Reflecting on Ash Wednesday (Jesus Corner)

My love of the Lenten season is well documented. It didn't occur to me until this year that this might seem odd.

I had forgotten that most people think of Lent as a time to put their heads down and feel really bad. "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return" gets transmuted into "Remember that you are a crappy, terrible person who should feel really bad about yourself for the next few weeks. In fact, go ahead and punish yourself while you're thinking about it and then you'll really feel bad about what a scum bag you are."

No, no, no. That is not the correct translation.

Lent is embracing the human condition and mourning it, all at once. We are remembering that Jesus has become man - He has become dust. His suffering, his affliction - it is something that makes him as human as any of us. God has become man and has given us dignity. The story is not over. Our "humanness" is going to be redeemed. The ashes of Ash Wednesday are placed in the shape of a cross on our foreheads... the ultimate symbol of God's redemption of humanness.

Lent is certainly about mourning our weakness - it should never be less than that. We are mourning the state of our individual hearts and the heart of humanity itself. We mourn that there is fallenness. But this shouldn't be reflection that leads to self-brutality. It's a reflection that shows us our dependency on God. Fasting and abstaining from various earthly comforts reminds us of our need for God.

And remember that Lent doesn't end with Good Friday - we are sustained by the hope we have in Easter. Today, I've been musing on the song "When Death Dies" by Gungor:

"Like an ocean buried and bursting forth...

When it comes flowers grow,
Lions sleep, gravestones roll...
When it comes poor men feast
Kings fall down to their knees

When death dies, all things live."

"Ghosts Upon the Earth" is a great album for the Lent/Easter season - it has a definite arc that mirrors the death/resurrection story

Think of what this means... Christ has come to kill death. He has solidarity with us in His suffering, but He can do what none of us can. He can kill the poisonous root of the problem.

As Christ has identified with us in his suffering and humanity, Lent is a time when we can, in some small way, identify with the process of death dying and what sacrifices were required to make that happen. It makes me think of Susan and Lucy walking with Aslan to the Stone Table, or the loaf of bread that Katniss receives from District 11. It is a symbol of identification and solidarity. It doesn't change the necessity of what has to be done, but it shows who we belong to and is a small act of gratitude for the sacrifice of another on our behalf.

This probably makes little sense. I find it really difficult to put into words why this season means so much to me. I guess the bottom line is that it reminds me that God is not shocked by my humanity. He is not so repulsed by it that he can have nothing to do with me. In fact, He has taken on humanness himself, both dignifying it and triumphing over it. I love remembering the awe of the incarnation and the awe of what it all leads to. "When death dies, all things live." Hallelujah

How do you think about Lent? Is it something that is a part of your liturgical year or is it not a part of your tradition?

Books Like Whoa: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (Favorites Edition)

I wrote a paper on this, my most favored of novels, for school last week so I thought we should discuss as a group...

The Remains of the Day

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Procured from my high school in 12th grade

Procured in November 2004

Finished in November 23, 2004

Format: Trade paperback with a great cover (i.e. not the movie one)

Why I gave it a try:  I wanted to do well on the reading quiz for it

Summary: In 1956, aging butler, Mr. Stevens, hopes to secure the services of an erstwhile housekeeper at Darlington Hall for his new American employer. As he travels through the English countryside to meet her, he reflects on the events of the 1930s that led this housekeeper, Miss Kenton, to join the staff and how she eventually left. Ennui ensues. 

Thoughts: This is my favorite novel. Well, at least tied. Along with Jane Eyre, this is my favorite novel. I first read it at a particular angsty moment of teenage-dom, so the original emotional impact was greater than perhaps it would have been under different circumstances. But it has held up to multiple re-readings, plus it won the Man Booker Prize, so I'm not the only one who thinks it's fancy and awesome.

The core of my love for this book centers around the protagonist, Mr. Stevens. People. This poor man is J. Alfred Prufrock and Adrian Mole rolled into one pitiful concoction of self-delusion and unawareness. I never knew that the level of straight up empathy and pathos I feel for Stevens was possible to find in fictitious characters before I read The Remains of the Day. This was the first novel that truly took me outside of myself to inhabit a life experience so removed from my own.

I also love how Ishiguro combines the diary form with an unaware narrator to comedic and poignant affect. As Stevens documents his physical and metaphorical journey in his journal, we see his lack of self-awareness in sharper and sharper focus. This makes the epiphany of self-understanding at the end of the novel more satisfying and "real," because we've seen his process to get to that point. 

