Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

ABEL COME FORTH: SHEPHERD OF BEING - Ron Dart

ABEL COME FORTH: SHEPHERD OF BEING

The Jewish tale of Cain and Abel often pits the aggressive and ambitious Cain against the more reflective and contemplative Abel, Abel the Shepherd, Cain, the ever-driven entrepreneur. The tragic myth ends with Cain killing his brother Abel.

If I may fast forward for a paragraph, the more benign Christian comparison-contrast of Mary and Martha highlights the contemplative Mary and the activist Martha. Jesus makes it clear who has chosen the better part.

The Western Tradition has perennially parsed the vita contemplativa / vita activa tension, the West since the Reformation giving, increasingly so, the nod to the vita

activa. Our late modern Western ethos is merely the secularized version of the protestant vita activa. Most think they are truly free but, in fact, they are victims of their often unanalyzed drivenness, completely

addicted to doing, doing, doing, incapable of deeper dives into the waiting silence of their being.

The Medieval Victorines (Hugh and Ricard), drawing typologically from the Jewish Tradition, legitimately so, suggested that Leah and Rachel represent the active and contemplative way. Jacob thought by serving Laban for seven years, Rachel would be his wife, but Laban made it clear that it was not right for the younger sister to be wed before the older sister. The seven years embody the active life that culminates in the contemplative life, Jacob working for Rachel but needing to receive Leah as part of the journey.

It is significant in Dante’s Purgatorio (XXVII) that all who will continue their ascent up Mount Purgatory must pass through the wall of fire, the fire that purges the dross from the gold of the self, the fire that burns away an unhealthy active life (Leah) from the fuller and more meaningful contemplative life (Rachel). Dante is making it abundantly clear in Canto XXVII that the earthly paradise can only be reached by the driven active life being purged so the contemplative life can be internalized—such is Dante’s 3^rd dream in Canto XXVII.

Leah gave birth to 10 sons for Jacob, but it was Rachel who gave birth to Joseph and Benjamin (more beloved). It is not, of course, a case in which the vita activa is condemned and the vita contemplative idealized---it’s more a matter of how these two ways of being are to be ordered and prioritized on the journey.  What, in short, must pass through the fire so the gold will be revealed?

The contemplative vision of Richard of St. Victor is elevated and placed in the Paradisio in the heaven of the sun (Canto X).

Let me now return to Cain and Abel. Evelyn Underhill has rightly suggested that the West unduly and immaturely so diverts and wastes too much energy conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do. The more substantive verb is “to be”—such is the contemplative way. Such is the way of Abel and such a way, in the West, dominated by aggressive Cains, again and again, kills the Abel within.  It is, though, Abel who is the shepherd and guardian of being, the shepherd who protects the depths from the wolves that would devour being.  Cain did not only kill Abel in the past—he does so relentlessly in the present and has been doing so for centuries.

If sin, at the deepest level, means missing the mark of being (“to be or not to be that is the question”, the tragedy of Hamlet and those immersed in the tragedy not knowing how to live from their deeper being), then to turn, to repent, is to turn from shallow notions of the self and identity to greater and often unmined depths. It is, in short, to heed the call of Abel, Rachel, and Mary. 

How is the inner Abel to oppose the aggressive and drivenness of the culture of Cain and the Cain within?

Such is the challenge of the Cain-Abel myth, the Leah-Rachel myth, and the Martha-Mary myth in their varied and various readings and interpretations. Of course, myth is a perennial truth we ignore to our peril wrapped in the garments of a story.

It is significantly counter-cultural in an ethos dominated by Cain (at crude and subtle levels) to heed and hear the still small voice of Abel—It takes much-disciplined courage and attentiveness to speak the life and light-giving word, ABEL COME FORTH—Cain, like Gollum, must be opposed—much hinges on this being done and done wisely and well. 

Amor Vincit Omnia

RSD                     

Goldilocks and the Three Bears: An Allegorical Read – Ron Dart

Goldilocks and the Three Bears: An Allegorical Read – Bradley Jersak

Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a much loved and much read tale that can be read at a simple literal level (or with varied moral reads) but it can also be read at a more complex and layered allegorical  level. First, though, there is a short history of the story to be told. The tale was initially published by Robert Southey (High Tory Anglican Poet Laureate of England from 1813 until his death in 1843) in 1837 as The Three Bears. It was not a young girl who entered the bears home but an old woman. Then, in 1850, Joseph Cundall turned the old woman into a young child called Silver-hair.  And, as the story developed, Goldilocks replaced Silver-hair, hence Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And, now we turn to the read and layered interpretation of the evocative tale.

Goldilocks was a restless child at home, at odds with her parents and eager to see a bigger world. Such is a legitimate and necessary part of the journey—weaning from parents, individuating, tradition of upbringing not speaking to soul or life direction. The journey of Goldilocks is a perennial one.  It is one thing to be “free from” something but another thing to be “free for” the next phase of the pilgrimage through time. We must always be alert that we are not just changing one cage for another—such is at the centre of so much religious and political culture wars, past and present.  

Goldilocks lacked discernment in the “freedom for” and so she unwittingly entered the home of 3 bears, the bears absent and the home inviting—such is often innocent entering the world of competing experiences.  It was just a matter of time before innocence met experience but Goldilocks was unaware of the threats to her existence, bears and humans often at odds, the underlying myth of the story unfolding and to be read as such.  

Goldilocks does, though, enter the home of the bears and she finds 3 bowels of porridge—one too hot, one too cold and one just right. Needless to say, in the path of life there are those who too emotional, too charismatic, too intense, too irrational, Dionysius the god—avoid such! But, there are also those who are too cold, too rational, too aloof, Apollo the god, political ideologies and religions veering in both directions. But, the porridge that is just right blends the best of the thoughtful and the imaginative, emotions and reflection---and yet, and yet--there is more!

