Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

The First Christmas and the Palestinians - Ron Dart

T.S. Eliot began the 6^th of his Advent-Christmas-Epiphany Ariel poems “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees” in an apt and poignant manner.  

    There are several attitudes towards Christmas,

    Some of which we may disregard:

    The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,

    The rowdy (the pubs being open to midnight),

     And the childish—which is not that of the child

The birth of the child, of course, was none of the above, so accurately depicted by Eliot. The actual birth was about the uncertain Joseph-Mary having to leave their home in Nazareth, being ignored in their hour of birthing need in Bethlehem, larger political powers seemingly driving them to places of loneliness---they must have wondered as did the Magi in Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” that indeed it was a cold coming, a hard coming and was it all folly? And where was God in all this, God actually with them in the form of a vulnerable child (never easy to see when much seems to contradict and oppose such a read of a lived historic moment).

It would have been a matter of months (perhaps under 2 years) that Herod sent his death squads to slaughter many innocent children, Joseph-Mary and Jesus refugees, flight to Egypt and the Jewish community there a temporary home for a few years. Such is, in brief, the tale of the Jewish Jesus born from the Jewish context, the Biblical Jewish tale central to the Western Tradition and ethos, a chosen people, a people offered land, a people near and dear to a significant segment of the Christian Tradition. But, where in this tale are the Muslim and Christian Palestinians?

We have witnessed a barbaric and aggressive Jewish assault on the Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The extreme right-of-centre Israeli state has brutally, even though judged as engaging in genocide and violating international law, ignored basic human rights and savaged the Palestinians in Gaza (the West Bank has also felt the impact of this). The right-of-centre Jewish Orthodox Zealots and Christian Zionists have cheered on such a war against a people, and Western leaders have done little to halt the carnage. And, there was the 1^st Christmas--yes, the slaughter of the innocents (many more done by the Jewish state than ever done by the Roman military) and Mary-Joseph-Jesus refugees (rather minor when compared to the multitude of Palestinian refugees).

What will be the long-term ripple effect for politics in the Middle East and Palestinian children who have seen families killed, homes destroyed, hospitals, and educational structures obliterated? How will Muslim states (pro-contra West) view the virtual apathy of Israel in this war? And there was the 1^st Christmas, many faithfully and religiously remember these days, some as Eliot noted, missing the deeper meaning. But what is the relationship between what the Palestinians are living through (much more gruesome and sustained, Jewish death squads creating hovels, slaughtering many innocents) and the 1^st Christmas? To isolate the latter from the reality of the former is to misread the meaning of the contemporary reality in Israel today and its war, genocide, and refugee-making machine on the Muslim and Christian Palestinians on this Christmas season. It might be of some worth to read Eliot’s “The Triumphal March,” the 5^th in the Ariel poems, to get a sense of how such a drama plays itself out in the affluent and insulated West to get a sense of the tragedy the West and Israel are facilitating and inflicting on the Palestinians and the unwary implications of it

Fiat Lux

Ron Dart     

Ernest Hemmingway: Ski Nomad - Ron Dart

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

—A Moveable Feast

 

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

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

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

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

Review by Ron Dart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

montani semper liberi

Ron Dart                                                     

Mary and John: Troubled Families - Ron Dart

House of the Virgin Mary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amor Vincit Omnia

Ron Dart

Noetic Knowing, Mystical Union & Common Grace - Ron Dart

Francis Bacon's Five Holy Wars - Ron Dart

Ron Dart explores Francis Bacon's "An Advertisement Touching a Holy War" (edited with commentary by Laurence Lampert)

Media Apartheid - From Ukraine to Iran to Palestine to Qatar - Ron Dart

The media has legitimately focused on the plight of women in the theocratic state of Iran and the aggressive nature of Russia in the tragic Russian-Ukrainian War over the last few months.

I was on staff with Amnesty International in the 1980s (before I was hired at Fraser Valley College) and was the point person for a variety of states in the Middle East that were known as violators (in various ways and means) of elementary and fundamental human rights.

