Veni, Iane

Well, another awful year is over. I speak generally: for me, in particular, it wasn't too bad. Upon some reflection I have hit upon the curious fact that all of my best memories from this year are associated with places (Vienna, Madison, South Bend), and that all of those places are not Home. Perhaps I have entered the journeyman phase of life, when I must wander (Ahasuerus-like) until I remember why I should look homewards. That's one explanation.

In any case, let me employ this web-log to wish you a better forthcoming year than the one we just finished. Things will probably get worse, yes, but such is the course of history.

The Left End of the Porch

For all the things the Front Porchers get correct, there certainly are a lot of stupid comments made there. (Environmentalism equals communism, for example. Or, Obama is Kenyan.) Every few weeks, upon becoming enraged by an assortment of asinine comments posted at FPR, I resolve to stop reading the site. And then I see something like this article, which reminds me why I started reading it to begin with.

All the same, I'd say there's a dangerous amount of teabag-level crazity present among certain commenters. It's my humble opinion that we need a few more people on the left side of the Porch (like Mr Russell Arben Fox, one of the few posters sane enough to admit that de gummint isn't intrinsically evil). I tire of the self-righteousness of those reactionary Front Porchers who assume a localist attitude must necessarily entail belief in the One True Church (whichever particular brand they prefer, be it Papist, Greek, or Calvinist), complete denial of the Democratic party (communiss, all of 'em!), and disdain for any culture beyond that of small-town America. I will not forsake Bach and Mahler, thank you.

"Don’t you want to earn Schrute bucks?"

The Office is one of the few television shows that is not entirely loathsome. (Others in this select group include Mythbusters and several PBS shows.) Now that it's in syndication I've been occasionally watching older episodes; from this it's evident that the show has changed quite a bit, especially in this past season. The thing we forget is just how unpleasant everything is in the first two seasons or so: the humor derived from the awkwardness of the interactions between characters, more than anything else. This is still true, to an extent, but it seems that the writers have become much more fond of the characters in recent years. The biggest change is the dynamic between Jim & Pam and the environment of the office: earlier, we rooted for them because they were the only two people who had not resigned themselves to a lifetime of drudgery and obscurity. By now they've given in. Is this because they've finally become adults? Or because they can no longer give up a stable source of money? (What's the difference?)

Natalis Domini

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

(That's from Isaiah, chapter nine. If you read the whole thing without thinking of G.F. Handel, then you've clearly never been involved in a performance of his sacred oratorio in three parts.)

Christmas is one of those times when it's especially obvious how far from the ideal we are. Instead of glory to God and on earth peace toward men of good will, we have, well, what we have. And yet if this God fellow is omnipotent, he foresaw even our continuing, exasperating and abundant imperfection when coming into the world.

If you know anything about children, or remember being one, you'll recall that certain gifts are easily broken. Against all sensible counsel, parents will give a child a gift, knowing that it will likely be destroyed. I suppose God's a bit like that.

Snow; Reincken

Nothing is quite so good at reminding you that you're alive as something that can kill you. Today's example is the blizzard that has struck Northern Indiana, which made my hebdomadal walk to the sandwich(e) shop(pe) especially worthwhile. One cannot mope in such weather; one cannot loiter. Cold has a way of focusing one's thoughts; cold with 40-mile-per-hour wind gusts more so. As I strode confidently in my boots through today's weather, I felt a sense of purpose that is distinctly lacking in the languid life of the academic. In this weather, I am Shackleton; I am Peary; I am, especially, Amundsen, for I like to think Norwegianness has something to do with it.

Ah, but now I have retreated to the (relative) warmth of my (drafty) room, as I prepare to write several pages about the organ music of Johann Adam Reincken, one of Bach's influënces. (I recommend it, incidentally.) It's gotten so that I simply cannot hear Baroque music as the unitiated do, which may be a sort of disadvantage in planning liturgical music. My sister, for example, says all Bach's cello suites sound the same; this is patently untrue, but I suppose I should take it into account if congregants cannot distinguish between a passepied and a passacaglia.

Phlegmatics, Unite

Freezing temperatures have finally settled in, here in South Bend. It is good, introspective, no-nonsense weather, and excellent for walks. It's the most phlegmatic time of the year: gone is the melancholia of the autumn, and I was never one for the unrealistic expectations of spring and summer, anyway. In weather like this the monastery starts looking like a viable option. It is thus entirely appropriate that this weather coïncides with the liturgical season of Advent. Consider, why don't you, a good listen to some of Bach's Advent cantatas. (BWV 61 and 62 are especially good.)

For Kirchenmusikers this is, of course, the season to put one's affairs in order for the upcoming festivities. As far as I know I'm only scheduled for two services. The Christmas Eve service should be an intimate affair (piano, keine Orgel), with lots of carols. For the Christmas Day Mass, the papists are planning some rather good choral music (incl. Victoria's O Magnum Mysterium). I just hope our choir is up to the task.

Why I'm glad I bought a radio

This morning I was listenin' to the ol' radio, when what should I hear but the dulcet tones of Mr Wendell Berry! On the Diane Rehm show, of all places. P'raps you might find it edifying to listen to the interview.

But why are we singing, anyway?

It is a truth generally acknowledged that singing is a worthwhile pursuit. The Elizabethan composer William Byrd tells us, among other things, that “the exercise of singing is delightful to Nature”: “it doth strengthen all the parts of the breast, and doth open the pipes.”¹ Moreover, Christian writers have intimated that singing can have a fruitful spiritual dimension. The quotation famously attributed to Augustine is that qui cantat, bis orat.² Paul encouraged the Christians at Colossae to “sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.” It is thus meet, right, and proper that a congregation sing within the liturgy. The implementation of this admirable objective has not been without problems, however. Both the position and realization of hymns within the Mass have been stumbling blocks for ministers and parishioners alike: good music can greatly enhance the celebration of the Mass, but poorly placed, poorly written, or poorly performed music can ruin it just as easily. To better the liturgy, then, it behooves us to consider the place of congregational singing within it.

Historically, Christians have sung hymns since the earliest days of the Church. (Indeed, hymnody predates the Christian tradition: both Jews and gentiles composed hymns of praise to the divine.) It is mentioned in passing in Matthew’s account of the Last Supper that Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn after the meal. We thus have precedent, going back all the way to the Gospels, that supports the use of communal song as part of the rite. As mentioned above, Paul encouraged the Colossians to sing; a similar passage of exhortation occurs in his letter to the Ephesians.³ Various New Testament texts may be transcribed hymn text fragments, such as the Philippians hymn (2:5-11), or parts of the Revelation of John (4:8-11, 5:12-13). A fascinating non-Christian perspective is that of Pliny the Younger, who, in a letter asking Trajan for advice on how to persecute Christians, depicts their habit of worship:

They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food.

