. Spinning .

As you know, I’ve been busy writing and haven’t read much in a week or more so Augustine and Agee are still awaiting my return. But thanks to J-Walk, I found a great site to give you a quick review if that’s all you’re looking for:  Book-A-Minute Classics

So here’s one of their reviews if you can’t wait for me:

                            Confessions

                        by St. Augustine

St. Augustine:

I was a bad boy. Damn, was I a bad boy. Not anymore, though.

THE END

Saint Augustine is primarily a guidebook to common sense and therefore more needed today than ever before in our history.  I liked this:

He was not utterly unskilled in handling his own lack of training, and he refused to be rashly drawn into a controversy about those matters from which there would be no exit nor easy way of retreat.  This was an additional ground for my pleasure.  For the controlled modesty of a mind that admits limitations is more beautiful than the things I was anxious to know about. (V.12)

In business, I have learned to say yes, then learn how to do what I’d promised.  Very rarely have I been caught up in an impossibility after I’d sworn to success.  But this strategy doesn’t work well in discussions and I must learn to override my tendency to act or speak up, knowing that belief does not equal knowledge, desire does not equal accomplished.

I will remember this the next time I get the urge to write a poem.

Even while Augustine’s purpose in this next section is likely primarily political, that is, to prove his recanting of his former belief in the teachings of Mani (Manichee), I find I must dig deeper into Augustine’s writings, and have been referred by notes (p. 77) in this translation to something Augustine wrote called Literal Commentary on Genesis.  While I cannot immediately find where a copy of this is available, I am noting that there are references to it here, here, and here, for future reading. 

Augustine seems to have the most interesting combination of dedicated religious faith in God and a scholarly knowledge of science.  Hot Damn!  This may be exactly what I’ve been seeking in my search for understanding.  A reconciliation of beliefs, trust, knowledge.

And I like this:

Already I had learnt from you that nothing is true merely because it is eloquently said, nor false because the signs coming from the lips make sounds deficient in style.  Again, a statement is not true because it is enunciated in unpolished idiom, nor false because the words are splendid.  Wisdom and foolishness are like food that is nourishing or useless.  Whether the words are ornate or not does not decide the issue.  Food of either kind can be served in either town or country ware.  (V.10)

Pâté de foie gras or matzo balls made with chicken liver is just a difference of fowl and presentation. Obviously Augustine has scored points with me with his metaphor of food.  The meaning here is multiple: Truth can be spoken just as falsehoods from both the wealth of education and the mean common sense.  Bits of knowledge passed on may be just as vital as new discoveries made.  It is not the means or method, but the result that is of value.

Good stuff. 

Augustine has an interesting comment on this:

With the mind and intellect which you have given them, they investigate these matters.  They have found out much. (…) People who have no understanding of these things are amazed and stupefied.  Those who know are exultant and are admired.  Their irreligious pride makes them withdraw from you and eclipse your great light from reaching themselves.  They can foresee a future eclipse of the sun but do not perceive their own eclipse in the present.  For they do not in a religious spirit investigate the source of the intelligence with which they research into these matters.  Moreover, when they do discover that you are their Maker, they do not give themselves to you so that you may preserve what you have made.  (V.4)

Augustine, an intelligent and educated man, does not need to forsake scientific explanations of the natural universe to glorify his God.  He suggests instead that things of nature can be scientifically explained by man because God had given man the ability to observe, research, and theorize.

In the time of Augustine, belief based on faith was given more import than what might contradict that by scientific thought and findings.  Augustine is seeking a way to accept both.

You alone are always present even to those who have taken themselves far from you.  Let them turn and seek you, for you have not abandoned your creation as they have deserted their Creator [Wisd.5:7].  Let them turn, and at once you are there in their heart–in the heart of those who make confession to you and throw themselves upon you and weep on your breast after travelling many rough paths.  And you gently wipe away their tears [Rev. 7:17; 21:4], and they weep yet more and rejoice through their tears.  (V.1)

Even as Augustine admits to God how his youth was spent in material things rather than in knowing God, he has a tolerance of those–and here I think he includes most of mankind–who stray, whether through ignorance or through purpose.  Augustine’s attitude seems to be "this is what I did, I know better now, I strive to improve."

