Quote: "There are times when only an infusion of divine grace can give us the strength to overcome what we cannot conquer through our own power."
The images from our past that were burned into our minds and haunt us, turning our hearts or legs to stones, can indeed be healed by an infusion of God's grace. But that infusion often has its own images - images that melt that heart of stone and bring healing.
Just last night, writing a story for my grown son, his character in the story must enter a door that he saw an angel walk through. He has no idea what is on the other side. Here is what I write (with the help of AI):
Taking another deep breath, Jo squared his shoulders. "Well, here I go. Wish me luck."
With that, he stepped forward and through the shimmering doorway.
In an instant, Jo found himself in a familiar setting that took his breath away. He was standing in the bedroom he'd shared with his older brother as a child. The posters on the walls, the bunk beds, even the scattered toys on the floor – everything was exactly as he remembered.
As he stood there, marveling at the perfect recreation of his childhood room, he saw his younger self enter, engrossed in playing with a toy spaceship. Moments later, his older brother stormed in, face contorted with anger.
"You broke my game!" the older boy shouted, striking the younger Jo hard enough to send him sprawling.
Jo winced, the memory of that day and countless others like it flooding back. The pain, the fear, the helplessness – it all felt as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.
But then, something extraordinary occurred. The angel Jo had seen appeared, moving with that same otherworldly grace. It approached the crying younger Jo, producing a vial of what looked like shimmering oil.
As the angel poured the oil over his younger self, Jo felt a warmth spread through his chest. The pain of those memories began to lift, replaced by a sense of peace he'd never known.
Just as the angel finished, a new doorway materialized in the wall. The celestial being glided towards it, pausing only to turn its radiant face towards Jo. The message was clear: follow me.
Jo stepped through the new door and found himself witnessing another painful memory from his past. Once again, the angel appeared, bringing healing and comfort. This pattern repeated several times, each instance addressing a deep wound in Jo's psyche.
One of the most powerful moments came when Jo relived his nightmare of the demonic encounter. The angel's presence drove away the lingering fear, replacing it with a sense of purpose and strength.
Finally, Jo stepped through what he sensed would be the last door. To his surprise, he found himself in a classroom filled with young children, all dressed in clothing that seemed both familiar and slightly futuristic.
The teacher, a woman with kind eyes and an air of enthusiasm, addressed the class. "Now children, who is our greatest founding father?"
"Jo!" the children chorused in unison.
The teacher beamed with pride. "That's right, class. It was two hundred years ago today that Jo opened the doorway that changed everything. We owe everything to the courage he showed."
What an amazing place this was. We only had an hour so only had time for the main floor but what a delight. It was my 15 year old daughter, my 13 year old son, my 10 year old daughter and me. I took pictures of almost all the paintings there which ranged from the 14th century (late middle ages) to the early 20th Century. Most of the paintings (all European) had a very religious (Christian) background. It was amazing to see how art progressed over 600 years. I could hear Blessed Father Seraphim's words about how you could see the gap between Orthodoxy and the West grow in it's art from the 13th century on. It's true. You can see it, but you can also see through art how spiritual the human soul truly is. I need to read Dante. You can see the progression of Western Art go from primarily religious (Medieval times) to humanist (Renaissance times) to secular and realist and now it's returning to spiritual (but demonic). You can absolutely see the soul of Western Man in the art.
If I hadn’t been told the painter was illustrating Dante, I think I’d have explained the painting thus:
“This is very early in Santa’s career. You can tell because Santa hasn’t yet put on the weight. Anyhow, in this scene Santa is visiting a man to see if he’s been naughty or nice. He himself would visit unanounced like that, just to check. The man shields Santa’s eyes, because … well … he’s basically busted.”
No disrespect intended. Just that the red threw me off, and the Erinyes, at least in the Greeks, aren’t exactly seductive.
As a straight woman, I have never understood why fat is attractive in that place, and would be revolting around the waist, 2 inches lower. I would have been a highly unsuccessful lesbian, but I accept that men do find them beautiful.
Apparently women do as well. Why does a pretty twenty-year old woman wear a bikini on the beach? To please men? To please herself? To show off to other young women?
To please men, and because she knows that women will be more willing to be friends with a pretty woman. And yes, women gossip terribly about the clothes worn by other women - I think women care more, on average about clothes than men do.
I wore one to the pool when I was 20. But not many people there. Still, it was just "what one wore" back in the day. I'd have been considered a prude in a one-piece, I feared.
Wearing shorts and a ratty t-shirt on my front porch right now, I rather agree that women care more about clothes than men. I actually enjoy buying my wife dresses and skirts for Christmas and her birthday. I like her looking pretty.
Definitely true about guys (other than gay guys) and clothes, which is why so many guys have their clothes picked out by wives amd girlfriends, who don't want to be seen in public with someone looking like a color-blind bum.
I was going to be silent about the illustrations (the second is ok), but you make that hard. Also, if the Furies resembled Monica Bellucci, who'd be scared to look at them?
Dante iconography usually shows him wearing red, e.g., Botticelli's great portrait:
As to the second illustration, everybody knows what Dante looked like, and he didn't look like that (that nose, btw, is a Tuscan characteristic, visible in the streets today):
I think it was the Sirens resembled Monica Bellucci. At least until one put ashore.
But I didn’t reread the canto, and don’t remember how Dante frames the Furies there. Tempted to go do so. Why did Vergil fear the seductive power of what were in fact primordial hags of blood vendetta?
We also have Dante’s death mask in plaster. A Tuscan with a beak.
Lots of stories, including especially in 21st century film and TV, have as a/the central character a woman who is both the object of all the males' sexual desire and death-dealing. I recall how the theater audience reacted back in the (?more innocent?) day when that Shocking Thing in the film "The Sting" was revealed. It's all over the place now, perhaps beginning with "Kill Bill". Maybe in Dante's time and place it was more of a ho-hum observation about some of humanity, transferred to mythological females in the case of the Commedia.
I remember now. The Furies/Erinyes were given their new title the Eumenides (“the Kindly Ones”) in an effort to prod their acceptance of the aquittal of Orestes for killing his mother. It’s the founding trial of classical Greek culture, right there on the Areopagus. But I remember no tradition that they also got cosmetic surgery with the name change.
"The Kindly Ones": it's also an instance of the principle of nemesis. Calling something beautiful ugly, and ugly beautiful, is a way of avoiding misfortune. In Mediterranean cultures you'll see mothers and grandmothers hold babies and say, "Com'e' brutta!" (if Italian) before smothering her with kisses, or making a little dry spitting motion with their tongue as if to say, "disgusting" (I once saw an ashkenazi Jewish grandmother do this).
It was considered rash even to look at the temples of the Eumenides. "The Kindly Ones" is also the title of the sixth in Powell's Dance to the Music of Time series, the one set 1938-1939.
You’ll probably collectively hate this but Cassandra Khaw- Malaysian Chinese woman- has written a series of novels that deal with a kind of twilight of the gods- that feature among others the kindly ones. They’re gross and wildly imaginative.The best is Food of the Gods.
Aischylos' Oresteia ends with the triumph of (public) Justice over {private) Vengeance. So the Erinyes are invited to serve the rational goddess Athena rather than running amok on their own. Of course this happens in Athens so the tragedian could pat his own city on the back as the ground zero of the new orders of Justice.
Hello Rod: Thank you for this. I really should read “How Dante Can Change Your Life”.
I have my own little bouillabaisse story. It involves my cooking Turkey Provençal with a French-style stuffing and side dishes for my family one Christmas. Disaster. I promise it tasted good, and they usually like my cooking, but – well – at least they ate it:, but no praise and a request never to cook French again! This is not quite like your story, where only your Dad will even taste the food. Ah well. Not just about the food, but I always think “A prophet has no honor in his own country” (Mark 6:4) when I read your stories of going home. And it extended to your immediate family.