This account from AD c.110 suggests, then, that (antiphonal) singing was already part of Christian worship, along with a meal—most likely an early form of the Eucharist—and that, if Pliny is to be trusted, it was the first part of the Sunday morning rite. (It is unclear whether the Saturday evening service of scripture readings had been joined to the meal by this point.) Several decades later, Justin Martyr describes a Sunday liturgy of both Word and Eucharist, with communal prayers beforehand, but he neglects to mention singing.⁴

The earliest surviving Christian hymn fragment is preserved on third-century papyrus found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt; another early hymn is the famous Phos Hilaron (“O Gladsome Light”), which Basil the Great already considered ancient in the fourth century. Both are hymns of invocation, which suggests they were used at the beginning of the liturgy. The latter, also known as the “Lamp-lighting Hymn”, was used at evening: it is possible that it dates back to the earliest liturgies, when Christians met on Saturdays for the Word. The beginning of the Oxyrhynchus hymn is missing, though it mentions “luminous stars”, which may also point to use at vesper time. It should be noted that both texts use the first person plural, indicating congregational use.

It can be reasonably said that, in the first several centuries of Christian hymnody, hymns had three key purposes. The first and central rationale is that mentioned by Paul: song is intended to praise God, that we might “be filled with the Spirit”. The second is that, in the communal joining of voices, hymns served to further Christian unity.⁵ The third purpose was to enforce orthodox views. The hymns of Hilary and Ambrose, for example, contain unambiguous refutations of Arianism.

[But where does that leave us? To be continued.]

---

[1] Byrd wrote this in the preface to his Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety (1588), perhaps hoping to boost sales. He doesn’t specify which pipes he is referring to.
[2] Though the sentiment almost certainly represents Augustine’s views on the matter, it occurs nowhere in his writings. In his commentary on Psalm 73, however, he wrote: Qui enim cantat laudem, non solum laudat, sed etiam hilariter laudat; qui cantat laudem, non solum cantat, sed et amat eum quem cantat. In laude confitentis est praedicatio, in cantico amantis affectio… To sing, then, is to show our love for Him to whom we sing.
[3] Ephesians 5:18-19 (NRSV): “be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts”.
[4] Justin Martyr, First Apology, LXVII.
[5] Basil the Great writes, “Psalmody—bringing about choral singing, a bond, as it were, toward unity, and joining people into a harmonious union of one choir—produces also the greatest of blessings: love.”

Saturdays; Ecumenism

If there is one regard in which South Bend is better than home, it is the farmers' market. (I suspect that this is the only regard in which South Bend is better than home.) I will here vociferously recommend their café (which, logically, serves local fare), as well as the pastries made by some nice Polish ladies. (The pączki are good, but the poduszki are better, I think.)

Saturdays are fast becoming my favorite day of the week. My routine is as follows: I awake, listen to Car Talk, and attempt to conquer swathes of France. Around noon I wend my merry way over to the farmers' market, a pleasant two-mile walk across the river, and soak in the ambience there. After a lazy afternoon, I listen (that is, I am currently listening) to Mr Keillor on that radio show of his. I shall be early to bed to rise early for Mass tomorrow.

Speaking of Masses, or, at least, of religioussy things, perhaps you've heard of that whole Roman Catholic maneuver to assume disaffected Anglicans into the Church? It's an interesting strategy. (I do wonder what's uniting R.C.s and conservative Anglicans, though: it is a commitment to shared values or merely shared distastes?) Of course, it's causing some friction, as the Vatican was rather uncommunicative about this to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He and da Pope met today. Quoth the BBC, "The meeting between Pope Benedict and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams had been billed as something of a showdown." This leads me to wonder who would win in a fight. Dr Williams is younger, yes, and probably more limber, but Benedict looks meaner. Over at America Magazine, the Jesuits are speculating that we're entering a new era in reconciliation between different Christian churches. I remain cautiously pessimistic.

1909

"Death and disease stalk the land, like two giant stalking things." I make this quotation from Blackadder not to be glib (though the sentence pretty consistently makes me chuckle). Nationally and internationally, all sorts of disasters have transpired. Worse, bad things seem to be happening all around me: friends and colleagues are struck with misfortune. My choir director, who happens to be the wife of my organ instructor, is battling cancer. (It's not exactly an even fight.) It'd be nice if you could keep her in your prayers. (Hopefully, praying for "that one choir director of Ross's" will be specific enough for the Powers that Be.)

But enough of that. In other matters, I have determined that I was born a century too late. I'd do much better as an Edwardian. I assume that, in 1909, every day was like living in The Music Man, or, in the U.K., My Fair Lady. I would have a red-and-white-striped suit, I would, and a straw hat, and on feast days a monocle, and I would ride a penny-farthing bicycle. When courting lady-friends I would wear a daffodil in my buttonhole and be ever so dapper. I would exchange correspondences with G.K. Chesterton and Edgar Lee Masters. I would disdain those radical suffragettes, as I would surely be thoroughly reactionary.

Yes, in 1909, life would surely be much better than the wretched present.

Kirchenmusik

You may have noticed that there are awfully many different kinds of "church" "music", nowadays. That is to say, there are awfully many kinds of noise produced and listened to in churches. (I could've written "sacred music", but that's not quite a broad enough term to cover it all.) I'm almost certain that you could find all of the following within a fifty-mile radius in the lower 48:

1. The "average" Protestant, if there is such a thing, is accustomed to a hymnal, and to singing hymns out of it. There is, doubtless, a particularly American corpus of hymns that just about every Protestant knows, irredisregardless of denomination. Many Roman Catholics know some of these, too.
2. Taizé services, which tend to be ecumenical in nature, are characterized by simple, repetitive songs designed for a sort of meditative effect.
3. Post-Vatican II Catholics have their own body of hymns: some of these are borrowed from Protestants, but a good many were written in the last forty years. Marty Haugen and David Haas are the primary movers and shakers, here. Recently, Protestants have begun to use some of this stuff as well.
4. A few R.C.s have opted to stick to pre-conciliar music, namely, Gregorian chant. I suspect this has been gaining in popularity.
   
5. Then there are Eastern Orthodox forms of chant, which are something else entirely.
6. On the other end of the spectrum is happy-clappy Christian rock, which is a staple of evangelicals. It has also found some use among mainstream Protestants, and even some R.C.s. Its symptoms include guitars and drum sets.
7. Like unto this are Christian country, Christian rap, what have you.
8. A Methodist church in South Bend has weekly Celtic music services. Any hymn can be made "Celtic" if you put it in Mixolydian mode and add recorders...
   

Often, all of these forms can be found in the same church, with the exception of the Orthodox. But people tend not to enjoy all sorts, so churches will have different services featuring different genres. We're thus free, as largely passive consumers, to choose whichever kind most appeals to us. Of course, when I put it that way, it's clear that this isn't a particularly good thing.

