The Angel of Memory

So often, in fairy tales, a protagonist is given an object or charm that will later prove to be of enormous importance in accomplishing a task or completing a journey.  And just as often, the object is forgotten and remains out of sight until its purpose is revealed.  When it is needed, the object suddenly reemerges as if out of nowhere.  Memories also do this.  They return when they are needed.  This may happen when one is writing a story—a memory appears that may be conveniently incorporated into a plot or may even serve to form the framework for a story that is going nowhere.  But memories can also be useful in other circumstances.  To have one appear at just the right time, even though it has perhaps been buried for decades, is like the mysterious reappearance of the magical object entrusted to the fairy tale character at a time when he or she attached little importance to it.  The event that is being recalled may have seemed inconsequential at the time it actually occurred, but when it reappears as an “involuntary memory” at precisely the proper moment, it can be paradigm-shattering.  In his wonderful book Arrow of God, one of Chinua Achebe’s characters speaks the proverb, “When we see an old woman stop in her dance to point again and again in the same direction we can be sure that somewhere there something happened long ago which touched the roots of her life.”  Considering this proverb carefully, I perceive an ambiguity.  Perhaps it was the event that occurred long ago which touched the roots of her life, but it is also possible that only the memory of it has affected her that way.  Memory can be like a kind of angel that unexpectedly descends on us, sometimes bringing precious gifts: wisdom, insight, joy, reconciliation, comfort, and healing.

Pentecost

                                                   Treib ihn von dir in unsern Arm,

                                                   Daß er von deinem Hauch noch warm;

                                                   In schweren Wolken sammle ihn

                                                   Und laß ihn so hernieder ziehn.

                                                  In kühlen Strömen send ihn her,

                                                  In Feuerflammen lodre er,

                                                  In Luft und Öl, in Klang und Tau

                                                  Durchdring er unsrer Erde Bau.

                                                  Send him forth from you into our arms,

                                                  While he is still warmed by your breath.

                                                  Collect him in the heavy clouds

                                                  And let him come down like this.

                                                  In cooling streams, send him here,

                                                  He, in flames of fire,

                                                  In air and oil, in sound and dew,

                                                  Penetrating our earthly abode.

                                                           --from Novalis, Geistliche Lieder, XII

We Ought to Be Willing to Give a Good Interpretation to the Statement of Another . . .

It is so easy to impute bad will to others who are actually attempting to be truthful and sincere—to deliberately not hear what they are saying because it disturbs us, or we disagree with them, or we simply need to be difficult.  St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote that we ought to be more willing to give a good interpretation to the statement of another than to condemn it as false.  And there is the quote attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas: “We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject.  For both have labored in the search for truth and both have helped us in the finding of it.” I remember the time that someone interviewed me about fair trade for a local publication (the interview was a bit of a fiasco for a number of reasons—beware of interviews!).  In the course of it, I made the statement that the difference between folk art and fine art was (to me) that folk art belonged more to a whole culture while fine art was the product of the individual.  It was an off-the-cuff remark and one that I thought was pretty neutral, but, for some reason, a local artist who read the interview became incensed by it and demanded the right to write a rebuttal.  I’m still not sure what it was in that statement which set the artist off, as the “rebuttal” (which was published in the next issue) never even addressed my contention.  Somehow, the artist saw my statement as an attack on fine artists.  The artist proceeded to air all sorts of grievances, which, I’m sure, were all legitimate, but I still don’t know how any of them had anything to do with what I said.  The whole affair seemed rather silly to me, and it was certainly unusual, as people generally tend to be more generous toward my offhand opinions than they (and I) actually deserve.  So often, instead of listening to others, we are content to box--or worse--with shadows of our own making.

Novalis, Geistliche Lieder, XIII

Wenn in bangen trüben Stunden

Unser Herz beinah verzagt,

Wenn von Krankheit überwunden

Angst in unserm Innern nagt;

Wir der Treugeliebten denken,

Wie sie Gram und Kummer drückt,

Wolken unsern Blick beschränken,

Die kein Hoffnungsstrahl durchblickt:

O! dann neigt sich Gott herüber,

Seine Liebe kommt uns nah,

Sehnen wir uns dann hinüber

Steht sein Engel vor uns da,

Bringt den Kelch des frischen Lebens,

Lispelt Mut und Trost uns zu;

Und wir beten nicht vergebens

Auch für die Geliebten Ruh.

