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I was surprised. I actually enjoyed “The Ballad of the White Horse” quite a bit. It would make a good short play if you could swing the costumes.

Chesterton is proud to be a Christian and so are the heroes in his tale, something you don’t see dared that much lately. I like it. Let’s see more. I copied down a few odd passages I enjoyed:

Here, King Alfred’s Irish friend Colan’s harp is described:

His harp was carved and cunning
As the Celtic craftsman makes,
Graven all over with twisting shapes
Like many headless snakes

His harp was carved and cunning
His sword prompt and sharp,
And he was gay when he held the sword,
Sad when he held the harp.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse, Book II

This section contains some comments on free will and takes, like Tolkien I think, a high view of man’s creative power, endowed by God very intentionally of course. It’s far better to “fall with Adam” and admit your sin, leaning on God, than to pridefully follow after other gods of your own devising as if you were still hot stuff.

When God put man in a garden
He girt him with a sword,
And sent him forth a free knight,
That might betray his lord;

He brake Him and betrayed Him
And fast and far he fell
Till you and I may stretch our necks
And burn our beards in hell.

But though I lie on the floor of the world
With the seven sins for rods,
I would rather fall with Adam
Than rise with all your gods.

-Book III

Later, Colan pulls a fast one on Harold, one of the evil Viking lords. Exciting stuff!

For Colan had not bow nor sling,
On a lonely sword leaned he,
Like Arthur on Excalibur
In the battle by the sea.

To his great gold earring Harold
Tugged back the feathered tail
And swift and sprung the arrow,
But swifter sprang the Gael.

Whirling the one sword round his head,
A great wheel in the sun,
He sent it splendid through the sky
Flying before the shaft could fly –
It smote Earl Harold over the eye,
And blood began to run.

-Book V

I just finished reading Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
I’d read the story before (not really one of my favorites) but had never experienced J.R.R.’s alliterative verse before.
It’s fun to read out loud:

“At whiles with worms he wars, and with wolves also”

Thousands of lines and nearly every line has 3-5 words with the same beginning consonant.

This epic was so over-the-top though in it’s grandiose descriptions of even the smallest thing. I just didn’t get that much of a kick out of, for example, the several pages spent describing the tack on his horse. Oh well. I copied down this section where he is journeying through the forest, battling bad guys left and right with ridiculous frequency for the largely uninhabited north of Britain in the seventh century.

Many a cliff he climbed o’er in countries unknown,
far fled from his friends without fellowship he rode.
At every wading or water on the way that e passed
he found a foe before him, save at a few for wonder;
and so foul were they and fell that fight he must needs.
So many a marvel in the mountains he met in those lands
that ‘twould be tedious the tenth part to tell you thereof.
At whiles with worms he wars, and with wolves also,
at whiles with wood-trolls that wandered in the crags,
and with bulls and with bears and boars, too, t times;
and with ogres that founded him from the heights of the fells.
Had he not been stalwart and staunch and steadfast in God,
he doubtless would have died and death had met often;
for though war wearied him much, the winter was worse,
when the cold clear water from the clouds spilling
froze ere it had falled upon the faded earth.
Well-night slain by the sleet he slept ironclad
more nights than enow in the naked rocks,
where clattering from the crest te cold brook tumbled,
and hung high o’er his head in hard icicles.
Thus in peril and pain and in passes grievous
tll Christmas-eve that country he crossed all alone
in need.
The knight did at that tide
his plaint to Mary plead,
her rider’s road to guid
and to some lodging lead.

I’ve been reading through the Ballad of the White Horse and am definitely enjoying bits of it.

The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.

The men of the East may search the scrolls
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.

The wise men know that wicked things
Are written on the sky,
They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings,
Hearing the heavy purple wings,
Where the forgotten Seraph kings
Still plot how God shall die.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse, Book I

A. He rises from his bed.

B. Opening the scriptures, he discovers a chiasm

C. He writes a blog post about it.

D. He keeps writing, finishing a brilliant 300-page work on the topic.

C’. He updates the book list on the sidebar of his blog.

B’. He closes the scriptures

A’. He returns to bed.

