As indicated in my earlier post, "The Art of Victory", my Dearly Beloved and I were fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of some friends' wonderful generosity, and scored a day watching the Third cricket Test between Australia and England from the Members Stand at the MCG.
I didn't get to see Shane Warne capture his 700th wicket in Test cricket (that happened on the first day), nor did I get to see him capture his 1000th international wicket (his Test and One Day International wickets combined), but I did get to see him in action, and in the context of an Australian victory in his last match at the 'G.
Warne is, as everyone knows, a controversial figure. Much of that controversy has been manufactured by the media's shameful invasion of Warne's private life, and by those odious individuals prepared to profit from our celebrity- and scandal-obsessed age. But much has also been generated by Warne himself. Like any flawed human being, he has done things that were thoughtless or stupid or downright crass. He has brought himself - and, it has been argued, the game of cricket - into disrepute on more than one occasion. No argument from me on that score.
But it is also undeniably true that Warne is certainly the greatest Australian cricketer ever, and arguably the greatest cricketer from any nation to have played the game. I do not posit that fact to excuse some of his less meritorious behaviour; I present it simply because it is the case. And it is a fact that exists independently of mere statistics and records.
Warne helped revitalise international cricket at a time when Test matches were considered dull and passe - indeed, when ODI's were thought to represent the totality of cricket's future. By utilising the hard-won art and skill of leg-spinning, Warne drew the attention of new generations of cricket lovers to the possibilities contained within the 5-day game. By approaching cricket with gusto and enthusiasm, he educated those inclined to dismiss Test cricket in its capacity for drama and tension. Most of all, Warne combined both flair and intelligence to effectively demonstrate that cricket could be both thoughtfully and entertainingly played.
True, Warne has sometimes let himself down on the cricket field as well as off, most notably when he got himself dismissed for 99 in the Test match at Perth against New Zealand some years ago. But those were occasional aberrations. As a cricketer, Warne was without peer, and Australia owes much of its success in the last 15 years to his once-in-a-generation talent.
And so it as fantastic to see Warne in action at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Firstly, with a bat in his hand, which he wielded with wonderful aplomb to score a sprightly 40 not out. And then with the ball in his hand. He had to work a lot harder in the second English innings for his wickets than he had to do in their first dig; but eventually, he broke through, dazzling supporters, opponents, and team-mates alike with his skill. This was exemplified by the flipper he bowled to take the wicket of Sajid Mahmood. The flipper is a short-pitched ball which, because of the top-spin applied by the bowler as the ball leaves his hand, skids through at about ankle height to trap the batsman in front of the wicket, or which bowls him outright. It is a very difficult ball to deliver, and only the best can do it without any betraying change in their action, or without the ball simply sitting up to be dispatched by the batsman to the boundary. It is a ball with which Warne himself has had his problems; and yet, on this day, he produced the perfect specimen. A fitting tribute to both the cricketer and the occasion.
Warne has one more Test, in Sydney, to play before he bows out of the game altogether. But it was very special to see him in his last home Test; suitably, he was carried from the ground on the shoulders of his team-mates once the final English wicket fell, to the rapturous applause of the whole crowd of 80,000 people.
Talk to you soon,
BB
Quote for the Day: A genius is any person who can re-wrap a shirt and not have any pins left over. (Dino Levi)
Sunday, December 31, 2006
The Art of Victory
"Why are Australians such bad winners?"
My Dearly Beloved posed this question to me after we'd spent a day at the MCG watching the Australian cricket team wrap up the Fourth Test against England - courtesy of some tickets to the Members Stand provided by some wonderfully generous friends. The Australians won easily - indeed, the the English posted only modest scores in both their innings, and the Australians needed only to bat once; the subsequent victory to Australia by an innings and 99 runs was about as comfortable as any win at the first-class level gets.
What prompted my Dearly Beloved's question was not the understandable jubilation of the Australian players at their victory, or the generally celebratory nature of the crowd response to the game's outcome. Nor indeed was my Dearly Beloved disturbed by the mostly good-natured rivalry between the English and Australian fans, and the banter which this produced.
Instead, the question was prompted by the conduct of a single person: a woman sitting two rows behind us. Now, I'll admit that although I couldn't see this woman for most of the time, I was not well disposed toward her from the outset as she had a most unattractive voice: something akin to a bandsaw cutting through concrete. Hardly her fault, I'll grant you, but I did wonder as she gossipped to her friend through most of the day at the top of her voice why she had to be so loud. It was not as though the chanting which broke out at different times in various sections of the crowd made conversation impossible; and there were plenty of breaks in which there was neither cheering or chanting, and a quiet word with one's neighbour was perfectly possible. But the loudness and harshness of this woman's voice suggested some unattractive underlying personality trait; a suggestion that rose above simple bias by the content and manner of her conversation.
Although perhaps "conversation" is too generous a description. As I said, this woman's voice was quite loud, nor was its volume moderated in any way by her subject matter. And so she continued on with an almost embarrassing obliviousness to the sensitivities of others, dissecting the various scandals and other salacious affairs in which her friends, family, and acquaintances were at that time embroiled. I was neither interested in, nor did I want to know, who was having sex with whom, or who was in trouble with the Tax Office, or who was a bastard to work with. Not that I, or any one else within a considerable radius, had any say in the matter: this woman let us all know regardless. Moreover, she wasn't merely gossiping; she was engaging in what I call the "And then I said" mode of gossip. That is, every anecdote appeared to end with a cautionary sermon on how her sage advice in every matter had been ignored, with disastrous consequences. If only mere mortals had heeded her wisdom, all would have been well.
