Mary, Undoer of Knots - The Annunciation and the Destruction of the Ring

March 25th is a date which carries a particularly heavy load in terms of Christian tradition of scriptural events. Aside from being the supposed date of the Annunciation (9 months before Christmas day), it is also the date assigned to the Crucifixion, the creation of Adam, the fall of Lucifer, the passing of Israel through the Red Sea and the immolation of Isaac.

Clearly, these are best seen in a symbolic sense for the light which they cast upon each other, rather than getting caught up in overly literal questions about how we can possibly know when these events happened. But we should be wary of making the opposite error of thinking - that it doesn't matter what the date of the event is. 

In the Spirit of the Liturgy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger reminds us that redemption happened within time and space, the great became the small, eternity intersected time, and thus many consequences flow from this. For instance, we talk about the orientation of buildings, which situates and locates them in space in relation to the four directions. But how often do we remember that the word 'orientation' literally means 'easting', which came from the way in which church buildings were built facing east towards the direction of the rising sun as a symbol of salvation. Just as important are the dates of the Church year around which the liturgy is built, and which tell a story of salvation in time.

So dates matter. Tolkien spent a great deal of time making his calendar for the events of the Lord of the Rings accurate, even working out what the phases of the moon would have been. It mattered to him to put the date of the destruction of the Ring as the date of the incarnation/crucifixion.

It matters that the undoing of the knot of sin created by Eve would be undone in time by the free choice of the New Eve just as the undoing of the evil created by Sauron would be effected by (the non-choice of) Frodo. 

Frodo couldn't accomplish the task alone – he needed Sam at times to carry him, but more than this he actively renounces it – he says “I do not choose to do this” – and the deed of destroying the ring is done by the final evil deed of Gollum who bites off the ring and falls into the pit. In Tolkien’s sub-created world situated before the incarnation Frodo is a kind of shadow of Mary.

 Mary's free choice to be the God-bearer undoes the evil created by the original disobedience, which contrasts with Frodo’s non-choice, a final inability to perform the act of destruction, perhaps because of the harm inflicted upon him by the wearing of the Ring. The lesson is clear - Frodo is not the God-man, and thus the power to undo such great evil is not within his ability. However, events themselves conspire to produce the intended result anyway, a clear signal of the way in which fate works in Tolkien. But in a masterful touch evil is destroyed by evil - the final evil grasping act of Gollum cancels out the greater evil of the Ring. 

To me, there seem to be clear echoes of one of the early versions of the doctrine of atonement here, where Christ acts as a kind of bait, taking upon himself evil, drawing evil to him in his powerlessness, and then destroying its power through his sacrifice. Evil is tricked through its own short-sightedness and inability to see beyond its own closed circle. In this way also, Gollum is so enslaved and blinded by his desire for the ring that he cannot see the pit into which he falls.

In the world of primary creation (our world) the knot of sin is undone through a gratuitous act of self-giving; grace freely given and freely accepted is what finally restores paradise.

In my next post I want to contrast this Christian path to redemption with ‘gnostic’ views within which knowledge frees humanity from the slavery of sin and ignorance.

The Russians are coming

I was interested to learn that Vladimir Putin appears to have read (and is recommending his regional governors to read) books by Nikolai Berdyaev (The Philosophy of Inequality), Vladimir Solovyov (Justification of the Good), and Ivan Ilyin (Our Tasks). Apparently he has quoted from these in recent speeches.

To put this in context imagine hearing that David Cameron had ordered his ministers to read parts of the Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas, or Hegel, or Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. This is only meant to give a sense of the heavyweight nature of these philosophers, but I think the point is clear - it would be hard to imagine Cameron, or any western leader doing such a thing.

Commentators have superficially characterised Berdyaev, Solovyov and Ilyin as being concerned with Russian exceptionalism, devotion to the Orthodox Church, and autocracy. Some (who clearly haven't read them) have called their writings lurid and grandiose.

I offer here a couple of snippets of Solovyov and Berdyaev's writing (I am not so familiar with Ilyin). I know very little about Putin beyond what gets reported in the western media, and I am not claiming that he is some kind of philosopher-king. If he takes these writers at all seriously (if he has even fully read them) I am sure he would have to endure some kind of cognitive dissonance between them and many of his own policies!

But I think if you look at these writings you get a sense of the way Putin may be thinking about himself. Certainly some recent events have shown that he is styling himself as guardian of tradition against the vacuity of European and American liberalism and relativism.

Here then are a few things I have gathered together. First Berdyaev.

From an article on the American Conservative website: “We must begin to make our Christianity effectively real,” Berdyaev wrote, “by a return to the life of the spirit.” Economic matters, he continued, “must be subordinated to that which is spiritual, [and] politics must be again confined confined within their proper limits.”