You probably know this, but there is a theory of personality called OCEAN – Jordan Peterson discusses it. The “C” is for “closed” – people tend to be on a spectrum of “open” or “closed”. Your family sound like strong “C”s compared to your “Open”. I’m open as well, and I think I get it. Conservatives, btw, are most often “closed” but there are open ones. “Open” would want to travel, explore different places, different foods, read widely, post pictures of half-naked women (heh), and such. – So, in addition to lacking honor in your own country, and being a city boy, you were perhaps “C” interacting with “O”.
This probably added little to the many things you have thought of in your life about this subject, but I wanted to say it.
Had I met Ray Dreher, I am sure I would have liked him. But the bouillabaisse story that Rod tells is unique in its lack of good manners. And Rod's mother and sister are just as bad as his father in refusing to eat the bouillabaisse which I am sure was delicious. The rudeness the three of them showed for Rod and his wife is mind-boggling.
Wisconsin cheese is great. I went to the Prarrie Chicken festival in Wisconsin. I love Wisconsin.I also went to the Sandhills Crane migration in Nebraska. I love Nebraska too.
It would be very worth exploring what constitutes Midwestern cooking. If the Midwest is a culture, and I certainly think it is, it deserves to have its own cooking.
My mother in law was a bad cook and truthfully my mother was a good cook and I’m a good cook. So eating at the in laws house was a struggle . Gradually, I steered things in the direction of, I’d cook something and bring it over or we’d get takeout. I think I pulled it off without being rude.
My Mother-in-Law's turkey gravy was this tasteless, watery stuff. Blah! My wife learned from my mother to cook a dark, rich gravy for turkey. My Brother-in-Law calls it tar. But it's so good.
Family can simply be evil and something you have to leave behind. Rod seemingly sacrificed the family he created with his wife to his family of origin. This is how I read it and I am probably wrong, but from the breadcrumb trail he leaves that’s how it looks. Honor thy father and mother can come in direct competition with leaving thy father and mother and cleaving to thy wife and the twain shall be one flesh.
My mother was a narcissist, a selfish and destructive person in her influence on others. She destroyed my sister’s marriage and had a terrible influence on us. She had to come first, over husband, children, God himself. If I could live life over I would have moved far away as soon as possible. Sometimes you just can’t do what seems like a good thing without imperiling a better one.
In "The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, A Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life" there are more details. The immediate family moved back to the home town in good faith, thinking to build a better and more grounded life there. It all went wrong. It could not have been foreseen.
edit to add: And the family had moved from Philly where they had been for something like 2 or 3 years I think. The kids had gotten settled in school, and Orthodox church had been started, eventually Rod was quite sick - the decision was to not pick up and move again. - I do know people who like Rod very much in that area.
I’ll button my lips after this but I read Ruthie Lemming after Rod’s family problems kicked in , which I knew nothing about. I didn’t even understand that he’d moved away from the area his parents lived in to Baton Rouge ( When I read him in The American Conservative and he mentioned Baton Rouge , I( stupidly )thought he was just using that as a general designation for the area he lived in. The reason I said stupidly is , I’ve been in Baton Rouge and St. Francisville and it should have dawned on me, they aren’t next door to each other). To continue to make a short story long, when I read the book my take was the move was not only a mistake but a rather obvious one based on the facts outlined in the book. I have no business going any further.
The move from Philly to St. Francisville? Yeah, it was, in retrospect, but idiot me, I simply couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that after my sister had died, that my family would see us that way. I wanted so desperately to be approved of by them, especially my dad. I brought him everything he wanted from me: myself and my family. It wasn't enough.
If you're talking about the move from SF to Baton Rouge, it's only 30 miles away. We moved there because my father had died, and my mom was in good health (thus able to look after herself well), and because our little mission church had failed to launch. We wanted to be closer to the church (in Baton Rouge), and besides, our kids were starting to attend a classical Christian school there. It made sense.
My comments are a little confusing. I didn’t, for a while understand what had happened to you. ( Overall I still don’t but that’s not something I need to know let alone have any right to know).I think it’s fair to say you reached a point where there was no point in continuing on in SF.
Yes, there was. The closing of our mission church was the catalyst. We had grown accustomed to going to church a lot, and that wouldn't have been possible with the nearest church on the far side of Baton Rouge. That, and that my dad, having died, didn't need me around anymore. My mom was in good health. My sister's kids wanted nothing to do with us. Anyway, BTR is only 30 to 40 minutes away.
There's basically a development ban up there: no new subdivisions. So it can't grow into a true exurb. And sadly young people who grow up there often cannot afford to live there.
Abbey, I mean to be respectful of you and a couple of others here. But my opinion is that there is Monday morning quarterbacking here, and it could be hurtful. - But it would be fair game to say "Why did you return?", though you do get quite a few musing on it in "Ruthie Leming", which you have read right?
Yes, I have read it. I just looked up the definition of Monday morning quarterback and found this: a person who unfairly criticizes or questions the decisions and actions of other people after something has happened. I don't think I unfairly criticized or questioned Rod's decision; I questioned your statement that the results of his move "could not have been foreseen."
I'm no stranger to family conflict, and I'm well aware of how cruel people can be, but I find deeply unpleasant memoirs that traffic in personal accounts of how awful somebody else was, especially after that person is dead, unless there is a really good reason for making this information public.
OK - I understand. Why not post the question you imply about revealed information as a question to Rod? And if he does not stop by to read comments this late - that could be a reason if there should happen to be no answer - perhaps try another time?
Not to nitpik, but alternative to "could not have been foreseen" is "could have been foreseen" implying Rod purposely put his family in a terrible position. Yes, I did think that unfair to Rod, even though it was my wording of the idea that "Rod did not purposely do wrong in moving his family to St. Francisville".
I let everyone in my family read the Little Way manuscript before I published it, and told them I would consider removing information they didn't want there. None asked me to. My father even said, "You told it like it was." Which I appreciated.
My wife is the black sheep of her family. She's politically conservative in a family of liberal Democrats. She married and her older brother and older sister did not. Although my wife and her sister get on each other's nerves, there is very little backbiting in her family.
Well, that's how I see it too. I don't have any contact with my sister's kids, and almost no contact with my mother. I don't want to get into the details of the stuff with my mom, but it may suffice to say the last time I saw her, she yelled at me, apropos of nothing, that they were nothing but kind to us, and it was all my and Julie's fault. She lives in her own alternative reality. I just cannot bear the pain anymore of having to live with those lies. I know I have no home to go to now. This is a hard, hard thing for somebody like me, who always prized home, and dreamed of being able to find a Home, to accept. But this is how it is. Dante never was able to return to Florence.
I am always moved when you tell the story of some degree of reconciling, as it were, with your father, when he was 78 and made a confession that changed the way you saw him, and near his death. I pray for the wounds that are still there. I pray for as much healing as can be with your mother.
And pay no attention to these Monday morning quarterbacks.
By losing my parents and brother so young I learned that Home would have to be the home I made. My step-mother's death in 2009 wrote finis to any sense of Michigan as home. Also my hometown had decayed badly and it was not at all the place where I grew up. I do keep in touch with extended family, and some friends in parts distant.
Yes, technically the township not the city per se. Surprised you know of it. I usually tell people not from Michigan that I grew up near Ann Arbor to avoid dumb looks at "Ypsilanti"
I will probably get a text tomorrow from my mom - and perhaps even my sister - and I'll have to decide whether to send "thank you" to them or not. (IF my sister does, I almost certainly won't answer her.) Same thing will probably happen at Christmas. That's all I can take of them for the year. They're 70 miles away, but I'm just done, and have been now for years. I can't deal with them, and I don't expect them to change, so it is what it is, I guess. As hard as it is, I had to learn that my self-worth could not be measured by their acceptance and love.
Maybe I'll make strawberry shortcake for church tomorrow for my birthday. (We haven't started the Dormition Fast yet, being on the old calendar.) I'm sure that will be a happier thing than spending time with them.
Family is complicated. Growing up...and during adulthood too...I saw my share of conflict, intrigue, pain, and betrayal on both sides of my family. So did my wife with her family.
