Showing posts with label George MacDonald. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George MacDonald. Show all posts

Friday 3 October 2014

A Vocation of One's Own

Sometimes I hate my job because it means that I am the only non-specialist in a world full of experts. I was not made to function as a maid of all work. I'm not a generalist by nature. I want to throw myself into some highly-specialized, creative and desperately needed, utterly meaningful work of my own. 

I've said it before and I've said it again: I want to be George MacDonald and Amy Carmichael smushed together into one person. This is who I am. You figure it out. 

She sees the realities of this world and alleviates human suffering with a sacrificial love. 

He sees the realities of the world to come and communicates them to others with the creative power of his soul. 
I need a vocation. 


This thought that is getting me through the desert of now:

"His Kingdom is Upside Down and in Him your part is large and lovely and needed and art."

Surely, I was created to be more than a Teacher's Assistant.

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Rose of the World

I had better write something. I'm trying to engage more fully in life during this season of the Nativity. Mostly, I'm remembering why I sometimes like to live on the periphery of my own consciousness: it's easier. The thing about fasting, about any kind of willing self-privation, is that it leaves you feeling empty. That is how I felt all day today. I wandered through my day, wander is the only appropriate word, feeling hollow inside. I kept asking myself why I felt that at the very center of myself all that existed was emptiness. This is why I fast--I fast so that I can come more quickly to the end of myself. If I am not distracted by food or media, by things that bludgeon my spiritual awareness with their facade of pleasantness, then I cannot escape a great awareness of my own lack. It's not a good feeling, but it's a true one.

There is this George MacDonald fairy story I like, "The Wise Woman", in which two horrid little girls--Agnes and the princess Rosamond--are kidnapped by a mysterious woman and thrown, separately, into a room of mirrors. In the room they are naked, left entirely to their own selves. It takes very little time to discover how ugly the world is if you are the only thing in it.
Nothing bad could happen to her--she was so important! And, indeed, it was but this: she had cared only for Somebody, and now she was going to have only Somebody. Her own choice was going to be carried a good deal farther for her than she would have knowingly carried it for herself. . . .All at once, on the third day, she was aware that a naked child was seated beside her. But there was something about the child that made her shudder. . . .The moment she hated her, it flashed upon her with a sickening disgust that the child was not another, but her Self, her Somebody, and that she was now shut up with her forever and ever--no more for one moment to be alone. 
Well, that is how I am beginning to feel. That's how I feel during every fast. When I strip away the things that distract me from a sober knowledge of my own self, I feel trapped in a world of mirrors. And at the center of the world is only my own Somebody. This is unpleasant. I wonder what it feels like to be in solitary confinement, are there any distractions then? Is there any way to turn away from a vision of your true self?

I think, eventually, after looking so deeply into the well of my own soul, I'll see something glimmering at the bottom. This something is grace, I think. It is the evidence of God working in my soul. The presence of the Holy Spirit, given to me as an inheritance, shining constantly through the murky, stagnant waters. In the meantime, I will try to see myself without flinching.


"My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad."

Wednesday 12 September 2012

The Giving Tree

Listening to the Pride & Prejudice soundtrack at the day's end with my hairpins removed makes me feel so spiritual. I'm sitting here, trying to write honestly. Right now,  I feel the lack of God's presence in my life. This week I've felt so. . .heavy laden. My soul feels as though it has been tied up in knots, twisted and gnarled, my psyche is suffering from Indian burn.

In moments like these, days like these, I see how hard it is for me to be even superficially pleasant. I don't know what makes me feel so badly, and I am aware, almost every moment, of my own inability to live a life of love. At work, one of the instructors read the book "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein. She asked all of the students, and some of the staff, to choose one thing they would like to give others throughout the school year. I decided that I would give love, because that is the best gift I could think of, and the most costly. That gift mocks me every day, as I sit in my classroom looking at the Mother Theresa prayer for those serving the sick pinned to the bottom left corner of my bulletin board. It's hard to love, I tell you! But sometimes it's hard merely to want to love.

Today I feel full of despair again. It's so hard, sometimes, to believe that righteousness is possible. It's very easy to believe that the road to happiness is getting my own way, or the removal of every difficulty: it isn't though. When I pray, it feels like I'm begging an indifferent passerby on the street for sacks of gems. I don't expect anything, because I feel like a) I don't deserve it, and b) giving is not in the nature of the one I am beseeching. This is a lie of course, well, not the first part. I don't deserve anything beautiful, true, or good, but I'm expected to expect these things anyway. It's so hard to pray for joy when I feel like it never comes. It's so hard to pray for faith when you don't believe anything. It's impossible to believe that God is happy when I am so miserable. Or is it?

