Tag Archives: Star Trek

Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: So Easy …

Blog Post, , , , , , , , , ,

You know, it’s easier to destroy something than it is to build it. One can spend hours working on a sand castle at the beach, and one good wave, one careless jogger, or one tyrannical child, who just has to knock your turrets over, can set you back hours. Fortunately, it’s just a sand castle, so you can take it with a grain of salt. Or a grain of sand.

But what about things that are not just fun, kind of artsy but not deeply meaningful things. I mean it only took the 9/11 terrorists minutes to destroy the World Trade Center, something it took a long time to build. And it took them just seconds to rip families apart and put America in a defensive posture when it comes to national security. That one act of destruction took away a lot of freedoms—ease of going through airports, the feeling of relative safety in traveling, what you can carry on or can’t carry on a plane. To say that things really changed after 9/11 would be an understatement, without doubt.

So it is with anything good, I suppose. It takes so much work to build it and so much care goes into it; and, yet, it can be derailed, hindered and even destroyed in so short a time. But it is not easy to change things. Take the Our Father, for example. Many want to change it to “Our Parent,” others to our Mother. Some want to change “Amen” to “Awomyn” (sic). Yet Pope Francis, of late, has actually made a change. He has stated that the English phrase in the Our Father, rendered “Lead us not into temptation,” is now to be changed to “Do not let us fall into temptation.” His argument is that it is a mistranslation of the original. And he can say this convincingly for two reasons: 1. He is the Pope, and 2. Very few Christians, Protestant or Catholic, know ancient Greek, so they will take his word for it.

Let me say first that the Pope is not “diabolical.” He is not seeking to destroy, when he makes this change, he is, undoubtedly seeking to shift the blame for sin to the individual who falls into temptation so that person can’t shake a finger at God and say, “You allowed this to happen to me! You caused this to happen to me!” And good for the Pope; he’s right on that score; human beings need very little help to be tempted. But just because he is right about that doesn’t justify changing the translation.

Why? Well, for starters, the Greek simply doesn’t permit it. The Greek says what it says: μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς (me eisenengkes hemas). That does not mean “do not let us fall.” It means, rather, “do not lead us.” Hence the KJV (which is usually the most faithful English translation): “Lead us not.” It is the second person singular aorist active subjunctive form (here used in precatory mode) of the Greek verb εἰσφέρω (eisphero).

Why then, if the Pope knows ancient Greek (and one presumes he does), would he change this? It is for a theological reason bigger than the one that I outlined above. It has to do with one’s view of God, whether He is active in our lives or not. In the 1970s, it would seem, Pope Francis (then Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio) was opposed to the theology that says “God’s in his Heaven and all that is wrong in the world depends on us to fix”—this kind of theology has translated rather neatly into liberation theology. The fundamental point here is not Marxism vs. Capitalism, for both systems can thrive very well with the distant view of God.

Yet, by the end of the 1970s, something has changed for Father Bergoglio. He seems to have come to a different position on God intervening in human affairs, a view that is reflected today in his change of the verse to, “Don’t let us fall into temptation,” which assumes that God is distant, rooting us on but not intervening in our lives. It is a wonderful view of God, one could argue, because it exculpates God completely from the question of human suffering. God doesn’t allow human suffering. That’s something we cause, in the case of a war or terrorism, or nature causes (in the case of an earthquake), or maybe bad genetics has caused, in the case of an abnormality at birth. God is rooting us on, but He cannot (according to something by which even God Himself is bound, something like Star Trek’s “prime directive”) interfere. And that can explain, probably does explain, the Pope’s changing the English translation of the verse.

The only problem is—beyond the Greek, which I hopefully have already explained—that this Star Trek God is not the God of Scripture. Not even close. God has no directives, prime or otherwise. He makes the rules and He breaks them whenever it suits Him. Exempli gratia: Lazarus. God had decreed that the penalty for sin is death. It was and is an eternal decree upon human kind for sin. Yet Jesus, qua his status as the Son of God (status that is, if you read the New Testament, tantamount to God himself), resuscitates Lazarus from the dead. He does the same thing to the son of a widow whom he has presumably just met when, rather randomly from our human point of view, he enters the tiny hamlet of Nain. He heals the blind, helps an old woman who is a hunchback, heals the crippled, cares for the poor. He even cares for the rich, who at first might be unfeeling and disconnected from the suffering all around them. And he does miracles in the midst of all these people. And he does miracles today. When we see them, some of us acknowledge them, some of us attribute them to coincidence or luck. And some acknowledge them as miracles when they happen but, eventually, consign them to our memory’s bin of lucky breaks or coincidences.

Cobh St. Colman’s Cathedral, Ireland
Detail Raising of the Son of the Widow of Nain
Photo by Andreas F. Borchert (CC BY-SA 4.0)

And how we react to divine intervention in the human sphere is important for the wording of the Lord’s Prayer. For, if we, as apparently Pope Francis does, believe that God intends good for everyone but doesn’t actually do good beyond the natural “common grace” of amatory love, love of family, sunshine and rain, then he simply can’t lead us into temptation (or, really, deliver us from evil, by the way). He is the Star Trek God. He simply can’t intervene, ever. Thus, it depends on us to take matters into our own hands, to be responsible for our own actions, and, ultimately, even for our own deliverances in this world. That is the groundwork, by the way, of liberation theology, where “liberation” means “self-liberation”: we need to free ourselves from our oppressors. It depends on us.

Oddly enough, most people, wittingly or unwittingly, probably subscribe to this way of thinking. Why wouldn’t one, after all? Things certainly seem to be that way—that’s reality, isn’t it? Isn’t believing that there is a God who intervenes in our lives just pie in the sky?

Rather, it’s pie on earth. And it’s not pie. It’s the God of Wonders, the God who makes the rules—all the rules—and “breaks” them whenever He feels like it, intervening, changing, shaping, leading. Sometimes leading us into places that are dangerous to us, whether physically or spiritually, or both. Fiery furnaces. Lions’ dens. Islands with dangerous snakes. If you’re unsure about any of this, just read the book of Daniel, where God tampers with the animal world, or the book of Acts. Or First and Second Samuel, where you can learn to face the giants in your life the right way. Or any of the four gospels where you can learn something I don’t know how to describe in one word; maybe just life, for short. Finally, and perhaps most poignantly, read the book of Hosea, where a woman of questionable character becomes a signally redemptive metaphor for the Church.

It’s easy to destroy, and so hard to build. But the God of Wonders is subject to neither, as his compassion for the lost shows again and again. Whether we have fallen into temptation (entirely possible) or He has heard our prayer and not led us there, know this: God redeems where we have so easily destroyed, he rebuilds where we have accidentally (or not) knocked something over, and he forgives when we cry out to Him for forgiveness. For he does stuff; and for that I, for one, am deeply thankful.

Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: The Spark

Blog Post, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.”