(Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love)
Greater trust, stronger hope, deeper love
About a changing universe, real relationships and avoiding the will to power
ooking for something else, I stumbled across some quotes I copied from Wm. Paul Young’s The Shack some time ago. This book had a profound impact upon me at a time of the most intense inner turmoil. Rereading the extracts many months later, I was once again touched by the deep wisdom found in these lines.
On forgiveness and kindness:
Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, [God’s] purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.
And again on forgiveness, but also on relationships and how forgiveness, while important, is not the whole story:
Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.
The next thought follows on from the previous reference to change:
Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.
Some further reflections on relationships – and the problem of power:
Each relationship between two persons is absolutely unique. That is why you cannot love two people the same. It simply is not possible. You love each person differently because of who they are and the uniqueness that they draw out of you. And the more you know another, the richer the colors of that relationship.
Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself – to serve.
And, moving on to different issues, some interesting observations on law, control, superiority and certainty:
Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control. … [The law] grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainty out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, [God has] a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.
Crucified by hate, he responded with aggressive love
Who better to quote on Good Friday than Martin Luther King?
Man has never risen above the injunction of the lex talionis …. Jesus … knew that the old eye-for-eye philosophy would leave everyone blind. He did not seek to overcome evil with evil. He overcame evil with good. Although crucified by hate, he responded with aggressive love. … Calvary will be a nagging reminder that only goodness can drive out evil and only love can conquer hate.
From Strength to Love
A step on the ladder of mystical love
… despair, … as Aquinas tells us, … can be a step on the ladder of mystical love …
C. J. Sansom, Revelation
.
Like a sudden flight of birds
How does it happen that our lives can drift
far from our selves, while we stay trapped in time,
queuing for death? It seems nothing will shift
the pattern of our days, alter the rhyme
we make with loss to assonance with bliss.
Then love comes, like a sudden flight of birds
from earth to heaven after rain. …
From Carol Ann Duffy, ‘Rapture’, published in Rapture, a collection of poems that are all part of one book-length love poem. I picked this up in town today, having previously read Duffy’s The Other Country. So far, so enjoyable …
Best Reads 2013. VII: Anne Carson, Red Doc>
nne Carson. Red Doc>. The sequel to Autobiography of Red. It doesn’t often happen that I preorder books that have not yet been published. This one I ordered as soon as I knew it was coming out. Autobiography of Red, which I must reread soon, had been a reading experience like no other, and so I had been looking forward to Red Doc>. I half expected to be disappointed though, for how could anything measure up to Autobiography?
So has Red Doc> left me disappointed? No, I’m glad to say that it hasn’t. Is it as good as Autobiography of Red? Perhaps not quite, although it doesn’t fall far short for me. It is a very good book and, like Autobiography, is one of Carson’s most accessible works.
As is so often the case with her books, the layout is once again distinctive.
Being a sequel, Red Doc> picks up the story of Geryon and Herakles years later, but the two protagonists have now acquired new names, Geryon being called G, while Herakles is known as Sad. As for the plot, well, you will have to read the book for yourselves, as I am not going to give anything away.
Readers of Carson’s work won’t be surprised to hear that there are some very poignant moments. For instance, when G meets his old lover, we read:
LOVE’S LONG LOST
shock the boy the man he
knows him. Knew. The
lion head the sloping run a
lavishness in him made you
want to throw your soul
through every door.
I adore Carson’s turn of phrase, which so often is utterly unique and unexpected. This allows her to offer some distinctly new perspectives on life’s most significant moments. In this example, meeting a long lost lover makes ‘you want to throw your soul through every door’. Isn’t that brilliant?
Carson also captures the shock and the breathless response to the surprise encounter so well: ‘the boy the man he knows him’.
Another great moment is G’s conversation with the shrink about his treatment of Sad:
what do you do / talk /
does that help him / one
test for this question /
what test / did he cap
himself yesterday /no / did he cap himself
today / no / so talk helps /
see your point
Red Doc> features many well-taken observations, such as the following one about misnomers, which includes a wonderful description of anciently swaying pines:
Much is misnomer in our
present way of grasping the
world. But pines do
always seem queenly as
they sway so grand and
anciently from the sky to
the ground.
But to me Carson is at her very best when she talks about pain, loss and grief.
G lays his head on the
table it sinks into the table.
To feel anything
deranges you. To be seen
feeling anything strips you
naked.
…
You think what
will they do what new
power will they acquire if
they see me naked like
this. If they see you
feeling.
…
To be seen is the penalty.
Impairment and he lie
down on the floor.
Tears pour in Ida’s
heart but not her eyes …
And the
reason he cannot bear her
dying is not the loss of her
(which is the future) but
that dying puts the two of
them (now) into this
nakedness together that is
unforgivable.
Pain
catches the whole insides
of him and wrings it.
Tears pouring into your heart but not your eyes – what a wonderfully eloquent way of describing pain.
And then there are so many delightful phrases, as when Carson talks about ‘tearstained laughter’, ‘surprised front steps’, a room that ‘looks lonely’, ‘a smile that dazzles the car’ and a voice that is ‘thin enough to see through’, to mention only a few.
Even rather banal moments are evoked in language that delights by its brilliance:
He sits
up suddenly drenched in
ringing. Phone.
This is a book to savour and come back to time and again. I know I will.
Karl Möller 