Bach: Violin Concerto No.2 in E Adagio - Anne-Sophie Mutter

Another of my favorite pieces, performed by my second-favorite violinist. The weather today made me think of it.

Fatherhood, Revisited

I got this from my daughter last night.

"You know, when I was pregnant I always prayed that I could show them the magic in the world that you showed me. No one in the world has hope anymore. They criticize people who hope for anything better. But you've always hoped.
You've been so important in my life.. I know you don't think I listen to you, but I do. I remember everything you've told me. Like when mom left us at the restaurant and we walked home holding hands. Or when you told me every time you sleep with someone you lose a piece of your soul. I remember the important stuff you say. Or when you stop to move a kitty out of the road.
I always try to help people because I always saw you doing it. I think about it all the time. Just yesterday I thought about how you bought a little girl a teddy bear on valentine's day because her mom couldn't afford it, when we were in line behind them getting candy.
I wouldn't know how to be kind without you. But you made a difference. You made me, you passed on how you care. All I hope is that the girls love me the way I love you."

I've long felt that I failed this daughter in particular. She was the youngest, and thus the most affected by the divorce. But also, she and I lived alone for a long time, during the time when I was at my lowest, and I was afraid my depression and darkness had rubbed off on her. But she told me, later in this same conversation, that it had started with her long before she had come to live with me, when she was with her mother initially after the divorce (the other three were with me). And more importantly, that it's gone now.

That feels like a huge burden of guilt is gone, and an even bigger one of concern. Another prayer answered. Thank you.

Giovanni Paolo Cima: Sonata for Violin and Cello

I found it! Here's the version I was talking about--see what you think of the difference. Maybe it's just that it's in a lower key, or the quality of the recording production.

*****

I heard a beautiful recording of this by Apollo's Fire on my pandora this morning, but couldn't find that one to share with you. This is pretty darn good, although there was something I liked better in the violin in the Apollo's Fire version. I don't know if it would be accurate to say it was "more baroque", but it was more--I don't have a word for the quality I'm looking for. Wrenching? Visceral?

I saw a picture of you. I didn't mean to: I try to avoid that kind of thing. But you came up as a suggestion on google+ when I went on there to add my own pictures, and I couldn't resist looking when I saw it.

How is is possible that you're even more beautiful than before?

My least favorite thing in the world is kissing fat baby cheeks on the warm side after they wake up from a nap. Blech.

They've got lambies on their jammies.

More from the Mountain

I'm happiest when I'm outside; just wish I could take my library with me. I suppose I'm going to have to resign myself to getting a kindle and learning to read books that way.

Tried to get a shot of what looks like caves, but you can't see them that well. I didn't take the time to explore them. Maybe another time.

I never noticed before, you can see in these pictures where my nose was broken. Maybe it's visible now because of the weight loss.

Guess where I am

Schubert - Piano Sonata No. 20 in A Major, D959: IV. Rondo: Allegretto

So here's a hell of a thing: I saw God.

It was only a brief moment. I don't know, as Paul says, whether I was in the body or out of the body. But I saw a huge ball of blue-white light--living light, for lack of a better word. The light was in motion within itself--sort of like pearlescing, but that's inadequate. And I felt Holy Fear. It was overwhelming, but it was a good fear, if that makes any sense: a consciousness of his power, majesty, glory, and holiness. And that was it. Just a glimpse.

But I feel different. I don't mean feel differently, as in about "things". I mean I feel different, in myself. Like I am different.

Which type of person are you?

So this is the question--the thing that this is all about, for me. It's not just that I'm in love with some girl, and can't get over it. Extraordinary as she is, I could...if I thought I should. I've done it before. It would be hard, but it would be so much easier than this. 

