Fencing Bear at Prayer

The Cursing of Cain

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:49:00 +0000

As a vegetarian, it always seemed to me that Cain got a bum rap (Genesis 4:2-16). There he was, a "tiller of the ground," bringing to the Lord an offering of the "fruit of the ground," while Abel, a "keeper of sheep," brought "of the firstlings of his flock and of his fat portions." "And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard." Which, understandably, pissed Cain off ("So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell"), at which the Lord said to Cain: "Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it." And so, still incensed, Cain invited his brother Abel to go out into the field with him, where he killed him. At which the Lord set this punishment upon Cain, that when he tilled the ground, it should no longer yield to him its strength while he became a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth--all because (or so the vegetarian in me read it) he had been a peaceful farmer rather than a murderous shepherd. No wonder he was pissed off.

Thanks to Lierre Keith's impassioned account of the destructive effects of agriculture, I don't read it quite this way anymore (nor am I a vegetarian, although I only just came upon Keith's book). Do you know what it takes to grow that wheat (or corn or rice or barley) that sits so innocently there on your table? I did, sort of. Land, right? And, um, water. And a single growing season. That sounds innocent enough. No killing, no animals hurt to make your bread. Except for the bugs, thus the worries that one has about pesticides. And, of course, the mice and rats. And all of the other animals who used to live on the land before it was plowed in order to grow the wheat, like, say, bison, antelopes, grey wolves, and black-footed ferrets. Oh, yes, and all of the other plants, the perennials who used to live on the land but which had to be cleared in order for the wheat or corn or rice or barley to grow because annual grasses like these can only grow where the perennials aren't. All so that human beings could eat grains that (get this) aren't even good for them. They just make us feel good (carbs, anyone?), like coffee or opium or tobacco. Clever of the plants, isn't it? Wheat is a drug (specifically, it contains opioid exorphins). And thanks to Cain, along with rice and corn and the other "domesticated" grasses that form the staples of the modern (i.e. agricultural) human diet, it's taken over the world.

But that's okay, right? Just because agriculture has required clearing the land of all of the other plants that were growing there, that doesn't mean that it's evil, does it? A sin? Except that it doesn't end with the plow. There's also the water. Gallons and gallons and gallons of it: from 250 to 650 gallons for every pound of rice.* Water that must be taken from rivers if the land itself is not in a climate that is warm enough and gets enough gentle rain, which, given that there are only a few regions in the world that do (e.g. northern Europe and Japan), means most everywhere. Water that then runs off, carrying the topsoil with it. Topsoil that cannot be replaced because there are no plants on it from which soil might be made and no microbes and nematodes and other little creatures left anymore to break down the plants into soil. What's left is salt. Salt in which nothing can grow. Ever. Meat may be murder, but agriculture is worse than genocide. Agriculture kills whole ecosystems dead. Nor is this simply a matter of predictive modeling: it's history. The "Fertile Crescent" (where Cain and Abel presumably lived) is now a desert. Likewise, the regions around the Mediterranean where the great ancient civilizations once grew: Israel, Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus, Crete, Italy, Sicily, Tunisia, eastern Spain all used to be covered in trees with plentiful topsoil. All gone thanks to deforestation and agriculture.

Perhaps predictably, Keith blames patriarchy and the rise of monotheism for the social as well as ecological devastation of agriculture, but here I think that she is on the wrong track. After all, the ancient Hebrew patriarchs par excellence--Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--were shepherds, not farmers. It was Abel's offering that the Lord accepted, not Cain's. Could this be why? Could it be that Cain's killing of Abel was intended simply as a prediction of what would happen if the tillers of the soil were allowed to get their way? After all (as Keith points out), this is what followed from agriculture: "slavery, class stratification, militarism, population overshoot, imperialism." Albeit she adds: "and a punishing Father God in its wake." But God punished Cain, not Abel; God made it so that Cain tilled the soil in vain and it "no longer [yielded to him] its strength." Just as, when God cast out Adam and Eve from the Garden where they had disobeyed him, he cursed Adam to eat of the soil: "and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground" (Genesis 3: 17-19). Significantly, in the Scriptures, agriculture is not a blessing, but a curse, just as Keith says it is now.

It's hard, even as a recovering vegetarian, not to be a bit freaked out. No, eating only plants does not exempt you from the cycle of killing upon which eating anything depends; this is Keith's principal message. The soil cannot live without the animals, and vice versa. The plants need predators to kill their prey otherwise the prey eat all of the plants, the soil dies, and so do the predators. Everybody dies (including the humans) if no one does, if there is no killing and eating. But maybe God knew this. Maybe this is why he accepted Abel's bloody offering of the lamb rather than Cain's offering of grains. Again, Keith blames the He-God for the spiritual state that we are now in, but it was not the ancient Hebrew patriarchs who built the civilization that devastated the Fertile Crescent. "Religious theocracies" may be the result of agriculture, but the Sumerians and Babylonians were polytheists, as were the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Romans who were responsible for the ancient deforestation of the Mediterranean littoral. It may be comforting to believe that all pagans were earth-loving Goddess worshipers, but that is fantasy, not history. Historically, pagans were agriculturalists, while the Chosen People kept sheep. At least, until they invaded Canaan and took over its production of milk and honey, but then they had other problems (like being captured by the Babylonians, "for their sins").

So what? What does it matter if Keith's theology is off-kilter if her moral arguments against agriculture are nevertheless sound? Because Cain killed Abel because God did not accept Cain's offering. And we need to understand why God did not accept Cain's offering of grain.

*[Reading the Amazon reviews of Keith's book, I suspect that this is one of her facts that may need checking, but she is still right about the long-term destructiveness of agriculture, particularly irrigation. And it is also true that crop-raising is not without its impact on the animal life.]

Window of Opportunity

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:12:00 +0000

I have just over an hour before I need to get ready to go to fencing. I'm tired after walking the Dragon Baby home in the wind and the snow and I could really use a bit of time to eat and maybe read a bit more of David Bentley Hart. But I also want to write because I know that I won't have another chance like this until Thursday at the earliest, and then only if I take this same hour or so between getting home from work and getting in the car to drive to my club. It would be so much easier just to take my cup of tea, open my iPad, and read, rather than trying to marshal some of the thoughts swirling around in my head into some order. But then I won't have written on my blog in nearly a week. Should I really squander this opportunity to write just because I'm tired?

Of course, part of the problem, as always, is that I have plenty to say, I just don't know whether I should say it. Or, perhaps more accurately, I am worried that I can't find a way of saying what I want to that will be appropriate under the circumstances. When to speak and when to stay silent? How do you know? A friend of mine tells me that she decided some time ago that she was no longer going to be able to stay in her marriage of some eighteen or so years because after living through too many cycles of hope and despair she was simply exhausted, used up. She was diagnosed with breast cancer almost two years ago, but survived, and now that she knows what it feels like to know you might die within year, "letting go" means something very specific to her that it had not meant before. Getting her life back--her hope for life longer than a year--is a great gift, she says. That is why she knows she must leave her marriage now.

Or words to that effect. I've been having difficulty listening to her these past few days because I know (a little bit of) how much she suffered over those years, but I am also worried for her because she has a daughter, and now her daughter is going to grow up the child of a divorce. And I just don't see how that is a good thing. She will be taken care of, I am assured. She is deeply loved. Which I know, knowing both her parents. But there is this small window of opportunity, right now, before everything falls into its new groove for there to be some other version of her life, some other story than the one that she is now going to grow up with, and I'm scared. Look, it's 5:47pm, the clock is ticking away. Soon it will be time for me to pack up my weapons and uniform and go. Soon this moment will be lost, this one moment after which nothing will be the same. But my friend tells me that she knows better than I do what it feels like knowing that that window of opportunity for life is closing--and what it feels like to get a reprieve.

