Reading Hopkins "the Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air we Breathe"

((I had several comments to make on this poem, but feel it best to let Hopkins words stand up on their own. If you are particularly struck by words or phrases I invite your reflections.))

The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe – Gerard Manley Hopkins

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.

If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.

Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.

So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.

Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Bill McKibben on Democracy Now

"It’s as if they’re saying—I mean, literally as if they’re saying, "We’re going to stick our fingers in our ears, and the problem will go away. We’ll never have another hearing on it, so therefore it won’t be happening." I’m afraid that’s about as unlikely a proposition—I mean, more power to them if you could make global warming disappear by simply not talking about it. It would be a hell of a good strategy. But my guess is that physics and chemistry will be remarkably unimpressed by this position, you know? I mean, Congress—the sort of delusions of grandeur within the Beltway are enormous. They think because they can change the tax code, they can change the laws of nature. But that’s not possible." Bill McKibben

Some fascinating news out these days from Wikileaks concerning the role of the US government in intimidating, stalling, and buying votes from opposition nations in the recent Copenhagen climate talks. Bill McKibben is a longstanding author and activist who has attended decades of these talks and offers some great insight into the contentious nature of international agreements and into the urgency of action on these issues. His critique of American power politics and global climate change is telling. For all Washington is able to do in getting their agenda on the table, says McKibben, "Physics and Chemistry will be remarkably unimpressed." That Washington continues the program of intimidation towards other nations (even the poorest ones who are already most affected by climate change) is no surprise, says McKibben. What is a surprise is the audacity to assume we can continue to avoid this problem forever, or simply vote it off of our agenda.

The real question, to my mind, is how can we advocate for a politics that takes physics and chemistry as a baseline for action? How do we seek some form of common good in the face of power and manipulation by those claiming to represent us in government? And how might we embody in practice ways of life that take physics and chemistry seriously as well? I feel a real tension between thinking of small local forms of action and the challenge of global governance and climate talks. McKibben is bold in promoting both forms of action and calling governments to act. My more cynical side wonders where even to begin. Perhaps physics and chemistry aren't bad places to start.

New book from N.T. Wright

The hard-working Bishop of Durham is at it again.

This third (and likely last) book in the latest trilogy extends the Bishops insightful argument into ethics.

In a recent interview, he laid out a few of the basic ideas (ideals?) behind the book:

The book’s main target is not the other major moral theories of deontology and consequentialism, but the ideas of “spontaneity” and “authenticity” which have a grain of truth (Christians really should act “from the heart”), but which screen out the reality of moral formation, of chosen and worked-at habit-forming prayer and moral reflection and action, which gradually over time form the Christian character in which “authentic” behavior is also truly Christian behavior, not simply “me living out my prejudices and random desires”.

The point about “virtue”, then, is that it flags up something which is central in the New Testament but marginal in much western Christian reflection, namely the fact that

1. Behaviour is habit-forming,
2. Christian behavior is supposed to be habit-forming and hence character-forming,
3. There is a long and wise tradition of reflection on all this which most modern Protestants in particular simply don’t know,
4. It isn’t, as has often been thought, a danger to the gospel of God’s free grace and love,
5. It is therefore time for the whole notion of virtue, as the habit-forming strength of character, to be “reborn”,
6. and that all this is what you need to grasp “after you believe”, to answer the big question of “what now”?


Over the last couple years I've found myself deeply shaped by the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, and others (all through the help of a certain Jonathan R. Wilson) who revive the language of virtue and character to help lead us back to faithful Christian witness. I've had my suspicions that Wright makes similar use of the Aristotelian scheme (especially since Surprised By Hope, but now the jury has returned.

As I read through this list I find myself nodding in excited agreement. The one big problem, it seems, is #4, which the sort of hyper-Protestant mind always seems to fear. "Virtue... Character... Works?... This smells of works-righteousness." But does it, for crying out loud?

This instant knee-jerk response has come up so many times now in my conversations that it is exasperating. The idea that the Gospel might require anything of us is continually granted with one hand and ripped away with the other. The distance between cheap grace and painful legalism is often more determined by our mood of the day than by any sustained theological reflection. It is into this conundrum that the language and practice of virtue gives real purchase.