In the great American marketplace of religions, music has become another commodity, along with theology and social values. As a sacred-musician-in-training, this concerns me (in both senses of the word). We can't dictate by fiat What Sort of Music Will Be Played in Church, now can we? If non-musicians can't appreciate what is genuinely good music, if they have no emotional or theological attachment to it, then we're not really serving the congregation. But at the same time, life's too short for bad music.

If congregations were real communities, each would have an established body of music that everyone learned from their grandparents; we'd at least have some sort of attachment to it, then. (This would also rule out, conveniently, the happy-clappy stuff.) In this increasingly-fallen world this is largely not an option. What, then, are we to do? Give people what they want? I'd be especially interested to hear what ordinary parishioners think.

A Gracious Sabbath, Wendell Berry

A gracious Sabbath stood here while they stood
Who gave our rest a haven.
Now fallen, they are given
To labor and distress.
These times we know much evil, little good
To steady us in faith
And comfort when our losses press
Hard on us, and we choose,
In panic or despair or both,
To keep what we will lose.

For we are fallen like the trees, our peace
Broken, and so we must
Love where we cannot trust,
Trust where we cannot know,
And must await the wayward-coming grace
That joins living and dead,
Taking us where we would not go–
Into the boundless dark.
When what was made has been unmade
The Maker comes to His work.

from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997

Ave, Patria

This past week I've been back home in the Quad Cities. After waiting months to get back, keeping this return in mind as my goal throughout all the busi-ness of graduate study, I must say it's a bit disappointing in some ways. Places change, even in a few months' time. Trees are cut down; concrete is poured. Even the potato soup at the Belgian Village was rather sub-par yesterday (though I remain hopeful that the clam chowder will be good this weekend). We nostalgize places, and they disappoint. People, it is true, can also disappoint; but so far they haven't. It has been reuniting with friends that has been most rewarding about this homecoming.

I'm still not entirely certain what one's relationship to a place should be. One can admire a place. But should one claim to love a place? I know that this particular corner of Illinois/Iowa is not the greatest place in the world, except by virtue of it being mine, and of me being its. "We admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons", Chesterton reminds us. I sometimes wonder whether love ought be reserved for people: only the heartless choose their friends with reason, and families are of course beyond one's choice. But then, our homeland (patria, a fine Latin word: the land of one's fathers) is also given us. Only those few born in a place like Vienna, or Madison, or Moab, can love their place for reasons. The rest of us, born in a world of places that are indeed quite mediocre when judged by their objective merit, must love our place without reasons.

In any case, it's good to be home.

Remembrance of Websites Past

I should probably remind you that my ol' website will be no more this coming Monday. So if you'd like to visit it, I'd suggest you do so sooner than later. It was a fine website, if I do say so myself. (Five years! That's a fourth of the total age of the internet!) Memento mori, dear readers.

Dispatch from South Bend

Here in South Bend all the nicest-colored autumn trees are turning, which is pleasant. Now it's long-underwear weather, a development in which I rejoice.

I've made a habit of dining at Dagwood's Sandwich(e) Shop(pe), not too far from campus. It's overpriced, and I'm not entirely comfortable with its association with a mediocre comic, but the food isn't bad. I always order a chicken caesar wrap, which neatly removes the one thing I dislike about eating salads (viz., using a fork. I have always found eating lettuce with a fork to be a needlessly inefficient enterprise). A few more weeks of this, and I'll be able to walk in and order "the usual" and the sandwich artisans will know what to make. The fountain drink dispenser at this particular restaurant, in case you were wondering, emits a drone at the pitch of the G above middle C.

That's the news from South Bend, where all the women are strong, all the men are unemployed, and most of the children are considerably below average.

Even the French Like 'Em

Do you have a half-hour to spare? Why not spend it listening to this jam session with Mr Bird and another one of my favorites, St. Vincent?

Church Community, cont'd

Either Peters has been reading the comments of this-a-here web-log or there's something in the air. In the midst of a discourse on writers and place, he drops this gem:

It can hardly be a matter of bewilderment to anyone who has read O’Connor’s work, especially the letters and the lectures, that this woman of formidable intellectual abilities was fiercely loyal to the Church Universal and stubbornly committed to attending daily mass at the local parish, where gossip was sure to be high and intelligence low. O’Connor knew that although we participate in universals we don’t inhabit them.

We must make do with a particular place, with all its annoyances. Yes. But I wonder whether this is a defense of one's local church (Flannery was born into Catholicism), or a defense of the Church Universal?

Herbsttag, R.M. Rilke

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.

Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird Es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

-----
Rilke, they say, is impossible to translate. But that's not to say people haven't tried...

Creed and Community

A little while ago I was pondering the Church Divided. There's certainly no shortage of choices for the discriminating prospective churchgoer; we Christians have proven ourselves better at division than charity. But before discussing these choices I'd like to back up and analyze, if briefly, what constitutes a "Christian".

What, or who, is a Christian? In the broadest sense—that of the census, for example—one's status as a Christian is decided merely by self-appellation. But this is problematic enough that I'd rather ignore it and move on to the next sense, that of creed. Let's agree, for argument's sake, that there is a set of beliefs expected of Christians. (In a better age than this one we could've agreed that said beliefs were articulated in the Creeds of the Church; such is not the case nowadays. I will not, however, go so far as to exclude those who would deny, for example, the Virgin Birth: perhaps it is a matter of integrity for them.) Etymologically speaking, our word "creed" comes, of course, from the Latin credo, "I believe", the first word of both the Nicene and the Apostles' Creeds. You will note that it is singular. (It is curious that the Roman Catholics altered this to "we believe" in their current English translation; however, the new translation coming out soon will correct this.) Belief, then, is a personal decision: though we express the creed communally, it is by its nature an act of an individual. The Protestants are generally more insistent about this. Kierkegaard, for example, emphasized that we relate to God as individuals, we attain truth as individuals, we are judged and saved as individuals. There's a good deal to be said for this.

But at the same time, no man is a church unto himself. The sacraments—let's also assume that Christians have those, shall we?—are by their nature administered communally. Paul, in his first letter to Corinth, insists that we are baptized into the mystical "body of Christ": we cannot exist as independent individuals and remain a part of this unity. Once we have established that to be a Christian is to belong to a community, we must then ask ourselves what constitutes a community.

The Sage of Kentucky calls a community a "membership", a term he borrows from Paul (whom, he adds, he doesn't always approve of!). This implies that an individual is not only accepted by the community, but also that he knows himself to be a part of it. Elsewhere we are reminded that community is necessarily local, even though it belongs to a larger order of things:

A healthy community is a form that includes all the local things that are connected by the larger, ultimately mysterious form of the Creation.

