Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Jim Forest’s Eyes of Compassion: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh - Review by Ron Dart

Ron Dart with Jim Forest

Jim Forest’s Eyes of Compassion: Learning From Thich Nhat Hanh

Orbis Books, 2021

Review by Ron Dart

When I was working for Amnesty International in the 1980s, I began a correspondence with Jim Forest (who was working for Fellowship of Reconciliation at the time) that continues to thrive and flourish. I also began in the 1990s a correspondence with Thich Nhat Hanh (certainly not as extensive as the one I have had with Jim over the decades). So, it was a delight and joy to meditatively read the much more extensive journey of Jim with Thich Nhat Hanh in Eyes of Compassion. The subtitle is apt indeed--Learning From Thich Nhat Hanh. I suspect Nhat Hanh has also learned much from Jim Forest. Such experiences do knit people together well and wisely.

Eyes of Compassion threads together about 70 short reflections on the journey of Thich Nhat Hanh and Jim’s pilgrimage with him. The period of time covered, obviously, cannot ignore the American involvement in Vietnam and the role of many seekers of justice and peace in the USA (and elsewhere) doing what they could to support Buddhist peacemakers like Thich Nhat Hanh (and other Buddhist monks and nuns inspired by his life and writings). There is a sense that this short book, replete with touching and telling back-white photos, is also a recounting of both dark times and those who were light-bearers in such a tragic period of history. Each of the short reflections (and they are just that) needs to be quietly sat with to fully appreciate their time tried wisdom and insights.              

The kindly and thoughtful, personal and tender, “Introduction” by Mobi Warren is well worth many a read. I mentioned that the many photographs in the book speak much about Jim and Thich Nhat Hanh’s journey together, but the many sketches in the book have both abundant literal and symbolic significance. In short, the combination of text, photos, and sketches makes this missive of a book an entrée of sorts into the deeper meaning of eyes, seeing, compassion, friendship, justice, and peacemaking—well worth the journey of understanding.

Amnesty International has a logo that states “Better to Light a Candle than Curse the Darkness”. There is a definite sense in which Jim Forest and Thich Nhat Hanh have been candles in such darkness and Eyes of Compassion: Learning From Thich Nhat Hanh highlights how they (and many others mentioned in the book) have been such flickering yet consistent and enduring lights.       

Thich Nhat Hanh has, for many in the West, become a symbol (like the Dalai Lama) of the Buddhist meditative and mindful way but few know about the nature of his more personal journey that Jim so thoughtfully recounts. And, as the notion of “Engaged Buddhism” has become prominent, compassion became even more essential as a corrective to the legitimate demands of justice. This seemingly small book is not so small when understood in its deeper meaning and significance. Do read and inwardly digest—much nutrition indeed for soul and society.

Fiat Lux

Ron Dart

A.M. Allchin's "Participation in God" - Review by Ron Dart

A.M. Allchin, Participation in God: Forgotten Strand in Anglican Tradition (Morehouse-Barlow, 1988).

Arthur Macdonald “Donald” Allchin (1930-2010) was one of the most significant Anglican theologians of the 20^th century, and his ever deeper probes into the classical vision of contemplative theology and the Anglican way are pointers not to miss. Significantly so, there has been a troubling tendency within the historic Anglican way to ignore the theology of theosis or, in sum, “God became man so humanity would be divinized (or deified)”. Participation in God reclaims such a vision as embodied in the historic Anglican way.

Allchin highlighted, in his “Introduction”, how two important Anglican writers on spirituality missed this core notion of deification: Thornton’s English Spirituality (1963) and Moorman’sThe Anglican Spiritual Tradition (1983). Allchin’s three lectures, delivered in 1983-1984 in the USA, probes the aberrant read by Thornton and Moorman and turns to significant post-reformation Anglican Divines in their read of deification. The initial lecture discussed Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes, the second lecture lingered with Charles Wesley and Williams Pantycelyn, and the third and final lecture E.B. Pusey and the Oxford Movement are covered. The final and summary chapter articulates “The Co-inherence of Human and Divine”. Needless to say, the Patristic Tradition ethos ever informs such insightful lectures turned book.