So, if the thing had happened, and I'd told her my feelings, and she'd rejected them, and I'd gone and prayed about it, and God had said "Get over her. Move on." Then I would have. Done deal. Or even if he'd said nothing at all, then I'd have assumed that I'd just been barking up the wrong tree, and gotten over it, and moved on. In fact, that was my initial conclusion. I burned my poetry, deleted her contact information, un-followed her blog, quit the church and made plans to move away. I'd have been a mess for six months, maybe a year, but it would have passed. Like I said, I've been through it before, when it was just feelings. You get over it.

But that's not what happened. The thing happened, and I ran away, and I prayed. And God said, "Go back. Be a man. Fight for her. Be her friend. Wait." So I tried that, and it got worse still. So I prayed some more...and got the same answer. Like anyone probably would, I began to question myself, God, and whether I was crazy, delusional, or just plain wrong. So I began a quest, a search for the nature of God's relationship to us, how his guidance works. I read everything I could find on the subject of God's guidance, starting, of course, with the Bible, but eventually encompassing everything from medieval Catholic mystics to contemporary charismatics. I was open to the possibility that I was mistaken; that God doesn't speak to us and lead us in that way. I had lived a significant portion of my adult life that way, believing that he was essentially some distant and detached deistic prime mover: the years when I'd turned away from him--basically my thirties. So I honestly and humbly asked him to show me which was the truth. And the thing is, he did. I prayed and he answered.

But not just once. I kept at it. I began practicing the spiritual disciplines, for the purpose of seeking his face so that I could find the truth. Fasting, meditation, study, many different forms of prayer, solitude, service to others, abstinence from all sorts of pleasures, entertainments, and distractions, quietness, frequent taking of the sacraments...not with the idea of begging God to give me what I wanted, but in order to find the truth about how he interacts with us, to discern his will for me in this matter, and to invoke his aid in being obedient to that will. I prayed, over and over and over and over again, "Lord, I offer up to you my feelings for her as a sacrifice: if I am wrong, then please show me that I am wrong, and help me to get over it. I only want to love her if it is your will that I love her. I only ask you to bring us together if it is your will for us to be together, and if I am what would be the absolute best for her." 

Still, I got the same answer, regarding her. But I began receiving other answers, regarding my quest to understand whether it was indeed him whom I was following. As I sought him in all the ways I've mentioned, he began speaking to me more and more clearly and more and more frequently, in a number of different ways. I've chronicled a few of these experiences here, but there were many more. Each time, I would pray even more afterward, invoking his name in order to reject any deceit from--you know, the other side, as well as asking him to free me from any self-deception or delusion. I'm not a flighty, touchy-feely, credulous person. I'm not ruled by my emotions. I'm not insane (my mother had me tested). I am logical, analytical, methodical, rational, and very cautious about what I accept and believe. And I am also intentionally humble about it and willing to be wrong. Nor am I arrogantly independent about it: I consulted other people extensively. I absolutely will not allow other people to dictate to me what I should think--but I will ask for and soberly consider their opinions.

What I got from 99% of those other people, though, was a very vague and shallow understanding of "how it works" regarding God's leading (and even worse tripe about "how it works" regarding love). The way most Christians operate, is by just sort of stumbling through their lives, assuming that whatever happens is God's will. In other words, the only way they know to try and discern his leading is by observing circumstance ("When God closes a door, he'll open a window") and making educated guesswork. Well, I should qualify: that's what I got from American Christians. It's totally different in places like India and Africa where, incidentally, those Christians see miracles and divine intervention all the time. We're blinded by our "enlightened" rationalism, and all the systems of theology and religion which grew out of it. Oh, and I also got a lot of even more shallow patronizing dismissiveness. People would bring it up, ask me about it, listen to two words, then say, "Well, you know, we often mistake our own desires for God's voice." Really? You don't say. That would be fine, in the context of a serious conversation with someone who had actually taken the time to hear what I was saying. But it always came out of some kind of box of prefabricated answers. And I always got the impression that they'd come to that conclusion before they'd even talked to me about it at all. You know, heard a rumor or something, then talked to their husband or wife about it, decided they knew what was going on, then that was that. I love it when people know better than I do what's going on in my own heart. Saves me the trouble of having to think for myself.