(That's from Berry's Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, by the way. It's worth a look-see.) Very well, then: when we say Christians belong to a community, it is necessarily the particular church they attend, with all their fellow congregants—the people who, in better times, we could've assumed are all neighbors anyway. Here, then, is the first problem with Christianity in these United States: a Christian "community" no longer need be defined by close proximity. That is to say, it is no proper community at all.

But how, you may ask, can we balance the imperative for a real community with our personal integrity: that is to say, should I attend the nearest church possible, regardless of its doctrinal errors? That's the question. It's late; let's continue this some other time.

Andrew Bird

This past weekend I visited wonderful Madison, Wisconsin, for a concert by Mr Andrew Bird. He is an absurd scarecrow of a man; the cut of his jeans suggests they are supposed to be tight, but they are baggy on him. He frenetically juggles instruments — violin (bowed and pizzicato), guitar, glockenspiel — often singing, or whistling, at the same time. While performing, he gesticulates like a third-rate Hamlet: he'll turn his extended hand over and over upon itself, or tilt his head to the side. (Unlike the bevy of third-rate Hamlets out there, though, the gestures are not affected; they seem to flow out of him along with the music itself.) His lyrics are at times maddeningly obscure, perhaps irrational. "We'll fight," he sings, "we'll fight for your music halls and dying cities". He tells us of "malarial alleys where the kittens have pleurisy", and "fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone". For much of the music Bird effectively accompanies himself, recording a pattern, transmuting it, and then adding another: his is a contrapuntal mind, always considering the ins and outs of a harmonic landscape and the melody he will build upon it. The music swerves from classical etudes to Appalachian waltzes to electronica to bossa nova; at times it simply dissolves in a series of loops. It is a thinking man's music, ill-suited to those who prefer the stale and and the comforting. It can make you weep.

All in all, it was a good weekend.

Links:
Andrew Bird Official Website
MySpace Page (music samples)
Daytrotter Session (streaming, downloads)

"Popular Scientism"

There's been an awful lot of public debate lately about things that most people are grossly unqualified to discuss. This has not stopped them from doing so. C.S. Lewis elegantly touches on this — apparently it was a problem even in his day — in The Discarded Image, his masterwork on the Middle Ages.

In our age I think it would be fair to say that the ease with which a scientific theory assumes the dignity and rigidity of fact varies inversely with the individual's scientific education. In discussion with wholly uneducated audiences I have sometimes found matter which real scientists would regard as highly speculative more firmly believed than many things within our real knowledge; the popular imago of the Cave Man ranked as hard fact, and the life of Caesar or Napoleon as doubtful rumour. We must not, however, hastily assume that the situation was quite the same in the Middle Ages. The mass media which have in our time created a popular scientism, a caricature of the true sciences, did not then exist. The ignorant were more aware of their ignorance then than now.

The problem is not ignorance; the majority of people have been and will remain ignorant about most things. The problem is that we're not aware of it. We have a large contingent of loud, angry, and increasingly armed Americans who are under the impression that they are being told the truth by popular demagogues. (Come to think of it, one doesn't hear much about unpopular demagogues, does one?) It's human nature, I suppose, to seize on "facts" that confirm our prejudices. But it is not humble, and it is not wise. We must learn to accept our own ignorance.

(But then, where does this leave us? Are we to submit to the "experts", with their "professional opinions"? This is almost equally intolerable. Is there some sort of tertium quid to be found, here?)

Cultus as Commodity

I was at Mass the other day. (You see, I'm in the Liturgical Choir, and thus am required at Sunday morning masses, vespers, and the occasional feast day.) While the rest of the choir went down for Eucharist, I stayed up in the loft, as Canon Law prevents me from partaking. One of my fellow choir members asked me, "Are you Catholic?" After responding in the negative, I was asked, "What's your brand?" "Lutheran", I curtly responded; I had no desire to continue such a conversation. It is interesting, this identification of sect as brand. Has it come to this?— is one's denomination simply another choice we make as consumers? I will grant that the average American could care less about the nature of the Eucharist, or apostolic succession, or the Filioque clause. The great majority of professed Christians, if pressed, will claim to agree with the tenets of whichever church they happen to find themselves members of. Those who do not belong to the church of their parents (or of whichever parent was more insistent) are usually drawn to another sect by its form of worship and social message, more than anything else.

There is something amiss, here. I won't launch, again, into a diatribe against the materialism of modern culture; you've already heard that one, I suppose. What I'd like to examine is the basis of community: is it a shared doctrine, or culture, or worldview... or even, musical taste? (Certainly all of these have proved cause for union or disharmony. Churchgoers can be remarkably petty, as you may know.) Is any one of these worthy cause for joining or leaving a congregation? Yes, probably. But is any cause for leaving or joining a denomination? There, the matter becomes murkier.

Protestants are accustomed, rightly or wrongly, to some fluidity here. A Methodist can swap places with a Disciple of Christ without much cognitive dissonance. Rare is the Presbyterian who hesitates to marry an Episcopalian. And the various evangelicals are indistinguishable. It is different for Roman Catholics, whose church makes a claim to universality: those who've been paying attention have heard that there is no salvation outside the(ir) Church. We thus have a great many Roman Catholics who profess membership in a Church whose doctrines they routinely ignore (for various reasons, which I neither condone nor condemn).

This is more of an essay topick than a web-log post, innit? The hour being late, I shall continue it at another time. Suffice it to say that I miss, as I have never missed before, Lutheran worship. Even among the Anglicans (both in Vienna and Rock Island), there were enough similarities to sustain me, enough good Lutheran hymns slipped in. Here at Notre Dame I feel alienated among the teeming masses of Catholics, and I wonder whether I am truly justified in my longing for the church of my forefathers. There's a groan-inducing pun here: am I missing the Lutherans for the right reasons? Or for the rite reasons?

Piano, D.H. Lawrence

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

1918

O Infinite Love

Thou loving Father, everything goes wrong for me and yet Thou art love.

I have even failed in holding fast to this—that Thou art love, and yet Thou art love.

Wherever I turn, the only thing that I cannot do without is that Thou art love, and that is why, even when I have not held fast to the faith that Thou art love, I believe that Thou dost permit through love that it should be so, O Infinite Love.

from The Prayers of Kierkegaard

Santa Teresa de Ávila nos dice:

Nada te turbe;
nada te espante;
todo se pasa;
Dios no se muda,
la paciencia
todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene,
nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.

The God Who Loves You, Carl Dennis

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.

from Practical Gods

A Prayer by Thomas Merton

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

from Thoughts in Solitude

On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour, John Keats

[Hat tip to Margaret]

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap’d up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending!
’Tis not content so soon to be alone.

