Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm III

Julie Norwich lies burned in the hospital. Annie Dillard continues her meditation.

So I read. Angels, I read, belong to nine different orders. Seraphs are the highest; they are aflame with love for God, and stand closer to him than the others. Seraphs love God; cherubs, who are second, possess perfect knowledge of him. So love is greater than knowledge; how could I have forgotten? The seraphs are born of a stream of fire issuing from under God’s throne. They are, according to Dionysius the Areopagite, “all wings,” having, as Isaiah noted, six wings apiece, two of which they fold over their eyes. Moving perpetually toward God, they perpetually praise him, crying Holy, Holy, Holy. . . . But, according to some rabbinic writings, they can sing only the first “Holy” before the intensity of their love ignites them again and dissolves them again, perpetually, into flames. “Abandon everything,” Dionysius told his disciple. “God despises ideas.”

God despises everything, apparently. If he abandoned us, slashing creation loose at its base from any roots in the real: and if we in turn abandon everything–all these illusions of time and space and lives–in order to love only the real: then where are we? Thought itself is impossible, for subject can have no guaranteed connection with object, nor any object with God. Knowledge is impossible. We are precisely nowhere, sinking on an entirely imaginary ice floe, into entirely imaginary seas themselves adrift. Then we reel out love’s long line alone toward a God less lovable than a grasshead, who treats us less well than we treat our lawns.

Of faith, I have nothing, only of truth: that this one God is a brute and a traitor, abandoning us to time, to necessity and the engines of matter unhinged. This is no leap; this is evidence of things seen: one Julie, one sorrow, one sensation bewildering the heart, and enraging the mind, and causing me to look at the world stuff apalled, at the blithering rock of trees in a random wind, at my hand like some gibberish sprouted, my fist opening and closing, so that I think, Have I once turned my hand in this circus, have I ever called it home? . . .

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Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm II

I continue to swallow the necessary medicine. Dillard continues:

Jesse her father had grabbed her clear of the plane this morning, and was hauling her off when the fuel blew. A gob of flung ignited vapor hit her face, or something flaming from the plane or fir tree hit her face. No one else was burned, or hurt in any way.

***

So this is where we are. Ashes, ashes, all fall down. How could I have forgotten? Didn’t I see the heavens wiped shut just yesterday, on the road walking? Didn’t I fall from the dark of the stars to these senselit and noisome days? The great ridged granite millstone of time is illusion, for only the good is real; the great ridged granite millstone of space is illusion, for God is spirit and worlds his flimsiest dreams: but the illusions are almost perfect, are apparenntly perfect for generations on end, and the pain is also, and undeniably, real. The pain within the millstones’ pitiless turning is real, for our love for each other–for world and all the products of extension–is real, vaulting, insofar as it is love, beyond the plane of the stones’ sickening churn and arcing to the realm of spirit bare. And you can get caught holding one end of a love, when your father drops, and your mother; when a land is lost, or a time, and your friend blotted out, gone, your brother’s body spoiled, and cold, your infant dead, and you dying: you reel out love’s long line alone, stripped like a live wire loosing its sparks to a cloud, like a live wire loosed in space to longing and grief everlasting.

–Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (Harper & Row, 1977)

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Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm I

In 1975, Annie Dillard spent some time on the islands of Puget Sound. In the course of a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in November, a plane crashed on the island. From the events of that week, she wrote a book, Holy the Firm. I am reading it now because I need to. Here are some excerpts.

I came here to study hard things–rock mountain and salt sea–and to temper my spirit on their edges. “Teach me thy ways, O Lord” is, like all prayers, a rash one, and one I cannot but recommend. . . .

Into this world falls a plane.

The earth is a mineral speckle planted in trees. The plane snagged its wing on a tree, fluttered in a tiny arc, and struggled down.

I heard it go. The cat looked up. There was no reason: the plane’s engine simply stilled after takeoff, and the light plane failed to clear the firs. It fell easily; one wing snagged on a fir top; the metal fell down the air and smashed in the thin woods where cattle browse; the fuel exploded; and Julie Norwich seven years old burnt off her face.

Little Julie mute in some room at St. Joe’s now, drugs dissolving into the sheets. Little Julie with her eyes naked and spherical, baffled. Can you scream without lips? Yes. But do children in long pain scream?

It is November 19 and no wind, and no hope of heaven, and no wish for heaven, since the meanest of people show more mercy than hounding and terrorist gods. . . .

