Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Jordan Peterson Phase 3: The Books about Him - Paul VanderKlay & Ron Dart

Knecht and Dienst: A Probe - by Ron Dart

Knecht and Dienst: A Probe                         

Hermann Hesse, in the “Foreword” to the 1946 edition of If the War Goes On….mentions that “three strong influences, at work, throughout my life, have made me what I am”. He then lightly lands on such influences: his Swabian German pietistic upbringing, Chinese thinkers, and Jakob Burkhardt.  What might bind together such influences that made Hesse “what I am?” Perhaps, such a hint and pointer might be found in Book I of The Journey to the East.

The narrator in The Journey to the East has been part of a significant group called “The League”. The League is a conscious group of spiritual thinkers that have drawn together the best that has been thought, said and done in the history of the human journey into a grand synthesis of insight and wisdom. Each and all in the League are committed to, in a personal and communal way, understanding and living forth the wisdom and meaning of such insights. What, though, might be the core and centre of such an abiding vision?

The narrator in Book I encounters Leo who seems, at first glance, to be the servant and Sherpa of the league. Leo packs up the bags for the pilgrims, brings their food, does their dishes, carries the bulk of their belongings (and much else) that eases the material needs of those on the quest. Leo, for all intents and purposes, seems to be the hired hand for those with deeper, grander and greater spiritual commitments and longings. And yet? And yet? There is a telling conversation between Leo and the narrator that is a portal into Hesse core vision. Leo suggests that there is a law or structure at the heart of things that we ignore to our peril and those on the quest for meaning and life must learn it. What is such a law?

         “The Law?” I asked curiously. “What law is that, Leo?”

         “The Law of service. He who wishes to live long must serve, but

         He who wishes to rule does not live long”

There is much compressed into this compact and not to be forgotten insight of Leo, and such an insight can be found in much of Hesse’s writings as a counterpoint to other options.

Most of Hesse’s more mature short stories and novels probe, ever further and deeper, the diverse nature of the human soul, paths to take as a means of fulfillment, meaning and purpose and consequences of such choices. Some of the darker and more ominous novels such as Demian and Steppenwolf are more about indulging various appetites and desires, speculations and possibilities of life, much being liquid and fluid, willing wishes and living from such willed wishes. There is a sense in which Demian and Steppenwolf are must-reads for the simple reason

that inner and willed exploration (and the individual freedom to indulge such a journey) is at the heart and core of the authentic life. But, is this Hesse’s final word or merely a phase that, by day’s end, is a cliff’s edge and cul-de-sac? And, what might Hesse-Leo mean by the law of service?

Hesse had a tender and probing mind and heart and his notion of the law of service had both a core and radiated ever outwards. First, the inner law of service had much to do with serving, being attentive to,

heeding the deeper inner life and being part of birthing the real self rather than pandering to the inflated wants of the imposter ego (and its multiple addictions and erratic choices). It was in this attentive listening and responding to the inner depths (and living from such a place) that the ego could be seen for what it was and a more meaningful life might be lived. This is why, although Hesse explored a variety of identity options, he realized many were rabbit trails. Second, if the law of service was, initially, meant to be one in which the self was properly birthed, matured and grew, so service was meant to be front and centre in the communal human journey also. If, in short, the spiritual and religious quest bypassed service, the quest was an opiate of sorts.

We can see, in Hesse’s novels, short stories and much else, those who seem to be overcoming the bourgeois and philistine way of life, in fact, are only reacting to it and, in reality, gorging the ego. So, what seems to be an overcoming is, in fact, a being caged by the ego. All this is so subtle and yet so real, the overcoming not a deeper overcoming. The real overcoming is when the self-overcomes the demands of the ego and this is best illuminated by the discipline of service and care for the self and others (at a variety of levels). We can see this worked out in most of Hesse’s novels: Peter’s turn to St. Francis, Siddhartha, Narcissus, Leo and Joseph Knecht but echoing the same motif. It is significant to note that, in Greek myth, narcissus (from which we get the narcissistic personality) is seen as a place not to go. The longing of Narcissus, of course, is the desire to know true identity—needless to say, the shallow surface of the water is not the place to look—only a surface reflection is returned as the answer. But, Hesse realized that the longing of Narcissus is legitimate, but the places gone to are the problem. Hence in his superb novel, Narcissus and Goldmund, Hesse highlights the nature of proper and genuine self-love and other love (community being the context within which such a reality is lived forth). The more Hesse’s pondering and reflections matured, the more he moved from the lone individual searching for a meaningful identity (in all sorts of convoluted and complex ways) to the role of persons in community and how community and personhood are, when properly understood, a hand and glove fit.

Narcissus and Goldmund, The Journey to the East and The Glass Bead Game embody and reflect Hesse’s notion of service within the context of community. Joseph Knecht, magister of the glass bead game, means the one who serves, knecht, in German meaning servant—the word also overlaps with the English word for knight (again, one who serves).

Leo is the servant of all servants yet he is the leader of the League. There are two words in German that embody layered ways of understanding the meaning of servanthood (Knecht and Dienst)and throughout most of Hesse’s novels, he is ever massaging the meaning of the words at a personal and political level. It is somewhat significant that in the passage quoted above in which Leo ponders the meaning of service, he uses the German word Dienst. Dienst, unlike Knecht, has decided political overtones and implications---such acts of serving the other can, of course, take place at the familial, friendship and social levels, but to serve, in a meaningful way and responsible way, at the larger public and political levels was also something Hesse and Leo were acutely aware of and the need for it. The obvious use by Hesse of the two German words of Knecht and Dienst walks the attentive reader into Hesse’s fuller vision of the meaning of faithful service at many-layered levels and such words incarnate and embody Hesse’s more mature notion of the true overcomer when compared to the more inadequate notion of the overcomer described in Klingsor’s Last Summer, Demian or Steppenwolf.    

In sum, therefore, the golden key that will open the door into Hesse’s novels and life is the key to the law of service and Hesse, again and again, returns to this core theme in his writings and life. If, therefore, we are to understand Hesse, we must return to such a persistent theme and be attentive to how Hesse understands it. I might add, then, by way of conclusion, that what Hesse’s German Swabian pietistic upbringing, his interest in Chinese thinkers and Burckhardt shared in common was an understanding of service as the portal into life and life abundant.                                  

Knulp and Wandering: The Plight of the Bohemian Way - by Ron Dart

Knulp and Wandering: The Plight of the Bohemian Way                                   

Hesse had established himself, as a compelling and attractive writer, before WWI. The publication of such Hesse classics and primers as Peter Camenzind, Under the Wheel, Gertrude, From India, The Prodigy andRosshalde placed Hesse at the forefront of a thoughtful and emerging German and European romantic tradition and ethos. But, dark clouds were emerging at a variety of levels in Hesse’s life: tensions at home with wife and family and WWI were demanding their exacting due. Hesse saw all too keenly, given his sensitive temperament, the imposing challenges before him. It is understandable, from a certain perspective, why the need for a certain escape from such growing responsibilities can and might occur. When life becomes too overwhelming, there is a tendency to go to places in which the sky is clear blue, there are no dark clouds and much is calm and peaceful--such is, in some ways, the naively sweet yet worth the reads of Knulp and Wandering.