One thing about watching Big Brother 8 (yes, I’m hooked; especially on Evil Dick) is that two of the members of the house are seemingly very religious and talk to God in prayer–something that the camera is thrilled to pick up and reveal.  While I might question their purpose in taking part in this reality series if i weren’t so intent on believing that people perceive things differently, I would be interested in understanding their views on why God should help them win.  Particularly since they both are praying for this and only one of them could win. I’ve also noted that if they happen to lose a competition they blame themselves for screwing up somewhere, but if they win something, it’s not their skill but rather God’s grace.

Big Brother has the power to change lives; so too, God. In this age, here are folk looking both to Big Brother and God to give them material things.  This, as I’m reading about Augustine, who found that material things were nothing compared to the power of his God, even as he praised Him for offering them to man.

I like the way Augustine puts this:

For I did not know that the soul needs to be enlightened by light from outside itself, so that it can participate in truth, because it is not itself the nature of truth.  (IV.25)

Likely this choice of wording comes both from his affiliation with the Manichees as much as the biblical references the paragraph notes, the light versus the dark representing most often good versus evil.  Augustine’s take on good and evil is more similar to a sliding scale and knowledge and acceptance of God is the weighing balance. 

Saint Augustine wrote his Confessions as a personal journey, therefore, non-fiction and yet, the philosophy and drama of his viewpoint could certainly be the basis of a novel.  It is written in a particularly eloquent language and of course, of the era, it’s unique to the period.

There is the place of undisturbed quietness where love is not deserted if it does not itself depart. (IV.16)

Concurrently I am reading Mikhail Bulgakov and oddly enough, it too speaks of society, human nature, good and evil, weakness and strength.  Where Augustine speaks directly to God, Bulgakov opens his pages with a visit from the Devil.  While The Master and Margarita is fiction, does it make the character of Satan any less real than that of Bezdomney the poet, or Berlioz the editor with or without his head?  Bulgakov’s style is straightforward, near tongue-in-cheek.

"Let’s look truth straight in the eye," said the guest, turning his face toward the nocturnal orb passing through the clouds beyond the window grille.  "You and I are both mad, there’s no denying it!"  (p. 113)

Bulgakov calls the moon a "nocturnal orb" — not exactly eloquent, although some allowance must be made in both works for the effects of translation.  It’s almost a brutish attempt at imagery, as if calling a long-stemmed red rose a "ruby ball on a stick."

The thought has occurred to me that despite the separation of centuries, it would be interesting to take the voice of Augustine into Bulgakov’s Moscow, and likewise, have Bulgakov’s narrator speaking to God.

As I continue my reading, one more thing I’ll be looking for is a sentence, a thought, something important to the narrative and yet obvious of its writer’s style and thinking, and…rewrite it by the other.

The text of Confessions is written as if Augustine is writing to God, certainly addressing Him in an informal manner, meaning not in letter style, but more perhaps as a diary.  Augustine plunges into his own past and his own soul in offering his sins, as well as explanation and seeking forgiveness for them.  But he also shows an understanding of human nature in all this, which is likely the motivation for the writing.

If this were intended as a real "confession" to God, Augustine knows how to do it according to church rules.  He can also just go direct to God by thinking.  In other words, this didn’t have to be written down for his own purposes, or for God’s (who likely didn’t read it).  Even if Augustine felt a need to write it down, and this I well understand, it would never have been published.  Rather, it might have been placed on an altar and burned or the like.  Obviously then, this was written with the intent of having readers.

The style concept then, was a conscious decision to make it appear to be a first person pov confession to the second person ‘you’ of God.  Remember, Augustine was a literary scholar and teacher.  This does shed light on the thinking of Augustine and the way this was beautifully planned out as a personal affirmation of faith, but in its revelations and discoveries, very relative to all men.  Augustine, I think, being not only writer here, but a man of faith who has found a way to inspire others by sharing experience. 