I had previously worked on a PhD thesis on Martin Buber and the political implications of his classic philosophic book I and Thou and its political implications for Jews in Germany and Palestine-Israel from the 1920-1960s. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have stated in recent publications, in an unequivocal way, that Israel now constitutes an “Apartheid State.”

We do know that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney eventually convinced President Ronald Reagan that South Africa was an apartheid state, and the acted on it. The West acted decisively on the apartheid nature of South Africa; why not Israel?

I recently received an email from Israel from a student who graduated from UFV in the Adult Education program more than a decade ago. He was on his 3^rd trip to Israel and spent time in Nablus in Balata Refugee Camp—such a sad and painful place to see and, for those who live there, where apartheid is most obvious. Those who have visited and lingered long in Palestinian refugee camps cannot but sense the suffering of decades.

This past Spring season, one of our finest POLSC students finished his M.A. and Ph.D. at Exeter University (probably at the higher end of Middle Eastern Studies in the UK).

Colter Louwerse worked closely with Ilya Pappe—at the forefront of Jewish revisionist thinking on the demolition of multiple Palestinian villages that brought into being Israel in 1948. Much of Colter’s work was on the UN, Israel, and the Palestinians—he is now doing more work on Canada, Israel, and the Palestinians.

It is somewhat significant that it has been historic Tories in Canada (see Heath Macquarrie’s Red Tory Blues and “The Stanfield Report”) that have questioned the structural nature of Israeli politics in regard to the Palestinians and the living conditions of many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem, refugee camps in nearby Muslim states, and the illegal proliferation of Jewish settlements.

Our present Prime Minister, in principle and rhetoric, often claims to be a human rights defender. But he does or says little to oppose the state of Israel, and when minimally inching in such a direction, the language of antisemitism is employed as a rhetorical way of silencing critical questions. It is important to note that Trudeau’s major fundraiser is from the wealthy pro-Israeli Bronfman family.               

We might ask why Iran and Ukraine receive so much attention while the ongoing structural injustices in Israel go consistently ignored (except, of course, when there is a momentary violent flare-up). The deeper reasons for such violence often ignore the immense disparity between how many Jews and Palestinians live. The historic underlying causes are often ignored by the media as they tend to focus on the immediacy of symptoms.  

Likewise, the death of the Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, by the “morality police” must be protested (and the way women have been treated in Iran). It is noteworthy, though, that the West conveniently ignored human rights violations when the Shah (who the West supported) was in power in Iran.

The West backed another human rights violator (Hussein in Iraq) to oppose the Iranian theocracy until Hussein foolishly attacked Kuwait in 1990. But, the attention given to Amini misses the fact that a significant Palestinian journalist (Shireen Abu Akleh) was killed in May in the West Bank while covering Israeli violence in the city of Jenin. Amini is a martyr of sorts, and her cause has been given ample media coverage, but we hear relatively little about the death of Shireen Abu Akleh.

There is, in short, not only the way the structural politics of apartheid play out in Israel but also the way western media panders to some martyrs and ignores others. Is this not yet another form of apartheid?

It is somewhat noticeable at the 2022 FIFA World Cup that although some issues of human rights have been raised, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is predictably absent. Media apartheid works at many levels, where the sacrificial lambs are often  Palestinians in the West and, to the East, their Sunni brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  

Dr. Colter Louwerse will be giving a lecture Tuesday November 29 (4:00-5:30: A225 Abbotsford Campus) on “The Struggle for Palestinian Rights at the United Nations.”

Ron Dart
POLSC

Donald E. Wagner's "Glory to God in the Lowest" - Review by Ron Dart

Journeys to an Unholy Land (Olive Branch Press, 2022).

Review by Ron Dart

The title of this timely, autobiographical, and not to be missed book tends to confront the reader with a challenge. There is a predictable tendency to think of “Glory to God in the Highest” and, for those interested in the Jews, the Bible and Christian sacred sites in Israel, as “Journeys [often selective] to the Holy Land.” But, Wagner will not allow us such a luxury or indulgence—we are invited, in fact, to visit the lowest, some of the most structurally oppressed in Israel that are often seen by the naïve as the Holy Land. How, though, did Wagner come to the telling and challenging conclusions he did? Such is the pith and core of this finely told and textured book.