Rather than viewing our sin as isolated incidents or actions, virtue ethics hones in on the character or heart of the sinner and the accompanying patterns of action. Rather than hit the believe over the head with guilt and a waving finger "Now that you know Jesus died, don't go on doing this little Johnny!", the virtue approach asks the deeper and more vital questions about which habits or practices promote certain actions and deter others. Sensitivity to the Spirit can also render grace continually as the believer finds the strength to walk a new walk and talk a new talk comes not from pulling up one's spiritual bootstraps but rather from leaning ever more on the God of grace - and, I dare say, accepting some forms of discipline as a part of spiritual growth. Rather than viewing accountability partners with shame and suspicion, an ethic of character welcomes the openness, honesty, and transparency which is an essential part to the training of our faculties.

This point strikes very deeply to the laissez faire morality of our day, which Christians have largely adopted with some half-hearted biblical gloss about 'love' and 'grace'. But the formation of character requires something, and it requires something of US. The Bishop makes this point beautifully,

"First, the point about “vice”, the opposite of “virtue”, is that, whereas virtue requires moral effort, all that has to happen for vice to take hold is for people to coast along in neutral: moral laziness leads directly to moral deformation (hence the insidious power of TV which constantly encourages effortless going-with-the-flow). The thing about virtue is that it requires Thought and Effort . . ."

That might strike those of us raised on cheap grace as outrageous, but it is more our laziness (undoubtedly bred by the insidious TV which Wright mentions) that betrays us than our half-hearted desires to seek after Christ. But the point about Virtue, says Wright is that "to become part of God’s people is to become a genuinely human being." Being formed in the likeness of Christ renews the image of God in us. Our efforts to shape our behaviors and dispositions after His is an essential part to our transformation, even when it is difficult and costly.

Methinks we have much to learn from Bonhoeffer on this point as well, but that must wait for a future post.

The full interview with Bishop Wright can be found here.

Sabbath Poems: I

Life has been full of changes.

One is a deep desire to write again. After being thoroughly inspired by Berry's A Timbered Choir, I decided to take time to practice my writing on the Sabbath each week.

This comes out of my own deep anguish over changes and loss in life. Roxy and I are facing many changes in the next months, and have faced many in the past months. I'll let the poem speak for itself.

How can human life, in living time remain
in endless flux, changeless change the only
straighened roundabout? Yet we must walk, and obtain
our way. But now, how not to be lonely?

A child's little childhood, passing, yet barely born
to an endless progression, its awaiting disparate fate;
and the warmth of friendship, dispersed, adorned
only now with memory - so we hold, groan, and wait.

Now.
We in this turbulent world long to, must reach out, grasp
signposts of another, His life given for ours -
and returned: all fleeting put to flight in one flash
the promise borne anew sprouts, shoots, flowers

and though goes to seed, stays ever the same
to be held in love, grateful. The signs
which accompany us - as I-thou we become - though in pain,
hopeful, planted, watered. In seeking do we find.

On Cow farts and Fasting

Some time ago I posted about the rather ingenious (if not sometimes ridiculous) measures being taken to tackle bovine emissions. There is a very informative article with heaps of links here at Grist News. I can't help but quote one short section,

According to an EPA FAQ about methane and livestock in the U.S. alone, cattle emit about 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year into the atmosphere—20 percent of U.S. methane emissions. And there 1.5 billion belching cattle here on earth, a number that is expected to grow rapidly as earth’s meat-hungry population expands.

It’s perhaps not surprising that scientists all over the world are trying to figure out how we can have our meat and eat it, too. Their attempts to make cattle emit less methane include alterations in diet, breeding, and even a vaccine.

What was surprising (at least to me) is that grazing, grass-fed cattle—those happy cows we all like to celebrate, and some of us (hi, Ed) like to eat—will, according to Eshel, emit four to five more methane than corn-fed cattle.

But wait—that doesn’t mean that you should reach for a CAFO burger.

