Pre-Passions and Sorrow in Augustine's Confessions

I reluctantly present to you the first paragraph of one of my final papers. This happens to be the 4th time i've written on or around this subject. Evidently, i am obssessed with sorrow in the Confessions. What will seem to most Modern and contemporary readers the strangest bit of theological dogma, seems to me a disastrous gap in Church education. What Augustine says about sorrow is principably applicable to all emotional states. We may perhaps be able to take Ecclesiastes more seriously than we'd ever imagined. There is indeed a time for everything. I hope you enjoy; i can tell you with the most sincere honesty that around 10 p.m. the last 5 nights, i have not :) p.s. obviously i have removed all footnoting

Pre-Passions and Sorrow in Augustine's Confessions:

Near the end of Confessions Bk 9, Augustine asks his readers to decide whether weeping over the death of Monica (his mother) is a sin, and if it is, to consider in turn weeping over his culpability. This is a rhetorical devise for Augustine, a move which exploits Stoic thought to the purpose of educating his audience concerning ordinate, affective states. Throughout Confessions, Augustine builds an ordinate conception of sorrow, one which partially adopts and partially extends beyond the Stoic model of sorrow. Augustine starts by citing examples of inordinate sorrow--most notably 1.) the tragedy of Aeneas and Dido and 2.) the death of his friends,--and finishes with an ordinate example of sorrow, viz. the death of Monica. My aim is to supply the philosophical framework which will allow us to conclude, along with Augustine, that the tears spilt over Monica's death are ordinate. Of particular interest here are the pre-passionate (propathetic) states of sorrow and their relationship to the saintly life.

the K.H.

p.s. I am looking for editors. Don't be shy. If ever there was a chance to hate on a brother, when he asks you to hate on him is the best time.

Lessons From Dead People

A fellow by the name of Thomas Kuhn taught me a very important lesson. To summarize his words in a fashion beyond scandal, “If you ask certain questions, you get certain answers.” That is to say, that if I ask my sister the date she is to be married, she does not reply “A number 6, and hold the ketchup.” She may tell me something about July; she may say “in the morning”; she may refer to half past 6 o’clock. She is even permitted to lie about having already eloped. So long as she makes reference to time, she has successfully avoided speaking gibberish. What she may not do is order a cheeseburger without ketchup. For any answer to have sense, it must correspond to the question in the right way. To continue my streak of over-simplifications, this question/answer binary constitutes what another fellow by the name of Ludwig Wittgenstein calls a language game.

We all play in these games on a daily basis. Usually, the more intimate your relationships with other people, the richer your language games with them. Inside jokes, I take it, are complex language games. The success of Jerry Seinfeld hinges entirely upon his talent for making inside jokes accessible to large audiences. We all know about the “Hello, Newman,” and we all participate in the same meanings when we imitate these television antics at the dinner table or in conversation. One Seinfeld fan easily becomes friends with another Seinfeld fan because both of them have a pre-established language game. Meanings are known without ever having met someone.

The same principle holds for Christian language games. Meanings are pre-established and taught to one individual who, through one circumstance or another, finds others whose vocabulary is consistent with his/her own. Christian camaraderie often times stems from Christian vocabulary.

But to bring back Thomas Kuhn, what happens in a world where our secular vocabulary incisively dictates the quality of our Christian vocabulary? What happens when we ask secular questions about our religious world? Don't we end up with secular answers to a Biblical world?

Anthropology, psychology, philosophy of language, sociobiology, ethology, etc etc. have a vernacular all their own, and have infiltrated the Christian vocabulary to the degree that we are beginning to have difficulty distinguishing between what is Sacred and what is secular. Think of the conflation of psychology and spirituality present in our Christian psychology classrooms. Spurious adaptations of Freudian psychoanalysis make me cringe a little. Why aren’t Christians doing theoretical psychology consistent with our Orthodox vocabulary so that Christian practitioners can have their theoretical authority in the church, not Freud? The same can be said of all the above-mentioned fields. I grant that all of these fields aren’t but a century old, and we need time. But isn’t it about time?

I don’t know. But I think I intend very much to develop some strand of Christian theoretical psychology in my Masters Thesis. Well, of course, that’s how I feel about it today.

the K.H.

The Glory That Was Greece, The Grandeur That Was Rome #3

Here is part three of what is turning into my most challenging project. If i succeed at finishing 8 or 10 more, i will use these to apply to an MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) program. God knows if i'll get in. For those who know nothing of the story of Diomedes this should help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomedes. Like all my poems, this one has already undergone serious revision, and will continue to until i either forget about it or die. The ends of stanzas two and three are particularly deficient. Nevertheless, i think the final two stanzas particularly poignant. As Paul Valery writes, "A poem is never finished, it is only abandoned." In all seriousness, your criticisms and or encouragements are most appreciated. The more feedback i receive, the stronger my presentation will be for the MFA committees.

Diomedes:

When i was young,
My Father sung
Me the formula for Immortality,
And i grew with its praises on my tongue.
"Serve only the gods," he sang,
"And etch for yourself a name.
Trust what just, and die, if you must
In battle, then you'll have your fame."