The elevated ideal of deification is often seen as the bailiwick of the Orthodox way but given the historic Anglican-Orthodox dialogue and the fact both traditions draw deeply from the best of the Patristic way, it is quite predictable that the notion of theosis would be held in common by both---such is the deeper meaning of sobornost that Allchin understood so well, his engagement as a catholic Anglican with the Orthodox central to his vocation. As the deeper and more perennial meaning of theology, soteriology, and anthropology is more maturely embraced by the Christian Tradition, the integrative and high vision of true Christian Humanism will be realized, theosis the portal into such an expansive reality.

There are few good and readable overviews of the doctrine of deification but Participation in God: A Forgotten Strand in Anglican Tradition is definitely one of them. Such a compact missive corrects a certain read of the Anglican way that has tended to shrink Anglican contemplative theology to the smallest circle turns. We should be grateful to Allchin for his life and prolific writings. Participation in God a superb entrée to Allchin’s life and thought.

Fiat Lux

Ron Dart

"The Inklings and Culture" - Review by Ron Dart

Monika B. Hilder, Sara L. Pearson & Laura N. Van Dyke (eds.), The Inklings and Culture: A Harvest of Scholarship from the Inklings Institute of Canada (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020).

There has been, within Canada, a committed history of interest in the Inklings. My mother was faithfully involved with the Toronto group that published Pilgrimage: The Toronto C.S. Lewis Society (a magazine on Lewis and the Inklings in the 1980s-1990s, final edition 2009). The Canadian C.S. Lewis Journal: The Inklings, Their Friends & Predecessors that closed shop Autumn 2001 (lasted almost 30 years, 100 publications) was, in its last decade, published on the West Coast. But, it was with the founding of The Inklings Institute of Canada at Trinity Western University that a more mature and integrated vision of the Inklings came into being. The publication of The Inklings and Culture is the well-birthed child of such fine parenting.

The fact I took in Lewis and the Inklings with my mother’s milk, and, in some small way, contributed to The Inklings and Culture, means my decades-long journey (from the earliest years) was amply rewarded by heeding and reading the many and polyphonic voices in this well-tuned Inklings symphony.

The Inklings and Culture: A Harvest of Scholarship from the Inklings Institute of Canada is, indeed, a harvest and feast of a read. The tome is divided into 4 parts and 27 chapters. Each part is packed with insights and probes that make for creative reads and varied interpretations of the pure gold of Inklings life and thought: Part I: Literary Influences, Part II: The Christian Imagination, Part III: Artistic Responses, and Part IV: Contemporary and Theological Issues are not to be missed.

Most of the Inkling worthies step on front stage (MacDonald, Lewis, Sayers, Chesterton, Williams, Tolkien, and Barfield – some more obviously Inkling than others) and other lesser-known writers and artists who historically anticipated or had affinities with the Inklings in direct and indirect ways (Charlotte Bronte, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Anna Sewell, Bede Griffiths, and Reinhold Niebuhr are also mentioned and discussed).

Lewis decidedly leads the pack of articles with 15 of the 27 reflections dedicated directly to him, whereas Tolkien is featured in 5 articles and Sayers in 3 of the essays. MacDonald, Chesterton, Williams, and Barfield are momentarily on stage. But, there can be no doubt that Lewis is the main actor that speaks his speech well – not trippingly on the tongue as some do. The quality of essays and themes covered are of a high level and not to be missed. There can be no doubt that Hilder, Pearson and Van Dyke have done Canada well in their harvest of scholarship. The Canadian Inklings children have now matured as well-rounded, comprehensive, and creative adults, the table spread a bounty not to miss, much nourishment in the feast. I might also add that Hilder’s “Introduction” and Van Dyke’s “Chronology” makes the tome a greater, grander and fuller bounty not to miss.   