Glory to God in the Lowest is a tale told in 6 compelling sections: 1) Beginnings, 2) Moving on Up While Downwardly Mobile, 3) Journeys to the Unholy Land, 4) Doctor, My Eyes Have Seen the Pain, 5) Palestine is Still the Issue and 6) Liberating Your Mind: Zionism, Christian Zionism and Resistance. Each of the chapters tells, in a needful manner, the nature of Wagner’s journey from American conservative evangelical beginnings (none of us decide on our thrownness) with its uncritical, almost hagiographical attitude to Israel, to a seeing of the injustices in the USA to connecting American racial issues with the situation of the Palestinians in Israel. Wagner has made many a trip to Israel, met and worked with many Palestinians, published a few books on the issue, lectured widely on the American-Israeli Zionist connection, worked with organizations that deal with the troubling and persistent dilemma and tells a different resistance story in Glory to God in the Lowest.

Each of the chapters, section by section, unpacks both Wagner’s political faith journey as theological vision turns more in a prophetic direction from a passive and conformist one both within how he understands his origins in the USA and the relationship of the USA (and the many Christians within it) to Judaism and Israel. How does one dare to critique Israel, the oft opposition using the language of anti-semitism when done? Wagner is acutely aware that many religious and secular Jews are opposed to Zionism but many Jews and Christians genuflect to the Zionist ideology. How does one break the spell of Jewish and Christian Zionism, Wagner more, rightly so, concerned with the latter rather than the former (although the two are inextricably intertwined)?

Sections 1-2 in Glory to God in the Lowest prepare the reader (given Wagner’s unfolding journey) for sections 3-6 with their decided focus on certain types of Christianity that merge interpretations of the Bible with pro-Zionist and pro-Israeli conclusions. The final section sums up the needed for a “Liberating Your Mind” counter-cultural approach to the issue. And, not to miss, of course, is the many family photographs at the end of the book, “Endnotes” worthy of a slow internalizing.

Glory to God in the Lowest is an imperative read for those interested in how the mind can be imprisoned by a limited read and application of the Bible to the (Un)Holy Land—if an awakening is needed, if liberation is the goal, then Wagner’s personal yet searching insights in this book are an antidote to a worrisome slumber that breeds much injustice and distorts the meaning of peace.

Ron Dart   

Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" - Paul Heise's response to Ron Dart

Paul Heise of www.wagnerheim.com responds to Ron Dart's five-part series on Richard Wagner's opera, "The Ring of the Nibelung."

Dear Ron:

Needless to say, it would take me forever to respond to every detail of your series of lectures on Wagner’s Ring, of the resemblances of aspects of Tolkien’s books to it, and of its massive implications for how we can understand what it is to be human. The primary thing I loved about your lectures is that they provide a window into the innumerable questions which Wagner asks about the human condition and man’s destiny. That’s my main takeaway from your lectures: you ask many of the questions that need to be asked.

So, since a comprehensive response would take me an eternity to complete, I’ll just respond briefly to a few of your observations which struck me as having the most resonance, not by way of critique but simply to complement what you said. Since you jump back and forth somewhat from one of the Ring’s four parts to the others in each of your lectures, in spite of each lecture being more or less dedicated to one of the Ring’s parts, I’ll just follow the chronological order of your online lectures rather than try to break them down by the numbered sequence of recordings.

You note the Ring asks us to make sense of our life as science or myth, reason or romanticism. The whole point of my Ring book has been to demonstrate that Wagner’s drama concerns precisely the relationship between these two aspects of man’s psyche in the course of history. Of course, he’s seeking to discover whether they can be reconciled. As Scruton put it, man as object vs. man as subject.

You note, as Deryck Cooke did, that Alberich seeks to compensate himself for the loss of love with the acquisition of power. My book presents this as a metaphor for man’s evolutionary transition from our pre-lingual animal ancestors into symbol- using man who, unlike his animal ancestors, is capable of increasing his power over himself and his environment over time cumulatively through the acquisition of knowledge.