Goldilocks then turns to the three chairs---one is too high, another moderate but still not right, the smaller chair just perfect and yet, once sat on, Goldilocks breaks it—the insight not to be missed---be wary of being too sophisticated, too high culturally, too aesthetic but also too middle, too bourgeois, too addicted to the middle way—Nietzsche once said, “Blessed are the balanced for they will be bland—Blessed are the moderate for they will be mediocre”. Aristotle beware!   Goldilocks found the smallest chair to her liking and yet, once sat on, she broke it. A danger on the journey is finding the place we seem at peace in and yet there is more and such means we need either consciously or unconsciously to break it to grow deeper and walk further on the trail of life. Or, as Eliot aptly suggested “Old Men ought to be explorers….”

And finally, it was to the 3 beds—the one too hard, the other too soft and again the bed that was just right. There are those in life that can be too hard, too critical, too convinced of their worldviews and ways, often judgmental of others---and others can be too soft, too uncritical, grounded and rooted in nothing, Dante’s upper level of the Inferno—such are so open they invite and welcome demons unaware. Goldilocks finds the bed that is just right and falls asleep in it—such is yet another danger. We think we have found a thoughtful and meaningful explanation for our journey and we drift off into sleep and cease to ask deeper and further questions about ourselves, friendships, community and the larger political and public world we live in.

It is often the tragedies and suffering of life, painful experiences, like the bears that Goldilocks encounters, that wake us from our slumber and sleep.   It is as we engage the bears (of various shapes and sizes, some smaller and less threatening, others challenging and more difficult and the larger bears that are almost too difficult to face into yet necessary to do so).

Goldilocks does flee from the wake-up experience of being in the bears den, learned much about the deeper and more complex journey and returns to her parents (to a larger Tradition) a sadder but a wiser person—she understands her parents (Tradition) in a more sophisticated and mature manner.  So, what seems to be the sad romp of the innocent girl becomes the process of education and transformation, the metaphors of porridges, chairs and beds each lessons to be internalized, none to be absolutized—la lotta continua!

I suspect Southey might be pleased with such a read, literal and moral level giving way to a deeper ontological one of being becoming being.

amor vincit omnia

Ron Dart       

          

Review of Diane Kalen-Sukra's "Save Your City" by Ron Dart

Diane Kalen-Sukra, Save Your City: How toxic culture kills community & what to do about it (5^th Anniversary Edition: 2024).

Review by Ron Dart

Cultural, religious, educational, and political wars are not new to our all-too-human journey. Sadly, with the rise of instant media, “cancel culture,” “wokeism,” and simplistic ideological posturing, a rather crude notion of polarization has come to define trendy progressivism and reactionary conservatism. In the process, healthy civic virtues and civility in the midst of the fray have been mostly banished.

The evocative and compelling beauty of the 5^th edition of Save Your City is the way Diane Kalen-Sukra, drawing from the best and wisest of political thought and activism, overcomes the toxic culture that kills community and shows us what can be done about it. In short, this bounty of a missive reflects on our contemporary crises and what, practically, can be done to bring health and healing to local communities again. Needless to say, such insights can also be applied to higher levels of cultural and political life.

Save Your City is both a short yet large book, short in length but a library of information packed into it. The missive is divided into three parts with an “Appendix” worth sitting with for many a lingering moment:

Part 1: “Welcome to Bullyville,” rightly so, walks the curious and attentive reader through the “City Gates” and “Surviving Uncivil Society.”

Part 2: “Journey to Sustainable” points the way out of the malaise in a positive direction to “Sanctuary,” “Join the Renaissance,” and “One Ship, One Destiny.”

Part III: Sustainable Culture” ups the challenge to yet higher and more significant levels, “Global Call for Values Education” and “Love is the Greatest Civic Virtue.”

The timely and timeless Appendix holds the reader and offers a mature path to a “Roadmap To Renewing Civic Culture.”

Is Save Your City a naively optimist manifesto, as some hard realists and cynics might argue (the position of such skeptics leading to impotence and paralysis), or does this book provide a pathway and opening forward to engage the tough issues in a demanding yet thoughtful manner? Diane has been in the thick of the fray for many a decade; hence, Save Your City is acutely aware of the low culture that often dominates much public discourse—she is realistic enough to know if such toxicity continues, communities, in time, will be no more.

So, such a book is realism at its most focused and engaged. Save Your City, for those with a background in Classical education, draws from the lessons learned from such a heritage and the lessons learned both for good and ill of the wisest women and men of the past. History, in short, is replete with many tragic and sad tales, for those who ignore both Cassandra and Tiresias, and Diane knows of what she speaks because of where she sees from. We do well to heed her seeing and speaking, vision, and committed activism.

I would not hesitate, for a moment, to warmly and highly encourage one and all to purchase, inwardly digest, and be shaped and massaged in mind and imagination, soul and body by Save Your City—the future of meaningful civic virtues and public civility hinges on understanding what needs to be understood at a deeper level to overcome toxic culture at many insidious and acrid levels.

Ron Dart
Professor Emeritus
Department of Political Science
University of the Fraser Valley
Abbotsford BC                                                       

Ron Dart: The Anamnesis Podcast

The Slaughter of the Innocents: Then and Now – Ron Dart

The Slaughter of the Innocents: Then and Now – Ron Dart

We reflect at this season of the liturgical year on both the birth of Jesus but also the immediate political implications of it: the slaughter of innocent children under two years of age by the Roman military. How many children were killed, and what type of soldier would do such a thing? Obviously, most Roman soldiers would not kill innocent children to appease Herod’s insecure ambitions – mercenaries or killers with no conscience. But, many were the innocent children killed in such a slaughter, and many a family lamenting the carnage.

The slaughter of the innocents has been well depicted and graphically illustrated in the history of art – anyone with a minimal conscience cannot but be appalled by the savagery of it. But, many are the innocents being killed in Gaza and the West Bank these days – much, much more than the Roman killing of innocent Jewish children. Now, it is the Jewish state-military killing multiple Palestinian children – a few facts, and there are many more I could highlight:

There are, at the present time, a combination of 28,000 deaths/missing Palestinian persons.

