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RSSBack Issue: November, 2011The Brothers Karamozov and MePosted November 27th, 2011 by Jen in book reviews, features, religion4 Comments » What was I thinking? What can I even say about Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamozov except that never again will I commit to write about such a sweeping novel with ideas so intricately laid down with the precision of a master architect who has weighed and measured every stick. Unless maybe I give myself a whole uninterrupted year. Or 25 years, like Joseph Frank (professor emeritus at Princeton and Stanford Universities) did, who finished his fifth and final volume on the life of Dostoevsky, a monumental biography at 800 pages for just that volume, back in 2002. It’s not that Dostoevsky is unreadable for the lay person. Yes, degrees in psychology and Russian history would help, but for a writer who is considered to be one of the world’s greatest authors and this his greatest novel, he’s very accessible. You may find yourself asking, “How could he know me?” To read Dostoevsky is to stand naked-hearted before a wise and piercing being and it’s quite uncomfortable to be so exposed. The major themes that course through The Brothers Karamozov are broad but it’s uncanny how they light in a small place of your own nature and prick your conscience. He is a master. Were he alive today, or had I lived 150 years ago, I’d have wanted him for a friend and confidante during my darkest inner battles, and he would look straight through me and diagnose me and make such sense that I’d be well just for having been diagnosed and having seen such stark and beautiful truth. The Brothers Karamozov is a big book of ideas, nearly 900 pages of dialogued postulations on love, guilt, forgiveness, responsibility for one another, money, the existence of God, atheism, socialism, freedom. And who among us hasn’t grappled with those big ideas in some small or grand way? And there’s an intriguing story, too, that weaves these big ideas all together, a family tale that follows the lives of the Karamozov brothers and their father and surrounding characters. There is a love story, a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and always deeper meaning. Indeed, the entire nation of Russia is a character in the story, as is God himself, as even a cursory read reveals. The allegorical depth of The Brothers Karamozov is part of its richness and acclaim. The brothers each are emblems and caricatures–Ivan is the intellectual atheist; Dmitri is the worldly sensualist, Alyosha is the spiritual soul. Other allegories include each of the Karamozov brothers being subjected to three temptations, as in the biblical story of the temptation of Christ, each with varying degrees of success according to their character. In fact, it is this story of the temptation of Christ in the chapter on Ivan’s Grand Inquisitor that was one of my favorite parts. I had never read a more complete or compelling account of how Jesus was tested in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). The first temptation, for the hungry Jesus to turn the stones into bread, Dostoevsky extends and shows himself to be a brilliant theologian. Jesus said no, that man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God. And Dostoevsky conveys this was an issue of freedom, as his Grand Inquisitor promises man, as Satan promised Jesus, everything in exchange for freedom, that single thing that defines man. The Grand Inquisitor tells the man that people are too simple and unruly for freedom, that what they really need is bread, to “feed men, and then ask of them virtue.” The Grand Inquisitor goes on to claim that “freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together.” His indictment against Christ is that He turned down social justice for the sake of freedom and the bread of heaven. The Grand Inquisitor makes such an eloquent case in this chapter that any atheist who reads it champions this as his proof. But Dostoevsky, having travelled through atheism and out the other end to Christianity, is in an uncommonly opportune position to be exquisitely credible to both sides, and still win. He thus commented on his own faith and responds to atheists and critics of The Brothers Karamozov:
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s own life informed his writing of The Brothers Karamozov in many ways. As a young man, he was a socialist revolutionary who ended up arrested by the Tsarist police for associating with a secret socialist group. Dostoevsky claimed to not be against the Russian government but against the institution of serfdom. The next decade found him in prison and labor camps in Siberia. He emerged from the experience, having nothing to read but the gospels, one of the few books allowed, not a social revolutionary, but a spiritually awakened man. A journalist recounting Joseph Frank’s staggering biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky offered this insight into the theme of The Brothers Karamozov:
Dostoevsky indeed believed that the only salvation for us all is not found in politics, but in faith. There are so many more characters for you to meet in The Brothers Karamozov, countless conversations and incidents, that will illuminate this truth and more. There is Father Zossima, the crazy Father Ferapont, Katerina Ivanovna, Grushenka. There is this:
and
and
As the book’s final line echoes, “Hurrah for Karamozov!” Read it, you will be flattened, raised, amazed, challenged. This is the best I can do, for I have a long way to go in really understanding it all.