The answer, upon reflection, is NO. But I think that this question emerges as a natural one ought to reveal the sort of scientific reductionism which massively limits our imaginations and binds us to certain ways of thinking. If we try to graph the equation it might look something like this:

(emissions of 1.5 billion cattle) x (CAFO Corn-fed diet) > (emissions of 1.5 billion cattle) x (grass-fed beef)
= CAFO cattle are more 'environmentally friendly'/ produce less emissions, etc.

What this logic fails to discern (and is arguably unable to discern), is the actual possibility of consuming less beef in the first place. Of course we need to consider how diet might effect the cows emissions, but what this implicitly blinds us to is accepting the current levels of consumption. And if you have an ear for it, you will find this sort of logic everywhere. It pervades most all of the discussions around the 'green' movement, "how can we save the planet and ensure that the economy continues on a path of exponential growth?" The (il)logic of this economic wrangling was a discussion point in my earlier post and has been wonderfully noted here:

Just because corn-fed cows emit less methane does not make them better, says Eshel, and the idea that we can convert cows into low-methane systems by feeding them corn is like asking a giraffe to graze on grass. “It’s evolutionary advantage is lost,” he says. He contends methane is a normal end-product (actually, a product of both ends) of healthy, grazing cows. Re-plumbing cows to emit less methane is, he says, absurd. “Maybe what we need to do is consider the scope of our reliance on those animals, rather than trying to re-evolve them into something that is advantageous to us,” he suggests.

What this logic simply cannot account for, but what is desperately needed, is serious personal and collective discipline. And yet this falls squarely outside the bounds of business. Just think of what would happen if the beef industry advertised a plan to reduce emissions that included fasting from meat one day a week. Imagine if the CAFO's lobbied the government to pass a law prohibiting the sale of beef on Sundays. Possible? Hardly. What sort of business would go for such things? Yet, these same businesses are now funding studies to shove tubes up the rear ends of cows to 'collect' their emissions for processing. Hmmm.

If we honestly look at the harmful effects our consumption has on our bodies, minds, and souls, I believe fasting is one important act of personal repentance. It is also one of the greatest resources which our tradition has to offer our out-of-control world of consumption, a world which I find myself continually caught up in. We simply cannot continue to "have our cake (or in this case, cow) and eat it too". Not with 6 billion people. Not with 1.5 billion cows.

The UN and WHO report there are currently over 900 million people living without the necessary nutrients to sustain life. That number is only surpassed by the 1.5 billion among us who are overweight and an additional 400 million who are obese. Yes, on this planet, 1 billion have too little to survive, while 2 billion have more than their bodies can process.

What do we do as people of faith, in light of these facts?

Could fasting be one action that we consider?

Over the last few months Roxy and I have adopted a diet that is 90% Vegan. For us, this means that meat and dairy products (yes, cheese and eggs too) make up less than 10% of our weekly diets, and we have reserved eating meat for special 'feast days' on the weekend. I have found this incredibly challenging, but also deeply rewarding. We are (re)learning to cook with real, whole foods. Since the majority of processed foods in the grocery stores include some form of milk products, our meals no longer include them. We are finding vegetables and legumes which we never knew existed now comprise much our daily diet. What is more, there is a certain solidarity that we feel with those who cannot afford the luxuries of meat as we voluntarily eat less.

Before you write us off as freaks, consider again the facts. 1 billion undernourished, 2 billion overweight/obese. To my mind, this is not a mere matter of food production or even of distribution. It is about the cultural myths which lie deeply in our minds that somehow we do not have enough, that we need more, when in actual fact, we have enough right here, right now. It is the myth of scarcity in a creation of plenty, and I believe it is a serious call to action and reflection.

An Easter Prayer

O Lord God, our Father.

You are the light that can never be put out; and now you give us a light that shall drive away all darkness.
You are love without coldness, and you have given us such warmth in our hearts that we can love all when we meet.

You are the life that defies death, and you have opened for us the way that leads to eternal life.

None of us is a great Christian; we are all humble and ordinary.

But your grace is enough for us.