In other words, everything she said, and the way she said it, suggested she both had a smug, self-satisfied view of her own worth and wisdom, as well as taking an obvious delight in the misfortunes and foibles of others. Not the personality type to which I warm.
No, I was not well-disposed toward this woman. But what made my disposition less favourable was that, as the match (oh, yes, I was there to watch the cricket) drew closer to its inevitable conclusion - an easy Australian victory - this woman turned from gossip to bombarding those about her with disparaging comments about all things English. Every time an English player produced a good shot and scored runs, she would belittle their skill. Every time a wicket fell, or an English batsman had a near escape, she would laud the superiority of the Australians or suggest that it was only undeserved luck that had produced any English success in the past. Every time the English supporters tried to rally their side with chants or barracking, this woman observed with obvious relish that those same supporters would have 10,000 miles on their way back to England to contemplate their side's demise in this series.
Hence, my Dearly Beloved's question: "Why are Australians such bad winners?"
Now, don't get me wrong: I love Australia belting the Poms in the cricket as much as the next bloke. But what made this woman especially distasteful -aside from what her gossip revealed about her personality - was that her partisanship allowed for no acknowledgement of the merits of others. There was no sense of sportsmanship, of playing the game in a good spirit; that games, far from being one of many modes of developing the human spirit, were there only to be won. Moreover, not merely won, but won in such a way as to ensure the utter humiliation of the opposition.
Ultimately, however, what grated about this woman was the indication that she had no sense that cricket, afterall, is just a game. Granted, in the age of professional sports, it is a means of living for the players concerned; but this woman's response was one of excess, as though cricket, or any competitive sport in which Australia is involved, had a meaning and virtue in and of itself: namely, that Australia had to win, had to utterly thrash and humiliate the opposition, otherwise she would be lessened somehow, and life itself would be diminished. This woman had seemingly made an enormous emotional investment in Australia winning; such an investment, in fact, that there was simply no room for anything else.
Compare this attitude to an incident which occurred at the end of the Second Test when Australia last played England - in England, in 2005. The Australians had fallen agonisingly short of winning the game, a heartbreak rendered all the more wrenching because England had been well in control for most of the contest, and the Australian players had performed heroically well to get as close as they did. And yet, at the moment of triumph, one of the English players - Andrew Flintoff, who had been more responsible than most for the English victory - immediately went across to the disconsolate Australians to offer his congratulations for their efforts. There is a powerful photo of Flintoff on his haunches shaking the hand of the Australian player Brett Lee, one arm cast consolingly across Lee's shoulders, as Lee crouches, almost on his knees, sadly contemplating what might have been. It has been rightly lauded as the defining image of that particular series, because it speaks powerfully to the spirit in which the players conducted themselves: with determination to do their best and carry their team to victory, but in such a manner as left room for generosity and dignity and acknowledgement of the merit of others.
In that one instant, Flintoff conveyed a depth of spirit that the woman with the bandsaw voice seemed to lack entirely.
As for my Dearly Beloved's question, I am sure there are all sorts of sociological, psychological, and existential answers. The adoption of the "win at all costs" mentality; the importance which sport assumes in the lives of those who feel disempowered or disenfranchised; cultural cringe; anti-intellectualism; cultural arrogance; transferred compensation for personal feelings of inadequacy. And while all of these are undoubtedly true and accurate, it seems to me to be, ultimately, a question of spirit - and of the generosity of spirit. And it seems to me that the question of generosity of spirit offers us a clear choice: either we allow ourselves to enter into the lives of others, or we barricade our lives within the shell of our own being. If we do the former, we will expose ourselves to many misfortunes and setbacks; but we will be all the richer for the experience, and for the benefits which coming into contact with other lives brings. If we do the latter, we may very well be safe from the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", but our lives will be barren, empty, and always searching for some external source from which to find completion of our being.
Ultimately, beneath my dislike, I felt sorry for this woman; it seemed to me that she was entirely enclosed within herself, and could only find sustenance from the misfortunes of others, or from denigrating their efforts. Perhaps I am doing her an injustice, because I have only seen her within this one context. But it was a context that was powerful enough for me to conclude that, at the very least, her spirit of being was severely diminished or constricted. Afterall, if she conducted herself so spitefully in so trivial a context as a game of cricket, how did she conduct herself in important areas such as human relationships?
Talk to you soon,
BB
Quote for the Day: If a person cannot conduct themselves properly in trivial affairs, what hope is there that they will conduct themselves properly in important matters? (Confucius)
My Dearly Beloved posed this question to me after we'd spent a day at the MCG watching the Australian cricket team wrap up the Fourth Test against England - courtesy of some tickets to the Members Stand provided by some wonderfully generous friends. The Australians won easily - indeed, the the English posted only modest scores in both their innings, and the Australians needed only to bat once; the subsequent victory to Australia by an innings and 99 runs was about as comfortable as any win at the first-class level gets.
What prompted my Dearly Beloved's question was not the understandable jubilation of the Australian players at their victory, or the generally celebratory nature of the crowd response to the game's outcome. Nor indeed was my Dearly Beloved disturbed by the mostly good-natured rivalry between the English and Australian fans, and the banter which this produced.