CLICK HERE to continue reading: Paul Heise's full RESPONSE TO RON DART

To order a copy of Paul Heise's book, email [email protected] and ask for the “Author’s Discount” of $59.95.

Scrutinizing Scruton: the Scrutopian Tribe (1944-2020) - by Ron Dart

Ron Dart's critical analysis of the conservativism of Roger Scrutom

Before Tolkien 5: TWILIGHT OF THE GODS - Ron Dart

Ron Dart completes his exegesis of Richard Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" with a reflection on the final act, "Twilight of the Gods."

Previous in this series:

Before Tolkien 1 - Richard Wagner's THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG: Then and Now

Before Tolkien 2 - Richard Wagner's RHINE GOLD

Before Tolkien 3: Wagner's VALKYRIE

Before Tolkien 4: Tolkien, Wager & SIEGFRIED - Ron Dart

Before Tolkien 4: Tolkien, Wager & SIEGFRIED - Ron Dart

Video 1 - THE RINGS OF TOLKIEN & WAGNER - Similarities & Differences

Ron Dart discusses the common themes shared by Richard Wagner's Opera, "The Ring of Nibelung" and J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." Ron notes the allure and perils of the ring, the two dragons, and how both Brunehilde and Arwyn set love as a greater good than even their own immortality. Dart then discusses differences, particularly in how Tolkien's series ends with a comedic or happy outcome while Wagner after the climax explores the tragic in the Nordic tradition of Ragnorok.

Video 2 - WAGNER'S SIEGFRIED

Ron then considers "Siegfried," the third part (or Act 2) of the four music dramas that constitute Wagner's "Ring of Nibelungen."

Previous Videos in this Series:

Before Tolkien 1 - Richard Wagner's THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG: Then and Now

Before Tolkien 2 - Richard Wagner's RHINE GOLD

Before Tolkien 3: Wagner's VALKYRIE

Before Tolkien 3: Wagner's VALKYRIE - Ron Dart

Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" is a cycle of four operas that tell the story of the hero Siegfried and a magic ring. In this third session on Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung, Ron Dart completes his talk on "The Rhinegold" (the preliminary scenes of the Opera cycle), then walks us through Act I: The Valkyrie.

The previous sessions can be viewed here:

Before Tolkien 1 - Richard Wagner's THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG: Then and Now

Before Tolkien 2 - Richard Wagner's RHINE GOLD  

Before Tolkien 2: Richard Wagner's RHINE GOLD - Ron Dart

Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" is a cycle of four operas that tell the story of the hero Siegfried and a magic ring.

These four operas are The Rhine Gold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Twilight of the Gods. Borrowing from German and Norse tales, poems, sagas, and mythology, Wagner's main source was a German poem called "The Song of the Nibelungs" (circa 1200 AD).

Wagner's opera is certainly a precursor and had an influence on Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." In this series, Ron Dart walks through the archetypal significance of the opera's themes and characters, beginning here with the first two scenes of the first opera, "The Rhine Gold."

Previously, Ron's offered this brief reflection to the whole work:

 

Review of Monika B. Hilder's "Letters to Annie: A Grandmother’s Dreams..." by Ron Dart

Monika B. Hilder, Letters to Annie: A Grandmother’s Dreams of Fairy Tale Princesses, Princes, & Happily Ever After (FriesenPress, 2022).

Review by Ron Dart

“And I must say, girl, I can’t think of a more exciting field of study than the one of theology, imagination, and the arts”—and so ends Monika Hilder’s beauty of a book, Letters to Annie, 33 letters written by Omi Barbara from the time Annie was born to her 25^th birthday, Omi being eighty-eight when the final missive was penned.

There is a wise and generous, gracious and kindly way that Monika weaves together the perennial wisdom of multiple fairy tales, the layered life lessons packed into such tales, and the careful knitting together of Biblical insights and fairy tales in this must-read of a book.

I was reminded, as I sat with each letter, in a different way of more than Erasmus’ 4000 adages (with commentary and annotations) and Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes by Louis Markos. Both Markos and Hilder draw deeply from the grace-filled wisdom of myth and fairy tales, and both are substantively grounded in the mother lode of the Inklings (mentors and friends), MacDonald, Lewis, Sayers, Tolkien, Chesterton, and L’Engle, given their needful nods and due. We are also, given their significance in the fairy tale genre, walking side by side with Grimm, Andersen, Wilde, and Perrault, and the timeless beauty of Shakespeare and Milton offering us their epic vision in tales told.