Technorati Tags: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian literature, The Brothers Karamozov  Mommy, do I have Catholic or Jews in me?Posted November 23rd, 2011 by Jen in family life, religion3 Comments » Her question made me laugh out loud, and my heart warmed at the wondering, because don’t we all long to know where we come from and don’t we desire to be distinct and remarkable?
The confusion between blood ties and religious persuasion is understandable for an eight-year-old. Her inquiry followed with me explaining the difference. I was in the dark on the origin of her question, perhaps some discussion with a teacher or classmate or friend? But I heard her heart, and it was an innocent curiosity, a wanting to be special.
It’s the same question I hear when my child says, “Mommy, tell me what I’m good at,” or “Do you like how I sing?” Oh, that we could really know how wonderful we’ve been made, that we are His workmanship, that we are chosen, redeemed, established, complete.
Technorati Tags: childhood, faith, you are special, fearfully wonderfully made All Things Bright and BeautifulPosted November 19th, 2011 by Jen in family life, religion, the ranch4 Comments »
Out my wintry window today, I think of Mrs. Cecil Alexander, who penned in 1848, “All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful; The Lord God made them all.” My older son says the world is a better place when there’s snow, and it certainly is bright and beautiful. The way the snow sits in a cluster on the junipers, the tracks that leave behind a larger you, the way my child contours an image and shape with what was once water, it’s all so other-worldly, and I know why he loves this. Boots, hats, gloves! I see growing spheres of snow, half-bodies waiting to be put together. What compares to rosy cheeks, snowballs flying, frosty eyelashes, and pure happiness hung in crystals?
Who would have ever thought to do it this way but the One who sent that other white manna from Heaven? Manna that brings joy, that is for the day, that brings sweetness to the soul and melts in the mouth–this snowy provision is a gift. The kids are out gathering early this morning, and those who are prone to fight have assembled in harmony, harvesting the plenty, powdered white as far as the eye can see.
Bright and beautiful manna. Taste and see–and tell.
Technorati Tags: family life, first snow, All Things Bright and Beautiful, manna, Cecil Frances Alexander Thursday ThreadsPosted November 17th, 2011 by Jen in family life, politics/world news8 Comments » Good Thursday to you! I’m too busy to write much or write well, but here are some threads catching my attention today. 1. The Iron Lady. This film is a biopic on Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of The United Kingdom from 1979 – 1990. Because Hollywood hates conservative women, I’m afraid this will be a hit job, but I await the release with huge anticipation. Her arrival at 10 Downing Street was historic, and I’d love to see a fair treatment of her complex personality and contribution to world affairs, but casting Meryl Streep as Thatcher is like casting Sean Penn as Reagan–you can’t get more politically polar. The jury is still out on whether Streep, an outstanding actress, will put aside her own contempt of conservative politics and do right by Maggie. 2. This fantastique French blogger is on her way to publishing a book in 21 days! Kristin Espinasse, my French connection and kindred spirit, is culling hundreds of blogs post to compile into a vignette of French life, to be self-published through Amazon’s CreateSpace. Go Kristin!! She had previously put out a traditional house-published book, also a collection of blog posts, and this new book will pick up where that one left off. 3. Today in history (November 17, 1558) marks the beginning of the Elizabethan Age! (Hello, Shakespeare). Queen Mary Tudor died, and Elizabeth I ascended the English throne. Also on this date in 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason and today in 1796 Catherine the Great of Russia died. This day was also terrible for the tango: on November 17, 1913, Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany banned the armed forces from dancing the tango. 5. Detroit also has a coffee angel. Random photos from my file (and wow, rearrage the letters of file and you have life!):
~Love Jen
Technorati Tags: Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister UK, The Iron Lady The Wind and Leaves on Veterans DayPosted November 11th, 2011 by Jen in holidays2 Comments » The wind, he wasn’t going to miss the parade. Swiftly, anticipating, as one enthusiastically awaits a spectacular homecoming, he gathered himself from the four corners and whirled in with the leaves. I saw him, I heard the whispers. “Honor, valor, true grit,” the murmurs grew louder, and I perceived it was the wind passing the message to the leaves. “Heroes!” The leaves, they came rushing as a ghost army of soldiers, crimson and scarlet, yellow and brown, colors of sorrow to greet their standing comrades, themselves fallen and buoyed only by the wind. The first wave of veterans marched down the main street, a strong one in the