• 54,000 injured
• 65,000 housing units have been destroyed
• 92 schools and universities destroyed
• 115 mosques completely destroyed.

I could go on, in detail, describing the destruction of hospitals and health units, malnutrition increasing, familial ties shattered, and American military and diplomatic support ever pro-Israeli. The irony is this: the goal is to destroy Hamas, but the very barbaric and savage atrocities by Israel will midwife an even more committed Hamas and Muslim world in its animosity toward the Judeo-Christian West.

We should, rightly so, meditate on the slaughter of the innocents at the birth of Christ. But, we are living through a much greater and more brutal slaughter of the innocents at the present time – such crude and vindictive brutality makes the Roman killing of innocent children pale in comparison – then was tragic, now raises the meaning of barbarism to a new level.

What would a Jewish prophet speak to the Jewish people at such a time as this? Who are the Jewish and Christian prophets speaking such words of moral truth? What are the short and long-term implications of ignoring such words of pure truth, justice, and shalom?

La Lotta Continua
[continuous struggle]

Ron Dart

Ron Dart’s Hermeneutic of Generosity: Audio Interview

Ron Dart taught in the Department of Political Science, Philosophy, and Religious Studies at the University of Fraser Valley (British Columbia) for 33 years. He has published and edited more than forty books, including Scrutinizing Scruton: Canadian High Toryism and Scrutonia; Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson: A Christian Perspective; Christianity and Pluralism (co-authored with J.I Packer); Thomas Merton and the Beats of the North Cascades; and The North American High Tory Tradition. He is also an avid mountaineer.

In this interview, Ron talks about the complex negotiation that needs to take place between truth and unity. This includes the need to question certainty (which requires humility), establishing dialogue (Dart includes a good bit of Martin Buber), and, in general, holding a hermeneutic of generosity. 

To listen to the audio interview from Matthew Steem at Radix Magazine, CLICK HERE. 

 

Torbjorn Ekelund's "The Boy and the Mountain" - Review by Ron Dart

Torbjorn Ekelund, The Boy and the Mountain: A Father, His Son, and a Journey of Discovery (Greystone Books, 2023).

The Boy and the Mountain was originally published in Norwegian in 2017 and translated into English in 2023. Ekelund has, thus far, published two fine books that weave, thoughtfully and delicately together, the layered relationship between humans and nature: In Praise of Paths and A Year in the Woods. There is a meditative approach that shapes and defines Ekelund’s writing style, and such a tendency is front and center in The Boy and the Mountain.

There are a variety of suggestive layers at work in The Boy and the Mountain and the interweaving of such layers makes this missive inviting and evocative. There is the story of a young child (six years of age) who wandered from his mother in a backcountry and mountainous in southern Norway (near Kongsberg) in the Skrim area, lost his way, and was found dead---such was the fate of Hans Torske when he disappeared July 8 1894 and was found July 29 1895. It is this mysterious death of Hans that is constantly, like a stream, running through the mind of Ekeland as he takes to the same area with his son (August) for a father and son trek to, in principle, the summit of Styggemann mountain. But, what is the significance of mother and son taking to the backcountry, father in the city, Hans innocently leaving mother, then disappearing, lost in the woods, disoriented, many in the area searching for him, when found a year later dead? This is certainly a tale of poorly prepared trips and treks into nature, a child acting in a spontaneous and creative manner, nature quite indifferent to such a choice, no sense of how to orient or find his way back to his mother, then being lost and nature taking its inevitable toll—certainly no nature romanticism, those unprepared and unaware often victims of nature’s ways and means. So, the tale of Hans is the warning and backdrop to the hike of father and son.

Jan Zwicky's "Once upon a Time in the West" - Review by Ron Dart

Jan Zwicky, Once upon a Time in the West: Essays on the Politics of Thought and Imagination (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023).

I lived for a couple of years in the young 1970s in northern Norway and Switzerland. I spent time in Norway with the mountain Sami—this was a period when Arne Naess (Norwegian mountaineer, Spinoza scholar and founder of deep ecology with Delores LaChapelle) worked closely with the Sami to oppose the large dam projects. Naess lived in Austria from 1933-1935 and was involved, when there, with the Vienna Circle and Wittgenstein. When I was in Switzerland, I took in the Swiss mountaineering tradition and soaked myself in the writings of Renaissance scholar Jacob Burckhardt (complicated history with Nietzsche), Hesse and Heidegger. I have been fortunate to spent time at Heidegger’s Hut in southern Germany  (Todtnauberg) and Nietzsche’s home in Sils Maria. I mention this the simple reason that each of these thinkers were focused and preoccupied with the dilemma of the West and its seeming deterioration and decline, its lemming-like stampede to a cliff’s edge, its hyper and unanalyzed addiction to the vita activa and its opposition to the vita contemplativa—such are the legitimate and focused concerns of Jan Zwicky’s recent probes and beauty of a book, Once upon a Time in the West, “Once”, “Time” and West” the target, the suggestive and classical fairy tale sequence not to miss.    

Once upon a Time in the West is divided into 14 reflective and meditative chapters, the personal and philosophical woven together on a finely textured tapestry of thought and insight. The initial chapter, “Auden as Philosopher: How Poets Think” is the golden key that walks the attentive reader into this bounty of a book, two ways of seeing and the consequences for the West of taking one path or the other: “Auden’s Poetic Epistemology” versus “The Epistemology of Baconian Science.” Bacon was somewhat more sophisticated than his detractors make him out to be but the ‘novum organum,” when pushed too far, conceals much what Zwicky’s read of Auden-Coleridge unconceals—this is a chapter worthy of multiple slow reads.

Carl Truman: Sic et Non - Ron Dart

Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Crossway, Wheaton: 2020).

