* "The Wild Hunt" weblog had a post a couple of weeks back on the problem of racist misappropriations of pagan symbols; as the author points out, it's a shielding mechanism: racists use important symbols as cover for their own views, which leads to bad associations with those symbols, which leads to problems for the people whose symbols they actually were. It's a recurring pattern, something that is done again and again, but people are never called on it as they should be; as the author says, "This is why it’s so important to constantly educate people, remain in the public eye, and speak out against the misuse of pre-Christian symbology." And it's certainly not just modern pagans themselves who need to be on the lookout for such misappropriation of symbols; everyone else needs to take care that they are not taken in by such sophistry.
* One of the difficult things one has to face in thinking about the Holocaust is its many-sidedness; Timothy Snyder has an article at the NYRB that notes some often overlooked sides to it. (ht)
* A poem by St. Philaret of Moscow, which apparently was a poetic response to a poem by Alexander Pushkin, who returned a poetic response.
* I mentioned Iamblichus recently; it turns out his book On the Mysteries is online in Taylor's translation (1821) and in Wilder's translation (1911). It's a pretty good way to get an idea of the important but often overlooked second major phase of Neoplatonism, and the sort of elaborate but carefully reasoned Platonic account of pagan ritual that the pagans were putting up against the Christianity of the Church Fathers in the days of Julian the Apostate (Julian was the student of Maximus of Ephesus, who was in turn a student of Iamblichus, although Julian himself was not a particularly outstanding representive of the pagan intellectuals of the time).
* Joe Carter has a good post at "First Thoughts" on the degeneration of Thomas Kinkade's work. Kinkade has a genuine talent that shows through some of his earlier work (and even, here and there, in his more recent work), but commercialism has taken its toll, as each painting outdoes the previous as a caricature of the Kinkade Style (TM). It's Christian Pop Music for the painting world.
* Speaking of Kinkade, one should look at SomethingAwful.com's exploration of Kinkade-with-a-twist: Kinkade's scenes on fire, alien-invaded, and more. Some of them really are awful, but some are very good spoofs.
Paintings of Light (Part 1)
Paintings of Light (Part 2)
Paintings of Light II (one of the best is on the last page)
* Sherry's Hundred Hymn List continues:
#81 The Lord's My Shepherd, I'll Not Want
#80 Here Is Love Vast as the Ocean
#79 Trust and Obey
#78 Victory in Jesus
#77 More Love to Thee
* Watching The Lord of the Rings in Tehran.
* Chad Orzel notes a collision of two press releases.
* Congratulations to Wayne Sumner for winning the 2009 Molson Prize for the Humanities (ht); he definitely deserves it. His work on utilitarianism and rights is quite interesting. I don't recall ever actually taking any of Sumner's graduate courses while at UToronto; I think intended to at one point but, as luck would have it, it conflicted with history of philosophy courses that were a higher priority.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Bacon on the Clever Crow
The distinction between human reason and the sagacity of brutes appears to be a perfectly correct one. Yet there are certain instances of actions performed by animals, by which it seems that brutes too have some power of syllogising; as in the old story of the crow which, in a time of great drought being half dead with thirst, saw some water in the hollow trunk of a tree; and finding it too narrow to get in, proceeded to drop in a number of pebbles, till the water rose high enough for it to drink; which thing afterwards passed into a proverb.
Sir Francis Bacon, New Organon
ADDED LATER: The sufficiently well-read reader will be reminded, of course, of Aesop's fable of the Crow and the Pitcher.
On a Confusion about NOMA
Sean Carroll has recently had a couple of posts up on NOMA, i.e., the idea that science and religion have 'non-overlapping magisteria':
The Principle of Non-Overlapping Food Groups
Science and Religion are Not Compatible
The first of the two is just bad all the way through. Arguing from analogy can be a helpful tool in this context, but only if logical consistency is maintained through the analogy, which it is not here: the absurd conclusion arises not from the non-overlapping principle itself but from the fact that it is assumed in one part of the analogy and violated in another part. It is trivially easy to get absurd consequences even from correct claims if we are allowed to be inconsistent in applying them. The second post, however, which develops more lines of reasoning than just the faulty analogy, is much better, and makes a few decent points, although you have to dig for them a bit.