She's right, I know. She does have a different perspective on things than I do. It's her marriage, after all, and her daughter. I have no business whatsoever saying anything other than that I am happy for her now she is no longer in a situation that she finds unbearable. But to what cost? I could let this moment slip by, say nothing, watch her daughter grow up just fine. And then I would have been wrong to worry as I am now, wrong to want to say something about the research I have read about the long-term effects of divorce on children, wrong to hold on even for a moment to the possibility that there might be some other way to live this moment such that it might end some other way. It's 6:01pm, I'm running out of time. But, she tells me, this is her time, not mine; her life, not mine; her window of opportunity for happiness, not mine. And she's right. I know she's right. She's got to be. It's only me who thinks that there is something to hold onto anymore.

There, the window is closing. Oh, look it's gone. Time for me to go now.

Ready, Set, ...Write!

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:10:00 +0000

I can't. I'm too tired. I have nothing to say. No, as usual, that's not quite true. Thanks to the reading I've been doing these past four or so weeks, I have much, too much to say. If only I knew where to start. If only.

I am tired. Truly. It's the second week of term, and I'm teaching a wholly new course on education in the Middle Ages. I know, I know, it was the Dark Ages, they didn't have any education. Which, of course, isn't true. They had loads. Only--and here's the embarrassing thing--even we medievalists don't spend enough time thinking about what medieval people (i.e. school children) learned in school. In particular, we don't spend enough time thinking about grammar. And logic. And rhetoric. A.k.a. the trivium.

I know I don't. I'm embarrassed that my Latin isn't stronger than it is. Even after almost a full year of working on my translation of John of Garland. Still I have so much to learn. And not just new vocabulary (which John is full of). Technicalities of meter. And synonyms. And tropes. And, you know, things. I don't even have the vocabulary yet to talk about the things I don't know. And I've been reading Latin for how many decades? I'm worse than the scholars of thirteenth-century Paris whom Henri d'Andeli skitted in his Battle of the Seven Arts--which, come to think of it, ironically, he wrote in French--for not studying Grammar. At least they knew Logic and Rhetoric. Sort of. We assume. Henri says they were more worried about trying to make money than sense, but at least they had read Aristotle. I've only read bits.

I wish that I could go back to school and learn everything all over again. How to write without freaking out about what I am going to say. How to study without thinking I need to do everything perfectly right off the bat. How to accept criticism as a way of improving my work. How to learn. Something, anything. How to sit down long enough with a problem to get inside of it, not just wanting to know the answer by looking in the back of the book. That's me: I cheat. I look in the back. To see how many pages there are still to read. To check whether there is anything coming that I really need to know. To test myself to see if I've gotten the right answer. Because, after all, it's all about getting the right answer. Isn't it?

But what answer is right? I have been totally destabilized in the past week or so reading my colleague Brad Gregory's new book. Indeed, if he's right (and I think he is), we have all been barking up the wrong tree for decades (nay, centuries), proving something that never existed in the first place. The triumph of secular modernity, the absolute freedom of the individual, toleration and choice as the ground of freedom, the separation of "religion" and state: all unintended consequences of the destabilization of Christianity during the so-called Reformation with consequences that we ourselves do not (yet) fully appreciate. It's a mind-blowing argument if, like me, you've spent your life trying to understand why every book on religion you've ever read wants nothing more than to prove that here, at long last, we've found the origins of true interiority, of a true, unmediated experience of God. And then you learn that that is because it is simply a product of our modern obsession with separating "religion" out from our public, political life so as to avoid the kinds of clashes that wracked Europe throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

No, that's not quite it. Brad's argument is difficult to summarize. Because, you see, it touches on everything, all at once: science, philosophy, reason, religion, economics, consumption, education, secularization, politics. Everything. And then turns it upside down. Much as the Reformation (albeit, unintentionally) did with the grounds of Christian society. So that now we can have politicians like Mitt Romney claiming that it is unChristian to worry about massive disparities in wealth or about ways in which to help the poor. Only in America. (Because, frankly, in Europe, they gave up being Christian after World War II. Or thereabouts. Brad has something to say about that, too. It has to do with the churches in Europe being so closely allied with their governments. Which, in fact, ours are, too, but in a different way. It's complicated. Read chapter 3.) And then there's the reasons we can have the kind of vapid non-arguments that we do in the public sphere, with everyone insisting that he has the right to believe whatever he wants to because there are no grounds upon which we can actually base our belief other than reason (which, as Brad shows, is nowhere near as definitive as the philosophers would have it, quite the reverse; that's chapter 2) or choice ("I want it, so it must be right"; chapter 5).

People in the Middle Ages (oh, those ever-so-dark "Middle Ages") knew better. At least, that seems to be what Brad is saying (he hedges, not wanting to sound too nostalgic). Certainly, they believed in an ethics grounded on virtue, not just choice (chapter 4). And they believed in sources of wisdom other than reason (chapters 1 and 2). Like, for example, Scripture. Or tradition. Or (heaven help us) God. I suspect Brad is going to be criticized, by medievalists more than any one, for being a bit nostalgic here. Although, as a Christian and a medievalist, I am, of course, delighted. Bring back the Age of Faith! Bring back a world in which life had a purpose and meaning other than dying as old as possible while staying as "young" as possible so as to accumulate the most toys! (I paraphrase.) I wish that I felt smart enough right now to do his argument justice, I know you are going to be anxious about everything that I've just said and want to tell me how Brad has gotten it wrong. (I know this because my son and husband have every time I've tried to tell them something about his argument. "Reductive" is the word I've heard most.) But I know, too, that I need to find some way to express what I've learned from him because it affects everything that I think about why I study the past.

Okay, so this is a start. I've written a couple of paragraphs. But they seem so lame. I feel just like Logic's pupil who doesn't know "the presents nor the preterits," nor any of Grammar's intricacies and so cannot even deliver his message, because "he had dwelt on them but little [and] had not learned thoroughly." Because, you see, I know all of this, all of the things that Brad has written about--but not in detail. Not in a way that I could actually present the argument that he has made myself; I just agree with it, but I can't work with it. Not yet. And, yes, I'm scared to try. Even now. Even after years of blogging to help me get over my writer's block, months of doing my translation, weeks of patiently revising my article on prayer (that one that I sent out for review this past autumn and which, wonderful to report, is going to be published!). Because I do have things that I want to say, but I'm scared. Of getting the answer wrong? Yes, in part. But more (and I wonder how colleagues like Brad have the courage) of saying something that will really get people's attention because it goes against the things that they reflexively believe.

Oh, dear. Now we're getting close to the bone. (Are you still with me here? I know, this has been pretty long-winded.) What is it that I want to say? Ahem. Well. For starters. Um. That theology matters. Yes, that's one thing. That having a community of believers matters (a.k.a. "organized religion"). Yes, that's another. That a "religion" made up of whatever bits of New Age "spiritual practices" one feels most comfortable with is hardly a religion at all (now I'm paraphrasing David Bentley Hart). Yes, that should get some people going. Goodness, I'm sweating here. Maybe that will have to do for now. Um.

I wish I could swallow fire and become the writer that I imagine I could be. If only I actually believed....

The Awesome Subversiveness of Christian Teaching (a.k.a. Doctrine)

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:10:00 +0000

"It should be uncontroversial (though, given the mood of the times, it probably is not) to say that if the teachings of Christianity were genuinely to take root in human hearts--if indeed we all believed that God is love and that we ought to love our neighbors as ourselves--we should have no desire for war, should hate injustice worse than death, and should find indifference to the sufferings of others impossible. But, in fact, human beings will continue to make war, and to slay the innocent and the defenseless with cheerful abandon; they will continue to distract themselves from themselves, and from their mortality, and from morbid boredom by killing and dying on a magnificent scale, and by exulting in their power to destroy one another. And human society will continue, in various times and places, to degenerate into a murderous horde, even if it remains so civilized as to depute the legal, political, and military machineries of the state to do its murdering for it.

"In such a world, Christians have no choice but to continue to believe in the power of the gospel to transform the human will from an engine of cruelty, sentimentality, and selfishness into a vessel of divine grace, capable of union with God and love of one's neighbor. Many of today's most obstreperous critics of Christianity know nothing more of Christendom's two millennia than a few childish images of bloodthirsty crusaders and sadistic inquisitors, a few damning facts, and a great number of even more damning legends; to such critics, obviously, Christians ought not to surrender the past but should instead deepen their own collective memory of what the gospel has been in human history. Perhaps more crucially, they ought not to surrender the future to those who know so little of human nature as to imagine that a society 'liberated' from Christ would love justice, or truth, or beauty, or compassion, or even life.

