EDEN - Perelandra, and The Fall of Man Into Sin as a Real Loss

Yes, I've taken a long break from blogging. In fact, it was such a long break that I should now have more than enough topics on my mind to keep me blogging every week for months. January has been a very busy month here. My family runs fifty goats and we just went through kidding season while my Dad was on a business trip overseas. We now have eighteen baby goats running around the farm and several more on the way. Several have to be bottle fed around the clock. I'm tired. My eleven-year-old sister also broke her arm this week.

There's a topic that I've spent so much time thinking on over the past year, I'm going to take at least two posts to write about it: EDEN.

To be quite honest, it all began with C.S. Lewis' Perelandra, which I begin to understand is probably the most overlooked and underrated book I've ever read. For months after reading it, I continued to persist in my opinion that The Space Trilogy was dry and difficult to read and that there was really nothing wonderful about it. But when I think back and realize how much Perelandra has influenced my life, and how much it has encouraged and inspired and excited me even during the months in which I was insisting that I didn't really like it, I think I need to go back and read it again.

But before I write about Perelandra, I'm going to write about its prequel, Out Of The Silent Planet. In this first book of The Space Trilogy, a man from planet Earth is taken to another planet, a perfect planet without a "fall into sin." At one point the protagonist, Ransom, tries to explain the concept of sin to some of the creatures on the other planet, but they are totally unable to understand him. The only word in their language that can even be used to refer to sin is the term "bent" or "twisted." Ransom tries to talk to them about promiscuity and they are not even able to understand what could possibly induce a creature to want to be unfaithful. Their nature is not evil like ours, and every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts is only good all the time.

In Perelandra, Ransom is taken to another "un-fallen" planet to save it from a fall into sin. The book raises all kinds of thrilling and important topics, from the sovereignty of God to the need for Law, to righteous hatred, to demon possession. But the thing that I found the most interesting was the assertion of the superiority of a perfect world.

At one point in the book Ransom is wrestling in his mind over whether or not he can risk his entire life for a faint hope of saving the perfect planet. He begins to ask himself if, after all, it is so necessary to save the planet in the first place. If it were to fall, surely God would redeem it eventually, just as He did ours. Not in the same way, maybe, but it would be redeemed. And his mind, agonized and afraid of doing what he knows he should do, begins to wonder if perhaps redemption is better anyway than un-fallen perfection. After all, didn't we get Jesus out of the Fall? Don’t we have the Kingdom of God among us, and the Spirit of God dwelling in us? However, these lines completely void his argument:

"Whatever you do, He will make good of it, but not the good He had prepared for you. That is lost forever. The first King and Mother of our world did the forbidden thing; and He brought of it good in the end, but what they did was not good, and what they lost we have not seen, and there were some to whom no good ever came nor ever will come."

After Ransom makes his decision he goes and finds the "Eve" of the planet sleeping in the woods, and there is this beautiful and heart-breaking passage:

"As he stood looking down on her, what was most with him was an intense and orphaned longing that he might, if only for once, have seen the great Mother of his own race thus, in her innocence and splendor. 'Other things, other blessings, other glories,' he murmured. 'But never that. Never in all worlds, that. God can make good use of all that happens. But the loss is real.'"

The loss is real. We don't know everything that we lost when we fell into sin, but it is a real loss - a loss of things that God wanted us to have. And because of this fall, everything here that was created whole and lovely and majestic is broken.

I was instant messaging a good friend of mine a couple nights ago and we were talking about this concept of brokenness as a result of the human fall into sin. I think that very often we don't even come close to realizing how deeply sin has perverted everything in the world. Sin has perverted even the good things. The world is messed-up and even the beautiful things are adulterated. If you just take a minute to think about this, you can trace the effects of sin in every sphere of life. Here are a few I thought of off the top of my head:

Human Love: As Galadriel says in The Fellowship of The Ring, "In all lands, love is now mingled with grief." Love in our world comes with pain. I'm not necessarily talking about romantic love between the sexes here, but just about love in general. Even the very purest and deepest love that we have for other people is sure to get us hurt in some way, whether by death or betrayal or separation or misunderstanding or something else.

Nature/The Outdoors: The nature that is still praised by poets and idealists as the way to relax the mind and still sought by city people as a refuge from the horrors of social problems and urban stress, is messed-up. Cruelty is manifest in nature. The fittest survive, and the weak suffer.

