. Essentially Z concludes that G & D were focused on the "big questions" while P & C, though not ignorant or avoiding the questions, focused instead upon the business of their personal craft.

In English letters we have a somewhat similar contrast between Lewis and Tolkien. My choice is to take Tolkien as a model over Lewis. Got it? Ok.



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November 18th, 2004

Real Live Preacher

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Rashômon
The Real Live Preacher tells his story without mincing words. Refreshing.

http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/stories/2002/12/26/thePreachersStoryIn4Parts.html

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November 17th, 2004

"The Breast is Best" for dogs? Say, 'Huh'?

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Rashômon
The Maximum Leader spotted this one: Mom Breastfeeds Puppy to Protect Baby.

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Good Advice

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Rashômon

Kids, don't ever mix coke with the Book of Revelation.



http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/11/subpoena_angeli.html

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November 10th, 2004

Evdokimov on Re-Creation

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Rashômon

The Fathers take almost literally the fact of putting on Christ and see in it a projection or, more exactly, a prolongation in man of the incarnation of the Word, perpetuated especially in the eucharist. That is why they teach us not to "imitate" but interiorize him. This inwardness is not a simple metaphor which would force the meaning; it has its roots deep in God himself. If the incarnation reflects a certain anthropomorphism of God (a mysterious primordial conformity), it reveals above all and assuredly the theomorphosis of man. From the biblical point of view, the incarnation brings to perfection our nature, which is made to the image of God, and it reveals the manifestly Christological structure of the spiritual life.

Man then traverses an immense distance to the interior of his being. St. Paul quotes a primitive hymn charged with almost explosive dynamism. "Awake, sleeper, and arise from among the dead, and Christ will enlighten you." A variant reinforces its meaning: "You will touch Christ." This passage from the state of death to the state of life, from hell to the kingdom, is precisely the itinerary of the spiritual life.

Moralizing spirituality reduces salvation to the forgiveness of disobedience. Now biblical ontology, vigorous and exacting, leads from a moral catharsis (purification) to an ontological catharsis. This represents a very real change in the whole human being--body, soul and mind. It is the strongest affirmation of patristic exegesis, stressing the Gospel's call to metanoia or conversion. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It would be more exact to say: "Change yourself", become a new creature, for it is a question of a repentance in the full meaning of the word--a complete turning about of the mind and of the whole human being.

The encounter with God could not be effected in the state of fallen nature; it presupposes a previous restoration of this nature in the sacrament of baptism. For baptism, according to the Fathers, is a true re-creation of the redeemed man. Repentance, metanoia in its complete meaning, goes to the roots of all mental faculties, volitional and affective, and even to the heart of the entire being, body and soul.

Struggle With God, Part I, Chapter 6.

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November 9th, 2004

Tuan mac Carill

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Rashômon
The following story recounts the mythical history of Ireland. But the notable aspect of this story is Tuan mac Carill, himself -- the teller of the history. He has lived an unseasonably long life by means of a series of metamorphoses -- when he grows old in one body, he returns to a cave and awakes in a new body: from man, to stag, to boar, etc. until in the form of a fish he is eaten by a queen and is born as a man again retaining the full memory of his many transformations. Cormac's Glossary lists the word, tuirgin, as possibly being a technical term for these transformations.

The story was edited and translated by Kuno Meyer and published in The Voyage of Bran mac Febel to the Land of Promise.

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