mccarthyism

I’ve been reading Singer and thinking about the moral life of the Jew. On the whole I think we’ve failed in piety, in self-discipline. I know I have. “And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gate.” Someone recently asked me if Americans were taken from their native country and scattered across the globe how long did I think we would remain recognizable as Americans? The Jews have lasted two thousand years. I think these verses are the reason why. Of course they haven’t always or even often been truly pious, of course there is the tendency toward empty ritualism. But piety has become a bad word for us Christians. Any moral stricture is immediately regarded with suspicion as legalism. Speaking for myself, and for most of my friends: we need it. The flesh is weak. If you give it a few minutes it will take hours, days. And time is precious. My body needs a schedule, my mind needs paths to walk in. There is an admirable heritage of monasticism, of rigorous self-mortification in Christian history but we’ve forgotten it, or we disregard it. We’ve done it to my own personal detriment I’m afraid.

Reading “The Slave” I came across this lovely paragraph: “He continued to walk. How strange and feeble was man. Surrounded on every side by eternity, in the midst of powers, angels, seraphim, cherubim, arcane worlds and divine mysteries, all he could lust for was flesh and blood. Yet man’s smallness was no less a wonder than God’s greatness.”

We’re attending an Anglican church now, of the Anglican Mission in America, and it’s a good place to be. We’ve celebrated Lent, the first time I ever really did, and now a beautiful succession of services during Holy Week culminating, in a few hours, in Easter morning. I've found the Anglicans to be in a good position to draw on the best of several traditions without slavish traditionalism, and I’m glad we’ve found a place that strikes a good balance. Typical of such places most of us didn’t grow up in Anglican or even liturgical traditions. Well, it makes for a renewed vigor, and a certain amount of liturgical shyness. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Reading:
Isaac Bashevis Singer: The Slave
Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
Old Testament text criticism, sheesh

Listening to:
Starflyer 59: Everybody Makes Mistakes
Sixpence None The Richer: Self-Titled, Divine Discontent. I forgot all about this delightful band for the last few years, nice to rediscover them
Sonic Youth: Sonic Nurse, Rather Ripped, Daydream Nation
Contrail, finally got the demo of what we recorded last February in Blacksburg from Matt, man do I miss it.

may the sun that rises, yellow, in comfort stay
and green these costly seeds, and all i say

and if i’ve things to do and they’ve nothing to do with you
then tie to my neck the stone that i first threw