Human Nature: The nature of men has been destroyed. Our "natural" lusts for blood and violence and ready sex are indicators that nature is not absolute, and has definitely failed. Our more subtle desires for power and position and fame and wealth and control at any cost are other examples of this perversion.

Human Beauty: God made us in His image, and we are beautiful. But how frequently our beauty is corrupted by our lusts! How frequently are beautiful people regarded not as living testimonies to the glory of the Creator but as things to be played with and discarded when we are tired of them! And how frequently we refuse to reflect the beauty of God in our bodies and instead choose to allow ourselves to be ugly?

My friend was highlighting the fact that even God, when He is blessing us with the most vital and important things, has to break us to do so. We live in a sinful world, and when we hurt and break ourselves with sin, the only way for Him to heal us is to re-break the bone we’ve broken and set it correctly. It's almost a contradiction that the perfect and Almighty God has to heal us by breaking us again. Jars of Clay has a sweet, sad song about brokenness and the wretched condition of humanity and their first lines go like this:

"Oh my God, look around this place
Your fingers reach around the bone
You set the break and set the tone……"

After reciting a list of the horrific evils, they end it with the simple cry,

"Oh my God,
Oh my God,
Oh my GOD!"


You can listen to this song here:

http://www.playlist.com/searchbeta/tracks#jars%20of%20clay%20oh%20my%20god

That is what I feel like saying sometimes. There are some things so evil that nothing else can carry their weight. Sometimes, when I get hit in the face by the full force and understanding of the depth of our fall, the only thing worth saying is, "Oh my God," because as George MacDonald puts it in Sir Gibbie, "Jesus is the one rock where evil finds no echo. Jesus is the cavern of destroying love into which all evil tumbles and finds no reaction and ends forever."




P.S. If that struck you as a slightly depressive post, don't worry: the next one will more than make up for it!

HENRY V - Movie Review

Although I've never been a devoted fan of Shakespeare, I really appreciated Hamlet. The storyline was interesting and philosophical and the movie with Mel Gibson was tolerably good too. However, it was nothing when compared to Kenneth Branagh's film rendition of Henry V. I think this film may possibly be as good as Shakespearean histories can get.

Henry V details the exploits of the young English king, Henry V, in the early fifteenth century. Carrying on a traditional war over the succession of the French throne, Henry V launches an invasion of France. The play is a story about his hopes, decisions and emotions during this time, but also about the actual historical battles that took place. Shakespeare even managed to insert a little love story as a subplot.

I've always thought of Harfleur and Agincourt as inexcusable wars of aggression on the part of the English. It is difficult for our culture to even consider this kind of violent attack as acceptable for any civilized monarch. However, in order to enjoy the story at all, we do have to understand the times and the national sentiments going around in an age where no one felt safe, even in days of relative peace. France was the traditional enemy of

England and both sides were apprehensive that as soon as the other should find it convenient, they would attack.

I really liked the balance in the movie. Even though the script for the movie is taken word-for-word from the play, the director shapes the attitude of the audience towards the story with the sets and actors he uses. While giving Henry a very fair chance to appear noble and showing his misgivings and his desire to please God, Branagh also paints the horrors of war vividly. He makes no attempt to glorify the battles, but instead makes them far worse than Shakespeare probably intended. I think that in a way he short-circuits some of Shakespeare's obvious intentions of romanticizing the war, and I do appreciate this.

I've heard Shakespeare's version of Henry hailed as a Christ-figure, but I must say that this analogy really doesn't bear any examination. Rather, the Henry in Shakespeare's play is a noble and heroic but severely misguided and violent man. (I can't speak for the historical Henry V. I'm only talking about Henry V as depicted in the play.) Although there are good aspects of his character and he is a generous and good-hearted king to his own people, his standards are far too low for me to even come close to considering that he could represent Christ.

The most famous portion of the movie and the play is the St. Crispin's Day speech. Indeed, the whole thing would lose most of its appeal without this scene that ties off all of the loose ends of both Henry's character and the motivation for the war. I was very impacted by this speech. When the King launches into these immortal lines:

He which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart. His passport shall be made,

And crowns for convoy put into his purse.

We would not die in that man’s company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

…………………….

