Tag Archives: St. Paul

Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: Dreams

For reasons I do not know, I am often asked about dreams. I have no idea why anyone would think that I would have an opinion, let alone knowledge regarding dreams. Unlike my mother and (rather more rarely) my grandmother, I do not read tea leaves, nor do I speculate about the stock market, nor do I play the lottery or even prognosticate successfully about politics—until three days before the 2016 election I thought Hillary Clinton would win, and, prior to that, I did not think President Obama would be re-elected (though I did think he would be elected the first time). In other words, I am far from an oracle. Yet time and again people ask me what dreams mean, and I have begun to wonder what it is about me that makes people think I would have any peculiar insight on that topic.

Yet, despite my lack of specific knowledge about dreams, perhaps I can address the subject in general terms. While I can’t comment on dream interpretation per se, I can say that dreams are important. When I say this, I don’t mean having dreams at night is important, though it might be for all I know. But having a dream—the way that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., did, for example—that is very important.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Why? It casts a personal or, in the case of Dr. King, a collective vision. It is both inspirational and aspirational. Following in the wake of Dr. King, we can dream of an America in which “people will not be judged by the color of their skin,” as he once said, “but by the content of their character.” Dr. King, I believe, was speaking about the merit that their character affords them, that each person would have the chance to receive fairly what he or she earned and not be held back for reasons of racial prejudice. And I think that most of us, or at least I hope that most of us, would agree with that.

But there are other kinds of dreams that cast less lofty visions. For example, you might dream of going to the Bahamas or Hawaii or on an Alaskan cruise. You might dream of your kids going to college or even getting some sort of graduate degree, being well educated and well cultured. Perhaps you hope, too, that they might have a better job than you do, have a happier life. You might dream that they would have less financial challenges than you have had to undergo, have less hardships, have more free time. And it’s okay, as far as I can tell, to dream about such things.

But be careful. For so many of those hardships, challenges, and difficult times were the very things that shaped you, hopefully, for the better. They did if you let them. For life, in that way, is like God. Either you’ll spend your whole life fighting with God (or at least the idea of God) or you’ll slowly (or perhaps suddenly) give in to both, realizing that if He’s just a crutch, like everybody says, then you, too, are in need of that Crutch. For fighting with God ends the day you realize that you’re broken. Only blind pride can keep you back from realizing that.

And life’s not dissimilar. When you stop fighting with the challenges of life—maybe that’s what St. Paul finally understood about life that is given to God instead of given to mere religion when he heard a Voice admonishing him not to “kick against the goads”—and embrace them and even be grateful for them, that’s the first step toward your own dream, not so much of visiting Hawaii as of living life well, even embarking on a greater dream like that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For his dream calls on all those who have ears to hear to put aside their prejudice, itself engendered by blind pride, and walk with him toward a better America and a better world.

But there’s one more thing I would add to my interpretation of dreams. You must remember old dreams to have new ones. You must remember Dr. King’s dream if you are to have your own. You must remember your parents’ and grandparents’ aspirations, hopes, and, yes, dreams for you if you are to have them for yourself or your own children and grandchildren. I think that is summarized in the Bible pretty well when the Prophet Joel says, “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions” (Joel 2:28). May you do the same, and may it be a dream that is both personal and collective, inspirational and aspirational.

Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: Cut to the Core

liberal-arts
A Young Man Being Introduced to the Liberal Arts by Sandro Boticelli, c. 1484.

A few weeks ago, in a blog perhaps uninspiringly entitled, “The Difficult Road,” I wrote about how valuable my college education has proved to be, how life-changing a course in anthropology was, how moving a course in history was, how challenging a course in Latin or Greek turned out to be. Hearing, if only imperfectly, the voice of Homer, considering the ways that party politics have stayed constant from antiquity to today, reflecting on the crisis of urban poverty and crime—these are just a few of the core issues that I was privileged to consider at Dickinson College, where I studied so many years ago.