Ralph Freedman suggests that Hesse in Knulp “developed the figure of the perennial wanderer--literally the sensitive hobo-who could stand out as the vagabond par excellence (p. 140). Knulp does, in many ways, anticipate some of the American Beat writers that emerged after WWII, Kerouac’s On the Road, for example,a decades later version although perhaps not as tender and elusive as Knulp. There is a definite sense in which Hesse in Knulp is pondering both the appeal yet end destination of those who are ever on the road, uprooted, unrooted and committed to nothing other than the next step of being on the trail of life. The 3-part life story and biography of sorts of Knulp tracks and traces his life from that of a seemingly gifted person, his departure from what he might have been if he had continued his schooling, painful and disappointing life experiences, his longing for a home and settling but never making the decision to do so. Knulpwas published in 1915 and is divided into three sections or tales: 1) Early Spring, 2) My Recollections of Knulp and 3) The End. Needless to say, the young Knulp of the early spring phase has a winsome, winning and delightful charm to him. He has turned aside from the expected demands in his life and has chosen to live as he wishes and wants—there is a spring-like budding and blossoming in this tale but also consequences of making such decisions and living them. The young Knulp certain appeals to the childlike within and what Blake might call the “songs of innocent”. The next section of the short story walks the interested reader into, increasingly so, the “songs of experience”, life demanding its inevitable due and exacting wage. “My Recollections of Knulp” walk the reader to Knulp in midlife stride, Knulp now living into the troubling reality of his earlier decisions made. The midlife phase tends to be more layered and complex, the fresh and bountiful scenery, fruit and air of “Early Spring” now fading in Knulp’s summer and emerging autumn years. “The End” brings Knulp’s final years to a conclusion, alone and deserted, assistance from an old doctor friend initially received, Knulp takes to the road again and dies penniless, snow frozen and starving, the temptation of the early spring season, once absolutized and made a vocation, ending in a tragic and painful way. Who has not seen Knulp’s in their lives? Hesse certainly understood the temptation and Hesse poignantly described, in Knulp, the end of such decisions and journey of those who make a vocation of ever wandering and a commitment to nothing but wandering.

There is a sense in which Wandering is a companion missive to Knulp although the end is not so sad and sobering. Wandering, unlike Knulp, is a series of short reflections and sketches of a wanderer of sorts who makes a walking pilgrimage from Switzerland, over an alpine pass, and into Italy, WWI now over. Each short reflection and poem ponders significant life issues and does so in a tender and probing way and manner. The short book begins with the wanderer leaving what he has known and been and heading alone southward to the lure of Italy (a common European and German literary destination). The wanderer is ever the outsider, watching, observing yet ever moving on. The final chapter, “Evenings”, like Knulp, portrays the wanderer, like a spectator in a play, watching the drama of life but refusing to be committed to acting on the stage. The wanderer, therefore, is torn between longing for some sort of meaningful life and a commitment to place and people and yet refusing to make the decision that will ground him. The wanderer, ever the reflective and uncommitted skeptic, impotent and ever in the maze of his insights yet paralyzed by them. Wandering was published in 1920, Hesse feeling the brunt of many a German nationalist having turned on him, the literary elite suspicious of him, his marriage ailing, his children with friends and relatives, his life, in many ways, in a turbulent and painful place. The wanderer, like Knulp, remains the lone romantic individual, unheard and misunderstood by the bourgeois, philistine and thoughtless classes of the time. The question for Hesse of which Knulp and Wanderer were provisional answers was this: how is the sensitive artist and political oppositional thinker to respond to opposition, indifference and those close to the bone relationships unraveling? Is the answer merely to isolate oneself and leave society and family behind, be committed to observing the unpredictable and much ado about nothing in much of life? Idealism once betrayed can and often does lead to cynicism or a form of realism in which life is hard and painful, hence only by being alone and isolated can one not be hurt and betrayed again. And yet such a stance of indifference and skepticism creates its own difficult dilemmas.

Those who retreat into their private worlds of inner reflection and, at times, meaningful insights, but disconnect themselves from other people and community, predictably so, often become depressed and disoriented, solipsism and nihilism their tempting companions on the journey. Hesse has certainly probed such a path hiked in these two small books (worth many a read), but his deeper and more mature thinking and writing go further and are more nuanced than Knulp and Wandering. It is to these more thoughtful novels we now turn as Hesse ever grows in his nuanced probes in the journey of life.  

It is probably of some significance to note that twenty-two of Hesse’s fairy stories written 1904-1918 was published, edited by Jack Zipes, as The Complete Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse (1995). The shorter and earlier version was published in 1919 in German as Strange News from Another Star (translated into English in 1972). Many of these, broadly speaking, fairy tales, highlight the trying and difficult nature of growing into wisdom, depth and maturity. It is in this sense that the fairy tales are a companion and corrective to what might seem a rather thin and subtly indulgent life journey as embodied in Knulp and Wandering, the life of the detached wanderer and bohemian. A thorough immersion in the fairy tales will reveal a meditative breadth and depth in Hesse’s life and writings not necessarily discovered in Knulp-Wanderingand, such fairy tales both antedated Knulp-Wandering and many were written about the same time.                          

Hermann Hesse, "Siddhartha" – review by Ron Dart

When New Directions decided to publish the first English translation of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in 1951, it could never have foreseen the enormous impact it would have on American culture.

—Paul Morris (p. xiii)

Hinduism has been much misunderstood in the West since it has been introduced in one or another of its exaggerated forms. One image of it is that of the starving sannyasin who by dint of extravagant austerities claims to have realized himself as the soul of the All…The other is that of a religion of unbridled sexuality which the publication of the Kamasutrasas a paperback has done nothing to dispel.

—R.C. Zaehner, Concordant Discord (p. 163)

American witnessed a Hesse phenomenon that was for a European writer.—Paul Morris (p. xv).          

There has been and continues to be in our post-Christendom and post-Secular and Scientific Western culture and ethos a perennial spiritual longing and thirst that only deeper waters can quench. The West has a significant contemplative tradition as does the East. Kipling wrongfully suggested that “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet”. There have been many creative writers and thinkers in the last few centuries that, in our increasing global village, have sought to discern, how East and West might meaningfully meet—Hermann Hesse is certainly such a guide and mentor, one who in his layered and longer life, sought to bring together the wisdom and contemplative traditions of the West and East: Siddhartha was one of Hesse’s fuller forays into such thoughtful probes.

The sheer carnage and tragedy of WW I, for the more sensitive and thoughtful, raised questions about human suffering on our all too human journey. What does to mean to be human and live an authentic life? What are decisions worth the making, how can we be deflected from making such decisions and is there more to being human than the fleeting ego, throes of matter and projected public personas? It was these sorts of questions that greeted Hesse and begged a response. Hesse’s seeming turn to Buddhism as an initial attempt to face such questions after WW I was not, it should be noted, a scholarly and academic approach to examining the origins and sources of the emergence of Buddhism—Hesse’s interest was much more existential and personal. Hence, the Siddhartha of this short novella of sorts is not the Siddhartha turned Gotama Buddha (the enlightened one) of 1^stgeneration Buddhism—it is much more the story of every person who longs to live a more meaningful life (and the hard decisions that point in such a direction).

Ron Dart with Brad Jersak - Secularism, Gnosticism, Bede Griffiths and Interfaith Dialogue

Ron discusses 3 shades of secularism, political Gnosticism (a la Eric Voegelin's 4 examples), the clash between certain forms of pluralism and secularism in the public square, and the example of Bede Griffiths in interfaith dialogue that honours Christian distinctives while respecting the religious other.