Carl R. Trueman, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution (Crossway, Wheaton: 2022).

Sic et Non (Yes and No)

Carl Trueman has emerged, in the last few years, as a rather popular thinker and commentator on our late modern and postmodern versions of the ideology of liberalism. A couple of his early books (The Creedal Imperative & Luther on the Christian Life: Cross and Freedom) kept him safely confined in a more insulated religious ethos, but with the publishing of the more demanding The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (2020) and the more readable version of the larger tome, Strange New World (2022), Trueman has positioned himself well as an interpreter of our contemporary ills and the roots and genealogy of such a cultural disease. How should Trueman’s read of our present malaise be engaged, and how should his read of its origins be accepted or questioned?

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self is divided into 5 Parts: 1) Architecture of the Revolution, 2) Foundations of the Revolution, 3) Sexualization of the Revolution, 4) Triumphs of the Revolution, and 5) Concluding Unscientific Prologue. Rod Dreher wrote the “Foreword,” and each Part has a handy “Epilogue”. There can be no doubt that the notion of the “self” (and its protean-like meanings and interpretations) has been a focus in the West for the past 500 years (not as Trueman seems to think since Rousseau and tribe forward). Trueman does draw from Taylor’s comprehensive Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989) in his approach to the topic, but Trueman lacks the comprehensive breadth and depth of Taylor. There is no doubting the fact, though, that there is, from a certain perspective, a definite and decided inward turn to the subject and inner self within the West as a part of the quest for meaning and the search for a meaningful identity—such is the journey of identity politics. Taylor recognizes in such a turn, there can be an indulgent and narcissistic view of the self, but there are, in such a turn, possibilities for a more authentic self to emerge—how is the difference to be discerned?

Review of Beckett and Ellsberg's "Dearest Sister Wendy" - by Ron Dart

Review of Sister Wendy Beckett and Robert Ellsberg, Dearest Sister Wendy: A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship (Orbis Books, 2022). Review by Ron Dart.

I have, sitting on my desk before me, Sister Wendy Beckett’s classic visual and textual beauty and must-read of a tome, Sister Wendy’s 1000 Masterpieces (1999). Sister Wendy certainly established herself as one of the most significant art historians (both on BBC and in publishing) in the latter half of the 20^th century and into the early years of the 21^st century. Robert Ellsberg and Orbis Books have established a unique and needful place in the publishing world in the genre of prophetic theology. It is rare that a much-respected nun and art historian and writer engaged in the rigorous field of public theology would dialogue in a meaningful and intimate correspondence, but such is the evocative and compelling mother lode of Dearest Sister Wendy. 

Sister Wendy Beckett was in the late autumn season of her all too earthy journey when the intensive and extensive correspondence began with Robert Ellsberg, the most compact phase from 2016-2018, Sister Wendy crossed the river on December 26, 2018. There is a tender and sensitive combination of letters between Robert Ellsberg and Sister Wendy that, insightfully so, is divided into three historic sections: “The Art of Seeing,” “The Art of Loving” and “The Art of Letting Go”.

The general momentum of the letters has a certain direction, Sister Wendy encourages (she being a contemplative) Robert to slow down and ease up on all his frantic busyness, Robert kindly encourages Sister Wendy to be more honest, transparent, and confessional about herself and her life journey.

Myth & Meaning - Ron Dart

"Rime of the Ancyent Marinere" (Part 1-7) - Ron Dart

 

Bradley Jersak's "Out of the Embers" - Review by Ron Dart

Bradley Jersak, Out of the Embers: Faith After The Great Deconstruction (Whitaker House, 2022)                       

Out of the Embers, like the perennial wise and far-seeing Phoenix, knows the meaning of going to places of death and disappointment, suffering and sadness, and yet, from such places, the resurrection and tears of the Phoenix, brings healing to all whose tears touch the skin of their souls. In short, from the embers and ashes of the great deconstruction, a wise, mature and resurrected life is born and offers tears and discerning insights to others.

Out of the Embers is divided into 3 sections, each section an invitation to journey into the next, deconstruction birthing reconstruction and renovation in the larger culture wars: Part I: Memoirs: Trauma, Purgation, and Liberation, Part II: Memos: Seven Sleepers of Deconstruction and Part III: Provocations: Out of the Embers –Faith after Freefall. 

Part I, as the title suggests, has a personal and confessional bent to it, Brad relating and telling his journey, his journey having much overlap with many who were birthed in varied forms of a conservative evangelical ethos but finding such a family soul suffocating and tomb-like. Needless to say, Brad’s journey does mirror and reflect the initial faith journey of many but such a beginning does need to be grown beyond if minimal depth and thoughtfulness are to be part of the next steps of the pilgrimage through time—in short, such beginnings do need to be critically deconstructed. But, who might be heard, trusted, and consulted in such a needful deconstruction?

Part II, in a creative and engaged manner, draws from an ancient myth of the seven sleepers, such sleepers awakening to bring light and life to dark and troubling times. Brad has called forth seven significant philosophers of the past to aid in the deconstruction process: Moses (and his apophatic line and linage as a means of deconstructing ways of thinking and being that are too certain types of interpretive idolatry), Plato, Voltaire, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Weil-Camus. There are two sections dedicated to Nietzsche and three sections heeding the challenging insights of Dostoevsky. Each of these thinkers-activists are rigorous and no-nonsense master of deconstruction: they have little time or patience for religious silliness or thinness. I was fortunate, when doing my Ph.D., to do translations of Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra and trekked many of the trails Nietzsche did from his home in Sils Maria in the Engadine Valley in Switzerland (there is a scholars in residence program at Nietzsche’s home in Sils). I have also, at the University I have taught for almost 35 years, hosted day-long symposiums on Russian writers, including Dostoevsky—Brad has chosen wisely and well from his seven sleepers. Part II is the longest section of the book and is worthy of many a meditative read—deconstruction and reconstruction ever the challenging and lived tension.