Photo by Doug Kerr

Coincidentally I have a friend who teaches in a college here in Texas which is undergoing deep reflection on what constitutes a liberal education. They are looking at their own core issues. I say core issues because my friend’s institution is, in fact, reexamining what some call distribution requirements but others, more metaphorically, call the core, for those studies do in fact form the very core of what constitutes a liberal arts degree. At his institution there are a number of folks who want to trim that core significantly, chiefly for practical reasons. Some want to see the mathematics requirement eliminated (me genoito, St. Paul once wrote—“God forbid!”), as some students don’t like it; others, the science requirement curtailed, still others, literature and art removed from the core (nefas! [Latin for “an abomination”]) —after all, they say, literature isn’t everyone’s cup of tea—and finally, the study of non-English language done away with (double nefas!). Everyone speaks English nowadays, they argue. Besides, they add, students can simply elect to take those things on their own. And, they add pragmatically, the parents are wont to complain when their children find this or that course distasteful, uninteresting, and—and this is the big one—too time-consuming, too hard. There is no need to impose language or literature or art or even math on anyone. Those who have interest in math, can simply choose to study it; those with interest in language, can do the same. One of their more vocal proponents, so I heard, spoke at a town hall meeting, citing, a la ancient Greek rhetoric, the case of his own children: they simply hate, he stated contentiously, taking “superfluous” courses that are not in their area of study. His children, he apparently argued, would do much better (or at least be much happier) were they allowed simply to take courses in which they had genuine interest. Their grades would be better, their attitude better, their experience of college, much better overall.welcome

Now on the surface of it, that argument might seem to make sense. It is at least in part, right. No doubt the grades of the students—and I don’t mean just one person’s children but all students—would be higher. No doubt the students would seem happier, as they could simply take whatever they wanted. And, at any rate, if they were unhappy, they would have no one to blame but themselves. All true.

But the rationale for core requirements isn’t to make college enjoyable for students. College is, for many people, a very enjoyable and even “fun” time in their lives; but it is fun in spite of, in most cases, not because of the core requirements. I remember signing up for classes that I didn’t really want to take but I was required to take. And I made the most of them. I learned to enjoy a class in something that I failed at first to appreciate because I knew that somehow it was ultimately beneficial. I didn’t know then, but that somehow was the result of a group of faculty members sitting around a table and determining for me what was good for me. Their authority for that assessment lay in their expertise, their study, their publications and, yes, their instincts. They did not consider the complaints of students. They did not consider the much more vociferous complaints of parents. They did not have a “target number” of credits that they were aiming for. Rather, they considered only what they sincerely believed was good for me, or at least me envisioned as the average Dickinson student. And though I didn’t then know precisely why I was thankful for their guidance, I was ultimately very thankful for it.

I say ultimately because at the time—like nearly everyone, I had fun in college in spite of the workload, not because of it—I would never have said that I was happy to have all those distribution requirements. But I understood the reason for them, even then. And perhaps, in some general way, I was grateful for them, even then. I am more grateful for them now because I know what they did for me: they forced me to learn. To learn mathematics, science, art and even Latin. But I would never have been able to say as much then or now, had the Dickinson core been cut to its core, been trimmed, been decimated in the name of some practical goal like the rate of graduation, appeasing overly concerned parents or making students’ college experience generally happier or more enjoyable. In fact, I would have been cut to my own core, for my intellectual and to some extent spiritual core was formed then and now is and will forever be indebted to that liberal arts education that I received so many years ago. I say it again: I would have been cut to what would ultimately form my own core.books-travel

So I wish my friend and his college well. Would that that institution come to its senses and hold fast to the core of its curriculum, of its very being, and preserve its character that it might vouchsafe that character to those whom it seeks to educate for a better life and a better future. What for each student might well become his or her very core is at stake.

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Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: Cats, Dogs and People

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dog and catA year or so ago researchers at the University of California at San Diego announced the results of an important study, the culmination of months of research, that established that dogs get jealous. “How odd,” I then thought to myself, “those behavioral scientists must never have owned their own dogs.”

Ben and Hilda
An example of a dog and owner with similar personalities.

I say this because anyone who has ever owned a dog already knew the results of that inquiry, and certainly does not need a scientific study to prove it: dogs do indeed get jealous. Another study by Professor Coren of the University of British Columbia has suggested that people tend to choose dogs based on their own personality. In a piece of popular writing directed toward a general audience, Professor Coren touches on his own research and, even more valuably, summarizes an important Hungarian/Austrian report that suggests that dogs often seem to share personality traits with their owners. At this point, if you own a dog, you are likely to pause, and say, is that how I seem to the world? Further, at this point, I’m sorry to tell the answer just may be yes. (And, if you really want to know, ask your spouse or your closest confidant.)