lead calling the marching cadence, “Sound-off, 1 – 2; Sound-off, 3 – 4.” The leaves curled with the rhythm of the call, and then suddenly, like footweary fighters, bowed before the veterans with a crackling applause. “Remember!” bellowed the wind, “it is but disgrace to forget.” “Glory!” rustled the leaves. Together came the chorus, “We’ve seen where they’ve been, the battles they’ve won, how heavy the gun, carry on, carry on!” And with one great gust, the wind bore the corps of fallen leaves past the procession of perseverance, into the distance, seeking another band to honor. As he bid farewell, the wind called upon the flags to salute straight out, no star or stripe was hidden. “It was for this they fought,” he lastly hailed, and once more, “Remember!” Technorati Tags: Veterans Day Thanking God for Mrs. YoungPosted November 7th, 2011 by Jen in family life, features, religion8 Comments »
The wooden bench in the hallway, between the pot-bellied stove and the hanging ivy in a macramé plant holder, that was where I learned to love. With my skinny legs dangling almost to the worn linoleum and my green eyes hung down to avoid Mrs. Young, I studied the brown and orange geometric lines on the floor beneath my dirty tennies with intensity. I had picked out the shoes myself from the rack at Value Village in Tucson and now they were squeezing my toes and maybe my heart. Mrs. Young had placed me there on the bench and I burned with shame. Despite my anxious discomfort, this house was warm and safe, and the place to learn about how normal people do life. Like a plant engaged in phototropism, I found a light source and turned to it for survival. I was there for church, a house-church in my desert village, planted in that southeast corner of Arizona by Providence for my sustenance. I think now of Deuteronomy 8:15. “He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock.” This place was my water. Strings of memories wrap around this place like a large ball of twine, strong enough to tie a young sapling to a stake to steady it in the wind. Holy words were said there, pudgy old ladies in flowered dresses and bloated ankles served potluck meals, and I heard laughter. I cherished a few special sanctuaries as a child, the leafy branches of the poplar tree in my own yard, the flat roof top of our shed, and here too in this place, the swing in the side yard where I’d tuck my feet up under me to get away from the chickens or where I’d lazily rock and pretend I lived there. And there was Mrs. Young in front of me, the best mother I knew, her brown hair in a bun with gray wisps falling near her porcelain face. She and Mr. Young owned the general store about five miles down the dirt roads that criss-crossed the clay and dust, grasses and tumbleweeds, and sometimes I’d walk all the way there just to buy a Baby Ruth. A small group of girls, including myself, and a little Korean girl named Kim wearing the prettiest clothes of all and shiny black patent leather shoes, we’d all been playing after Sunday-School. And why, I don’t quite know, because I was the least of them all and thought so little of myself, but I had been terribly offensive that day, and perhaps I’d fallen victim to that psychology of only liking what is “similar to me,” and in fact in my tiny homogeneous community I’d never known anyone before who wasn’t white like me. “You are not being very nice, young lady!” Mrs. Young had seen it all, heard the words, noticed the hurt, and pulled me aside there to the bench. I was ablaze with honest shame because it was all so dreadfully true. I wasn’t nice, and I didn’t like her daughter, and I had actually said to the brown girl, “you can’t play with us.” The best mother stood over me and spoke to me privately about her daughter, an adopted Korean girl with impossibly thick black hair, smooth brown skin, and small dark eyes that held all of Seoul. Mrs. Young told me where her Kim came from, that she was just like me, and though very few words were said, something in her voice seared my soul about the dignity of each human life. She asked me to apologize. I embraced that other little brown girl. She soon, almost instantly, became my first best friend, a treasure. I spent many nights at her house, and we were just two little girls with dreams, and we’d give each other a head massage as we sleepily talked about the possibilities out there in the great big world. She wanted to be a gymnast. I thought the circus sounded fun. We ate spicy kimchi at her house and dressed up in kimonos. Mrs. Young told me how much Kim wished for hair like mine, and I told my sisters I wanted to be Korean. If you never have a best friend you can’t learn about things like keeping secrets, writing notes with bubble letters and hearts, sharing those silly glances when you have a crush. You learn that girlhood is universal no matter what your race or religion or social status. Sometimes you get hurt, too, like the time in 7th grade when I moved away for a year and after I came back, Kim had a new best friend. Things were not the same, and a year later, Kim moved away to California. But I thank God for Mrs. Young and that holy bench, and this lesson in love.