I need to be re-taught that God is a giving tree, that he hears us, hears me, when we pray, that he gives benevolently out of the overflowing goodness of his own excellent nature. But I doubt it; I doubt.

God is a giving tree. He gives conditionally, in that he gives us what is good even when this is not what we have desired. He gives conditionally, in that he gives when he ask according to his will. Is God deaf to my prayers? Have I sinned against him in a way that would cause him to stop-up his ears? Oh, God, grant what you command, and command what you will.

I have been thinking a lot about St. Augustine, Dante, George MacDonald, John Donne, Plato--everyone who writes about ordinate love and the beatific vision. It is so easy to love inordinately. 
"If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee." 
It's hard to be good. Part of the difficulty of being good is believing that God will make you good when you ask.

But God is a giving tree, he loves to give, to bless. He gives pain and he gives great joy.

Oh, I wanted to relate this back to George MacDonald. I'm re-reading At the Back of the North Wind, and I'm re-remembering (again) all that MacDonald says about being at the still point. Do you remember the still point? The still point harkens back to Boethius, to Dante, to lots of people. The point is this: at the center of the universe is God, a Being supremely perfect and happy. Evil happens around him, and he uses the good and the bad to shape human events while he himself remains wholly uncontaminated and unchanged. If I keep myself at the still point, where God is, I will not be shaken by the things in this life, small or great, that threaten to tie knots in my soul. I need to understand this because it is so easy to tie a knot in my soul. I am derailed by weather changes.

But God is a giving tree. He is a giving tree, and he loves us. He loves us. O! How he loves us!




Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.

Sunday 15 April 2012

TULIP: Total Depravity

These days, I'm not much of a Calvinist. I can see the doctrine of predestination in the Bible, so I believe in it. But there are other aspects of Calvinism that do not stand out as clearly to me. One of them is the doctrine of total depravity. I've been thinking about it for years. I can't believe that human beings are worthless. But, please hear me, I do believe--yes and amen--that human beings are all sinful and deserving of the wrath of God. I do not believe that people deserve the grace of Christ. That being said, I want to talk about redemption.

For God to redeem something, for God to restore humanity, it seems to me that something in humanity needed to be reclaimed and salvaged. If fallen mankind is completely and totally wicked/vile/worthless, then what is God saving? It seems he's starting all over again, which isn't exactly what he does. He redeems people who already exist, he didn't destroy the human race and start all over. Also, or more importantly, if human beings are created in God's image, then the essentially good image of God rests in them, is part of them somehow.

All being is derived from God, because God is the only being who truly exists completely of himself, by himself, and in himself. That being said, human beings are borrowers of existence. Existence, being an attribute of God, is good in itself. God is the manifold of all perfections. He is perfect holiness, perfect love, perfect power, perfect existence. God is also perfectly good. Everything about him is good. His love is good, his holiness is good, his power is good, his existence is good. God created the world, and the people in it, and called it good. To be a created thing, to be a creature, is to have been made good by a perfectly good being. Wickedness, sin, evil, is a corruption of the good. Someone being sinful perhaps doesn't mean that they are totally depraved without one spark of good in them at all. Why? Because they exist still, and in existence is goodness. Where is the good in humanity? Well, there isn't much, but there is some, and it is all derived. It comes from being created, from being given existence, from being created to reflect the divine likeness. If humans are, by definition, created in God's image, then to lose that image is to lose one's very existence. Thus, when man fell, he didn't lose God's image, he tarnished it. Dragged it through the dirt, dishonored it. So why do I believe there is goodness in man? Because to be human is to borrow God's very image. And God's image is good.


Here is an image that may help explain my ideas. It's from St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation.

Athanasius says:

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself, and seek out His lost sheep, even as He says in the Gospel: "I came to seek and to save that which was lost. This also explains His saying to the Jews: "Except a man be born anew . . ." He was not referring to a man's natural birth from his mother, as they thought, but to the re-birth and re-creation of the soul in the Image of God.


Think about that for a while.

Here is something I wrote out 3 years ago, while studying fairy tale literature in Oxford:

MY CURRENT THOUGHTS ON THE DOCTRINE OF TOTAL DEPRAVITY, courtesy of George MacDonald
DOES GOD REDEEM men of a certain mettle? Something in them is worthy already (I think this works for The Lost Princess too). How could someone redeem a slag heap, if there were no diamonds buried in it? To make a slag heap beautiful is to recreate it utterly. To find and brighten the gold specks in a slag heap is to redeem what is worthy and destroy what is unbeautiful. But this thought must make men proud. Calvinism is good at making men humble, because otherwise the slag heap can say, "How fine my gold must really be, for God to dig for me!" Forgetting immediately how a clean, holy, and beautiful God must put his pure fingers into putrid dung to find us. Instead, the slagheap must feel the weight of the awesome love of God, who counts us valuable enough to be worth getting his hands dirty and his heart--and body--broken. The response can only ever be gratitude, humble wonder, and praise. It is this counting us worth the trouble, that renders us with any value at all. We have worth because God says so, and because the light shining in us is one of His borrowed rays.


