Skating and Logismoi

Saturday, while I stayed at home with childcare obligations and 6/8's of the family went to hear visiting Priest, Father Dmitri Cosby, speak about the end times and logismoi, I watched Grand Prix ice skating on the new NBC sports station, Universal Sports.

So how does one incorporate a talk on logismoi into one's planned talk on the end times? According to my husband's account, Fr. Dmitri is a student of eschatology, but he is moving away from prioritizing the knowledge of specifics about the future. Logismoi are thoughts that our undisciplined brain incessantly chatters which make us worry about the past and the future. A result of the fall is that we are unable to dwell in the present. He very much recommends Archimandrite Meletios Webber's book, Bread & Water, Wine & Oil, An Orthodox Christian Experience of God, to find out how to dwell in the present so that one need not unduly worry about Christ's Second Coming.

I find it much easier to work out on the elliptical exercise machine while watching figure skating, especially engaging figure skating such as Olympic hopefuls Davis and White from the USA and Virtue and Moir from Canada are able to deliver. Usually I am more attentive to the single skaters, but this year these two ice dancing teams are able to translate moving arms and legs into a transcendental experience that I can't describe. This routine won the Canadians the gold in France weekend before last:

Virtue and Moir

(Sorry, I haven't yet figured out how to post youtube videos on blogger yet.) The routine that won the United States the gold in Moscow this past weekend apparently hasn't been posted yet, but this one's pretty good:

Davis and White

I can't predict which one will win the Olympics as they didn't compete against each other during these events. I'd be happy for both North American teams.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Faith therefore is not an aesthetic emotion but something far higher, precisely because it has resignation as its presupposition; it is not an immediate instinct of the heart, but is the paradox of life and existence. So when in spite of all difficulties a young girl still remains convinced that her wish will surely be fulfilled, this conviction is not the assurance of faith... Her conviction is very lovable, and one can learn much from her, but one thing is not to be learned from her, one does not learn the movements, for her conviction does not dare in the pain of resignation to face the impossibility.

-Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

I've read this quote about five times and believe at this point that he's making a distinction between faith and wishing. Wishing is an immediate instinct of the heart and faith is not. A young girl following her heart is lovable, but not faithful. What could one learn from her then? To not be a nihilistic materialist or a pessimistic intellectual. But one cannot learn from her how to achieve union with God. Her wishes can't come true and she must face this. This resignation is death to her, and she cannot fathom committing suicide. Of letting her heart stop. But without doing so, she will not reach her end. She will remain a fat caterpillar instead of becoming the beautiful, soaring butterfly she was meant to be. 'Be still and know that I am God.'

Just Breathe

What must it be like to be told when and how you are probably going to die? Like a death sentence from a judge? Or like an end of a prison sentence, a release date? There have been a few times when I've wanted to die, but then when I thought it might happen I usually changed my mind. One time though I was resigned and when it didn't happen, it felt like I would have to re-resign myself to this painful life. Mostly the thought of dying can be like holding your breath, and then something forces you to involuntarily take a breath. Our "life-force" is usually pretty hard to overcome.

With my low blood sugar, it can seem like an impossible task to just get up and make my protein shake and vitamins. This is sort of like medication because without it, I can hardly function. When my blood sugar is low I am also in a very low-willing state. I don't really want to function when it's like that. But something inside propels me amidst my lack of will to get up and take my medicine. It's then that the voice of my children bring a spark of vitality to me. Before my shake their noises remind me that I have no strength, but after, interacting with them is a source of joy. There is something in me that is stronger than me that wont give up, except for that one time. I wouldn't say it's a will to live, but that it is part of being human to keep doing stuff that contributes to life. We can't help ourselves.

One time I heard the Saturday Night Live comedienne, Julia Sweeney, talk about her brother's last moments. His body had given out due to cancer, but he was having trouble letting go. They had to call in a death therapist who talked him through it. At the end of the session she told him to imagine that he was on a trampoline jumping up... and down... up... and down... up... and down, and now imagine jumping off.... and he died. I've always felt that one has to, except in cases of devastating trauma, voluntarily let go of life. That otherwise one can always force oneself to breathe one more breath. Ms. Sweeney's story gives some credence to that.

