Handy trick

My roommates and several other people I know memorize Scripture by writing verses on cards or slips of paper and sticking them where they will be frequently seen.

I have begun to set the appropriate passage as my browser's home page.

Because gosh darn it, as often as I want to quote I Corinthians 1:18-29, I ought to memorize it.

Wisdom and foolishness

A line from Pride and Prejudice is ringing in my head: "We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room..."

I've always loved and identified with Elizabeth. Not that, you know, my infrequent blogging has ANYTHING to do with a disposition disinclined to discourse with a disinterested audience. Perhaps I need to set myself a schedule to offset the genius impulse. And moving on to tonight's topic, I apologize for its incoherence; I'm running on far too little sleep. But where would I be if I posted only when I wished to say something which will amaze teh interwebs? (Yes, Mom, that "teh" is intentional. Remind me to explain net slang sometime.)

20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

-I Corinthians 1:20-25, NIV

I'm very fond of this passage of Corinthians - from around 1:10 till the end of chapter 2. I Cor 1:25-28 or so is quoted in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time, and is possibly my favorite part of that whole book. (One of these days I'll figure out whether the psalms in that book are Scripture or her originals.) When I discovered the source, I kept returning there. I liked to read and reread it; it's about how God chooses flawed instruments to reveal His glory. I still love that quote. I have not quoted it above. Because the part I quoted seems more relevant tonight.

Last week I had the privilege of watching Dr. Francis Collins, head of the now-completed Human Genome Project, give a lecture on science and faith (huzzah for people in favor of ending a fruitless, misinterpreted conflict!). Shortly thereafter, my mother lent me What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza, an interesting book that seems interested in being the Mere Christianity for the scientific mind. Today, a coworker brought up a scenario from his philosophy class challenging the right of Christ to forgive sins. All in all, the ideas wrapped up in the intellectual defense of Christianity are front and center in my mind.

Maybe the reason I like this section of Corinthians - that 1:10 or so through around the end of chapter 2 - is that it contains one of the rare mentions of intelligence. "The intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate", in 1:19 - how encouraging! It seems that intellect is an ultimately insufficient means of understanding God. "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age?" Frankly, spread across the board. It seems one can divine truth neither by opposing nor by agreeing with the psychologist, the professor, the scientist. No, one must abandon all hope of reaching true wisdom or power without the aid of God.

It's interesting to me the way people read this sort of thing - the Biblical warnings about Christ appearing foolish to the world, etc. I suspect the atheist would simply say Christianity foolish, a historical misunderstanding ranging from laughable to lamentable. Many Christians seem to react by smugly believing that we'll show them someday! They laugh now, but we'll get the last laugh! They're the fools!

I don't like either reaction. I don't think God's wisdom is foolishness only to the world. I think that as long as we are in the world, even we who say we follow God's wisdom will find it foolish. I also think a lot of foolishness is justified by claiming to be God's wisdom. Unfortunately, while even the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, the foolishness of men is not. To react to this passage in any way other than with profound humility is to become the philosopher of this age with all the answers. (I would also love to reiterate the parallels I see between the Jewish/Greek conflict in the early Church and the conservative/liberal conflict in the modern Church, but that's another topic and I'm already wandering a fair bit.)

All this to say I like a reminder that being a fool for Christ is more than accepting humiliation - it's accepting humility.

I mentioned Mere Christianity above. Lewis is one of the greatest apologists for the Christian faith since Augustine. His strong intellectual arguments are popular to repeat in Christian circles. Unfortunately, they (like all arguments with subjects as all-encompassing as Life, the Universe and Everything) are flawed and fallible. Lewis himself was stricken by a loss in a debate on the subject later in his career. I wish I knew the details or the line of the arguments presented! I wonder sometimes if this blow shook his faith in any way, a faith closely tied with his faith in logic ("why don't they teach logic in these schools!"). I like to imagine that he went through a period of wrestling with God and questioning his faith in the intangible. I also like to imagine that this led to his creating my favorite defense of Christianity:

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as ever I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

Puddleglum, The Silver Chair*

It is a divine foolishness, this search for Overland. And now that I'm done quoting more than Mrs. Who in A Wrinkle in Time, I'm going to bed.