This is a follow-up to Ron's lecture on "Some Dilemmas of Contemplative Interfaith Dialogue." Viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2pSJwxJ2WA

Some Dilemmas of Contemplative Interfaith Dialogue - Ron Dart (video)

Ron Dart (UFV) discusses various nuances of exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism, and syncretism. For more details, see his new release of "Christianity and Pluralism," originally co-written with J.I. Packer in response to Bishop Michael Ingham's work, "Mansions of the Spirit."

See the book description below this video. 

Christianity and Pluralism is a collection of concise yet thoughtful essays by J. I. Packer and Ron Dart, interacting with and responding to the four traditional models used to answer the existence of multiple faiths (exclusive, inclusive, pluralist, and syncretist), but focusing particularly that form of syncretism which claims that all faiths find commonality through their mystical traditions.

Written in response to key events in the history of the Anglican church, Packer and Dart's analysis gives us a perennially relevant model for how the church ought to respond to our own pluralistic culture with integrity and kindness - and how to uphold the distinctiveness of the gospel. Christians directly or indirectly engaging our pluralist world will find their ideas enriched by this short yet powerful book.

Endorsement

"This unapologetic yet irenic defense of creedal Christianity deserves a wide readership and is a reminder of our continued indebtedness to faithful leaders such as Dart and Packer."

- Hans Boersma, Nashotah House, WI

About the Authors

Ron Dart (PhD, McMaster University) is associate professor of political science at the University of Fraser Valley (Abbotsford, BC). He is author of numerous books, including The Marks of the Church and Renewal and The North American High Tory Tradition.

J. I. Packer (PhD, Oxford University) is Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College (Vancouver, BC). He is author of many books, including Knowing God, Affirming the Apostles' Creed, and Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility.

Jordan Peterson vs. Zizek - Interview with Ron Dart with Paul VanderKlay

Jordan Peterson and Transcending Tribalism - Ron Dart

Prof. Ron Dart, Department of Political Science, University of the Fraser Valley

The culture wars (and the issues that so dominate both tribes) that have so divided the left from the right, liberals from the conservatives have meant minimally thoughtful thinkers find it difficult to salute before either tribe. There can be no doubt that Jordan Peterson has offended the leftist progressive liberals and when such an orthodox tribe is challenged, they tend to caricature or demonize those who refuse to salute at their flagpole. Many have been the detractors from within such a clan that have responded to Peterson in such a predictable way. Those who only think in either-or Manichean categories falsely assume, therefore, that Peterson must be an apologist for variations of the Alt-Right, right or some variation of conservatism. Is he, though? Peterson has been more than candid about his concerns about variations of the Alt-Right and conservatism. 

Those who take the time to read, in some depth and detail, Peterson’s earliest tome, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999), cannot but realize that his creative thinking transcends the rather simplistic categories of left and right. The fact some within the right, delighted by Peterson’s criticisms of the liberal left, assume Peterson is a cheerleader for their ideological perspective, are often disappointed when Peterson dares to question them also. There can be no doubt the publication of Peterson’s recently published and best selling book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2017), has had an ample supply of boosters and knockers but those who reduce Peterson’s thinking to such an entry-level book fail to see that it is only a portal into a much more nuanced vision that transcends left-right categories.  It is significant that Peterson’s recent dialogue of sorts in Toronto with Zizek raised the legitimate question of “which antidote to chaos?” 

The fact that Peterson did his BA in political science, with a focused interest in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, means he has a certain suspicion of groupthink whether from the left or right—his turn to psychology had much to do with an attempt to answer a simple question: why do people uncritically assimilate into herd thinking and how is it possible for individuals to be both free from such tendencies and meaningfully individuate? But, such individuation can become narcissistic or authentic—what are the criteria for the latter and dangers of the former?  It is in the answer to such questions that Peterson probes, again and again, the role of myth, archetypes and the significance of substantive structures of meaning and our all too human journey.   

The fact that Peterson, as a scientist of the soul, is willing to question an approach to psychology that is shot through with the ideology of secularism means his more mythic approach to the relationship between the sacred-secular yet once again transcends more reductionistic approaches to the larger life issues. Peterson’s approach to the Bible and other sacred texts tends to offend both the more simplistic literalists and reactionary secularists—needless to say, both tribes turn on him (many with a vengeance, others in a more thoughtful way and manner). But, there can be no doubt Peterson is in the business of deconstructing dated categories and his ample use of such worthies as Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard and Jung (to mention only a few) serve him well and wisely.         

The first task of any thoughtful person is to engage in the process of trying to understand those we differ with, agree yet disagree with or agree with (and why we do so). Sadly so, many either dismiss or embrace Peterson without truly understanding him. It is not very liberal of a liberal not to critique liberalism but many liberals do not do so—interestingly enough, Peterson dares to critique aspects of liberalism from within a certain classical liberal tradition—many liberal critics of Peterson fail to see this obvious reality. I might add, by way of conclusion, that Peterson is more of a portal than substantive thinker—those he points to are more worthy of meditative reads than Peterson, but for those with little or no background in intellectual history (memoricide an illness of sorts) Peterson is a gateway thinker and cultural icon.  

There are many sources that can be mined in entering through the Peterson portal—there are his ample scholarly articles on clinical psychology, books published, multiple interviews (some more worth the hearing than others), lectures on myth, fairy tales, Bible and other sacred texts, public debates and dialogues and his varied reflections on political leaders and movements (past and present).    

Peterson (whether we agree with him or not) reveals much about the state of our cultural ethos at the present time—our reactions to him tell us much about ourselves and our times, our unexamined prejudices and how we respond when threatened by an intruder to our tribe.

Wayne Northey's "Justice that Transforms" - Foreword by Ron Dart

Wayne Northey: I’m pleased to add this page about three books produced fall 2018:

CLICK HERE for the books homepage

They are of my writings on Restorative Justice over the years, including (in Volume One) by a few contributors. They are part of a projected multi-volume series. I then hope to publish another series of my Peace/Peacemaking writings, tentatively titled Justice That Yields Peace.

Justice That Transforms Cdn edition, or Justice That Transforms US edition.

Foreword by Ron Dart

There has been, sadly so, a predictable tendency within the historic Western tradition to read, interpret and apply the Bible within the crime and punishment, justice ethos in a retributive manner—an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, Shylockian pound of flesh dominating the day, fair Portia banished from the stage.  A rather narrow and reductionistic read of the Hebrew canon (Old Testament) has dominated and, in an imperial sort of way, colonized alternate notions of both justice and mercy that can equally be found in the Old Testament, Apocrypha and New Testament. The Jewish prophets and the Sermon on the Mount are two needful portals and correctives to a one-dimensional and reactionary read of the Bible.

There has also been a predictable tendency within the much longer historic Western and Christian tradition to develop, in greater depth and detail, via legal systems and jurisprudence, more finely tuned notions of Retributive Justice. We might ask why this single-vision approach to justice has so come to dominate and what other options might be mined within both the Bible and the Christian Tradition that question and doubt the reigning monarch of Retributive Justice? The answer to such a nagging question can be aptly and amply answered, from a variety of angles, in this superb book by Wayne Northey.

Each of the in-depth and detailed chapters in this must-read beauty of a tome highlight, in not-to-be-missed insights, how and why the ideology of Retributive Justice has dominated, the consequence of such a reality, and why Restorative Justice has not really been tried and found wanting.