The Bee Box, Lowell Parker

In this small box, my love,
you'll not find a ring,
but instead, a brave, little bee.
He'll be dead by morn, having given his life
defending his flowers against me.
I felt his sting
while picking the small, purple pansies
growing wild along the roadside,
in hopes of an afternoon bouquet for you.
And I grieved the sting,
more for him than me,
knowing full well the price he paid
for my small pain.
And I allowed him his victory,
leaving his flowers as a memory,
and brought you instead
this brave, little bee,
who proves there is love
even in the smallest
of things.

maggie and milly and molly and may, E.E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Hoy he nacido, Amado Nervo

Cada día que pase, has de decirte:
"¡Hoy he nacido!
El mundo es nuevo para mí; la luz
ésta que miro,
hiere, sin duda, por la vez primera
mis ojos límpidos;
la lluvia que hoy desfleca sus cristales
es mi bautismo."

"Vamos, pues, a vivir un vivir puro,
un vivir nítido. Ayer, ya se perdió: ¿fui malo?, ¿bueno?
... Venga el olvido,
y quede sólo, de ese ayer, la esencia,
el oro íntimo
de lo que amé y sufrí mientras marchaba
por el camino"

"Hoy, cada instante, al bien y a la alegría,
será propicio;
y en la esencial razón de mi existencia,
mi decidido
afán, volcar la dicha sobre el mundo,
verter el vino
de la bondad sobre las bocas ávidas
en redor mío."

"Será mi sola paz la de los otros;
su regocijo, su soñar mi ensueño;
mi cristalino
llanto, el que tiemble en los ajenos párpados;
y mis latidos,
los latidos de cuantos corazones
palpiten en los orbes infinitos."

Cada día que pase, has de decirte:
"¡Hoy he nacido!"

Julio, 12 de 1914.

She Weeps over Rahoon, James Joyce

Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,
Where my dark lover lies.
Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling,
At grey moonrise.

Love, hear thou
How soft, how sad his voice is ever calling,
Ever unanswered, and the dark rain falling,
Then as now.

Dark too our hearts, O love, shall lie and cold
As his sad heart has lain
Under the moongrey nettles, the black mould
And muttering rain.

Marriage, Wendell Berry

to Tanya

How hard it is for me, who live
in the excitement of women
and have the desire for them
in my mouth like salt. Yet
you have taken me and quieted me.
You have been such light to me
that other women have been
your shadows. You come near me
with the nearness of sleep.
And yet I am not quiet.
It is to be broken. It is to be
torn open. It is not to be
reached and come to rest in
ever. I turn against you,
I break from you, I turn to you.
We hurt, and are hurt,
and have each other for healing.
It is healing. It is never whole.

[Attributed to St. Francis]

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Danza negra, Luis Palés Matos

Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.
Es el sol de hierro que arde en Tombuctú.
Es la danza negra de Fernando Poo.
El cerdo en el fango gruñe: pru-pru-prú.
El sapo en la charca sueña: cro-cro-cró.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.

Rompen los junjunes en furiosa-u.
Los gongos trepidan con profunda-o.
Es la raza negra que ondulando va
en el ritmo gordo del mariyandá.
Llegan los botucos a la fiesta ya.
Danza que te danza la negra se da.

Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.

Pasan tierras rojas, islas de betún:
Haití, Martinica, Congo, Camerún;
las papiamentosas antillas del ron
y las patualesas islas del volcán,
que en el grave son
del canto se dan.

Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
Es el sol de hierro que arde en Tombuctú.
Es la danza negra de Fernando Poo.
El alma africana que vibrando está
en el ritmo gordo del mariyandá.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.

Sailing to Byzantium, W.B. Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Echo, Christina Rossetti

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

The True Nature of Gnomes

Paracelsus somewhere in his writings tells us
A gnome moves through earth like an arrow in the air,
At home like a fish within the seamless, foamless
Liberty of the water that yields to it everywhere.

Beguiled with pictures, I fancied in my childhood
Subterranean rivers beside glimmering wharfs,
Hammers upon anvils, pattering and yammering,
Torches and tunnels, the cities of the dwarfs;

But in perfect blackness underneath the surface,
In a silence unbroken till the planet cracks,
Their sinewy bodies through the dense continuum
Move without resistance and leave no tracks.

Gravel, marl, blue clay—all's one to travel in;
Only one obstacle can impede a gnome—
A cave or a mine-shaft. Not their very bravest
Would venture across it for a shortcut home.

There is the unbridgeable. To a gnome the air is
Utter vacuity. If he thrust out his face
Into a cavern, his face would break in splinters,
Bursting as a man would burst in interstellar space.

With toiling lungs a gnome can breathe the soil in,
Rocks are like a headwind, stiff against his chest,
Chief 'midst his pleasures is the quiet leaf mould,
Like air in meadowy valleys when the wind's at rest.

Like silvan freshness are the lodes of silver,
Cold, clammy, fog-like, are the leaden veins
Those of gold are prodigally sweet like roses,
Gems stab coolly like the small spring rains.

—C.S. Lewis

Un poema por Antonio Machado

XXIX, de Proverbios y cantares

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.

Hopkins, Inscape, and the Vindication of Nature

(Written 2008)

Gerard Manley Hopkins's poems "Pied Beauty" and "[As Kingfishers Catch Fire...]" both employ extensive natural imagery in hymns of praise to nature and to nature's God. In each we see something of Hopkins's concept of an inscape, the quality of a thing that makes it uniquely itself and nothing else (Everett). The images of physical things Hopkins evokes serve for him as reminders of the spiritual glory of the God who made them and endowed each with its particular individuality.

In terms of construction, [As Kingfishers Catch Fire...] is a sonnet consisting of an octave (two quatrains, ABBA–ABBA, using the same rhymes) and a sestet (CDCDCD form). The first quatrain catalogues five objects that, in doing what they do, distinctly define themselves. Each is accompanied by an active verb and intense, sensuous imagery. The second quatrain delves into Hopkins's notion of inscape, the revelatory "oneness" of a thing, the unique attributes that, combined, define an object (Everett). Each and every thing Hopkins observes—be it a bird or an insect or a stone thrown down a well—is uniquely itself, with its very own "being indoors" (6), or essence. What's more, each thing proclaims both this essence and the fact that it exists simply to embody it: "myself it speaks and spells, / crying Whát I do is me: for that I came" (7-8). In the sestet that makes up the second stanza Hopkins extends the quality of inscape to men, but here it is something more than merely the self-ness of an individual. A just man may justice—Hopkins uses it as a verb—but he also "keeps grace" (10) and is therefore kept in grace by God. Through this grace, the inscape of a just man is not only that of his unique self but also, "in God’s eye" (11), that of Christ, who therefore "plays in ten thousand places" (12). Paradoxically, multitudes of just men somehow share the same inscape, embodying both themselves and Christ in a mysterious universality. [1]