There is an underlying theme and thesis in Letters to Annie that needs to be pondered and unpacked in a needful way. We dwell in an ethos of much cynicism and deconstruction—such a path walked too far can and does lead to soul and life paralysis and impotence. Most cynics are not cynical of cynicism just as most deconstructionists lack the courage to deconstruct deconstructionism. The epic vision of life that myths, fairy tales, Shakespeare, Milton, the Inklings, and the Bible offer has been marginalized and is held with a great deal of suspicion in our ethos. When we turn from the large macro-vision of the human journey, we often shrink to micro-tales in the culture wars just as when the secular negates the sacred, the secular becomes the sacred—therefore the human soul, mind, and imagination, shrinks and goes round and round in the smallest circle turns, as Rilke rightly noted when such moves are made. Letters to Annie comes as a challenge to such an approach to thought, word, and deed, and does so as a thoughtful grandmother kindly and sensitively shepherds her ever-growing granddaughter throughout her first 25 years of life, a dream vision of enchantment via fairy tales: the sacred and magic key.

There is in fairy tales, as in myths, the notion that the journey is fraught with challenges and perils, “Agon” is the Greek word from which we get agony, protagonist, antagonist, or Milton’s Samson’s Agonistes. The future path of each protagonist and antagonist (princesses, princes, witches, ogres, dragons, etc.) in fairy tales and myths is about growing into the challenges (“agon”) of the journey and, for the most part, overcoming, and in the overcoming of the challenges becoming a fairer, finer, and more mature princess and prince, “happily ever after,” the oft contested ending when real life meets fairy tale. Monika, to her credit, visits, again and again, this “happily ever after” ending to many fairy tales, such approaches more comedic than tragic. There is much massaging of such an approach to the life-fairy tale tension as more nuance and refinement is pondered in Letters to Annie, no flinching from the hard questions of sadness, suffering, and the tragic on our all too human journey. Letters to Annie does cover many of the disappointments, betrayals, and confusions of the faith and life journey and the dangers such challenges pose to the aspiring (or not so aspiring) princesses and princes—many discerning insights can be gleaned, when read wisely and well, from fairy tales—Monika certainly asks of her readers much deeper and layered reads of such classic tales, tales sadly so domesticated and sanitized by the Disney industry.    

I worked with Amnesty International for about 15 years, and in those years I met many a noble princess and prince who for a variety of reasons faced into the unjust political context of their time and suffered terribly (some tortured to death, others years of solitary confinement, some freed from their cells but psychological damage for the rest of their years)—in short, decidedly no “happily ever after”. I’m married into a family of German Roman Catholics who opposed Hitler in the 1930s, many within the family were sent to death camps and exterminated, some slowly starving to death, others housed with those who had multiple illnesses and diseases—good people but goodness crucified with no resurrection in time or history.  Most of us have favourite novels—Doctor Zhivago is in my top ten. The finale to Zhivago is Zhivago’s tender poems, and a poem that is repeated is “Fairy Tale” about the perennial prince who is meant to slay the dragon and rescue the princess. “Fairy Tale” by Zhivago, though, has the dragon unseating the prince, the horse charging the dragon, both damaged beyond repair, prince and princess, future unclear and unsure, in an ambiguous place—certainly no “happily ever after”.  I have also watched many dear friends die slow, slower and sad deaths, years of physical suffering, drugged to prevent intense pain.

I agree with Monika that cynicism is a cul-de-sac, and it is essential when facing into the dire tragedies that war, poverty, political conflicts, and much else create that we seriously know how to tell fairy tales that discern how to live within the comedic-tragic tension, God the Shepherd and Father (to use but two classical Biblical metaphors) often silent, eclipsed or seemingly absent. And we can’t only explain the tragic by a flaw in the character of those who suffer as did Aristotle or many of Shakespeare’s tragic characters.