Instead, the question was prompted by the conduct of a single person: a woman sitting two rows behind us. Now, I'll admit that although I couldn't see this woman for most of the time, I was not well disposed toward her from the outset as she had a most unattractive voice: something akin to a bandsaw cutting through concrete. Hardly her fault, I'll grant you, but I did wonder as she gossipped to her friend through most of the day at the top of her voice why she had to be so loud. It was not as though the chanting which broke out at different times in various sections of the crowd made conversation impossible; and there were plenty of breaks in which there was neither cheering or chanting, and a quiet word with one's neighbour was perfectly possible. But the loudness and harshness of this woman's voice suggested some unattractive underlying personality trait; a suggestion that rose above simple bias by the content and manner of her conversation.
Although perhaps "conversation" is too generous a description. As I said, this woman's voice was quite loud, nor was its volume moderated in any way by her subject matter. And so she continued on with an almost embarrassing obliviousness to the sensitivities of others, dissecting the various scandals and other salacious affairs in which her friends, family, and acquaintances were at that time embroiled. I was neither interested in, nor did I want to know, who was having sex with whom, or who was in trouble with the Tax Office, or who was a bastard to work with. Not that I, or any one else within a considerable radius, had any say in the matter: this woman let us all know regardless. Moreover, she wasn't merely gossiping; she was engaging in what I call the "And then I said" mode of gossip. That is, every anecdote appeared to end with a cautionary sermon on how her sage advice in every matter had been ignored, with disastrous consequences. If only mere mortals had heeded her wisdom, all would have been well.
In other words, everything she said, and the way she said it, suggested she both had a smug, self-satisfied view of her own worth and wisdom, as well as taking an obvious delight in the misfortunes and foibles of others. Not the personality type to which I warm.
No, I was not well-disposed toward this woman. But what made my disposition less favourable was that, as the match (oh, yes, I was there to watch the cricket) drew closer to its inevitable conclusion - an easy Australian victory - this woman turned from gossip to bombarding those about her with disparaging comments about all things English. Every time an English player produced a good shot and scored runs, she would belittle their skill. Every time a wicket fell, or an English batsman had a near escape, she would laud the superiority of the Australians or suggest that it was only undeserved luck that had produced any English success in the past. Every time the English supporters tried to rally their side with chants or barracking, this woman observed with obvious relish that those same supporters would have 10,000 miles on their way back to England to contemplate their side's demise in this series.
Hence, my Dearly Beloved's question: "Why are Australians such bad winners?"
Now, don't get me wrong: I love Australia belting the Poms in the cricket as much as the next bloke. But what made this woman especially distasteful -aside from what her gossip revealed about her personality - was that her partisanship allowed for no acknowledgement of the merits of others. There was no sense of sportsmanship, of playing the game in a good spirit; that games, far from being one of many modes of developing the human spirit, were there only to be won. Moreover, not merely won, but won in such a way as to ensure the utter humiliation of the opposition.
Ultimately, however, what grated about this woman was the indication that she had no sense that cricket, afterall, is just a game. Granted, in the age of professional sports, it is a means of living for the players concerned; but this woman's response was one of excess, as though cricket, or any competitive sport in which Australia is involved, had a meaning and virtue in and of itself: namely, that Australia had to win, had to utterly thrash and humiliate the opposition, otherwise she would be lessened somehow, and life itself would be diminished. This woman had seemingly made an enormous emotional investment in Australia winning; such an investment, in fact, that there was simply no room for anything else.
Compare this attitude to an incident which occurred at the end of the Second Test when Australia last played England - in England, in 2005. The Australians had fallen agonisingly short of winning the game, a heartbreak rendered all the more wrenching because England had been well in control for most of the contest, and the Australian players had performed heroically well to get as close as they did. And yet, at the moment of triumph, one of the English players - Andrew Flintoff, who had been more responsible than most for the English victory - immediately went across to the disconsolate Australians to offer his congratulations for their efforts. There is a powerful photo of Flintoff on his haunches shaking the hand of the Australian player Brett Lee, one arm cast consolingly across Lee's shoulders, as Lee crouches, almost on his knees, sadly contemplating what might have been. It has been rightly lauded as the defining image of that particular series, because it speaks powerfully to the spirit in which the players conducted themselves: with determination to do their best and carry their team to victory, but in such a manner as left room for generosity and dignity and acknowledgement of the merit of others.
In that one instant, Flintoff conveyed a depth of spirit that the woman with the bandsaw voice seemed to lack entirely.
As for my Dearly Beloved's question, I am sure there are all sorts of sociological, psychological, and existential answers. The adoption of the "win at all costs" mentality; the importance which sport assumes in the lives of those who feel disempowered or disenfranchised; cultural cringe; anti-intellectualism; cultural arrogance; transferred compensation for personal feelings of inadequacy. And while all of these are undoubtedly true and accurate, it seems to me to be, ultimately, a question of spirit - and of the generosity of spirit. And it seems to me that the question of generosity of spirit offers us a clear choice: either we allow ourselves to enter into the lives of others, or we barricade our lives within the shell of our own being. If we do the former, we will expose ourselves to many misfortunes and setbacks; but we will be all the richer for the experience, and for the benefits which coming into contact with other lives brings. If we do the latter, we may very well be safe from the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", but our lives will be barren, empty, and always searching for some external source from which to find completion of our being.