"Pied Beauty" is a so-called "curtal sonnet", an altered form of the Petrarchan sonnet, invented by Hopkins. Whereas the full-size sonnet has an octet and a sestet, this curtal sonnet has the same proportions on a smaller scale: a sestet followed by a quatrain with a half-line "tail" (Pitchford). Though he could have easily used more varied rhymes and still had a sonnet, Hopkins chooses to use fewer, forging a unity between the sestet and quatrain/tail: the rhyme scheme is ABCABC DBCDC. In the poem we see the same celebration of the inscapes of things, of animals and even of inanimate objects. Hopkins's primary images for most of the poem are those of colors and textures, for he tells us that God's glory is evident in something as simple as the contrast of two colors. As in [As Kingfishers Catch Fire...], the first stanza—or what would be the first stanza if Hopkins had divided the sestet and quatrain/tail—of "Pied Beauty" describes objects that, in being what they are, are gloriously themselves. Furthermore, there is a sort of progression downwards, as it were, from the "skies of couple-colour" (2) to plants and animals on the earth ("a brinded cow" (2), "trout that swim" (3), fallen chestnuts on the ground (4), and "finches' wings" (4)), to the land itself, "plotted and pieced" (5) in pastures and fields active and fallow. Agriculture serves here as the connecting metaphor between the natural world and man, for the next line, the last of the sestet, praises even man's occupations, with all "their gear and tackle and trim" (6). It may be that the trade of the just man who justices is among these, which would suggest a unity between the two poems; if so, then perhaps Hopkins implies that even in the ordinary jobs of men, God "keeps all [our] goings graces".

The quatrain and tail of "Pied Beauty" exalt all unique things (7) and their variety—"whatever is fickle, freckled" (8). Then, in a list of alliterative antonymous adjectives (9), Hopkins attempts to give some dimension to the magnitude of the different things that are. All of the wonders of creation that Hopkins so appreciates are the work of the God who "fathers-forth" (10) these things. In line ten we finally see what is perhaps the key word of the poem: beauty. In another paradox, the beauty of these varied things, all of them ephemeral, is also the grandeur of God "whose beauty is past change" (10). Again, the particular is made universal in the divine. The tail of the poem is almost devastating in its simplicity: "Praise him" (11). Having made all these artful rhymes extolling the beauty of the world, Hopkins sums up his poem in a simple exhortation to praise God.

Both poems are read easily enough as odes to the splendor of creation. But on another level—quite appropriately, considering Hopkins's vocation as a Jesuit—the two poems can be read for their biblical allusions and religious imagery. "Pied Beauty" has fewer biblically-inspired lines, being rather a hymn to nature of an almost pagan degree. [2] The "trout that swim" in line 3 may hearken back to the ichthys of early Christianity, but by and large the poem is devoid of explicit reference to religion except for the first and last two lines. On the other hand, the first line of [As Kingfishers Catch Fire...] summons up representations of both Christ and Satan. "Kingfishers" recalls Christ the King who called us to be "fishers of men", while "dragonflies" evokes those descriptions of the devil both as a dragon and as Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. Though the fire caught and flames drawn refer to the brightness of kingfishers and dragonflies when in the light, they may also refer to the purifying fire of purgatory or infernal flames of hell. The "tucked string" (3) reminds us of Psalm 150, suggesting that we "praise [God] with the psaltery and harp"; hung bells (3) of course remind the reader of church bells. Hopkins's idea that Christ can be "lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his" (13) is a decidedly anti-gnostic one: it necessitates that God does not spurn corporeal form. (Hopkins speaks metaphorically of course; he does not mean to argue that there are literally thousands of incarnations of Christ.) As we see in both poems, Hopkins views the physical not as a deterioration of spirit, but rather as a celebration of it.

In the heightened spiritual state of seeing the inscape of a thing, every thing that proclaims itself becomes a sacrament—not one of the seven proper sacraments of the Church, but nonetheless a physical manifestation with a heavenly meaning. Hopkins's delight in observing the natural world, his pleasure in seeing each thing doing that which it should, was for him the joy of recognizing God's hand at work. The notion of inscape, accepting the fundamental aptness of every "mortal thing", exalts matter, not over spirit, but certainly up to the same plane as spirituality. Implicitly, it is a condemnation of those things that go against nature (or at least, against the individual nature of the thing itself), and of those people who would wrongly separate grace from nature. In an age of industrialization, rampant "progress", and increasing alienation from the physical world, Hopkins still penned hymns of praise vindicating nature in all its forms.

---

Works Cited
Everett, Glenn. "Hopkins on "Inscape" and "Instress"."
Hopkins, Gerard Manley. "[As Kingfishers Catch Fire...]."
---. "Pied Beauty."
Pitchford, Lois W. "The Curtal Sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins." Modern Language Notes 67 (1952): 165-169.

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Footnotes
1. Angelus Silesius, another Roman Catholic convert, priest and poet, whom it is quite possible Hopkins had read, wrote in the seventeenth century that all the blessed are one and that every Christian must be Christ (cf. Der cherubinische Wandersmann V, 7 & 9). Surely Hopkins is getting at the same thing at the end of [As Kingfishers Catch Fire...]. [back]
2. One is reminded of St. Francis of Assisi, who thanked God for "Brother Sun" and "Sister Moon". For Francis, too, the physical world proclaimed God's glory. [back]

Flatland, Spaceland, and the Quest for Higher Dimensions

(Written 2007)

If it is possible that there are extensions with other dimensions, it is also possible that God has somewhere brought them into being; for His works have all the magnitude and manifoldness of which they are capable.
--Immanuel Kant, "Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces"

In 1884 the English scholar and clergyman Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838-1926) published Flatland, a slim tome of mathematical science fiction. It tells the story of A. Square, a two-dimensional being (from Flatland, a vast Euclidean plane) who is introduced to the third dimension. Besides being an apt caricature of Victorian social mores, Abbott's book is a useful analogy for us modern readers as scientists posit higher spatial dimensions and we try to understand them. By approaching the third dimension from the perspective of the second, Flatland anticipates the problems of envisioning what mathematicians call "Hyperspace"--the realm of higher dimensions. [1] On yet another level, the novel can be read as spiritual quest: in his book The Fourth Dimension, Rudy Rucker writes, "A. Square's trip into higher dimensions is a perfect metaphor for the mystic's experience of higher reality." With Flatland's example in mind, this essay will attempt to explain for the layperson some mathematical, scientific, and spiritual implications of the fourth dimension, as well as address the underlying problem of the concept: how can we know anything about a dimension whose existence we cannot empirically prove?