And gentlemen in England now abed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day!

it made me think what a privilege it is to be living now, in the time and place that God has set for us. You can watch that scene here:

The movie reaches a climax of tragedy when the victorious English army returns to their camp to find all of their boys slaughtered by the angry and desperate French army. Boys too young to fight had been left behind when the army went to battle and it was illegal by the rules of honorable war to strike them. The unutterable rage and horror incited by the sight of the bleeding children provokes the king to cry, "I was not angry since I came to France until this instant!" As the triumphant but miserable and outraged English army sets out to bury the dead boys, this lovely scene wraps up the battle of Agincourt:

Kenneth Branagh's Henry V is an excellent way to watch Shakespeare's play. While retaining the original text, it brings the story to life on screen, preserving the Shakespearian regard for the man, but not without raising questions as to the ethical basis for the war.

Seize The Day!

-StrongJoy

SONNET III

OK. :) I'm back. I've committed to try to post more frequently now that summer is over and the school term has started again.

Here is a sonnet I wrote last week. (I still think I like Sonnet II better- what do you think?) As always, suggestions are more than welcome!

SONNET III

Considering the present sufferings

Not worthy to be thought of or compared

To glory that shall burn away these things

And leave our souls and hearts and senses bared,

Some of the ransomed lovely ones in Christ

Refused the dying world's attentions

And named the named of Jesus at a price,

To obtain the better resurrection.

These ones held true and loyal to one Love

And watched their other loves die all around,

The ones for whom the world was not enough,

Of whom the world has been unworthy found,

O Church, are you to be the Bride of GOD?

You have not yet resisted unto blood!

StrongJoy

Just a Song I Wrote

Run For Your Life

TRANSFORMERS, STANDARDS and THE HIDDEN MESSAGES IN MOVIES

I believe that every painting, book, or movie reveals in some measure the worldview of its creator. This may not be intentional, but it's inevitable. This is why it’s so important to be aware when we expose our eyes or minds to these things. Although literature and art are just as full of ideas, I think that our generation needs to be especially careful with movies.

The entertainment business has one simple and foolproof tactic for changing the culture. They realize that people watch movies for entertainment and therefore don’t generally tend to think when they are watching movies. Therefore, they know that they can get away with a lot in movies that they might not be able to get away with otherwise. They also know that the ideas they put into movies are going to influence our culture, even if we aren’t aware of what these ideas are. And even if we think that we won’t be affected by these ideas, we can’t help it when we watch so much television. Thus, it’s imperative that we recognize and identify the ideas behind the movies we watch.

I think that the movie Transformers (2007) is a perfect example of this concept. The movie revolves around the life of a highschool kid in a “typical” American home. He’s a dork and doesn’t make good grades in school. He has no character. He does not work hard and his life is obviously full of impurity. One day he sees the school football captain’s girlfriend (a cheerleader) walking down the street in very provocative clothing and is immediately smitten. He spends most of the rest of the movie trying to impress this girl and spite the football captain. In the end he becomes a “hero” through no merit of his own, saves the world, and gets her. The movie ends with the girl lying in his arms on the hood of his car in a very inappropriate position for an unmarried couple.

I was very disappointed with this movie. It struck me as being a blatant glorification of pre-marital sex and mediocrity. I just kept wondering, “What’s the point?” I feel like this generation’s standards are too low. Why are we accepting films that are gradually chipping away at our values? Why aren’t we saying, “This isn’t good enough. It has to be better.” The trouble with us is that we are far too easily pleased, too easily satisfied. I just LOVE what C.S. Lewis says about this in “The Weight Of Glory”:

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased”.

A lot of people have told me that they like this movie because of the special effects which, I will acknowledge, were awesome. And I certainly don’t think there’s anything wrong with being intrigued by the astonishingly realistic cinematography displayed in so many modern movies. Modern movies thrill me with their special effects and pristine film quality. It’s amazing to me that humans can make such incredible works of art. However, I think we need to start holding our artists to higher standards. If we, as a nation and a culture, continue to just accept whatever Hollywood sees fit to give us, we are going to drop our standards and lose our values.

Seize The Day!

-StrongJoy

Answers to the "Cultural Literacy and Goats" Quiz

Sorry this is a little overdue, folks. I've been sick with the flu and had visitors over this week. But here are the answers to the quiz....and our winner is..........Miss Eyebright! Congratulations! You take up the lead with 20 correct answers out of 28.

MarthaH605 came in 2nd place with 17 correct answers.

Good job and thank you to everyone who took a guess!