Ultimately, beneath my dislike, I felt sorry for this woman; it seemed to me that she was entirely enclosed within herself, and could only find sustenance from the misfortunes of others, or from denigrating their efforts. Perhaps I am doing her an injustice, because I have only seen her within this one context. But it was a context that was powerful enough for me to conclude that, at the very least, her spirit of being was severely diminished or constricted. Afterall, if she conducted herself so spitefully in so trivial a context as a game of cricket, how did she conduct herself in important areas such as human relationships?
Talk to you soon,
BB
Quote for the Day: If a person cannot conduct themselves properly in trivial affairs, what hope is there that they will conduct themselves properly in important matters? (Confucius)
Monday, December 25, 2006
A Christmas Reflection
I have been reflecting about the "meaning" of Christmas. I realise this is a common occurrence at this time of year, with appeals to the "real meaning" of Christmas, and the implications of Christ's birth. Usually, these implications are interpreted in terms of goodwill, charity, compassion, or, on a slightly deeper level, of the common humanity shared by all persons and of the need to recognise this central unity over the divisions of race, culture, faith, or politics.
While I don't disagree with these interpretations, I have been reflecting on the meaning of Christmas with a view to going further in my exploration, to delving into the core of what is implied by the Christmas event.
It is widely known that the early Christian church was persecuted at different times and with differing degrees of severity during the Roman Empire (prior, that is, to the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Empire by the emperor Constantine). The common understanding is that this persecution was triggered by the Christians' refusal to participate in the state-sanctioned worship of emperors; by their convenience as scapegoats in times of political crisis or natural disaster; or as a consequence of misplaced rumours that Christians practiced cannibalism and/or gross sexual immorality. While this understanding is not without foundation, it does not articulate the deeper, more pervasive reason why early Christians attracted so much hostility.
This hostility had its origin in what is known as the "scandal of Christianity". This "scandal" arose from the Christian assertion that Jesus Christ was not just the Messiah anticipated by the Jewish faith, but was in fact God incarnate in human form; the Word, as is proclaimed in John's Gospel, made flesh. Now, the reason why this was so scandalous a notion arises from the prevailing view in the Mediterranean world at this time that the material world was inseparably divided from the spiritual world. According to this view, the world of "flesh" was corrupted, impure, and subject to decay and death; whereas the divine or supernatural realm - the world of the "spirit" - was pure, incorruptible, immortal and eternal. Thus, for Christians to suggest that, in the person of Jesus, God incarnated God's-self as a human being, was to suggest that the "pure" realm of the divine had become "tainted" by the "corruptible" world of the "flesh".
This was a notion that was deeply offensive to many people in the Roman period. And in the events commemorated by Easter - Christ's crucifixion, death, and resurrection - this offensive notion appeared to achieve its ultimate form. Were Christians seriously suggesting that God - the divine, the pure, the eternal, the ineffable and unknowable - actually suffered pain and death as a human being? And not just any old death - but a death that was degrading, humiliating, and utterly execrable: the death of a criminal, an outcast, a pariah? Nor did the assertion of Christ's resurrection cut any ice with those offended by the "scandal of Christianity": as far as they were concerned, you could not compensate for the outrageous notion of God reduced to the human by offering some countervailing assurance of ascendance or return to divinity. It just sounded like trying to be too clever by half.
This was the "scandal of Christianity", and it was the prevailing, underlying reason why Christians were variously feared or hated or distrusted. Indeed, it is why the early Christians were more than once accused of being atheists - because the notion of God made human, God suffering am utterly wretched and horrific death, sounded like a denial of God altogether.
And in considering Christmas, it occurs to me that, underneath the familiar, well-worn story about the Nativity, beneath the comfortable, familiar figures of the wise men and shepherds,the angels and Mary and Joseph, beneath even the figure of the Christ-child as well, the "scandal of Christianity" resonates as strongly as ever. Indeed, I think it resonates even more strongly than at Easter, demanding our attention.
Consider: even at a superficial level, most people are aware of the humble circumstances in which Jesus was born: in a stable, surrounded by farm animals and poor country folk. Granted, the presence of the wise men adds an element of gravitas; but the humbleness of the scene is underscored by the rural setting, by the fact that the momentous event of Christ's birth goes virtually unremarked by the world, and takes place in a rural backwater. Moreover, Jesus' parents belong to the unglamourous working-class; they're not royalty or nobility (despite being members of the house of David), or even wealthy traders or scholars, nor are they from the priestly class. In fact, they were hardly a step up the social ladder from the shepherds who attended Christ's birth.
But the really scandalous thing about Christ's birth was that his mother was not even married! Leaving aside the dispute about whether the original Greek text describes Mary as a "virgin" or a "young woman", the unassailable fact was that she was unmarried, and thus, given the patriarchal society into which she was born, in a highly vulnerable position. And if you want to understand how vulnerable, think about the prejudice directed toward unmarried mothers in our own society; consider the stigma that attaches to the term "unmarried mother". So not only did Christians - from the point of view of the "respectable" citizens of the Roman Empire -have the temerity to suggest that God had condescended to incarnate God's-self as a human being, they didn't even try and gild the lily by asserting his parents were powerful rulers or holy wise people or part of the well-regarded "establishment"! Quite the contrary: they went out of their way to proclaim that he was born to a poor unmarried couple in a rural backwater, attended only by shepherds and farm animals! The nerve! The cheek! The scandal of it all!