It is probably best to begin, as Abbott does, with mathematics. We can easily enough understand the relationship between algebraic exponentiation and geometry: three to the second power (3²) equals nine, just as a square with a length and width of three inches has an area of nine square inches. Three cubed is twenty-seven, just as a cube with a length, width and height of three inches has a volume of twenty-seven cubic inches. Carrying this one step further, we know that three to the fourth power equals eighty-one; ergo, the four-dimensional analogue of a cube--what mathematicians call a tesseract--would have a length, width, height and "extra-height" of three inches and a hypervolume of eighty-one hypercubic inches. [2] Unfortunately, our brains are unable to understand such a hyperspacial object except by analogy: we know that a tesseract would be made up of cubes in the same way that a cube is made up of squares, but we find it extremely difficult to properly visualize it. [3] Furthermore, we cannot assume that, since a tesseract is algebraically possible, it is geometrically possible; the usefulness of four-dimensional equations is such that if the fourth dimension did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it. Though hyperspacial forms exist as a Platonic ideal, mathematics alone cannot tell us whether they are indeed real in our physical world. We can only, as A. Square does, "cast [ourselves] in faith upon conjecture, not knowing the facts."

Having failed to gain a concrete understanding through mathematics, we can attempt to comprehend the fourth dimension via the scientific hypothesis that necessitates its existence, String Theory. In The Elegant Universe Brian Greene likens our understanding of a multidimensional universe to than of a person viewing a suspended garden hose from far away. From a distance, the hose appears to be a one-dimensional line, though in fact its surface is two-dimensional: it has length and a circular dimension, which is "curled up", making it difficult to detect without a closer look. The fourth dimension Greene hypothesizes is both compactified to an infinitesimally small degree (far beyond anything we can currently detect), and located at every point in the three spatial dimensions we know of. For string theory to achieve its harmonious melding of general relativity and quantum mechanics, we must assume that the "strings" (one-dimensional structures considered by string theorists to be the fundamental components of reality) vibrate in at least nine spatial dimensions. But what are these dimensions? The theory, formulated by physicists Eugenio Calabi and Shing-Tung Yau, is that there is a shape with six dimensions compactified into it (a "Calabi-Yau space") at every point in the universe. When we move through space, we are actually moving through these higher dimensions; however, they're so minutely small that we don't notice them. Abbott, remarkably prescient as he was, noted something like this. In his preface to the second edition of Flatland he addresses the objection that Flatlanders must actually have an infinitesimally small third dimension of height, or they would be unable to see each other. A. Square responds,

"It is true that we have really in Flatland a Third unrecognized Dimension called 'height', just as it is also true that you have really in Spaceland a Fourth unrecognized Dimension, called by no name at present, but which I will call 'extra-height'. But we can no more take cognizance of our 'height' than you can of your 'extra-height'. ... I cannot now comprehend it, nor realize it by the sense of sight or by any process of reason; I can but apprehend it by faith."

String theory appears to be a fine resolution of some physics problems raised in the last century, but it is not verifiable; everything new it theorizes happens at such a small scale that we can't empirically prove it. We are left, like the Flatlanders, to make a leap of faith: we are no closer to a tangible confirmation of hyperspace than we were with mathematics.

Rational pursuits having failed us, we may as well examine some supernatural explanations concerning the fourth dimension. In Flatland, the Sphere, as a three-dimensional being, can reach through the fabric of Flatland to move tablets from one room to another, and can even touch A. Square's innards (much to the latter's distress). For the spiritually inclined it is tempting to postulate that what we call supernatural phenomena could somehow be the work of four-dimensional beings operating on our plane of existence. At first glace this appears to be a convenient solution for many of our deepest problems: the beings and concepts we once labeled as supernatural are simply a part of another dimension, with its own empirically deducible laws. The notion that our souls are hyperspacial forms dates at least as far back as 1659, when the Cambridge Platonist Henry More made the claim in his book The Immortality of the Soul. Unfortunately, More's assertion is little more than idle speculation, and it was completely forgotten for several centuries. In the second half of the nineteenth century there was rampant conjecture about the fourth dimension, encouraged both by mathematical speculation and by a growing fascination with the occult. Charlatans exploited this popular interest to explain paranormal phenomena performed at séances, calling on four-dimensional beings to do parlor tricks. As respected a scientist as Johann Carl Friedrich Zöllner, an early pioneer in the field of photometry, fell for such claims, zealously defending them. Con artists notwithstanding, the idea that the fourth dimension is a metaphysical realm was indeed popular among spiritualists; in 1888, A.T. Schofield wrote,

"We conclude, therefore, that a higher world than ours is not only conceivably possible, but probable; secondly, that such a world may be considered as a world of four dimensions... Though the glorious material universe extends beyond the utmost limits of our vision, even artificially aided by the most powerful telescopes, that does not prevent the spiritual world and its beings, and heaven and hell being by our very side."

However, if we accept the assumption that spiritual concepts are merely four-dimensional concepts, what about higher dimensions? If we accept the faith claim that one more spatial dimension exists, we are in no position to deny the possibility of additional ones. A truly omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God (or, at least, the notion of such a being) cannot be limited to a finite dimension, and thus we still have the problem of infinite regress; hyperspace cannot provide us with a neat and tidy mathematical solution to metaphysical questions.

Even were there a set number of dimensions, there are other problems with labeling God as a higher-dimensional being. A. Square, upon learning of the third dimension, goes further, envisioning a "Thoughtland"--we may read it as the dimension of infinity--where a being could look down on all dimensions and comprehend their forms. We may assume that a being in Thoughtland is God, but Abbott argues otherwise: "This omnividence [4]... does it make [one] more just, more merciful, less selfish, more loving? Not in the least. Then how does it make [one] more divine?" Divinity, for Flatland's author, is not a function of power and knowledge, but of righteousness; since there is nothing intrinsically virtuous about hyperspace, God cannot be God simply because he is a denizen of some higher dimension.

Ultimately, it seems that there is no union of theoretical mathematics with theology that can satisfy both mathematicians and theologians. Abbott, a clergyman himself, dismissed the effort to link mathematical understanding with spiritual improvement; in The Kernel and the Husk he wrote, "Even if we could conceive of Space of Four Dimensions... we should not be one whit better morally or spiritually. ... [N]o knowledge of Quadridimensional space can guide us [towards spirituality]". If we cannot use the sciences to further ourselves spiritually, then, conversely, spirituality will not help us advance our understanding of science; to conflate the two is to devalue both. In our condition, hyperspace can exist as a mathematical abstraction and object of speculation, but nothing more.