How do we, in short, infuse the tragic into the “exciting field” of theology, imagination, and the arts that includes the comedic and the tragic, that includes “happily ever after,” but prevents such a position from becoming a bromide that ignores the stubborn and obstinate nature of the tragic? Such is the future of fairy tales and myths.

Ron Dart               

Before Tolkien 1: Richard Wagner's THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG: Then and Now - Ron Dart

David M. Odorisio (ed.), "Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart" review by Ron Dart

David M. Odorisio (ed.),  Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart, Fons Vitae, 2021.

Thomas Merton, like the proverbial fox, rambled across much terrain and in such roaming saw and revealed much in a variety of challenging areas. Merton was not the only Roman Catholic in the 20^th century to see and articulate the need for deeper interfaith contemplative dialogue, but he was certainly one of the most evocative, accessible and articulate in doing so. Fons Vitae, to their courageous and hard-won credit, deserve many a kudo for bringing together in a splendid collection of tomes, Merton’s fox-like landscape traversed. But, Merton was also very much like the hedgehog, deeper burrowing and much wisdom gleaned from such burrowing. The latest and final text on Merton and his contemplative interfaith dialogue, Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart, edited by David M. Odorisio, is a beauty and bounty not to miss. 

The portal of Merton and Hinduism is opened by David Odorisio’s lengthy and incisive “Introduction,” the path and direction of the book made plain and clear for the curious and interested reader. Part I “Hinduism and Christianity in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives” threads together six superb essays that reflect on Merton, Hinduism, Yoga and Hesychasm (3 of the essays are on Hesychasm). Part I provides a general overview of the larger topic of Christianity and Hinduism, Merton more in the shadows and offstage. Part II, “Merton and Hinduism: Dialogue and Deep Learning in the Cave of the Heart” has thirteen essays that drill and bore into Merton’s varied engagement with forms of Hinduism from an variety of varied angles, including his friendship with different scholars and practitioners of Hinduism. Part III, “Merton on Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart”, for the most part, includes many articles by Merton on Hinduism (10 to be sure). Part IV, “Appendix: Reading Thomas Merton Reading Hinduism and Yoga: A Bibliography of Sources” is a fit and fine ending for those keen to delve deeper and further into Merton’s burrowing and probes. There are six black-white photographs in Merton and Hinduism that add to the, mostly, textual book.

David M. Odorisio has walked the extra mile not only to synthesize material that many know about by Merton on Hinduism but he has also unearthed much that has not been written by Merton on Hinduism and articles about Merton on Hinduism—this makes Merton and Hinduism a motherlode and gold mine of sorts that will set new standards for further studies on Merton on Hinduism, Indian religion and the East.  Many of the essays in Merton and Hinduism have been published before but the bringing together of such articles into a polished and needful tome makes this a must read text for Merton keeners. I was fortunate, when younger, to correspond with Bede Griffiths and I was somewhat disappointed there was not an article that dealt with Merton and Griffiths in a fuller and more comprehensive way and manner, Griffiths a more mature and deeper thinker, in thought, word and deed than Merton on Hinduism. An article on Merton, Griffiths and Hinduism could have revealed much about both Merton’s fox like approach and, at times, his lack of hedgehog depth. There is, also, a fine photograph of Coomaraswamy and Tagore in Merton and Hinduism (p. 201) and although Dekar’s article on Merton and Gandhi covers much needed terrain, Merton, in many ways, had more affinities with Tagore than Gandhi. In short, an essay on Merton and Tagore just as an article on Merton and Griffiths would have enriched and fleshed out this timely and, in some ways, timeless volume on Merton’s explorations into the Indian and Hindu soul.   

I suppose a small yet insignificant quibble I have about this expansive book is the lack of an Index, and Index making it possible to navigate more nimbly topics, themes and people that interest the curious reader. But, this is but a fret and misstep in an otherwise superb book. 