I am old now,
Waiting to die--
Bedding sheets and cold for company,
A pillow where once a helmet lie.
I pray you Muse. Pray against the twilighting bright
To enchant this solitary poem of mine;
Or a solitary word, or solitary me.
Was war, now paper ink begging the help of the Nine.

I remember the deep things and strong words,
How, once, i treated death coquettishly.
How i half-wished, i'd not half stepped,
But full stride teased out recklessly.
I'd not the strength of anger,
Nor the virtue of a son,
Yet i am Diomedes forever!
Toughed it through cleanly--untouched, and won.

Or are these just disconsolate dreams,
Flaky, withered legs kicking the sheets?
Have i died slow, conquered by cotton,
A man, next to none in all his feats?

And this harpist they keep sending to sooth me,
I hear only portent whispers in the tones,
Strummed omens, of visions,
Of wan bodies in drones.
Can i say that saying it never says the thing,
Say the stink off a corpse is much nearer the truth?
And all the while the harpist propped in his chair,
Singing at a dying man in need of proof.

When it comes,
When i die,
Will the high gods remember me,
What if they don't? What if? And I...?

"To glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome."--Poe

the K.H.

The Poem I Would Have Writ

Once upon a time, that time being myself at age 17, I spent two weeks in China smuggling Bibles. Though I don’t believe I was ever in any real danger, there was, perhaps, a small percentage’s chance I might undergo some kind of semi-serious interrogation. Of 22 boarder crossings, however, security only caught me twice, and I received at worst a scowl coupled with whatever the Chinese equivalents are to certain English explicatives.

My traveling partners were Jack and John, two rather corky and rather unlikely companions. Whoever discovers the exact dictionary word for wise, sportive, irresponsible, and altogether reckless old man, tell me so that I may rightly apply it to them both. Jack, age 74, had just had his second heart attack two months prior to the trip. And John, age 70, though in good health, lacked what one might call a sense of common sense. One might do them justice by thinking of the two old men from “Second Hand Lions.”

Only now do I question my parent’s decision to let me go along with these two. Having developed a keen obsession with adventure, I was only likely to provoke their already over-zealous nature.

But we had a grand ol’ time, the three of us. Sometimes we witnessed what may only be called a miracle; how at exactly the right moment, just as security was getting suspicious, some lady would scream at the top of her lungs or somebody would trip, diverting everyone’s attention. One time we found ourselves in an elevator hiding 200 pounds of Bibles from two armed guards. John and I had stuffed our pockets and suitcases with contraband, while the guards held AK47s in one hand and pressed floor buttons with the other. Another time our contact had been discovered, leaving the 17 year old to stay in the hotel room overseeing 3000 Bibles while everyone else rushed to save the contact’s life. There were many adventures. One of them includes being offered sex for the first time by a prostitute. Come to think of it, that may be the only time I have been offered sex at all. C'est la vie, I suppose. A man’ll take what he can get.

Ah yes, the good ol’ days when I was far too young, far too naïve, and far too perfect for the job. I don’t know how I forget the things God did in my life, nor fail to recall the things He is presently doing. To call me an exception to the rule would be less than exceptional and, in a way, downright irreverent. I am an amalgamation of graces, and it seems to me a miracle of sin that I ever act ungrateful.

I heard people telling stories at dinner tonight, and thought to myself “Kevin, you almost never tell your stories, and that is a problem.”

My life has been the poem I would have writ,

But I could not both live and utter it.—Thoreau

the K.H.

Three Ditties From the Paper Writing Cemetery

I recently purchased the complete poems of Dorothy Parker and Walt Whitman. In response to them, i've written these 3 little ditties. Dorothy Parker, by the way, now stands as my favorite American poet. Though she never achieves an incredible, epic pitch, she rarely, if ever, drops below par. Edna St. Vincent Millay's Renascene or Spring poems, and Frost's Mending wall or Nothing Gold Can Stay doubtless remain high favorites, and let's not forget T.S. Eliot (though he's part Brit)'s The Hollow Men and The Naming of Cats, but they succeed in the way an Olympic Gold medalists succeeds: with incredible flair and once every 4 years. Parker, however, is too practical, too down to earth to take herself too seriously. She succeeds in the way a lumber jack would, one tree at a time. Off the top of my head, i suggest you read "Coda" or "Poem in the American Manner" or "Song 4."

I won't be writing/existing for a little while, so i thought i'd send these your way so as not to be forgotten.

One life:

You live one time in your whole life,

There’s no exceeding the limit,

So find yourself a pretty wife,

Read all the best books and live it.

A Matter of Preference:

It’s a long commute to the stars;

Besides, the air is way to thin.

Leave the music to strum guitars,

I like the earthiness of sin.

Ode to Whitman

I have to grant you’ve some talent,

And grant you the right of way,

After all, I’m the one who’s silent,

On how to keep the life of what you say.

If only you’d some sense,

For a moment, for pause,

I’d serve you recompense,

In six-syllabled clause.