"Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness."
Think about the most miserable times in your life; how was a period of happiness connected? Are the feelings related? products of each other?
Okay, now stop thinking about the most miserable times in your life...
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Book Thief 3
"It was a frosty morning but bright with sun. Children scrunched their eyes. A halo surrounded the grim reaper nun, Sister Maria. (By the way--I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It amuses me.)"
The idea of a true character of Death and his perception of our perception of the personification of him... it begs the question: why have we, and do we still in so many ways, perceive death as a dark, hooded, Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come-type figure?
Abinadi says, "Yea, even so he [Jesus] shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father."
With this parallelism, he seems to be equating death with the will of the Father. Death is a release...
Do we still personify Death? Should we see him as anything other than our God? our Father? Death in this book cradles souls of the departed and they warm against him; he then sends them on their way.
Why do I assume Death is male?
The idea of a true character of Death and his perception of our perception of the personification of him... it begs the question: why have we, and do we still in so many ways, perceive death as a dark, hooded, Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come-type figure?
Abinadi says, "Yea, even so he [Jesus] shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father."
With this parallelism, he seems to be equating death with the will of the Father. Death is a release...
Do we still personify Death? Should we see him as anything other than our God? our Father? Death in this book cradles souls of the departed and they warm against him; he then sends them on their way.
Why do I assume Death is male?
The Book Thief 2
"Insane or not, Rudy was always destined to be Liesel's best friend. A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship."
Most writing courses warn you against use of the passive verb ("to be" in all its forms). But Zusak uses it masterfully. It fits the whole feel of the book and the story. The narrator, Death, observes the life of humans in general, and Liesel in particular, in a very passive way.
Most writing courses warn you against use of the passive verb ("to be" in all its forms). But Zusak uses it masterfully. It fits the whole feel of the book and the story. The narrator, Death, observes the life of humans in general, and Liesel in particular, in a very passive way.
Monday, March 17, 2008
The Book Thief 1
This particular book will serve as inspiration for many musings, I'm sure. Each line, the way that it is type set, could readily be stopped on and considered. But I'll begin with this one:
"A pair of train guards.
A pair of grave diggers.
When it came down to it, one of them called the shots.
The other did what he was told.
The question is, what if the other is a lot more than one?"
For a book about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, it seems that this question is addressing one of the central concerns of that period in history. That question has to do with how it is possible that hundreds of thousands of Germans, arguably the most educated and advanced people of their time, could fall into step behind one man who called the shots. Wouldn't they be independently minded? free thinkers? Couldn't they see that the shots thus called were wicked? Didn't they have a sense of the abomination of genocide? Could they really be convinced that they were superior and somehow this justified acts of evil?
Or was it even that? Did it maybe have to do with fear of what would happen to them if they didn't comply? Did they intentionally ignore conscience?
What if the other includes you and me?
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Home Teaching Feb 08
I wouldn't be a true home teacher if I didn't slack off once in a while, would I?
So here it is March 1st, and I'm doing my February home teaching, and not even in video format... you can imagine my penitent state.
Nevertheless, I hope that all is well with you and yours, and without any further ado, let us proceed to the lesson.
President Eyring wrote of ministering to those who need ministering to. He included things I would expect (and hope) President Eyring would include, such as encouraging us to go the Lord in prayer and ponder the scriptures, and then He will guide us in what we should say. He said something to the effect of, "I will tell you something you can do that is so easy, a child could do it." That's a wonderful theme of his: Childlikeness.
I certainly know that we can all be instruments in the Lord's hands if we will put our trust in Him and seek His will in prayer.
So here it is March 1st, and I'm doing my February home teaching, and not even in video format... you can imagine my penitent state.
Nevertheless, I hope that all is well with you and yours, and without any further ado, let us proceed to the lesson.
President Eyring wrote of ministering to those who need ministering to. He included things I would expect (and hope) President Eyring would include, such as encouraging us to go the Lord in prayer and ponder the scriptures, and then He will guide us in what we should say. He said something to the effect of, "I will tell you something you can do that is so easy, a child could do it." That's a wonderful theme of his: Childlikeness.
I certainly know that we can all be instruments in the Lord's hands if we will put our trust in Him and seek His will in prayer.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Pilgrim's Regress 2
I failed to mention this in my last post: Christ unites the two parts of the man by having them each defeat the evil representation of the opposing side. When John defeated the evil of intellectual stoicism, he received the strength of will and determination to make him "hard." When Vertue defeated the evil of sensuality, he caught fire and finally understood what it meant to desire, to want, to have a passion and feeling for something.
I think that's rather profound.
I think that's rather profound.
The Pilgrim's Regress (another CS Lewis)
I've never read Bunyan, though I think I probably should. Yet I understood much of this story because of experiences (mostly intellectual I admit) from school. Many of the philosophies that John is exposed to I have studied to some extent and was therefore had a grounding intellectually for the story.
I didn't write periodic impressions because, honestly, I didn't feel like it. Unlike The Screwtape Letters, the chapters flowed into each other with the moving of the story, and though I could have stopped and mused, I chose instead to get the whole thing down and then comment once and for all.
With this partially autobiographic tale, Lewis paints a very vivid picture of the dualism of man. On the one hand there was John, the "natural man," given to impulse and desire, seeking for fulfillment, but discovering that every time he thinks he has found the object of his desire, it is in fact a diabolical counterfeit. The submitting of his will to the demands of these objects would only deaden the actual desire. On the other hand there was Vertue, or John's conscience personified as another character. Lewis characterized Vertue as "traditional morality," that sense within each of us to live by rigidity and obedience for the sake of obedience. The mere thought that any reward or punishment may be in the end of the journey was abominable to Vertue--that took away the purity of choice for choice's sake.
In the end Christ united the two halves, as He does in each of our lives. I like Lewis's idea of the Desire being the end in itself, that there is a "divine discontent" in each of us (as Elder Maxwell would say). A celestial homesickness as it were. If this drives us, and not to any worldly object (read idol) in particular, but instead to the Source of the Desire, we will find ourselves within the outstretched arms of the Savior.
I didn't write periodic impressions because, honestly, I didn't feel like it. Unlike The Screwtape Letters, the chapters flowed into each other with the moving of the story, and though I could have stopped and mused, I chose instead to get the whole thing down and then comment once and for all.
With this partially autobiographic tale, Lewis paints a very vivid picture of the dualism of man. On the one hand there was John, the "natural man," given to impulse and desire, seeking for fulfillment, but discovering that every time he thinks he has found the object of his desire, it is in fact a diabolical counterfeit. The submitting of his will to the demands of these objects would only deaden the actual desire. On the other hand there was Vertue, or John's conscience personified as another character. Lewis characterized Vertue as "traditional morality," that sense within each of us to live by rigidity and obedience for the sake of obedience. The mere thought that any reward or punishment may be in the end of the journey was abominable to Vertue--that took away the purity of choice for choice's sake.
In the end Christ united the two halves, as He does in each of our lives. I like Lewis's idea of the Desire being the end in itself, that there is a "divine discontent" in each of us (as Elder Maxwell would say). A celestial homesickness as it were. If this drives us, and not to any worldly object (read idol) in particular, but instead to the Source of the Desire, we will find ourselves within the outstretched arms of the Savior.
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