Wayne, to his credit, has spent many a decade in the restorative trenches (he was there at the beginning many a decade ago) and he tells a worthy tale about the need to, Phoenix-like, resurrect the Restorative Justice tradition. There has been a tendency to pit the liberal rehabilitative approach against the more conservative retributive approach, but the 3^rd way of Restorative Justice has many a possibility worth the fuller probing. The genius of the book is the way Wayne both probes ever deeper and thinks ever wider and fuller about these timely and timeless issues. Again, I might add that Wayne’s thinking and writing emerge from decades of being in the thick of the fray and the diverse articles embody such a reality.

The fact that the Restorative Justice position has often been marginalized, misunderstood or caricatured as a sort of naïve idealism is found wanting in Wayne’s animated and vigorous defense of Restorative Justice. I might add that beyond the importance of Restorative Justice is the broader notion of Transformative Justice that Wayne has often pondered. I have been fortunate, over the decades, to have had Wayne lecture in my classes in Philosophy of Law and other classes on Restorative/Transformative Justice. Students have raised tough questions about both positions and Wayne has answered each question admirably, well, charitably and wisely. This book does much the same but in a more in-depth way and manner.

The fact that Wayne engages Biblical exegetes’ questionable read of the Bible when applied to justice, the way the Western Tradition has erred in significant ways in this area, and how significant approaches by the Evangelical and Reformed Christian tribes have only seen with one eye on this issue are held up for serious scrutiny by Wayne in this packed and challenging bounty of a book. Wayne has lived in the midst of these issues at the Biblical, Christian Tradition and contemporary Evangelical and Reformed levels. He knows the nuances and subtleties but he is also acutely aware of how, time and again, Retributive Justice dominates the day (and the practical implications of it). There is a unique sense in which Wayne (although probably not seeing himself as such) comes as a prophetic voice to the establishment and status quo Sanhedrin and dares to question their misread of the Bible and Christian Tradition. Again a careful read of this well-crafted book will, if read discerningly, reveal much that is often, tragically, ignored in how Christians interpret the Dostoevskian crime and punishment dilemma.

I have gently urged Wayne, over the years, to compile and thread together many of the articles he has written on Restorative Justice (and they are legion). I have no doubt that those who read and inwardly digest the articles chosen by Wayne for this unique collection and book will be generously rewarded by each read and reread. Certainly, the way Wayne immerses the curious reader in the trying issues will refocus the way justice is often defined and understood. I do, therefore, heartily recommend this exceptional book to the reader with an open mind: their understanding of justice may never be the same again.

I might add, by way of conclusion, that George Grant’s English Speaking Justice will walk the interested yet further down the philosophic trail that Wayne (and peers) are well on.

Amor Vincit Omnia

Ron Dart

Walter Paetkau's "It Takes Raindrops to Fill a Lake" - Review by Ron Dart

It Takes Raindrops to Fill a Lake: The first fifty years of Abbotsford Community Services (Walter Paetkau, 2019).

CLICK HERE to purchase a copy.

Abbotsford Community Services (ACS) has, in many ways, been both the organizational conscience and a substantive building block in the ever-growing community life of Abbotsford. It is most fitting, therefore, on the 50^thanniversary of Abbotsford Community Services ever maturing life, that a history be written of this significant organization and it be written by Walter Paetkau, for many years the public face and backbone of ACS.

It Takes Raindrops to Fill a Lake is divided into five informative and historic sections: 1) The Formative Years, 2) Operations and Facilities, 3) Service Areas, 4) Stepping Back, Looking Forward and 5) Stories Along the Way. The judicious mixing and mingling of history, photographs, personal tales and contributions, shifting and reshaping organizational structures and various contributors to ACS make this hefty volume (nearing 350 pages) more than worth the attentive read. Needless to say, the tome fills in many a detail about the emerging life of Abbotsford, also.

It Takes Raindrops to Fill a Lake is organized in such a way that bite-sized reads can be done or longer browses and rambles across many pages can be the order of the reading day. Sections are short for those who appreciate a quicker sit, read and meditate whereas those who are more keen on information, facts and statistics will go away with their shopping cart filled to the brim. I might also add that the fine balancing of text and written pages with many a picture does add to the attractive quality of the fifty years in the telling.

The title of this compelling history speaks for its obvious reality--many have been the needful raindrops that have filled the lake of Abbotsford Community Services. The quote from the High Tory, Edmund Burke (page 282) sums up, in a succinct way and manner, the underlying vision of ACS: “Society is a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born”. Indeed, Burke and the vision of ACS have much in common. I might also add, echoing Burke, that ACS embodies the “small platoon” that Burke held so high as an important element of the High Tory vision of the historic Anglo-Canadian way. Many a kudo to Walter, Abbotsford Community Services and the role ACS will play in the lives of “those who are to be born”. And, many a salute for the meticulous research and writing done on this book and its contribution to the life and history of Abbotsford.

Ron Dart        

Assoc. Professor, Department of Political Science, University of the Fraser Valley  

Review of Roger Scruton’s "Conservatism: An Introduction to the Great Tradition" by Ron S. Dart.

If Lockean liberalism is the conservatism of the English-speaking peoples, what was there in British conservatism that was not present in the bourgeois thought of Hamilton and Madison? If there was nothing, then the acts of the  Loyalists are deprived of all moral substance. Many of the American Tories were Anglicans and knew well that in opposing the revolution they were opposing Locke.  They appealed to the older political philosophy of Richard Hooker. They were not, as liberal Canadian historians have often described them, a mixture of selfish and unfortunate men who chose the wrong side. If there was nothing valuable in the founders of English-speaking Canada, what makes it valuable for Canadians to continue as a nation today?

George Grant, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism

It was the rise of Puritanism in late Elizabethan England, the advancing tide of Calvinist theology and ethics in the last two decades of the 16^thcentury, not the Renaissance of the early and middle decades of the century, that marked the real rupture with the medieval culture.

C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama                                                                                        

Roger Scruton is one of the most published, articulate and probing conservatives in the last few decades. The telling points he raises cannot be ignored and many of the arrows he shoots hit the bull’s eye well and wisely. There is always a need for thoughtful conservatives to counter variations of trendy liberalism (of various and varied colours, shapes and sizes) and Scruton speaks his speech well on such a stage. The role that Scruton played in the founding and editing of The Salisbury Review (1982-2001) and his two books on conservatism, The Meaning of Conservatism (1980) and How to Be a Conservative (2014) position him well to speak about such a tradition.  It was, therefore, with much delight and anticipation that I received Scruton’s most recent compact missive, Conservatism: An Introduction to the Great Tradition (2018), to review—needless to say, there is much to ponder in such a fast-moving overview of conservatism.

Conservatism: An Introduction to the Great Tradition is certainly not Scruton’s first attempt to summarize, in a compact and thoughtful manner, the history, principles and content of the stages and seasons of the conservative vision of the good life. In fact, each of Scruton’s multiple publications, in either an implicit or explicit manner, delve into the conservative way (and what we have lost by ignoring, caricaturing or distorting such a time worthy heritage). The all too sad litany of forgetfulness of the past as a result of a progressive notion of human history has clear cut the forest of centuries of wisdom and time tried insight—such a reality is, rightly so, called memoricide. We legitimately lament the clear cutting of our forests but a much deeper lament should accompany the clear cutting of the past (and the implications of such a short-sighted approach to culture and civilization). But, let us turn to Conservatism to get a fix and feel for what Scruton thinks we need to conserve and who are the saints and worthies of such an ethos and heritage.