1 Carmen - from the opera, "Carmen"
2 Princess Leia - from Star Wars
3 Kızıl Ok - Turkish for "Red Arrow"
4 Jason Argonaut - The mythological character Jason who went after the golden fleece
5 Rosie Cotton - from "The Lord Of The Rings"
6 Catriona - From the book of the same name by Robert Louis Stevenson (it's the sequel to "Kidnapped" and the character Catriona is portrayed in the BBC version of the movie. Awesome version, by the way)
7 Torfrida - from the book "Hereward The Wake" by Charles Kingsley
8 Good Queen Bess - nickname of Queen Elizabeth I of England
9 Boudicca (Boadicea) - from British history
10 Brunhilde - one of the Valkyries (portrayed in Wagner's Ring Opera)
11 Gazelle - just named after the animal
12 Marie Antoinette - Former Queen of France (a person I have great sympathy for)
13 Myrtle Hardbottle - from "The Lord Of The Rings"
14 Wendy Moira Angela Darling - from "Peter Pan" by James Barrie
15 Rose Salterne - from "Westward Ho!" by Charles Kingsley
16 Jerusha - a name from the Bible. Also an unsavory character from "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew"
17 Sassafras - named after the plant
18 Thing One - from Dr. Seuss' "The Cat In The Hat"
19 Thing Two - from Dr. Seuss' "The Cat In The Hat"
20 Bambi - from the book "Bambi"
21 Luthien - from "The Silmarillion"
22 Tinuviel - Luthien's other name
23 Padme Amidala - from Star Wars
24 Freya - Norse goddess
25 Odin - Norse god
26 Emrys - Welsh for "immortal," Merlin from the Arthurian legend is referred to as "Merlin Emrys"
27 Castor - a constellation, one of two mythological Greek twins
28 Pollux - a constellation, the other of the two mythological Greek twins

"Amazing Grace" Like You've Never Heard It Before

Check out this beautiful video. You've got to watch it all the way through.

Imagine what the music is going to be like in Heaven! :)

My Favorite Art and Why

I can’t imagine my life without art. I think it is sad that so many people go through life without ever really enjoying any art other than cartoons when there are so many beautiful paintings to enjoy!

Currently, I am a sophomore in highschool. Having studied around 45 artists since first grade and having a collection of around 200 prints, today I went through my album and picked out my three favorite artists and three favorite prints and I thought I’d share them with you. Picking out the artists was easy. I knew right away that John William Waterhouse, William Bougereau and Frederick Leighton would be my favorites. (I would have replaced Leighton with Thomas Kinkade in a heartbeat, but I haven’t collected his paintings, or really studied them, so he doesn’t count.) If you quickly scan a few of their paintings, you’ll realize rather quickly that all three of these artists have very similar styles. They are all three realists, and all three paint lots of figures from mythology/poetry/literature, and mostly young girls and children.Most of Waterhouse’s paintings are figures from mythology or poetry. His favorite subjects seem to be Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and The Lady Of Shallot. I was quite pleasantly surprised when I accidentally stumbled upon his painting called, “‘I am half sick of shadows’, said the Lady Of Shallot.” This is a line from Tennyson’s poem The Lady Of Shallot, and one that has always stood out to me. Waterhouse’s other subjects include: Jason and Medea, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Penelope, Danae, Pandora, Thisbe, Circe and Ulysses.

Bougereau’s paintings make me think of silk. The faces in his paintings are so smooth that they make you want to stroke them. He has a way of making skin look like light. He especially paints beautiful pictures of children. I think he was probably the most skilled of all the painters I have ever studied, with the possible exception of Thomas Cole. Unfortunately most of his paintings seem to have been attempts to glorify the human body rather than the Creator.

Leighton was, perhaps, the most sensuous of the Pre-Raphealite painters. He struggled all his life to find meaning and perhaps to make an absolute out of sensuality. (He failed, by the way) Why would I choose him as a favorite artist? His paintings are beautiful. To me, art is about beauty. Contrast the wretch Leighton with the wretch Gauguin and notice that although both of them were desperately lost and searching for meaning in all the wrong places, one of them made beautiful paintings and the other did not. An ugly painting with a good meaning is nothing to me, because art is not just about meaning. AND a beautiful painting with “no meaning” is still beautiful to me. I don’t believe that there is any such thing as art without a meaning. I think that every artist, whether he likes it or not, is putting down meanings with every stroke of his brush, even if he is only saying, “look how fearfully and wonderfully made I am! I can look at this thing that I see before me and put it down on paper…God is incredible.”

Out of all the many artists I have studied, I like these ones the best because of the skill and beauty in their paintings. It’s amazing to me what they are able to do with paint. I love artists who can capture moods and expressions in people’s faces and I think that the human face is the most intriguing subject for art. I find that I also like surrealistic and/or idealistic landscape paintings but these seem to be a relatively modern interest in art and I have not actually studied any particular artist who painted works of this type, so I cannot list them.