Some of this left a residue of bitterness but also drove home the reality that human nature is flawed and life is generally not all black or white. Neither are people all good or bad. So you have to learn to navigate that somehow and find a way to deal with it. Sometimes this may necessitate distancing from or even a break with some family members.
One constructive thing that emerged from our experience was a lesson that we were able to impart very early to our six children: "Your relationship with one another is one of the most precious gifts that God has given you. Your Mom and Dad have all too often seen that gift squandered in their own families. In fact, it happens in families all the time. Don't let it happen to you." By the grace of God, they've taken that lesson to heart to this day.
You are very fortunate. I would’ve hoped our five would be the same but we have a little sister-sister in law spat going on now which keeps the cousins apart.
Yes! When ( most) of our kids were over for dinner recently, they were talking about how one thing my husband and I always emphasized was to value each other. I read once that, "the sibling relationship is the longest relationship you will ever have- treasure it." My oldest granddaughter spoke up and said that when she and her brother would fight, her dad (my sil) would say, "do you want to grow up apart from each other, or do you want to love each other like Moms brothers and sisters?"
We have made mistakes as parents, and the kids have not been immune from making them either as they have grown into adulthood! But I thank God that they are there for each other. My own growing up was not so smooth- my older brother and sister were pretty much estranged until she became terminally ill. So maybe I thought about it more than many parents. How petty and hurtful Rods family was! He was trying to share something with them and they thought he was being highfalutin and bringing something fancy to the "countryfolk". Family is a treasure, but they can be the meanest people out there sometimes. Not one to give too much advice on parenting, I would say emphasize the sibling relationship- treasure it and nurture it!
Right, our family's relationship is not perfect because perfection doesn't exist this side of the Pearly Gates. But it's generally solid, peaceable, and happy...with the adults all getting along and the plethora of cousins all enjoying one another's company.
Three guidelines that I gave our kids: A) Love is a two-way street; B) Don't sacrifice your bonds with one another on the altar of ego; and C) Decide what's more important, your relationship or your grudge; if the latter, you need to grow up.
"...human nature is flawed..." Yes, but when narcissism kicks in, you're in another gear, another level of reality, where Somebody Who Doesn't Like You Very much is in control. I'm not saying this is Dreher's reality (from the evidence it isn't) or anybody else's, but family is one place where power can be exercised without check, and once somebody realizes that and decides to get his jollies from the exercise of that. power, there's a transvaluation of all values and the only thing to do is get out.
My mother, a long term adulteress who wrecked several families including her own and two of whose daughters marriages were wrecked by adulterous husbands, who used verbal and physical abuse in raising us, would regularly say she had no regrets, that she would literally do everything exactly the same if she could do it over. Who says this except for an extreme narcissist ?
It is super hard. I know my family of origin was poisonous and would kill me, but i thought, "surely they will love my children". And "i will give my children grandparents, even if it takes me 6 weeks to recover from each visit". Until they hurt my child. Police told me to not let them around my kids, my husband was extremely supportive, and the kids did not seem to miss them (except my oldest son, i think). There are so many undercurrents, ideals, goals. It is so easy to shipwreck your fam on the jagged rocks of a toxic origin story. I am grateful we got out when we did, sorrowful for the loss of what could have been, and grateful for police and counsellors to speak boldly. I have prayed for the Dreher family, but need to add them to my daily prayers.
Oh, you would have. My family were mostly wonderful. I never in a million years would have expected that from them. But as I said, it served as a prelude for the much greater refusals twelve years later. I still can't get over how they behaved. They never would have done that to anyone else. They were very well-mannered people. It's shocking, even still.
The bouillabaisse story is heartbreaking and symbolic of the profound loss everyone who has suffered lack of acceptance (leading to estrangement) from those with whom we desperately crave connection experiences. It’s that pivotal moment in which we realize it’s just never going to happen. The pain of this rejection renders it impossible to achieve full closure or justification, and I think perhaps it isn’t meant to. The signal that we are not part of this tribe that we want with everything we think we have in us leads to a crisis of spirit, and in at least my case, wandering the globe in search of a new home with a tribe of choice. The unexpected irony is that eventually I circled back and rekindled a relationship with a family member that I had to suspend in favor of my own healing, and this has become a focal point and one of the biggest blessings in my current life.
Virgil=reason. Yes, yes. But please remember, Virgil is a POET. In Limbo Dante recognizes Socrates and Plato, but he hangs with Homer, Ovid, Horace, etc., etc.
Rod, have you seen this? The damn thing's been out since January but I only just found out about it. Cavanaugh argues that the problem is not so much disenchantment but idolatry -- "bad" enchantment, which is something you've discussed. I've been reading Cavanaugh for years and his stuff is always worthwhile. For me, this is a "drop everything and read" release.
On the power of image: There is a way to cure some people's phantom limb pains that involves showing them their healthy limb in a mirror box, so that the missing limb appears to be whole again, right there opposite the healthy limb. (Crucially, the method requires the patient to attempt to move them -- embodiment is a key part of the healing process.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_therapy
The gist of it is that there is a part of the brain that is not available to conscious control or awareness (in particular, to reason and language), but does happen to be in charge of that missing limb. This part can develop a mistaken understanding about the state of the missing limb, thinking the limb is there, it's just not responding to queries or commands, and worse, it's got itself into a painfully cramped contortion.
This ignorance, leading to the wrong interpretation of silence, fosters a doubling down on the bad theory of the state of things, and this results in pain.
There is no path from the consciousness to tell that little island in the brain what's really happening, *but there is a path through the eyes.* How many other pieces of the mind might be like that, I've often wondered.
Dr V.S. Ramachandran! I read one of his books a dozen years ago, and had wondered occasionally why I hadn't heard of his brilliant insight about one possible way of arresting phantom limb pain. I don't remember whether he mentions the following himself, but I believe it's in one of Norman Doidge's absorbing books about neuroplasticity:
As a boy, Ramachandran had a bad case of the Sherlock Holmes contagion, and it's never left him. I don't imagine he's a fanatic, but in his work as a neurologist, he's consciously tried to develop methods of treatment which could have been used in Victorian era medicine. His mirror treatment for phantom limb pain is a perfect example. When I first read about it, I was so filled with admiration of his ingenuity, I was jubilant. ( Technique, technique, technique. Whatever the field, I'm fascinated by it. I have never yet recovered from the thrill I got when I learned that John Lennon kept the D string of his guitar intentionally flat because his instinct told him it added a subliminally recognized dissonant/bluesy quality to his playing. )
Ramachandran and his mirror is perfect in its Victoriana. The Victorians tended to be obsessed with mirrors. The young Hawthorne, alone in his inherited house, spent much of at least one winter staring at himself in a mirror.
Do you think this kind of mirror therapy works at an emotional level? Can someone find healing in their wrecked lives by looking at a photograph of themselves from before they got caught in a downward spiral? I remember learning a technique like this: the therapist would ask the patient to find a photo from childhood, look at it intently, and take on an attitude of kindness and love toward the small child. It was a 'reparenting' type of exercise.
We know someone in their late 60s whose life is a train wreck. They laugh it off and treat others cruelly, but everyone knows this is a defense posture. I am wondering if the mirror therapy could make a difference.
Maybe... the mirror box is so specific that I wouldn't know how to generalize it. Might take a Ramachandran to figure it out. I do like the idea of the childhood photo therapy.
My deepest experience of stunning beauty leading to God was probably on first hearing the opening of St. Matthew's Passion. Walking into the Orthodox churches in the lands south of Hungary (e.g. Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro) has also been stunning and something drawing me closer to God. And the Abbey Church at Mont Saint Michel - how can I even get started? Every Mass, every true worship experience invoking the Holy Spirit, is really such beauty. In Appalachia, Holy Cross Monastery has a You Tube video about beauty drawing us closer to God.