Augustine, on the death of someone very close to him, a boyhood friend:

‘Grief darkened my heart.’ (Lam. 5:17) Everything on which I set my gaze was death.  My home town became a torture to me; my father’s house a strange world of unhappiness; all that I had shared with him was without him transformed into a cruel torment.  My eyes looked for him everywhere, and he was not there.  I hated everything because they did not have him, nor could they now tell me ‘look, he is on the way’, as used to be the case when he was alive and absent from me.  I had become to myself a vast problem, and questioned my soul ‘Why are you sad, and why are you very distressed?’ but my soul did not know what reply to give.  If I had said to my soul ‘Put your trust in God’ (Ps.41:6,12) it would have had good reason not to obey.  For the very dear friend I had lost was a better and more real person than the [Manichee] phantom in which I would have been telling my soul to trust.  Only tears were sweet to me, and in my ‘soul’s delights’ (Ps.138:11) weeping had replaced my friend. (III.9)

One intriguing statement here is "as used to be the case when he was alive and absent from me." Of course, the preceding phrase, "nor could they tell me ‘look, he is on the way," defines the difference.  That difference is what fascinates.  Is "away" so very different than "gone" but for the possibility of reunion?   

One of life’s intense pleasures is the taste of a fresh-picked tomato still warm from the sun, its glowing  skin threatening to explode with its swollen ripeness at the prick of a knife.  Decadent as the finest chocolate’s dark sweetness.  A gift from a God that strengthens belief, for man could never make this himself.

And there is Augustine’s message: Give the greatest glory to the power that creates the resource, for the source is from what it derives, like a petal from a rose that still holds its scent and its beauty.

Augustine, while granting God the first and last say in making the rules, argues that by a simple measure of doing good by not doing wrong to others or giving in to the excesses that bring man earthly pleasures without glorifying God, man can praise God and live happily on earth.

He does give much understanding to the types of evils that man commits, and allows that sometimes what might be considered in strictest form against the laws of God, is not a sin based on the intent.  This does show a better understanding of how the nature of man is often in conflict with what God intended as right, and in a manner of speaking, Augustine is recognizing man’s free will.

He reiterates that the basic laws of God are as applied to all men, regardless of their own manmade script.  This is something that I personally have been wrestling with, the idea that if a religious belief is founded within a sect, the members are bound by that and non-members are not and yet Augustine confirms the ethical belief that this is not the basis of ethics.

In saying that vicious acts contrary to human customs are to be avoided, we take account of variations in custom, so that the mutually agreed convention of a city or nation, confirmed by custom or law, is not to be violated by the lust of a citizen or a foreigner. (III.15)

Augustine raises an odd question here that I don’t quite get:

But when you (God) suddenly issue a command which departs from customary expectation, even though at one time you forbade the doing of any such act, though for a time you conceal the reason for your authoritative verdict, and though it may go against the agreed customs of a given human society, who would hesitate to say that your command is to be kept? (III.17)

I’m not sure how we come to understand or know when God’s changed His mind and amended the laws.  Any understanding would come through man’s interpretation, perhaps instigated by changes in his world that would normally necessitate these changes, but here too, it would be of man, not of God.  For example, I would assume that God’s supposed directive "Go forth, be fruitful and multiply" might be due for an overhaul.

In this point of Confessions Augustine explains the laws of God as being universal, and that while circumstance of time may change rules, what is good for man is basic for all, and comes directly from the love of God.  This brought to mind a reading of Ethics, Theory and Practice and a point made about this same idea.

Confessions obviously is a book written with a stong belief in God.  Meanwhile, I am also reading Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita and this touches heavily on religion, belief, and man’s law.

In reading over the past year, I’ve tried to have at least two books going actively (others, pick up and read randomly) and been lucky to see the relation between them.  In classroom work a few years ago I wondered how you could possibly compare and contrast two completely different works, and yet now I am beginning to see how they do indeed enhance each other–as well as being influenced by past books–simply because if they involve mankind whether as an individual or as a whole, there is that one thing that will always correlate the different events and circumstances: human nature.

Augustine tells us of the reasoning for when he (and as he suggests, others) come to dwell on the Bible and the word of God, as opposed to avoidance even when a basis for belief is acknowledged.

