It’s
a new year for Matthew’s little league baseball, and this year he is on the CCB
Bombers, the team that won the championship last year.I don’t know how he got on this team but he
is fortunate.Coach Charlie is excellent
and he has already gotten the team playing cohesive and well.They had their first game Saturday and it was
against Matthew’s team from last year.They won 12-2.Matthew got his
dream to be the starting pitcher.He
went two innings, struck out five, walked two (one in each separate inning),
and did not give up a hit.Here are a few
pictures.
Matthew
on the mound.
As
good a picture as Matthew is, he’s really not a good hitter.I think he’s afraid of the ball.I’m not sure how many times he got up to
bat.I think five or six.Walked four times and struck out once or twice.He never made contact with the ball.Here he is looking good at home.
Here
on second base looking lost.
And
on third base with a sloppy uniform.
He
did score there. It was a lot of fun, both for Matthew and his parents.
This
is from a short story by John Gardner, titled “Nimram,” from his short story collection, The Art of Living: & Other Stories.John Gardner is best known for his novel Grendel, the retelling of the Beowulf story from the perspective of the monster.That is a superb novel, but I my favorite
memories of reading John Gardner are from reading his books on fiction writing.His book titled On Moral Fiction is his most well-known of his fiction writing,
non-fiction books because it insisted that fiction could only operate with a
moral center or it would fail as fiction, a highly controversial idea to modern
writers.But my favorite of his books on
writing is The Art of Fiction, where
he outlines not just the basics of fiction but the aesthetics of what
constitutes fiction.I still have it on
my book shelf after thirty years!
“Nimram”
is a short story of a middle aged man named Benjamin Nimram, a concert
conductor, who sits next to a sixteen year old terminally ill girl.I may do a short story analysis of “Nimram” but
for now I want to highlight a lovely quote from the story.Nimram is waiting in the plane for it to take
off while the ground crew are working outside in the rain.
The rain fell steadily,
figures and dark square tractors hurrying toward the belly of the plane and
then away again, occasionally glowing under blooms of silent lightning, in the
aisle behind him passengers still moving with the infinite patience of Tolstoy
peasants toward their second-class seats. With a part of his mind he watched
their reflections in the window and wondered idly how many of them, if any, had
seen him conduct, seen anyone conduct, cared at all for the shimmering ghost he
had staked his life on. None of them, so far as he could tell, had even noticed
the Muzak leaking cheerfully, mindlessly, from the plane’s invisible speakers.
It would be turned off when the plane was safely airborne, for which he was
grateful, needless to say. Yet it was touching, in a way, that the airline
should offer this feeble little gesture of reassurance—All will be well! Listen
to the Muzak! All will be well! They scarcely heard it, these children of
accident, old and young, setting out across the country in the middle of the
night; yet perhaps it was true that they were comforted, lulled.
Such
a beautifully drawn image of the crew with their tractor like equipment pulling
back and forth from the belly of the plane, and coupled with the non-first
class passenger—“Tolstoy peasants”—moving to the back of the plane as he sits
in first class. The contrast of he being
a conductor of great music while having to listen to Muzak is delicious. And the expression of reassurance—“All
will be well! Listen to the Muzak! All will be well!”—will accentuate and
counterpoint the story’s theme concerning the terminally ill girl. It’s a wonderful passage.
I love the opening line of Resurrection
Sunday from the Gospel of John.
“On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.”
Now
that spring is here and many are working on our gardens, I wanted to share the
pictures I took of my mother’s garden over the course of last year.A good garden should try to create interest
across the seasons.As one plant recedes
another blooms.I was reviewing the
snaps I took over last year and I took a fair amount of my mother’s
garden.I didn’t capture it all, but I
did capture most across three seasons.I
missed winter.
In
the front of the house my mother has a Madonna statue where a number of
flowering plants blossom throughout the season.The most stunning is this Hibiscus planted to the left (in the picture) which
blooms for a couple of weeks in May.
But
if you step back you will see a gorgeous Lincoln rose growing behind.
You’ll
notice to the right (in the picture) and just behind is a black-eyed Susan and
a day lily which have not bloom yet.Here
a close up of the rose.
Let’s
move on to the summer time.Here’s a
picture of that same front, now with some zinnias (I think) in front of the Madonna.You can start seeing the yellow day lilies in
the back.
On
the side of the house she has an assortment of lilies.
Here
is the entire side.
Opposite
the assorted lilies is a climbing pink rose.But let me take you closer to the climbing rose.
When
that climbing rose bursts out, it’s stunning.Looking toward the back of the yard, you will see the grape arbor as a
canopy.Here is a picture of the grapes
hanging down.
Unfortunately
the last few years we’ve got some sort of grape disease that kills over three
quarters of the grapes.They grow
beautifully but by August they blacken and shrivel up.