Part III reflects on various and needful approaches of provocation, the emergence, phoenix-like, out of the embers, faith after a painful and for many years erratic and confusing freefalls. Each of the sections in provocations is worth lingering at as pointers to the deeper, fuller and resurrected journey---such is “revenants”. The future way forward is more than hinted at in this final section of Out of the Embers—do read and inwardly digest.

Each of us, probably, has 5-10 books on our shelf as keepers if told we could only take so many to a deserted Island. The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse is in my top 5. The Glass Bead Game is about a community of intellectuals (Castalians) who live in the midst of cultural chaos and fragmentation, shallow journalism, war, multiple amusements and diversions and such Castalians attempt to raise the level of cultural and civilizational thought to a higher and fuller level. The low culture, pop culture, deconstructionist and mediocre culture of the time had led to nihilism, cynicism and tribalism. The battle of ideas and identity waged vigorously at many levels. The head of the order, Magister Ludi, understood the need for grappling with ideas at the highest level, but he realized that those who separated the struggle for the best that had been thought and said from engagement with the public and political realm were themselves in an enclosed matrix of sorts. I have taught in the area of political philosophy most of my teaching vocation and I have often been somewhat concerned about how the glass bead game of ideas, theology, exegesis, liturgy etc is often disengaged from political thought, substantive political theology, political parties, political activism and policy. When this occurs, a subtler form of gnosticism emerges, ideas versus history, theology-philosophy versus politics etc. In short, in this superb book by Brad, I would have liked to see some serious thinking on how “faith after the great deconstruction” faces into the head winds of political philosophy, political theology, political parties, activism and party policies—cynicism and skepticism in these areas is short-sighted and counterproductive. Some of the seven sleepers Brad draws from certainly did rigorous political probes—more attention to these probes might have enriched the book yet further.

In sum, Out of the Embers is a beauty and bounty of tome—more pondering on how the glass bead game of ideas connects with the challenges of public and political life would yet have made for a fuller way of embodying a form of political faith after the serious limitations of the great deconstruction.

Amor Vincit Omnia

Ron Dart          

Bill Morgan's "Thomas Merton & Lawrence Ferlinghetti: and the Protection of All Beings - Review by Ron Dart

Bill Morgan, Thomas Merton & Lawrence Ferlinghetti: and the Protection of All Beings (Beatdom Books, 2022)

As to the U.S. Beats I am more in sympathy with them
but in most cases I do not respond to them fully.

Thomas Merton letter to Stefan Baciu (1965): p.77

I have sitting before me a splendid hard copy edition of Bill Morgan’s The Typewriter is Holy: The Complete Uncensored History of the Beat Generation (2010). I have read the evocative beauty a few times and there can be no doubt Morgan has covered, in readable detail, the varied lives of the Beats in an honest and transparent way. Most of the significant Beats such as Kerouac, Cassady, Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs, Snyder and Ferlinghetti are covered in a candid way (their opponents are also noted). There can be no doubt Morgan is one of the finest chroniclers of the Beats (as a complex tribe) and individual Beat activists and poets in a thoughtful way and manner. There is, though, more digging that needs to be done on the Beats and the Roman Catholic Beat tradition—such is the initial approach in Thomas Merton & Lawrence Ferlinghetti: And the Protection of All Beings.

I have, in a suggestive way, attempted to reflect on the Beat-Roman Catholic Beats in two books: Thomas Merton and Beats of the North Cascades (2005 & 2008) and Thomas Merton and the Counter Culture: A Golden String (2016). I have also touched on the Beats in the North Cascades (a mountainous area where I live) in “The Beat Generation in the Mountains” Appalachia (Winter/Spring 2012).  But it is Morgan’s fine primer on Merton and Ferlinghetti that needs to be heeded and read attentively.

The subtitle of the missive sums up the main focus of the book. Merton was emerging as a political writer in the late 1950s-early 1960s (most unusual for a Roman Catholic monk mostly known for his writings on the contemplative life). Ferlinghetti was committed to calling forth poets to think and write in a more political (albeit anarchist) manner. The idea was to birth, in 1961, a magazine, The Journal For The Protection Of All Beings. Ferlinghetti sent out many an invitation for contributors but few were those willing to submit an article, poem or other means of facing the dire political issues of the time. Merton and Ferlinghetti both shared a Roman Catholic background, both had political leanings, both were poets and both shared a French European cultural ethos. Morgan covers these similarities in a nuanced way. Merton had written Original Child Bomb: Points For Meditation To Be Scratched On The Walls Of A Cave (a chilling 41-point description of the research, planning and final dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).  Ferlinghetti thought this anti-poem of sorts would fit perfectly into the Journal. The concern was would the Roman Catholic censors allow such a poem to be published by a monk? A significant part of this timely missive by Morgan covers the correspondence in the late Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter of 1961 regarding Merton’s contribution to the Journal. There was, though, another poem-anti-poem by Merton that held Ferlinghetti: Chant to Be Used in Processions Around A Site With Furnaces (the theme, of course, the docile attitude of those who mindlessly obeyed orders, Arendt calling this the “banality of evil”—Merton I might add had a significant respect for Arendt). Morgan included both of these creative anti-poems in the book and the confusion about their publishing.

Needless to say, there was more than Ferlinghetti and City Lights interested in Merton’s poems: James Laughlin-New Directions (Merton had published some of his earliest poems with New Directions in the 1940s), Robert Lax- Pax and Dorothy Day-The Catholic Worker were all vying to publish Merton’s prophetic and compact political commentary-Morgan does a superb job of highlighting this reality. The flurry of letters between Merton and Ferlinghetti is well-tracked and traced by Morgan revealing much about both men and the state of publishing at the time.