"The Christian view of human nature is wise precisely because it is so very extreme: it sees humanity, at once, as an image of the divine, fashioned for infinite love and imperishable glory, and as an almost inexhaustible wellspring of vindictiveness, cupidity, and brutality. Christians, indeed, have a special obligation not to forget how great and how inextinguishable the human proclivity for violence is, or how many victims it has claimed, for they worship a God who does not merely take the part of those victims, but who was himself one of them, murdered by the combined authority and moral prudence of the political, religious, and legal powers of human society.

"Which is, incidentally, the most subversive claim ever made in the history of the human race."

--David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 17.

Getting Medieval on the New Atheists, Max Weber, and Everybody Else Who Believes that Religion and Science Are Incompatible

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:52:00 +0000

"Most scientists and other scholars are unfamiliar with the intellectual scaffolding that reveals the compatibility between all scientific findings and a conception of God as radically transcendent creator of all that exists. In Christianity, this is understood to be the same God who became incarnate in Jesus and worked miracles. Shielded from having to engage the issues by the specialization of academic disciplines and supersessionist conceptions of history, most secular scholars and scientists seem as well to be unfamiliar with the historical genesis of their own contrary beliefs, which are neither self-evident nor evident. Hence one reason for this chapter, which has sought to shed light on the historical genealogy of both positions and to note their presence within contemporary Western hyperpluralism. The chapter has sought to expose the widespread but mistaken assumption that modern science has rendered revealed religion untenable. What is more, it is certain that all possible scientific findings are compatible with the conception of a transcendent creator-God discussed in this chapter. This conclusion follows directly once one understands what the conception entails--because any and all scientific discoveries simply tell us ever more about the natural world, which throughout the history of Christianity has been understood, following scripture, as God's creation. More scientific discoveries do not leave less room for God understood in this way, because God as traditionally conceived is not spatial in any sense, which is precisely how and why, if such a God is real, he could be present to all moments of space-time and to every bit of matter-energy. As has already been suggested, all possible scientific findings would also seem to be compatible with conceptions of a transcendent creator-God in Judaism and Islam, provided one does not subscribe to metaphysical univocity.* In neither of these traditions is God viewed as an 'intentional object' within the universe.

"The metaphysical assumptions in conjunction with which modern science historically emerged are not the only ones compatible with the findings of science. This fact is critically important today for our understanding the ways in which the relationship between science and religion is conceived. Inadequate, supersessionist history that regards a traditional conception of God as a long-gone casualty of Aristotelian philosophy facilitates the uncritical perpetuation of the myth that no metaphysical views besides neo-Scotist univocity are compatible with modern science. Regardless of how widespread or taken for granted, this notion is simply false. But a willingness to question what is usually assumed, and a historical method that can discern the continuing influence of the distant past in the present, are required in order to see this.

"Secular affirmations of disenchantment are subjective, autobiographical descriptions of human experience, not intellectual inevitabilities based on scientific findings. They coexist in the early twenty-first century with contrary autobiographical descriptions of joy, hope, meaning, and purpose by religious believers fully aware of the same scientific findings. Therefore the claim that scientific findings ineluctably lead to disenchantment is empirically falsified. On this point Weber was wrong; so is everyone else who agrees with him. Similarly, the claim that science and religion are necessarily incompatible is empirically falsified. Their alleged incompatibility is not based on science, but on atheistic faith commitments or (paradoxically, and perhaps contradictorily) resolute skepticism. The roots of this belief in the distant past of medieval scholasticism are partly what prevent it from being properly seen and understood, as does the extent of its entanglement with a host of other historical developments, as will become clearer in subsequent chapters."

--Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, Mass., and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 71-72.

So there.

*As first posited by the thirteenth-century theologian John Duns Scotus, who argued that in order for it to be possible to say anything about God directly on the basis of reason alone, God must share at least one predicate with everything else. Scotus posited the predicate being as being univocal, that is, conceptually equivalent, with God and his creatures. Thus, according to Scotus, God exists like everything else as an object in the universe, as simply the highest being (ens) among other beings, rather than, as in the traditional view as articulated by Thomas Aquinas, the incomprehensible act of to-be (esse).

What I learned in school today

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:15:00 +0000

While talking about Dorothy Sayers' argument in favor of reviving the medieval educational model of the trivium:

1) She's right. We should be teaching grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric as the tools of learning, not worrying about false dichotomies between the "sciences" and the "humanities" (both "subjects" in her terms, not "tools").

2) We would be much better off thinking of teaching in terms of the medieval scholastic practice of disputatio--defining terms, distinguishing parts of our argument, testing our reasoning on the basis of syllogisms--rather than claiming we are teaching by the "Socratic method," whatever that is.

3) Thinking about teaching and learning as exercises in developing tools makes it possible to correct our students (and ourselves) without worrying about hurting anybody's feelings because it makes one's corrections concrete ("You need to define your terms," "There is a fallacy in your argument there," "You are confusing material and final cause"), not personal.

And then the dog came and lay down on my feet

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 03:52:00 +0000

2011 was quite a year. I feel obliged in some way to memorialize it, think through all of the things that I have accomplished since this time last year, but I've been stalling all day, wondering what I could possibly say that I haven't said already. My family (natal, that is, not immediate) has been going through some fairly interesting (read: transformative, difficult, painful, enlightening) times, and there were a flurry of emails yesterday and today recalling (obliquely) all that has passed. My brother, my sister, my mother, my mother's partner, they've all been through quite a lot of tough stuff. But me? Well, I've just spent the year learning to see.

Which I can now, most of the time. It's been nearly twelve months since my surgery and, for the most part, my eyes are fairly stable now. I don't have to put drops in every other minute or even (which I did have to through most of the summer) every hour on the hour, but usually only when I wake up and before I go to sleep or when I've been exercising fairly hard. I do still have to wear reading glasses now, which was expected, but I find myself looking out at the world without glasses--and forgetting that I am not wearing glasses. It is, in many ways, a dream come true. Now I am one of those cool women who can take her glasses off once she is finished working (i.e. reading, writing), you know, with that flourish the twenty-somethings in the movies have who are studious but sexy (once they take their glasses off, of course). Never mind that it seems odd for all of those twenty-somethings to need reading glasses, but there you go. I'm one of them.

And what do I see when I take my glasses off now? Ah, well, that would be telling. I've told you as much as I feel is appropriate given that there are always others involved in the difficult times that we live through. But there is so much more that I've learned these past twelve months that I haven't found a neutral or compassionate way to say. Things that I wish I could say because I understand certain of my reactions more clearly now but which would do my listeners little good to hear, even if, momentarily, I might feel better saying them. Things that I am still somewhat angry about, even as I have learned to let go of certain expectations that I have tended to have. Things that I actually no longer feel the need to say because I understand why they wouldn't do any good, but that others might wonder about. It's a good place to be, better than the place I was in this time last year. I hurt less, I feel less angry. But.

But. But what? What else do I want, other than world peace? I have the most beautiful dog in the world lying here on my legs (okay, she was, but she just got up to go lie under the Christmas tree). I am sitting on a comfortable couch (actually, a chaise longue--did I spell that right?) in a spacious, uncluttered, and colorful room. My husband and son are at the other end of the apartment, playing Skyrim together (or arguing game play, I'm not entirely sure). I have one more day before classes start to get my course plans together for the term. I started my new practice regime this evening with a short set of touches, which I am going to build on gradually over the next few weeks until my arm is strong enough to do a full 20-30 minutes again. I have even found a new shampoo that makes my grey hair look youthful and gorgeous again (Lush's Daddy-O, if you're interested). Nothing in my life could be better than it already is.

And that's saying something, because things have been hard over the past couple of years. But they're not anymore, not at least in the way that they were. Not so much because certain things have changed; they haven't. I still live in an apartment, not a house. I'm still waiting on that promotion. I still need to write my second book. But because my view on things has changed so that I don't see having a house or getting promoted or publishing more simply to have published as something missing from my life anymore. What do you do, what do you think when you reach this point of calm with yourself and your life? I don't know, I've never been here before. I think what you do is get back to your writing time once winter break is over, which will be good even if I haven't had as much of a work-free break as I might imagine I wanted. I am, however, somewhat less clear about where I go with certain other things.

