Just one question, or four

 Just one question, or four 

Matthew, chapter 11, beginning at verse 2:

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (ESV)

In some manuscripts, this follows:

 “I am not offended,” John returns, “but please, tell me: What do the blind see and where do the lame go? What do the deaf hear, and when the dumb speak, what do they say? The raised up, are they truly alive? And the poor, do they believe it?”

Yes, what does anyone hear? And when the dumb speak, what will they say?

                                                                      07.18.22

 Farrago  

What to say about Menippus but that without leaving a word he left a genre?
What to say about Meleager but that he wrote of love?
What to say about poor Whigham, who admired Ezra Pound and wrote for Diana Mosley and died too
     soon in a car crash in California, but . . . What does the ambassador Chapuys say to Cromwell of
     King Henry: “a man of great endowments, lacking only consistency, reason and sense”?

                                                                      07.26.22

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Menippus of Gadara. His Complete Epigrams may be found here.
Meleager, also of Gadara, who wrote Menippean satire, and edited The Greek Anthology, from which the poems in the YouTube link come.
Peter Whigham. It is his translations, or, more accurately renditions, of Meleager I read.

Axel's Kittel

 Axel’s Kittel 

Late in our session, I found myself telling Dr. Feight: “The story of the Gadarene swine, you know it?” Of course he did — hadn’t he also played Bible baseball in Sunday School? But I told it again anyway:

The kingdom of God is like this: There were two Cynics from Gadara, Menippus and Meleager, the first a slave that became rich by begging 300 years before Jesus, the second a poet that went from Tyre to Cos 100 years before. There was also a madman, who lived while Jesus was alive.
     After the Storm, which Jesus has stilled, he and the disciples come to the other side of the sea, to the land of the Gadarenes — or Gerasenes, as Mark has it. There is the man, with an unclean spirit, or hundreds of unclean spirits. The boat has, it seems, cast up on the edge of a graveyard because that’s where he lives, in the graveyard, where he has been chained to one of the tombs, but he has broken free, screaming and shouting and tearing at himself. But when he sees Jesus, he runs to him, though he is shouting still, “What have you to do with me, Jesus of Nazareth?” Or the demons inside of him shout it because Jesus has been speaking to them. It is they that answer, when Jesus asks the man his name. Their name is Legion, meaning 5200 soldiers and 300 horses. Yet they are afraid. They say to Jesus, don’t just throw us out into the air. Throw us somewhere, into those pigs over there, they say. Jesus does. He throws them into the passel and the passel throws itself, or the pigs in the passel throw themselves, over the cliff and into the sea. It makes quite a splash and people come out from town. They find the man sitting up, clothed, and in his right mind. This is dangerous, they decide, and they ask Jesus to leave. He does. The man wishes to go with him, but Jesus says, “No. Stay here.”

     “What do you think?” I said.
     Dr. Feight didn’t say anything. His pen was scratching notes into his pad; then it too was silent.
     “I looked up ‘in his right mind,’” I said. “I wrote it down, the Greek.” I wrestled it out of my pocket and handed it over my head to him. “Axel helped me find it in his Kittel.

“What do you think?” The chorus repeats: the scratching, then it stops.

     “It is the present participle of sophrouneo.” The word sounds like a flag wobbling in the wind. And I rattle on with what I’ve found, that it goes back to classic Greek — to myth, to the tragedians, to Plato. It is hard to define. It is the opposite of mania, of hubris, of foolish immaturity, of crying like a baby. It isn’t exactly but it has to do with circumspection, modesty, proper respect, also with purpose, with knowing what we are to do, with knowing ourselves.
     “Not to disbelieve,” I say, “but it’s a lot to accomplish in one miracle, a lot to accomplish just by rustling some demons out of a man and pitching them into a passel of pigs, even if after you find him a place to sit and a suit of clothes.
     “It's more, I think, than I can do.” Meaning for myself. More scratching.

“I got a letter from my sister.” I stop as if I don’t remember exactly when I received the letter though I do. “From Moira.* The day before yesterday. She said something about how I am always wondering if I am going to get through to the other side. Then I wonder if there is an other side. She can’t be sure, but every time she thought she had gotten there, or even somewhere near, she found she hadn’t.
     “She goes on though, hoping this new medicine I am on will have some effect and suggesting that I keep moving even if I’m going nowhere, I keep puttering about ‘like old men do, vacuuming, working in the yard, washing their cars, sweeping their front porches and their sidewalks, and the like. These are good for you, I have been told, and it was when I quit them all, stopped cleaning my apartment, washing my hair, brushing my teeth, etc. that I was ‘done for.’”