The volunteer firemen have mustered; the fire trucks have come–stampeding Shuller’s sheep–and gone, bearing burnt Julie and Jesse her father to the emergency room in town, leaving the rest of us to gossip, fight grass fires on the airstrip, and pray, or wander from window to window, fierce.

So she is burnt on her face and neck, Julie Norwich. The one whose teeth are short in a row, Jesse and Ann’s oldest, red-kneed, green-socked, carrying cats.

–Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (Harper & Row, 1977)

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Notable Books of 2003 (from my reading list)

I read twenty-six fewer books in 2003 than in 2002. Guess that’s what a new baby will do to you.

Among the notable reads:

1. Hieromonk Damascene Christenson, Not of This World and Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works. I actually began reading the original version of St. Seraphim’s biography in the fall of 2002. But it was piece-meal at best, and I took it up with more fervor at the beginning of this year. The revised biography is light years better. If you want to see the process of the making of an American Orthodox saint, read Father Seraphim Rose.

2. St. Theophan the Recluse, Unseen Warfare. This book was the primary text for my Lenten reading. St. Theophan actually revised an earlier revision done by St. Nikodemos of Mt. Athos on an Italian Roman Catholic book. It is an amazing spiritual read. St. Theopan’s insights into the inner struggle of faith is among the best. And the healthy introduction giving the history and theology of the book is similarly helpful.

3. George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement since 1945. Though self-described liberals and other general cynics may scoff at the title, the book is incredibly interesting. It discusses the thoughts, ideas and impact of such men as Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Jr., Whitaker Chambers, et al. If you thought you knew what opponents call “the radical right,” think again. (Note: Lee Edwards’ The Conservative Revolution touches on some of the same luminaries, but focuses on the political sphere.)

4. Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm. I’ve actually read this book many times before. But earlier in the spring, I came across a first edition hardcover at a local used bookstore. It’s a brief (about 80 pages) account of a weekend Ms. Dillard spent on an island in Puget Sound. If you ever want to see what good incarnational theology is about, read this book.

5. Christos Yannaros, Freedom of Morality. With Metropolitan Zizioulos’ Being as Communion and Panayiotis Nellas’ Deification in Christ, Yannaros’ work highlights how human ethical behavior flows from the Trinitarian image in which we have been made. These three books alone have been fundamental in my shift of theological thinking toward the patristics and the Tradition.

6. Fr. Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation, and Early Man. This is a posthumous collection of St. Seraphim’s writings (and transcribed talks) on Genesis, anthropology, cosmology and the relation between faith and science. The patristic commentary on Genesis 1-12 alone is worth the price of the book.

There were many more good books that I read, but these were among the most important.

There is one regretted read from 2003:
Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, Armageddon. This is the penultimate book in the “Left Behind” series, and since I’d read all the others a couple of years ago, I couldn’t help but slog through this one. (And by the way, my regretted read for this year will be the final book in the series.)

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Christos Yannaras: The Freedom of Morality

Yannaras’ The Freedom of Morality is not for the average reader. One needs a decent grounding in both philosophy and theology. But if one can patiently come to grips with the point of the first chapter (“The Masks of Morality and the Ethos of the Person”), and its reinforcements in the next two, the remaining nine chapters will deepen and broaden one’s thinking on Christian morals and anthropology.

At the risk of oversimplification, the theme of the book can be encapsulated in this passage:

In the life of the Church, God reveals Himself as the hypostasis of being, the personal hypostasis of eternal life. The personal existence of God is the comprehensive and exhaustive expression of the truth of being. It is not the essence or the energy of God which constitutes being, but His personal mode of existence: God as person is the hypostasis of being. (p. 16)

and the following:

The identification of being with the personal existence of God–an indentification with vital consequences for the truth of man and human morality–explains the revelation of the God of the Church, who is one and at the same time, trinitarian. The one God is not one divine nature or essence, but primarily one person: the person of God the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His essence or being, making it into “hypostases”: freely and from love He beget the Son and causes the Holy Spirit to proceed. Consequently, being stems not from the essence, which would make it an ontological necessity, but from the person and the freedom if its love which “hypostasizes” being into a personal and trinitarian communion. God the Father’s mode of being constitutes existence and life as a fact of love and personal communion. (p. 17-18)

It is here that one must start: God, in whose image and likeness man and woman were created. Yannaros continues:

. . . In the light of the truth about the trinitarian hypostasis of being, the Church is enabled to shed light on the mystery of human existence, and to give an ontological foundation to human morality.