Like, let's face it, family. And love. And memories. And disappointments, longings, hurts, missed opportunities, loss. Things unsaid but deeply felt. Things sitting like giant elephants in the room that nobody but me seems to feel or see. Maybe my vision is still clearing, maybe the elephants really are all in my imagination. Or maybe they are really there, but harmless, nothing anybody needs to be that concerned about, even if they do take up a fair amount of room. I think for my own sake I may still need to look at them a little more closely, but--and this is worth acknowledging--at least I am not afraid of them anymore, not like I used to be. Even better, I have named many of them, acknowledged the power that they have had over me. And I have stopped identifying what they whisper to me as the truth. I am still tempted, I am afraid, to try to get others to admit that the elephants are there and that they can see them, too. Perhaps it is enough for me simply to know that I see them and that they are not figments of my imagination and that my fears of them, if overblown, were appropriate under the circumstances. I don't know yet, I can't quite tell.

I know, this is all rather metaphorical and oblique, but that's part of the problem that I'm still working through. What is real and what not? What is something that I need to do something about and what better left unsaid? At the moment, truth be told, I feel fairly numb. Not numb as in numbed so that I cannot feel, but numb as in not really feeling much of anything because I don't need to, I'm not afraid anymore. Just neutral, apathetic in a good way, no longer suffering. At least, most of the time. When I can see the elephants clearly for what they are. When I have a dog at my feet.

Yup. It's been quite a year. I'm not sure I'm quite ready for 2012.

Scorecard, Winter Break

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:24:00 +0000

Since returning from the tournament mid-month, after the end of classes:

Papers graded and commented on: 16

Fellowship applications reviewed: 6

Books read in preparation for Vestry Retreat: 2 (one assigned by Rector)

Articles read in preparation for Mellon discussion next week: 3

Books read in preparation for new course starting next week: 2

Books read for review: 1/2 (started on way to tournament, finished December 23)

Communion breads baked: 13 (one batch)

Syllabi written from scratch: 1

Items scanned in preparation for new course: 19

Movies watched on iPad while scanning items for new course: 6 (this took two full days)

Chicken Ranch (1983, documentary)
The Lord of the Flies (1963, movie of the book)
Best in Show (2000, mockumentary--with dogs!)
Bottle Shock (2008, based on a true story)
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967, movie of the Bob Fosse musical)
From Prada to Nada (2011, "a Latina spin on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility")

Articles read in preparation for new course: 12

Letters of reference written: 2

Books read for tenure case: 2/3 (and counting...)

Fencing practices attended: 1 (plus one Christmas party)

Blog posts written (not counting this one): 2 (the others were quotations or photos)

Walks taken in the rain and mud with dog: lots

Days spent doing nothing but reading a novel: 1 (with hangover from Christmas Day)

The Unbearable Emptiness of Religious Experience for Its Own Sake; or, Why Having an Object Makes It Possible to Love

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:04:00 +0000

"The turn to experience [in mainline and evangelical Protestantism] is a failure because it's based on a misunderstanding of how experience actually works. Focusing on your experience waters down your experience, because experience feeds on what it experiences, just as love feeds on news of the Beloved. We can use the same picture to illustrate this point as in chapter 9. In Christian faith, your experience is like the arrow on side A of the picture. It's the verb in a sentence like 'I believe in Christ.' The arrow is aimed at Christ, just as the verb is 'aimed' at its grammatical object, which is Christ. Very significantly, it is not aimed at itself, which is why on side B, what the person on side A is experiencing, the arrow, disappears. That is to say, the experience of faith is not about faith or experience but about Christ. We don't believe in our experience, we believe in him. So Christian faith and the experience that comes from it are both nourished by paying attention to Jesus Christ.

"The turn to experience directs our attention quite differently. It tries to enhance the experience of the person on side A, the Bride who longs for her Beloved, by making her pay attention to her experiences, as if the fundamental thing for her to look at is the arrow there on side A. This gets her looking at something different from what Christian experience looks at, which is the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, the person on side B. When you look at side A, Christ is still in the picture, there at the far end of the arrow. But he's the smallest part of the picture, because what's in the foreground, where your attention is focused, is yourself and your experiences. And what happens over time, as you and your experiences take up more and more of your attention, is that Christ keeps fading further into the background. He gets more and more out of focus, continuing to grow indistinct until he disappears in a kind of foggy haze.

"This happens because experience is no substitute for sound doctrine. When doctrines like the Trinity and incarnation are not taught, we start to forget who Christ really is. We start to think of Jesus as if his job was teaching us how to live rather than being Savior of the world, and we start to use the word 'God' generically, as if it had nothing in particular to do with Christ. In this way Christian experience becomes less and less Christian. It comes to be less about the person of Christ, and therefore less personal and more abstract. You can see this in the German theologians who invented liberal theology: they wrote long books about Christian experience and consciousness that are extraordinarily abstract and dreary to read.

"Since what makes experience personal is the person it's about, to focus on the experience itself apart from the person makes it impersonal. It's like people going on and on about how strongly they feel or how they're 'looking for love.' That's all very abstract until they can say who is the one they love. For feelings, desire, love, and faith are quite impersonal if they don't connect us to particular persons. They're like arrows pointing nowhere in particular. And just as an arrow has not yet been put to use as an arrow if it has no target, so a feeling of love is not yet really love when it has no Beloved."

--Phillip Cary, Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don't Have to Do (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2010), chap. 10.

Another piece of the puzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:31:00 +0000

"[Dichter] also understood that [American] consumers felt guilt after buying self-indulgent [sic] products, so marketers had to sell such things as tobacco and candy as 'rewards' for the deserving. Much of this is taken for granted now, but when [in the 1940s] Dichter was whispering these sweet nothings in the ears of CEOs, they were revelatory."

--"Retail Therapy: How Ernest Dichter, an acolyte of Sigmund Freud, revolutionised marketing," The Economist (December 17th-30th, 2011), p. 122.

Just in case you were wondering why you are so convinced that you "deserve" that cookie, even when you aren't hungry. Or why you think eating will make you feel better when what you really need is a hug.

I'm still here...

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:53:00 +0000

Just taking a break.

Grammatical Note: How (Not) to Read

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:20:00 +0000

"Bernard [of Chartres] also used to admonish his students that stories and poems should be read thoroughly, and not as though the reader were being precipitated to flight by spurs. Wherefore he diligently and insistently demanded from each, as a daily debt, something committed to memory.

"At the same time, he said that we should shun what is superfluous. According to him, the works of distinguished authors suffice. As a matter of fact, to study everything that everyone, no matter how insignificant, has ever said, is either to be exceedingly humble and cautious, or overly vain and ostentatious. It also deters and stifles minds that would better be freed to go on to other things. That which preempts the place of something that is better is, for this reason, disadvantageous, and does not deserve to be called 'good.' To examine and pore over everything that has been written, regardless of whether it is worth reading, is as pointless as to fritter away one's times with old wives' tales.

"As Augustine says in his book On Order: 'Who is there who will bear that a man who has never heard that Daedalus flew should [therefore] be considered unlearned? And, on the contrary, who will not agree that one who says that Daedalus did fly should be branded a liar; one who believes it, a fool; and one who questions [anyone] about it, impudent? I am wont to have profound pity for those of my associates who are accused of ignorance because they do not know the name of the mother of Euryalus, yet who dare not call those who ask such questions "conceited and pedantic busy-bodies".'

"Augustine summarizes the matter aptly and with truth. The ancients correctly reckoned that to ignore certain things constituted one of the marks of a good grammarian."

--John of Salisbury (d. 1180), The Metalogicon: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium, trans. Daniel D. McGarry (Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2009), book I, chap. 24, pp. 69-70.

Doesn't it ever get it any easier?

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:36:00 +0000

Short answer: No, not if you're doing it right.