But why, you may ask, am I raising all of this? Because beneath the glitter and glib sentimentality, beneath the familiar story of Jesus' birth to which most of us have long since ceased paying any real attention, lies a simple, startling, scandalous fact: that God not only incarnated God's-self in the person of Jesus and thereby joined in our humanity, this incarnation was an act of solidarity with humanity. God was entering into our humanity and thereby declaring that the division between the human and the divine imagined by the ancients did not, in fact, exist. God incarnate in Christ was a proclamation that human fallenness and mortality were within God's power and subject to God's will; fallibility might be a condition of our being, and death might be the final end of our life on earth - but neither were absolute, and neither were the ultimate destiny of humanity. In entering into our humanity, God, through Christ, was articulating the promise, and the hope, of ultimate entry into communion with God.
The humbleness of Christ's birth was a declaration that salvation was not a matter of rank or reputation, nor was it conditional on human merit or effort; it was freely available to all humanity across all time, the free gift of God's grace to which are invited to respond. A response that can be made equally by all, regardless of the fallenness of their humanity or their station in the human society.
Talk to you soon,
BB
Quote of the Day: Christmas is that magical time of year when all your money disappears. (Hal Roach)
While I don't disagree with these interpretations, I have been reflecting on the meaning of Christmas with a view to going further in my exploration, to delving into the core of what is implied by the Christmas event.
It is widely known that the early Christian church was persecuted at different times and with differing degrees of severity during the Roman Empire (prior, that is, to the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Empire by the emperor Constantine). The common understanding is that this persecution was triggered by the Christians' refusal to participate in the state-sanctioned worship of emperors; by their convenience as scapegoats in times of political crisis or natural disaster; or as a consequence of misplaced rumours that Christians practiced cannibalism and/or gross sexual immorality. While this understanding is not without foundation, it does not articulate the deeper, more pervasive reason why early Christians attracted so much hostility.
This hostility had its origin in what is known as the "scandal of Christianity". This "scandal" arose from the Christian assertion that Jesus Christ was not just the Messiah anticipated by the Jewish faith, but was in fact God incarnate in human form; the Word, as is proclaimed in John's Gospel, made flesh. Now, the reason why this was so scandalous a notion arises from the prevailing view in the Mediterranean world at this time that the material world was inseparably divided from the spiritual world. According to this view, the world of "flesh" was corrupted, impure, and subject to decay and death; whereas the divine or supernatural realm - the world of the "spirit" - was pure, incorruptible, immortal and eternal. Thus, for Christians to suggest that, in the person of Jesus, God incarnated God's-self as a human being, was to suggest that the "pure" realm of the divine had become "tainted" by the "corruptible" world of the "flesh".
This was a notion that was deeply offensive to many people in the Roman period. And in the events commemorated by Easter - Christ's crucifixion, death, and resurrection - this offensive notion appeared to achieve its ultimate form. Were Christians seriously suggesting that God - the divine, the pure, the eternal, the ineffable and unknowable - actually suffered pain and death as a human being? And not just any old death - but a death that was degrading, humiliating, and utterly execrable: the death of a criminal, an outcast, a pariah? Nor did the assertion of Christ's resurrection cut any ice with those offended by the "scandal of Christianity": as far as they were concerned, you could not compensate for the outrageous notion of God reduced to the human by offering some countervailing assurance of ascendance or return to divinity. It just sounded like trying to be too clever by half.
This was the "scandal of Christianity", and it was the prevailing, underlying reason why Christians were variously feared or hated or distrusted. Indeed, it is why the early Christians were more than once accused of being atheists - because the notion of God made human, God suffering am utterly wretched and horrific death, sounded like a denial of God altogether.
And in considering Christmas, it occurs to me that, underneath the familiar, well-worn story about the Nativity, beneath the comfortable, familiar figures of the wise men and shepherds,the angels and Mary and Joseph, beneath even the figure of the Christ-child as well, the "scandal of Christianity" resonates as strongly as ever. Indeed, I think it resonates even more strongly than at Easter, demanding our attention.
Consider: even at a superficial level, most people are aware of the humble circumstances in which Jesus was born: in a stable, surrounded by farm animals and poor country folk. Granted, the presence of the wise men adds an element of gravitas; but the humbleness of the scene is underscored by the rural setting, by the fact that the momentous event of Christ's birth goes virtually unremarked by the world, and takes place in a rural backwater. Moreover, Jesus' parents belong to the unglamourous working-class; they're not royalty or nobility (despite being members of the house of David), or even wealthy traders or scholars, nor are they from the priestly class. In fact, they were hardly a step up the social ladder from the shepherds who attended Christ's birth.
But the really scandalous thing about Christ's birth was that his mother was not even married! Leaving aside the dispute about whether the original Greek text describes Mary as a "virgin" or a "young woman", the unassailable fact was that she was unmarried, and thus, given the patriarchal society into which she was born, in a highly vulnerable position. And if you want to understand how vulnerable, think about the prejudice directed toward unmarried mothers in our own society; consider the stigma that attaches to the term "unmarried mother". So not only did Christians - from the point of view of the "respectable" citizens of the Roman Empire -have the temerity to suggest that God had condescended to incarnate God's-self as a human being, they didn't even try and gild the lily by asserting his parents were powerful rulers or holy wise people or part of the well-regarded "establishment"! Quite the contrary: they went out of their way to proclaim that he was born to a poor unmarried couple in a rural backwater, attended only by shepherds and farm animals! The nerve! The cheek! The scandal of it all!
