Confessions, Selections from Book I

I’m reading Augustine for a couple classes this semester – both City of God and Confessions. Right now I’m in the beginning of Confessions and it is… lovely :). Augustine’s thoughts are beautiful and his style is delicious. …Well, at least, it sounds good in Latin. It loses quite a bit in translation. Anyway, I’ve reproduced some particularly good bits below for your edification. For those who are Latin students, I’ve also put in the Latin, since Augustine’s Latin style is a delicacy not to be missed, and the translator’s can be taken or left.
Enjoy :).

Tu excitas, ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.
“You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Et cum effunderis super nos, non tu iaces, sed erigis nos. Nec tu dissiparis, sed colligis nos.
“When you are ‘poured out’ upon us, you are not wasted on the ground. You raise us upright. You are not scattered but reassemble us.”

Quid dicit aliquis, cum de te dicit? Et vae tacentibus de te, quoniam loquaces muti sunt.
“What has anyone achieved in words when he speaks about you? Yet woe to those who are silent about you because, though loquacious with verbosity, they have nothing to say.”

Et quam multi iam dies nostri et patrum nostrorum per hodiernum tuum transierunt, et ex illo acceperunt modos, et utcumque extiterunt?… Tu autem idemipse es, et omnia crastina atque ultra omniaque hesterna et retro hodie facies, hodie fecisti. Quid ad me, si quis non intellegat? Gaudeat et ipse dicens: quid est hoc? Gaudeat etiam sic, et amet non inveniendo invenire, potius quam inveniendo non invenire te.
“How many of our days and days of our fathers have passed through your Today, and have derived from it the measure and condition of their existence? … But you are the same; and all tomorrow and hereafter, and indeed all yesterday and further back, you will make a Today, you have made a Today. If anyone finds your simultaneity beyond his understanding, it is not for me to explain it. Let him be content to say, ‘What is this?’ So too let him rejoice and delight in finding you who are beyond discovery rather than fail to find you by supposing you to be discoverable.”

…Formosissime, qui formas omnia et lege tua ordinas omnia.
“The supreme beauty [formosus], you give distinct form [formus] to all things and by your law impose order on everything.”

Jussisti enim et sic est, ut poena sua sibi sit omnis inordinatus animus.
“For you have imposed order, and so it is that the punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.”

And for those of you who don’t know Latin and don’t care to learn it… Augustine’s view of studying Greek:
“The difficulty lies there: the difficulty of learning a foreign language at all. [The necessity of learning the language] sprinkles gall, as it were, over all the charm of the stories the Greeks tell.” ;)

What a morning may bring forth...

Well, that chapel was a surprise. Our very own Dr. B, in such an important government position! I’m so proud of him! Course, I always knew he was the ultimate in cool. I’m just glad the current administration thinks so too. Makes me respect their judgment more. :)

But… I’m not totally happy with them. They’re taking our Dr. B away! *sniff* Mr. Warm Fuzzy himself… Dr. Clean… One of the best profs on this campus and an incomparable Dean of Academics… *sniff, sniff* His absence will be so sad. PHC won’t be the same without him. Not to mention the fact that it’ll take at least three people to even begin to “replace” him. And oh! The new dean of academics is none other than Dr. Sanders! *wail*

*collects self*

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take Comparative and FP from him… and that our book discussion group will continue to meet. The man is truly great and I feel honored to have known him.

Bliss

An evening of Plato, popcorn, and techno... one of the best experiences this world has to offer :)

Sept. 11

It’s a day of remembrance. Every chapel message or church sermon given on this day begins with something like, “Let us remember what happened on Sept. 11…”

Trouble with memory is that it’s a very subjective sort of thing. The above sentence, when I hear it, means an entirely different thing than the speaker most likely intends. I have an entire vault of thoughts devoted to that date, beginning in 1983…

My parents were stationed in Germany and my mom called across the ocean to her mother in Alabama to tell her that her first grandchild has been born. Because I was born in the morning, it was Sept. 11 in Germany, but still the night of Sept. 10 in the States. My grandmother, not willing to wait, called friends and family that night, telling them that she had a granddaughter who was born “tomorrow.” Thousands of miles away, I spent the first hours of my life in a hospital built by Hitler.