Anyway, what it came down to was this: everything I tried for, and everything I learned about, discerning God's will confirmed, frequently supernaturally and miraculously, that I was indeed hearing from him. And every time I heard from him on the subject of this girl and my love for her, the message was that I should love her, wait for her, lay my life down for her. The only thing opposed to that, of all the methods of discerning God's will, was circumstance. Obviously. But circumstance alone is not enough, when there is such clear leading to the contrary. Sometimes we have to walk by faith and not by sight. If observation and circumstance, and what seems possible and reasonable, were the sole methods by which God's people were to live, then Noah would never have built the ark, Abraham would never have left his country or offered his son in sacrifice, David would never have faced Goliath, Elijah would never have stood against Jezebel or the prophets of Ba'al, Joseph would never have married Mary, Peter would never have stepped out of the boat...you get the picture.

But still, I struggle with it--whether it's all in my head. An objective judgment based on all that has happened says no, but that doesn't stop the fears from attacking me when I'm lying awake at night. And that's what all the back and forth is about: my carnal mind--my flesh, my human nature, the part of me that's steeped in the wisdom of the world, in the tendency to believe only what is empirically verifiable--it won't give up, and it's quite powerful (and aided by Screwtape and his friends). And it's when they have the upper hand, and I contemplate that all this relationship with God, which goes back, in its roots, to my early childhood, is a big chimaera, that I teeter on the edge of ultimate despair. I'd be ok with being wrong about her--if I could clearly discern that it was God leading me in a different direction. I could live with never being restored to my friends, or my life as it was before all this started. I could get over her, and the whole thing, eventually. What I can't face is the possibility that I'm going to be set adrift in a universe of cold, empty darkness without Him. In other words, I'm terrified that I'm going to be left with the conclusion that I'm living in a George R.R. Martin universe rather than a J.R.R. Tolkien one.

You see, it's not just her that I love: it's Christ in her. It's not just her beauty that captivates me, it's his beauty shining through hers. I love her because I am convinced that I am supposed to love her. That sounds like it's calculated and disinterested, but it's not: I also love her because I love her. But I could and would put that aside, if it wasn't for the conviction that I should and must love her. If you think that I'm just hanging on to my own desires, trying to get my own way, you are grievously mistaken. The cost to me to persist in following what I believe is God's will, while everyone and everything, even my own mind, has been against me, has been enormous. Almost more than I can bear. If I were acting in self-interest, the thing for me to do would have been to cut my losses and move on long ago. It's only that I am putting my trust in him. Things so stand with me that to give up on her would be to give up on him. I know it doesn't seem like it makes any sense. I know that, to human eyes, it seems as if she's just some girl who doesn't want anything to do with me, and just plain doesn't care. But, to the absolute best of my ability to hear God's voice and see through his eyes, I see something different. 

Not moving...for now

The listing on my house has expired, and it hasn't sold. So I'm not going anywhere, for the time being.

A bit of a weird story, really: The first month or so, I got lots of interest; people looking several times a week. But remember the conditional prayer with which I put it up for sale? The deal I made with God that, if he wanted me to move away, he would send me a seller?

Wait, back up. Even before I listed it, I had been debating whether going back to school was the right move, but I could never get a clear answer. Well, I did get a clear answer several times, but the answer I always got was that it was up to me. I had a dream, for instance: the same dream in two or three different forms, in which I was clearly offered a choice. I don't believe that every dream I have is a message from God, but some clearly are, as evidenced by the frequency with which predictions about the future come true. Have your doubts? Are you one of those Christians who believes all God's word is entirely contained in the Bible, and the Bible is the only way God speaks to us? Well, here's what the Bible says about dreams:

"For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction" -- Job 33:15

That's just one example. Here's a link to a few more verses about dreams. In the Bible, it's just assumed that when someone has a significant dream, that it's a message from God. Jacob, Joseph, Daniel, Joseph Mary's husband, Paul...even non-believers: Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Claudia. I'm not here to lay forth a complete argument for the biblical view of dreams, or of God's leading in general. I'll just say that I often wonder at how little those who say that all that is needed for our lives is found in the Bible and only in the Bible actually know about what the Bible says. Or how much of it they choose to ignore because it doesn't fit the preconceived system of theology they came to the Bible with.

