Fallen, Fallen Is Babylon the Great

Adam and Eve fall into separation. They hide themselves from one another; they hide from God.

Babylon falls into desolation.

What happens to our songs, when we’ve sung them. Heine imagines that they overcome separation . . . and offer consolation.

Ich wollte, meine Lieder
Das wären Blümelein:
Icht schickte sie zu reichen
Der Herzallerliebster mein.

Ich wollte, meine Lieder
Das wären Küsse fein:
Ich schickt’ sie Heimlich alle
Nach Liebchen’s Wängelein.

Ich wollte, meine Lieder
Das wären Erbsen klein:
Ich kocht’ eine Erbsensuppe,
Die sollte köstlich sein.

I wish my songs
Were little flowers.
I’d send them to be smelled
By the love of my heart.

I wish my songs
were delicate kisses.
I’d send them in secret
To my sweetheart’s cheek.

I wish my songs
Were little peas.
I’d cook them in a soup
Which would be delicious.

If they fly to the one we love, they tickle her nose or her cheek. And if they stay at home, they tickle our tongues—and fill our bellies.

Rick

Another Footnote: Song

When we’re in love, we sing!

We don’t sing only when we’re in love. Though we do sing then. You lie there, smiling at the ceiling. After a while, you get up: it’s morning, and past. You go downstairs, look absently into the refrigerator. You lean out the back door, blinking into the sun. You’re humming. Your heart is full.

But all kinds of things fill our hearts. Consider: “The struggle itself . . . is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy” (Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus). Maybe he’s singing Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang”: Hoo! Ah! Hoo! Ah! Is he singing because labor is grace—the struggle itself—or because song brings grace to the labor.

But Camus? And grace? Wait a minute!

True. Camus may imagine a world without God. At least, he imagines an absurd world—without meaning. But we are separating grace and meaning (not to mention thinking about natural rather than saving grace). Besides the full heart comes from something other than “meaning.”

Whatever that means.

It means that joy happens (by grace). We don’t think about what our joy means until later. We just sing: “I cannot keep from singing.” Or, “Who put the bomp in the bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp? Who put the ram in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong?”

Rick

And God created singing.

When we’re in love, we sing!

Amazing grace—how sweet the sound—
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear

God’s saving presence. May we think of it as grace, not in terms of revelation. May we think of it as an action of God, not a statement?

Amazing grace—how sweet the sound. Does that mean that “grace” has a sound? I take it that it does. But then, what is the nature of the sound? Is it the sound of the words “amazing grace”? Is it the sound of the song that we are singing? Or, does grace itself have a sound?

Amazing grace—how sweet the sound—
That saved this wretch from fear!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was deaf but now I hear.

If it is grace I hear, I must hear also the saving presence of God, for that is the nature of grace. Listen.

If God is omnipresent—accept that God is omnipresent just for a moment—then will God not be omnipresent for reconciliation, salvation? If we just “cock an ear,” the ear that God has touched with the sound of grace, we shall hear.

And then?

I once was lost, but now am found,
Was deaf but now I hear.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to sing

What do we do when we hear a tune, one that catches our ear? We begin to sing along with it. Our hearts also catch the song and repeat it. See—or listen to—Wordsworth’s “The Solitary Reaper,” not my favorite, but you'll get the point:

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

Not that you should use Wordsworth to make a point. But, there it is.

First Footnote

Grace is not a contract; it is an action, a “kiss.” [10/10]

Which is a mingling . . . and a moment.

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle,
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

- Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Love’s Philosophy”

Wine comes in at the mouth
and love comes in at the eye:
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you and sigh.

- William Butler Yeats, “A Drinking Song”

One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand café in the sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you

One fine day

- Lawrence Ferlighetti, “Recipe for Happiness Khabarovsk or Anyplace"

Or,

Rodin

Gustav Klimt

Edvard Munch

Fragonard!