Created “in the image” of God in Trinity, man himself is one in essence according to his nature, and in many hypostases according to his persons. Each man is a unique, distinct and unrepeatable person; he is an existential distinctiveness. All men have a common nature or essence, but this has not existence except as personal distinctiveness, as freedom and transcendence of their own natural predeterminations and natural necessity. The person is the hypostasis of the human essence or nature. He sums up in his existence the universality of human nature, but at the same time surpasses it, because his mode of existence is freedom and distinctiveness. (p. 19)

This is expanded by the following:

. . . Man’s nature in general–mankind as a whole, as a biological species–can be defined objectively: it possess will, reason, intellect, etc. But each human person exercises his will and converses and thinks in a way that is unique, distinct and unrepeatable.

Consequently, the person is not an individual, a segment or subdivision of human nature as a whole. He represents, not the relationship of a part to the whole, but the possibility of summing up the whole in a distinctiveness of relationship, in an act of self-transcendence. (p. 21)

Humankind, therefore, is not merely biological, nor merely spiritual. But as the Incarnation teaches us is a hypostasis of spirit and flesh. We are not relegated to our mere biology. We are greater than our genes. But because we are enfleshed souls, we are greater than mere spirit as well. We are greater because the particular combination of body and soul (or spirit) which constitutes who we are is so constituted by love, and therefore by koinonia. We are sums greater than our parts.

There is hope here: the alcoholic may transcend his disease, the deeply sexual being may similarly be chaste, the powerfully spiritual need not be lost to chaos but may be grounded in the depth of God’s love through the very body which gives it sustenance and which it also sustains.

We find that we need not be weighed down by the incessant demands of the flesh, nor that we must be cut loose from this world by the powerful call of the spirit. Instead, called into unique existence by God we can obey that which seems impossible: sexual acts may be limited by God’s obligatory call yielding the freedom of holiness; the yearning ache for holiness can be instantiated by respect and loyalty to our forebears, living and dead.

This basic paradigm, this basis patristic doctrine of humankind, is fleshed out and enspirited in the ethoi of the “Fools for Christ,” the Liturgy, the Eucharist and the sacraments, asceticism and virtue, ecclesiology and the canons, and, not least, iconography.

There are some weaknesses to Yannaras’ work. His take on Protestant pietism, while true in the main, succumbs to mere polemic in some of the specifics. There are times when his Trinitarian anthropology sounds a bit too much like Heidegger and bit less than it should like St. Paul. But when kept within the clear paramaters of the anthropology he explicates from the Fathers and the Scriptures, these weaknesses can be seen for what they are and illustrate ways we may avoid the dangers of which Yannaras warns us.

These weaknesses may also be balanced by two other works in the same series: John D. Zizioulas’ Being as Communion and Panayiotas Nellas’ Deification in Christ. Indeed, these three works in themselves provide perhaps the most complete foundation in Christian thinking on Christ, salvation, the Church and humankind one can get from a mere handful of books.

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Fr. Seraphim Rose: Genesis, Creation and Early Man

Published posthumously, Genesis, Creation and Early Man is a compendium of the writings of Blessed Seraphim of Platina dealing with the patristic interpretation of Genesis 1-11 and the wider topic of evolution.

Hieromonk Damascene Christenson, editor of Blessed Seraphim’s writings and author of his biography, provides a detailed preface describing the origin of these writings. Much of it was composed and delivered as part of an “Orthodox Survival Course” given in the late seventies and early eighties at St. Herman Monastery to new American Orthodox converts. This course was intended to give them a grounding not only in the content of the Faith, but in the development of the Christian mind.

This preface is followed by an introduction by Phillip E. Johnson, well-known critic of evolution. Dr. Johnson had contact with Fr. Seraphim, before the latter’s blessed repose, and knew of and admired his work. His recommendation of Fr. Seraphim’s writings on these topics is strong and full. Fr. Seraphim was gifted both with a brilliant mind, and a submissive one.

The remainder of the book is divided into five parts: a patristic commentary on Genesis 1-11 (alone worth the purchase of the book), a detailed critique of evolution and an explanation of the relationship between the Faith and true science and the dangers of evolutionary philosophy, a third part detailing the patristic dogma of creation, followed by the final two parts of questions and answers on matters of evolution and patristic dogma and selections from Blessed Seraphim’s correspondence which touch on these matters as well.