There is no doubt that Fons Vitae and David M. Odorisio have excelled, yet once again, in articulating Merton’s fox like traversing of the terrain of Hinduism. As mentioned above, Merton did do his hedgehog like burrowing, but when Merton is compared with those like Griffiths, his leanings are decidedly more fox like than hedgehog. And yet, Merton and Hinduism: The Yoga of the Heart brilliantly illuminates the compelling reality that Merton also had distinctive hedgehog tendencies, ever burrowing in many needful and necessary places---truly an “A+” gift of a tome. This will be a standard source book for future studies on Merton and Hinduism.

Ron Dart  

"The Adages of Erasmus" - Philosophy, Formation and Wisdom - Ron Dart

The Adages of Erasmus: Philosophy, Formation, and Wisdom 

I can hardly say what nectar, sweet as honey, I sip from your most delightful Adages, rich source of nectar as they are, what lovely flowers of every mind I gather thence like a honeybee, carrying them off to my hive and building them into a fabric of what I write. To their perusal, I have devoted two hours each day.

—Niccolo Sagundino

As an expression of the Renaissance love of antiquity and as a work of instruction and reference, the Adages is unsurpassed in its sweep… There is a close relationship between the Adages and Erasmus’ other widely known works, from The Praise of Folly to the Colloquies.

—William Barker       

As a synthesis of classical and Renaissance proverb lore the Adages has never really been superseded.

—William Barker

There is a way of doing philosophy that is about parsing various arguments, using inductive, deductive, and logical arguments to reach reasonable conclusions, or studying the different positions of philosophers across the centuries of time. Such an approach to thinking and being has played a prominent role in shaping how the discipline, understanding and significance of philosophy are practiced. But, there is another approach to philosophy that comes as a check, balance, and counter to these rather orthodox tendencies. This approach is more concerned about wisdom and insight, formation and ordering desires, and the use of parables, stories, myths, and varied folk tales to illuminate the journey. It was such an understanding of philosophy that held Erasmus and his ever-growing Adages.

The Adages drew deeply and thoroughly from the Greek and Latin wisdom traditions and the Christian internalization of such an aphoristic and parabolic approach to insight, short stories are portals into the larger cathedral of seeing the journey in a fuller and more discerning way and manner. The Adages went through many an edition and grew larger and more expansive as reflections as the compilation developed.

The initial publication of the Adages left the press in 1500, while Erasmus was still a young man in his early 30s. The turbulence of the emerging reformation was still in the future. The 818 proverbs listed in the 1500 edition were shorter, commentaries on them briefer. But, each of the 818 graphic tales told, each summarizing markings to note on the journey are keepers not to miss. The growing interest in such wisdom tales meant Erasmus was inspired to add to his collection. Erasmus took to Italy in 1508 and, when there, met one of the foremost printers of the time: Aldus Manuzio. Manuzio walked the extra mile to encourage and support Erasmus in his journey with proverbial aphorisms, the “hasten slowly” and symbol of the dolphin and anchor but a pointer to the layered tale of “The Labours of Hercules”.  The 1508 edition of the Adages was much expanded. The 3260 aphorisms now included a growing commentary on them. But, in Erasmus’ sagacious and applied way, he blended the aphorism as a timeless insight to a timely application to the dilemmas and challenges of the early 16th-century ethos. In short, the timeless wisdom and myths of the classical tradition could still speak in a timely way to the obvious problems of Erasmus’ historic and troubling context.    

One of the more perennial adages that held both the classical way of thinking (much concealed in the literal and external, much more revealed in the deeper internal probes) was the myth of “The Sileni of Alcibiades.” I supervised an MA thesis that was completed in 2005 called “The Silenus Metaphor: The Inner Spirit Theology of Erasmus. and the Colloquies”.  The external reality of Silenus tends to be offensive, bordering on the grotesque and lacking appeal, whereas the inner reality of Silenus is ripe with beauty, insight, and wisdom. Those who only see with the physical eye see not—those who have been trained to see with the inner, searching, and spiritual eye see much that the literal and empirical eye sees not. Such is, when understood aright, the purpose of the proverb, adage, and folk tale.