But why, you may ask, am I raising all of this? Because beneath the glitter and glib sentimentality, beneath the familiar story of Jesus' birth to which most of us have long since ceased paying any real attention, lies a simple, startling, scandalous fact: that God not only incarnated God's-self in the person of Jesus and thereby joined in our humanity, this incarnation was an act of solidarity with humanity. God was entering into our humanity and thereby declaring that the division between the human and the divine imagined by the ancients did not, in fact, exist. God incarnate in Christ was a proclamation that human fallenness and mortality were within God's power and subject to God's will; fallibility might be a condition of our being, and death might be the final end of our life on earth - but neither were absolute, and neither were the ultimate destiny of humanity. In entering into our humanity, God, through Christ, was articulating the promise, and the hope, of ultimate entry into communion with God.
The humbleness of Christ's birth was a declaration that salvation was not a matter of rank or reputation, nor was it conditional on human merit or effort; it was freely available to all humanity across all time, the free gift of God's grace to which are invited to respond. A response that can be made equally by all, regardless of the fallenness of their humanity or their station in the human society.
Talk to you soon,
BB
Quote of the Day: Christmas is that magical time of year when all your money disappears. (Hal Roach)
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Game Over
My Dearly Beloved and I get married today.
Woo hoo.
Talk to you soon,
BB.
Quote for the Day: I will. (BB)
Woo hoo.
Talk to you soon,
BB.
Quote for the Day: I will. (BB)
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The Vision Thing
I have been a voracious reader since childhood, and it was while I was still a child that I read Ursula Le Guin's novel A Wizard of Earthsea. The first installment of the now acclaimed Earthsea Cycle, this novel tells the story of a young wizard called Ged, who, because of pride and ignorance, lets loose a great evil in the world of Earthsea. The book is taken up with Ged's quest to track down the evil he has loosed upon the world; and, at one point, he is shipwrecked upon a lonely island and taken in by some poor fisherfolk.
It is at this point that one of the most memorable passages in Le Guin's novel occurs. Ged is given a boat by an old fisherman in order to continue his quest; and the passage that follows has remained with me ever since:
Unlike the shrewd fishermen of Gont, this old man, for fear and wonder of his wizardry, would have given the boat to Ged. But Ged paid him for it in sorcerer's kind, healing his eyes of the cataracts that were in the way of blinding him. The old man, rejoicing, said to him, "We called the boat Sanderling, but do you call her Lookfar, and paint eyes aside her prow, and my thanks will look out from that blind wood for you and keep you from rock and reef. For I had forgotten how much light there is in the world until you gave it back to me."
The reason this passage stuck with me was quite simple: as a child who suffered from severe myopia in both eyes, and who as a consequence was already wearing very thick spectacles (and which would only become thicker over time), I understood all too well the desire for unclouded vision. Laser surgery had yet to be invented (and would, in any event, prove to be inappropriate for my particular condition), nor had I reached an age where contact lenses could be utilised; so I had simply resigned myself to never being able to see except through the distorting lens of spectacles. Thus it was that I appreciated what the old man in the novel meant when he said he had forgotten how much light there was in the world; only, in my case, I had never really known.
As I grew older, I was eventually liberated from the burden of thick spectacles by contact lenses. First, soft lenses, and then hard lenses. Nor do I use the words "liberated" and "burden" lightly or melodramatically. Unless you have worn really thick spectacles (and I mean spectacles whose lens thickness is measured in inches) you cannot really appreciate what a "glass darkly" they are. For starters, with spectacles, the point of focus is in front of the eye, which means everything appears much smaller or more distant than is actually the case. Also, and especially with thick lenses that require thick frames, peripheral vision is virtually non-existent; wearing spectacles is like wearing a vision straight-jacket, limiting what you can see to a narrow field to your immediate front. Finally, thick spectacles are extremely uncomfortable: in Summer they are hot and heavy; in Winter, they are constantly obscured by rain and fog.
Not that I necessarily felt sorry for myself; I always counted myself more fortunate than the blind or the near-blind for whom no amount of corrective devices proved effective. In so doing, I concede that I was ignorant of the rich lives lead by those over whom I considered myself more fortunate; nor do I deny that my sentiment was occasionally a salve to damaged pride in the wake of the inevitable childhood bullying or adolescent angst. But in general, my feeling was not so much one of self-pity as sheer frustration. I felt trapped in a kind of netherworld, in which I could imperfectly glimpse the possibilities of undiminished vision, but from whose promise I was permanently alienated.
In time, of course, I came to terms with my condition. My vision gradually stabilised (in relative terms), I was able to access the freedom of contact lenses, and I was not prevented in any way from indulging in my love of literature and writing. But I never forgot that particular passage from A Wizard of Earthsea, either; it was at once both consolation and reminder, a kind of bitter-sweet meditation of the Weltschmerz of being.
