Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Michael Jackson, C.S. Lewis, & 'the face of God'

"When I look at a child I see the face of God" said Michael Jackson in an interview in which he recommended his 'Childhood' music video for understanding his Weltanschauung:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVJscGa5vbc

A Psalm attributed to King David (Septuagint #23, Masoretic #24) says, "This is the generation seeking him, seeking the face of the God of Jacob." (my 'nekkid' translation)

C.S. Lewis wrote in 'The Weight of Glory': "if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object,... In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you --- the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and we cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that settled the matter.... The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not IN them, it only came THROUGH them, and what came through them was longing. These things ... are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited." C.S. Lewis speaks more to this mystique in his autobiographical book 'Surprised By Joy' and in various published letters. "We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence [that is, 'the face'] of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito." as Lewis wrote in his 'Letters to Malcolm'.

http://planetnarnia.wordpress.com/about/

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Chronological Snobbery

So what's the good word,you say? Well,'chronological snobbery' is

a mighty fine one to consider.

It was a fine gift to our generation of novelty and change seekers

from the astute creator of the world of Narnia; viz., C.S. Lewis.

Can those who are blinded by their chronological snobbery produce

a sound fiscal policy? Or a better world?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_snobbery


ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΑΥΤΟN

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Abenteuer im Wunderland



Hearkening to political gobsheen?

Plato : σωφρόνως γε οἰκοῦσα πόλις εὖ ἂν οἰκοῖτο : A state with habits of self-control would be well governed.