When, in hours obscured by anxiety,

Our hearts almost despairing,

When, overcome by illness,

Fear devouring us within,

We, who wish to be faithful, think

How faith expresses grief and sorrow,

As clouds limit our view,

And allow us no ray of hope:

O! then God hovers over us,

His love comes close.

So let us desire to go

With the angel who stands before us,

Bringing a cup of new life,

Whispering courage and comfort--

That we do not ask in vain

For our beloved rest.

                                           --Novalis, Geistliche Lieder, XIII

Aphorism

A line from Novalis that Elroy Bode would have liked: Wir suchen überall das Unbedingte, und finden immer nur Dinge. (We search for the unconditional everywhere, and we always find only things.)

Ideal Nature

Man steht mit der Natur gerade in so unbegreiflich verschiedenen Verhältnissen, wie mit den Menschen; und wie sie sich dem Kinde kindisch zeigt, und sich gefällig seinem kindlichen Herzen anschmiegt, so zeigt sie sich dem Gotte göttlich, und stimmt zu dessen hohem Geiste.

                                                                                       --Novalis, Die Lehrlinge zu Sais

One’s relationship to nature in unfathomably different circumstances is the same as with human beings; she shows herself childishly to the child, and nestles pleasingly in his childlike heart, and shows herself divinely to God, in agreement with his high Spirit.

I remember how, as a child, I first came to know nature.  It was a magical encounter; magical, because it seemed full of a hidden potency that could be experienced but never fully understood. I was especially overwhelmed by three particular qualities of nature: its sensuousness, its profligacy, and its mystery.  Why did mint smell so sweet?  Why did even the humblest sparrow seem so perfectly designed, like a flawless work of art?  Why did the date palm freely offer such sweet, earthy fruit?   Why were grapes ripening in the sun so warm and juicy?  Why was the mulberry tree covered in sweet purple fruit and sour red fruit?  Why were even the leaves of chile plant so spicy hot?  Why were sunsets so spectacular?  Why were trees so green?  Why did the blossoms of the lantana contain so many florets, each one perfect and unique?  In addition to the sensual richness of nature, there was all its superabundance.  The mulberry tree didn’t just make fruit, it made thousands of fruits.  The dandelions did make a single perfect sunburst, they made fields of sunbursts.  A single bird didn’t sing an incomparable song, there were always flocks of coloratura sopranos.  It all seemed a riddle to me.  Why did the lantana offer so many florets?  Why did the date palm make so many giant clusters of dates?  Why did the sunset paint the entire firmament?  Nature’s generosity was a mystery beyond compare.  But it was a joyful mystery.  Nature’s plentitude didn’t blunt its sensual power.  At that time, I had no real understanding that sickness, death, and decay were also a part of nature.  And the first theology I was taught claimed those things as products of The Fall, of purely human wickedness.  They remained somehow apart from nature’s intrinsic character—if a bird died it was because of human cruelty; if a tree died it was because of human neglect.  Wo Kinder sind, da ist ein goldenes Zeitalter (Where children are, there is the Golden Age), Novalis wrote.  As a child, I believed in, and also experienced, nature as it existed in the Golden Age.  Like most children, I had a very active and very rudimentary spiritual life, but it seemed to exist on a different plane than that of nature.  Morality, for example, was a necessary part of one’s spiritual growth, but it was hard to understand how it applied to the natural world.  Birds stole from farmers and even each other.  Lions and wolves killed to eat.  Spiritual beings could protect you from harm, but nature was indifferent to human problems.  It gave what it could but had no interest in assuring that you had everything you actually needed.  It was benevolent, generous, and beautiful, but those qualities seemed somehow separate from the same virtues in the spiritual world.

     As my spiritual understanding grew (in its own halting, confused, and humble way—still infinitely far from a divine understanding of things), I began to see that nature contained qualities of a spiritual design: things like unity, order, simplicity, and perseverance, to name but a few.  I began to understand the sacramental essence of nature.  Nature was no longer just a joyful day at the fair.  It was also, in Novalis’ words, ein Universaltropus des Geistes, ein symbolisches Bild desselben (a universal trope of the spirit, a symbolic picture of it).

Happy New Year

Walking through Skid Row
on my way to the Greyhound station
January 3rd, 2020
in apocalyptic L.A.
which is too excited in the head
and too tired at its feet

a homeless woman--
who looked like a frontier settler
or an Arctic explorer--
was moving her tent
(a group of officers stood by)

and she wished me a Happy New Year
not bitterly
not with irony
but with genuine goodwill

and I thought of Richard Brautigan
how he would have made a poem out of it