Hemmingway and the priest.

That night at the mess I sat next to the priest and he was disappointed and suddenly hurt that I had not gone to the Abruzzi. I myself felt as badly as he did and could not understand why I had not gone. It was what I had wanted to do…I had drunk much wine and afterwards coffee and Strega and I explained, winefully, how we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things. We two were talking while the others argued. …I had gone to no place where the roads were frozen as hard as iron, where it was clear cold and dry and snow was dry and powdery and hare-tracks in the snow and the peasants took off their hats to you and called you Lord and there was good hunting. I had one to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights where the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring. Suddenly to care very much and to sleep and to wake with it sometimes morning and all that had been there gone and everything sharp and hard and clear …I tried to tell about the night and the difference between night and day and how the night was better unless the day was very clean and cold and I could not tell it; as I cannot tell it now. But if you have it you know. He had not had it but he understood that I had really wanted to go to the Abruzzi but had not gone and we were still friends, with many tastes alike, but with the difference between us, He had always known what I did not know and what, when I leaned it, I was always able to forget.  But I did not know that then, although I leaned it later.

Earnest Hemmingway ‘A Farewell to Arms’

ii.

So.

Today wasn’t the best day for me as far as anger and pride goes.

There is an overweight man at my university of about 35 years of age who goes out of his way to look up the skirts of young girls. He has a lip-licking leer that could make the devil cringe.  He walked passed Eb and I today on our way from class, evidently in a restrained mood given that he gave our chests and legs only a cursory glance. All of a sudden I had this insatiable desire to drop my shoulder and run at him. To drive my fist into his ample gut. As he passed I mumbled some vague jokey threat at a volume I’m not convinced he didn’t hear.

At night I got so frustrated with our internet not working that I picked the little box up and hit it against the wall.. I roughed-up an inanimate square shaped piece of plastic with some wires and stuff in it… 

And for these things I’m disgusted with myself.

This same day in one of my IR lecures I sat there wishing that all of the Christians who had gone before me had acted as they were meant to. Out of love.

And there I was all red faced and determined and puny, trying to threaten a man. Trying to forge justice and understanding out of aggression.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires (James 1:19-20).

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control (Proverbs 29:11).

T.S. Elliot bits and pieces

We shall never cease from exploration & the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started & to know the place for the first time.

T.S. Elliot.

 

But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.

Men have left God not for other gods, they say, but for no god; and this had never happened before

That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason,

And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.

The Chuch disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturnedm what have we to do

But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards

In an age which advances progressively backwards?

…

What does the world say, does the world stray in high-powered cars on a by-pass way?

…

Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the Church?

When the Church is no longer regarded, not even opposed, and men have forgotten

All gods except Usury, Lust and Power.

T.S. Elliot from ‘The Rock’