In my part of the US the great blue heron is a common sight in ponds and creeks. For some reason, I am stunned by their beauty and elegance every time I see one, which is often. In my mind, they are connected to my quiet times with God. I saw one just yesterday when visiting the wetlands near my parents’ home and got some beautiful pictures with the sun going down in the background.
Bishop Barron has written and spoken a great deal about beauty. In one of his presentations he says that of the good, the true, and the beautiful, it is the beautiful that we should emphasize in evangelization, as it is the first step on the path to recognizing and understanding the good and the true.
The image of custody of the eyes comes from the OT. It's based on Job 31:1. "I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?" And it goes on from there to describe the full-on ruin of the man whose heart is led by the eye.
7 if my steps have turned from the path,
if my heart has been led by my eyes,
or if my hands have been defiled,
8 then may others eat what I have sown,
and may my crops be uprooted.
9 “If my heart has been enticed by a woman,
or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door,
10 then may my wife grind another man’s grain,
and may other men sleep with her.
11 For that would have been wicked,
a sin to be judged.
12 It is a fire that burns to Destruction;
it would have uprooted my harvest.
IMHO, this is why Jesus is so serious about the "eye" in the Sermon on the Mount: " eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[m] your whole body will be full of darkness." (Matthew 5:22)
Jesus also zeros in on the eye as the most dangerous part of the body, which can lead us into ruin: "If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."
But interestingly--and thankfully--that which has the power to trip us up and lead us to ruin (the eye) can also be the vehicle for our salvation if beauty will save the world. (Which I believe...)
This reminds me of an old joke I heard years ago but am still fond of telling.
An Irishman went to confession, and when the priest asked him his sins the man said that he had had impure thoughts about his neighbor's wife. The priest replied, "Ah. my son, it's no sin to have impure thoughts -- all of us have them. What makes it a sin is if you entertain them. So that's the real question, my son -- did you entertain them?"
The fellow thought for a moment then said, "Well, truth be told, Father, it was more like they entertained me."
Putting me onto Iian McGilcrist was something I will always be grateful to you for. That said the number of books I’ve bought from your recommendation and other Substack has become a challenge I may have to stop reading WSJ & NYT to find the time to read alternative material that seems much more enriching
I have a fairly large library that I'm trying to cull before I retire in a few years. My current plan, which seems to be working so far, is that for every new book I acquire I sell or donate two that I already have.
Yes I’ve moved my office from church to my home as I begin a transition to being a missionary to my city vs a local church pastor and I’m trying to do that every month. So hard to say goodbye to books I’ve had since grad school but I’m limiting myself to a limited number of shelves and I’m trying to buy kindle books whenever possible no shelf needed and excerpts easier to share
Really appreciate your writing hope I can get to one of your upcoming US events
I have to say: that bouillabaisse episode is *really* weird. It seems to be deliberate cruelty. I don't wonder that it was traumatic. Some degree of difficulty with in-laws is just part of it, anywhere from simple awkwardness and a sense that "these are not my people" to open conflict. But offhand I can't think of another story I've heard that compares to this one in its combination of meanness without open conflict. Though I guess this did constitute open conflict. I can only imagine how the young wife felt. I would expect that for most women it would do irrevocable damage to her relationship to the in-laws.
Well, I agree. I consider it a terrible fault of mine that I overlooked it. It was such a grotesque insult to me and my new wife. I should have known that people capable of doing that would never accept us if we lived there. The hard thing to get people to see is that my family were for the most part really wonderful, and loved by many. They could be kind and generous, and usually were. There was something about *me* though. In "Little Way," I quote Ruthie's best friend saying that she herself could not fathom why my sister had such a chip on her shoulder about me, especially given that Ruthie was so loving and kind to everyone else. All I can figure is that it was for the same reason my dad saw me as he did: they took my being unlike them as rejection, as disloyalty. In "Little Way," I quote Ruthie's widower saying that he believes Ruthie just thought I never should have left. That was the original sin.
Very good point about rejection. Familial rejection. My wife has a homosexual uncle who rejected her way back in 1999 when he came to realize that not only was she politically conservative but also a Roman Catholic. He totally disowned my wife and hasn't spoken to her since.
I find it appaling when pepple allow politics or religion to drive a wedge between them. No one will ever make life one scintilla better by being a jackass (polite word used) to kin or friends.
I think Uncle Ken disliked my wife becoming a Catholic more than a Republican. The first time I met Uncle Ken he told me that organized religion was the greatest foe of civilization. Uncle Ken was formerly a Nixon Republican who voted Democrat for the first time for president in 1980 because he despised Reagan. Uncle Ken ended up being named to a local transportation board in northwestern Ohio by Dubya.
My deist father had a dim view of organized religion though he respected my mother's church lady Catholicism on the personal level. But he regarded clergymen as potential Elmer Gantries
Just to be clear, Rod, I didn't intend any criticism of your handling of the situation. My wife has a way of summarizing puzzling and usually not very good behavior by saying "It's just *weird*" in a certain way. The fact that they refused to even taste it is just *weird*.
All is said and done , you didn’t get it all right but you showed a capacity for forgiveness I don’t have.If I’d experienced that , I would have at minimum totally severed ties with my family.So for all your flaws , you’ve shown strength. Granted , you shouldn’t have moved back home.
Quote: "There are times when only an infusion of divine grace can give us the strength to overcome what we cannot conquer through our own power."
The images from our past that were burned into our minds and haunt us, turning our hearts or legs to stones, can indeed be healed by an infusion of God's grace. But that infusion often has its own images - images that melt that heart of stone and bring healing.
Just last night, writing a story for my grown son, his character in the story must enter a door that he saw an angel walk through. He has no idea what is on the other side. Here is what I write (with the help of AI):
Taking another deep breath, Jo squared his shoulders. "Well, here I go. Wish me luck."
With that, he stepped forward and through the shimmering doorway.
In an instant, Jo found himself in a familiar setting that took his breath away. He was standing in the bedroom he'd shared with his older brother as a child. The posters on the walls, the bunk beds, even the scattered toys on the floor – everything was exactly as he remembered.
As he stood there, marveling at the perfect recreation of his childhood room, he saw his younger self enter, engrossed in playing with a toy spaceship. Moments later, his older brother stormed in, face contorted with anger.
"You broke my game!" the older boy shouted, striking the younger Jo hard enough to send him sprawling.
Jo winced, the memory of that day and countless others like it flooding back. The pain, the fear, the helplessness – it all felt as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.
But then, something extraordinary occurred. The angel Jo had seen appeared, moving with that same otherworldly grace. It approached the crying younger Jo, producing a vial of what looked like shimmering oil.
As the angel poured the oil over his younger self, Jo felt a warmth spread through his chest. The pain of those memories began to lift, replaced by a sense of peace he'd never known.
Just as the angel finished, a new doorway materialized in the wall. The celestial being glided towards it, pausing only to turn its radiant face towards Jo. The message was clear: follow me.
Jo stepped through the new door and found himself witnessing another painful memory from his past. Once again, the angel appeared, bringing healing and comfort. This pattern repeated several times, each instance addressing a deep wound in Jo's psyche.
One of the most powerful moments came when Jo relived his nightmare of the demonic encounter. The angel's presence drove away the lingering fear, replacing it with a sense of purpose and strength.
Finally, Jo stepped through what he sensed would be the last door. To his surprise, he found himself in a classroom filled with young children, all dressed in clothing that seemed both familiar and slightly futuristic.
The teacher, a woman with kind eyes and an air of enthusiasm, addressed the class. "Now children, who is our greatest founding father?"
"Jo!" the children chorused in unison.
The teacher beamed with pride. "That's right, class. It was two hundred years ago today that Jo opened the doorway that changed everything. We owe everything to the courage he showed."