Anyway, as I've told you before, I've had dreams that have later come true all my life. Clear, vivid, specific dreams, both literal and figurative, such as the one which predicted a death of someone close to me shortly before my grandson died. But I don't rely on that alone to try and discern what God is saying to me. I corroborate it with the teaching of the Bible, first of all, as well as the historical doctrines and dogmas of the Church. I further seek God through prayer, listening for the still, small voice; His active rhema word while reading the Bible (you know, those times when a verse just lights up and jumps off the page straight into your heart); external signs and circumstances; and other activities of the Holy Spirit, as well as consulting with other people who I know have the kind of relationship with God in which they hear his voice. And even when I've received multiple confirmations across some or all of those methods, I still maintain an attitude of fallibility: not trying to doubt God, but doubting myself; that I could be either mistaken or deceived. However, when the evidence continues to accumulate, over a long period of time, after I've sought him through prayer, fasting, abstinence, solitude, study, etc., and I'm continually getting the same answer, there comes a point when I have to just go with it, in faith, and take the chance that I'm wrong: I can only do the best I can do, and being wrong while stepping out in faith is, I believe, morally preferable to missing God's will due to unbelief and cowardice.

So like I said, I had been getting the message that I had to make a choice about my future path: that is, about whether to go back to school or not. But I couldn't make up my mind. I kept vacillating back and forth...well, you know, you've read it all.

Back to the house sale thing: I was having a lot of interest early on, and one day, an agent called and scheduled a second viewing for someone who'd been by the day before. Which means they're seriously interested. As soon as I hung up the phone, I prayed. I prayed that, if it was God's specific will for me to go back to school like I'd planned, that the house would sell. But that, if it was not; that is, if he was indeed leaving it up to me, that my choice was to stay here, and fulfill my calling to serve him through teaching by writing books and perhaps one day going on speaking engagements. There was more to it, some additional conditions, but I won't go into it now. Just basically that if my life were going to continue as it is now, that it was DEFINITELY NOT my choice to stay here. So, within an hour after I'd said that prayer, the agent called back and said they'd changed their minds, didn't want to see it again, and were buying another house they'd looked at. And immediately after that, the viewings dropped off dramatically: fewer total in the four or five months since then than in the first two weeks.

Also, a couple of nights after, I had another dream: I was getting ready to board a huge ship. Then a voice announced "Plan changed, trip cancelled", and I saw my ticket being torn in half. Like I said, I don't assume every dream is from God. But I've learned that the ones that are have certain characteristics: 1) I wake immediately, with the dream clear, fresh, and vivid in my mind. 2) the dream, although symbolic and metaphorical, is clear, logical, and makes sense: psychological dreams are disjointed, illogical, and weird. 3) dreams from God are usually vivid, with bright color and distinct images. 4) very often, there is a Voice in the dream, which either announces something or explains what I'm seeing (you'll see this in Biblical accounts of dreams and visions too).

So the point is, I'm not moving. For now. In those times when I'm full of faith, I believe that I'm on the right track, and God's will is coalescing all around me, to bring me to an appointed end. But of course, I have those other times. I suppose, at some point, if nothing ever changes, that I'm going to give up and just assume that everything I believe or think I know is mistaken. I'll never stop believing in him. But I may lose my belief that I know him like I think I do. I really don't know what I would do if I reached that point. I might put the house on the market at a lower price to make sure it sells quickly, then do the road trip thing I talked about before. Or, to be totally honest, if I lose the only thing I've got left; that is, my relationship with the Lord...well, never mind--let's leave that for now, and keep the road trip thing in mind.