The third and more engaged social and political commentary of the Adages was published in 1515. Margaret Phillips has called this Erasmus’ “Utopian edition”—gone are the wisdom saying that merely float above time and history—the 1515 edition does have a tendency to apply such insights to the pressing social, political, religious, and economic issues of the time. The reformation was heating up in both the Roman Catholic and potential Protestant tribes and Erasmus was alert to such realities—his first revised edition of the New Testament was published in 1516—many were the revisions that questioned the Vulgate and offended the conservative Roman Catholic Sanhedrin.

The Adages continued to grow in size and scope as an eager audience delighted and were charmed by such compact and succinct summaries of insights and longer commentaries on them. Some of the adages grew in length, such as “War is sweet to those who have not tried it,” which became a bestselling booklet. Another work, “Twice cooked cabbage is death,” which refers to something said that is silly that can be initially tolerated but when mindlessly repeated, again and again, tests the patience to the tolerant extreme.

The fourth edition of the Adages was published in 1517-1518, the fifth edition in 1520, the sixth in 1523, the seventh in 1526, the eighth in 1528, the ninth in 1533, and the final edition months before Erasmus’ death in 1536. The final total of adages reached a staggering 4151 by the end of Erasmus’ formal publishing journey. After the death of Erasmus, additions were made to the rather large and imposing collection and many were the shorter and more abridged versions.  There can be no doubt, though, that Erasmus used the adage and proverbial approach to formation and wisdom to highlight how the classical world that he has inherited had much wisdom and insight, and by common grace, saw deeply and meaningfully into the substantive issues of our all too human journey.

The publication of The Adages of Erasmus in 2001 (more than 20 years now since its publication) by the University of Toronto Press is, in many ways, a tome more than worth the owning—like Sagundino, I would agree, the nectar is indeed sweet, lovely flowers visited, honey bees of insight carried to the hive of the mind--a daily lingering and inwardly digesting of them essential for a deeper formation of desires and longings to their true home, hearth, and end. Even though The Adages of Erasmus does not include all the 4151 adages, there is more than enough in this bounty of the book to be a hiking companion until our journey comes to an end.

Ron Dart                             

St. Stephen's University 2022 "Resonance" Address - Dr. RON DART

Dr. RON DART - St. Stephen's University (New Brunswick) "Resonance" Address
to Graduate Studies students (around the world) in the Theology & Culture Program

RON DART - Degree of Doctor of Ministry and Humanities, Honoris Causa. 
Hooding speech by Dr. Joseph McGinn, St. Stephen's University

Ron Dart is a professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, in Abbotsford, BC and a long-time friend of SSU. In the past, Ron visited our campus to deliver lectures and is currently active in recruiting students into our grad studies programs. He also regularly supervises or acts as second reader for our MA theses. 

Ron is an activist, an academic, and a prolific author. After working with political refugees through Amnesty International in the tumultuous 80s, he was recruited by Fraser Valley College (now UFV) for his experience and expertise in political philosophy and religious studies. He has served there since 1990, while also supervising PhD students (including Dr. Jersak).

Ron Dart has also given significant leadership as a volunteer advisor, chairperson, board member, contributor and/or editor in many other venues, including:

• Political Science advisor to the Stephen Leacock Home/Museum
• National Executive of the Thomas Merton Society of Canada
• Middle East Coordinator for Amnesty International
• Co-Editor of Clarion Journal 
• Founder of the Contemplative Order of the Sons of the Holy Cross
• Board member with the Alpine Club of Canada 

Ron has authored forty books that deal with the interface between literature, spirituality, and politics. We look forward to his next visit to St. Stephen’s University and it is my pleasure to confer on him the Degree of Doctor of Ministry and Humanities, Honoris Causa. 

A Jazz Evening with Merton, Hesse, Buber and Eliot - Ron Dart & Jazzthink

A Jazz Evening with Readings from Merton, Hesse, Buber and Eliot.

Readings by Ron Dart.

Hosted by Brian Fraser
Brentwood Presbyterian Church 
Jazzthink

A Jazz Evening with erton, Hesse, Buber and Eliot - Ron Dart & Jazzthink

A Jazz Evening with Readings from Merton, Hesse, Buber and Eliot.

Readings by Ron Dart.

Hosted by Brian Fraser
Brentwood Presbyterian Church 
Jazzthink