We are close to adopting our fourth child, second adopted child, soon. All of the mountains of paperwork are complete. All our documents have been translated into Amharic and are sitting in an office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, waiting to be filed at the courthouse. We’re waiting for the authority’s role of red tape to finally deplete itself. Hasn’t happened yet. I’m told “any day now”, but a lot of days have passed.

Every Sunday, I walk downtown and have a cup of Ethiopian coffee at a local shop that almost always has some Yirgacheffe in the carafe. It comes from only about 100 miles south of the village where my hopefully, soon-to-be daughter was born. I distract myself every day with activities with my wife and children, as well as the endless projects at the office. But I also remind myself of her.

Photo credit

This is from a larger passage where SK deals with the fact that SO much art (be it painting, poetry, music, etc.) are so full of very short-term passion. This could be the thrill of sex, the anguish of death at the moment of passing, the fury of the heat of battle, the sublime fleeting moment of beauty. It turns out, the very nature of art is that it is REALLY good at communicating short things like this. So that’s what it usually gets used for. LONG things though, are very difficult to get across. I love this passage:

If I imagine a hero who loses his life, this can be concentrated very well in the moment, but the daily dying cannot, because the point is that it goes on every day. Courage can be concentrated very well in the moment; patience cannot, precisely because patience contends against time. (etc.) The man married fifteen years – He has not fought with lions and ogres, but with the most dangerous enemy — with time.

-Either/Or, p.68

The wonder of love can be captured in music and poetry, but what about the patience love of fifteen years of marriage? Not so much. And yet the latter SHOULD probably be celebrated even more! It is a challenge, but a worthwhile one.

We recently watched the documentary Into Great Silence. It follows the life of some very quiet and ascetic Christian monks living high in the Alps. It’s three hours long and there is no narration and only a few minutes worth of talking. “You have seduced me, Oh Lord, and I was seduced” appears on the screen at slow regular intervals. On one hand, the film is terribly boring. On the other hand, I think is successfully communicates the long-suffering of the monks in a way nothing else could. As art, as a meditation, it is very successful. If you sitting there in our seat and starting to squirm (like I was!), then I think the point is being made.

My wife also commented that she has seen some wonderful black-and-white photography of elderly people that she thought successfully communicates the ideas of age and long-suffering. I had to agree.

Still, can you think of a pop song that successfully communicates the joy of fifteen years of marriage? I don’t think they even try! Country singers do sometimes.

I can think of lots of examples from classical music, nearly all of them soaked in short-term passion. Think of the oozing love of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Or fate knocking on the door in Beethoven’s 5th symphony. Or the short lively dance of the bird-catcher in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Or the gorgeous snow-flakes falling in the second movement of Vivalid’s Winter.

Where am I going with this? In a world full novels with 4-page chapters, 1-second cuts in movies, music videos, 3-minute pop songs, YouTube clips, the short and punchy art is more prevalent than ever. Now, that’s just great for short and punchy things. But many things about Christianity, many things about the way that Jesus Chris is redeeming creation, many things about the beauty and character of God, many of these things have a “slow” quality that needs a different medium and/or a skilled and keen artist.

An eschatological example: I think the story of the end-time “rapture” is mistaken, but its short punchy quality makes it easy to imagine, communicate and portray. The glorious long haul of post-millennialism does not lend itself to expression as a sound-bite.

The Christian does not deny the beauty of the young woman on MTV shakin’ her booty. But he prizes much more the beauty of a highly loved wife and mother watching her children grow up, get married, and build houses. The latter is more difficult to capture powerfully in art, because it “contends with time” as SK says.

If we are to tell the story of Jesus and his deep love for us and redemption, the gospel, then we are going to find ourselves telling a LONG story. We creative artists need more practice at doing this without making something boring as well.

Some solid education philosophy here from SK.

This is the secret in the entire art of helping. Anyone who cannot do this is himself under a delusion if he thinks he is able to help someone else. In order truly to help someone else, I must understand more than he – but certainly first and foremost understand what he understands. If I do not do that, then my greater understanding does not help him at all. If I nevertheless want to assert my greater understanding, then it is because I am vain or proud, then basically instead of benefiting him I really want to be admired by him. But all true helping begins with a humbling. The helper must first humble himself under the person he wants to help and thereby understand that to help is not to dominate but to serve, that to help is not to be the most dominating but the most patient, that to help is a willingness in the time being to put up with being in the wrong and not understanding what the other understands.