And: "One can also see elements of Berdyaev’s mysticism in his claim that the Russian people, while freely choosing “comradeship in AntiChrist,” have now (as of 1917) provided incontrovertible proof of evil in the world and demonstrated what the loss of Christendom really means to the world."

And Solovyov. According to Michael Martin (Second Spring Issue 16) "Solovyov's work is characterized by an interesting blend of ice-cold logic, mysticism warmed by eros, and puckish good humour. His main themes include the failure of positivism, the union of the churches, and the power and reality of Christ's Resurrection."

Michael Martin is impressed by Solovyov's eschatology: "his vision of the end times is...one of the ultimate crisis - God's people succumbing to evil disguised as good. This, in its way, is a quiet eschatology...Christians in unity present the greatest - indeed the only - possible threat to the powers of darkness."

Valentin Tomberg, another Russian author, wrote "Europe is haunted by the shadow of the Emperor. One senses his absence just as vividly as in former times one sensed his presence." Tomberg goes on to show that Napoleon and Hitler attempted to take on this mantle, but by trying to rule with the sword they did not succeed. The Emperor rules by use of the sceptre. Symbol of hierarchy, with the cross of Spirit placed over the sphere of the World. Sacred order is only established through submission to the ultimate authority of God. Solovyov and Berdyaev and Tomberg know this - does Putin?

The Light of Valinor

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

"Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the dark lord."

(Gimli, on leaving Lorien)

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

There are some dangers worse than torment in the dark. When you are wounded by light and joy, that is an agony far keener.

This winter a wild God knocked at our door. We tried to ignore him. It didn't work.

Let me explain. In early December a friend posted a link to a poem called 'Sometimes a Wild God' by Tom Hirons on a social networking site.

The poem is here. I would think it has resonated with many people this wild winter. It certainly has with me.

There were times in some of the storms this winter when the air seemed literally to have turned to water, when the wind didn't sound like wind but the blind nameless roaring of primeval forces of darkness, when black pools of fear and pain seem to have been rising around me, setting all the old dependable things adrift in the chaos of wild weather, inundation with water, the seeming sudden decay of parts of our home, power cuts and floods. In short everything that could go pear-shaped did. All plans were thrown out. We were not in control, the cosmos was shouting it loud and clear.

The first time this really became clear was when Lisa's waters broke at the end of December. The plan for the birth of our child was - home, birthing pool, candles, breathing. Oh wow. What idiots. No contractions for days, and thus, because of the risk of infection, no home birth team. This, as will become clear, was the best thing that could have happened.

 It was a birth which needed the intervention and skill of many people, but from which none of us escaped without wounds. My wife Lisa lost lots of blood during the emergency Caesarean section that she had to have, and little Lucia got stuck, so they broke her collarbone to get her out, but that didn't work, so they had to make another incision in Lisa. Lucia didn't breathe for a minute and a half, and they said that Lisa might have to go back into theatre if the bleeding got worse. The lead up to this was perhaps the worst agony I've had to endure in my life, as we waited listening to Lucia's heartbeat dipping below the 'normal' levels indicating fetal distress.

But she was born, Lucia, a beautiful light in the gathering darkness. A brutal entrance into a brutal world, but in a little circle of light we prayed for protection. We were so thankful! How blessed we are!

We have been pierced through by the joy she has brought us. She reminds us every day of the absolute sheer gift of being, of our profound dependence on this given-ness, of the meaninglessness of all our attempts at hoarding, of our attempts to take hold, to set claims on things. It is a sweet and joyful wound in our hearts.

God's Wisdom

“the thicket of God’s wisdom and knowledge is so deep and so broad that the soul, however much it has come to know of it, can always penetrate deeper within it”

St. John of the Cross

The Overview Effect

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

 Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot

I have recently seen some amazing documentaries and articles which have made me reflect on an experience I had over 30 years ago. I was camping overnight in the forest close to my house. This fact may have given my experience its distinctive character, as I had plenty of time to contemplate the myriad branches and networks of the trees all around me.

In this experience I profoundly realised my own interconnectedness with every other living thing from the inside, in the domain of thought. That is, I believed I was able to see the connection of what I saw as my thoughts with the 'thoughts' of everything else around me, as a direct perception or intuition. I was not 'imagining my thoughts as branches of the tree above me'; rather, my own consciousness - the thoughts that were coming to me - were revealed to be part of the same consciousness everything else had. Following these connections led me to an ecstatic awareness of the whole, interconnected in all its parts.