The
backyard opens up after the arbor.
To
the left is a fig tree and the tree toward the back on the right is a dwarf pear
tree.The pear tree is old and has now for
a couple of years stopped producing.You
can see the various potted plants my mother still tends.In her younger years this would be full of
vegetables.There she is.She’s a lot thinner this year now.She’s lost, not by choice, a lot of weight
this year from last with her gastro problems.But she’s been out there this spring already.
She
had a magnificent potted petunia last year.Back to the front of the house you can see the black-eyed Susan and day
lilies in bloom.
Some
more interest on the side of the house in the summer with tall flowers, potted
plants, and more roses.
Let
me finally show some fall photos, here from the backyard.Here you see yellow chrysanthemums in bloom
in front of the St. Francis statue.The
tree framing from above is a persimmons tree, with the most delicious
persimmons I have ever tasted.They were
just about ready to get picked at the time of this picture.The persimmons tree is just over from the
grape arbor.
The
weight of the ripened persimmons lowers the branches significantly.Normally the branches are pointing
upward.Some more pictures from the
fall.
There
was more.I didn’t capture pictures of
everything.I missed the dwarf lilac in
bloom, a hydrangea, begonias, and annuals.I just didn’t take pictures of those last year. But not everything in 2020 was bad!
Today
Pope Francis released an apostolic letter, Candor
Lucis Aeternae, celebrating the great poet Dante Aligheri and his work The Divine Comedy. This year, 2021 marks
the 700th anniversary of Dante's death, and so be prepared for a number of events
marking it. I haven't read the apostolic letter yet but I have seen several
articles about it. Oddly, two articles come from the same writer (Inés San
Martín) from the same magazine (Crux)
released on the same day, today. That’s certainly unusual. One article focuses
on the apostolic letter, “Pope Francis calls Dante a ‘prophet of hope.’”
Following in the
footsteps of his predecessors, Pope Francis on Thursday released a document
reflecting on the life and work of Italian poet Dante Alighieri, calling him a
prophet of hope in a historic moment where inhumanity and lack of prospect loom
large.
“At this particular
moment in history, overclouded by situations of profound inhumanity and a lack
of confidence and prospects for the future, the figure of Dante, prophet of
hope and witness to the human desire for happiness, can still provide us with
words and examples that encourage us on our journey,” Francis wrote in the
closing lines of Candor Lucis Aeternae (“Splendor of Light Eternal”).
Dante, Francis writes,
has an important message to convey, one that is meant to touch the hearts and minds
of all, and still in present time has the ability to inspire change and
transformation. The message his tale tells should help appreciate “who we are
and the meaning of our daily struggles to achieve happiness, fulfilment and our
ultimate end, our true homeland, where we will be in full communion with God,
infinite and eternal.”
Though often labeled as a
“pope of firsts,” Francis’s Candor Lucis Aeternae is not the first reflection
by a pontiff on the poet: Benedict XV published the encyclical titled In
Praeclara Sumorum (“Among the many celebrated geniuses”) in 1921, which was
dedicated to Dante’s memory and written for the occasion of the sixth centenary
of his death. Pope St. Paul VI also wrote apostolic letter in 1965, Altissimi
Cantus, to mark the seventh centenary of his birth.
“Someone might perhaps
ask why the Catholic Church, by the will and work of its visible Head, takes it
to heart to celebrate the memory of the Florentine poet and to honor him,” Paul
VI wrote. “The answer is easy and immediate: Dante Alighieri is ours by a
special right: Ours, that is, of the Catholic religion, because everything
breathes love for Christ; ours, because he loved the Church very much, of which
he sang honors; ours, because he recognized and venerated the Vicar of Christ
on earth in the Roman Pontiff.”
In 2015, ahead of the
inauguration of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, Francis said that
Dante “is a prophet of hope, herald of the possibility of redemption,
liberation and the profound transformation of every man and woman, of all
humanity.”
Both of Francis’s most
recent predecessors also praised the poet.
At a reading of The
Divine Comedy in 1997, Pope St. John Paul II noted that “almost seven centuries
later, Dante’s art evokes lofty emotions and the greatest convictions, and
still proves capable of instilling courage and hope, guiding contemporary man’s
difficult existential quest for the Truth which knows no setting.”
Benedict XVI also voiced
great admiration for the poet, and when he was still a priest and wrote his
famous book Introduction to Christianity in 1968, he uses The Divine Comedy to
explain the “scandal of Christianity.”
Now
if you want the actual apostolic letter, you can read it here:
I
haven't read it yet, but I hope to. I will certainly post on it when I do.