The inclusion in the book of Ferlinghetti’s “Picturesque Haiti” reflects the obvious gap between the Haiti of the tourist industry and the actual and lived reality of many Haitians in which poverty is their painful lives lived, image and reality not to be confused. Merton approved the lengthy reflection. Merton did face the ire of his censors, but true to form, Ferlinghetti and Laughlin were sensitive to the problem and Laughlin went the extra mile to publish Merton’s yet more political writings, the “Cold War Letters”. Merton’s long letter to Ferlinghetti (December 12, 1961) tells the complex tale (and much else) in substantive depth—this is a letter worth mulling over many times—so much said about many pertinent and timely issues, including Merton’s high praise for the comments by Nez Perce on Chief Joseph’s surrender position, “I will fight no more forever”. Merton did wax hot and cold about some of the contributions to the Journal, though.              

Morgan touched on the use Lenny Bruce made of “Chant”, the language of Chant, of course, a perversion of its deeper religious meaning, Merton in the anti-poem making it abundantly clear, that a form of crude statism had become the new religion, a religion Ginsberg aptly portrayed in Howl. The more intense correspondence period between Merton and Ferlinghetti came to an end by late 1961 but this did not mean an end of their friendship (nor Merton’s interaction with the Beats).

The publication of Merton’s Monks Pond in 1968 included contributions by Snyder and Kerouac (Ferlinghetti welcomed to offer a submission) and it was in 1968 Merton reconnected with Ferlinghetti again. Merton was in search of a hermitage far from Gethsemani, his new Abbot approved of such a search so Merton took to Redwoods, New Mexico and Alaska on such a pilgrimage. Merton and Ferlinghetti met for the 1^st time in May 1968 and Ferlinghetti offered Merton a room for the night above City Lights. A correspondence emerged again between Merton and Ferlinghetti after their meeting in San Francisco (May 29 1968 and June 5, 1968), Morgan, rightly so, threading together these shorter letters.

There was an ongoing interest at the time in Evans-Wentz’s Tibetan Book of the Dead and when Merton travelled to Asia, he met the young Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the Dalai Lama (who were at odds with one another)—Merton enthused about both, Rinpoche became a guru of sorts to the Beats, Naropa Institute his educational centre (much controversy in the early years) whereas the Dalai Lama was far from such tensions and clashes. But, to return to Ferlinghetti and Merton.

Morgan brings this timely and well-wrought book to an end by highlighting, in a poem, “A Buddha in the Woodpile” his lament about the tragedy in Waco Texas with the Branch Davidians and pondering if the presence of Merton (or other contemplatives) would have prevented such carnage. And, in 2001, Ferlinghetti in a poem, “Mouth” wonders whether he will yet “join the Trappists”.

Morgan began the book by recounting visits with Ferlinghetti, when both were much younger, and Ferlinghetti’s fond remembrance of Merton and as Ferlinghetti near the end of his all too human journey his support of Morgan’s book on Merton and Ferlinghetti—fine bookends, indeed.

I cannot finish this review without noting both the fine cover and the many black and white photographs in the book, many taken by Merton.

The photographs that introduce us to the book are ones of a young Ferlinghetti with “Prayer Room” in a half shadow behind him and Merton in his Cistercian robe with forest and trees in the background. There are other photos of James Laughlin, cover to Original Child Bomb, typed and written letters, cover to Journal for the Protection of All Beings and photo of Rinpoche and Merton-Dalai Lama.

It is an obvious good to see Bill Morgan extending his work on the Beats in the direction of the Roman Catholic Beats, Merton being but one of them, Kerouac and Ferlinghetti obvious affinities although Ferlinghetti more solid and grounded than Kerouac, Kerouac’s slow descent sad and tragic. Hopefully, in time, much more work will be done on the Christian and Roman Catholic Beats (and those with Beat affinities) and the internal points of concord and discord, Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker, Dan/Phil Berrigan, William Everson-Mary Fabilli, Denise Levertov, Mary Norbert Korte and Jim Forest but doorways into such an expansive and catholic vision.

Thomas Merton & Lawrence Ferlinghetti: and the Protection ff All Beings is worthy of many a curious and ample read and Morgan should be generously rewarded for his fine sleuth work.

Ron Dart           

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"Out of the Embers: Faith after the Great Deconstruction" - Ron Dart interview with Bradley Jersak

Ernest Hemmingway: Ski Nomad - Ron Dart

There were no ski lifts from Schruns and no funiculars. You climbed on foot carrying your skis and higher up, where the snow was too deep, you climbed on seal skins that you attached to the bottoms of the skis . At the tops of the mountain valleys there were the big Alpine huts….The most famous of these high base huts were the Lindauer-Hutte, the Madlener-Haus  and the Wiesbadener-Hutte.          

—A Moveable Feast

 

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) lived a life of diverse adventures, but when young, many were the ski trips he did with his 1^st wife, Hadley Richardson. Hemingway had a tangential engagement in WWI (served as an ambulance driver and infantryman with the Italian army), but given the fact WWI ended in 1918, Hemingway’s involvement was short-lived, he being only 19 years of age at the time. It was, though, from 1921-1926 that Hemingway and his wife Hadley Richardson (and their son Bumby) lived in Paris, and, when Paris winters were wet and cold, they took to Schruns in Austria to ski. Hemingway and Hadley, when in Parish, hob knobbed with the literary high mucky-mucks such as Stein, Pound, Fitzgerald, Ford, and others, but it was to the winter beauty of the Austrian Alps that they often turned to for oxygen of the soul and literary inspiration (The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway’s breakthrough novel done in drafts when in Schruns). Hemingway, in the final chapter of A Moveable Feast, writes, “We loved the Vorarlberg, and we loved Schruns. We would go there about Thanksgiving time and stay until nearly Easter.”