Either way, it's going to be a long, hard, dark, cold, lonely winter. Especially the time between Thanksgiving and Twelfth Night. I won't be observing any holidays; just trying to survive them.

I'm sick of hearing myself talk. Sick of myself altogether, to be honest. Sometimes I feel like doing a Kurt Cobain just so I don't have to look at my own stupid face anymore. I keep resolving to not write on here anymore. But then I reach a point where I've got to have some release of pressure, and end up coming back to it.

Final thoughts on Jane Eyre

"It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus--and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me . . . But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned--my life dark, lonely, hopeless--my soul athirst and forbidden to drink--my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go--embrace me."

Yes. Exactly.

Here's another of my favorite passages:

"My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine."

I'm pleased that it ended exactly as I wanted. Funny, that the book should close with the same passage of scripture I've got on my profile line. (The Greek text to the right there》》)

"There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester . . . that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was after her continually. They used to watch him--servants will, you know, ma'am--and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, almost like a child. . . Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched."

"The governess had run away two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew savage--quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. . . He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit in the Hall."

 -- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

There, you see, I am not all so odd after all. Just born out of my time.

Perhaps it is that men don't really know how to love properly until they're full-grown, around forty or so. I'll tell you one thing I've often thought: if I am right, and I am meant to love you, then I believe that one of the reasons is that a younger man would not have the ability to appreciate you fully, as you deserve. Your beauty and charm are so complex; so rich and multi-layered, that it would be wasted on a boy. Like giving a child a cabernet to drink: he prefers kool-aid.

More about Jane

I'm at the part where St. John has proposed marriage to Jane, and I am utterly appalled. I thought Mr. Brocklehurst was the perfect example of the worst kind of false Christian, but he is just stupid and bad in a low sort of way. St. John is diabolical: a Pharisee of the highest order. Externally, a religiously and ethically perfect man, but completely devoid of the Love of Christ (or any other kind of love, for that matter), and guilty of an astounding degree of the absolute worst sin there is: spiritual pride. Of course, Jane is too much of a real Christian to see it: she judges him mercifully, with the charity and humility which marks her as the true saint. Probably the best use of the "unreliable narrator" literary device I've ever seen: better even than Huckleberry Finn's struggle between the false morality which has been implanted in him by bad religion and the true morality which God has placed in his heart.

I shudder at the way he invokes "the will of God" to try and force her into acquiescence: equating his own will to God's, in effect. The sheer arrogance is unbelievable. It would be one thing to say to her, "I believe that I have discerned that this is God's will for us: will you consider and pray about it?" But it is something else entirely, what he does. Worse than Rochester's selfish deception. Worse than Farmer Boldwood's use of guilt. The little smug, self-righteous comments and notes: "I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is weak." If I were standing near him in real life, I would step back to avoid the lighting bolt.

I thought at one point, when Jane was accusing herself of idolatry regarding Rochester, that the story was going to take a turn to that very heartless Calvinism which St. John represents: that Jane was going to decide that all passion was evil, and marry him, "recognizing" that "real Christian love" was that detached, rational, cold benevolence which denies all human feeling, all enjoyment of anything in this world, including affection and attachment, as things "of this world" and therefore to be shunned. But her answer to his hideous proposal and his monstrous manipulation is even better, in my mind, than her choice to flee from Rochester.

Bronte has, so far, the best grasp of what it means to truly be a Christian that I have seen in an author since Victor Hugo. I especially love how God is an active, though mysterious, presence in her life: the dreams, the lightning bolt hitting the tree, the voice of Rochester calling out to her in her moment of weakness. She's off to look for him right now, and I'm hoping that she's going to find him and, through her obedience and act of sacrifice in giving him up, that God is going to somehow have worked things out so that they now can be together: that Rochester will have found both freedom and true repentance, so that the union which would once have been sinful will now be blessed. Don't tell me whether I'm right.