And so it was that I recently sat in the consulting room of a retinal specialist, considering Le Guin's novel and the reaction of the old man. I had just been informed that I had suffered a detached retina in my left eye, and that it would require surgery to correct. And the sooner the better; indeed, if it was left too late, or not treated at all, the result could be total vision loss in the left eye. How had this happened? As I understood the explanation, it went something like this: as we age, the fluid in our eyes changes, becoming denser and harder. This usually starts in early to mid thirties, and usually has no adverse effects. In my case, however, because my retina was so weak, the change in the eye fluid had caused a tear in the retina, into which fluid had leaked. This fluid had eventually resulted in the retina becoming detached from the eye.
Shortly thereafter, I went under the knife (so to speak) at the Royal Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne. The procedure employed was that the fluid would be drained from my eye, a cold laser would be utilised to seal the tear in the retina, and a gas bubble would be dropped in the eye to press the retina back into place. It was a day procedure only, with an overnight stay for observation purposes. I was told it would be done under a local anesthetic, but as it transpired, they put me out completely. Coming out of general anesthetic was quite unpleasant; aside from general grogginess, there was a foul taste in the pit of my stomach. But aside from that, there was no pain; a slight headache, which pain-killers dealt with; a scratching sensation in the left eye which went away after 24 hours; a bruised feeling in the socket, which persisted for a week or so; and a bloodshot eye which gradually diminished. My eye was also puffy and black, like someone had smacked me in the face with a 4x2; but I suppose you can't have surgery and come out of it looking like a fashion model!
And all this just three weeks before my and my Dearly Beloved's wedding! Not that we were stressed (much!). For myself, however, I wasn't so much concerned with the procedure as with what would happen if it were not entirely successful: if there was vision loss, or loss of function in the eye, would that have implications for my hopes to candidating for the ministry? And if so, what else would I do; what calling could I follow, having set myself on the path to that calling which I feel it is my life's purpose to pursue? In the end, I could only shrug my shoulders and allow matters to take their course; there are just some things in life over which we have no control, and about which it is pointless getting upset. Not, I hasten to add, that I was resigned to any sort of fate, nor expecting the worst. Rather, I simply understood that all I could do was place myself in the hands of the surgeons and specialists and let them get on with the job.
Well, it's been two weeks since the procedure, and I am happy to report that, according to my doctors, I am healing nicely. I still can't wear a contact lens in my left eye as the gas bubble still hasn't dissolved fully (I may still be one eyed come wedding time), but at least I can now read and write (unlike the first week and a half, when I could only contemplate the slow passage of time), and I have no troubles getting about (although depth perception is slightly problematic). Also, there should be no problems flying off to NZ for the honeymoon since the gas bubble inserted in my eye should be fully dissolved by then; it looked at one stage as though I would have to have long-acting gas bubbles inserted instead, which would have meant delaying the honeymoon until much later next year.
More importantly, I want to add that I was a public patient. I do not have private health insurance because I cannot, and have never been able to, afford private health insurance, rebates and incentives notwithstanding. Moreover, I have always had a personal view that maintaining a public health system as a primary and not second-rate form of community care is an absolute priority, a matter toward which our tax monies should be focused. The REEH is a public hospital. I was in a public ward. The nurses, despite being obviously hard-pressed by their workload, were attentive and compassionate. The doctors were at once down-to-earth and humorous. I never once felt like a second-rate patient. The REEH was everything a public hospital should be - despite what I am sure were the kinds of shortages in resources and personnel which our user-pays obsessed society has imposed upon the public health system. They were absolutely fantastic, and I have nothing but praise for the entire staff.
It is just a pity that, as a society, we care more about tax-breaks and for the short-termism of immediate gain than we do for the institution of public health willingly funded by the citizenry as a whole.
I am still recovering from the surgery; and although I still don't have access to the full measure of the world's light, thanks to the staff at REEH, I have the same level as I enjoyed before. It is enough.
Talk to you soon,
BB
Quote for the Day: We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is. (Samuel Johnson)
It is at this point that one of the most memorable passages in Le Guin's novel occurs. Ged is given a boat by an old fisherman in order to continue his quest; and the passage that follows has remained with me ever since:
Unlike the shrewd fishermen of Gont, this old man, for fear and wonder of his wizardry, would have given the boat to Ged. But Ged paid him for it in sorcerer's kind, healing his eyes of the cataracts that were in the way of blinding him. The old man, rejoicing, said to him, "We called the boat Sanderling, but do you call her Lookfar, and paint eyes aside her prow, and my thanks will look out from that blind wood for you and keep you from rock and reef. For I had forgotten how much light there is in the world until you gave it back to me."
The reason this passage stuck with me was quite simple: as a child who suffered from severe myopia in both eyes, and who as a consequence was already wearing very thick spectacles (and which would only become thicker over time), I understood all too well the desire for unclouded vision. Laser surgery had yet to be invented (and would, in any event, prove to be inappropriate for my particular condition), nor had I reached an age where contact lenses could be utilised; so I had simply resigned myself to never being able to see except through the distorting lens of spectacles. Thus it was that I appreciated what the old man in the novel meant when he said he had forgotten how much light there was in the world; only, in my case, I had never really known.