Fast forward about 7 years… There are four in the family, and we live in Fairfax, VA. I had a typical little girl’s birthday party with friends from school (yes, these were my public school days), church, and the neighborhood. We ate cake that Mom had made and decorated and we played “Pin the Tail on the Unicorn.”

I have particularly fond memories of 1994. That year we went camping on Chincoteague. My brother and I rode around on our bikes, taking pictures of the wild horses. When it got too stuffy and mosquito-y in the little camper by night, we all got out to go for a nighttime stroll. I still remember the sky from that night. There were no lights or clouds for miles, and the moon was an orange sliver. Stars coated the sky and the Milky Way looked like a river of diamonds. I finally saw how counting the stars could be compared to counting the sand on the beach.

I remember one of my first birthdays in Alabama – one of the first I was able to share with extended family. I took more control of the planning than in the past and decked out the dining room in bright teal and purple. In retrospect, this was perhaps a garish combination, but I still like it :).

And then there was the one ‘round about ’99… My two best friends came over for a dinner/movies/sleepover party (which became a tradition among the three of us). Daniel’s great contribution was to be homemade vanilla ice cream… However, we all felt it tasted a bit funny and he suddenly realized he had transposed the sugar and salt. :)

My most recent memory is of 2004 – last year. I remember loading the seven of us into Ben’s faithful van and driving to Maryland… where we spent the day at the Ren Fair, played Settlers of Catan at Jonathan’s aunt and uncle’s, and went to Chevy’s Mexican restaurant for dinner… where they sang at Sarah and me and gave us dessert and big sombreros, as I contemplated some well-overdue sleep and margaritas…

I can remember Sept. 11th, alright. I can remember a lot of Sept. 11ths. After all, I’ve been marking the date all my life.

Rules and the Economics of Me

It is the contention of economists that man’s greatest impulse is the innate desire to do what is best for himself. No person will willingly choose something that is to their harm – at least, their harm as they perceive it. Rather, they search for ways to increase their own good, trading things of lesser value for things of greater.

I, person that I am, follow this model – perhaps more consciously than most… which brings us to a problem.

Duty... Ick. Bleck. The concept of duty has always been distasteful to me. That I should do something simply “because I ought to” flies in the face of my desire for my own good. My first question is generally something like, “Why ought I?” If the answer is not satisfactory – does not entail my good – you can forget me doing any such thing.

The only way to make the situation worse is to say, “Do it or else.” I’m not the sort to respond well to threats of force. My freedom from coercion is something I value above most personal comforts, so I’m willing to make the trade. I am, in fact, inclined to force the trade, just to make the statement that I will not be coerced.

So, how does this rebellious, Mill-loving, Kant-hating person survive in the world? Not just survive, but even be mistaken as a “goody-two-shoes” or even “sweet?” What gives this appearance of conformance?

Well, conformance itself, actually. Not that I give up on my own principles – because they’re not principles, per se. They are inclinations belonging to all people. I just have them in spades. No, the reason I conform is not duty, it is not coercion by power or force – it’s the only thing in the world strong (or weak?) enough to move me: love.

This love comes in two varieties. The first is that of other people – particularly those in authority – for me. Since they love me, I know that they care about my good too (and, hopefully, know it better than I do). If they are sufficiently trustworthy, there is not even need of questioning why. Of course, God, as ultimate Authority and ultimate Lover, is the epitome of this, followed by my parents. By careful guidance, both have instilled in me basic norms, each carefully tied back to my good. Most of the things I do go back to this… and generally this is sufficient to keep me out of trouble.

But what happens those times that someone pulls out duty or force in a blatant sort of way… when I want to bring to bear what force I have to make them leave me alone… like when Dean Wilson spoke in chapel the other week?

There is only one thing that holds me back in such circumstances. The second type of love – mine for other people. I love Dean Wilson – and PHC – so I’ll conform for their sake. Most of all, I cannot experience the love of God and not love in return, so I obey the authority out of deference to Him.

What puzzles me is the fact that this form of motivation is often overlooked in the Christian community – or is simply turned into an aphorism. Why are most churches Kantian in their approach? It certainly is the quick and easy way. Then, why do so many people tolerate it? Any ideas?