Rod My Brother,
I just took my kids to the Legion of Honor Art Museum in San Francisco.
https://www.famsf.org/visit/legion-of-honor
What an amazing place this was. We only had an hour so only had time for the main floor but what a delight. It was my 15 year old daughter, my 13 year old son, my 10 year old daughter and me. I took pictures of almost all the paintings there which ranged from the 14th century (late middle ages) to the early 20th Century. Most of the paintings (all European) had a very religious (Christian) background. It was amazing to see how art progressed over 600 years. I could hear Blessed Father Seraphim's words about how you could see the gap between Orthodoxy and the West grow in it's art from the 13th century on. It's true. You can see it, but you can also see through art how spiritual the human soul truly is. I need to read Dante. You can see the progression of Western Art go from primarily religious (Medieval times) to humanist (Renaissance times) to secular and realist and now it's returning to spiritual (but demonic). You can absolutely see the soul of Western Man in the art.
The Legion of Honor is a Wonderful Place! Highest Recommendation!
There is a tiny statue of an ancient Greek woman there. It's marble but you can feel/see/sense the sensuality of her body underneath her marble cloth.
1000's of years ago some man loved that woman. As long as that stature exists, that woman lives.
I’ve often thought that memory of people is part of eternal life.
If I hadn’t been told the painter was illustrating Dante, I think I’d have explained the painting thus:
“This is very early in Santa’s career. You can tell because Santa hasn’t yet put on the weight. Anyhow, in this scene Santa is visiting a man to see if he’s been naughty or nice. He himself would visit unanounced like that, just to check. The man shields Santa’s eyes, because … well … he’s basically busted.”
No disrespect intended. Just that the red threw me off, and the Erinyes, at least in the Greeks, aren’t exactly seductive.
Hahaha! Talk about non-linear thinking - that was good. Divine comedy indeed.
OK, not as good, but how about a song "He's making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out whose knockers are nice".
That actually would work as a 21st c. version, no? Some feminists would protest, but then you just say, “What, are you not ‘sex-positive’?”
Remember, the female breast's primary function is the feeding of babies. That the female breast is beautiful is incidental.
As a straight woman, I have never understood why fat is attractive in that place, and would be revolting around the waist, 2 inches lower. I would have been a highly unsuccessful lesbian, but I accept that men do find them beautiful.
Apparently women do as well. Why does a pretty twenty-year old woman wear a bikini on the beach? To please men? To please herself? To show off to other young women?
To please men, and because she knows that women will be more willing to be friends with a pretty woman. And yes, women gossip terribly about the clothes worn by other women - I think women care more, on average about clothes than men do.
I wore one to the pool when I was 20. But not many people there. Still, it was just "what one wore" back in the day. I'd have been considered a prude in a one-piece, I feared.
Wearing shorts and a ratty t-shirt on my front porch right now, I rather agree that women care more about clothes than men. I actually enjoy buying my wife dresses and skirts for Christmas and her birthday. I like her looking pretty.
I have a very funny beach story that ends with me in only my bra and underwear. Thank the lord they matched that very hot day!
I did keep a towel around my waist, though.
Other than fabric type, you couldn’t tell. Of course my body looked much better then!
Definitely true about guys (other than gay guys) and clothes, which is why so many guys have their clothes picked out by wives amd girlfriends, who don't want to be seen in public with someone looking like a color-blind bum.
Try all of the above
You want to rethink this.
Mmmmm...nice knockers.
.
Young Frankenstein. Gene Wilder.
I was going to be silent about the illustrations (the second is ok), but you make that hard. Also, if the Furies resembled Monica Bellucci, who'd be scared to look at them?
Dante iconography usually shows him wearing red, e.g., Botticelli's great portrait:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Dante_Alighieri%27s_portrait_by_Sandro_Botticelli.jpg
I don't know why.
As to the second illustration, everybody knows what Dante looked like, and he didn't look like that (that nose, btw, is a Tuscan characteristic, visible in the streets today):
And yet
The chief imagination of Christendom,
Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself
That he has made that hollow face of his
More plain to the mind's eye than any face
But that of Christ.
W.B. Yeats
I’m content with Gustave Dore
The Italians made a silent movie in the '20s of the Inferno and some of the imagery is indeed shocking and effective. Dante deals in words, of course.
"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason," as Dr. Johnson wrote, speaking of images.
Yes. Superb.
I think it was the Sirens resembled Monica Bellucci. At least until one put ashore.
But I didn’t reread the canto, and don’t remember how Dante frames the Furies there. Tempted to go do so. Why did Vergil fear the seductive power of what were in fact primordial hags of blood vendetta?
We also have Dante’s death mask in plaster. A Tuscan with a beak.
Lots of stories, including especially in 21st century film and TV, have as a/the central character a woman who is both the object of all the males' sexual desire and death-dealing. I recall how the theater audience reacted back in the (?more innocent?) day when that Shocking Thing in the film "The Sting" was revealed. It's all over the place now, perhaps beginning with "Kill Bill". Maybe in Dante's time and place it was more of a ho-hum observation about some of humanity, transferred to mythological females in the case of the Commedia.
Dana
I remember now. The Furies/Erinyes were given their new title the Eumenides (“the Kindly Ones”) in an effort to prod their acceptance of the aquittal of Orestes for killing his mother. It’s the founding trial of classical Greek culture, right there on the Areopagus. But I remember no tradition that they also got cosmetic surgery with the name change.
"The Kindly Ones": it's also an instance of the principle of nemesis. Calling something beautiful ugly, and ugly beautiful, is a way of avoiding misfortune. In Mediterranean cultures you'll see mothers and grandmothers hold babies and say, "Com'e' brutta!" (if Italian) before smothering her with kisses, or making a little dry spitting motion with their tongue as if to say, "disgusting" (I once saw an ashkenazi Jewish grandmother do this).
It was considered rash even to look at the temples of the Eumenides. "The Kindly Ones" is also the title of the sixth in Powell's Dance to the Music of Time series, the one set 1938-1939.
That’s good. Confuse the jealous gods. I didn’t know this kind of behavior had continued to the present.
You’ll probably collectively hate this but Cassandra Khaw- Malaysian Chinese woman- has written a series of novels that deal with a kind of twilight of the gods- that feature among others the kindly ones. They’re gross and wildly imaginative.The best is Food of the Gods.
I don't believe in the collective.
Aischylos' Oresteia ends with the triumph of (public) Justice over {private) Vengeance. So the Erinyes are invited to serve the rational goddess Athena rather than running amok on their own. Of course this happens in Athens so the tragedian could pat his own city on the back as the ground zero of the new orders of Justice.
Hahahahaha. Hilarious. Love it!
Hello Rod: Thank you for this. I really should read “How Dante Can Change Your Life”.
I have my own little bouillabaisse story. It involves my cooking Turkey Provençal with a French-style stuffing and side dishes for my family one Christmas. Disaster. I promise it tasted good, and they usually like my cooking, but – well – at least they ate it:, but no praise and a request never to cook French again! This is not quite like your story, where only your Dad will even taste the food. Ah well. Not just about the food, but I always think “A prophet has no honor in his own country” (Mark 6:4) when I read your stories of going home. And it extended to your immediate family.
You probably know this, but there is a theory of personality called OCEAN – Jordan Peterson discusses it. The “C” is for “closed” – people tend to be on a spectrum of “open” or “closed”. Your family sound like strong “C”s compared to your “Open”. I’m open as well, and I think I get it. Conservatives, btw, are most often “closed” but there are open ones. “Open” would want to travel, explore different places, different foods, read widely, post pictures of half-naked women (heh), and such. – So, in addition to lacking honor in your own country, and being a city boy, you were perhaps “C” interacting with “O”.
This probably added little to the many things you have thought of in your life about this subject, but I wanted to say it.
I bet the food you cooked was very good.
You got it! I'm a good cook. And thanks.
You can make that dish for my family at Christmas, we would love it!
Sounds yummy!
You ok!
Had I met Ray Dreher, I am sure I would have liked him. But the bouillabaisse story that Rod tells is unique in its lack of good manners. And Rod's mother and sister are just as bad as his father in refusing to eat the bouillabaisse which I am sure was delicious. The rudeness the three of them showed for Rod and his wife is mind-boggling.