As, for example, here, where I am trying to explain an insight that came to me at the tournament this past weekend while I was thinking about whether I should just quit trying to fence épée as a second weapon and stick to foil. I've been competing in épée off and on, I now realize, for going on something like three or so years. And yet, I am nowhere nearly as strong in épée now as I was when I had been competing in foil for the same amount of time. By the time I had been competing in foil as long as I have been competing in épée, I was a D. I'm not even an E in épée at the moment, nor is it likely that I will be any time soon.

So why is that? Well, I don't really get to practice épée much now that our club moved and most of the fencers that I practice with only do foil. But that isn't all of it. I could say that it's because I haven't been working hard enough at it, but that isn't quite it either. (There's a post about "trying softer" lurking behind this one, but I need to say this first.) It's because--and this is very important, so listen carefully--I haven't been as willing to put myself at risk in épée. I simply can't face the learning curve. It's too steep.

Ah. Right. That--I realized on Monday as I was working this out--that is why it's not just about trying harder. Trying harder is simply a matter of endurance, gutting it out, pushing oneself to do the same thing over and over and over again to the point of exhaustion and counting on that to push one's game to the next level. But sometimes (okay, so maybe this is the post about "trying softer," too), perhaps even most of the time, "trying harder" will never get one's game to the next level because what's missing is not muscular effort, but understanding. (I'm thinking here of the image that Simone Weil gives of her students clenching up when she asked them to pay attention. Contracting one's muscles, however tiring, is not attention; it is only contracting one's muscles.) It's not that I am not in good enough physical shape (although I could still be better) in order to fence the other women my age; it's that I don't know what to do in a given situation where they do.

And, yes, I hate that. "Why," you've heard me exclaim if you've ever spent any time with me on the strip, "why doesn't it ever get any easier? Why don't I know what to do? Why can't I see it? Why? Why? Why?" And then maybe I pound my head (most of the time metaphorically) on the ground, hoping perhaps to beat the understanding of what to do into my brain physically if I can't get it there any other way. And why is it so frustrating for me to feel like I don't know what to do? Because--and this was the next realization that I had on Monday, although again it's something I've recognized for awhile--I truly believe (or have) that being good at something meant that eventually it would feel effortless and that as long as I felt like I had to struggle at it, I was doing something wrong.

Wrong! Wrong! WRONG! (Can you hear the insight clanging in my head?) Wrong. All these years (all my life, in fact) I have had it exactly backwards. Being good at something does not mean finding it easy. Being good at something does not mean constantly feeling oneself in a state of flow. Quite the reverse. Rather, being good at something means being willing to forgo the experience of flow. It means (and I'm sure you've heard this, but think about it carefully) being willing to step out of one's comfort zone ALL THE TIME.

Gasp. Yes, okay, that's a bit rough, but think about it. Think about what it means to find oneself in one's comfort zone, one's abilities perfectly matched to the challenge at hand. Previously, I had always taken this as a signal to relax: "Look, I can do this!" Now I realize, sweet as it is, it's a trap. Conversely, I had always taken the feeling of frustration ("I'll never be able to do this!") as a signal that I was supposed to quit. ("Maybe you just don't have the talent for it," the demon would whisper, seductively, tempting me to want to return to my comfort zone where nothing felt awkward and everything made sense.)

Have I said this yet? Wrong!!!! Frustration, the feeling of being out on a limb not knowing what to do, is the best friend you have! It's a sign that you are working on something that you don't yet know how to do--and that's all. It is not a signal of failure or lack of talent. It's a sign that you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing: trying something new. And that's it. I'll say it again. The feeling of frustration is your friend. Comfort, the zone, the feeling of effortless ability--all fine, all lovely experiences. But if you are doing it (whatever "it" is) right, they are transient. And they are supposed to be!

More importantly (I have now realized), flow, the feeling of effortless competence, is not the goal. Nor is it even that difficult to achieve. Rather, it is simply the by-product of paying attention. Perfect, absolute, unshakable attention, to be sure. But it is not this elusive Zen-state that only the most gifted can achieve. It is simply a matter of practice. It's hard (or it feels hard) because paying attention when one is feeling frustrated is hard. And the Ego (I think I understand this now) hates feeling frustrated. It wants everything easy, the easier the better, because that makes it feel big. But paying attention is not a function of the Ego; in fact, the Ego hates it because (get a hold of this one, Simone Weil said it, too) paying attention is an act of humility. It means, quite literally, emptying the Ego, the Self of itself, and allowing something else the center, yes, of attention. (Can you sense my Ego trying to get a word in here? N.B. all the parenthetical comments. Ego wants you to know, "I thought of this! Me! Me! Me!" Don't pay her any attention.)

This is why the feeling of frustration is your friend: it is the Ego's effort to get you to turn away, stop paying attention to something other than itself. It is a signal, in other words, that you are pushing yourself to attend to something that the Ego doesn't want you to because it feels threatened. It knows that if you allow yourself to pay attention, you will forget about it. You will no longer care whether what you are doing is right or wrong, you will simply be asking yourself, "What is this? What is it trying to teach me? What do I need to learn from it?" But the Ego will fight. As Simone Weil puts it, "Something in our soul has a far more violent repugnance for true attention than the flesh has for bodily fatigue." Frustration is the soul's repugnance for true attention. That's why it is always telling you to quit. The Ego wants your attention back on itself. So what then? Ignore it, and try to see what it is that the Ego doesn't want you to see.

(Ah, I can feel my Ego wanting to wander at this point. To pull me away from paying attention to what I am trying to say. It wants to go check my email, look at my messages on Facebook, anything other than sitting here concentrating on something other than its whims. Because I can't think what to say next, and I'm feeling a little bit frustrated. See?)

Ironically, allowing oneself to feel frustrated is the first step on the way to experiencing flow. Because (see above) flow is a by-product of surrendering oneself (one's Ego) to something else. And as long as one is paying attention to that Other (whether it be one's opponent's actions or one's writing or one's neighbor or God) without allowing the demon Frustration to pull oneself away, it doesn't really matter how well one is doing something (judging one's performance is a matter for the Ego or the Critic); one is simply caught up in the doing. And, yes, then it is easier--but it doesn't matter anymore because the Ego is no longer in the way to make it hard.

One of the Gang

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:04:00 +0000

All of my friends got medals this weekend. My roommate (the one closest to me in the picture) even got two. And I was back on the ground taking photos for everyone.

Yes, I feel a little bit sad. Who wouldn't? I've been up there twice (although not in this particular event, Vet Combined as opposed to Vet 40s), and, yes, I liked it. The question is, why? Why does it make so much difference whether one gets on the medals podium or not?

I used to think that it was because being up there on the podium would prove something about my fencing, that I was good enough. But, again, good enough for what? To fence? I'm already that. Even the fencer who comes dead last in the event is good enough to fence. Nobody has to earn the right to compete, at least not as such. Sure, getting up on the medals podium usually means that you got to fence more on that particular day, but, again, it isn't like all those of us standing round taking photos didn't get to fence at all. So what makes being up on that podium so special?

I was thinking about this all day yesterday as I was coming home from the tournament, and I think I know. I feel left out. I want to be up there because that's where my friends are, and I'm afraid if I'm not up there that they won't be friends with me anymore. Not that they would not want to be my friends just because I didn't get up there with them! It's just that I realize I'm afraid that not being up there means that I don't really belong--and that hurts even more than the thought of losing a bout. So, curiously, I also realized yesterday, I'm not really that bothered about not being first; I'm just bothered by the thought of not being one of the gang. Indeed, I would almost rather never be first. I've been first before (e.g. in my high school graduating class), and although it was fun being the one up there giving the speech, it sucked losing all of my friends. Much better to be fifth and still have others to play with.

So does this mean that I am simply not ambitious enough to win a medal again? I'm not sure anymore. I hate losing, sure. But I actually don't want to beat my friends--which they know and, because they do want to be first, most definitely take advantage of. (My friend Ed says I'm too nice, and he's right. He got two medals this weekend, too.) Lisa Lane Brown has something about this in her program The Courage to Win. About how athletes often find it hard to imagine beating the champions in their sport because it means losing their idols, the ones whom they measured themselves against. But the status reversal is also hard on friendship. What if, in fact, I was the one who kept coming home with medals after beating my friends? I don't like that image very much. I want us all to be up there together, all for one and one for all. But instead, here I am, back on the ground.