It was quite a bit harder to choose my favorite paintings, but I eventually managed to narrow them down to three.

The first is Jacques Louis David’s Napoleon. I cannot think of any other painting that evokes such feelings in me as Napoleon. I like it because I think it is a beautiful illustration of mankind. Although this may sound odd, it makes me feel a greater capacity to love. I think how hated the historical Napoleon is (and perhaps rightly so) and then see this “romanticized” version and think that it shows him looking rather like a frightened child, pointing vaguely up the mountain towards the “great things” he wants to do. To me he looks like he is giving one of those parting glances we leave with people we love dearly and may never see again. “Think well of me. I did my best.” This is no defense of or excuse for the historical Napoleon, obviously – it’s just the way the painting makes me feel.

Another of my favorite paintings, Forget Me Not is by Arthur Hughes, I think the most admirable of the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Rather than only dreaming about the heroism and perfection that most of the other Pre-Raphaelites failed to live out, Hughes was more devoted to his principles in real every-day life.

Although I greatly appreciate Waterhouse’s paintings of mythological and literary characters that I recognize and enjoy, I cannot imagine choosing any of them to be my favorites paintings. They lack the significance that I look for in anything that I choose to be my “favorite.” Although it is not as skillfully done, perhaps, as many of his other works, I chose The Annunciation as my favorite of Waterhouse’s paintings. It has incredible significance. I love the purplish-blue combination and the way the colors compliment each other so well. I also love the humble way in which he portrays Mary here. Unlike most of his female subjects, she looks completely pure.

So, anyway, those are a few of my favorites when it comes to art. What about you?

Seize The Day!
-StrongJoy

Cultural Literacy Contest and Goats

We have a herd of Boer goats, 35 in all. Each time a kid is born, we spend a good deal of time discussing, disagreeing, debating and deciding what to name it. I thought it would be fun if I listed some of their names and see if you can figure out who they are named after. All names are well known in history, art, movies or literature. One is in the foreign language I speak (You will know which one if you read my blog regularly) but it should be easy to find out its meaning. That one is extra credit. : ) Most of the names are females, since most are nannies. But we have some males as well. Leave you answers in the comments section and in a week we will announce the winner (the one who named the most original sources correctly) and we will also post the answers. Here are their names:

1 Carmen
2 Princess Leia
3 Kızıl Ok
4 Jason Argonaut
5 Rosie Cotton
6 Catriona
7 Torfrida
8 Good Queen Bess
9 Boudicca (Boadicea)
10 Brunhilde
11 Gazelle
12 Marie Antoinette
13 Myrtle Hardbottle
14 Wendy Moira Angela Darling
15 Rose Salterne
16 Jerusha
17 Sassafras
18 Thing One
19 Thing Two
20 Bambi
21 Luthien
22 Tinuviel
23 Padme Amidala
24 Freya
25 Odin
26 Emrys
27 Castor
28 Pollux

Ready, set, GO.

How is Your Hearing?

Created by Train Horns

Viva La Republique!

I wrote this poem a couple weeks ago. It deals with the young men who fought in the emeute (rebellion) in Les Miserables. They called themselves the Friends of the ABC ("abaisse" - French for abased, poor) Hugo apparently put a lot of effort into making these men express certain views. The Friends of The ABC were an utterly miserable set of young men whose utmost goal was death. They truly did care about the poor class of France but they had nothing to give to them. Even giving up their lives did absolutely no good to help their cause. They succeeded only in killing themselves and others with them. However, Hugo feels infinitely sorry for them and tries to show their wretched condition. In fact, when the book was published, many people were offended by the sympathy with which he portrayed these rebels.

The poem is meant to discuss both the bitter facade of apathy and the hopeless desperation that characterizes these men.

(I finally finished the book by the way!)

VIVA LA REPUBLIQUE!

Somebody said suicide

And then could we refuse?

There are many ways to die

And nothing left to lose.

So the fray is making noise,

It rains sometimes, what then?

And all of us are little boys

Pretending to be men.

We don’t think of surrendering

We die for liberty

The fact is, we are wandering

And so seem to be free.

To wander and to seem free

That is to be lost

And lost is bad enough in life

But worse when you’re a ghost.

Live in Hell, die in Hell

Tell me someone cared

We're so used to Hell by now

But GOD, we are so scared!

-B.J.J. aka StrongJoy

Seize The Day!

-StrongJoy