This central body of the book is followed by an epilogue in which Hieromonk Damascene details the dangers of so-called “theistic, or Christian, evolution.” And to the entire work are appended excerpts from Fr. Seraphim’s notes on science, evolution and Christian philosophy, an outline of proposed studies dealing with evolution and patristic doctrine, a transcript of Fr. Seraphim’s last talk on creation and evolution (given just weeks prior to his death), a critique of radiometric dating by famed scientist Curt Sewell, and, finally, an annotated bibliography on the various topics covered in this 700-plus page book. There are subject and scriptural indices as well.

Having read the entire book one comes away with some pretty clear points: Faith and true science are eminently compatible; Faith and evolution are not. Along with other well-known scientists, Fr. Seraphim utilized expertly Phillip Johnson’s “wedge”: revealing the dichotomy between the fact of science and the faith of evolution. Evolution is not science, it is philosophy, belief in which takes a leap of faith from fact to interpretation. The faith of evolution, then, banks on an etiology that necessitates nothing but time and chance. This faith is antithetical to the Faith of Christianity. Not even theistic evolution can successfully wed the two. It is a simple tale of two masters; and Fr. Seraphim contends one cannot serve both.

While scientific minds may gravitate towrds Dr. Michael Behe’s writings, or those of Dr. Johnson, theological minds will find Blessed Seraphim’s patristic commentary and his expert criticism of evolutionary philosophy more than amenable to their faith. For those too embarrassed to accept the biblical and patristic (though, Fr. Seraphim clearly contends, not fundamentlist) dogma of creation, this will provide enough stiffening agent to the theological backbone to wed reason and doctrine. Even those unpersuaded by Fr. Seraphim’s critique will nonetheless find they have somewhat less confidence in their previous position.

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Christos Yannaros: On God and Personhood

In the life of the Church, God reveals Himself as the hypostasis of being, the personal hypostasis of eternal life. The personal existence of God is the comprehensive and exhaustive expression of the truth of being. It is not the essence or energy of God which constitutes being, but His personal mode of existence: God as person is the hypostasis of being. . . .

. . . The God of whom the Church has experience is the God who reveals Himself in history as personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom. . . .

The identification of being with the personal existence of God–an identification with vital consequences for the truth of man and human morality–explains the revelation of the God of the Church, who is one and at the same time trinitarian. The one God is not one divine nature or essence, but primarily one person: the person of God the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His essence or being, making it into “hypostases”: freely and from love He begets the Son and causes the Holy Spirit to proceed. Consequently, being stems not from the essence, which would make it an ontological necessity, but from the person and the freedom of its love which “hypostasizes” being into a personal and trinitarian communion. God the Father’s mode of being constitutes existence and life as a fact of love and personal communion. . . .

. . . When the Christian revelation declares that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16), it is not referring to one among many properties of God’s “behavior,” but to what God is as the fulness of trinitarian and personal communion. . . .

. . . In the light of the truth about the trinitarian hypostasis of being, the Church is enabled to shed light on the mystery of human existence, and to give an ontological foundation to human morality.

Created “in the image” of God in Trinity, man himself is one in essence according to his nature, and in many hypostases according to his persons. . . . All men have a common nature or essence, but this has no existence except as personal distinctiveness, as freedom and transcendence of their own natural predeterminations and natural necessity. The person is the hypostasis of the human essence or nature. He sums up in his existence the universality of human nature, but at the same time surpasses it, because his mode of existence is freedom and distinctiveness. . . .

. . . Man constitutes an image of God as an ontological hypostasis free from space, time and natural necessity. . . .

. . . This is why the existential hypostasis of man is more than his biological individuality. What man is as a hypostasis of life, of life eternal, is his personal distinctiveness, which is realized and revealed in the existential fact of communion and relationship with God and with his fellow men, in the freedom of love. . . .

. . . Man, however, derives his ontological hypostasis not simply from the will and energy of God, but from the manner in which God gives substance to being. This manner is personal existence, the existential potentiality for loving communion and relationship–the potentiality for true life. . . . This is why man is capable of either accepting or rejecting the ontological precondition for his existence: he can refuse the freedom of love and personal communion, and say “no” to God and cut himself off from being.

–The Freedom of Morality, pp. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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