*I suspected I wouldn't have to type this out for myself, that I'd find a quote by googling "Puddleglum four babies" (on the grounds that "four babies" is a rather unique part of the quote). I am happy to report that this worked beautifully. Except for the sloppy transcription on the first couple sites I tried. Linking turned out to be impractical.

Shamelessly literary ramblings

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.
by John Donne

I.
WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

II.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

III.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;
And having done that, Thou hast done ;
I have no more.

I have a deep and abiding love for John Donne which will probably crop up repeatedly if I keep writing here. An intellectual trying to grasp incomprehensible truths, a pious man with a positive fascination with sex, a believer who often felt no faith whatsoever - the contradictions are delightfully puzzling and familiar. After four years of study and seven years of love, I forget how incomprehensible his language can be for modern readers.

Be glad I'm not posting an analysis of Satire #3 or Sonnet 14: "Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God;" that I as yet but seek to study this one song of Donne's.

Anyway, this poem can be paraphrased thus: "God, will you forgive me for being a sinful human? Will you forgive me for sinning perpetually? Will you forgive me for getting others to sin? Will you forgive me for falling into that sin I thought I never would fall into? Hey, there's more I can list! Will you forgive my doubts, too? If you'll swear that it's all good, we're good."

But I love the refrain, because it's part of Donne's perpetual punning. Ordinarily I loathe punning with the fire of a thousand suns, but Donne's so dang good at it. "When thou hast done, thou hast not Donne, for I have more."

It's speculated, however, that there's another pun in that poem. See, his beloved wife's maiden name was More. "When thou hast done, thou hast not Donne; for I have More." The last line of the poem is usually rendered "I fear no more", but I prefer this obscure alternate version - "I have no more" - because I suspect it's what was on Donne's mind. His wife died a few years before this poem was written, and it broke his heart and almost killed him. "And having done that, thou hast Donne; I have no More."

Long, vaguely comprehensible rambling? Yes. But it comes down to this: this poem is, for me, a potent reminder of all the things I cling to before God. "I have More." This is the same guy who shamelessly wrote "For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love..." and is famous for his mingling of the sacred and the sexual. It must have been very, very hard for him to remember God with his wife, and harder still to face Him having lost his wife. How many good things do I put before God? Shamelessly? Nakedly? Will he forgive the sin through which I run, and do run still, which I ought to deplore? And when will I learn to deplore it? (Donne was also the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral; I suppose he was probably quicker on the deploring front than I.)

A fancy way of saying I've been prioritizing terribly lately. I've got to get on that tomorrow.

An explanation of the shiny new tags

I'm going through and tagging my entries, and thought I'd explain a little something.

Most of the tags are intuitive and sensible. "Briars" and "thorns", though, are not, and there is a distinction between the two.

"Briars" are impersonal or inhuman forces which cause anything from headaches to tragedy.

"Thorns" are personal, human forces which do the same.

And it may be noted that some of my "briars" are human, and some of my "thorns" are indistinguishable from those briars. Since I like neat categories, I thought I'd apologize up front for this shamelessly subjective distinction between "forces comprising humans which achieve inhuman immutability" and "people who ought to be able to behave better, darnit".

And now that I have thoroughly lost everyone, time for the revived blog to go! Expect more ranting about the education system in the new blog, by the way. I'm learning all kinds of interesting things about educational theory.

A New Leaf

I confess, I've forgotten about this thing. But as my sister starts a new blog, I figure it's only fair to join her in posting *waves to her sis over at Introspect*. If you've been here before, you may notice a few changes to my profile. Since the original Kir is being open about her identity, and since I don't see hoards of Internet stalkers beating down my door, I have opened up and admitted my first name. Also, I've updated my profile a bit, since in the past year I've gotten a little direction in my life.

Speaking of my sister, I wish to apologize for deleting your comment in a fit of "you revealed my secret identity!" panic prior to deciding on these changes. I'm keeping it in my email though, so if you want me to repost it I can do so verbatim.