I therefore decided to give attention to the holy scriptures and to find out what they were like.  And this is what met me: something neither open to the proud nor laid bare to mere children; a text lowly to the beginner but, on further reading, of mountainous difficulty enveloped in mysteries.  I was not in any state to be able to enter that, or bow my head to climb its steps.  What I am now saying did not then enter my mind when I gave my attention to the scripture.  It seemed to me unworthy in comparison with the dignity of Cicero. (III.9)

Simple truth rendered without eloquence, or the status of the poets and philosophers then, and not appealing to the mind of one taken by earthly measures.

It is sometimes difficult, as if repelling to the unready mind, to read Augustine’s intimate reflections as they are told to–not the reader, but–God.  One’s own belief is brought into focus as if a religious God is in question, then the narrator of this, Augustine, is in question too as to credibility. 

There are faiths that are so strong and daily fed at both ends of the spectrum.  Most, however, fall into an area that is taken for granted, never strengthened nor ever questioned.  Doubt is spurred by some great impetus; the media play of evolution, by death or near-death of self or someone loved.  The question of a God has been reckoned against the theory of evolution when resolution to the under-learned would be taken as an end to life of spirit as well as body.  There are other ways, however, aside from mere religion that could be explored beyond the mortal.  And God is just a name.

Laughed aloud at this one:

My studies which were deemed respectable had the objective of leading me to distinction as an advocate in the lawcourts, where one’s reputation is high in proportion to one’s success in deceiving people.  The blindness of humanity is so great that people are actually proud of their blindness.  (III.6)

While I can certainly relate to the first sentence, it is not an uncommon belief, and in fact has become a joke about the legal profession.  But even I know that this is a generalization as well as an effect of the practice.

Augustine is guilty here of stereotyping; no worse, it would seem to me, than any other based on age, religion, ethnicity or gender.  Yet as I’ve always believed, there is a seed of truth within the exaggeration–and it should not be necessarily considered a bad thing if there is a logical reason of history behind it–in every statement that becomes a generalization.  I would think that the most important thing to remember is that maybe a majority, but certainly not all members of the group may have some trace of the tendency, trait, belief, etc. that the stereotyping targets.  Then too, as we merge and diversify our cultures, these may no longer hold true in any realistic acknowledgment.

The second sentence of Augustine’s statement, "The blindness of humanity is so great that people are actually proud of their blindness." reminds me, in these current times and affected by contemporary language and viewpoints, of political correctness, though I’m sure that this is not what Augustine is referring to, but rather a more mob mentality, ostrich-like behavior that excuses the reluctance to search for truth. 

Was there more honesty in Augustine’s time?  Likely so, and just as much deceit.

…the more they stay the same.  Barbara commented on the fact that some of what Augustine is writing about in his recollections of youth, such as peer pressure, exist as problems today. 

Here, in the beginning of Book III, I find more:

Why is it that a person should wish to experience suffering by watching grievous and tragic events which he himself would not wish to endure?  Nevertheless he wants to suffer the pain given by being a spectator of these sufferings, and the pain itself is his pleasure. (III:2)

CSI, Law  & Order, Adventure Games, Sporting events, Real life drama; they’re what get the ratings.  So man is still taken with the fascination of blood and guts, death.  I admit that I spent a good hour this morning checking out links on the suicide bridge–the Golden Gate–when I came across it on Michelle Redmond’s San Serif weblog.  There’s controversy, ongoing for decades it seems, on whether a suicide barrier is warranted.  1250 people have jumped and died to date.

As Augustine continues:

What is this but amazing folly? For the more anyone is moved by these scenes, the less free he is from similar passion.  Only, when he himself suffers, it is called misery; when he feels compassion for others, it is called mercy.  But what quality of mercy is it in fictitious and theatrical inventions?  A member of the audience is not excited to offer help, but invited only to grieve.  (III:2)

Interesting that while Augustine applies this line of thought to theatrical productions, therefore fiction, our contemporary tragedies are not only the fiction of theater, but the realties presented by the news media.  We know the difference between the two, and yet how different are our responses, how pure our intentions when we are not necessarily as helpless as in the case of theater?

And still, we watch.