THE LAND OF UNLIKENESS

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2.1-2)

I recently read Philippians with my intro class, and promptly issued a quiz the following day. One of the questions went something like: “Paul exhorts the Philippians to be of the same _______.”

Many of the students answered religion, community, etc.. Many got it (MIND). But one answered “Be of the same body.”

I remain fascinated by this answer. Part of me simply believes that this is a well-catechized catholic who, while not knowing Philippians, of course, was actually thinking eucharistically. I know, I’m an idealist.

He could have been thinking politically. Be of the same body-politic. And I’m sympathetic to this reading, too. Again, idealistic, I know.

Without discussing with the student, I really have no idea what he was thinking. But for my own work, my own sacramental-politics, I love the idea of Paul exhorting the Philippians to be of the same body.

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
(4.4-5)

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First blossoms

of a reluctant spring

looking to force the issue.

I pass under at my usual speed

And breathe in their certain death

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It dreams, it fails, it laughs

–Lacan

This is the dream she had on the evening when her parents brought home, for the first time, her baby brother. A large room, blank, without any walls. Nothing grew or thrived there; instead, a pervasive sense of some organism, maleficent. She sat down, turned around, waited. She got up and started to walk. A room without any walls, she thought, I must look for my totem. She came upon a river, flowing the wrong way, and devoid of fish. She passed it. She came upon a mountain. It had a bottom, but no top. Up she went. After lunch, she talked with the man who, ostensibly, was responsible for clearing up malfunctions. They wasted no time in getting down to the substance of her visit: the lack of any objects that could possibly function as totems, fetishes, charms, what have you. “We’re working on that,” he enunciated: “there has been a downturn in generativity which should have coalesced towards the end of the first quarter; nevertheless, the sequence has been realigned according to shifts in lunar availability.” She looked askance. “What about earlier models?” “Out of the question” he replied. She resisted a mighty impulse to chuck a stone. Praying for deliverance, she cleared her throat, declared her thirst, and asked to borrow a quarter. This she pocketed and failed to remember upon waking.

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