CLICK HERE to Download full Ron Dart review of Roger Scruton

Michael Massing's "Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind" - Review by Ron Dart

Review of Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind
(HarperCollins Publishers, 2018).                                      

It is a rare day and harvest moon indeed when a packed tome is published that probes to the beginnings of the modern ethos from within the 16^thcentury reformation.  There can be no doubt that Erasmus and Luther (theology, ecclesiology and exegesis aside) embody and reflect two different ways of seeing and being, interpreting and applying the Christian faith and tradition. These two approaches, once secularized, are very much with us in the culture wars that so fragment and divide many at so many levels these days. But, let us turn to the key in the ignition beginnings, then ponder their historic unfolding.

There could be no doubt that the Late Medieval Roman Catholic Church was in a state of disarray and desperately needed to be reformed—Erasmus and Luther (as were many others) agreed about this basic reality. There was, in short, concord, initially, between Erasmus and Luther on the obvious reality that things were out of joint. Fatal Discord makes it abundantly clear, in the beginnings, the best, brightest and most committed were aware of this not to be denied fact and were more than prepared to act on it.

Fatal Discord is divided into five meticulously researched Parts, and each Part is further parsed into smaller sections: 1) Early Struggles, 2) Discoveries, 3) Rumblings, 4) Agitation and 5) Rupture.  It is the early concord turned discord (and the implications of it) between Erasmus and Luther that holds Massing throughout this finely researched bounty of a book. Erasmus incarnated the best of the European humanist renaissance tradition, whereas Luther (and Calvin following him) were heralds of the reformation and evangelical way—such are the distinctions Massing makes in his dissecting of the two men and the traditions that were birthed by them. 

The phase, as mentioned above, of early struggles and even discoveries brought Erasmus and Luther momentarily together, Luther being younger and a fan of Erasmus’s criticisms of the church and his revised and annotated version of theNew Testament (excluding Revelation). Those who falsely assume that the Roman Catholic tradition was about Tradition and Luther brought to the fore the centrality of the Bible are, of course, quite mistaken. It was Erasmus, the loyal yet critical Roman Catholic, who front staged the Bible as a means to critique the aberrant Church and Luther followed him. The issue, and this must be highlighted many times, between Erasmus and Luther was not about the authority of the Bible—it was, essentially, about the interpretation and application of both the Bible and the Church Fathers—it was also about a view of the imperfect church. It was these issues that brought about the rumblings, agitations and rupture between Erasmus and Luther, and, equally significant, the rupture within western civilization and the western mind.

The underlying issue between Erasmus and Luther (content aside) was whether we could and should have various forms of absolute certainty on interpreting Biblical texts or whether there was legitimate place and space for dialogue and ambiguity of interpretations. And, equally important, given the Biblical commitment to the unity of the church in Christ, was it legitimate to fragment the church and initiate schism in the name of creating the purified and more perfect corpus Christi? Erasmus was very much the irenical dove who was committed to reading the Bible and Church Fathers (East and West) in a way that honoured and respected their Yes and No (Sic et Non) approaches and differences within the church that could be imperfectly reformed from within, whereas Luther had an overweening need for certainty and purity and he was more than willing to split and divide the church given such premises and commitments. Most religious and secular protestants today are children of Luther—ever critical but loyal to little other than being critical—fragment, fragment and fragment—such is the anarchist way.

There can be no doubt that Massing favours and sides with Erasmus rather than Luther in this beauty of a historic tour de force read of the 1^stgeneration of the Reformation. But, equally important for Massing (and those interested in intellectual and cultural history) is the way this fatal discord has shaped and moulded a more dogmatic western minds—in Voegelin’s sense, the modern “gnostic mind” (a mind ever in need of certainty, a mind and imagination that has difficulty with mystery, paradox, ambiguity and legitimate space for dialogue and differences).

Sadly so, the culture wars that so dominate the public square these days (both on the left and right) and often undermine basic civility are late day children of Luther. Those with Erasmian tendencies are often silenced or sidelined. Massing takes the position that it is the victory of Luther in the Reformation that has not only divided a more layered and complex western mind but, by extension, set the stage for the late modern and postmodern culture wars. This means that the underlying hope of Massing is that there will be a return of those whose heart, mind and imagination is more Erasmian. This does not mean that there are not moments and times in history when Luther should not be heard, but when Luther and Erasmus becomes enemies, such a fatal discord, tragically so, negates the more subtle and nuanced western mind—such a discord and the consequences of it are very much with us these days in all the agitations and ruptures that dominate much public discourse.

Fatal Discourse does offer a corrective and antidote to the divided religious, cultural and political minds on stage these days—we need more Erasmus at this Easter season and much dying to agendas and ideologies will be needed for a resurrection in which Erasmus and Luther can heal the breach in the western mind. I strongly recommend Fatal Discord as a must read for anyone interested in overcoming the tragic way of being and seeing (then and now) in the western mind. It is not, of course, an issue of Erasmus or Luther—it’s much more a fight for both Luther and Erasmus rather than them turning (in the past, present and future) ever on one another—such is the much more substantive irenical battle for concord within the western mind.  We have, the last 500 years, seen the where the path taken of discord leads---perhaps, we can know reknit the western mind in a way that celebrates substantive (certainly not) silly or superficial concord.

amor vincit omnia

Ron Dart          

 

McCaslin & Porter's, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine - Review by Ron Dart

Review of Susan McCaslin & J.S. Porter, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance With The Feminine (Wood Lake Publishing, 2018).                             

"He footed it well—she answered the music handsomely"

John Bunyan

The publication in 2009 of Christopher Pramuk’s Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton footed well the turn to a more in-depth read of Merton and the historic Christian Sophianic tradition and ethos. The recent publication of Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine (2018)answers the music of Pramuk’s wise insights handsomely.  The American (Pramuk) and Canadian (McCaslin/Porter) Merton family have come together to offer yet a fuller read of Merton’s engagement with both the feminine and Divine Feminine.      

The dance of sorts between Susan McCaslin and J.S. Porter in Superabundantly Alive is well worth the watching as each, at times, do their own dance steps, footing it well, then they come together to answer the musical theme of Merton and the feminine handsomely.

Susan’s six essays cover a wide range of approaches to Merton and the feminine (some published previously and others new to this book): 1) A Dream of Thomas Merton, 2) Embodying Sophia, 3) A Grotto of Sophia Ikons, 4) Love and Solitude: A Cache of Love Letters for Tom and Margie, 5) Pivoting Toward Peace: The Transformative Poetry of Thomas Merton and Denise Levertov and 6) Sophia Awakening Merton, the Trees and Me. The titles of each essay highlight the breadth and depth that Susan is both traversing and probing in her reflections on her journey with Merton and the Sophianic tradition. J.S. Porter has only one essay in the collection but it is much longer than most of Susan’s articles. “The Unbroken Alphabet of Thomas Merton” is 66 pages in length and is worth many a meditative read, the metaphor of alphabet a most compelling way to understand the invitational welcome of Merton to a fuller life. The single article that Susan and John wrote together, “The Divine and Embodied Feminine: A Dialogue,” enhances and offers the reader a mature way of dancing out the intricate and nuanced steps of Merton and the feminine.

