On Living in History

I’m a diverse reader, following various interests. This Lent, I’m reading biography, the stories of people living within history. The diaries of German diplomat Count Kessler, a Cassandra post WW I, foresee Hitler’s rise step by step: all meetings, conferences, diplomacy fail.[1]

            Similarly, British Minister Duff Cooper vainly tries to persuade his government of threat, as it fails to arm or mobilise (and Cooper never again speaks to Chamberlain after Munich.) Later, Cooper is anxious about the Levant (region: Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and more) between British and French.[2]

            Then Byron, whose admiration for Napoleon (as Napoleon fights across Europe) embodies the seductiveness of great figures on the Romantic mind. Byron in Ottoman Greece discovers antiquity as prey as Elgin carves away the Parthenon marbles.[3]

            The martyrs of the Venerable English College Rome (many deemed traitors as Roman Catholic priests under Elizabeth I) witness the state’s power to enforce religious compliance, as well as convictions compelling martyrdom. We are heirs of the Reformation, for good and for ill.[4]

            Frailty of civilisations, reach to world conquest, religion as history. History shows what has been, what may be, sometimes what will be. We should read it; we live within it.

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[1] Berlin in Lights: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler (1918-1937).

[2] Cooper, Duff. Old Men Forget. (1953).

[3] McCarthy, Fiona. Byron: Life and Legend. (2002).

[4] Saint Michael’s Abbey. The Forty Four: The Martyrs of the Venerable English College Rome. (2000).

On Human Space

Today, due to a competition called Iron Man (the last Iron Man I heard of was Bismarck: times change) I took the old way to the city not the freeway. I hadn’t taken that route in a generation. I’ve reached a place in my life where everything reminds me of something else; my trip was a revival of whole sheets of my former life.

            Witnessing the industrialisation of suburbs I’d known, where I’d stayed, lost events enacted, shops, hospitals, schools, communities overwritten, signage in new languages, blocks of boxlike factory outlets over gardens and homes. At least the sad dusty pony rides by the highway now gone.

            Parts of life have enchantment such that living them blocks out time: passionate love, ambition, joys of parenthood. Time seems not to move while within them: yet finite. The Stabat Mater we sang today tells of a Mother facing such an end: Lenten sorrows.

            It’s of this mutability of human space that Paul writes, saying how we must be changed, the places of our lives like sets to be struck and rolled away, the dramas and traumas like joys and delights concluded, leaving us on the bare structure and stage of God’s Reality.

On Lenten Reading.

Mid-Lent, time drags. My nominated charity has acquired so much loot from my mistakes: all curiosities, not hard news. But I’ve kept up my Lenten reading.

            Lent brings slowness: for a portion of the year to contemplate our sorry selves in search of the Way. For Christians, Jesus Christ is both Way and Truth, and this fact takes time in contemplation.

            Lenten reading, spiritual, inspirational, historical or ethical? I’m reading Alberti’s Book of the Family, a 15^th century discussion on the ethics of households. The wife is a child, who shouldn’t, like other ‘little girls’ wave her arms about while chattering with girlfriends, but comport herself with silent dignity before neighbours and servants. She must guard, keep, preserve whatever comes into the house. Men can gesture freely in loud arguments.[1]

            Illiterates have no Latin. Without Latin, you lack rhetoric, eloquence, beauty of expression. You can’t cite the finest authors of antiquity. It’s to be hoped the vernacular will someday catch up.

            Every day rendering thanks to God who in his mercy gives gifts: tranquillity of heart and respect for the family. By my Lenten reading, I see what has been thought: life as it has been lived.   

      

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[1] Albert, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Renaissance humanist, architect and polymath. Alberti was in Holy Orders; he never married. His own family is said to have laughed at his book, which was written in the vernacular. Today his writings are considered classics of Italian literature.

On Not Reading the News: A Lenten Update

I gave up reading the news for Lent. Car repair workshop: what’s news? Choice of newspaper, gossip mags, large screen TV. Magazines relentlessly procreational: weddings, engagements, infidelities, jealousies, breakups, babies, parental panics and occasional interesting illnesses, especially children. The only news in town.

            Resisted temptation to read newspaper: political news, local or international, devious and corrupting. Is TV lifestyle news? Can I avoid news previews running across the foot?

            Social media causes. Meritorious causes I support. Would you make your type so huge if you knew I won’t read news headlines? What’s news?

            What was news in Jesus’ day? Man bashed senseless, left by roadside; white-bleeding taxes to be enforced soon; partisan leader Barabbas released without trial; government infrastructure project attracts rioters (deaths at aqueduct protest); legions on march from Syria; world-obliterating war in Judea; fall of civilizations. ‘Can you not discern the signs of the times?’ says Jesus.

            No news at the mall. Only a muffled ambient acoustic, as I descend the escalator, a stream of souls gliding upwards beside. It’s not clear: I think I hear crowd music, alleluias. Only for a moment. No news. Can you read the signs of the times?

On Rubbish Collection

Woke up this morning, rubbish trucks on the road. Waking birds, flickering lights, groaning gears, clattering thumps. Neighbourhood’s annual rubbish collection underway: a mystery of the dawn. Rusted barbecues, slumping mattresses, jettisoned timbers —projects completed or not— piles of branches, indoor and outdoor detritus of living. Once a year a good clean-out.

            So Lent provides an annual rubbish removal for the soul. On the journey to Jerusalem, Jesus removed illness, shame, demons, and acres of worn-out, rotten thinking. Even death, though they show the tomb of Lazarus at Bethany today. What happens to what’s removed? Transformation: illness to health, shame to respect, demons to prayers, hateful thoughts to loving feelings.

            As an editor trims a written page, an artist erases errant lines, a musician culls excess vibrato, so the spirit cleans, shines, lightens during Lent. Looking over the year, its mistakes and misdeeds, or deeper into the past, even to events of antiquity. Every life littered with missed opportunities. It’s never too early to choose a good path, never too late to release the foregone crossings.

            Choosing the essence, the heart of any matter, the clear direction. Simplicity helps. Free of clutter: finding the right Way.