Unthinkable Wings

Also, despite my gratification at managing to write fic which contained not even trace elements of theology, I am now fighting off a probably rabid plot bunny that thinks I should make Spock read Eckhart.* While I'm sure it would do him good, this is wanky, self-indulgent and, come to think of it, doesn't have much of a plot.

In fact, my id-fic involves fourteenth century mystic theology (BUT THERE ARE NO ANGLO-CATHOLICS, I'm being good!)

(I have another plot bunny, but it's angsty. Normal service has been resumed).

...

I think I really have gone insane. I also think I should get some sleep.

* Vulcans would love Eckhart, I imagine, in much the same way that he appeals to Zen practitioners. There was probably a Vulcan Eckhart Society, and everything.

This is unbelievably awful: Cologne city archives collapse into a hole in the ground. It is, in fact, a bigger disaster than the fire at Anna Amelia library. Four people are unaccounted for (at least), and it looks as if the archives themselves are a total loss (they poured concrete into the hole, in an attempt to shore things up. This includes a large number of mediaeval religious manuscripts relating to the Rhineland mystics, as well as stuff relating to Heinrich Böll.

... I know. It's rather monstrous to be concerned about that when people are probably dead, but all the same: the manuscripts are a very great loss, too.

Some of you, I recall, said you were interested in reading Meister Eckhart - which impulse I would obviously support, because Eckhart is wonderful. He's not, however, necessarily the easiest of writers to approach, not so much because he's dry and academic - he isn't, he's wonderfully vivid and has a sense of humour - but he is a very dense writer, and also he can be misunderstood if you don't have a certain amount of familiarity with mediaeval philosophical thought.†

I've just been reading Cyprian Smith's The Way of Paradox, which answers some of these problems, and which I got an awful lot out of. It's not a work of academic theology, being directly addressed to people who are seeking to deepen their spiritual life, but it is clearly written by someone with a scholarly mind who has reflected deeply both on Eckhart in his original context and what that might mean to us today.



† For similar reasons, come to think about it, I'm rather battling with John Polkinghorne's Science and Christian Belief, because while it seems very interesting and thought provoking, I'm having difficulty with the physics bits.

Hum. Having been unable to get the wifi to work in the Bod - except it does now, God have mercy on me - I ought to have been productive.

Well I have, sort of, only of rather bad poetry, rather than of, say, dissertation, or research pertaining thereto. IT'S ALL MEISTER ECKHART'S FAULT.

All speech is a stammer, each word
Misses its meaning, I can write or tell,
Picture the library which surrounds me,
But you'll not see it; you'll only recreate
What I said from your own word-hoard.
My words and words of words float above
Their objects, un-tethered tethered balloons,
Trailing their meaningless cables.
There is no truth in words, at most a likeness.
And yet we long for truth, thirst for it,
Starve for meaning, stutter and try to speak
The right word at the right moment
Re-twist the knot of meaning,
Say all we mean to one another, moor us fast.
But we cannot. The only Word with power to do so
Speaks itself, speaks us, but how shall we take
The Word in our mouths and speak our speaker?


A very rough draft, and probably not that good anyway; still, I suppose writing something is better than spending an hour looking at lolcats (or whatever), right?

There's something terribly disconcerting about the nagging feeling that a dead fourteenth century German Dominican knows exactly what your problem is:

"Die menschen sprechent: 'eyâ, herre, ich wölte gerne, daz mir alsô wol mit gote wære und alsô vil andâht hæte und vride mit gote, als ander liute hânt, und wölte, daz mir alsô wære oder ich alsô arm sî,' oder: 'mir enwirt niemer reht, ich ensî denne dâ oder dâ und tuo sus oder sô, ich muoz in ellende sîn oder in einer klûsen oder in einem klôster.'
In der wârheit, diz bist dû allez selber und anders niht zemâle. Ez ist eigener wille, alein enweist dû es niht oder endünket dich es niht: niemer enstât ein unvride in dir ûf, ez enkome von eigenem willen, man merke ez oder man merke ez niht. Swaz wir daz meinen, daz der mensch disiu dinc so vliehen und jeniu sol suochen – daz sint die stete unf die liute und die wise oder diu menige oder diu werk -, daz enist niht schult, daz dich diu wise oder diu dinc hindernt: dû bist ez in den dingen selber, daz dich hindert, wan dû heltest dich unordenlîche in den dingen.
Dar umbe hebe an dir selber an ze dem êrsten und lâz dich. In der wârheit, dû envliehest dich denne ze dem êrsten, anders, swâ dû hine vliehest, dâ vindest dû hindernisse und unvride, es sî, swâ daz sî."

People say: "Oh sir, I wish I was as close to God and as prayerful and had as much peace with God as other people do, and I wish I was like them, I wish I was so poor [undistracted/ untempted?]", or: "I will never be satisfied unless I am here or there, or can do this or that, I must go into exile [the country??] or an anchorhold or the cloister."
But in truth, that's all you, not external things. It is your own will that is the problem, although you do not or cannot know it: no lack of peace arises in you that does not come from your own will, whether you realise it or not. If we try to flee these things, and seek others - whether it be places, people, manner of life, or the number of things, or work [or: works in the religious sense of pious actions] - it is not their fault, it is not your manner of life or things themselves that are an obstacle to you: you make things into obstacles, because you approach things the wrong way.
Thus: begin with yourself, let yourself go. In truth, if you do not first flee from yourself, wherever you flee, you will find obstacles and a lack of peace in anything you flee to, whatever that may be.

Meister Eckhart, "Rede der Underscheidung", MHG ed Largier, rough translation mine (with thanks to schreibergasse for a correction!)