I found myself agreeing with Lynn Szabo in her “Introduction” that “the axis of this volume” is the timely and in some ways timeless essay by Susan/John, “The Divine and Embodied Feminine”. The affinities and meshing between eternity and time, Divine and history, incarnation of spirit and mind into matter and flesh walks the attentive reader into many a sacred place and site—such are the Celtic “thin places” 

If Pramuk’s Sophia was a research-laden and scholarly approach to Merton and the wisdom tradition, Susan and John bring together a thoughtful, poetic, creative and more personal engagement with Merton and Sophia. Many are the dance steps done between Susan and John in their literary dance and their round dance of sorts with Merton. Each article moves ever closer to the centre of the issue, then a stepping back again as the music and dance ever continue, each handsomely answering the other and Merton well and wisely.

The many endorsements of the book that greet the reader make it abundantly clear that this is a delight of a read not to miss. The “Foreword” by Lynn Szabo is a fine portal into both the larger issue of the feminine and her obvious respect for the creative dance steps of Susan and John as they engage Merton and the feminine. The “Afterword” by Jonathan Montaldo makes for a thoughtful bookend to the endorsements and “Foreword”. The Bibliography is an enticing pointer to a variety of significant and substantive books on the topic (both explicitly by/about Merton and a host of other writers) that massage the issue in a further and reflective manner. 

I found myself somewhat unsure about the title of the book (a sense of superheroes nagging my hesitations), but I was relieved and informed by both Robert Lax and Jonathan Montaldo’s comments. Lynn mentioned in her “Introduction” that in Lax’s article on Merton, “Harpo’s Progress: Notes Toward an Understanding of Merton’s Ways”, Lax called Merton “superabundantly alive”. Jonathan approached the site from another pathway, quoting from Merton in Seeds of Contemplation, in which Merton suggests contemplatives are “fully alive and awake”. Then, there is, of course, Irenaeus’ oft-quoted “the glory of God is a human being fully alive”. I rest my case—the title was perfectly chosen—Merton, McCaslin and Porter surely understand the role of the poet, essayist, contemplative, and dare I say, dancer, who handsomely answers those who, wisely, foot it well—they are, indeed, abundantly alive.

The fact that Susan and John have literary bents and see through poetic lens (as did Merton) means that they have a unique and uncanny way of approaching Merton’s dance with the feminine. There are various ways and means of living into and thinking from Merton and John and Susan, in Superabundantly Alive, have footed such an approach in a most evocative manner—it is our task and calling as readers, to answer the music of their genre most handsomely. This is surely a must-read collection of essays for those who are keen to trek yet further down the meandering trail of Merton and join him on his eternal dance with the feminine.

 

Ron Dart         

"The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver's North Shore" - Review by Ron Dart

The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore: A Peakbagger’s Guide

by David Crerar, Harry Crerar, and Bill Maurer 

Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2018

$40.00  /  9781771602419

Reviewed by Ron Dart

We have been in desperate need on the West Coast for a definitive and comprehensive guide to many of the peaks on the North Shore.

There have been thinner books that point to trails worth the taking and a few summits worth the bagging, but none can match for breadth and depth the recently published The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore. I have been fortunate in the last forty years to have rambled and sat on many of the summits on the North Shore peaks, so I was more than charmed and delighted to walk the pages of this page-turner of a tome (indeed, the new go-to book on peaks on the North Shore).

The Glorious Mountains is organized well and wisely – seven areas are described in necessary detail for the curious and eager: 1) Howe Sound Islands (nine peaks), 2) Britannia Range (twenty-three peaks), 3) Grouse Mountain Area (nine peaks), 4) Hanes Valley Peaks (three peaks), 5) Lynn Peaks (five peaks), 6) Cathedral peaks (four peaks) and 7) Fannin Range (fourteen peaks). Each of the unique sections covered in this attractive tome has their own colour designation which makes for a quick and hasty turn to the pages needed for the best and most up to date information on a trip planned. The book is replete with superb colour photographs and ample topographic maps to make any trek as simple and as attractive as possible. The lengthy and informative “Introduction” is worthy of many a reread for those keen on taking to the mountains in a regular and safe manner. Many are the needful points covered to inwardly digest before taking to the inevitable challenges that mountain trekking brings to one and all. Some of the nostalgic photos and history do a superb job of putting West Coast mountaineering in a thoughtful and engaged historic context. The nod to the North Shore Rescue and Lions Bay Search and Rescue as an entrée to The Glorious Mountains was fit and apt as was the detailed and in-depth “Endnotes” and “Index”

It is virtually impossible, given the directions in this book to trailheads and routes up mountainsides, to miss the means to bag the diverse peaks (some, obviously, more challenging than others). The fact that various routes are aptly articulated up diverse pathways to summits means many a pleasurable trip can be taken up the same mountain many times. The equally important fact that round trip distances and elevation gain are front-staged means that those planning such trips, weather being fine and fair, can plan trips with some predictability (weather being more moody, time more elastic). I might add that the text is matched by well-placed photographs that highlight both paths taken to summits worth the sitting on and views worth the seeing from such peaks. The contour maps of sorts that introduce each section offer the attentive reader an aerial overview of sorts of the broader terrain from within which their hike will be taken. But, there is more than mountain terrain exhibited in the multiplicity of photographs—flowers, flora and fauna, trees, forests and waterways, alpine tarns and lakes are in abundance.  

The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore is the must-buy sacred text for those keen to cut their mountaineering teeth on the North Shore Mountains -- a sort of rite of passage into the more demanding climbs. I was also impressed by the way the authors gave a rightful nod to the mountaineering elders who came before them: Glenn Woodsworth and Dick Culbert. A couple of lines will say it all: “We also here acknowledge that the legendary Dick Culbert (1940 Winnipeg -2017 Gibsons) died just before publication of this book. All devotees of British Columbia mountains are in his debt.” I might add that Glenn Woodsworth, Karl Ricker and Arnold Shives are, in many ways, living elders of such a mountaineering tribe, but many are the mountain pioneers on the West Coast such as Don/Phyllis Munday that need hats tipped their heroic ways, also.     

The publication in 1965 of Dick’s classic, A Climber’s Guide to the Coastal Ranges of Ranges of British Columbia pioneered and birthed guides to peak bagging in British Columbia, and The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore is very much a child of such a line and lineage --  but such a mature child describes treks that Dick Culvert never did describe in such intricate and poignant detail. There is both beauty and bounty in this mountaineering classic of Vancouver’s North Shore mountains, and I’m sure the solid research done will stand the test of time and provide much guidance for those keen to bag many a peak.

 

Ron Dart

Hermann Hesse's "The Journey to the East" (Part 2) - by Ron Dart

Hesse’s two works of these crucial years—Journey to the East composed in 1930 andThe Glass Bead Game, written between 1931 and 1942—were deeply political  books in a sense quite different from the previous novels. --Ralph Freedman, Hermann Hesse: Pilgrim of Crises: A Biography p. 339           

Ron Dart in Hesse's home, 2012

There has been, gratefully so, a Phoenix-like resurrection in the last decade in the life and writings of Hermann Hesse. Hesse was, in many ways, a rite of passage must-read author in the counter-culture of the late 1950s-1960s-1970s. Sadly so, he was, mostly, misread by those who misunderstood his layered inward and outer journey as a writer steeped in the best of the European literary and cultural, religious and political ethos and tradition. As the counter-culture of the mid-20^thcentury moved on, Hesse seemed to disappear with it, his fate and future too linked with such a period of history. But, a more mature, subtle and sophisticated read of Hesse is afoot these days, and as such a return to Hesse occurs, much gold is to be mined in Hesse’s perennial insights and wisdom.