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." -- Matt 16:25

“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”
-- Unknown

Running

I ran a mile today, for the first time in twenty years or so. My knee felt a bit funny, but I think I can keep it up for a while. I don't intend to make a lifelong career of it, or enter marathons. But I've been approaching, by degrees, the conclusion that the only way to continue my weight loss is to intensify my cardio. All my various attempts to reduce my calories in compensation for my limitations in cardio lead to the same place: starvation, and therefore little or no lasting and significant reduction of body fat. The only way forward, it seems, is to eat enough to keep my body properly fueled while burning more calories. And the machines are just not doing it: too tedious and too easy to slack off. I think that if my knee can survive two straight months of carrying a 70 pound pack for eight hours or so and 10-15 miles per day, that I can probably get away with six months or a year of running a couple of miles two or three times a week, as long as I wear my brace.

Dating Theory

Yes, yes, yes! From the movie Old Fashioned. I have serious reservations about watching "Christian" movies--they're so often cheesy, heavy-handed, preachy, and just badly made. But this one was sweet and beautiful.

Another story about a guy with a past, trying to be a better man. I like how (very realistically), everyone else makes fun of him and treats him like he's some kind of freak because he's determined to live his life treating women with the respect they deserve--even when they themselves don't know they deserve it.

Here's a trailer, in case you're interested.

On Jane Eyre

I'm finally reading Jane Eyre, as you may have guessed. I've avoided these Victorian ladies' novels all my life: I found them tedious. But now I'm quite enjoying them--first Pride and Prejudice and now this. I guess I need to tackle Little Women next. It's amazing what love will do to a man.

One of the things I've always wondered at in Victorian novels, as well as in other, even older, literature such as Shakespeare, is the speed with which the characters fall in love. The expressions are always beautiful and the passion moving, but I've always read it with a modicum of skepticism, allowing that it's just fiction but thinking that, in reality, their love was lacking a very important element, in that they really barely knew each other. Take Pride and Prejudice for instance: how much time do they really spend together? A few minutes at a ball, several brief encounters subsequently. Or Romeo and Juliet: even less time. One dance, and they're in love so deep they'll both die for it. I don't doubt the depth of feeling, having experienced it myself; I fell for Amanda that quickly. It's just that I know, and knew at the time with her, that it really was just feeling--there was no real future there. But as I said, one allows for the conventions of fiction and of the culture and period in which it is written.

Jane Eyre, however, does not suffer from this weakness. In fact, I find chapter 23, the one where Jane and Mr. Rochester finally openly declare their love for each other, to be the most romantic scene I've ever read in any story. Because it's based, not on superficial charm or attraction, but on a true knowledge of each other formed over a long period of close contact. Love born of knowledge is true love that can last a lifetime. Not that that knowledge has to be perfect or complete before love can be considered genuine; but there has to be a substantial degree of it before a love can really be taken seriously. One of the best evidences of it is when, as in Jane's case, one comes to find another attractive, even irresistible, where no attraction initially existed, based on a knowledge of the inner person.

My favorite lines from this scene:

(Jane speaking) "Do you think I can stay and become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?--a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"

This is why I had to leave. To "stay and become nothing to you"...it was unbearable. Not that where I am now is much better. But it is, a very little bit. I at least don't feel like my chest is being physically turned inside out two or three times every week.

(Rochester speaking, a bit later) "'My bride is here,' he said, again drawing me to him, 'because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?'"

This is exactly it: "My equal and my likeness." How often does one actually find his equal and his likeness in this life?

