May Day, Dostoevsky, random personal update, etc.

“Ramble on, keep on ramblin’ “

Although it’s nearly a week since I was taken away, relativistic time for me has been two fortnights. It was good to be aboard the old space dirigible again and now the journey is coming to an end. We are now leaving deep space as we are arriving at the gravity threshold of the solar system (it is 0.01 earth gravities of strength—you may calculate the exact orbital distance from the sun if you wish). At this gravity threshold the Aether Drives slow from trans-light to velocities slightly better than your standard gravity-plate thrusters. This also means that we are now in Gravity Ripple communication range, which is why this message is a week late.

So, to begin: Salutations and Solidarity from a fellow worker and sinner, etc. on International Labour Day.

I have several thought lines that I am currently processing. In reading Yukio Mishima in March, I was struck by the modernist and existential thought that bleeds through the story. Since I am reading a number of modern writers and this is the phase of literary development the writers are a part of, the existentialism is not surprising. What is surprising (mainly because of my thinking within the Christian world-view) is the almost inexorable logical procession towards an obsession with death. YM is obsessed with death and the other writers seem to have a certain underlying despair. This is the type of despair that makes my despair (tempered by hope as it is) seem like mere petulance or whining. So, while I am looking at these literary examples for style and technique, I am also imbibing the ideas underlying the stories by the various authors.

The thoughts and contemplation of death and life without hope that I began to consider during the Lenten season culminating in Good Friday, were actually apropos to what the season was trying to make us consider. The biblical dialectic of absolute faith and the necessity of works factors into the message of hope of the Easter season. When I consider the Last Judgment and how we will all answer for every wrong thought, word, and deed, the assurance I once had as a Calvinist Christian of not losing salvation is gone. Our perseverance was supposed to be the work of God, right? But what about Jesus' statement that many will say Lord, Lord, and Jesus will say I never knew you? It sure seems that in addition to faith, you had better have some performance metrics to show God or it's all over for you for eternity. And then the loss of hope inherent in the 'death of a vision' that occurs every time you have to bury another of the cherished dreams of your life, also contributes to contemplations of death. So the hope of Easter is muted somewhat by my absolute inability to live out what I believe. Like some of Dostoevsky's characters, there go I.

Another train of thought I am considering is the importance of suffering both in the Christian life and in human life in general. I came across a literature professor who seemed to capture the essence and importance of suffering communicated by Dostoevsky in Crime & Punishment. Here is a quote:

John D. Simons writes,

Dostoyevsky [sic] firmly believed in the regenerative power of suffering, considering it essential for the expiation of guilt. Furthermore, suffering voluntarily accepted leads to spiritual rebirth. The nature of suffering and its role in Dostoyevsky's novels will be clearer if we pause to consider its position in Russian thought.

Ranking as one of the chief characteristics of Russian Orthodoxy is mysticism, the belief in the possibility of direct communion with God. This communion does not depend on any outside factors such as revelation or answers to prayers. Rather the highest communion is achieved by direct imitation, or identification, which enables the soul to partake of the divine essence. The mystic accepts symbolism as literally or metaphysically true. In this state of mind, God ceases to be an idea and becomes an experience. Since Christ's greatest moment on earth was his suffering and death for humanity, the Russian feels that when he suffers he approaches Christ in both a mystical and literal sense.

This mystical-religious disposition and the belief in the absolutism of suffering is a result of the peculiar history of Russia, which is one of suffering. Christianity was the people's only comfort during the centuries of immeasurable hardship when they were at the mercy of other nations. The traditions and legends of the people emphasize the conviction that the weak, the insulted, and the injured will, at the Last Judgment, be exalted above the domineering aristocracy from whom and for whom they endured such anguish. The dictum "The meek shall inherit the earth" has real meaning for them .

The Russian ideal, then, finds expression in suffering as a spiritual bond between humans and God. If we consider for a moment the actions and life of Christ, we can better understand the significance of this bond. The difference between the Old and the New Testament determines human beings' relationship both to themselves and to humanity at large. The Ten Commandments are concerned chiefly with actions, whereas Jesus' law focuses on feeling the love of God and one's neighbor. If action is subordinated to feeling, the concepts of sin, freedom, and law undergo a basic change. As Christianity developed in the West, however, the importance of actions rather than states of mind continued to be stressed. According to Jesus, laws can be fulfilled only through humility and love. He had infinite patience with thieves, drunkards, and harlots and reserved his wrath for the Scribes and Pharisees whose actions might have been irreproachable but whose feelings and minds were corrupt. Likewise, Dostoyevsky portrayed murders, prostitutes, and alcoholics as basically good people, whereas he viciously attacks people of empty actions, merchants, bureaucrats, in fact the whole hypocritical middle class. The Russian interpretation of Christianity, therefore, tries to do justice to the primitive status of being. Feeling!

The religious sanctity of suffering accounts for the actions of Nikolay, the painter. After a few days in prison, he voluntarily confesses to the murder, not because he is under pressure to do so, but because he is thirsting for punishment. Of course, Porfiry does not believe him and orders an investigation. The inquiries turn up the revealing information that in addition to a very strict religious education, several members of his family belonged to a primitive religious sect that exalted suffering above all else and that Nikolay had been the disciple of a certain mystical elder. In the solitude of his cell he thinks about the elder and the Bible, which leads him to regret his life of profligacy since coming to St. Petersburg. So by accepting punishment for a crime of which he is innocent, he will be able to expiate his real, or imaginary, 'sins.' Similar to Nikolay's are the actions of a prisoner Profiry once knew who spent his time with the Scriptures, finally reading himself into a frenzy. One day this prisoner succumbed to the desire for punishment, seized a stone, and threw it at the governor, aiming a few feet to one side so as not to injure him. Porfiry says: "Do you know, Rodion Romanovich [sic], the force of the word 'suffering' among these people! It's not a question of suffering for someone's benefit, but simply 'one must suffer.'"

end of quote

Mr. Simons goes on to point out that by 'stepping over' the line of the law by committing a crime (especially a capital crime), Roskolnikov is cut off from humanity. He must suffer and be punished to rejoin humanity. My question on this line of thinking is that what if you feel you are already cut off from humanity without having committed a heinous crime? There is not a possibility of rejoining what you have not been a part of to begin with.

Anyway on the topic of suffering, I, like any modern relatively comfortable American, do not like suffering at all. But Jesus warned us that the cost of discipleship will require suffering. And the nature of living in a fallen world will include that there will be suffering that on the surface does not have anything to do with the Kingdom of Heaven. Are we missing something in our identification with Christ if we are not suffering?

more later...

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