More than anything, this book represents a lot of my own personal baggage around individual moral agency, the meaning of work in our lives, and the process of moving towards wisdom. It's a book that makes me weep, laugh, and think deeply, and it accomplishes more and more in my heart with each re-reading. 

Rating:

7 - I will have to seriously reevaluate any friendship or romantic interest that does not like this book: a favorite 

Do you have a favorite novel? What makes it stand the test of time for you?

Books Like Whoa: Happy 200th Birthday, Pride and Prejudice!

Oh, Miss Austen, your baby has reached a seminal birthday - Pride and Prejudice is 200 years old today and doesn't look a day over 180.

Sometimes I wonder why women still connect with these books so strongly after 200 years. I mean, we can vote, own our own property, have jobs, and (GASP) not marry without serious social and economic repercussions. I think a lot of it has to do with her amazing characterizations of character types we still can recognize today... (I'm looking at you, Mr. Collins)

She is also amazing at setting up situations that, while tied to their historic milieu, still emotionally resonate with readers today...

But more than anything, I think it is Austen's combination of the grim economic realities for women of her time period with an eternal optimism that they can be overcome to the satisfaction of her heroines that keep us coming back for more. Don't we all want to believe that we'll find a man to keep us out of the poor house who we actually really like? I know I do.

Happy birthday, P&P! Keep us believing in the dream!

Why do you like Jane Austen? If you don't, why do you think others do?

Books Like Whoa: 3 Memoirs on Grief and Reading

Last year (I love saying that about books I read 2 months ago), I happened to read three books that fall into a very niche sub-genre: memoirs about the author dealing with grief and loss through reading and writing. I wasn't aware that this was a thing, but there you go. I had a variety of responses to them, so I thought it would be worthwhile to do a direct comparison between them.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair
by Nina Sankovitch

This was the first of the reading memoirs I read in 2012 and it was definitely my least favorite. The incident of grief that incites the author's year of reading a book every day is certainly tragic - the author loses her beloved sister to cancer at an early age. However, it was in this book that I began to see both the key strength and key weakness of this genre. The strength is that grief creates both a mood of introspection and a desire to escape for the mourner, which are two conditions that are ideally suited to the act of reading. The weakness is that the type of person who is most likely to take on this kind of reading or writing project is conspicuously wealthy and oblivious to that fact. Sankovitch's reflections too often seem to verge into whining about "rich people problems" and renders her genuine mourning for her sister as less moving. Her grief is lost in a sea of beach houses and play dates, and she fails to paint a clear enough portrait of the object of her mourning for the reader to connect to her grief. This probably wouldn't put off every reader, but it was ultimately too much for me to get over.

Rating: 3 - Not my cup of tea, but I get why people dig it

The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion

This was my first experience with that juggernaut of essay writing, Joan Didion. In terms of her reputation, The Year of Magical Thinking absolutely delivered in terms of her exquisite prose and I was able to see her hallmarks as a stylist. The year of her life that she is documented is likewise staggering - her husband of nearly 40 years dies of a heart attack before her eyes while her daughter lies in ICU from a terrible sickness (that eventually did kill her, after the book was published). The book documents the foggy year that follows as Didion attempts to make sense of how and why her husband died, all while trying to care for her daughter, whose health improves and crashes at regular intervals. Again, this book displays a certain tone deafness to the incredible "1%" lifestyle that Didion so casually inhabits. However, because of Didion's own skill and the sheer freakishness of her loss, this book avoids verging into the realm of whining or snobbery. In fact, by the end, I walked away thinking that perhaps her inclusion of those details of wealth were a strategy to say, "I have all this money and all these influential friends, but I still can do nothing to bring back my husband or heal my daughter."
Rating: 4 - I enjoyed it... a solid offering

The End of Your Life Book Club
by Will Schwalbe

Schwalbe's book was, for me, the most successful of these three memoirs. I think this is in large part because the one being mourned, his dying mother, has such a strong voice throughout the narrative to drive the dialogue on what it is to grieve and what it is to die. Schwalbe documents the informal book club that he and his mother create as he takes her to her chemo appointments during the last two years of her life. Though, again, this book is written by a family living a rather charmed life of privilege, Schwalbe handles this reality in an appropriately self-aware but unapologetic fashion that was satisfying for me. This is also tempered by the fact that his mother was such an incredible philanthropist, activist, and volunteer. This woman used her influence to advocate for the poorest of the poor, abused women, and voiceless refugees, spending a huge amount of time abroad serving those people. She also possesses a beautiful spirit of kindness and acceptance for every person that she encounters. I hope I am able to face death with a fraction as much grace and humility as this woman does. I found Schwalbe's memoir the most moving of the three, as well as the most deft at incorporating the reading element into his process of grief.
Rating: 5 - It's really good: well written and pleasurable

Ultimately, I think the reason some of these books rubbed me a little bit wrong was that I don't want to think that the only people who can benefit from reading at times of loss are rich people. Surely books are not only for the elite? The magic of books is that they reach across time, politics, and money to touch the lives of so many different readers. I want a book that documents the impact of reading on a regular joe. 