The scratching stops as, with a period. “And, that’s our time,” I said, “isn’t it?”
     “Yes, I am afraid so.”
                                                          07.22.22

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 *  Moira is my dead sister. Hannah is the living one. The graphic is sophrounta on Axel’s Kittel.

Valencia oranges.

 Valencia oranges 

The coffee house on the corner has stayed open throughout the pandemic. You called in your order from outside the front door and were given a number. Then you could walk through one at a time to the makeshift patio in the alley in the back; and there it was, your order, on the table with your number. The tables had over-sized umbrellas against the rain. Against the cold there were tall propane heaters.
     The inside is open now to half capacity; but we are in the back — Nils and I. Axel is coming late; he was called away to meet a parishioner in the emergency room; then, he was called back — the parishioner was sent home. Uncle Albert was joining us but decided it would be too hot.
     The heat is coming; it is nearly here.

 Nils has become a materialist, he says. I’m not sure what he means by that, so I ask.
     He raps the metal table, picks his coffee up and sets it down again; he raps his forehead. “There is nothing but stuff,” he says. “And there is a reason for everything.”
     “Almost,” I say without knowing what I’m going to say next. And I must say it too cheerily, for Axel growls back:
     “Give me a for instance.”
     “Of what?” Stalling for time.
     “Something there’s no reason for.”
     “The universe,” I decide.
     “We may not yet know how that came to be. But one day, I assure you, we will.”

As if I’m going to take your assurances, I think, but: “I think you’re confusing ‘reason’ and ‘explanation,’” I say. “But I could be wrong.” 

The server brings another coffee. Axel follows.
     “Is my brother bothering you yet with his article from the Times?” Axel asks.
     “No,” I say. “What article?”
     “On cats and gold,” Axel says.
     I don’t know what he means, so: “No,” I say again. “He’s become a materialist,” I say. 
     “Bosh,” says Axel. “He doesn’t know what it means.” 

Nils doesn’t take the bait. He is pulling out a copy from his little leather backpack. He hands it to me. “Have you seen this?” he says.
     “No,” I say. It begins with a picture of a woman in a yellow-gold dress. “Is this then about cats and gold?”
     “K-a-t-z,” Nils spells, “and capital Gold,” he says. “That’s her,” he points. “You haven't been following this? About Katz, I mean,” he says.
     “No, I say.”
     Says Axel, “He doesn’t follow anything. You know that.”
     “That's not quite true,” I say.
     “No,” he says, “but it’s almost true.”

I scan. The article, much handed about by the looks, seems to be about a dinner party at Princeton. Some middle-aged professor and his young wife. They have invited a lover of Bach and his young wife, a director of a “Program in American Ideals,” and “the country’s ‘most influential conservative Christian thinker,’” —  highlighted in yellow; he’s underlined Christian in red — who comes in a white suit with a bottle of 1997 Mersaut,  also highlighted.
     “How much, do you reckon?” Nils asks.
     I shrug, “I have no idea.” Then, I guess $35 because I know it’s more than that.
     “Yes,” Nils says, “35 x 3 x 9.”
     “Oh. But . . . ,” I say.
     “So,” Axel interruptss, “what my brother wants to know is what you think Jesus will do when he arrives.” He pauses. “He wants you to say that he’ll change that damn expensive wine into water.”
     “Jesus is coming?” I ask, thinking “Why?”
     “Surely!” Nils. “He’s been invited.” He points to the prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest,” also highlighted I see.
     Axel says, “I don't think he’ll change it into water. He’ll have brought Valencia oranges — doesn't he live in Spain now? — and he'll turn it into sangria.”
     “But Valencia oranges,” I say. “They don’t come from Spain. They come from California.”

                                                                       07.18.22

Free Will 1, Determinism 1

 En Français 
or Free Will 1, Determinism 1

“But if our brains decide what we think before we think it, then don’t all our choices emanate necessarily — at least! — from when we oozed out of the ooze onto what we knew before we arrived was dry land?” It was the spider man, Maynard [Meh -'närr] Hale,* on the speaker phone in French. “Fair enough,” Uncle Albert answered, also in French, “if you want to live the life of a lab rat that thinks he’s a neuroscientist or a neuroscientist that thinks he’s a lab rat, but if as long as today is Friday and tomorrow is Saturday and historians are still drawing timelines on blackboards from left to right . . . ” at which I lost several words though I did catch the names “Berkeley” and “Samuel Johnson” and finally “Austin Farrer” and the words “British linguistic philosophers” (because they were in English).  The philosophers apparently argue that outside of the lab, or the maze in the lab, we talk about free will and determinism in terms of agency and event: I did this, then I did that, then this happened; or, this happened, then I did this.
     Meh -'närr sighed — in English: How could he converse in French “if Al -'bair was going to take the side of common sense?”   
                                                                       07.02.22

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* One of Uncle Albert’s former students. Follow the link. Stone pictured right is one of many that claim to have been kicked by Samuel Johnson.