Those
who read my posts of The Divine Comedy
several years ago you know my love for Dante and his work. A few weeks ago I
compiled all the links to my blog posts on Dante into one post for easy
access. Now I am adding a link on my
header above to that post on my Dante links. I hope people find the link and ultimately my
commentary on Dante useful.
Photo Credit: Marco Bucco/Reuters via CNS, A bust of Italian poet Dante Alighieri is seen next to an etching of him at the University of Bologna in Ravenna, Italy.
The
first post provided a chapter by chapter summary of the novel.This second is more of a literary analysis of
the novel, albeit a cursory one.
I
have to say that the novel is a hodgepodge of elements held together by the
central character, Philippa, the stability of the monastery, and the central
theme of what I’ll call the theme of “becoming.”I’ll flesh out that central theme in time,
but let’s look at the plot first.
The
plot divides into two core narrative movements, bifurcating the novel, and as
far as I can see unrelated to each other.The first half of the novel revolves around the financial crises Abbess
Hester has put the monastery in.Her
paralysis and death, the discovery of the debt caused by Sister Julian’s
departure, the stone altar that needs to be paid, the decision to sacrifice to
pay for it, the building of the altar, and the miraculous windfalls that covers
the debt all take up the first ten chapters.The second half of the book, chapters eleven through twenty, mostly
revolves on the Japanese postulants who enter Brede, their entrance, their
benefactor, their development as nuns, and the establishment of a new monastery
in Japan.I fail to see the relationship
between the first main narrative and the second.From an aesthetic point of view, it’s rather
disjointed.
Not
only are the two narrative movements disjointed, but each come with some
flaws.In the first movement, the one
concerning Abbess Hester and the financial crises, the narrative is fairly
interesting and steadily developed.The
sin of Abbess Hester causes her death, creates instability to what should be
above all else stability to the monastery, and puts the monastery into a
crises.The narrative of the building of
the stone altar nicely accentuates the theme of “becoming,” providing a
dramatic symbol at the heart of the novel, though perhaps a little
heavy-handed.The nuns are willing to go
to severe ascetic measures in order to save money to pay the debt.And they do initially.But then a precious stone falls out of a broken
crucifix and Philippa supplies a large dowry she was hiding, and the whole
thing wraps up rather artificially.
The
thing that is puzzling is that Godden didn’t really need to do that.If she had continued on the path of resolving
the debt through asceticism, perhaps turned the screw a little tighter on the
struggle, had the monastery do some extra work such as publishing, raising agricultural
products, or dressmaking—all of which they already do, but now could be
expanded—the resolution of the debt would have been both natural and
aesthetically pleasing.Godden could
have even integrated the Japanese part of the plot as helping pay for the
debt.For example the extra dowries the
Japanese brought and the wealth from Japan could have been brought to bear on
the first part of the plot.Why she
chose the convenient, happenstance resolution escapes me, though perhaps there
may be a reason I’m not seeing.
The
second narrative movement, the development of the Japanese postulants, is also
unsatisfactory.The postulants, though
individualized characters, remain stereotypes.Why have they been drawn to Christianity?What tensions back home did they face?What specifically about Christianity has
captured their heart to leave a familiar life back home, move to another
country far away, and then subject themselves to vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience?Godden drops little plums of
suggestions, but nothing developed in a substantive way.We do get the expected cultural distinctions,
subsequent assimilations, and the overcoming of communication differences.But from the initial hurdles we see the postulants
being clothed, first profession, final profession, and off to Japan to start a
new monastery all in cursory fashion.It’s rather superficial.
So
why read this novel?Is it a bad
read?I still gave it four stars.I think it’s a flawed work, but it still has
positive attributes that overcome the flaws.What I listed above are the two main plot lines but there are a variety
and abundance of subplots that create a uniform work, despite the two
disjointed main plots.There is the Dame
Veronica plot line that takes her as an accomplice to Abbess Hester, steals
monastery money for her wayward brother, accidently poisons herself, nearly
dies, but lives and provides restitution.There is the Sister Julian theme of abandoning the monastery for a
modern spirituality.There is the Abbess
Catherine plot line as she doesn’t want to become Abbess, is elected
nonetheless, and slowly grows to her job.There is the Dame Agnes plot line as a rigid and exacting nun but who
maintains the monastery traditions.There is the Penny and Donald plot line with its secular world issues and
saved by Philippa’s monastic wisdom.There is the Dame Maura plot line of playing and teaching music, her
attraction to Cecily, her being sent away, and then years later returning.There is the Sister Cecily plot line of
coming in as a young novice, being pressured to return to secular life, her
internal struggles with remaining a nun, her beautiful musical gifts, and
finally overcoming and being professed.And of course there is the Philippa plot line, taking us through her
leaving the secular world, her internal psychological struggles with her past,
her formation as a nun, her assistance with the Japanese, and her sacrifice in
going to Japan.