-Soren Kierkegaard,  (forgot to write down the ref), EK p.460

You must start with what they know already. If this is impossible, then what? Assume they now NOTHING and build from the dirt up. I think this is what Bukvich is doing with music theory and aural skills. The people in the room who can’t handle it are the ones who know the most up front. But they need to humble themselves too to the method.

Some personal thoughts:

The terrible pressure of those who wish to argue is more than I can take. I flee it in agony and frown at their arrogance. An answer, I know I have, but if I cannot teach it, then what? I don’t wish to argue it and prove it with one who is steeped in all the special words. THEY will believe what they will and they have their reward. But if what they believe cannot be taught to the common man, then I question not just its usefulness, but also its truth and even validity. If only someone who can discern the ancient languages in the original script stands a chance to grasp your image of God then is it really a very good image in the first place? You say you battle modernity, but at what point does your knowledge, venerable as it may be, become properly classified as esoteric?

All those smart guys say again and again that you must be able to argue your guts out. But I am sick of them. They would remake all of God’s children like themselves – paying lip service to those with a quiet faith but nonetheless implying them stupid at every turn. On one hand, I want to be just like them, the smart arguers. I know I could do a decent job with practice. But the whole endeavor is so despicable, it makes me want to spew. What am I to do? Who can blame the world for accusing our theodicy of being little more than linguistic hand-waving? Only those with faith can understand and the faithful don’t really need to know that much anyway.

I won’t be able to write entire posts on my thoughts on each one of these. So here are some excerpts with a few notes on some of the more interesting passages I discovered reading the anthology The Essential Kierkegaard.

SK seems to be complete unaware of anything remotely like what concerns Girard. He talks a lot about personal freedom, the dignity of choosing and only ever mentions the “other” in passing as a possible distraction. But if Girard is right, even half right, the other is FAR more than that.

SK’s mopeyness about breaking off his engagement was hard to stomach.

The best stuff and the worst stuff is going to be autobiographical for most writers. Only a true master can capture someone else. It seems that this is behind some of SK’s motivation to write under pseudonyms, as invented characters.

SK dices exact language about being born again using some Greek ideas from Socrates. It kind of fits better with grace actually. It deemphasises our own striving. I like that.

SK says “the fullness of time” is a very important Christian concept. Outside of it, the atonement and judgment fall apart. This seems to factor largely into Robert Capon’s concept of redemption as well.

SK says that idealism is sin. Yikes!

Sin against God is much worse than sin by itself (not that there is such a thing!).

The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith. He’s not the first person to say this of course, but he proves it the long way. This is incredibly important I think. The opposite of faith is not do-gooding but rather faith.

It seems to me that SK makes a good case that hell must be some sort of life. It is sin and despair perpetuated yet unable to die. But something has to keep it going. The would make it NOT annihilationism. It also makes our dark earth very close to hell already. Lewis gets this too.

On utilitarianism. We don’t build Cathedrals anymore because “what use are they?”. Instead we build skyscrapers full of people who hate their job.

I have had little to win or to lose in the association with the ordinary run of men, partly because what they did – so-called practical life – does not interest me much, partly because their coldness and indifference to the spiritual and deeper currents in man alienate me even more from them. (This “practical” life, which is fairly prevalent in the whole era, is manifest also in big things; whereas the past ages built works before which the observer must stand in silence, now they build a tunnel under the Thames (utility and advantage). Yes, almost before a child gets time to admire the beuty of a plant or some animal, it asks: Of what us is it?)

-Early Journal Entries, p.11

This is funny. This is likely how I would become a humor writer – accidentally.

One carelessly writes down one’s personal observations, has them printed, and in the various proofs one will eventually acquire a number of good ideas. Therefore, take courage, ou who have not yet dared to have something printed. Do not despise typographical errors, and to become witty by means of typograpical errors may be considered a legitimate way to become witty.

-Either/Or, p.38

This is similar to the idea that anyone can take a bullet for someone – that’s relatively easy. Real love is shown by sticking with them for years and years. Time, boredom, despair – these are the real enemies we must face in life.