(to be continued) Technorati Tags: childhood, faith, friendship, God, love To honor when it isn’t fairPosted November 4th, 2011 by Jen in family life, features, parenting7 Comments »
Our paths connected through our children and so I didn’t expect to be sitting there talking about our mothers. Kelly is one of those rare, faithful confidantes who is an exceptional blessing to know, the kind who sees you through weary, complicated trials and you shake your head sometimes marveling at the loyalty and wondering how you gained such a friend. Behind me a sheet of water was eternally cascading down an ornamental fountain. The small café was cozy with warm colored walls, burnt yellows and cinnamon, just big enough for a dozen or so comfortable patrons. I was late to our breakfast appointment and greeted her with a hung head. She laughed at me and was thankful I had still come.
“How are the kids? And your mom?” Kelly’s inquiring brown eyes searched out the answer, glossy auburn locks falling perfectly past her shoulders, and I remembered I hadn’t applied a spot of make-up in my hurry. The waitress offered the special, eggs Benedict with Hollandaise lime sauce and cooked pears over sourdough, or something along those lines, I couldn’t remember but ordered it anyway. I squinted at her hard, trying to recall just where it was the previous day I’d seen her. It came to me, it was the library. Her son brushed past mine, my freckled boy who clutched the Scooby-Doo video in his little hands, utterly cheered to find it there, finally. This mother with son at the library – I’m always so happy to see mothers with children at the library, it’s my strange joy. And her son wanted that video, too, and he squalled to his tall, blonde and beautiful mother, “It’s not fair!” And those were the very words I painfully expressed to Kelly over coffee and breakfast platters, just as petulant as that child. Why should I have to take care of my mother? She barely took care of me, I practically raised myself, and it wasn’t fair, and sadly it was only at the end of the meal I considered my unforgiveness. It happened that some years after I met Kelly, her mother moved in with her, too, and like mine, has degenerative brain problems. She’s forgotten how to comb her hair and take a walk. Her conversation has dwindled to “no.” Kelly gracefully chided me with, “At least yours talks.”
And grace it is that I need at this moment, and the compassionate forbearance of mercy. I know it. I know it by its absence. I know it by the tightness in my chest when she walks into a room. Oh, grace to cleanse my irritated soul. The way she shuffles, asks again what day it is, tells me she forgot how to whistle, burps at the table, a thousand ways that need grace. I mourn that I’m not doing this well. I mourn that my own children observe my lack of grace and mercy, because one day, they may need to draw on it. Kelly explained how she came by new grace for her mother. “Last time,” she shared, speaking of her mom’s prior six-month stay, “it was really hard and I was always frustrated.” But then she returned from retrieving her mom from a sibling who shares the care-taking, and here sensitivity laced Kelly’s every word. The mother she knew had never a hair out of place and things ordered just so, but now her hair was stringy and unkempt, her clothes ill-fitting, and her exercise unattended to. Sometimes it is seeing the indifference in others that provokes us to tenderness. “Is that honoring to my mother?” Kelly had asked herself with renewed humanity. Those words tumbled around my head. Honoring. The sheets of water continued to course behind my chair, molecule after molecule, and I wanted to jump right in and wash away the vexation, the impatience, the anger. Could I replace those insipid characters with esteem, respect, appreciation, love? And how? One molecule at a time by the grace of God.
Is it fair that Jesus died for sinful me? Is it fair that I don’t deserve his grace but receive it freely and abundantly? I guess fairness really can’t be part of this equation, but forgiveness, yes, to forgive as I have been forgiven. And that will be another story, my friends.
Technorati Tags: alzheimers, caretaking, dementia, family life, God, grace The House of the Lord on the OceanPosted November 2nd, 2011 by Jen in family life, features, religion4 Comments »
The day he taught her to surf was a beautiful day with slate-gray waves pushing up arcs just her size and sun and wind offering competing comforts. She, so brave, he, so proud. And me, just so content to watch the unfolding of a love transferred. We talk often about the future and where we’ll live and how we’ll live, as if we really have the freedom to make our lives what we want. And always, the ocean comes up. He wonders if it’s just childhood nostalgia, a deep longing for the simple, but a deep so elusive one wonders, was it real? The mighty waves call “come ride with me,” and awaken something unutterable and eternal. The two push out there, and then she comes gliding in with a smile and flicker that tells me she’s been captivated, too, as deep calls unto deep.
The house of the Lord is all around, they entered it there, so real in the surf, and it’s here too in my desert, and may I dwell in his house all the days of my life, may I notice the beauty of the Lord as I seek Him in his temple.
Technorati Tags: childhood, family life, Oregon Coast, Psalms, surfing |
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