I needn’t say it, but cats are different than dogs. Well, they are sometimes. Let’s start with a superbly interesting exception, Tara, Jeremy’s pet cat. The reporter in this interview interestingly and amusingly asks Erica, Jeremy’s mother, whether or not Tara has a “lion complex.” Yet “Tara the Lionhearted” cat, saving Jeremy the child from “Hannibal ‘Baby Nibbler’ Lecter” dog, is perhaps the exception to the rule.

The cats that I have known and have had—I here tip my hat to our dearly departed Italian cats Piazza and Lorenzo, and the French Simone—interesting personalities. Cats seem to lose interest in playing with you or in many cases even being petted, and certainly want to act as they wish, quite individually, and in any case not as you may want them to. They are funny in that way, and they seem to tolerate their owners or their owners’ family members, as if the family were intruding on their territory. And while both dogs and cats expect to be fed at some point, the cat is often the most clear and articulate when it comes to asking for his or her food. The dog will often wait, hoping for a table snack for an appetizer. Thus, the dog often seems to be humanlike, wants really to be a part of the family, while the cat regards the family as a necessary social construct, as you might consider the idea of attending your neighbor’s child’s Bar Mitzvah or first communion, finding the warm buckle of your airplane seatbelt only after your seatmate has been sitting on it for five minutes, or in extreme cases, the local sewage treatment plant. Add to this, of course, the matter of the euphemistically entitled kitty litter that the cat completely takes for granted that you will dutifully change, holding your breath, week in and week out.

I will not speak here about the personality differences between dog owners and cat owners. The same Dr. Coren has done so eloquently, again summarizing scholarly studies that would likely be dry reading without his popular-market intervention. I will, however speak about the third aspect of this blog, people. For whether we are pet owners or not, whether we prefer dogs, cats, or horses, or whether we simply long for the Platonic form of an animal and not the animal itself, we are so markedly different from them—even rather intelligent animals—that it is worth a moment or two to point out how it is that we are different, that though biologists may call us animals—and we are mammalian—we are not really animals. For better or worse, we are ourselves quite dissimilar. We control our wills in ways that animals simply do not.

wooly monkeyNow at this point anyone who has read the Curious Autobiography and knows the story of Betsy, my sister, who was a monkey, specifically a cross-dressing monkey, may say, “Your own book disproves this: Betsy clearly exercised her will, taking a bath, watching a soap opera, swinging on a ceiling fan. Well, yes, it certainly seemed at the time that my sister, as my childhood self referred to her (and as I sometimes still do), Betsy, had a will of her own. She was the “strong-willed” monkey, so strong-willed that Elaine Jakes, who by the way loved both cats and dogs, decided to deposit her at the Philadelphia Zoo. Yes, it was traumatic to wave good-bye to my sister in the parking lot of the Philadelphia Zoo, but I got over that when I learned what a good time she was having with the other monkeys. If you want to know of her escapades, you will have to read pages 91–98 in The Curious Autobiography.

But to return to people. We are different from animals in frightening ways. This week, we again, sadly and terribly, learned how. In Oregon, a young man who owned some fire arms singled out followers of a particular religious group on a college campus and executed them. He exercised his will in a way that appalled and shocked us all, startling even his own father. This past summer, we read over and over of people being executed in Iraq or Nigeria or elsewhere again, quite often those whose religious views were not acceptable to their slayers. All of these crimes against human beings cause the horrific destruction of the ancient relics of Palmyra in Syria to pale in comparison. The former evil acts seek to take away the human present, the latter the record of humanity in ages bygone ages. All are crimes specifically against human beings, whether living, dead, or yet to come. So, while we are capable of better, we often find ourselves doing the worst.

In a playful but telling moment in his text, the ancient poet Ovid writes, “I see better things, and I approve; I follow after worse things” (Metamorphoses 7.20f). Speaking of his outlook on life well after his famous trip toward Damascus, St. Paul puts it this way, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do; but what I hate to do, I do … although I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Rom. 7:15, 21; 24). He offers a solution, a solution that has gotten people killed from Oregon to Adamawa to Damascus itself, just after he cries out, “What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” But the answer to this question is something that we must all discover on our own.