                                                  (dark matter next to fungal mycelium)

At the time I called it my vision of 'the all', and likened it to the Tree of Life of Jewish Mysticism. Now I might use other analogies for this web of connectedness - such as mycelium (the 'root structure' of fungi), which according to Paul Stamets 'is in constant dialogue with its environment, reacting to and governing the flow of essential nutrients through the food chain'. At the time this experience profoundly altered my own relationship to the world outside me, as well as made me reorient myself in relation to my own interior world. It was formative for my teenage self, and set me on a search for a more complete grasp of what I had glimpsed so briefly.

                                                                         The internet

So when I saw this video about astronauts viewing the earth from space it made me revisit my experience. The idea that the most important reason to go to the moon was actually to look back at and rediscover the earth is the subject of this documentary. The experience of awe they had was a letting-go of themselves, a sense of total unity and oneness with all life. They called it the overview effect'.

I think the thing it brings most clearly is a very real sense of grounded humility, humility that comes from the humus, the leaf-mould on the floor of the forest, a sense of being part of a web. And it brings a wisdom, because the insight that is gained, that we can think no thought, which does not have some effect, never again allows us to cultivate a dangerous illusion of separateness from every other living thing.

Which leads onto the second documentary; this video on the intelligence of plants. In particular I was fascinated by this discussion on why rice has more genes than human beings (at about 12 minutes): "Plants and animals are not in a race, we can't say that plants have overtaken us. In reality its a strange kind of race because one has gone left, the other has gone right, their strategies are inverse. So now we have to recognise that on their journey , plants have gone much further than we have on ours."

The Way of Beauty in Evangelii Gaudium

"Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. This has nothing to do with fostering an aesthetic relativism which would downplay the inseparable bond between truth, goodness and beauty, but rather a renewed esteem for beauty as a means of touching the human heart and enabling the truth and goodness of the Risen Christ to radiate within it. If, as Saint Augustine says, we love only that which is beautiful, the incarnate Son, as the revelation of infinite beauty, is supremely lovable and draws us to himself with bonds of love. So a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith. Each particular Church should encourage the use of the arts in evangelization, building on the treasures of the past but also drawing upon the wide variety of contemporary expressions so as to transmit the faith in a new “language of parables”. We must be bold enough to discover new signs and new symbols, new flesh to embody and communicate the word, and different forms of beauty which are valued in different cultural settings, including those unconventional modes of beauty which may mean little to the evangelizers, yet prove particularly attractive for others. "

By their fruits you shall know them.

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them."
Matthew 7:16-20

The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely, the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.
Cardinal Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report

One of the really effective critiques of Christianity has to be that of Friedrich Nietzsche. Like any effective challenge, it doesn't underestimate the power of its opponent. Nietzsche knew that Christianity was mythos as well as logos. Jonathan Macintosh, on his blog The Flame Imperishable, writes,

"In The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, an early work that ended his career as a philologist while confirming his calling as a philosopher, Nietzsche argues that the fundamental being of things, so far from constituting a universal harmony, instead embodies an original, violent, and terrifying discord and chaos, one that the Greeks symbolized (Nietzsche argues) through the originally Asiatic god Dionysus. Pitted against the annihilating abyss underlying reality, human existence and experience are a “terror and horror,” an ultimate futility and suffering in which consolation may nevertheless be found through a heroic effort of self-assertion and the artistic creation of meaning, value, and order."

Nietzsche rejects the view of the cosmos as fundamentally ordered and harmonious, and instead claims that existence is futile - any meaning is imposed by humans. So against Ratzinger's art and saints we have Nietzsche's modernist solution - the ubermensch and his self-assertion. The choice is an aesthetic one because it comes down to whether we view chaos or cosmos as primary.

My own choice is clearly with cosmos - ie. order and harmony. A pagan friend said to me "The experience of obedience is not central to one's experience of the universe." The problem with the pantheist viewpoint is that given that our experience of the universe is ambivalent - sometimes we suffer, sometimes we thrive - and given that the universe is all there is - there is no reason to see the world as of any inherent value or goodness in itself. It is something terrible, implacable, to be feared and propitiated, as the animists do. Or it is something pitiless which we have ultimately to extricate ourselves from, as in the aim of much Hinduism, Buddhism or Gnosticism. But it is not a gift of a good God, an overflowing act of generosity, to which the proper response is indeed praise and thanksgiving, and ultimately obedience.

Ratzinger is right to see this theistic and Christian viewpoint as producing the strongest apologia - art and the saints. Time and again, the view of the redeemability of suffering, the belief in the eucatastrophe - the sudden happy turn when all seems lost, provides us with strong foundations to bear good fruit. And the encounter with Christ, in whom all of God's generosity comes to meet us, is a fountain of living water that springs up eternally within us, enabling the poorest and most broken to be the inheritors of the Kingdom.