Carpe Cakem!

We have to maintain the force of the Scriptures because the apocalyptic texts have gradually been forgotten, just when their relevance is more and more obvious. This is incredible. The joyful welcome of the Kingdom, which the texts describe, has been smothered by a double trend: catastrophic darkening on one hand, and indefinite postponement of the Second Coming on the other.

The constant, slow distance in relation to the Gospels casts a shadow on what was supposed to be luminous, and delays it. The anti-Christianity that we see today thus reveals this in a striking way as the next step in a process that began with the Revelation. The “time of the Gentiles” that Luke [21:14] describes suggests the Judgement has been delayed, and this has gradually imposed a new perspective on the Gospels. It has injected an insidious, growing doubt about the validity of the apocalyptic texts.

-Rene Girard, Battling to the End, p.110

This “double trend” regarding the apocalypse is easy to see. On one hand, we have the “catastrophic darkening” characterized by conspiracy theories about mark-of-the-beast microchips, oppressive one-world government, and nuclear holocaust.

On the other hand is the “insidious growing doubt about the validity of the apocalyptic texts” found in our modern day gnosticism. Recall point #3 from this list of the identifying characteristics of gnosticism:

Christian eschatology is implausible.

In many circles then, the end of the world is largely dismissed.

Girard would have the apocalyptic texts bought back to the forefront, this time to underscore how they line up with his theories.

Girard is often challenging some of my long-held beliefs, or at least ways of organizing psychological and theological ideas.

In this case, I guess I had always been taught that the purpose of the law was to, in some sort of tangible, codifiable way, reveal the nature of God. That is, it is an attempt to explain what his holiness looks like. And it does do that, in a round-about way by defining sin (and condemning us as sinful in the process).

Here though, Girard sees law (in general) as an attempt to bring peace to society. It is a way of putting the stops on mimetic rivalry. Religious law further formalizes the sacrifice and scapegoating process so it is less dangerous to the people. In the case of the Jews then, the primary purpose of the law wasn’t to tell us something about God, but an attempt to keep our own violence at bay. An attempt that God KNEW would fail. That it reveals further the Godly delineation of right and wrong is a side effect. This information was already built into our consciences.

All of my intuitions are really anthropological in the sense that I see law as springing from sacrifice in a manner that is very concrete and not philosophical at all. I see this emergence of law in my readings in anthropology, in monographs on archaic tribes, where its arrival was felt. I see it emerge in Leviticus, in the verse on capital punishment, which concerns nothing other than stoning to death. This is the birth of law. Violence PRODUCED LAW, which is still, like sacrifice, a lesser form of violence. This may be the only thing that human society is capable of. Yet one day this dike will also break.

-Rene Girard, Battling to the End, p.108

The Gentiles are new, and…they have to be given time to experience Christ. Paul said that the same thing in the Epistle to the Romans: the Jews failed everything despite the prophets, and the Christians have to be careful not to do the same thing. What is the Holocaust if not that terrifying failure?

Rene Girard, Battling to the End, p.112

Look at the adulterous wife of Hosea. He loves her even though he knows from the get-go that she will cheat on him constantly. This is a picture of God’s relationship with the Jews. But isn’t Jesus’ relationship with the Church the same deal? We don’t have the prophets to warn us now that he has sent the Holy Spirit. That’s an improvement. He wants to present us as a spotless bride, but what in fact are we? Dirty and full of violence. Yet he loves us still.

“The church will succeed where Israel has failed” is an idea I seem to hear implied sometimes, but one that I really don’t think you’ll find anywhere in the Bible.

I think what you really find is “God will remain faithful, even though _____ (Abraham, Israel, Peter, the Church, fails).”

This is from the last page:

Even you, that, having begun to read this book, could get no further than page 47, and especially you who have read it manfully in spite of the flesh, I love you all…

-Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, p.441

“Read it manfully in spite of the flesh”. He’s talking about me. I was disappointed in the book. I kept waiting for it to get really interesting, or funny, or profound, or… something and it never did. It showed hints a few times but then it quickly returned to more description of the countryside.