As I grew older, I was eventually liberated from the burden of thick spectacles by contact lenses. First, soft lenses, and then hard lenses. Nor do I use the words "liberated" and "burden" lightly or melodramatically. Unless you have worn really thick spectacles (and I mean spectacles whose lens thickness is measured in inches) you cannot really appreciate what a "glass darkly" they are. For starters, with spectacles, the point of focus is in front of the eye, which means everything appears much smaller or more distant than is actually the case. Also, and especially with thick lenses that require thick frames, peripheral vision is virtually non-existent; wearing spectacles is like wearing a vision straight-jacket, limiting what you can see to a narrow field to your immediate front. Finally, thick spectacles are extremely uncomfortable: in Summer they are hot and heavy; in Winter, they are constantly obscured by rain and fog.
Not that I necessarily felt sorry for myself; I always counted myself more fortunate than the blind or the near-blind for whom no amount of corrective devices proved effective. In so doing, I concede that I was ignorant of the rich lives lead by those over whom I considered myself more fortunate; nor do I deny that my sentiment was occasionally a salve to damaged pride in the wake of the inevitable childhood bullying or adolescent angst. But in general, my feeling was not so much one of self-pity as sheer frustration. I felt trapped in a kind of netherworld, in which I could imperfectly glimpse the possibilities of undiminished vision, but from whose promise I was permanently alienated.
In time, of course, I came to terms with my condition. My vision gradually stabilised (in relative terms), I was able to access the freedom of contact lenses, and I was not prevented in any way from indulging in my love of literature and writing. But I never forgot that particular passage from A Wizard of Earthsea, either; it was at once both consolation and reminder, a kind of bitter-sweet meditation of the Weltschmerz of being.
And so it was that I recently sat in the consulting room of a retinal specialist, considering Le Guin's novel and the reaction of the old man. I had just been informed that I had suffered a detached retina in my left eye, and that it would require surgery to correct. And the sooner the better; indeed, if it was left too late, or not treated at all, the result could be total vision loss in the left eye. How had this happened? As I understood the explanation, it went something like this: as we age, the fluid in our eyes changes, becoming denser and harder. This usually starts in early to mid thirties, and usually has no adverse effects. In my case, however, because my retina was so weak, the change in the eye fluid had caused a tear in the retina, into which fluid had leaked. This fluid had eventually resulted in the retina becoming detached from the eye.
Shortly thereafter, I went under the knife (so to speak) at the Royal Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne. The procedure employed was that the fluid would be drained from my eye, a cold laser would be utilised to seal the tear in the retina, and a gas bubble would be dropped in the eye to press the retina back into place. It was a day procedure only, with an overnight stay for observation purposes. I was told it would be done under a local anesthetic, but as it transpired, they put me out completely. Coming out of general anesthetic was quite unpleasant; aside from general grogginess, there was a foul taste in the pit of my stomach. But aside from that, there was no pain; a slight headache, which pain-killers dealt with; a scratching sensation in the left eye which went away after 24 hours; a bruised feeling in the socket, which persisted for a week or so; and a bloodshot eye which gradually diminished. My eye was also puffy and black, like someone had smacked me in the face with a 4x2; but I suppose you can't have surgery and come out of it looking like a fashion model!
And all this just three weeks before my and my Dearly Beloved's wedding! Not that we were stressed (much!). For myself, however, I wasn't so much concerned with the procedure as with what would happen if it were not entirely successful: if there was vision loss, or loss of function in the eye, would that have implications for my hopes to candidating for the ministry? And if so, what else would I do; what calling could I follow, having set myself on the path to that calling which I feel it is my life's purpose to pursue? In the end, I could only shrug my shoulders and allow matters to take their course; there are just some things in life over which we have no control, and about which it is pointless getting upset. Not, I hasten to add, that I was resigned to any sort of fate, nor expecting the worst. Rather, I simply understood that all I could do was place myself in the hands of the surgeons and specialists and let them get on with the job.
Well, it's been two weeks since the procedure, and I am happy to report that, according to my doctors, I am healing nicely. I still can't wear a contact lens in my left eye as the gas bubble still hasn't dissolved fully (I may still be one eyed come wedding time), but at least I can now read and write (unlike the first week and a half, when I could only contemplate the slow passage of time), and I have no troubles getting about (although depth perception is slightly problematic). Also, there should be no problems flying off to NZ for the honeymoon since the gas bubble inserted in my eye should be fully dissolved by then; it looked at one stage as though I would have to have long-acting gas bubbles inserted instead, which would have meant delaying the honeymoon until much later next year.
More importantly, I want to add that I was a public patient. I do not have private health insurance because I cannot, and have never been able to, afford private health insurance, rebates and incentives notwithstanding. Moreover, I have always had a personal view that maintaining a public health system as a primary and not second-rate form of community care is an absolute priority, a matter toward which our tax monies should be focused. The REEH is a public hospital. I was in a public ward. The nurses, despite being obviously hard-pressed by their workload, were attentive and compassionate. The doctors were at once down-to-earth and humorous. I never once felt like a second-rate patient. The REEH was everything a public hospital should be - despite what I am sure were the kinds of shortages in resources and personnel which our user-pays obsessed society has imposed upon the public health system. They were absolutely fantastic, and I have nothing but praise for the entire staff.
It is just a pity that, as a society, we care more about tax-breaks and for the short-termism of immediate gain than we do for the institution of public health willingly funded by the citizenry as a whole.
I am still recovering from the surgery; and although I still don't have access to the full measure of the world's light, thanks to the staff at REEH, I have the same level as I enjoyed before. It is enough.
Talk to you soon,
BB
Quote for the Day: We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is. (Samuel Johnson)
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