I don't know. Family that smiles while sliding in the shiv is worse in my opinion.
But not eating the food? That's bizarre. My Mother-in-law was a mediocre cook at best but I ate her cooking, complimented her, and thanked her.
My Mother-in-Law turned me off to Mid-Western cooking. But she was a fine woman although an old-fashioned John Kennedy Democrat.
Mid west cooking sounds like a bit of an oxymoron. But I admit to having good meals in Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland and Omaha .
Chicago Deep-dish pizza is very good. But that isn't traditional Mid-Western cooking. When I think Mid-Western cooking I think Marcia Adams.
Morticia Adams?
Columbus OH is one of the best food towns I've ever been to (not named Manhattan). The South West is awful by comparison.
I also love cheese. WI is really good for cheese.
Wisconsin cheese is great. I went to the Prarrie Chicken festival in Wisconsin. I love Wisconsin.I also went to the Sandhills Crane migration in Nebraska. I love Nebraska too.
It would be very worth exploring what constitutes Midwestern cooking. If the Midwest is a culture, and I certainly think it is, it deserves to have its own cooking.
Sausages of various types would probably play a large role, I would think.
Dana
My mother in law was a bad cook and truthfully my mother was a good cook and I’m a good cook. So eating at the in laws house was a struggle . Gradually, I steered things in the direction of, I’d cook something and bring it over or we’d get takeout. I think I pulled it off without being rude.
My Mother-in-Law's turkey gravy was this tasteless, watery stuff. Blah! My wife learned from my mother to cook a dark, rich gravy for turkey. My Brother-in-Law calls it tar. But it's so good.
In later years my mother’s big thing was roast chicken. She did a very good job with that.
I make excellent turkey gravy. Drippings and giblets (only time of year I’d ever eat them).
Family can simply be evil and something you have to leave behind. Rod seemingly sacrificed the family he created with his wife to his family of origin. This is how I read it and I am probably wrong, but from the breadcrumb trail he leaves that’s how it looks. Honor thy father and mother can come in direct competition with leaving thy father and mother and cleaving to thy wife and the twain shall be one flesh.
My mother was a narcissist, a selfish and destructive person in her influence on others. She destroyed my sister’s marriage and had a terrible influence on us. She had to come first, over husband, children, God himself. If I could live life over I would have moved far away as soon as possible. Sometimes you just can’t do what seems like a good thing without imperiling a better one.
Prayers for you.
I tend to agree
In "The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, A Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life" there are more details. The immediate family moved back to the home town in good faith, thinking to build a better and more grounded life there. It all went wrong. It could not have been foreseen.
edit to add: And the family had moved from Philly where they had been for something like 2 or 3 years I think. The kids had gotten settled in school, and Orthodox church had been started, eventually Rod was quite sick - the decision was to not pick up and move again. - I do know people who like Rod very much in that area.
I’ll button my lips after this but I read Ruthie Lemming after Rod’s family problems kicked in , which I knew nothing about. I didn’t even understand that he’d moved away from the area his parents lived in to Baton Rouge ( When I read him in The American Conservative and he mentioned Baton Rouge , I( stupidly )thought he was just using that as a general designation for the area he lived in. The reason I said stupidly is , I’ve been in Baton Rouge and St. Francisville and it should have dawned on me, they aren’t next door to each other). To continue to make a short story long, when I read the book my take was the move was not only a mistake but a rather obvious one based on the facts outlined in the book. I have no business going any further.
The move from Philly to St. Francisville? Yeah, it was, in retrospect, but idiot me, I simply couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that after my sister had died, that my family would see us that way. I wanted so desperately to be approved of by them, especially my dad. I brought him everything he wanted from me: myself and my family. It wasn't enough.
If you're talking about the move from SF to Baton Rouge, it's only 30 miles away. We moved there because my father had died, and my mom was in good health (thus able to look after herself well), and because our little mission church had failed to launch. We wanted to be closer to the church (in Baton Rouge), and besides, our kids were starting to attend a classical Christian school there. It made sense.
My comments are a little confusing. I didn’t, for a while understand what had happened to you. ( Overall I still don’t but that’s not something I need to know let alone have any right to know).I think it’s fair to say you reached a point where there was no point in continuing on in SF.
Yes, there was. The closing of our mission church was the catalyst. We had grown accustomed to going to church a lot, and that wouldn't have been possible with the nearest church on the far side of Baton Rouge. That, and that my dad, having died, didn't need me around anymore. My mom was in good health. My sister's kids wanted nothing to do with us. Anyway, BTR is only 30 to 40 minutes away.
St. Francisville is probably becoming an exurb of Baton Rouge.
There's basically a development ban up there: no new subdivisions. So it can't grow into a true exurb. And sadly young people who grow up there often cannot afford to live there.
"It all went wrong. It could not have been foreseen."
I think the bouillabaisse incident was a pretty good warning of what was to come.
Abbey, I mean to be respectful of you and a couple of others here. But my opinion is that there is Monday morning quarterbacking here, and it could be hurtful. - But it would be fair game to say "Why did you return?", though you do get quite a few musing on it in "Ruthie Leming", which you have read right?
Yes, I have read it. I just looked up the definition of Monday morning quarterback and found this: a person who unfairly criticizes or questions the decisions and actions of other people after something has happened. I don't think I unfairly criticized or questioned Rod's decision; I questioned your statement that the results of his move "could not have been foreseen."
I'm no stranger to family conflict, and I'm well aware of how cruel people can be, but I find deeply unpleasant memoirs that traffic in personal accounts of how awful somebody else was, especially after that person is dead, unless there is a really good reason for making this information public.
OK - I understand. Why not post the question you imply about revealed information as a question to Rod? And if he does not stop by to read comments this late - that could be a reason if there should happen to be no answer - perhaps try another time?
Not to nitpik, but alternative to "could not have been foreseen" is "could have been foreseen" implying Rod purposely put his family in a terrible position. Yes, I did think that unfair to Rod, even though it was my wording of the idea that "Rod did not purposely do wrong in moving his family to St. Francisville".
I let everyone in my family read the Little Way manuscript before I published it, and told them I would consider removing information they didn't want there. None asked me to. My father even said, "You told it like it was." Which I appreciated.
Yeah, it was. I just didn't want to see it. I wanted to be accepted so badly that I blinded myself to reality.
Very sad. My mother had a temper but she was a good mother and generous. She cooked a delicious roast beef.
I had very good parents even if they did not like French food. My sister and brother-in-law - not good people.
My mother mad good roast beef in the 60s. That pretty much disappeared after that.
My wife is the black sheep of her family. She's politically conservative in a family of liberal Democrats. She married and her older brother and older sister did not. Although my wife and her sister get on each other's nerves, there is very little backbiting in her family.
You’re lucky. My situation is much more fraught.
Well, that's how I see it too. I don't have any contact with my sister's kids, and almost no contact with my mother. I don't want to get into the details of the stuff with my mom, but it may suffice to say the last time I saw her, she yelled at me, apropos of nothing, that they were nothing but kind to us, and it was all my and Julie's fault. She lives in her own alternative reality. I just cannot bear the pain anymore of having to live with those lies. I know I have no home to go to now. This is a hard, hard thing for somebody like me, who always prized home, and dreamed of being able to find a Home, to accept. But this is how it is. Dante never was able to return to Florence.
Me too. Almost word for word.
I am always moved when you tell the story of some degree of reconciling, as it were, with your father, when he was 78 and made a confession that changed the way you saw him, and near his death. I pray for the wounds that are still there. I pray for as much healing as can be with your mother.
And pay no attention to these Monday morning quarterbacks.
Unusual anger can be an early sign of dementia. Don't take it personally but be aware of the possibility.
I get you, but that is not the case with her. I can't say more.
That is true
By losing my parents and brother so young I learned that Home would have to be the home I made. My step-mother's death in 2009 wrote finis to any sense of Michigan as home. Also my hometown had decayed badly and it was not at all the place where I grew up. I do keep in touch with extended family, and some friends in parts distant.