Most people complain that the world is so prosaic that things do not go in life as in the novel, where opportunity is always so favorable. I complain that in life it is not as in the novel, where one has hardhearted fathers and nisses and trolls to battle, and enchanted princesses to free. What are all such adversaries together compared with the pale, blodless, tenacious-of-life nocturnal forms with which I battle and to which I myself give life and existence?

-Either/Or, p39

Wonderful stuff on the nature of youthful passion:

My soul has lost possibility. If I were to wish for something, I would wish not for wealth or power but for the passion of possibility, for the eye, eternally young, eternally ardent, that sees possiblity everywhere. Pleasere disappoints; possibility does not. And what wine is so sparkling, so fragrant, so intoxicating! …Then I call to mind my youth and my first love – when I was filled with longing; now I long only for my first longing. What is youth? A dream. What is love? The content of the dream.

-Either/Or, p.45

A nod to the common man. SK wrote a lot of stuff that was really hard to read. But at least he recognized that everything that was REALLY important must not be that hard.

What in the most profound sense is the meaning of life must be capable of being grasped even by a more simple person [than I].

-Either/Or p.78

Needing God is nothing to be ashamed of. I didn’t realize when I marked this passage that it is often quoted.

…the words “to be contented with the grace of God” will not only comfort a person, and then comfort him again every time earthly want and distress make him, to speak mundanely, needful of comfort, but when he really has become attentive to the words they will call him aside, where he no longer hears the secular mentality’s earthly mother tongue, the speech of human beings, the noise of shop keepers, but where the words explain themselves to him, confide to him the secret of perfection: that to need God is nothing to be ashamed of but is perfection itself, and that the saddest thing of all is if a human being goes through life without discovering that he needs God.

-To Need God is Man’s Highest Perfection, p.87

I think I’m done with SK for quite a while. Must read something else.

Something we will often try to do is duplicate the environment in which inspiration happened. We went on a feverishly productive writing spree while sitting in that one coffee shop in Portland and so we try to return to the same shop and order the same drink. We had a deeply affecting time of prayer and worship at church that day after we sung that one song. So we return and sing that song again. We had a romantic dinner with our fiance at the time and now we return there after 10 years of marriage with high hopes. I wrote that awesome rock song that went to #1 on the charts while I was high on weed. I need to get some more weed and write some more songs, right!?

The problem is, this sort of thing almost never works. SK addresses that here in a manner that is pretty close to home for me:

My home had become dismal to me simply because it was a repetition of the wrong kind. My mind was sterile, my troubled imagination constantly conjured up tantalizingly attractive recollections of how the ideas had presented themselves the last time, and the tares of these recollections choked out every thought at birth. I went out to the café where I had gone every day the previous time to enjoy the beverage that, according to the poet’s precept, when it is “pure and hot and strong and not misused,” can always stand alongside that to which the poet compares it, namely, friendship. At any rate, I prize coffee. Perhaps the coffee was just as good as last time; one would almost expect it to be, but it was not to my liking. The sun through the café windows was hot and glaring; the room was just about as humid as the air in a saucepan, practically cooking. A draft, which like a small trade wind cut through everything, prohibited thoughts of any repetition, even if the opportunity had otherwise offered itself.

-Soren Kierkegaard, Repetition, EK p.107

The truth is, much of his essay on “repetition” was beyond my understanding. The parts I remember had to do with memory.

It seems that trying to replicate the environment where something wonderful happened is misguided. If we want inspiration and passion, we need to start somewhere else – probably just with hard work. My theory is that, for myself, the thing that will push me through the right kind of hard work will be teaching.

It almost seems that to endeavor something for it’s sake alone is one’s downfall. For when I come to think, I can think of nothing. But when I aim to accomplish something else, I can often think steadily and effectively. My wife says I work well to deadlines and she’s right. But I think it is more the thing itself than the fact that there is a deadline. This is why I must teach. The constant, steady challenge of preparing the class and figuring out the puzzle of communicating to the students – this will drive me, in fact ENABLE me to think. Otherwise the thoughts will never take shape. I have not the raw willpower to work through them in a vacuum.