Perhaps this pokes holes in my own argument, but. . .

*logical conclusion: the devil and demons must have good in them somewhere, since they are created beings.
***BUT: the devil and fallen angels are not create in God's image, perhaps this makes a difference? Also, I'm not a dualist. So, the devil can't be "perfectly" evil, or he would be an opposing equal power to God, which isn't the case. God is the sole divine power and creator, who is blessed forever, amen.

*I think a lot of this might hinge on the idea that evil has no existence, that evil is, instead, a loss of existence.


What do you think?

Saturday 31 December 2011

The Best Books of 2011: as told by Me

Please note that these books are arranged in no important order, and that exactly 0 of them were published in 2011. Well, ahem:

Best Books of 2011
Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner
Autobiography of a Reformed Jewish girl turned Orthodox Jew turned Episcopalian. It's beautifully written, intelligent, meaningful, and hilarious. As a friend described it, "I kind of hate her. It's like, I love her, but I want to be her at the same time".

Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies, and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
All of these are autobiographical non-fiction. These books I group together because it took reading through the first two of them before I loved Anne Lamott. At first, I passionately hated her. Though I disagree with some of the things she says, I've ultimately learned a lot from her. Anne Lamott stretched my understanding of sin, love, and faith. She's also hilarious and a very good writer. The third book, Bird by Bird, is primarily advice for beginning writers.

Housekeeping and Home by Marilynne Robinson
Two lovely texts by the patron saint of creative writing. I love this woman. The only problem with her writing is that I love all of it completely. It's a mystical experience every time. Her stories are all slow moving, and I love this, because she writes at the pace of my own soul. Home is the sequel to Gilead, an epistolary novel and one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I cried through both of them. Housekeeping is a simply exquisite work of fiction. It's beautiful language, image, and narrative.

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
This fall I tried to read more plays and this is what came of it. I mean, this is my favorite out of the dozen or so that I read. This is the play from which we get the more familiar film, My Fair Lady. I have to say that George Bernard Shaw is generally heavily political and long-winded. I liked Pygmalion because I think he was more focused on real human interaction: Eliza, Prof. Higgins, and the relationship between them. It was entirely enjoyable, if enjoyable includes both the hilarious and the heart-wrenching.

Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster
Another epistolary novel. It's perfect fall reading, as it's a book about school. Everybody knows that books about school and orphans make for good reading. It's humorous, sweet and makes me want to go to an all-girls college.

Phantastes and At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
George MacDonald is the patron saint of everything. I love this man. This year, I re-read Phantastes after reading At the Back of the North Wind. He's just so good at what he does. What does he do? He takes gigantic, universal themes and gives them to you in beautiful, gloriously-simple fairy tales. He's bursting with truth, light, and beauty. It's like carrying a star in your pocket. It's wonderful.

Mystery and Manners by Flannery O' Connor
Another book largely about writing. I have a secret delight in reading writers talking about the craft of writing. It makes me feel better about my own lack of discipline in that area. In this book, Flannery mockingly and helpfully presents the writing life and the purpose of writing.

Revelation by St. John & the Holy Spirit
Not a first read, but this year Revelation suddenly made sense. I think I made it past all of the bewildering discussions of "pre vs. post-trib" and finally came to see the drama of the book itself. I love it; it's well written, mystical, prophetic, and, as I've recently discovered, unbelievably straightforward. God wins! Revelation is a new favorite.

Pensées by Pascal
Read this for school, back in the early days of 2011 when I was still a student. I loved this because it's like philosophy for the literary. It is beautifully written and has a heart. I don't know how else to say it.

Emma by Jane Austen
Of course I've seen the movies 12,000 times. But, I've somehow never made it through the book before. I'm amazed upon this read to see aspects of myself in Emma Woodhouse. I, too, fall prey to my own imaginative speculations. Shocking, I know.

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

I didn't like Henry James before I read it, and I didn't even like this work until I was about 150 pages in, but I did really enjoy it. I was surprised, which is the main thing. The characters feel like real people. Good work, Henry.

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

Hard to categorize, but harder to read. Boethius sort of socks you in the belly and makes you consider life's hardest questions. Why is there suffering? Boethius can tell you. Read him.

