Whoosh…”and the fire and the rose are one!” … This is such a beautiful essay, Bruce. Your non-judgmental approach is exemplary. This, I say, after letting it rip in my substack about King Charles’ speech to Congress this past week. I suppose I could have been less judgmental. Afterall….
But, I think that being clear about where one stands on things is its own power, especially when feeling so powerlessness to go up against what’s happening.
As our mutual friend, Laraine would always say to me: “Sally! What’s happening? What’s happening? Why is this happening? I don’t know why it’s happening! Tell me why it’s happening!!!!”
YES! Indeed, the understanding that what is observed is changed by the observer…such a profound contemplation. And your application of the concept, how you expanded and explained it here, really has me thinking…reflecting.
Further, I saw that retrospective of Guston’s at the SF MOMA and just loved it. And, the painting you posted at the top of your substack, I am not sure I’ve ever seen. I love it!
Sally—I didn’t get to the SMoMA retrospective but caught it the next year, after he died, at the Whitney. It was mind boggling in its scope and grandeur.
I admire the epistemic humility in this—your reluctance to claim for yourself possession of an objectively irrefutable revelation and understanding, even as you cling to the hope that is in you, centered as it is in the nonsensical report of Jesus’ resurrection and how this event transformed the story of his otherwise strange little life and pointless execution, an event without which world history would have evolved very differently.
I like this so much. What it leaves out, a bit I think (which you have written about elsewhere) is that the revelation we have in Christ lifts our reason to understand the things of God and even invite us into union with God—as the ending passages of “Little Gidding” convey. The truth does not belong to us, but He is the truth, the way, and the life, and that’s not up for discussion or Heisenbergian uncertainty.
Well said, Harold. I tend to dance around that invitation to the Dance a bit here--and often find myself being reluctant to be too confident in how I articulate that hope. But I participate in it nonetheless, and relish the Eucharist for that reason: the invitation to suffer alongside Christ is a feast of love for the life of the world. It is not, to my mind, an occasion so much of certainty as it is one of relationship.
What an awesome read!!! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you! Well worth rereading. Love the call for humility.
Whoosh…”and the fire and the rose are one!” … This is such a beautiful essay, Bruce. Your non-judgmental approach is exemplary. This, I say, after letting it rip in my substack about King Charles’ speech to Congress this past week. I suppose I could have been less judgmental. Afterall….
But, I think that being clear about where one stands on things is its own power, especially when feeling so powerlessness to go up against what’s happening.
As our mutual friend, Laraine would always say to me: “Sally! What’s happening? What’s happening? Why is this happening? I don’t know why it’s happening! Tell me why it’s happening!!!!”
YES! Indeed, the understanding that what is observed is changed by the observer…such a profound contemplation. And your application of the concept, how you expanded and explained it here, really has me thinking…reflecting.
Further, I saw that retrospective of Guston’s at the SF MOMA and just loved it. And, the painting you posted at the top of your substack, I am not sure I’ve ever seen. I love it!
Sally—I didn’t get to the SMoMA retrospective but caught it the next year, after he died, at the Whitney. It was mind boggling in its scope and grandeur.
I admire the epistemic humility in this—your reluctance to claim for yourself possession of an objectively irrefutable revelation and understanding, even as you cling to the hope that is in you, centered as it is in the nonsensical report of Jesus’ resurrection and how this event transformed the story of his otherwise strange little life and pointless execution, an event without which world history would have evolved very differently.
I like this so much. What it leaves out, a bit I think (which you have written about elsewhere) is that the revelation we have in Christ lifts our reason to understand the things of God and even invite us into union with God—as the ending passages of “Little Gidding” convey. The truth does not belong to us, but He is the truth, the way, and the life, and that’s not up for discussion or Heisenbergian uncertainty.
Well said, Harold. I tend to dance around that invitation to the Dance a bit here--and often find myself being reluctant to be too confident in how I articulate that hope. But I participate in it nonetheless, and relish the Eucharist for that reason: the invitation to suffer alongside Christ is a feast of love for the life of the world. It is not, to my mind, an occasion so much of certainty as it is one of relationship.
Amen.