Ernest and Hadley had begun their skiing days together in Switzerland and Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites when Bumby was near birth. But, it was to the spacious Montafon Valley in Austria where Ernest and Hadley turned to ski when Paris was not pleasant to live, Schruns and Tchagguns their favourite ski treks. Ernest was in his mid-20s, Hadley in her early 30s in the peak of their ski years, the Hotel Taube in Schruns their winter home. Hadley and Ernest were fortunate, in the early 1920s, that Walter Lent had started a ski school in the area, Lent a disciple and friend of the ski pioneer Hannes Schneider (1890-1955). Lent took them to the high glaciers and superb ski runs, no lifts in those days, treks to the high alpine huts their scenic delights, Madlener-Haus a favourite ski trip. Many of the Austrian huts mentioned by Hemingway are beauties worth the visit as hikes in the summer or ski trips in the white-clothed winter. Hemingway mentioned the dangers of avalanches, his courses in avalanches with Lent and the death of 13 buried (9 killed) in an avalanche when Lent did not heed his own sense of mountain safety and was called a coward for not taking guests from Germany to places he should not have taken them—sadly so, Lent lived to regret his intimidation. Lent’s ski school took a dive afterwards and, in many ways, Ernest and Hadley became his only students. Hemingway makes a gentle dig against the Roman Catholic Church by mentioning a man killed in the avalanche “was refused burial in the consecrated ground by the local priest, since there was no proof he was a Catholic”.

Alan Dennis' "Snow Nomad: An Avalanche Memoir" - Review by Ron Dart

Alan Dennis, Snow Nomad:  An Avalanche Memoir
Friesen Press, 2022

Review by Ron Dart

I have had an ongoing interest, the last few decades, in the life and philosophic vision of Dolores LaChapelle. LaChapelle’s early pioneering work with Arne Naess in deep ecology and her deep powder skiing insights were partially birthed when working with her avalanche legend husband, Ed LaChapelle—such a nomad life of sorts both lived in the snowfields of time and avalanche research set them apart as much respected avalanche mentors for many. Ed LaChapelle is mentioned, with due reverence, a few times, in Alan Dennis’ compelling read of an autobiography of sorts, Snow Nomad: An Avalanche Memoir.

Snow Nomad is a fast-paced, quick read of Dennis’ early novice journey into the demanding world of more mature avalanche work, courses few, hard lessons learned on the job as he gradually rose the ranks to become an avalanche expert in BC and other parts of the world. Many of the photographs, sketches, and text tell an honest and raw tale from the perspective of an insider on the layered and complex world of those who live within the avalanche tribe and, as with most families the internal tensions, clashes, and betrayals. This is no romanticized view of mountaineering, skiing, and avalanche life in Canada or in the various places outside of Canada in which Dennis has lived his avalanche vocation.   

Alan’s initial journey into the ethos of mountaineering was shaped and informed by his experiences with Outward Bound (when it was in Keremeos) in the early 1970s (I have many found memories of being with Outward Bound in the mid-1970s). Such a key in the ignition with Outward Bound was to take Alan into the larger and fuller world of mountain culture and avalanche safety. His time spent in the Yukon, then to the more demanding challenges of Granduc Mine Road and Bear Pass moved Alan’s avalanche apprenticeship to a higher level. But, it was in New Zealand at Milford Road in the early 1980s (avalanche conditions even more perilous and precarious) that the skills learned, intuition elevated and local insights heeded, that more was internalized about the science-art tension of avalanche safety heightened.

The journey back to Canada and Alan’s leadership role from Revelstoke with the Canadian Avalanche Association/Canadian Avalanche Centre from 1991-1998 is worth many a read (chapter 19)--no punches are pulled, his time a difficult one, the inner dynamics of leadership contested, Alan departing in a trying manner, bureaucrats and consultants often hair shirts of sorts ((chapter 20)---such is often the dilemma when different temperaments and reads of how avalanche safety is to be interpreted collide. A significant number of people in Canada and elsewhere are named in positive and negative ways by Alan as he makes sense of his journey with them in the avalanche clan.

The description of Alan’s time with the Scottish Avalanche Information Service (SAIS) from 1999-2004 and 2008-2011 makes for a mesmerizing read (chapter 24). The time spent in Meager Creek, Adanac Moly, and Coeur Alaska from 2004-2007 reveals yet more about the far-flung avalanche family, his time in Veladero (chapter 30) on the border of Chile and Argentina (camping at 3800 metres, high point on the road 4800 metres) a read that remains with the reader as a nail biter of sorts.

There is much in Snow Nomad that is worth sitting with and reflecting on---few have the sheer breadth and wide-ranging experiences in avalanche work both for the purpose of safe skiing, ski touring, and high mountain passes avalanche safety as does Alan. The accumulated wisdom of such diverse experiences and lessons learned about avalanches both near and far makes this evocative book a definitive primer and must-read for those (regardless of the mountain terrain they live, move and have their being in) who ever need to be aware of the ambiguities of avalanche dangers.

The cover of Snow Nomad with two skiers on a high mountain ridge gazing down on layered snow dunes makes it seem that the book might be about skiing and avalanche safety--not so. The broad approach taken in Snow Nomad covers a wide variety of places and methods used in different weather conditions to, as much as possible, anticipate the deadly nature of avalanches and avoid their tragic consequences.

The style of writing in this charmer of a book is lucidly autobiographical, honest and raw regarding people, organizations and tensions in the leadership of avalanche safety but a sane and sensible breadth permeates each chapter, each step of the journey of mistakes learned from, lessons internalized and insights gained, no silver bullet or snake oil a conclusive answer on how to absolutely avoid avalanches. But, no doubt, this is a beauty and bounty of a book that one and all should own, read and inwardly digest if interested in mountain life and the challenges avalanches present to those who spend time in such places. There can be no doubt, though, that the rich and varied life of Alan Dennis has taken him to places and upped the level of avalanche work and awareness far beyond that of the pioneering life and research of Ed LaChapelle and, to a lesser degree, Dolores LaChapelle.

montani semper liberi

Ron Dart                                                     

Mary and John: Troubled Families - Ron Dart

House of the Virgin Mary

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home (John 19: 26-27).  