Narcissus
Narcissus looks at his reflection. Fresco from the House of Lucretius Fronto in Pompeii

Where does this leave us? Are animals better off because they have no religion? Well, they do have a religion of sorts. Your dog worships you. I’m sure that one of these days there will be an arguably unnecessary canine study to confirm as much. Cats, well, they don’t. I think they’re a bit narcissistic and there’s a chance that, like Narcissus they actually worship themselves, relegating their owner’s voice to that of a mere echo in a thicket. And like Echo’s affection for the object of her desire, for some of us, our love of cats may even cause us to worship them. But I leave that aside.

No, I don’t believe that we are better off without God. But we would do well not to fashion God in the form of a pit bull or a cat or, worse yet, ourselves. Rather, it would be best to start not with self-pity for our estate in a fallen world or with self-love, as if we were superior to those who wreak havoc in the world around us. My hope for myself is to participate in, even embrace, this world’s suffering, and so to learn to live sacrificially not just for my cat or my dog, but for people. This idea is not original with me. My views ultimately derive from a book by Dietrich Bonhoffer that I read when I was quite a young man; the central tenets of that book never left me. Thus, I commend to your thought and my own the example of others who have put into practice Bonhoeffer’s counsel, whose suffering and sacrifice have changed this sad world for the better. Though they are no longer with us, their actions and ideas, and perhaps our own, will continue to do so, making the world better for cats, dogs, and people.

pieta
The Pietá of Michaelangelo

Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: The Spark

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I think that every volcanologist should have the word “Volcanologist” on his or her business card. Probably they do, but I’m not sure, for I can imagine that they might have, instead, “Geologist” or “Professor of Geology.” Were I a geologist who happened to specialize in the subfield of volcanic studies, I would certainly have this particular, if heady-sounding and thoroughly technical title, on my card.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about a volcano is not its etymology, which is interesting indeed, and gets more thought-provoking the deeper one pursues it, so much as what powers it. While it is not impossible that it is related to the Latin fulgur (“gleam”), it is more likely a word of Etruscan origin.

The Apollo of Veii, ca. 510–500 B.C.
Apollo of Veii, ca. 510–500 B.C.

There was a Vulca of Veii, a great artist who portrayed the god Apollo with a famous terracotta statue dating to about the end of the sixth century B.C. But, of course, Vulca’s name did not influence the name of the Roman god Vulcan; rather, they are likely both derived from the same Etruscan—or possibly even Minoan root—which, if that line of inquiry should be correct, was connected with a god called Velchanos, who in Etruscan would seem to have become Velchans.[1] But I speak about disputed topics.

Mr. SpockNot disputed is that Mr. Spock in the popular television series Star Trek finds his origins on Vulcan, a planet that has paradoxically suppressed its fire—maybe the way a volcano suppresses its fire for a period of time, controlling it as long as it can until it erupts? I don’t know if that corresponds to Mr. Spock’s planet of origin, but it does not seem to correspond to his fine, if firm, personality, for as played by the great Leonard Nimoy, he never seemed very close to eruption to me. Yet I wax science-fictional.

Also not disputed is the fact that the spark of any volcano comes from within. The fire comes from deep inside, and watching one erupt is a spectacular thing. The apparent fury, nature’s passion, and the magnificence of the fireworks, quite literally, is mind-boggling. I felt this way when I watched Mt. Etna erupt afresh a few years back. And I marveled at this gobbler of philosophers, this creator of fecundity by its ash, this fireball maker—as its likely etymology from the Greek word for “burn” suggests. Yet there is an obvious downside to such an internal spark, so far as I can tell: it can be rather unpredictable, and along with unpredictable, dangerous.

Mt. Etna, Sicily
Mt. Etna, Sicily

So it is with us humans. Nearly every person whom I’ve known and respected has had not simply an internal spark—though of course there is always something of that—but rather an external spark, as well. That external spark, in the folks I’ve thought of as particularly superb, would seem to come from somewhere up in the aether, rather than simply from their surroundings. Permit me to explain what I mean. I’ve generally respected my teachers, over the years, because they found their inspiration in an author, someone whose works have had a particular impact upon the way they think, or even, in some cases, live. Their spark was not simply their own view of the world, but their view of the world as shaped by a voice or voices from the past. And even if such a voice were not always coming to them from very high up in the aether, it seemed at least to have given a good many of those Ivy League dons a way to think other than simply with themselves at the center of all things.