There can be no doubt those who anticipated the Inklings (MacDonald, Chesterton) and the Inklings did, in their unique way, unconceal, and by doing so, reveal a mother lode of mythic, imaginative and literary gold within the Western and Christian Tradition that had been somewhat concealed by a hyper form of right of centre Enlightenment rationalism and scientism. It was this healthy and full-bodied Christian romanticism and humanism that was the genius of the Inklings and why their presence ever persists to inform, instruct and point the way to finer and fitter trails worth the taking. There can be no doubt that The Inklings and Culture is Canadian scholarship at its evocative best and the impact of such a hefty tome will linger for many a decade and be a library from which future Inkling scholars will turn to slake a deeper thirst, the wine full-bodied and palette tasty.

Ron Dart           

"The Inklings and Culture: A Harvest of Scholarship" - review by Ron Dart

Monika B. Hilder, Sara L. Pearson & Laura N. Van Dyke (eds.), The Inklings and Culture: A Harvest of Scholarship from the Inklings Institute of Canada (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020).

There has been, within Canada, a committed history of interest in the Inklings. My mother was faithfully involved with the Toronto group that published Pilgrimage: The Toronto C.S. Lewis Society (a magazine on Lewis and the Inklings in the 1980s-1990s, final edition 2009). The Canadian C.S. Lewis Journal: The Inklings, Their Friends & Predecessors that closed shop Autumn 2001 (lasted almost 30 years, 100 publications) was, in its last decade, published on the West Coast. But, it was with the founding of The Inklings Institute of Canada at Trinity Western University that a more mature and integrated vision of the Inklings came into being. The publication of The Inklings and Culture is the well-birthed child of such fine parenting.

The fact I took in Lewis and the Inklings with my mother’s milk, and, in some small way, contributed to The Inklings and Culture, means my decades-long journey (from the earliest years) was amply rewarded by heeding and reading the many and polyphonic voices in this well-tuned Inklings symphony.

The Inklings and Culture: A Harvest of Scholarship from the Inklings Institute of Canada is, indeed, a harvest and feast of a read. The tome is divided into 4 parts and 27 chapters. Each part is packed with insights and probes that make for creative reads and varied interpretations of the pure gold of Inklings life and thought: Part I: Literary Influences, Part II: The Christian Imagination, Part III: Artistic Responses, and Part IV: Contemporary and Theological Issues are not to be missed.

Most of the Inkling worthies step on front stage (MacDonald, Lewis, Sayers, Chesterton, Williams, Tolkien, and Barfield – some more obviously Inkling than others) and other lesser-known writers and artists who historically anticipated or had affinities with the Inklings in direct and indirect ways (Charlotte Bronte, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Anna Sewell, Bede Griffiths, and Reinhold Niebuhr are also mentioned and discussed).

Lewis decidedly leads the pack of articles with 15 of the 27 reflections dedicated directly to him, whereas Tolkien is featured in 5 articles and Sayers in 3 of the essays. MacDonald, Chesterton, Williams, and Barfield are momentarily on stage. But, there can be no doubt that Lewis is the main actor that speaks his speech well – not trippingly on the tongue as some do. The quality of essays and themes covered are of a high level and not to be missed. There can be no doubt that Hilder, Pearson, and Van Dyke have done Canada well in their harvest of scholarship. The Canadian Inklings children have now matured as well-rounded, comprehensive, and creative adults, the table spread a bounty not to miss, much nourishment in the feast. I might also add that Hilder’s “Introduction” and Van Dyke’s “Chronology” make the tome a greater, grander, and fuller bounty not to miss.   

There can be no doubt those who anticipated the Inklings (MacDonald, Chesterton) and the Inklings did, in their unique way, unconceal, and by doing so, reveal a mother lode of mythic, imaginative, and literary gold within the Western and Christian Tradition that had been somewhat concealed by a hyper form of right of centre Enlightenment rationalism and scientism. It was this healthy and full-bodied Christian romanticism and humanism that was the genius of the Inklings and why their presence ever persists to inform, instruct and point the way to finer and fitter trails worth the taking. There can be no doubt that The Inklings and Culture is Canadian scholarship at its evocative best and the impact of such a hefty tome will linger for many a decade and be a library from which future Inkling scholars will turn to slake a deeper thirst, the wine full-bodied and palette tasty.

Ron Dart           

     

Robyn Wrigley-Carr's "Music of Eternity: Meditations For Advent With Evelyn Underhill" - review by Ron Dart

Robyn Wrigley-Carr, Music of Eternity: Meditations For Advent With Evelyn Underhill (SPCK: London, 2021).