Right now as long as today is today, I can keep breathing. It may be almost all I feel I can do sometimes, but it is enough to allow me to pray,

Sveti Boge, Sveti Krepki, Sveti Bessmertniy, Pumiluy nos.
Slava Ottsu, i Sinu, i Svetomo Duhu

i

nynje

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prisnw

i

vo

vjeki

vjekwv"

amin'

I found a new pronunciation page for Slavonic prayers. I put it with the others I mentioned recently in a new link category, Slavonic helps.

That which must be unsung

Why is it that it isn't romantic to write about the internet? We can rhapsodize about letters and books, extolling the qualities of the paper, parchment, binding, the stamp, the handwriting, etc. But to write about pixels, buttons, screens, or wireless, satellite, or dsl connections seems inhuman. I've even heard about typewriters being sentimentalized, electric and manual. But not computers. I suppose one could say that it's because the hand actually touches the paper that goes into an electric typewriter, and the copy is printed more deliberately and personally by a manual push of the button. The envelopes have to be individually stuffed even if address labels are used. These are things that we connect with on a very human level. But the internet and cell phone transmissions aren't physically tangible in the same way. They belong to the immaterial. To electrons and positive and negative charges. They are more like fluorescent lights. An incandescent light, though less personal and organic than a candle or kerosene lamp, still has a warming flame. Fluorescent lights are phosphorescent gas. I think.

But I wont vilify electronic pixels, radio transmissions, and fluorescent lights. They still illumine content. We can still connect with the content. It's just a more gnostic connection, and we do have an invisible intangible element to us. Electronic warmth is still warmth. It is more efficiently transmitted across space and time. The content may not warm us as much or as long, but any warmth is more than nothing. Not that people before these devices weren't warmed. Perhaps they went outside and felt the sun, smelled the earth, and beheld the green leaves more for that necessary warmth. But today most of us can't buy food and shelter if we spend the necessary time doing that for our health. We are imprisoned by our technology, and instead subsist on its paler light. But there is still a person on the other end of that dim light. And that person can warm you with content about God, love, and Orthodoxy so that when you do go outside or to Church, your senses can be more informed. Maybe it's not best, but it's what some of us do.

Zombieland

Dispassionate or apathetic coping skills?

Nerd guy uses boyscout type rules to survive the zombies. He critically analyzes each situation and applies the appropriate rule, then continues his search for a zombieless place. He is the reluctant warrior.

Tough guy kills zombies as catharsis. He's angry and he takes it out on the zombies. Nerd guy realizes that he must let tough guy vent (another addition to his list of rules), or he'll get it aimed at him. I still say he's dispassionate or apathetic about the zombies. He seems to care less about them, he's just using them as opportunities to vent.

Pretty girl long ago realized that anything is permitted in her independent quest for her sister's and her own survival. Instead of destroying things, she leaves them behind.

Little sister is along for the ride and trusts big sister. Sort of like nerd guy.

All are searching for a zombieless place when they meet. The developing relationships between them are worth the gore.

But if tough guy needs something to violently vent at, what would he do if he found a zombieless place? I suppose he would seek a more positive thing to replace that which made him upset in the first place. If he didn't have the zombies though, would he have gotten over the loss and been able to move on?

Nerd guy, with his seeming calm, had previously been immersed in a video game, so his calm could be attributed to the catharsis of virtually killing things in World of War Craft.

Catharsis is set up to be that which enables a person to purge the effects of negative things in their lives. Depression seems to be what happens when those negative effects are kept inside. Healing is seen to take place when a person is able to verbalize their pain, but sometimes a physical action is seen to be helpful too. Is it relative? I have heard that watching Saving Private Ryan was cathartic to veterans of WWII who had never told anyone of the horrors of war. They had kept it in their whole lives. Having the story told by someone else made them cry. Perhaps they took the nobler course. The course of those who patiently wait and then relief comes finally from another source.