Very sad. Was Ypsilanti your hometown?
Yes, technically the township not the city per se. Surprised you know of it. I usually tell people not from Michigan that I grew up near Ann Arbor to avoid dumb looks at "Ypsilanti"
A year or so ago I think you wrote that you grew up in Ypsilanti. I let you know that Joe Sobran grew up in Ypsilanti.
I will probably get a text tomorrow from my mom - and perhaps even my sister - and I'll have to decide whether to send "thank you" to them or not. (IF my sister does, I almost certainly won't answer her.) Same thing will probably happen at Christmas. That's all I can take of them for the year. They're 70 miles away, but I'm just done, and have been now for years. I can't deal with them, and I don't expect them to change, so it is what it is, I guess. As hard as it is, I had to learn that my self-worth could not be measured by their acceptance and love.
Maybe I'll make strawberry shortcake for church tomorrow for my birthday. (We haven't started the Dormition Fast yet, being on the old calendar.) I'm sure that will be a happier thing than spending time with them.
Hope you have a calm and blessed day - many years :)
D.
Happy Birthday! Shortcake sounds delicious.
Wise words.
Family is complicated. Growing up...and during adulthood too...I saw my share of conflict, intrigue, pain, and betrayal on both sides of my family. So did my wife with her family.
Some of this left a residue of bitterness but also drove home the reality that human nature is flawed and life is generally not all black or white. Neither are people all good or bad. So you have to learn to navigate that somehow and find a way to deal with it. Sometimes this may necessitate distancing from or even a break with some family members.
One constructive thing that emerged from our experience was a lesson that we were able to impart very early to our six children: "Your relationship with one another is one of the most precious gifts that God has given you. Your Mom and Dad have all too often seen that gift squandered in their own families. In fact, it happens in families all the time. Don't let it happen to you." By the grace of God, they've taken that lesson to heart to this day.
You are very fortunate. I would’ve hoped our five would be the same but we have a little sister-sister in law spat going on now which keeps the cousins apart.
Yes! When ( most) of our kids were over for dinner recently, they were talking about how one thing my husband and I always emphasized was to value each other. I read once that, "the sibling relationship is the longest relationship you will ever have- treasure it." My oldest granddaughter spoke up and said that when she and her brother would fight, her dad (my sil) would say, "do you want to grow up apart from each other, or do you want to love each other like Moms brothers and sisters?"
We have made mistakes as parents, and the kids have not been immune from making them either as they have grown into adulthood! But I thank God that they are there for each other. My own growing up was not so smooth- my older brother and sister were pretty much estranged until she became terminally ill. So maybe I thought about it more than many parents. How petty and hurtful Rods family was! He was trying to share something with them and they thought he was being highfalutin and bringing something fancy to the "countryfolk". Family is a treasure, but they can be the meanest people out there sometimes. Not one to give too much advice on parenting, I would say emphasize the sibling relationship- treasure it and nurture it!
Right, our family's relationship is not perfect because perfection doesn't exist this side of the Pearly Gates. But it's generally solid, peaceable, and happy...with the adults all getting along and the plethora of cousins all enjoying one another's company.
Three guidelines that I gave our kids: A) Love is a two-way street; B) Don't sacrifice your bonds with one another on the altar of ego; and C) Decide what's more important, your relationship or your grudge; if the latter, you need to grow up.
"...human nature is flawed..." Yes, but when narcissism kicks in, you're in another gear, another level of reality, where Somebody Who Doesn't Like You Very much is in control. I'm not saying this is Dreher's reality (from the evidence it isn't) or anybody else's, but family is one place where power can be exercised without check, and once somebody realizes that and decides to get his jollies from the exercise of that. power, there's a transvaluation of all values and the only thing to do is get out.
Being in my (birth) family meant never having to say you're sorry.
My mother, a long term adulteress who wrecked several families including her own and two of whose daughters marriages were wrecked by adulterous husbands, who used verbal and physical abuse in raising us, would regularly say she had no regrets, that she would literally do everything exactly the same if she could do it over. Who says this except for an extreme narcissist ?
It is super hard. I know my family of origin was poisonous and would kill me, but i thought, "surely they will love my children". And "i will give my children grandparents, even if it takes me 6 weeks to recover from each visit". Until they hurt my child. Police told me to not let them around my kids, my husband was extremely supportive, and the kids did not seem to miss them (except my oldest son, i think). There are so many undercurrents, ideals, goals. It is so easy to shipwreck your fam on the jagged rocks of a toxic origin story. I am grateful we got out when we did, sorrowful for the loss of what could have been, and grateful for police and counsellors to speak boldly. I have prayed for the Dreher family, but need to add them to my daily prayers.
The bouiiiabaisse story has always shocked me. I think it was deeply revealing.
Indeed. I just left a comment to that effect, not having read the previous comments first.
It's always horrified me.
Oh, you would have. My family were mostly wonderful. I never in a million years would have expected that from them. But as I said, it served as a prelude for the much greater refusals twelve years later. I still can't get over how they behaved. They never would have done that to anyone else. They were very well-mannered people. It's shocking, even still.
Their next and last sight and sound of me would have been my pale white immenseness bottom leaving town with my family.
This country we now live in is a very long, Jerry Springer show.
Arguably
We are slouching towards the “ smack down” … gladiator games!
Or Bethlehem.
We’ve devolved to Maury
The bouillabaisse story is heartbreaking and symbolic of the profound loss everyone who has suffered lack of acceptance (leading to estrangement) from those with whom we desperately crave connection experiences. It’s that pivotal moment in which we realize it’s just never going to happen. The pain of this rejection renders it impossible to achieve full closure or justification, and I think perhaps it isn’t meant to. The signal that we are not part of this tribe that we want with everything we think we have in us leads to a crisis of spirit, and in at least my case, wandering the globe in search of a new home with a tribe of choice. The unexpected irony is that eventually I circled back and rekindled a relationship with a family member that I had to suspend in favor of my own healing, and this has become a focal point and one of the biggest blessings in my current life.
Virgil=reason. Yes, yes. But please remember, Virgil is a POET. In Limbo Dante recognizes Socrates and Plato, but he hangs with Homer, Ovid, Horace, etc., etc.
Rod, have you seen this? The damn thing's been out since January but I only just found out about it. Cavanaugh argues that the problem is not so much disenchantment but idolatry -- "bad" enchantment, which is something you've discussed. I've been reading Cavanaugh for years and his stuff is always worthwhile. For me, this is a "drop everything and read" release.
https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2024/07/23/review-cavanaugh-uses-idolatry-248377
Thanks for this. When I proceed further into Girard, Cavanaugh looks to be well worth bringing into dialogue.
On the power of image: There is a way to cure some people's phantom limb pains that involves showing them their healthy limb in a mirror box, so that the missing limb appears to be whole again, right there opposite the healthy limb. (Crucially, the method requires the patient to attempt to move them -- embodiment is a key part of the healing process.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_therapy
The gist of it is that there is a part of the brain that is not available to conscious control or awareness (in particular, to reason and language), but does happen to be in charge of that missing limb. This part can develop a mistaken understanding about the state of the missing limb, thinking the limb is there, it's just not responding to queries or commands, and worse, it's got itself into a painfully cramped contortion.
This ignorance, leading to the wrong interpretation of silence, fosters a doubling down on the bad theory of the state of things, and this results in pain.
There is no path from the consciousness to tell that little island in the brain what's really happening, *but there is a path through the eyes.* How many other pieces of the mind might be like that, I've often wondered.