The same can be said for my friends. I’ve noticed that, though I love them all, those who find their spark outside themselves seem quite different from those who are their own spark. The person who finds the source of motivation entirely from within is often rather attentive to him- or herself. He or she might spend a lot of time on himself or herself, making sure his personal needs are addressed, her pride is not hurt, his rights are upheld, her own desires are fulfilled. He or she is like a volcano and every once in a while, precisely like a volcano, she or he might just erupt.

Yet those whose spark is from without, especially those who derive their internal fire from a vastly higher place, tend to put their own needs last. Indeed, they rarely talk about themselves at all. When you speak to them, you nearly need to pry their lid off, in some cases, to find out what they’ve been up to. You might see them in a hospital waiting room, a volunteer center, a military vehicle, or a church pew. I know some of them by name, such as a friend and his brother with oddly rhyming names, and their dear wives, whose names also rhyme. There is another couple, able and patient, who are like this, too; and those whose name is implicitly non-violent. And then there’s an Italian couple from the far north yet of humbly low origin, and those who, because their son adores animals, would never live up to their last name. They work in shops, in office buildings, in schools, in uniform; they volunteer endlessly, and they deflect credit from themselves. They love their neighbors as themselves, and sacrifice for others each day, all day long. They joyfully enjoy their lives well-lived simply because they have quite often, daily in fact, jauntily stifle their own happiness for others. These folks, whom I won’t name here so as not to embarrass them, are those whom I aspire to be like.

Saint Paul abbey church. Dedication fresco by Thomas von Villach ( 1493 ): Detail showing Saint Paul.
Stift Sankt Paul in the Laventtal, Austria. Dedication fresco by Thomas von Villach (1493): Detail showing Saint Paul.

They are not those castigated by a saint named Paul in a letter to a city called Corinth. There flame burns bright because it is fueled by an ethereal fire. To some, perhaps, they might appear to be common folk. But they are not: they are the heroes of our age.

There is a reason, mythologically speaking, that both the Greek Hephaistos and the Roman Vulcan are always described as limping. The god whom these names represent was cast out of Olympus by Zeus/Jupiter because he angered him as the king of the gods was punishing his wife, Hera/Juno, with chains for sending a storm upon Hercules. The mythological result was a limping fire god.

Lame Hephaistos leans on a crutch.
Lame Hephaistos leans on a crutch. From the East Central frieze of the Parthenon.

Now I don’t intend to suggest that Vulcan’s attempt to free his mother was not a helpful act. But I would suggest that the fact that the god winds up limping might perhaps, if only incidentally, provide an apotropaic totem to any who thinks that charting a course based on one’s own spark, and that alone, is the finest way to live. Indeed, Vulcan’s best act, perhaps, was the making of the armor for Achilles, armor that responded to pride and ultimately only promoted more killing.

Foundry Painter. Attic red-figure Kylix, 490–480 BC.
Foundry Painter. Attic red-figure Kylix, 490–480 BC.

For while this world will encourage us to find our own way, it just may turn out that there is no “own way” after all. And that is the point of The Curious Autobiography, the story behind a life journey like that of Elaine Jakes. It may turn out that there is a closer connection between all human beings than we had ever imagined, that in fact there really is a brotherhood and sisterhood among all humankind, and that there is a Father of all, somewhere far away in terms of divine nature, yet perhaps closer than we have ever imagined in terms of divine love. But that is all the stuff of another blog. In the meantime, I leave you, my dear reader, merely with an invitation to enjoy a glass of wine with a bite of Parmesan—I’m missing that now that I’m back from Parma—and, as you do so, to think about where the true spark comes from and, insofar as any of us can, to take up Spock’s invitation to live long and prosper.

[1] Andreas Bendlin, in Der Neue Pauly 1.2 (2002) 296–298, s.v. “Volcanus”; S. Blakely, in R. Bagnall et al. (eds), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (New York/London, 2012), s.v. “Volcanus.”