My longer poem “Thursdays” describes an odd assortment of men, a newspaper editor, a priest, a classicist among them, who meet Thursday mornings to discuss theology over breakfast. The conversation wanders: Ananias and Sapphira, Adam and Eve, lying, loss, the rapture—grace not as a kiss but rape, at least according to Father Tim, who has the last word:

Father Tim bows his head, “O God of fire, of two-
edged sword and Tim La Haye: Come rape us from our cars,
our churches, hotel rooms . . .” Unbowing, says, “Instead:
imagine an apocalypse by Fragonard—
a quiet sunblent garden, God le chevalier,
polite and sly, the New Jerusalem, cheeks rouged
a delicate, and decorous, pink, her stockings, lace—
and bosom—white as snow, as wool, as sins forgiven,
yet waiting to be taken, desert her spaniel, slip
away this very afternoon, to be disrobed
and loved—whatever comes tomorrow. Hasn’t she
her reasons to believe tomorrow may not come?”

- Rick

The Grace of Starting All Over Again, Part One

As Gerald Stephens, who has stood behind this bar and sat at it, serving and drinking—pitching it out there and consuming it—as Gerald knows, I have been thinking these days in circles about “natural grace.” Here, over the next several days, some of those thoughts.

Apologia pro apologia sua: I haven’t tried to organize these thoughts in any particular matter, so you’ll see the circles. I won’t try to begin at the beginning or come to an end. I won’t try to avoid repetition or loose ends. Few of the questions will be rhetorical; and even the rhetorical questions can by answered, or challenged.

The apology for the argument having been made, here it is, or one part of it.

One assumption—true or false, fair or unfair: We, meaning Reformed Protestants, tend to confuse grace and revelation. I’m going to try to separate them. Here's my assumption: Revelation, I’m going to say, has content, what is revealed. Grace does not. It is not a contract; it is an action, a “kiss.”

So revelation is known in some sense. I don’t know at this point whether that sense has to be intellectual or has to involve some sort of assent. But grace is experienced. We may or may not be able to describe the experience. Even if we can, our description is not the experience.

Even if we can. I’m tempted to believe and assert—this seems true of “primary” or “saving” grace, at any rate—that we can describe only the results of the experience. Even the contractual languages of the various atonement theories, e.g., describe only the results of the saving event—how salvation might have been present in Christ’s passion. (The theories do agree: salvation was present. I say “might have been,” because they disagree about how it was present.) In any case, we don’t—at least I don’t think we successfully—describe grace itself, because we can’t: it has no content. We describe our experience of the gift of grace.

What is the nature of that experience? If redemption finds analogy in love—let’s say it does—then we could start describe redeeming grace in terms of “being in love.” When we’re in love, we sing!

- Rick

Fire on the Mountain

I was thinking about a post on the hints of fall that have appeared in the last week or so and the brevity of summer in Wyoming. There is the smell of wood smoke because probably less than 10 miles from here there is a forest fire currently out of control. The church I serve is actually just on the edge of the evacuation zone, and many people we know are in harm's way. The friends' cabin where we have spent much time this summer may already be gone. I doubt if this disaster with a small "d" will make the news much outside of Wyoming and neighboring states, so I'm including the website for the local newspaper. (http://www.casperstartribune.net/) There are some pictures and words. Keep us in your prayers. More later. Lynn

Heat Index

I’m itching to take part in a conversation that gets to the core of the nature and grace debate, between what Rick calls “secondary” grace and—what?—“primary” grace? Or, a broader and better pair of antinomies might be reason and revelation. What do we know on our “own,” and what do we know only because the Bible tells us so, and what is the scale of values between one form of knowledge and the other?

Before that discussion is joined, however, I, at least, need to re-read the Karl Barth and Emil Brunner brouhaha that addressed the same issue. Barth said his famous “Nein!” to Brunner’s embrace of natural theology, and I think that the parting of their theological ways led to a breach in their friendship as well.

If I were up on the lines these two drew in the spiritual sand, I would talk about global warming today. And this is where my current prejudices would lead me, affected, I hasten to admit, for the sake of full disclosure, that the outside thermometer hit 95 today and the humidity seemed to be in the 90’s as well, making the living and breathing around here miserable. I worked for awhile in the yard, doing light chores and I sweated through my clothes immediately, before I retreated inside to write these words. And yes, I have air conditioning, but it’s set at 80 (I’d swear if I were the swearin’ type), which still feels good compared to the oven that cooks outside the door.