Of course, as you probably know (spoiler alert if you haven't read it), their love is tragically doomed by Rochester's secret. You might, knowing my life, expect me to sympathize with him. And I do sympathize--with his pain and his feelings. But I approve entirely of Jane's course of action, based on her perception of her situation, and the fact that, at that place and time, there is no way for him to be free to marry her honorably. She acts rightly, and most courageously, and her speech to him about standing on her principles even though every sense and feeling within her is fighting against her, is no less than inspiring. She is right: it's what she has to do. We may think, perhaps even rightly, that the Church of England is overly harsh in its absolute prohibition of divorce, especially in such a case as Rochester's. Attempted murder, for instance, is probably reasonable grounds, and Jesus himself said that adultery is. But none of that is within Jane's control: she believes that to be with him is sin, therefore to her it is sin (Rom 14:23), and she must flee, no matter how hard or how painful. Of course, if I were in Rochester's place, her strength of will and stainless character would make me love her all the more, and thus suffer all the more. But on the other hand, if I were in Rochester's place, I would not have attempted to deceive her.

I do find a lot of myself in Rochester though: the tragic mistake early in life, the dissipation which follows from the despair attendant to that mistake, the hardness of character which results from it. But especially that longing to be a better man, to rise above his circumstances and find his way back to the light. And when he thinks he's found, in Jane, the angel to lead him back to that light, I think, "even so".

But I also see something of myself in Jane, early on in the story. The childhood is quite similar. And that scene where she more or less snaps, and stands up to her aunt...I had a scene very much like that with my stepmother. And then it led to the same sort of willfulness as I grew up: a determination never to let myself be bullied and trampled on again. Or to stand by and watch anyone else be treated so.

And then Jane, alone on the moor, cast off from all she knows and loves, is the best metaphorical picture I have ever encountered of where I have been, emotionally, since...well, you know. Exactly it. Especially because it is, for her, just the latest in a series of hard knocks that always seem to end with her alone, destitute, and friendless. But most especially this part:

(Jane has been worrying, despite her own pain, of her beloved's sufferings, and what they might drive him to) "Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love."

I have. I have felt what she then felt; and feel it still. I've said those prayers and shed those tears. "The instrument of evil to what you wholly love." The only other author I've come across who touched on this was Richard Llewellyn, who said, "A horrible feeling, it is, to know you are a burden in body and spirit to somebody dear to you." There is no pain like the pain of knowing, or fearing, that you've hurt someone you love.

"Hopeless of the future, I wished but this--that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness." -- Charlotte Bronte, ibid

"Love me, then, or hate me, as you will...you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Perhaps I should have some cards printed for such occassions:

"Hello,
Normally, if a girl as pretty as you sat beside me, I would flirt with you and probably ask you out. But my heart has been broken beyond all hope of recovery, and I'm afraid I have nothing to offer."

And now a perfectly lovely young lady came and asked if she could sit next to me, then sat and waited for me to talk to her. And I ignored her until she got up and left. I'm an idiot.

I'm sitting in Panera, minding my own business; reading my book and eating my lunch. And a couple decides to choose the table right next to me to sit and discuss their wedding with the planner. Why does God hate me?

Pachelbel Done Right

It's almost Christmas again. <groan>. And I used to love Christmas so.

This piece has been over-done and over-played to the point of losing its considerable charm. Especially because of that God-awful, horribly over-sentimental, bastardized version by the trans-Siberian whatever, which is, IMAO, the worst thing to happen to classical music since Hooked on Classics.

Here's what it should sound like. Enjoy before you get sick of it again.

Normally I would criticize this performance as being technically very good but lacking in feeling. But in the case of this usually overwrought piece, I find it rather refreshing.

Stardust - Nat King Cole

Beauty and Honesty

I was talking the other night with a woman friend about the difficulty of communication between the sexes. I sometimes forget how hard it is from the other side--how women don't know who they can trust. Or, as she put it, "But women have to be so effing vigilant because dudes try to manipulate you like it's their full time job." And I know it's true, but I seem to always unconsciously have this expectation that they should just know that I'm not like that--like they should just look at me and say, "Finally! An honest man." Yeah, I know it doesn't make any sense; I said "unconsciously" didn't I?