What is the place of reading in our lives at times of grief or distress?

The September Issue: A Documentary or An Alternate Universe?

I have had a cinematic experience that I just have to talk to someone about, and that someone, dear reader, is going to be you. The September Issue, a documentary by R.J. Cutler, follows Anna Wintour and her staff as they prepare the yearly spectacle that is the September issue of Vogue.

Like every other woman over the age of 15, I have seen The Devil Wears Prada, which is based on the book of the same title, which is based on the author's experience with Vogue/Anna Wintour. If you, however, do not fall into that category, The Devil Wears Prada follows the trials and tribulations of a bright young girl who becomes the assistant to the tyrannical editor of "Runway" magazine. The eponymous devil is played to perfection by Meryl Streep and while the movie is a delightful confection, I never took seriously the idea that the book could in any way be true to life.

Dear reader, I stand corrected. TDWP, it turns out, is to real life Vogue as the reenactments on "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" are to real life rednecks - prettier people, better dialogue, but the basic thrust of the story rings true.

Now, let's be clear - Anna Wintour does not come across as the petulant monster that is portrayed in the movie. She seems to be a very reserved and demanding person, which comes across as quite cold, but not evil.

The self-seriousness of Vogue, however, was no exaggeration at all. This has a variety of effects on me, but first, let's address some of the amazing quotes that crop up in the film:

"I don't find her to be hidden - I just don't find her to be accessible to those who she doesn't need to be accessible to. She's just busy and she's not warm and friendly."

"It's a famine of beauty, honey - my eyes are starving for beauty!"

"The jacket is the new coat."

"The look is sexy, the look is granny - you need to know."

"People are frightened of fashion and because it scares them or makes them feel insecure, they put it down... They feel excluded or not a part of the cool group so they mock it."

So, yes, there are certainly moments when the good folks of Vogue seem to be a little myopic in their view of what is important in the world. It's also important to note the timeframe of the movie - though it was released in 2009, it was filmed in 2007, which was before the crash of 2008. Thus, some of the more tone deaf elements surely trace to the fact that we were living in a more opulent time.

But what has struck me about the film is how it forces the viewer to consider the current landscape of high art that is accessible to the common person walking around. Where are our great works of public art that are actually beautiful, at least for those of us in North America? I know we have a plethora of odd modern pieces that are plastic-y abstractions of a flower, or something, that pass as public sculpture. But I, at least, don't find these very moving. For most of us, the most beautiful pieces of art that we can consume in our day to day life are the fashion billboards we see on our commutes or the window of department stores as we do our Christmas shopping.

I kind of love that this movie highlights and celebrates this realm of applied art. The ethics of the industry are complex, so for the sake of this discussion, I'm not going to touch the rich trophy wives who sustain the high end of fashion or the disenfranchised third world children who are all too often the grunt work behind what we in the West wear. These problems are what I typically ponder when I think about fashion. But what I forget is that the work itself, as photographed or arranged by the industry, is beautiful. Truly beautiful. And that creating beautiful things for people to enjoy in their every day life, at whichever end of the income spectrum they fall, is kind of an amazing and great thing.

In this kind of art, it quickly becomes clear that Grace Coddington (the real-life equivalent of Stanley Tucci in TDWP) is one of the most important artists we have today. Watching her work and seeing the way she creates a story around the opulent clothes was staggering. Her blunt wit certainly doesn't hurt, but what is fascinating is how romantic her point of view is. She creates entire worlds that you want to immerse yourself in. At one point, she says, "You have to have that fashion story - polka dots or stripes or full skirts or straight skirts or whatever. But I try to make that secondary. I try to make it about the girl and what she's doing, what she's thinking, who she is." This philosophy shines through every frame that she directs. In that way, her work reminds me of medieval portrait painters. The richness of the world and the invitation to consider the inner life of the subject pulls you into both of them.

I really enjoyed the thought that this film provoked in me about what is art, what art means to us in our daily life, how art can form a common experience, and at what cost we can seek to bring beauty to the world.

Plus, watching Grace provoke Anna is pretty hilarious.

What is the acceptable balance between the frivolous and the sublime in fashion?