I have been fortunate to spend time at Hesse’s home in Montagnola in southern Switzerland and have lingered long with his writings and sensitive and often troubled life journey. I posted an initial reflection on one of Hesse’s shorter novels, The Journey to the East, and this will be a companion to that article. The title of the book, in some ways, misrepresents the content of the book. Many who merely read the title falsely assume that the book is about a journey to the East in a spiritual way as a counterpoint to the decadent and unspiritual west. There is an unfortunate and somewhat superficial approach by many on a conscious contemplative journey to idealize and romanticize various types of Oriental religions and spirituality and caricature Western culture as secular, too beholden to science and religiously agnostic,  atheistic or superficially religious (lacking a contemplative and meditative depth). This means that a journey to the east must be taken to recover or refind what is longed for at the centre and fount of the soul and spirit. But, Hesse, was much too bright and wise to slip into such a simplistic dualism and either-or approach to the religious crises of our age and ethos.

How might we read The Journey to the East in its context and for our troubled times? There are five points I want to briefly mention as pointers into understanding this superb classic of a book.

First,The Journey to the East was written and published in the early 1930s and, as such, nationalism was very much on the rise in Germany (Hesse had strong German connections but he consciously chose to live in neutral Switzerland). The rising nationalism in Germany in the late 1920s-1930s held the attention and hearts of many Germans. The notion of a people regaining and recovering their damaged reputation in the midst of both economic depression and the failure of capitalism and communism motivated many. It is in this context that significant leadership in the church (certainly not the best or all) linked the fate of the church with National Socialism—the state and religion had a symbiotic relationship. It is essential to note, though, many were the German Christians that opposed such a dysfunctional relationship of sorts. Hesse was acutely aware of such a reality and, in many ways, The Journey to the East, is a political rebuttal to such a notion, Hesse’s vision of “The League” upping the spiritual and political ideal to a higher and more demanding unity than nationhood or race, the “Great War” ever the backdrop to this novel.

Second, how did Hesse deal with the two types of communities that confronted him at the time? If the German race and nation was an option that held many and became an absolute centre of commitment, were there higher ideals that transcended such a questionable vision?

The League of spiritual searchers, as I mentioned above, brought together men and women (past and present) who acted as countervailing thinkers and activists, beacons of inspiring light and life that would not be taken captive by the blood and race ethos of the time. Most of those on such a quest in the League had a symbiotic relationship of sorts with those in the past who lived well and wisely—they were, in many ways, icons and mentors to the searchers, teachers who stood in opposition to Hitler and tribe. Most of the names and times Hesse mentions in The Journey to the East are unknown and foreign to most readers, but this speaks much about the literary and cultural illiteracy of our age and ethos, memoricide a dominant disease we live with. But, for Hesse (and others), such names and times offered an alternate vision to live by, a counter-culture to heed and live into. Who did Hesse point to as a model contra the wille zur macht of the 1930s?

Third, the narrator of the novel begins his journey and continues such a quest in a utopian community of sorts, the League consciously committed to living a deeper and more meaningful faith journey, heeding and hearing the best and wisest from history and diverse faith traditions, the “Great War” as mentioned above the ominous canvass on which this beauty of a text was painted.   But, in time, the League fragments and dissipates. The main protagonist in the tale reflects back on such a significant phase in his journey and wonders why and how such a thing occurred, the best of intentions deteriorating into failed hopes and dreams, despair his growing companion. It seems, as the novel unfolds, the age of innocence now past, the age of experience pointing in two directions: cynicism and despair or the quest for deeper insight and wisdom the guiding light. It is significant to note that for Hesse the East is, in a deeper sense, the “Home of Light” and “towards home”. This is the challenge of the narrator--which internal and external voices will he listen to and why? Is there a commonwealth of spirituality and the virtues that transcend time, place, space, race and nation? Such a question is very much with us these days as peoples and borders are being drawn to keep foreigners out. 

Fourth, the north star of sorts in the novel is Leo. The League was held together, for the most part, when Leo, the seemingly innocuous servant, was present. Most in the League ignored Leo even though they appreciated his quiet, consistent and servant-like commitment to those on the quest. The animals saw Leo for who he truly was but the irony of the tale was those who seemed to be the most conscious in their quest did not see the deeper meaning of their quest, Leo, servant-like, in their midst. Hesse had written, earlier in his life, a short biography of St. Francis and Francis figures prominently, in his first successful novel, Peter Camenzind. Hesse, being the poet and myth embodier that he was, tapped into the significance of Leo both as Francis’ dearest friend and supporter and the myth of Leo the Lion (passions and strength transformed into generous service and kindness). When Leo slipped away from the League, the deeper meaning of the League vanished and the spiritual questers lost their ability to both remain together and find their way. Obviously, in such insights, Hesse is speaking much about the deeper meaning of spirituality, politics and identity. The narrator of the novel discovers, as his journey matures that, in fact, Leo is the head of the League and, as such, clarifies the more significant meaning of the East (light, home, rising of the sun and day).    

Fifth, if Hesse in The Journey to the East was questioning and undermining the political ethos of the time with a vastly different understanding of community and leadership (spiritual insights of the best of history and religious traditions an antidote to nationalism, blood and race-----such is very much with us again today), Hesse was also engaging, at a deeper level, probably, a thinker he had grappled with most of his life: Nietzsche. It is virtually impossible to read Hesse’s novels without Nietzsche appearing on front stage again and again. Leo, of course, can be the powerful lion whose will shapes and makes the world, who dominates and faces into the tragic and, again and again, wills an overcoming of sorts. It is significant to note that the lion is at the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in “On the Three Metamorphoses”. Hesse’s Leo as model and mentor of the new being is an alternate to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Hesse was, of course, not only dealing with the obvious political turmoil of the 1930s but he also saw beyond such a period of time the issue of ‘identity” and “human nature” in the West would become a contested issue----Leo or Zarathustra? Which and why? It is somewhat interesting that Nietzsche has held court for many a decade but Hesse has been ignored and yet Hesse is, probably, when understood aright, one of the best and finest dialogue partners of Nietzsche. Those who are seriously interested in a thoughtful engagement with Nietzsche do need to immerse themselves in Hesse’s life long dialogue and dance with Nietzsche.

The Journey to the East is, therefore, a counter political novel to both the overt nationalism of the 1930s in Germany and Europe (offering a higher ethic) in which identity is defined by political power (and who has it) and an emerging notion of personal power in which identity, Nietzsche style, is about making and willing into reality, in a creative and constructive manner, against much cultural opposition and odds, the self-creating new being. Hesse offered, in his many novels, from Peter Camenzindto Siddhartha to The Journey to the East and culminating in The Glass Bead Game the notion of the self as a kindly and thoughtful servant of civilization and culture as an antidote to both the political power mongering of the 1930s and the questionable Nietzschean notion of willing into being an ever making self. Hesse’s novel, Narcissus and Goldmund, in many ways, highlights how the faithful Narcissus (Hesse’s deeper probes into the meaning of the word) was the real builder and preserver of all this is good and beautiful in a cultural way that only the creative Goldmund understands at the end of his all too human journey---much the same theme is played out in a rawer and more graphic manner in Demian and Steppenwolf.

The Journey to the East does need to be set both within the context of Hesse’s larger literary vision and the historic times in which he lived—often neither is done, hence the book is misread. And, to conclude, there is a significant if indirect political dimension at the core and centre of The Journey to the East that is often missed also. Hopefully, this missive might correct some obvious omissions and oversights in a reading of this timely (than and new) beauty of a book.