Advent is one of the turning points in the Christian liturgical year and such a turning season does welcome deeper reflections on the meaning of the faith journey. Evelyn Underhill understood this turn to inner depth in a substantive way and the role of Advent in such deeper dives for the eternal pearl. Robyn Wrigley-Carr has once again produced a masterpiece of insight and wisdom in her heeding and hearing the way Underhill internalized the music of eternity in her Advent reflections.

Music of Eternity has a compelling and apt “Introduction”, by the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell. In fact, Music of Eternity will be his Advent book for 2021—high praise indeed for such a beauty of a primer on Underhill and Advent. But, there is much more worth pondering as we pass through the portal of Music of Eternity into the sanctuary of Underhill and Advent, Robyn being the Beatrice of sorts.

Music of Eternity is divided into 4 sections: 1) Prevenience: Welcoming God’s Coming (God Is), 2) Advent: Awaiting God’s Coming (Christ Is Coming), 3) Emmanuel: Recognizing God’s Coming (Christ Comes), and 4) Holy Living: Embracing God’s Coming (God Has Come). Each of these main sections are broken down into smaller bite-size pieces in which the meaning of Advent is probed in an ever fuller and more mature way and manner. Needless to say, the 4 sections correspond to the 4 weeks of Advent. In each of the sections, Robyn weaves together quotes from Underhill on Advent with her significant thoughts on the perennial relevance of both Advent and Underhill for us today on our all too human journey. The “Prologue” by Robyn is worth many a meditative read just as the “Epilogue” (Come, Lord Jesus) and Appendix (Editing the Excerpts) makes for a fine finale to Music of Eternity. There is, also, at the end of each meditation section thoughts “For Discussion” and a “Prayer”.

I might add by way of a kindly criticism that it might have been valuable if some attention had been paid to Underhill’s more political and peace writings in the book, Advent and Underhill, in their time and ethos, certainly in the thick of tragic war and peace issues.  

It would be somewhat remiss of me to ignore the evocative cover on the book. The obvious music of eternity that permeates the creative cover cannot be missed, each image more than a welcome to the senses to address the soul about Advent and yet a further journey. The winter blue sky, snow on the ground, flakes of white falling and yet flowers blooming (eidelweiss) from the snow, birds in song and an empty path and bench welcoming one and all to the journey. The courage needed to take the next invitational step forwards and onwards, to sit on the bench and listen, the path in the winter season a gift if understood aright. Such is the meaning of Advent, Underhill’s offered music and Robyn’s interpretive gift of Underhill and Advent, a letter from eternity. Can we hear the music?

Ron Dart          

"Israel, Palestinians, Middle East Politics, USA-Canada" - Ron Dart (CIVL Radio Interview)

CIVL Radio (UFV Abbotsford) interviews Ron Dart on "Israel, Palestinians, Middle East Politics, USA-Canada." Audio only.

Ron Dart CIVL Interview 2

Download Ron Dart CIVL Interview

Why Humans Need Tradition - Loren Southern interviews Ron Dart

"The Gospel According to Hermes" by Ron Dart, Bradley Jersak, et al

New Book Release: The Gospel According to Hermes
Intimations of Christianity in Greek Myth, Poetry and Philosophy

by Ron S. Dart and Bradley Jersak

with Simon Oliver, Wm. Paul Young, and Abp. Lazar Puhalo

AVAILABLE NOW!
CLICK here to order from Amazon.com
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CLICK here to order from Amazon.co.uk

Note: While we recognize and respect the ethical reasons why readers avoid purchasing through Amazon, but their KDP self-publishing wing has allowed independent authors (like me) and small publishing companies (like St. Macrina Press) to earn significantly higher royalties on small-run books.

Description

Tertullian famously asked, “What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

Perhaps the title of this work will raise the question, “What hath Hermes to do with Christ?”