It's strange, really, how ideas appear to you in clusters. The same night I had that conversation just happened to be a night when I was in a hotel, which is pretty much the only time I ever watch TV. And I spent most of it thinking about how much I hate the way women are displayed and their beauty exploited. My intentional segregation from popular culture means that I'm not constantly bombarded with such images, and so when I do see them, it's almost as if from the perspective of an outsider. The idea that kept going through my mind as I sat through the soul-destroying banality, was that I never thought I'd hear myself say this, feeling as I do about feminism, but that this objectification of women was sickening. And what's even more sickening is their own self-objectification. Every second ad is about "beauty"--but no one seems to know what beauty is. The kind of "beauty" being sold by these pimps of self-esteem is to real beauty what twinkies and doritos are to real food.

Beauty is not just a woman's physical appearance. It is something she is and something she does. A woman makes the whole world around her more beautiful.

This is beauty.

I started to put a "this is not" image here, but I don't even want that ugliness on my blog. You know what it looks like: you see it every day.

So we live in a world where men don't know what honesty is, and women don't know what beauty is. Is there a correspondence? The ancients used to speak, before feminism, of corresponding male and female virtues. I think it was Spencer, for instance, who said that the chief masculine virtue was courage and the chief feminine one chastity. And I know it was Shakespeare who said "Can beauty have better commerce than with honesty?" Could it be that when men fail in one of their virtues, that women will fail in the one which corresponds to it? Courage and chastity, honesty and beauty, chivalry and modesty, protection and nurture. I wonder if there's a list by some ancient philosopher.

None of this is to say, of course that any of these virtues is exclusive--that men should not practice chastity, or that women cannot have courage. Just that those aren't their defining qualities.

Making Rachmaninoff Look Easy

My word...I don't think I closed my mouth through this entire performance.

Rachmaninoff can often sound choppy and unlovely, presumably because it's so difficult to play. But this girl is astounding. Preternatural.

By the way, if you keep hearing something you can't quite place during the second movement, it's "All by Myself". The guy who wrote it ended up having to pay the Rachmaninoff estate part of his royalties.

Waterhouse, Keats, and Couperin

WOMAN! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies;
Without that modest softening that enhances
The downcast eye, repentant of the pain
That its mild light creates to heal again:	5
E’en then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances,
E’en then my soul with exultation dances
For that to love, so long, I’ve dormant lain:
But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,
Heavens! how desperately do I adore	10
Thy winning graces;—to be thy defender
I hotly burn—to be a Calidore—
A very Red Cross Knight—a stout Leander—
Might I be loved by thee like these of yore.
Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair;	15
Soft dimpled hands, white neck, and creamy breast,
Are things on which the dazzled senses rest
Till the fond, fixed eyes, forget they stare.
From such fine pictures, heavens! I cannot dare
To turn my admiration, though unpossess’d	20
They be of what is worthy,—though not drest
In lovely modesty, and virtues rare.
Yet these I leave as thoughtless as a lark;
These lures I straight forget—e’en ere I dine,
Or thrice my palate moisten: but when I mark	25
Such charms with mild intelligences shine,
My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.
Ah! who can e’er forget so fair a being?
Who can forget her half retiring sweets?	30
God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats
For man’s protection. Surely the All-seeing,
Who joys to see us with his gifts agreeing,
Will never give him pinions, who intreats
Such innocence to ruin,—who vilely cheats	35
A dove-like bosom. In truth there is no freeing
One’s thoughts from such a beauty; when I hear
A lay that once I saw her hand awake,
Her form seems floating palpable, and near;
Had I e’er seen her from an arbour take	40
A dewy flower, oft would that hand appear,
And o’er my eyes the trembling moisture shake.

Writing about feminine barriers and reticence the other day has had me thinking of this piece of music, and so I thought I'd add some art and poetry to complete the image of the thing that's in my heart. No agenda: just in praise of feminine virtue. Nothing is more beautiful.

"Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." -- Prov 31:29-30.