So, my proposed comments might just be colored by current environmental conditions. Whatever, my argument would agree that it is arrogant and presumptive of humanity to think that we, at our worst, can permanently disrupt the climate of the earth. I realize that there are huge, barely understood forces at work that bring on cycles of cooling and warming to our planet, and many of these switch on and switch off whether we want them to or not. In other words, they are bigger than us.

But I would also contend that the earth is set within a delicate network of matter and energy, between light and solid objects, between waves and particles. (I’ll spare my thousands of readers out there, for now, my take on string theory, or the theory of everything, but you’d better behave or I’ll crack open that subject, and my-oh-my, then you’ll be sorry).

Where was I? The delicate network. Its exists within a rather thin set of limits—a few degrees here and a few degrees there really make a difference. Was hurricane Katrina especially nasty because the Gulf waters were “unnaturally” warmer than they were supposed to be? Maybe, maybe not. It’s all about that Tipping Point that Malcolm Gladwell is making some major coin on these days. It is unquestionably true that humanity has kicked up a huge amount of carbon into the atmosphere over the past few centuries, and, as China and India catch up with the First World on energy consumption, a whole lot more carbon is being readied for lift off. Long and short: we’re burning too much wood, oil and coal and we’re cutting down too many trees. All that carbon blocks sunlight from making it to our planet’s surface, and, at the same time, traps what sunlight does make so that it bounces around between heaven and earth. The full effect is that we are getting darker and warmer at the same time. Again, it’s not that carbon is bad. We have to have it or we don’t live at all. It’s just that we are consuming and excreting too much of it too fast.

So, this is my untutored take on things—and I haven’t even seen Al Gore’s movie yet. We are not going to destroy the earth. The earth will take care of itself. In fact, that is precisely what it is doing right now. It’s preparing to cure itself of the human disease. It will heat up or cool down, whichever proves easier, and cast us into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, as St. Matthew might put it. Then, a score or two million years after that, there will barely be a trace of our existence, and the earth will be merrily chugging along, doing what it always has done. It will still be the home base in its part of the Milky Way for God’s great experiment of life. The earth will teem with plants and animals in many and various forms, ever adapting and evolving, and trying on new colors and playing new games. It’s just that there won’t be any of our descendants romping on its playgrounds.

Our species had its chance. We were appointed to be stewards of creation, commissioned to be God’s vice-regents, “ruling” nature in God’s image, which is to say lovingly and sacrificially and steadfastly and reverently. But we botched the job, or turned it down altogether. We hated the earth and our neighbors, robbed it and them, lived only for the moment, and cheapened the free grace of God into a commodity we could buy and sell and hoard for ourselves. So the whistle blew and we were ordered out of the pool. Which, at the time, we were all too happy to leave, because it warmed up so much it felt like bath water. Looked like it too, with that filthy ring of human scum on the sides.

If you happen to be a radical environmentalist, then you might want all this to happen. It’s better for the earth, though it isn’t much good for you me, our children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, boy cousins and girl cousins. So if you can’t stand all those people, even the sight of them, then turn up the heat. Bring the humidity up, too. Melt them glaciers. Bake those wheat fields. Swamp the eastern seaboard. We never did like Hoboken anyway. Let’s end it now, ourselves, before al Queda, the Sadr Militia, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their kind do it for us.

Oddly enough, repentance is still possible. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. If the resurrection of Jesus Christ is in any way, shape, or form true, then there is hope for us and for our progeny. We can mend our ways and rediscover love and grace. We can live humble, quiet, respectful and joyful lives as we take care of the earth and of one another. We really can.

I say that not because I’m an optimist. I ain’t. I don’t think much about the human capacity to learn from its mistakes and make progress toward the life God intended for us from the beginning. But all the more strongly I do believe in the capacity to God to love and forgive, thereby to give us another chance, and help us to repent while God relents from the judgment which we brought on ourselves.

At least that is what I would say if I understood better the terms of the debate between natural and—what—supernatural? grace? No, between natural grace and the revealed grace of God. No, between the grace of creation and the grace of redemption. No, between… Oh, forget it. A feller can’t even think straight in all this heat. Check back with me after I have a refreshing, cool draft of Barth with a Brunner chaser.

As Ever,
Dee