I don't generally like "best of" lists. But now I've posted for the last time in 2011. Ha!
Let's all choose to believe that I'll post more frequently in 2012. Bonne Année!

Saturday 30 July 2011

Vision of The Grotesque & The Beautiful

I hate ugliness. I hate ugliness so much that I try not to see it, to hear it, to smell it, or to conceive of it in any way that reveals its presence to me. I look at the world through a lens that denies the presence of what is ugly. No, not a vision of denial, but a vision of discontent. I look at things only to wish them more beautiful. I see wilting roses and picture them whole, full, devoid of brownish edges or insect perforations. It extends to all my senses. I attempt to keep out of my ears the noises of the world--television, radio stations, muzak in grocery stores--noise being its own kind of ugliness. There is a large medical building in my city painted a tawdry muddy-orange color. It makes me angry, it might have been prettier.

This vision of discontent, of continual demand for perfection from an imperfect world, may be a gift. Otherwise, it is my own ugliness. An ugliness that wants always to deny the imperfections of real things. It's not a blindness, it's a judging vision. It's been said that prophets are afflicted with divine discontent, and I like to believe that it is this affliction I bear. This kind of affliction made people like Amy Carmichael and George Mueller take in hundreds of street children, it's the kind that fuels abolition movements and unreasonable demands for justice--because these people were dissatisfied with what is. Lately though, I am in doubt.

This week I finished Mystery and Manners, a posthumous collection of prose by Flannery O' Connor. I love St. Flannery for so many reasons. First, because she is an excellent writer. Second, because she is right about everything. Third, because her own spiritual and artistic vision is so perfectly shaped and presented. She has left nothing out. This being said, it is disconcerting to be at odds with Flannery in my own way of looking at the world. But then, maybe I am not. Flannery is all about observation: she is concerned with looking at and recognizing what is present in the natural world in order to faithfully reveal its link to supernature. Nature pairs with grace & mystery with manners, Flannery tells us. Thus, her vision of the world involves judgment, because she sees the ultimate reality of the Triune God making himself known to us. And, along with this, she sees the rebellion and misery of humanity in fighting against this, its own perfect end. But what strikes me most is that Flannery concerns herself so much with seeing what is there and presenting exactly this to the reader. Her characters are often people who are physically ugly, as well as being spiritually so. Perhaps this is where our vision differs. I see what is there and in my own mind's eye strive to correct, to improve, to soften it's garishness. Flannery even extols the benefits of drawing classes for young novelists, drawing being an activity that helps you to see what is there. Flannery's thorough perception recognizes what is there and serves it to you raw and unedited--grotesque humanity on a silver platter of truth.

Do I shun the grotesque? Or do I, like Flannery, see the world and human nature in it's impoverished state and yearn for what it ought to be? For what it may be? In my view of the world do I miss something? Am I ignoring the downtrodden? The broken-hearted? The least of these?

The smelly, filthy, homeless, disabled man on the bus is grotesque. I sit with him in a vehicle with large, glassy windows that let in the light. Together we travel, our lives drowned out under the roar of the engine. But I sit there because I can't escape. I politely breathe through my mouth instead of covering my nose so that he will not realize the smell of him makes me afraid. I look at him and think detached, philosophical thoughts about humanity and its depravity. Is that the way to look at the grotesque? I sit there with him and think about other things, with my nose stuck in a book, ignoring the present scents of disaster and decay to picture clean skin, beds of lavender, rain-washed air.

To see the grotesque do I have to love it? Or merely embrace its presence? Are loving and embracing one act?

Am I looking for the good beneath the ugliness? Or am I simply trying to recognize and greet the presence of the ugly?

I know it is wrong to only love what is beautiful. Or rather, is it wrong to love what only appears beautiful? Love is not concerned, perhaps, with the goodness of the thing loved; but with willing and bringing good to the object of the love.

And what am I to think of my own grotesqueness? God does not love me because I am beautiful. He loves me even though I am ugly. And in this love his beauty is communicated to me. If the call is merely to love, then my response ought to be constant, loving, attentiveness.

Yes! This is it, attention well paid, a certain homage performed. A recognition of presence. The presence of the grotesque.


and the real always trumps the imagined
as the invisible transcends the perceived


Are perfection, beauty, & goodness the result of that loving attentiveness? Do I look at what is and love it because it ought to be higher? Love it for what it could be? Love it to make it rise?

I am on a quest to use my imaginative faculty for good. I want to know how to see what is there, but not in a dull complacency that makes me wring my hands. Nor in a zeal for perfection that makes me sweep over any good concealed. Rather, I want to cultivate a welcoming attentiveness that helps me to see the good that is present--for what is good is better than what is beautiful. I think.


Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways.