Comments on: Aphrodite and the BVM http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/ Catholic Anglican Reflections on Theology and Culture Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:17:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: An Anglican Essentials List? The beginnings of a Catholic Anglican Manifesto at The Land of Unlikeness http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-680 An Anglican Essentials List? The beginnings of a Catholic Anglican Manifesto at The Land of Unlikeness Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-680 [...] in a recent manifesto wrote here: Catholic Anglicanism is the Christendom of the imagination. It’s a utopian project. [...] [...] in a recent manifesto wrote here: Catholic Anglicanism is the Christendom of the imagination. It’s a utopian project. [...]

]]> By: Janet Leslie Blumberg http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-663 Janet Leslie Blumberg Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:48:02 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-663 Well...okay...I think I got that title just a little bit wrong. (Take my advice, listen to me carefully, and don't get old, okay....) Well…okay…I think I got that title just a little bit wrong. (Take my advice, listen to me carefully, and don’t get old, okay….)

]]> By: Janet Leslie Blumberg http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-662 Janet Leslie Blumberg Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:45:14 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-662 Speaking on scrabbling about in Harry Potter books, have you seen the beautiful photos of Rowling's The Book of Bartle the Bede. Here they are on Amazon. Shades of Tolkien here, artist and writer of "romance" or "fairie stories." http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_30860_10031940_fe_exp_2/?docId=1000179911 Speaking on scrabbling about in Harry Potter books, have you seen the beautiful photos of Rowling’s The Book of Bartle the Bede. Here they are on Amazon. Shades of Tolkien here, artist and writer of “romance” or “fairie stories.”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_30860_10031940_fe_exp_2/?docId=1000179911

]]> By: Janet Leslie Blumberg http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-656 Janet Leslie Blumberg Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:03:57 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-656 Yes. It's like thinking about Socrates as Plato represents him, giving as his reason for staying in Athens and taking the hemlock (instead of fleeing as was customary and expected) a very simple reason. He chose, he said, to obey the laws of his native city, because she had given him his birth and nurture. The laws of his native city were not the highest laws -- Socrates knew that. (As Ransom did, when he chose to follow the humble natural law of humankindness and return to Thulcandra....) And Socrates had been accused and condemned of flouting what his city held most sacred, by his very way of life. But like the Zen master, what matters, what is so unanswerable, is that he was able to "know" with his whole being that such a simple law and his paradoxical following of it was what fitted the occasion -- and said everything that would ever need to be said.... Like the choice of Jesus, to choose the literal act that will say everything and that can never be translated adequately enough to begin to exhaust its polyvalence. Or Aristotle on the virtues. They cannot be given a concrete identity, he points out -- they "can have no law" -- because to find the mean(s) means to deviate from the conventional mean(s) in response to the difference of every occasion.... This is itself a law, for which there can be no law; it abolishes the law by genuinely fulfilling it. As jadr says, the gift is to (be able to) notice the difference. I'm not sure this knowing can come to anyone except by being given and having been capable of receiving genuine good beforehand. Without that, the only reality is the evil twin. And what makes good and evil "so very much alike," as Chesterton described them, is that the good lives and finds its path only by venturing into the depths of knowing just how close to evil it is always in danger of being and going there anyway. Yes.
It’s like thinking about Socrates as Plato represents him, giving as his reason for staying in Athens and taking the hemlock (instead of fleeing as was customary and expected) a very simple reason. He chose, he said, to obey the laws of his native city, because she had given him his birth and nurture.
The laws of his native city were not the highest laws — Socrates knew that. (As Ransom did, when he chose to follow the humble natural law of humankindness and return to Thulcandra….) And Socrates had been accused and condemned of flouting what his city held most sacred, by his very way of life. But like the Zen master, what matters, what is so unanswerable, is that he was able to “know” with his whole being that such a simple law and his paradoxical following of it was what fitted the occasion — and said everything that would ever need to be said…. Like the choice of Jesus, to choose the literal act that will say everything and that can never be translated adequately enough to begin to exhaust its polyvalence.
Or Aristotle on the virtues. They cannot be given a concrete identity, he points out — they “can have no law” — because to find the mean(s) means to deviate from the conventional mean(s) in response to the difference of every occasion….
This is itself a law, for which there can be no law; it abolishes the law by genuinely fulfilling it. As jadr says, the gift is to (be able to) notice the difference. I’m not sure this knowing can come to anyone except by being given and having been capable of receiving genuine good beforehand. Without that, the only reality is the evil twin. And what makes good and evil “so very much alike,” as Chesterton described them, is that the good lives and finds its path only by venturing into the depths of knowing just how close to evil it is always in danger of being and going there anyway.

]]> By: JADR http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-655 JADR Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:41:22 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-655 The kind of church visible I was rejecting is obviously a stereotype. Of course I'm talking about another kind of visibility, the one that draws me to voodoo and candomble and the other non-mythical or non-imperial paganism (shamanistic traditions, animist traditions with primarily folk or legendary metaphysics that does not reify into a mythology that entrenches some kind of manichean or gnostic cosmos, but functions as a kind of rumor of deliverances and salvations and powers and pleasures). This is teh visibility of the frieze on Magdalene's church AND the fashion boutiques AND the songs on the hill AND the night club beats . . . it's a visibility that can't be specified but can always strangely be located. This is indeed a new flesh for the West even though it is an old flesh, old as adam cadmon, for humanity. Call it 'virtual' or 'spiritual,' an older and better word for it, but it is a body and it is visible, to vision. My priest's line about relationships was heuristic, not metaphysical, which I'm sure Dan in his smartness realizes. But I like Dan's idea that we should not subsume sex under relationships in order to sanctify it, but go deeper into sex as sex to realize the gift it can be . . . or maybe there is a metaxu connecting sex and relationships in a polyphony of ways . . . Janet's mention of the double is extremely important. Voodoo was used both for and against the people of Haiti. White and black magic often follow identical procedures. Aron's post on the Joker and Batman is a great image of this theme which persists in so much American cinema. It's almost as if American cinema is so manichean, so gnostic, from Westerns to Horror to Sci-fi, that it is the perfect way to see EXACTLY what the truth almost is. It is in that way a true falsehood, rather than simply a false truth. But back to Janet. The ultimate indiscernability of erosagape and sheer manipulation for its own sake may be the primary effect of the fall, at least on the mind, because that is the point at which we become attracted to something that seems to be God but is not. In her -ike posts Janet has articulated very well the Renaissance notion that all our disciplines added together simply prepare us for a blind moment in which everything is at risk in our decisions, and yet by grace this darkened moment can be exited not through arbitrarily willing the good (always idolatrous, since every vision of the good from here is incomplete--and which is why Gordon cannot stand as the hero in Batman, because as Derrida taught every concrete identity, especially that of people who 'simply' do the right thing is built on a series of exclusions that demonizes the other), but by a mysterious interconnectedness of human action and natural reaction that develops a transcendent series of redemption, one whose recognition is maybe the greatest gift of all. The kind of church visible I was rejecting is obviously a stereotype. Of course I’m talking about another kind of visibility, the one that draws me to voodoo and candomble and the other non-mythical or non-imperial paganism (shamanistic traditions, animist traditions with primarily folk or legendary metaphysics that does not reify into a mythology that entrenches some kind of manichean or gnostic cosmos, but functions as a kind of rumor of deliverances and salvations and powers and pleasures). This is teh visibility of the frieze on Magdalene’s church AND the fashion boutiques AND the songs on the hill AND the night club beats . . . it’s a visibility that can’t be specified but can always strangely be located. This is indeed a new flesh for the West even though it is an old flesh, old as adam cadmon, for humanity. Call it ‘virtual’ or ‘spiritual,’ an older and better word for it, but it is a body and it is visible, to vision.

My priest’s line about relationships was heuristic, not metaphysical, which I’m sure Dan in his smartness realizes. But I like Dan’s idea that we should not subsume sex under relationships in order to sanctify it, but go deeper into sex as sex to realize the gift it can be . . . or maybe there is a metaxu connecting sex and relationships in a polyphony of ways . . .

Janet’s mention of the double is extremely important. Voodoo was used both for and against the people of Haiti. White and black magic often follow identical procedures. Aron’s post on the Joker and Batman is a great image of this theme which persists in so much American cinema. It’s almost as if American cinema is so manichean, so gnostic, from Westerns to Horror to Sci-fi, that it is the perfect way to see EXACTLY what the truth almost is. It is in that way a true falsehood, rather than simply a false truth.

But back to Janet. The ultimate indiscernability of erosagape and sheer manipulation for its own sake may be the primary effect of the fall, at least on the mind, because that is the point at which we become attracted to something that seems to be God but is not. In her -ike posts Janet has articulated very well the Renaissance notion that all our disciplines added together simply prepare us for a blind moment in which everything is at risk in our decisions, and yet by grace this darkened moment can be exited not through arbitrarily willing the good (always idolatrous, since every vision of the good from here is incomplete–and which is why Gordon cannot stand as the hero in Batman, because as Derrida taught every concrete identity, especially that of people who ‘simply’ do the right thing is built on a series of exclusions that demonizes the other), but by a mysterious interconnectedness of human action and natural reaction that develops a transcendent series of redemption, one whose recognition is maybe the greatest gift of all.

]]> By: Matt’s Bookosphere 7/23/08 « Enter the Octopus http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-654 Matt’s Bookosphere 7/23/08 « Enter the Octopus Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:26:01 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-654 [...] “The future is voodoo. It’s an altar to a feral Christ composed of toxic waste, computer... [...] [...] “The future is voodoo. It’s an altar to a feral Christ composed of toxic waste, computer… [...]

]]> By: A.D. http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-653 A.D. Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:22:38 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-653 Dan is too smart Dan is too smart

]]> By: DWM http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-652 DWM Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:12:16 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-652 "A proposal: any form of sex can only be judged by the kinds of relationships it produces. " On one level, and as your quote of the priest on sex as about relationships, this works.. I agree. But on another, don't we risk just making sex symbolic of the supposedly deeper aspect - the relational? How do you feel about dichotomizing sex and relationships first in order to the justify or explain the sex by the kind of relationship it produces. Isn't there something primal, primordial about sex that can't be, shouldn't be justified by the relationship? And then also isn't there something holistic about it all that we can in the same moment say the sex and the relationship are one? “A proposal: any form of sex can only be judged by the kinds of relationships it produces. ”

On one level, and as your quote of the priest on sex as about relationships, this works.. I agree. But on another, don’t we risk just making sex symbolic of the supposedly deeper aspect – the relational? How do you feel about dichotomizing sex and relationships first in order to the justify or explain the sex by the kind of relationship it produces.

Isn’t there something primal, primordial about sex that can’t be, shouldn’t be justified by the relationship? And then also isn’t there something holistic about it all that we can in the same moment say the sex and the relationship are one?

]]> By: Janet Leslie Blumberg http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-651 Janet Leslie Blumberg Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:07:37 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-651 This church invisible yet seen by God -- and this is the only place where I disagree with jadr in this paean of praise and joy -- has been. It has always been. But that's what grace is, a miracle. For anyone who wonders, though, what the above does not say is that the eroticagape vision has its evil twin; the difference between them looks like it is nothing yet is everything. The vision builds up and rejoices: it does not hurt and destroy in all God's holy mountain.... In it the lion and the lamb lay down together and the serpent is no danger to the child. This church invisible yet seen by God — and this is the only place where I disagree with jadr in this paean of praise and joy — has been. It has always been. But that’s what grace is, a miracle.

For anyone who wonders, though, what the above does not say is that the eroticagape vision has its evil twin; the difference between them looks like it is nothing yet is everything. The vision builds up and rejoices: it does not hurt and destroy in all God’s holy mountain…. In it the lion and the lamb lay down together and the serpent is no danger to the child.

]]> By: A.D. http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/comment-page-1/#comment-650 A.D. Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:47:09 +0000 http://www.thelandofunlikeness.com/2008/07/22/aphrodite-and-the-bvm/#comment-650 Invisible, yes, but visible too, at the junctures where flesh meets curving flesh, and the visible sinks into darkness. That is where Auden and Herbert lived, where Anglican theology is only poetry. Where flesh meets flesh a third is born, New Flesh. Invisible, yes, but visible too, at the junctures where flesh meets curving flesh, and the visible sinks into darkness. That is where Auden and Herbert lived, where Anglican theology is only poetry. Where flesh meets flesh a third is born, New Flesh.

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