There is a worrisome tendency, amongst some, to project an idealized and romanticized version of the family. Was this the experience of Mary and John? Let us, all too briefly, enter the family realities of both Mary and John, the Biblical text is often lean but suggestive—much, though, can be read between the historical lines.

We know Mary would have been on a difficult journey in which she was frequently misread and misunderstood. The pregnancy would have raised multiple eyebrows, and if not for Joseph’s dream, the pregnancy would have been yet more trying for her. The fact that Roman taxation upped the taxes, meant Joseph and Mary had to leave Nazareth for Bethlehem near delivery time must have been painful—no supportive parents close by when the birth occurred. Was there extended family in Bethlehem after the birth? Where was God in all this? Seemingly absent from a certain perspective! Then there was Herod’s death squads (worst of the Roman military), the slaughter of the innocents, and flight to Egypt—not quite the sanitized and domesticated Christmas we celebrate, religious festivals aplenty, songs and carols, door-to-door caroling, presents opened on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The 1^st Christmas was fraught with uncertainty, ambiguity, and threats from various places and angles—certainly no secure, warm, and predictable few months.

Did Mary and Joseph have extended family in Egypt? And did Mary have other children when in Egypt (church tradition differs on more children or none)? The text is silent on such a question. And, when did Joseph die? How many children did Joseph-Mary have before his death? How did Mary raise the children (if there were more), and more to the pertinent point, how many of her children truly and deeply understood Mary’s internal life and Jesus’ vocation? Much she must have kept quiet within her heart, her honesty often ignored or opposed, questioned, and doubted. What were the years like with Jesus and Mary as he aged and his vision and vocation became more obvious and clearer? And, most of his siblings probably thought his unfolding journey most questionable and dangerous (given Roman occupation and Sanhedrin ideology).

We know James and John were called “sons of thunder”, their lives were, initially, oriented to making a living with nets, water, and fish. How did their families respond when they left their jobs for a vocation? It seems there were, as we read between the lines, tensions with their decisions, mother, father, and siblings thinking such a decision naïve and foolhardy, both men expected to remain near kith and kin to provide for growing families. And, being “sons of thunder” (when young and such a tendency never fully disappearing), what were discussions like when points of differences emerged about Jesus, job, and vocation? Did John, in time, feel less and less comfortable with his blood family? And Mary, much the same?

We know that as the disciples dispersed, John moved to Ephesus, and the Johannine community took root and flourished there, Ephesus being a strategic Greek port city and hub of trading in the Mediterranean.  But, for a moment, let us linger with Jesus’ final few words to Mary and John and, perhaps, the reasons for them. John records Jesus’ final words to Mary and himself in John 19:26-27 when Jesus was hanging on the cross. Why did Jesus not ask his siblings (other friends or extended family) to care for Mary? What was it about John’s potentially difficult family (parents and siblings) that Jesus suggested to John Mary was to be his mother? Both Mary and John’s larger blood family, it seems, were not the most sensitive and aware of their deeper vocations and supportive of them. Was there simply indifference, opposition, betrayal? We can only guess and speculate, but we do know as Jesus was hanging on the cross, he understood the sadder story of familial disappointments and lack of siblings' support and understanding. There is much to reflect on in Jesus’ words to John (Mary is to be his mother) and Mary (John is her true son). There is an obvious backstory to such a compassionate concern for both Mary and John. What was the nature of the many discussions Mary and John had with Jesus about their families that led to Jesus’ final acts of concern for them, knowing he would soon depart and life would go on? How would the life of Mary and John go on? 

As mentioned above, John and Mary moved to Ephesus, a layered and complex Christian community in existence there (the writer of Revelation 2:1-7 having much to say about the church in Ephesus), John the Abba and Bishop of sorts, Mary his true mother in faith, John her true son on the faith journey. We know, in Ephesus, there remains, as a tourist destination for Christians and Muslims, “The House of Mary” or “Our Lady of Ephesus,” a sacred shrine, certainly worth a visit or a watch on YouTube.  What was it like for Mary for John (the beloved) to be her protective and pastoral son? What was it like for John for Mary to be his soul mother? They shared so much history together, such tales to tell about Jesus and the growth of the young church. Needless to say, such a relationship certainly transcended the more natural families of birth. It would be interesting to reflect (evidence slim yet significant) on how John-Mary’s leadership of the church in Ephesus altered direction and pathways after their deaths that gave rise to the warnings of Revelation 2:1-7. 

It is significant that in the Greek language and Christian tradition, there are two notions of family. There is the Greek term, oikos, which means one's family of birth or extended families. There is no guarantee such families will be ones of concord, unity, support, and understanding---this was, probably, not the experience of Mary and John. There is also the Greek term, paraoikos, from which we get the notion of the faith family, a version of the family that transcends the natural family—such is the supernatural and eternal family, those whose souls are knit together for a higher and fuller end and journey. We derive our English word, parish (meaning broader area and people who faithfully live within such an area) from such a Greek and Latin word. Mary and John certainly understood the notion of paraoikos on all three levels: supportive soul companion, a faith community in Ephesus and the broader area of which Ephesus formed the geographical and cultural context. But, we also know that the high ideals of the paraoikos can deteriorate and be dimmed, as the vision and warning to the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 embody. Whose version of the divine family can be trusted? Obviously, a combination of loyalty and criticism must be lived in ongoing tension, some being loyal but not critical, others only loyal to criticism (and its impotent tendencies)    

In sum, Mary and John offer a distinctly Christian notion of family that is not necessarily at one with the natural family—such a vision goes much deeper, is more comprehensive but knows the soul suffering of being misunderstood and often betrayed by the natural family—Mary and John have much to teach us if we take the time to sit with them and hear their deeper version and vision of the family that ever grows closer and closer, deeper and deeper, ever maturing like fine wine.

Amor Vincit Omnia

Ron Dart

Noetic Knowing, Mystical Union & Common Grace - Ron Dart