Our search for a fourth spatial dimension, then, must necessarily be a failure. Though we have the tools of mathematical, scientific, and spiritual inquiry, they cannot reveal hyperspace to us while we remain in our three-dimensional universe. We, the residents of Spaceland, have as much trouble envisioning Hyperspace as the Flatlanders have conceptualizing our world; while mathematical analogy is useful, it cannot truly show us because our brains are hard-wired, as it were, to grasp only the three spatial dimensions to which we are accustomed. Our scientific theories, though they are a fine basis for predicting physical phenomena, are not laws, and can only hypothesize hyperspace's existence. Likewise, spirituality can serve a valuable purpose, but it is not useful in the pursuit of the fourth dimension. Unlike A. Square, we have no otherworldly guide who has deigned to enlighten us, and thus must remain in our ignorance as long as we remain in this universe of ours.

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If you liked this essay, you just might enjoy:

• Abbott, Edwin Abbott. The Annotated Flatland. Ed. Ian Stewart. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Publishing, 2002.
• Hinton, Charles. Fourth Dimension Writings.
• Krauss, Lawrence M. Hiding in the Mirror. New York: Viking, 2005.
• Rucker, Rudy. The Fourth Dimension. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

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Footnotes

1. N.B. In popular usage, the "fourth dimension" refers to time, but I shall not treat it as such in this essay: hereafter I shall use the term for the fourth spatial dimension. [back]

2. There is a problem of language here. There is no accepted name for the direction of the fourth dimension, so I use "extra-height", a term used by Abbott. (An alternate word, devised by Henry More in the seventeenth century, is "spissitude".) "Hypervolume" and "hypercubic" are simply the four-dimensional equivalents of our words volume and cubic. [back]

3. It is worth noting that many have tried. A fine example is Robert A. Heinlein's short story "--And He Built a Crooked House--", in which an architect constructs a house in the shape of an unfolded tesseract; after an earthquake, the house somehow falls into the fourth dimension. [back]

4. "Omnividence" may be Abbott's own word, as a quick search reveals few sources besides him that use it. It simply means "the capacity of seeing all things", from the Latin OMNI "all" + VIDERE "to see". [back]

The Art of Art Snobbery

(Written 2005)

Depending on what circles you travel in, it is quite possible (indeed, likely) to come across someone who claims to know something about art. To engage such a person in discussion (at a party, for example) can prove difficult, at best; for one thing, they always seem to direct the conversation towards their area of expertise, using far too many French words. Three minutes into the chat you've lost any sense of direction and have begun to inch backwards towards the door, which you may or may not reach before collapsing in a frustrated stupor. And that would seem to ruin the whole party experience, wouldn't it? But this need not always occur: one can turn the tables. With a little practice, anyone can make art an impenetrable fog, incomprehensible to the listener.

Certainly the most important factor in becoming an art snob is attaining the vocabulary to sound impressive. Key words include many '-isms', such as modernism, impressionism, expressionism, regionalism, neoclassicism, fauvism, deconstructionism, revivalism, dadaism, surrealism, and others. Put a 'post' in front of one, if possible. Then, insert an adjective—the longer, the better: Kafkaesque, metacritical, Aristotelian, übermenschian, etc. Finish by adding a 'reminiscent of...' a foreign phrase: Die Neue Sachlichkeit, La Belle Epoque, Kamchatka. Feel free to make up appropriate-sounding words. Such phrases are even more bewildering when applied together—compare these two sentences:

1. "I really like how the artist paints that fruit."
2. "The artist's verdant, luxuriant painting, while continuing the pastoral dichotomy of past works, admirably captures the subversive hermeneutics of desire, embodying a subaltern pathos of duplicity and dialectic into a polysemous weave of interleaved multitextuality that fitfully illuminates a life's work spent dancing on a metacritical pin."
For maximum effect, use adjectives that have no relation whatsoever to art, for good measure: arsenious, lugubrious, schadenfreudeian, agrarian, diaphanous, esophageal, etc. Your unfortunate listener will be unable to do anything but nod and smile weakly.

Though it may prove impossible to constantly evaluate specific art works or artists, the snob must relate everything to at least an art topic. Name-drop—the more obscure, the better: "Why, just yesterday I was eating lunch with Hans Namuth. The Hans Namuth. And he was telling me about his Vin d'Anges with Andreas Becker—can you believe it? What? You haven't heard of Andreas Becker? Or Hans Namuth?" If the person listening hasn't heard of the person referenced, cultivate an appropriate sneer, saying, "Well, you certainly don't get around much, do you?" Remember to place the spoken emphasis in the oddest of places. Then continue: "As I was saying, he had ordered the minestrone, and I said..."

Wardrobe, too, constitutes a vital part of the development of the "art snob" mystique. If possible, grow a goatee, regardless of your gender. Wear a turtleneck, preferably with a snazzy jacket. (Taste—at least what other uncultured plebeians consider 'taste'—isn't really an issue. Actually, you'd do better to dress as ostentatiously as possible.) Then there are the glasses: whether or not one has a vision problem, tinted glasses are absolutely essential. Favorite colors include rose pink, olive green, maroon, or lavender. One's clothing should be eclectic, yet refined.

The most difficult part of feigning knowledge about art is truly a test of craftiness: conversing with someone who actually does know something about art. Such a person may be a college art professor (though many of these also prove fraudulent, fortunately), or a curator. Now, chances are the person will prove just as fake as most snobs, but there may be the slight chance that they aren't. Drop a phrase or two on them, perhaps with a reference thrown in for good measure. Note their reaction—do they stare rather blankly, glassy-eyed? Or has such a comment, heaven forbid, engaged them? Do they seem puzzled? Perhaps they suspect that anyone who would say such a thing knows nothing whatsoever about art. Now is the time to abort. The easiest way to do this consists of excusing oneself to go to the restroom. Make it clear: you absolutely have to use the restroom. Don't allow the individual to continue talking, lest they discover your deception. Walk away slowly, maintaining a slow, easy pace—any sign of nervousness and the jig is up. Once out of the room, leave. Don't come back to get a coat left behind. It's not worth it. If the bathroom door is actually in sight, your problem is more severe: escape through the window may be the only solution. Afterwards, make a conscious effort to avoid the individual at all future parties.

Once one is able to pass this test, however, art snobbery can prove to be both enjoyable and profitable. Have fun with it. Make up convincing-sounding words. Use a watch to time how long it takes for someone to get lost in the depths of art jargon. Practice a suitably upsetting sneer. The art historian Erwin Panofsky once said, "he who teaches innocent people to understand art without bothering about classical languages, boresome historical methods and dusty old documents, deprives naïveté of its charm without correcting its errors." But why even bother trying to understand art, when one can so easily pretend to be an expert?

Willkommen

As you probably know, GeoCities is going (figuratively) under, which leaves me (figuratively) scrambling to find web-hosting elsewhere. In the meantime, Blogger accounts are still no cost, which makes this the best option at the mo'. Here, then, will be my repository of things that used to be on my ol' GeoCities page, as well as new things that would've gone there.