Ron Dart        

Ron Dart with Paul VanderKlay on Jordan Peterson, CS Lewis, Thomas Merton, Hermann Hesse

Paul VanderKlay's third conversation with Ron Dart. Ron is editing a book on Jordan Peterson. In this conversation they talk about three mid-20th century authors: CS Lewis, Thomas Merton and Hermann Hesse in relation to the shaping of faith in the modern world.

Craig Allert's "Early Christian Readings of Genesis One" - Review by Ron Dart

Craig Allert, Patristic Exegesis and Literal Interpretation. IVP Academic, 2018.                                             

There has been, gratefully so, in the last few decades, a questioning of the reformed, evangelical and charismatic approach to how the Bible should be read, interpreted and applied. This larger question transcends the protestant tendencies and ethos, but it is a bugaboo of sorts for those whose approach to the Bible tends to be excessively focused on a more literal, grammatical, historic and linguistic approach to the text (with usually some moral and devotional application to rescue the book from an excessive scholarly attitude or simply museum culture). The turn to a more catholic exegetical (catholic in the Patristic sense) approach to Scripture has been growing in momentum and commitment the last few years, and such an approach is being applied to various and varied content issues within the Bible.

The sheer bounty of Allert’s recent book, Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, is the way he applies Patristic reads of early chapters of Genesis to the creation accounts. Needless to say, this is a heated topic (often more heat than light) for those who tend to read the creation accounts in both a literal and young earth way and manner. Such an approach needlessly collides with many reads of science and alternate ways of reading Genesis that are classical, hence cannot be easily dismissed as liberal. The careful and historic turn by Allert to the layered exegetical means by which the Fathers of the Church read the early chapters of Genesis illuminates for the curious and honest faith seeker that there is more to the Bible than has often revealed by a more reductionistic and one dimensional approach by many within the evangelical and evangelical-reformed tribes.

Ron Dart on Jordan Peterson, Francis Schaeffer and Community - with Paul VanderKlay

Walter J. Burghardt's "Long Have I Loved You" - Review by Ron Dart

Walter J. Burghardt, Long Have I Loved You: A Theologian Reflects on His Church (Orbis Books, 2000).

There is, gratefully so, a movement afoot these days to return to the classical and Patristic form of contemplative theology (important to note the fact Hans Boersma won the theology book of the year award from Christianity Today, Boersma’s most recent books dealing with Patristic theology). There is, also, a counterforce towards a confessional and exegetical reformed and neo-Calvinist agenda (the recent publication by Iain Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, speaks its own telling message, Provan turning on Boersma). The danger, of course, when such cultural cross-currents occur is that one side of the tension is idealized and the other either demonized, caricatured or subordinated. There are books worth the reading many times on such topics, and a favourite of mine is Walter Burghardt’s Long Have I Loved You: A Theologian Reflects on His Church (obviously a riff off Augustine’s “Late Have I Loved You”).

There were few in the 20^thcentury that had Burghardt’s depth and range in Patristic theology (he studied with the best of the scholars in the area), but he never unduly idealized, romanticized or froze such a period in history as the golden age in which the purest and finest phase of theology was done (the rest of history but a commentary on such a high season of theology). The 14 chapters in Long Have I Loved You discuss, in much depth and detail, both the appeal and limitations of the Patristic vision and ethos and the need for a mature theology to be in conversation with each phase and season of the epic faith journey as thought and imagination seeks to know God and the relationship of God to humanity and nature. Burghardt knows of what he speaks given the fact he was front and centre in the revival and renewal of the Patristic vision of contemplative theology and his many publications as listed in the lengthy “Appendix” testify to such a fact.

Burghardt often lamented that many forms, types and intellectual interpretations of Christianity are not much more than “homiletic pap and bromides”. The turn to responsible thinking was at the core and centre of Burghardt’s many years of teaching and multiple publications, Long Have I Loved You a literary and theological overview, with decided pastoral implications, for contemporary Christians. Certainly, in this era of ours in which a certain approach to the Patristics is either idealized or denigrated (the past being the best and most mature from which a decline has set in or a more progressive notion of history in which the past is seen as a more immature) Berghardt can offer a more dialogical and interactive approach in doing theology as theology has been done through the centuries of Christian thought and life.

I am often asked if I was marooned on an island for a few years, what books I would want by my side. Long Have I Loved You is certainly on the upper shelf for me--a read of this full-bodied tome will certainly reveal a way of doing theology that is dynamic and critical, contemplative and pastoral, fully committed to the historic life of the church (midst many reasons not to be). Indeed, it takes a mature mind and soul to stay the course and do so in a loyal and critical manner, always being guided by love.

May you all have a meaningful Advent-Christmas-Epiphany season.

Amor Vincit Omnia

Ron Dart      

Carla D. Sunberg's, "The Cappadocian Mothers" - review by Ron Dart

Carla D. Sunberg, The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Gregory and Gregory (Pickwick Publications, 2017).                               

Every student of Christian theology, even if only a dilettante, has heard of the Cappadocian Fathers. But who were the Cappadocian Mothers? Thomas Noble

There has been a desperate need, for many a longing decade, to bring to the fore the immense contributions of the mothers and sisters of the classical Cappadocian theologians (certainly some of the most sophisticated and nuanced in the history of Christian contemplative theology). The sheer beauty and bounty of The Cappadocian Mothers is the way Carla Sunberg has woven together, in the finest of a tapestry, the insights and layered ways of thinking and living the faith journey and impact on their immediate and extended families (each who articulated a mature theology). The way Sunberg, rightly and legitimately so, connects the needful dots between theology and deification makes this primer of a book a must purchase and worthy of multiple meditative reads.

The Cappadocian Mothers has 9 compact chapters and the “Foreward” by T.A. Noble makes for a lovely pointer into the content of the book. Each of the chapters have much solid information packed into their few yet inviting chapters: 1) Introduction, 2) The Christianization of Deification, 3) Christocentric Development, 4) The Development of Monasticism and the Role of Virginity in the Cappadocian Understanding of Theosis, 5) The Fallen Virgin, 6) Married Women as the New Eve: Nonna and Gorgonia, 7) Macrina, The Perfect Virgin Bride, 8) Practical Implications for Life and Ministry: Macrina the Elder, Emmelia, and Theosebia and 10) The Mothers Exemplify Deification. 

Each of these incisive and finely tuned chapters walks the inquisitive reader into the wisdom and contemplative way of the past (and its deification ending) and the role significant women (Nonna, Gorgonia, Macrina the Elder and Younger, Emmelia, and Theosebia) played in shaping, deepening and enriching the theological visions and conclusion of their siblings and children. There is, of course, something perennial about the Cappadocian Mothers-Fathers and the unique way they lived and thought through their faith pilgrimages. Needless to say, as substantive questions are being raised about the limitations of modern and postmodern approaches to our all too human journey, the fullness of the classical way is being brought to the fore once again. The post-reformation tendency has been either to caricature the classical past or ignore it--such approaches now seem thin and vapid, not worthy of serious consideration. This means there is a turn to the classical tradition of Christianity, and, in such a turn, we cannot miss the nuanced approach of the mothers and sisters of the Cappadocian contemplative theologians. In short, and sum, The Cappadocian Mothers reveals much that has been concealed by inadequate and superficial reads of Western and Christian history--do read and inwardly digest this bounty and beauty of a key in the ignition classic in the making of sorts--a fullness of the faith will definitely be birthed in the process.

Ron Dart