Some
have said that the monastery itself is the central theme.I don’t know if I would phrase it quite that
way.I think the stability of the
monastery set against the evolving and mutable secular worldis
one of the themes.But is it the
monastery that is the theme or perhaps the Benedictine Order?Perhaps it isn’t even the order but this
chapter in the order who maintain the stability and traditions.It is hard to separate the monastery from the
Order from the chapter.They are
interconnected.The interwoven web of
subplots from the lives of the individual nuns forms the theme.The subplot of Philippa’s experience and
development is the spine that runs through the novel and which is at the core
of the central theme.
So
what is this central theme?It’s
actually given to us by Godden through a quote from the medieval past
articulated by the character who encapsulates the sole source of wisdom from
the secular world in the novel, Pilippa’s ex-boss, Daniel McTurk.The
only secular person who understood why Philippa was entering monastic life,
McTurk provides Phillipa a quote which then runs through Philippa’s mind as she
wonders if she will sustain her vocation.It’s in Chapter 2, and we get Philippa’s thoughts:
Even if I don’t succeed
they honour me for trying, for coming, and words had come into Philippa’s mind:
‘Not what thou art, nor what thou hast been, beholdeth God with His merciful
eyes, but what thou wouldst be.’ It was McTurk who had quoted that; McTurk who
alone had understood. ‘What thou wouldst be.’ Philippa’s eyes had been suddenly
blinded.
“Not
what thou art, nor what thou hast been, beholdeth God with His merciful eyes,
but what thou wouldst be” is a well-known quote from The Cloud of Unknowing (from chapter 75), an anonymous medieval work of mysticism, who’s central theme
is that one needs to surrender one’s will to God in order to understand
Him.It is not important what you have
been, nor what you are now.The only
thing that is important is what you will become, and that is the person that
God made you to be.And so we see not
just in Phillipa’s progress but in the novel every nun’s process of development
to be conforming to the will of God.
We
are told again of this theme later in chapter 2 when Dame Ursula provides
guidance to her postulants, cautioning them on over striving to be useful.
‘And you needn’t worry
about being useful,’ said Dame Ursula. ‘When you have become God’s in the
measure He wants, He, Himself, will know how to bestow you on others.’ She was
quoting St Basil. Then her face grew wistful, ‘“Unless He prefer, for thy greater
advantage, to keep thee all to himself.” That does happen to a few people. Yet,
paradoxically, they have the greatest influence.’
“When
you have become God’s in the measure He wants, He, Himself, will know how to
bestow you on others.” Again another quote from the depths of Christian
spirituality that insists that God will shape you if you let Him.
In
chapter three, we see Philippa explaining to Cecily why she came to Brede.
‘I haven’t even begun to
catch up. You don’t understand,’ said Philippa more quietly. ‘All my grown
life, it seems to me now I have been – acting in authority … yes, acting,’ said
Philippa, ‘because I wasn’t a full person. I was so busy,’ said Philippa, ‘that
I had no time for myself. Now, at last, at Brede I have a chance to be no one.
That’s what I need because I must begin again; in all those years I hadn’t
advanced one jot.’
“I
wasn’t a full person.”The process of
the novel is the process of Philippa becoming a full person.Duranski carving the statue is a metaphor for
the nuns “becoming.”As he works, in
chapter eight, the nuns watch.
The statue seemed to
emerge almost naturally from the stone though again, statue seemed the wrong
word, it was so alive. ‘He’s uncovering it,’ said Dame Gertrude marveling.
After the novitiate had
watched him, Sister Constance had said, ‘It’s like us. We come as a rough piece
of stone and have to be carved and shaped to have meaning.’
Through
Philippa we see the woman God intended her to be emerge and take shape as she
takes on different responsibilities and sacrifices her will for God’s
will.But Dame Philippa’s “becoming” is
accentuated in the other nuns “becoming.”Catherine becomes a wise abbess; Dames Veronica, Maura, and Agnes become
balanced from their individual irregularities; Sister Cecily and the Japanese
postulants become mature nuns.
All
these subplots form a wonderful web of interest and overcome the disjointed
plot line.Through the varied subplots
Godden creates life at a monastery in a way that one single plot could not accomplish.It allows the reader to see, that is the
primary function of literature, according to Joseph Conrad.We see the life and complexity at a
Benedictine monastery as the characters live their lives before us, spanning
some fifteen years, and relating to an outside world that is increasingly
secular.We enter a different world, an
unfamiliar world to us, and engage in lives that have fundamentally different
objectives and routines and purposes than ours.For the span of the novel, we live in the rhythm of their lives.
There
was a British TV movie based on the novel.It took great license with the plot but I think it captured the spirit
of the novel.Here is a sort of extended
trailer.