Quite a lot, as it turns out, by way of comparison, contrast, illustration, and prefigurement. Hermes, herein, represents far more than a particular figure in Greek mythology. Hermes functions as a placeholder, symbolizing the legacy of ancient Greek myth, poetry, and philosophy—and also the layered hermeneutics that classical Greek education contributed to both Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Scriptures, and the development of their theology, doctrine, and ethics.

Despite the unfortunate but popular assumption of a Jewish-Greek dualism among many scholars since Adolf von Harnack, the stubborn and happy fact is that the New Testament itself already demonstrates a profound integration of the Hellenized Judaism established in Alexandria. The first Christian theologians were not contaminating some imaginary pure Jewish Christianity with Greek accretions.

Rather, our authors will propose and demonstrate the confluence of both great streams in the development of the New Testament Scriptures, patristic theology, and hermeneutics. This collection of essays is but a faint echo of Simone Weil’s formidable work, Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks, and is certainly inspired by her insights. 

Table of Contents

Preface: Bradley Jersak, “What hath Hermes to do with Christ?” / 7 

FROM HERMES TO PLATO 

1. Bradley Jersak, “Pushing Back: Greek Thinking vs. Jewish Thinking is a Dualistic Error” / 11 

2. Simon Oliver, “The Role of Plato in the Development of Christian Theology” / 25 

FROM HERMES TO JOHN 

3. Bradley Jersak, “Descensus: Hermes, Hades, and Christ” / 33 

4. Ron Dart, “Water to Wine, Johannine Hermeneutics, and the Alexandrian Tradition” (part 1) / 51 

5. Ron Dart, “Water to Wine, Johannine Hermeneutics, and the Alexandrian Tradition” (part 2) / 63 

6. Wm. Paul Young, “Fish Pi: Gospel of John (21) and Archimedes” (153)” / 75 

FROM HERMES TO THE PATRISTICS 

7. Ron Dart, “Heraclitus, Aeschylus, and the Jewish Zeus” / 85 

8. Ron Dart, “Augustine, the Inklings, Myth, and Hermes the Trickster” / 93 

9. Ron Dart, “Homerian Epic, Patristic Christian Tradition and Spiritual Formation” / 99 

10. Lazar Puhalo, “Nous: The Concord of Gnosis, Theoria, and Theosis” / 109 

FROM HERMES TO THE 20th CENTURY 

11. Ron Dart, “C.S. Lewis and Hermes: Greek Myth and Till We Have Faces” / 119 

12. Ron Dart, “Thomas Merton’s The Behavior of Titans – Sixty Year Review” / 127 

13. Ron Dart, “Owls, Hegel, Castalians, Classical Myths, and T.S. Eliot” / 134 

14. Bradley Jersak, “Pythagoras, Plato, and Christ: A Cruciform Cosmology of Consent” / 141 

BEYOND HERMES 

15. Ron Dart, “Servant Leadership in the Public Square: Four Markings” / 167 

Authors / 172 

Stephen Leacock: Walking the Tightrope Between Nationalism and the Market Economy - Ron Dart

"Stephen Leacock was part of that curious and perhaps indigenously Canadian species which has been given the name of “Red Tory”                        

- Alan Bowker     

"Many writers have asserted that there is a common ground between conservatism and socialism; perhaps the most frequently cited similarities are an organic view of society, distrust of pure individualism, and a willingness to use the state to assert the rights of society, as distinct from the interests of powerful individuals. When both ideologies have legitimacy within a political culture, a  hybrid known as the Red Tory may emerge."                

- Ian Robertson   

"At McGill, as at Ottawa Collegiate, I was blessed with exceptional teachers. Stephen Leacock, head of the Department of Economics and Political Science, was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known….He was an ardent Conservative (though, also, like Sir Sam Hughes, a fierce Canadian nationalist."

-Eugene Forsey 

"Leacock was a great writer—one of the greatest we have ever  possessed."

-Robertson Davies

Leacock’s Historic Context  

Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) lived through a period of Canadian political and economic history in which two economic theories dwelt both in tension and in a confrontational mode. Canada was still very much part of the British Commonwealth ethos in Leacock’s maturing years, the notion of free trade was waxing, Canadian nationalism was emerging and many were the Canadians that supported closer economic integration with the United States. Where did Leacock stand in these conflicting theories (and their application) and why?