I think I need a hug.

Cold Feet

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:56:00 +0000

I do not want to fence this event today. Not. Not. Not. I am terrified. Who am I kidding, thinking I can fence epee? I'm a foilist, I don't practice epee. What on earth was I thinking signing up for this event?

Okay, so I've fenced it before. Several times, in fact. Over the past two (or is it three?) years. And I always lose. Badly. Even worse than I did yesterday. Okay, no, yesterday was pretty bad, and even in epee, I have occasionally won the odd bout. But. This is ridiculous. What do I think is going to happen? That I am suddenly going to discover a hidden talent, find that, in truth, I am really an epeeist? That all the struggles that I've been having in fencing were simply owing to the fact that I was fencing the wrong weapon? Yeah, right.

Yeah. Right. I do think this. I think about how hard I found it learning to start an attack in foil, so terrified was I of getting hit, but in epee, there is much less advantage in going first (at least, it seems that way to me). Go first in epee and you just get hit before your attack can land and since there is no priority, you're toast. In foil, if you flinch on the way in, you lose your priority, but in epee you can flinch all you like--you've still been hit already. Um. It's because epee is ostensibly slower, yeah, that's it. Because you need to be really, really patient in setting up your attacks. One flinch and you're done for if your opponent sees you coming and you don't hit her first.

But then why do I keep getting hit by all these great fleche attacks in epee if my strength as a foilist is in my parry? Alas, maybe I just suck at fencing, not just in foil. What is it that I am looking for here? Some reassurance that I am allowed to fence, even if I do suck? Well, I think I know that. The better fencers are always happy to have someone help them with their indicators, and what better indicator can you get than winning a bout 5-0? More fool me if I give them the opportunity, but they certainly aren't going to begrudge me the offering in pools. Nor will they worry about having a warm-up DE, just to get their adrenaline flowing for the real bouts further up the table. So that isn't it.

So what is it? That I hate feeling ridiculous. Which I do when I clearly don't have a clue what to do. And I'm not a beginner, so I should. Have a clue. Be an A already. For goodness' sake, why aren't I? So-and-so is and she started fencing a year after I did. (Cue Hurry Up.) But maybe it will never happen, I will never be an A. Probably not even a B. So how about a C? Right. I haven't even been able to renew my D in two years, although I did place high enough at Summer Nationals to make an E. Twice. So I'm a double E, just like my shoe size. (Joke, I don't remember how wide my feet are. Wide.)

I am not good at not being the best at something. Not. Not. Not. I hate it. But what am I to do, quit just because I'm not and probably (almost certainly) never will be? Big fish, small pond. Small fish, big pond. Which is it going to be? Fencing is already a pretty small pond. And it's not that I am that small of a fish. Two medals at Summer Nationals in the past two years is not that bad. But it's not the best. And I want to be the best. It's just that I still haven't a clue how to practice so as to be the best.

Try harder, I know. Concentrate better. See the patterns, understand the actions. Something. There has got to be something I can actually do. Study harder. You know. Something other than chasing that elusive thing called talent. Which despite everything that I've read and know about how genius is in the sweat, I still believe. Because otherwise, I would see the patterns, know what action to use. Just like my son could when he was 11 and quit fencing because he found it so boring. It was too easy for him to see what to do, there simply wasn't any challenge.

So I'm an idiot. A child could fence better than I do. Many of them do. They have It and I don't. And all the footwork and point control and conditioning in the world won't change that. So should I quit? I could just not fence today. Go to the venue and simply watch my friends. It would save me the grief and humiliation that I am bound to feel when I get on that strip and haven't a clue what to do. It's tempting. Boy, oh, boy, is it tempting. So why exactly am I looking at the clock and worrying about whether it is time to start getting dressed so that I can go check in and warm up?

The Drivers

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:01:00 +0000

National tournament, day two. I should not be writing this, it is only going to be one of those upsetting posts where I tell you all about how terribly I fenced, but the demons are chattering and I have not been able to get them to stop, despite having stayed at the venue to watch my event (Div II Women's Foil) all the way to the end. Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter.

"Be perfect," the first one says. "You missed that action, you rushed, you failed you failed you failed you failed. What did you think you were doing, trying to fence these girls? Don't you wish you had been fencing when you were their age? They are already much much better than you are."

"Hurry up," the second demon chimes in. "That girl only started fencing three years ago, and she is miles better than you are. You suck, you're slow, you're never going to learn how to do this."

"And you should," Be Perfect chides. "You've been doing this how many years, and you still can't control yourself well enough to fence your best every time? You should always be able to fence your best, otherwise you're just a loser. So what if you did better in this event at Nationals? You suck today and that's what counts."

"You need to try harder," a third demon whispers, seductively. "Right, let's make a deal. You are going to go home and work and work and work and work. Then you will fix everything that you are doing wrong now. Drill, drill, drill; footwork, footwork, footwork. Push yourself every practice until you can't move anymore. Then you will get better."

"You would be able to try harder if you were strong," notes a fourth. "Nobody wants to hear how frustrated you are today. Buck up, stop blubbering. The only reason you can't fence perfectly is that you're weak. See, look how tought that other fencer is. I bet she never cries or gets upset about how well she is fencing."

"And I bet she never has a bad day, either," Be Perfect adds. "Look, there's your friend coming to coach you," a fifth demon notes. "Be sure to be nice to her, you wouldn't want to upset her when she's being so helpful to you. You don't want to be the bitch in the pool."

"You shouldn't get so upset," Be Strong butts in. "Look, nobody else is getting upset, you're just a baby. Baby, baby, baby, baby, look at the little baby cry. Run on home to your mother, baby, you will never be tough enough to stand up to these girls."

"You will if you try harder," Try Harder suggests, comfortingly. "You just need to get everything under control. Right, Be Perfect? So, lose 10 or 20 pounds, practice perfectly. It's the only way to fix what's wrong with you."

"No excuses," Be Strong insists. "Nobody is going to care if you had a hard time getting to practice or have other things in your life that you need to take care of. Listen to Try Harder: she knows what's what."

"Besides," Please Everybody reminds you, "you will disappoint your coach and your family if you don't win."

"Not to mention embarrass yourself," chides Be Perfect. "Look, the other Veterans are doing fine today, you don't really have any excuses. You're just lame."

And on, and on, and on, and on. I know that the demons are liars, but I've been listening to them for so long, I still believe them, especially Try Harder. Be Perfect can get me every time, and Be Strong is always waiting there to make sure I feel guilty about not being perfect at everything. Hurry Up is perhaps the worst: I cannot stand the thought that others who have not been fencing as long as I have already have greater success (as defined by Be Perfect) than I have. And then, when the first four demons have me thoroughly wound up, Please Everybdoy sticks the boot in and reminds me that I shouldn't get so upset because it will be upsetting to others.

So I had a hard day today. And I feel even worse (cue demons) because I thought that I had it all under control (see yesterday's post). I thought that I had been Trying Harder, working on paying attention, staying focused, doing my point control exercises. I thought that I understood that it was okay to have difficult feelings, that I didn't have to Please Everybody by never feeling angry or disappointed or anxious or scared. I thought that I had learned not to listen to the temptation to Be Perfect, not (as my sister likes to put it) to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I thought that I had learned to recognize the way that Hurry Up worked, always pushing me to do more faster, while at the same time belittling whatever else I had already been able to do. And I thought that I had learned how to recognize Be Strong's efforts at shaming me.

Apparently not. Or--given that I have actually written this post without tears and, in fact, a fair degree of good humor--perhaps, after all, I have. If only I didn't have all of these difficult feelings to sit with, then I would Be Perfect, Hurry Up, Be Strong, and Please Others. Wouldn't I? Maybe I'm just not Trying Hard enough.

*Demons' names courtesy of Pamela Butler, Talking to Yourself: How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Change Your Life (Kindle, 2008), chapter 2.

Who is this bear? Do I know her?