42 bears

  42 bears 

To Ted (crabbiolio@gmail.com)
From Nemet (NemetN006@Kmail.nat) :

I do not write for a very long time. Zayna is fine. She says hello. I don’t remember the Bible story, but there is a restaurant in Pompeijo called 42 Bears. Which serve the meat. Here is a picture I make. Not a good one. (Not for showing.)

It is very small, only two tables. Zayna says it would hold hardly 4.2 bears much less 42. She also asks if Bible bears have boyskin rugs in front of their fires. She is being funny. Not a joke: She also says hi to Roz. And we both say Happy Independence.

P. S. Zayna now says she thinks the restaurant has its name not from the Bible but from a Kristovian legend about a boy that killed 42 bears. But this is too a joke, I think.

From Nemet (and Zayna)
04.07.22 / 17:54
                                                              07.04.22 

Little prophet-mockers

 Little prophet-mockers 

I asked Roz if she would get in touch with the Narrow Man and ask him about the story at the end of the second chapter of II Kings, the story about Elisha and the boys that teased him about being bald, and he cursed them, and two she-bears came out of the scrub and tore 42 of the boys apart.
     She was reluctant to do it because she didn’t want to tempt him out of retirement, she said. (You may recall we went last Sunday to hear his “valedictory sermon” at Sluggish Fan Presbyterian Church.) I said I wouldn’t tell anyone where I got my information if it ever came up. Besides, why would it?
     “Why would what come up?”
     “The story of Elisha and the bears.”
     She said I had missed the point. I didn’t deny that, but I persisted as the sons of the prophets persisted when they wanted to go look for Elijah even though he was gone. (II Kings 2:15-18, part of the Narrow Man’s sermon); and like Elisha, she finally assented. She said, “Okay,” since they were friends. And I said, “Good,” though I missed the point of that, too.

She emailed him my interest. And he emailed back that it was an interesting story, partly because it raised questions that no one really knew the answers to, or if they did either they didn’t want to reveal them or they were wrong.
     He had a seminary classmate, he wrote, that when he was called to preach in various churches around and about, as seminary students were when churches were desperate, he (Tom) always told this story as his “children’s lesson,” concluding: “If you have any questions, ask your parents after church.” Tom, the Narrow Man, wrote, was not being mean! He just had a strong belief in theological modesty: It was good to learn early that none of us had all the answers. Or some of the answers we did have weren’t good ones.

Then, the Narrow Man did in his email what he always did in his sermons. He retold the story, how Elisha goes up from Jericho to Bethel, and as he is arriving, these small boys come out and jeer at him because he is bald. And this so offends him, though what is wrong with being bald is not entirely clear — doesn’t Leviticus say somewhere something like “Now, if a man loses his hair, he is bald; but he is still clean,” meaning not leprous, not to be cast out: he is just bald. But Elisha is so offended that he curses the boys in the name of the Lord. Then the bears come out of the woods and tear the little mockers apart.

The Narrow Man

Then, he went on, the Narrow Man in his email, that as someone as bald as Elisha, he didn’t think that was what the story was about. It had instead to do with righteousness, of the self variety, which always contains within it the seeds of violence.
     Something happens when we come to believe that our God is our God. In this case, somewhere between Jericho and Bethel, Elisha seems to have come to the belief that any insult to him, the prophet of God, is an insult to God himself. He wouldn’t name names, tNM said, but he had known preachers like that: an attack on them is an attack on the church is an attack on God, God’s very self. Damn the attackers.
     Actually, he had known just folks that had fallen into the same trap. An attack on their righteous rightness is an attack on their God. Damn the attackers. Full speed ahead. Run right over the mockers.

I should say that this is what I heard because Roz didn’t read the email, she told it to me. “Did you say you wouldn’t say where it came from?” she wanted to know, I am not sure why.
     “Where what came from?” I said.
                                                                07.03.22