Leacock is mostly remembered in Canada and beyond for his many compact books laced with humour, political commentary ever-present. But, Leacock taught in the Department of Political Economy all of his academic life at McGill University. The larger economic questions were front and centre for Leacock in his maturing years, hence it is quite apt and significant, when doing his PHD at the University of Chicago, his thesis was entitled The Doctrine of Laissez Faire and completed in 1903. Needless to say, Leacock’s use of “doctrine” made it abundantly clear, that the economic battle had become a new religion of sorts, forms of orthodoxy, heterodoxy and heretical positions the new sacred reality for many.

Tradition, traditions, traditionalism - Ron Dart

Tradition, traditions, traditionalism

Human Rights: Comedic and Tragic Realities

Problems with Tradition

Homer's Epic Poems, Classical Christian Tradition & Spiritual Formation - Ron S. Dart

Augustine, Lewis/Inklings, Myth & Hermes the Trickster - Ron Dart

"Herakleitos, Aeschylus & the Jewish Zeus" - Ron Dart

P.S. It is interesting that Herakleitos was from Ephesus and the notion of the "Logos" was front and centre to Herakleitos -- and then St. John and Mary the mother of Jesus settled in Ephesus. John begins his major book with the "Logos." There is, therefore, an obvious link between Herakleitos and John, with "Logos" as the core and hub for both of them. Even T.S. Eliot begins the "Four Quartets" with 2 aphorisms from Herakleitos. 

Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, and Thomas Merton - Ron Dart

Part I

Joy and woe are woven fine
A clothing for the soul divine…
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.

—William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”

The year 2020 signals both the sixtieth year since Boris Pasternak died and the one hundred thirtieth year since he was born (1890-1960). There is much to the literary and political life in the midst of Stalinist Russia that Pasternak endured and wrote about, but this two-part article will focus on Pasternak himself, his epic novel, Doctor Zhivago, and Thomas Merton.                                

In the 1980s I was on staff with Amnesty International and for a time was chairperson of Group 1 Amnesty International in Canada. When Amnesty International began in 1961, the organization had adopted a variety of Prisoners of Conscience (POC) and one of the women highlighted in Persecution 1961 was Olga Ivinskaya (1912-1995). Ivinskaya has been seen by many as the Larissa (Lara) character in Doctor Zhivago, just as Ivinskaya’s daughter, Irina, can be seen as Larissa’s daughter, Katya. The fact that Olga Ivinskaya played a significant role in getting Doctor Zhivago published in English in 1958 meant she was suspect by the Russian State and the KGB. When Pasternak died in 1960, Ivinskaya was arrested and given an eight-year prison sentence and her daughter a shorter sentence. Irina was released from prison in 1962 and Olga in 1964. It was not until 1988 that Gorbachev rehabilitated Ivinskaya’s reputation.

The ongoing relationship between the novel Doctor Zhivago and reality has been told from various angles, including Olga Ivinskaya’s own book, A Captive of Time: My Years with Pasternak (1978), and in a more updated version, Lara: The Untold Love Story and the Inspiration for Doctor Zhivago by Anna Pasternak (2017). Moscow has Ears Everywhere: New Investigations on Pasternak and Ivinskaya by Paolo Mancosu (2019) is another treatment of the subject. There are decided points of convergence and overlap between Doctor Zhivago and Pasternak’s layered life. But to the novel I now turn.

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This article was first posted in Radix Magazine

Ron Dart - "Erasmus: Christian Humanist/Literary Primate of 16th century"

Ron Dart on The Absurdist Podcast - Culture Wars, Hierarchies vs Egalitarianism

In which Ron Dart reasons with a right-wing commentator, critiquing the ideologues' (right or left) oversimplification (gnostic) and misread of history for their own ends.

Jordan Peterson & Proverbs' Lady Wisdom - Ron Dart & Paul VanderKlay

Memoricide: Conservative & Progressive Amnesia - Ron Dart (with Brad Jersak)

Dr. Zhivago: Then & Now - Ron Dart

Dr. Zhivago: Then & Now - Ron Dart

The High Tory Position - Ron Dart on the Absurdist Podcast