Dr V.S. Ramachandran! I read one of his books a dozen years ago, and had wondered occasionally why I hadn't heard of his brilliant insight about one possible way of arresting phantom limb pain. I don't remember whether he mentions the following himself, but I believe it's in one of Norman Doidge's absorbing books about neuroplasticity:
As a boy, Ramachandran had a bad case of the Sherlock Holmes contagion, and it's never left him. I don't imagine he's a fanatic, but in his work as a neurologist, he's consciously tried to develop methods of treatment which could have been used in Victorian era medicine. His mirror treatment for phantom limb pain is a perfect example. When I first read about it, I was so filled with admiration of his ingenuity, I was jubilant. ( Technique, technique, technique. Whatever the field, I'm fascinated by it. I have never yet recovered from the thrill I got when I learned that John Lennon kept the D string of his guitar intentionally flat because his instinct told him it added a subliminally recognized dissonant/bluesy quality to his playing. )
Ramachandran and his mirror is perfect in its Victoriana. The Victorians tended to be obsessed with mirrors. The young Hawthorne, alone in his inherited house, spent much of at least one winter staring at himself in a mirror.
I have to marvel at the insight and ingenuity too. It is such a joy to see people who are really good at what they do.
Great reference. I hadn't made this connection. But it works.
Do you think this kind of mirror therapy works at an emotional level? Can someone find healing in their wrecked lives by looking at a photograph of themselves from before they got caught in a downward spiral? I remember learning a technique like this: the therapist would ask the patient to find a photo from childhood, look at it intently, and take on an attitude of kindness and love toward the small child. It was a 'reparenting' type of exercise.
We know someone in their late 60s whose life is a train wreck. They laugh it off and treat others cruelly, but everyone knows this is a defense posture. I am wondering if the mirror therapy could make a difference.
Interesting thought.
Maybe... the mirror box is so specific that I wouldn't know how to generalize it. Might take a Ramachandran to figure it out. I do like the idea of the childhood photo therapy.
My deepest experience of stunning beauty leading to God was probably on first hearing the opening of St. Matthew's Passion. Walking into the Orthodox churches in the lands south of Hungary (e.g. Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro) has also been stunning and something drawing me closer to God. And the Abbey Church at Mont Saint Michel - how can I even get started? Every Mass, every true worship experience invoking the Holy Spirit, is really such beauty. In Appalachia, Holy Cross Monastery has a You Tube video about beauty drawing us closer to God.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hry1f0aAkg4
Who else can add a time the beauty has drawn them closer to God?
In my part of the US the great blue heron is a common sight in ponds and creeks. For some reason, I am stunned by their beauty and elegance every time I see one, which is often. In my mind, they are connected to my quiet times with God. I saw one just yesterday when visiting the wetlands near my parents’ home and got some beautiful pictures with the sun going down in the background.
The Blue Heron is a wonderful animal. There are plenty of them on the Chesapeake Bay.
Bishop Barron has written and spoken a great deal about beauty. In one of his presentations he says that of the good, the true, and the beautiful, it is the beautiful that we should emphasize in evangelization, as it is the first step on the path to recognizing and understanding the good and the true.
Posts like these are why I subscribe. A light in the darkness.
The image of custody of the eyes comes from the OT. It's based on Job 31:1. "I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?" And it goes on from there to describe the full-on ruin of the man whose heart is led by the eye.
7 if my steps have turned from the path,
if my heart has been led by my eyes,
or if my hands have been defiled,
8 then may others eat what I have sown,
and may my crops be uprooted.
9 “If my heart has been enticed by a woman,
or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door,
10 then may my wife grind another man’s grain,
and may other men sleep with her.
11 For that would have been wicked,
a sin to be judged.
12 It is a fire that burns to Destruction;
it would have uprooted my harvest.
IMHO, this is why Jesus is so serious about the "eye" in the Sermon on the Mount: " eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[m] your whole body will be full of darkness." (Matthew 5:22)
Jesus also zeros in on the eye as the most dangerous part of the body, which can lead us into ruin: "If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."
But interestingly--and thankfully--that which has the power to trip us up and lead us to ruin (the eye) can also be the vehicle for our salvation if beauty will save the world. (Which I believe...)
This reminds me of an old joke I heard years ago but am still fond of telling.
An Irishman went to confession, and when the priest asked him his sins the man said that he had had impure thoughts about his neighbor's wife. The priest replied, "Ah. my son, it's no sin to have impure thoughts -- all of us have them. What makes it a sin is if you entertain them. So that's the real question, my son -- did you entertain them?"
The fellow thought for a moment then said, "Well, truth be told, Father, it was more like they entertained me."
Haha! That!
Putting me onto Iian McGilcrist was something I will always be grateful to you for. That said the number of books I’ve bought from your recommendation and other Substack has become a challenge I may have to stop reading WSJ & NYT to find the time to read alternative material that seems much more enriching
I have a fairly large library that I'm trying to cull before I retire in a few years. My current plan, which seems to be working so far, is that for every new book I acquire I sell or donate two that I already have.
Yes I’ve moved my office from church to my home as I begin a transition to being a missionary to my city vs a local church pastor and I’m trying to do that every month. So hard to say goodbye to books I’ve had since grad school but I’m limiting myself to a limited number of shelves and I’m trying to buy kindle books whenever possible no shelf needed and excerpts easier to share
Really appreciate your writing hope I can get to one of your upcoming US events
Have you mistaken me for our host? Perish the thought!
Yes Rob G I did confuse you with Rod D my bad but good word from you about pruning library one book at a time
I’m doing that but I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to read all my books. So many books, so little time.
Same here -- plus I'm in a small townhouse and have to watch my space. One does need room for other things you know!
I have to say: that bouillabaisse episode is *really* weird. It seems to be deliberate cruelty. I don't wonder that it was traumatic. Some degree of difficulty with in-laws is just part of it, anywhere from simple awkwardness and a sense that "these are not my people" to open conflict. But offhand I can't think of another story I've heard that compares to this one in its combination of meanness without open conflict. Though I guess this did constitute open conflict. I can only imagine how the young wife felt. I would expect that for most women it would do irrevocable damage to her relationship to the in-laws.
I think it’s a sign of something strong and good that Julie was even willing to speak to any of them after that.Its not a strength I have!
Well, I agree. I consider it a terrible fault of mine that I overlooked it. It was such a grotesque insult to me and my new wife. I should have known that people capable of doing that would never accept us if we lived there. The hard thing to get people to see is that my family were for the most part really wonderful, and loved by many. They could be kind and generous, and usually were. There was something about *me* though. In "Little Way," I quote Ruthie's best friend saying that she herself could not fathom why my sister had such a chip on her shoulder about me, especially given that Ruthie was so loving and kind to everyone else. All I can figure is that it was for the same reason my dad saw me as he did: they took my being unlike them as rejection, as disloyalty. In "Little Way," I quote Ruthie's widower saying that he believes Ruthie just thought I never should have left. That was the original sin.
Very good point about rejection. Familial rejection. My wife has a homosexual uncle who rejected her way back in 1999 when he came to realize that not only was she politically conservative but also a Roman Catholic. He totally disowned my wife and hasn't spoken to her since.
I find it appaling when pepple allow politics or religion to drive a wedge between them. No one will ever make life one scintilla better by being a jackass (polite word used) to kin or friends.
I think Uncle Ken disliked my wife becoming a Catholic more than a Republican. The first time I met Uncle Ken he told me that organized religion was the greatest foe of civilization. Uncle Ken was formerly a Nixon Republican who voted Democrat for the first time for president in 1980 because he despised Reagan. Uncle Ken ended up being named to a local transportation board in northwestern Ohio by Dubya.
My deist father had a dim view of organized religion though he respected my mother's church lady Catholicism on the personal level. But he regarded clergymen as potential Elmer Gantries
A shame
Just to be clear, Rod, I didn't intend any criticism of your handling of the situation. My wife has a way of summarizing puzzling and usually not very good behavior by saying "It's just *weird*" in a certain way. The fact that they refused to even taste it is just *weird*.
All is said and done , you didn’t get it all right but you showed a capacity for forgiveness I don’t have.If I’d experienced that , I would have at minimum totally severed ties with my family.So for all your flaws , you’ve shown strength. Granted , you shouldn’t have moved back home.