Arouse in us that small degree of joy and thankfulness of which we are capable,
to the timid faith which we can muster,
to the cautious obedience which we cannot refuse,
and thus to the wholeness of life which you have prepared for all of us
through the death and resurrection of your Son.

Do not allow any of us to remain apathetic or indifferent to the wondrous glory of Easter,
but let the light of our risen Lord reach every corner of our dull hearts.

We pray this through Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, Amen

--Karl Barth


(the blogging is on hold as the end of term quickly approaches. To be continued...)

Friedman, Marx, and the conservative(s)

At risk of being written off as a 'damn communist/socialist', I offer a brief excerpt from Marx's Manifesto. My only defense is that i ran across it in a book of a very different era and kind - Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat (2005). Friedman has been a senior Foreign Affairs correspondent for the New York Times. This book represents his lengthy reflections upon Globalization after the turn of the millenium. (More to come on Friedman, as his latest book represents a major shift in tone - this Hot, Flat, and Crowded finds the great challenges facing us as a planet and, in contrast to the previous work, doesn't believe that global expansion and deregulation will solve things.)

Recall that Marx penned these words in 1848...


All fixed, fast, frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe.

In the place of old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves.

In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

Friedman then provides some commentary on this passage, noting in particular the resemblance between a world which had begun to see the Industrial Revolution, and one which now faces the Global Flattening Revolution. He quotes a conversation with Harvard political theorist Michael Sandel,

"...a flat, frictionless world is a mixed blessing. It may, as you suggest, be good for global business. Or it may, as Marx believed, augur well for a proletarian revolution. But it may also pose a threat to the distinctive places and communities that give us our bearings, that locate us in the world. From the first stirrings of capitalism, people have imagined the possibility of the world as a perfect market - unimpeded by protectionist pressures, disparate legal systems, cultural and linguistic differences, or ideological disagreement. But this vision has always bumped up against the world as it actually is - full of sources of friction and inefficiency. Some obstacles to a frictionless global market are truly sources of waste and lost opportunities. But some of these inefficiencies are institutions, habits, cultures, and traditions that people cherish precisely because they reflect nonmarket values like social cohesion, religious faith, and national pride. If global markets and new communications technologies flatten these differences, we may lost something important. That is why the debate about capitalism has been, from the very beginning, about which frictions, barriers, and boundaries are mere sources of waste and inefficiency, and which are sources of identity and belonging that we should try to protect." (pg. 204)

It strikes me that this debate also draws out a range of responses - the scale of which is broader than simply 'liberal' and 'conservative'. (The caricature being that the liberals want to sit and sip coffee while the governments hand out checks to everyone, while the conservatives want governments to get out of the way so that we can all compete.) While there are echoes of truth in these caricatures and we need to think about them very carefully, I have become increasingly convinced that there are (at least) two kinds of conservatives.

The first is concerned to protect the small community which he is rooted in - the health of its people and land, the sense of trust neighbors have with one another, the ease with which children grow up free to roam and play. They don't particularly like politics, but care very much about which people are running their town hall meetings! The second is concerned with his or her own freedom to do as they please and with the need for governments to get out of the way. Though they also live in a relatively small community, they regard high property values and low taxes as the main reason for their being there. They see no reason why jobs shouldn't be outsourced, for it could mean - in the big picture - that we make more money at home.

This is a perplexing constrast. Friedman seems to be in the second category at least when it regards economics. He is largely positive towards the 'flattening' of the world (even if it entails the removal of the sort of boundaries that Sandel points to), believes that the less we restrict individual liberty and creativity the better it will be for all of us. And yet, 3 years later he writes a book which claims, "America has a problem and the world has a problem... it's getting Hot, Flat, and Crowded." Furthermore, our businesses haven't creatively anticipated these problems and our governments haven't shaped policy which could help businesses to move in this direction either. Individuals bicker about the demands of change in lifestyle. So where do we go from here? Well, one option is to return to an older form of conservatism which conserves the local embodied community and the virtues thereof.

I intend to blog further on Friedman as I continue reading. Feel free to join the discussion.