Scrabble the New Year

Apophenia: Perceiving connections or meaningful patterns in random data, as in the reading of tea leaves or discovering meaning in entrails.

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Growing up, one of the games we played with my grandmother was Scrabble. She loved the game (and cheated, if you didn’t watch her!). It’s a game of possibilities: of new words, of one more tile to get that seven-letter word and 50 points. A game of beginnings without ends: if you don’t like the words in front of you, dump your tiles, do a quick shuffle, and play some more.

According to John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word…”

Not quite. First there was the “tile pile,” the jumble of possibility that is chaos, the unformed. Genesis 1: “…formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

Or, as John Milton writes in Book 1 of Paradise Lost,

“In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos…”

And:

“Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad’st it pregnant…”

The Logos created the universe, and Logos in Greek means both “word” and “I say.”

It’s New Year’s, the traditional time of reflection, and of putting words into plans. Your New Year’s creation won’t be ex nihilo, of course, because some of your letters are already organized into words. But you can reshuffle the “tile pile,” go back to the unformed, to the abyss, and create something new for the ever-changing dictionary that is you. You can look for the tile that creates your 50-point bonus word – and, like my grandmother did with a wink and a smile, if need be you can stretch the limits of the English language.

December 9, 1608

Today is John Milton’s 409th birthday!

Here are some of the celebrations being held around the world (from the Milton listserv to which I belong – yes, listservs still exist):

“Here in New Zealand John Milton’s birthday is well begun by now (11 am). It’s being marked at 1pm and 3pm by puppet performances of Paradise Lost, with period music. It’s being done by the Dunedin Medieval Society.

“We too are celebrating JM’s 409th birthday with gathering at Milton Cottage [U.K.] with drinks and food reflecting JM’s period!”

“Here in Bloomington California, at Bloomington High School, we celebrated, early, Milton’s birthday with a reading of Lycidas – and a discussion of the importance and value of Milton and poetry. The students were enthusiastic and curious. Milton is not dead! He lives on and will for eons.”

I will honor Milton by reading Samson Agonistes, which was the subject of a paper that I wrote “eons” ago.

The most famous line from Milton’s “Samson Agonistes”:

Promise was that I

Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;

Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him

Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves…

I don’t have the paper anymore, but I hope I compared Samson’s reaction to Job’s.  Milton’s Samson (although he was an Israelite) has a Christian attitude toward God, whereas Job argued with God (some of the Psalms do as well).  I think Job has a more authentic Jewish attitude than does Milton’s Samson.

I like the phrase “Eyeless in Gaza” (so did Aldous Huxley, who used it as a title for a novel), and I’ve kept it in my memory for years, hoping for a chance to use it. John Carey, who edited the edition of Milton’s poetry that I still use, wrote in his memoir (The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, which I’m reading now), that he had a pet phrase, too: “the crippled dirigible.”  He first read it in 1933,  but he couldn’t find a reasonable way to use it until he wrote a 1988 book review of The Boy Who Shot Down an Airship.  I hope that I don’t have to wait 55 years to use mine!

 

Redemption?

Roy Moore, Donald Trump, and Kim Jong-un . . . Do they deserve redemption?

According to Christian doctrine (Catholic version), Jesus died for everyone’s sins, including theirs. But like Genie in Aladdin, God imposes some preconditions for salvation.

The Genie’s three rules were “I can’t kill anyone, I can’t make people fall in love, and I can’t bring anyone back from the dead.”

Those aren’t God’s rules, since Jesus does bring Lazarus back from the dead (John, Chapter 11). People were happy for Lazarus then, but it may have been a mixed blessing, at best, if Walter M. Miller Jr. in the A Canticle for Leibowitz is right.

Jesus says, in Matthew 25, that at the end of time he will separate the sheep from the goats, based on how their actions in life reflected these rules: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

I’ve always been uncomfortable with the fact that, according to Matthew, the sheep are on the right and the goats are on the left. I’ve always been on the left, and the goats go to hell.

Anyway, this is a contradiction at the heart of Christianity. Jesus died so that everyone’s sins could be forgiven – but there are also those pesky preconditions to salvation.

Clearly, Moore, Trump, et al., are goats, but it is equally clear that, in the Christian tradition, their sins are forgiven.

My question: During the limited lives that we all live, can we – and Moore, Trump, and Jong-un – do things that deserve eternal punishment?

I think not. I can’t forgive them, because they are despicable dirt bags, nor do I want them in responsible positions, but fire and brimstone (unless they impose it on themselves by starting a nuclear war) after living a limited life (like my limited life) is absurd.

So, it’s not likely, in my opinion, that Moore, Trump, or Jon-un are going to be sorted into the “unpleasant place.” Maybe it’s a glitch in the sorting hat’s software, but the doctrine that saves them also saves me from an eternity of excessive sweating.

Heaven can’t wait

This is why I try to be a good person.

Heaven looks like this room. There is no Hosanna in Excelsis Deo 24-hours a day (boring – and does a “day” even exist in heaven?).

There is quiet, an infinite supply of good books, and endless cups of perfectly-brewed tea. There is fine paper and a good pen with which I can take notes (I always take notes when I read), and a knowledgeable person with whom I can seek clarification. There will be some time for meditation and yoga beside a stream, and a walk through the woods. Entire books will flow easily from mind to pen to paper, and they will find a ready audience.

There’s a song about this place:

“Jesus loves me! This I know,
He built a library furnished so;
Books inside it do belong,
Makes heaven a place for which I long.”

Or something like that.

No less of an authority than Jorge Luis Borges agrees with me.

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

 

(Okay, maybe I’m a bad person. But Milton’s Satan advocated for freedom of thought, more or less, so I guess I’m covered either way.)

Sound Tracks

     “I have squandered my resistance. . . ” I’m listening to the Concert in Central Park.  I’d forgotten how much Simon & Garfunkel formed the musical background of my school years.

     In high school, Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Scarborough Fair were important, even if I didn’t recognize it at the time (in Colorado, I tended to fixate on John Denver – Rocky Mountain High and all that).  Mrs. Robinson, and the movie The Graduate  were revelations to a naive high school kid in Pueblo, Colorado.  Of course, I was always trying to be Feelin’ Groovy.

     In college, it was mostly Paul Simon on his own – 50 Ways to Leave Year Lover, even though I didn’t have a lover (but desperately wanted one), and Still Crazy After All These Years, because I thought I was (I wasn’t; I was a word-sick scholar).

     Eventually, after I left college (I didn’t graduate until much later – chasing experience and knowledge, not degrees), The Boxer would describe a significant part of my life, as would The Leaves That Are Green (Turn to Brown). And, of course, The Sound of Silence. Homeward Bound was my credo, although I was no longer sure were home was.

     Still restless, after all these years…I’m a bad Buddhist and Stoic, but I’m (still) gone to look for America.  It’s getting harder and harder to find it.