But is it possible to be affect-less when painful things are inside? I believe there is a problem of rage and depression in the WWII generation. This has had a cultural effect that could explain the baby boomers of the '60's and my generation, generation X. Not to be too reductionist, but I believe that many of these men, not just the veterans but the ones who were a bit older and younger than they, took out their rage at home, and many of the women superficially dealt with it by denying it which caused them not to relate realistically to others, including their kids. There are other extenuating circumstances, but in talking to my peers, I have noticed similar dysfunction in their families, and one psychologist has written a book about the family dynamics of that generation. I haven't read this book, but a client of his told me some basic things, not all of the nature that I related above.

But if one is killing things virtually, in video games and in stories, isn't one participating in the act to some extent? Plato seems to believe this, and that it contributes to unhealthy passion in one's own life. He concedes though that since there is an innate charm to stories, that it's okay if one doesn't let ones self validate the vicarious experience. I take this to mean that one should not wish revenge and destruction to be had on any real people or things. Perhaps then one can be relieved at the cessation of the causes of pain by attributing the cause to spiritual forces such as demons. It is easy to imagine that the zombies are demons, and that the person they took over is essentially gone. And are we not to be ruthless with demons? The nerd guy even says to one of the newly turned zombies that he realizes that they are sick and that their zombie insatiable cannibalistic behavior is not something that they would normally do. Yet they have to be stopped. The question of self-preservation is brought up, and based on the premise in the movie, it is pointless to sacrifice ones self for the zombie because that person has ceased to exist and if they have their way with you now, you will be forced to become a zombie yourself and perpetuate the illness. Resistance is the only option.

This raises the question of giving up on people. If we look to history, it seems that certain people had to be stopped and that they were not going to repent but continue on a path that would destroy all in their wake. The people who have stopped these destructive people are considered heroes. There are also instances where people have been vilified and destroyed wrongfully. Nowadays people are questioning who were the villains and who were the heroes and coming up with conflicting answers. I suppose people have always disagreed on this, but there is a consensus about Hitler especially that dominates thinking. All of us have to choose what we will allow near our lives and those of the ones we love. These choices are often painful. And what about if someone else has drawn a line between you? Then what to do with the pain? Nice people don't want to hurt others, so do they sock a pillow, go shopping, eat a tub of ice cream, pelt someone in an online forum debate, watch Zombieland, take it out on family members or gossip in a way that makes them temporarily feel better? Is it really possible to hold it in without one of these or another choice of outlets? I think we all engage in these from time to time. This probably makes up a lot of the content of our guilt and confessions to our priest.

Another choice is to escape it all in beautiful things. But we can't seem to escape for very long. Still, I think it is important to get away from the cycle and look at something beautiful in silence or in peace.

But it is likely we will also watch or read something where catharsis is taking place. Perhaps we can grieve and have compassion on the pain of our times that tempts us, if that is how we are going to categorize the reaction, to participate in it. Lord have mercy.

Henry Poole is Here

Henry Poole is Here stars Luke Wilson, brother of Owen Wilson, as a terminally ill man who is trying to resolve his life by moving back into the neighborhood where he grew up. His Catholic new neighbor notices that the new paint job to his house has left a stain that she thinks is the face of God. He is not a believer, and her persistence with venerating his exterior wall causes a lot of the tension in the movie.

****

The mini bio at imdb quotes Luke as saying,

[On his quirks]: I have this weird thing where I feel exhilarated when I cast things off in my life. Let things go. Even things that are important to me. Sometimes I know I’m making the wrong decision, but I do it anyway. Like, I just lost this watch that really meant a lot to me. I bought it after Bottle Rocket (1996). The first nice thing I ever bought for myself and I lost it. Yet I have this feeling of being glad it’s gone. I don’t know why.

At the end of the movie, when it seems his character is getting something he wants, I was disappointed that I didn’t sense that it was really what he wanted. I think he was supposed to be happy with it, but after reading the above and another quote about how Luke himself handles relationships, I think he really struggles with this. I believe Chris McCandless would relate.

Perhaps it comes from feeling deprived of something necessary, then dreaming about something that should replace it, attaining the new thing and then feeling empty. After deciding that no earthly thing can fill the void or ease the longing, a period of anti-materialism and detatchment can ensue. Like Luke said at the end of the bio page, I don’t think this is depression. Maybe it’s seeing that earthly things don’t satisfy our deepest longings, and gaining a sense that giving things up is the way towards attaining something higher, as Plato might say.