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 23:41:00 +0000

Look at me. Okay, this would be easier if I could figure out how to upload a photo into Blogger from my iPad. But imagine you can see me, sitting calmly on my fencing bag. (Remembering, of course, that I am just a little bear, not a full grown woman or anything.) There I am. Not crying, not beating myself up, not telling myself stories about how I can't learn and never will. Just sitting. And, yes, I lost today. Not badly, not well. Just lost.

And that's it, end of story. Or the beginning of a whole new one. Because I fenced in a national tournament today against the best women in the country my age (well, some of them, not everyone who was signed up decided to fence the event so as to save themselves for their big event on Monday), and...nothing. Or everything. I'm fighting a bit of a caffeine-headache right now, not having my usual supply of tea for the day, but I am still nevertheless oddly calm. So calm I'm not quite sure what to think about it. Because part of me is also pissed. I lost, after all. Against someone whom I have beat before in the past, despite the fact that she has been fencing for almost as long as I've been alive (she's a good thirteen or so years older than I am, and I am pretty sure she started fencing before high school).

But, and here's the odd thing. Even though she beat me handily (10-5), I know, I KNOW that if I had had more time I would have figured out what to do against her and maybe even caught up. I know this because I did it several times this morning. In my first pool bout, when I was down 3-0 and I was able not only to keep my concentration but also know throughout the bout that I could win it. Which I did, 3-5. Once I figured out what to do, she didn't hit me again. And I did it again and again in my pools: watched, waited, thought, figured out my opponent's timing and distance, what attacks she was using against me, and hit her. Even our new top Vet-40 and former Olympian. I watched and knew what to do.

No wonder my head hurts! I spent the morning thinking really, really hard. Funny that I only just now realized this. But I kept my breathing and my focus, just like I've been practicing with my meditation in the mornings. Breathe, breathe, breathe, focus. I even won a pool bout that I did not expect to at all because I was able to keep my focus and, thus, my line. Which I was also able to hold in a place that I had previously not even used, so uncomfortable did it make me feel. But (mirabile dictu) I trusted myself and tried it. And it worked! Better even than I expected. (I will have to tell Ed.) Even better, the woman whom I fenced for my first D-E gave me an enormous compliment: not only did she exclaim about how hard I was to read ("You didn't give anything away! I never could tell when you were about to attack, and I couldn't figure out what you were doing at all!"), she also commented on how nice it was talking with me after the bout.

So. Wow.

Maybe I'm not the bitch in the pool anymore (the one who, if you can't figure out who it is, must be you). That can't be. Me, nice? No, even better. Me not worrying anymore about being nice because I'm not afraid of everyone as I used to be. I know I belong here. I know that I don't have to earn the right to be here by being the best. I know that the most important thing is to learn something from each bout, even if it is only yet again how to keep one's confidence and cool. And I also know that it makes not a whit of difference how my opponent looks at me, whether she likes me or thinks I'm a good fencer. So what if she doesn't seem to think that I fenced her well? I know if I did. So what if she doesn't smile or look me in the eye at the end of our bout? It could mean anything, but whatever it means, it is not my problem. My problem is to stay with my game. I am a little worried that I might want to cry again. I can imagine scenarios in which I would. Part of me is still worried that the Pit is still there, waiting to open up and swallow me. And yet, oddly, even that isn't such a scary thought anymore. I'm not sure I know this bear. Could she really be me?

The Limits of Christian Theology

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:52:00 +0000

"By way of conclusion, it will be well to draw the reader's attention to the inherent limitations of the philosophical principle of order in theology. Philosophy is reckoned as quite a high card in theology: let us call it the jack, the fourth-highest card the pack possesses. This card can be trumped by three other cards. First, it can be trumped by the king, which is divine revelation itself. Obviously, if a philosophical principle of order is tending in some way to distort revelation or leads to our leaving out of count things that are manifestly important to the faith of the Church, then the king will trump the jack. But in between the king and the jack is the queen. Between divine revelation and the philosophical principle of order in theology there is always some theological principle of order. As I mentioned in the course of roughing out a definition of theology, no one theology can ever present divine revelation in its totality. It will always take up a particular standpoint, choosing one theme as its preferred point of entry and considering all the other theological themes in relation to this (for it) central motif.

"Because a theological principle of order is equally necessary to theology and yet is derived from within revelation and not (as is the case with the philosophical principle of order) from outside it, it must be regarded as more important than the philosophical principle and so have the right to depart from it if and when it so wishes. Last, then, there is the ace. If divine revelation is the king, how can there be a card which can trump divine revelation? The ace is the mystery of God in himself. We cannot assume that divine revelation tells us everything there is to know about God's being and purposes. It tells us enough for our needs and more than enough. Behind historic revelation there lie the unknown depths of the divine essence. Certainly, we believe that the divine essence cannot be in contradiction to anything God has made known in revelation. As Christians, we approach the mystery of that essence from the disclosure, in the self-emptying of the Son of God made man, of that self-emptying's transcendent pattern, the eternal event of the divine processions. As von Balthasar has written, 'That essence is forever "given" in the self-gift of the Father, "rendered" in the thanksgiving of the Son, and "represented" in its character as absolute Love by the Holy Spirit.' Nonetheless, there is no reason to think that in the revelation to Homo sapiens, to the inhabitants of this planet, the total divine mystery has been laid bare. Beyond even revelation there lies the vision of God, which is not for wayfarers but for those who have arrived in the assembly of the angels. Not for us now, even with divine revelation, is that perfectly unified, complete, and luminous intuition of God and beings, which Dante sings of in the Paradiso [Canto XXXIII]: 'O abounding grace, by which I dared to fix my look on the Eternal Light so long that I spent all my sight upon it! In its depth I saw that it contained, bound by love in one volume, that which is scattered in leaves through the universe, substances and accidents and their relations, as it were fused together in such a way that what I tell of is a simple light.' We must have a proper reverence for the mystery of God--founded on a just sense of the limitations of the human mind and heart, as of God's excess, in his being and plan, of all our concepts and imaginings. Such reverence is not simply also necessary for theological students. It is particularly necessary in their case--since their little knowledge, as that of their teachers, may be a dangerous thing. This warning is appropriate as we turn now to study the sources of revelation: Scripture and Tradition."

--Aidan Nichols, O.P., The Shape of Catholic Theology: An Introduction to its Sources, Principles, and History (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 94-95.

Power Sit

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Photo by Momma Bear

Feeling Thankful

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Photo by Momma Bear

Juxtaposition

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 02:39:00 +0000

"We are wired from birth to want answers and hard data. Uncertainty is okay, as long as it exists in someone else's life or we don't have to do anything about it. But as soon as we're challenged to own it and then act in the face of it, with rare exceptions we run from it. Because running at it terrifies us. We're scared of the discomfort that comes with opening doors without knowing what's behind them. Scared of being judged if it's a monster. Scared of having to pick up the pieces and rebuild if we go to zero. Even scared of hitting the jackpot. And beyond the fear, we just plain hate the persistent anxiety that rides along with continually leaning into the unknown. Without intervention, we experience it as anywhere from discomfort to outright suffering.

"The problem is, if you strive to create anything--be it a book, a business, a blog, a collection, a body of work, or a career that is defined by brilliance--uncertainty, risk of loss, and exposure to judgment are necessary parts of the quest. They'll ebb and flow and move toward certainty as each project or new endeavor takes shape.

"But even then, in [the] larger context of the creative life, each end signals a new beginning. And with each new beginning, should you continue to choose the path of innovation, growth, and impact, comes a renewed wave of uncertainty, risk, and exposure. It never really entirely ends...until you end."

--Jonathan Fields, Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2011), chapter 10.

"The struggles against temptations of all kinds fill the Sayings [of the Desert Fathers] and represent the most persistent, enduring challenge to the monks' freedom. These temptations run the gamut, from the baser enticements of gluttony and impurity to the subtler though ultimately more dangerous traps posed by anger and pride. At root, all of these temptations created the same problem: they drove a rift between the monk and God, leaving the monk feeling isolated and powerless. In these circumstances, it became increasingly difficult for the monk to believe that help was near at hand and led to the common but deeply troubling anxiety that he would likely be overwhelmed by his temptation. The Gospel text calling for refraining from anxiety served as an important reminder for those beset with this particular worry that they were indeed not cut off from help. Abba Poemen was asked for whom this saying--'Do not be anxious about tomorrow (Mt 6:34)' was suitable. The old man replied, 'It is said for the man who is tempted and has not much strength, so that he should not be worried, saying to himself, "How long must I suffer this temptation?" He should rather say every day to himself, "Today."' Freedom from care in this sense meant taking to heart God's presence and care each day."

--Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 222-23.

A Word of Complaint

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:38:00 +0000

It feels almost miraculous. Everything in my life (well, almost everything) that was holding me back (funny, I feel anxious just writing that) is now, well, perhaps not gone, but markedly better.

I have a whole new set of tools for thinking about my eating and my body and my weight; I even forget to count calories most days (and know that it is better to stop myself when I start and simply ask whether I am hungry), and yet, I am eating better than I ever have and (mirabile dictu) enjoying my food.
Our home is calm and happy, no longer stuffed full of junk we don't need. Even better, I have gone shopping several times in the past month and come home without having bought anything because I couldn't find anything that was exactly right.
I have established a regular schedule for working on my research and stuck to it for nine months even though I am not on leave. I have made good progress on my translation, as well as researched, written, sent out for review, and revised (still in progress) my first new piece in over two years.
I have more time in my day than I ever imagined I could, and yet somehow all of the work that I need to do is getting done, at a calmer, steadier pace than ever before in my life. And I have time (make time, recognize that I need time) to walk the dog two or three times every day. Plus go to fencing practice two evenings a week. And I have learned how to say no.

Which is a problem, because now I have nothing to write about. Okay, not nothing, but markedly less. How is it so much easier to come up with something to say when we're suffering?

I know. At least, I think I know. Elaine Scarry says something very provocative (and wise) in her The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (1986) about how pain destroys language, reduces us to animal cries. "Ah, ah, ah!" But as soon as we break into speech ("Woe is me!"), we take the first small step back into rationality and humanity. We begin to imagine things being other than they are, other than simply pain, and we start to articulate ways in which the world might be otherwise so that we are no longer in pain. Language is a tool for alleviating pain.

It seems to be less good at describing joy. As I was sitting in meditation this morning, the thought came to me that this is why so many stories end simply, "And they lived happily ever after." Well, happy stories, at least. The whole point typically is that "they" (the young lovers, the struggling artists, the adventurers in search of their dream) have spent the duration of the story overcoming obstacles. The end (to the story, at least) comes when there is no more pain. Nothing to struggle for anymore, only bliss to enjoy. It's why most people's image of Heaven is (sometimes even to them) boring: it's the thing you attain after overcoming adversity, and all of the drama (and excitement) is in the quest, not the achievement itself.

Paradoxically, we wither and die when we have nothing to strive for, nothing to overcome. I know I read that somewhere. It seems true. Perhaps it's why we feel unhappiest just when we achieve everything that we ever hoped for; it's the end of the game--and we want to keep playing. Yes, it's much better winning the bout than losing, but even worse is the feeling (thus the let-down after one's last D-E) that we can't fence anymore, that we have to stop, even if only for the day. We would much rather be back on the strip, back in the struggle, back testing ourselves against an opponent, back risking the possibility that we might lose.

And yet, there is suffering, and there is suffering. It is one thing to take on a challenge and test your abilities to their limit. It is wholly another to spend your life convinced that you are a failure despite all evidence to the contrary. It is one thing not to let yourself rest on your laurels and be willing to get back into the fray. It is wholly another to believe that the reason you have so much trouble achieving your dream is because you don't deserve to have it or are fundamentally broken. It is one thing to embrace the risk of failure for the purposes of creating something new. It is wholly another not even to try because you have been told (by yourself or others) that you don't have the talent for something. It is one thing to have scars because you allowed yourself to try something you weren't sure you could. It is wholly another to think that having scars means somehow you were wrong to live.

I look back on my younger self now and feel not a little regret, but much more compassion. Did I really used to think that way, allow myself to be the victim if not of circumstance, then most definitely of other people's opinions? I can see clearly now so many times in my life when I allowed someone else's opinion (I thought first to say "judgment," but that implies that they were somehow in the right) to overrule my discomfort, whether at needing to eat or feeling anxious about a particular social interaction or in feeling frustrated at wanting to learn. That's a bit tangled, I know, but it's hard to put into words the calm that I now feel simply sitting on the bus with all of the other people and not being afraid of what they might think. Just imagine how empowering this thought is in a faculty meeting. Or at home.

Which is not to say that I never feel anxious anymore, who doesn't? But it does mean that I have a better sense (I hope) of what feeling anxious means. It's a message, not a threat (although it might be a message about a threat). It's trying to teach you something. There is no need to fight it or run away from it, only to sit with it until it teaches you what you need to learn. And then you will know what the correct response is.

It really is magical. I hope that I can find the words to help you visit me here. It's a wonderful place to be!

Bear's New Mantra

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:28:00 +0000

Know your purpose.

Trust the process.

Sit with the anxiety until you understand what it is trying to teach you.

Repeat as necessary.

Angry Corgi 2, Thieving Pig 0

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:08:00 +0000

The Dragon Baby with her Birthday Pig, minus ears

Just Out

noreply@blogger.com (Fencing Bear) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:13:00 +0000

I could feel the panic rising almost immediately. I was at a seminar on Saturday with a number of colleagues in my field, and one of them had a book just out that another of my friends was passing around. It was my colleague's fourth book (I still have only one, plus an edited volume), but although she is some years senior to me, it didn't help. The demons were already chattering.

"Where is your second book?" "Why have you been so lazy?" "Look, she's been able to publish two books since your first one came out." "You're falling behind." "You've already lost it." "You're hopeless." "Give it up."

I tried to look calmly at the table of contents and get some sense of what the argument was, but I could barely see straight enough to read the title, never mind absorb anything of what the book was actually about. All I could see was Another Book When I Still Have Only Published One. So I passed it along to my neighbor. And tried to sit with it.

I'm finding it easier now to recall the panic than the somewhat more calming thoughts I came up with then. About how perhaps one of the reasons that I panic on occasions like this is because it is a new book that I know I am going to want to read but that I had not planned on having to read because I didn't know it was coming out. About how the problem is not, therefore, that my colleague has published another book (loads of colleagues publish loads of books that I never manage to read), but that I need rather to declutter my office as well as my home so as to make room for the new things that I want to take on. About how the answer to sitting with this panic is to hold onto my purpose rather than bating at everything that other people do.

But it's hard. I want to have published another book, maybe even two or three more. I want to feel like I've accomplished something more than just one thing. I want to be, yes, okay, somebody other than me. Still. I want not to be so afraid.

Actually, even though I'm feeling fairly panicked at the moment, I know that there is a way out of this fear, or, at least, an answer to what the fear is trying to tell me. I'm panicked because I'm afraid that there is something that I should have learned (about the materials in my field, about how to write, about what my purpose actually is) that I haven't, and I am worried that I never will. But just because I'm afraid does not mean that I have been doing anything wrong. I have been working on the revisions to my article, which, if they work, will enable me to publish it, hopefully, soon. I am already halfway through the first draft of the translation that I started last spring. And I have found all sorts of sources that I didn't know about a year and a half ago that will enable me to write the next part of my next book. All I need to do is keep to my writing time and, yes, trust the process.

But it's hard. I was talking on the phone this evening to another colleague who has published more than I can imagine ever taking on, and I started panicking listening to her describing her work day. Cue demons (see above). Fight demons. "Breathe. Know your purpose. Breathe. Trust the process." Which is what I was trying to tell her as she described not getting enough sleep, only I can't because part of me still believes that the only way to work is flat out. That if I am not utterly exhausted at the end of the day, I'm just not trying hard enough.

"Breathe. It's so easy to be jealous of others' success, to feel that somehow their work detracts from yours. But it's not true. Publications beget more publications. God has lots of ideas. You have lots of ideas; it's not as if you're even close to running out. The key is to keep working, a little at a time, 90 minutes at a time, with full concentration and lots of rest."

Oh, that is so much more easily said than done!