Oh well. I read it for a book club that I’m a part of with my friends up north (that all happen to be traditionalist Roman Catholics). The club meetings themselves are a blast. Perhaps I’ll find what I was missing when we take a look at it (over drinks) this weekend.

The part I found most interesting I think was how primitive much of Europe still was, even only 100 years ago! Belloc is constantly having to find someone to ferry him across rivers and help him through mountain paths. Why? There are virtually no bridges! Grand suspension bridges like the one in Brooklyn are standing by this time but there is really only one developed highway through all of Italy. We have electricity and cars and airplanes. But MOST of the country might as well be back in 1000 A.D. Everyone is still cooking over fires and riding in horses and carts and farming in their vineyards the exact same way they have been for centuries.

Belloc is an ardent, and I mean ARDENT Roman Catholic. His frequent swipes at protestants are a bit obnoxious at times. Nevertheless, it is nice to see that he doesn’t always take himself TOO seriously.

You will observe that the straight way to Rome cuts the Lake of Brienz rather to the eastward of the middle, and then goes slap over Wetterhorn and strikes the Rhone Valley at a place called Ulrichen. That is how a bird would do it, if some High Pope of Birds lived in Rome and needed visiting, as, for instance, the Great Auk; or if some old primal relic sacred to birds was connected therewith, as, for instance, the bones of the Dodo…. But I digress.

-Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, p.205

Oh, blessed quality of books, that makes them a refuge from living! For in a book everything can be made to fit in, all tedium can be skipped over, and the intense moments can be made timeless and eternal…

-Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, p.200

This is one of the beauties of the medium – all the tedium can be skipped over and the good stuff that happened in an instant drawn out for all it is worth. The same could be said for movies. Shame on authors and film-makers who waste the reader’s/watcher’s time!

In his shoes, I would have done the same!

I also asked him for coffee, and as he refused it I took him to be a heretic and went down the road making up verses against all such, and singing them loudly through the forest…

-Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, p.164

I can’t say I have found a ton that I like about Belloc, but one thing I DO appreciate his his down-to-earth attitude and love of the common man. Here, he rails on people that refuse to use simple words and language in their effort to sound clever or sophisticated. Yes, a rich education and a deep vocabulary is good, but don’t use a ten-dollar sentence when a cliche that everyone knows will actually do just as well. You may earn a point in an essay writing class, but you won’t really be helping anyone.

You are as full of Pride as a minor Devil. You would avoid the cliché and the commonplace, and the phrase toute faite. Why? Not because you naturally write odd prose–contrariwise, left to yourself you write pure journalese; but simply because you are swelled and puffed up with a desire to pose. You want what the Martha Brown school calls ‘distinction’ in prose. My little friend, I know how it is done, and I find it contemptible. People write their articles at full speed, putting down their unstudied and valueless conclusions in English as pale as a film of dirty wax–sometimes even they dictate to a typewriter. Then they sit over it with a blue pencil and carefully transpose the split infinitives, and write alternative adjectives, and take words away out of their natural place in the sentence and generally put the Queen’s English–yes, the Queen’s English–on the rack. And who is a penny the better for it?

-Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, p.162

Certainly religion is a tragic as first love, and drags us out into the void away from out dear homes.

It is a good thing to have loved one woman from a child, and it is a good thing not to have to return to the Faith.

-Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, p.161

I’ve been listening to neo-traditional Irish music for many years now. With Pandora I get a pretty heavy dose at work too.

I just have a few things to say.

Liz Carrol totally rocks. Just listen closely to the subtly of her technique. She is blow-your-mind good.

Natalie MacMaster’s is famous and pretends she’s a rock star. That leather jump-suit-wearing gal from Celtic Woman is even more ridiculous. Sure, they both have all kinds of chops, but the main thing they have going is their showbiz friendly looks. They are both tall slender blondes.

Liz Carrol on the other hand is kind of old, somewhat overweight and a bit frumpy looking. She completely smokes everyone else on her instrument though. Cool.

Her recent duet album with guitarist John Doyle (another favorite of mine) is top notch.