Both posts, however, seem to involve a confusion about NOMA, leading the main argument of the second post to beg the question against it. This is a pretty common confusion, one I've noted before in a slightly different context, and so it's worth pointing it out. And the confusion lies in thinking that the existence of people who conflate the two somehow is a problem for NOMA:
But NOMA is effectively a diagnosis of a category mistake, a fallacy, and you don't refute a claim that a certain move in reasoning is fallacious by pointing out that someone commits it. The NOMA proponent can quite agree that people often commit the category mistake -- indeed, it is precisely the point of NOMA to do so. NOMA is put forward precisely in order to say that people who treat religious claims as claims about the world, or scientific claims as claims about morals, are engaging in a rational confusion. What would refute NOMA is not people making this alleged confusion, but people who are making this alleged confusion who are clearly doing so in a way that is rationally consistent. NOMA is not the claim that nobody ever treats religious claims as factual or scientific claims as ethical; it's the claim that whenever they do so they are being rationally inconsistent. Likewise, it is entirely possible for lots of people to be rationally inconsistent in their religion, and that is perfectly compatible with the claim that it is possible to be completely rationally consistent in one's religion. The former does nothing to block the other.
One sees this in the failure of a certain part of Carroll's argument. Carroll, urging people not to jump too quickly in calling ethical matters religious, says:
Unfortunately, Carroll himself doesn't quite follow his advice, because at several points he states things in a misleading way. For instance, he says that religion and science are incompatible because people have religious beliefs that are inconsistent with scientific conclusions. The indefinite quantification here would ordinarily be taken to indicate a universal or near-universal claim: that there is something about science and religion themselves that makes them generally incompatible. But such a claim is not proportionate to the evidence to which he actually appeals, which doesn't show a general incompatibility, but only, at most, that some religious claims conflict with some scientific claims. That is, it only establishes a particular conclusion, and leaves open the question, "What about the other claims?" Are all religious claims in conflict with scientific claims? The NOMA proponent will say, "Look, there are obviously religious claims that don't, because there are ethical claims that are also religious claims, and ethical claims and scientific claims can't conflict because they fall into rationally distinct categories -- to make it look like they conflict you have to engage in a category mistake." Carroll himself knows for certain that 'religion' as usually understood extends to such claims, because he takes the trouble to argue against atheists and nonreligious who take the term to extend so far, and it's precisely in this context that he gives his advice. Thus Carroll himself fails to be clear, glossing over the fact that many common uses of the term 'religion' do, in fact, work as the NOMA theorist claims it should, and therefore glossing over the fact that his argument is just as revisionary for our understanding of the term 'religious' as the NOMA theorist's is. Likewise, the way he states the incompatibility thesis is misleading; in the way his words would ordinarily be taken it isn't proportioned to the evidence with which he supports it, and if taken in such a way that it would be proportionate to the evidence given, it is consistent with NOMA. The cases of people taking religious claims as factual or factual claims as religious are in themselves only inconsistent with NOMA if one begs the question against it.
Thus NOMA can't be refuted by the fact that some people take some claims about fact to be religious. The real problem with NOMA is that the reasons for accepting it are generally rather vague, and in practice boil down to one particular reading of what is usually known as the fact/value distinction. This way of taking the distinction is highly controvertible, and thus NOMA is built on a pretty tenuous support -- and, indeed, I think it is ultimately a rationally unsustainable position for precisely the fact that its way of taking the fact/value distinction is itself rationally unsustainable. But it gets plausibility in part because most of the arguments brought against it are very flawed; as I said, Carroll's confusion here is a very common one. (An additional reason for the support it gets is utilitarian: it is a compromise position that has potential appeal across a wide spectrum of views. Thus many people find it attractive as a peaceable proposition, a claim that if accepted would allow for peace in a contentious area, even independently of any reasoning or evidence in its favor. But, of course, pointing this out is not a refutation of NOMA, but merely a diagnosis of one of the reasons why it is popular among such a wide variety of people.)
The Principle of Non-Overlapping Food Groups
Science and Religion are Not Compatible
The first of the two is just bad all the way through. Arguing from analogy can be a helpful tool in this context, but only if logical consistency is maintained through the analogy, which it is not here: the absurd conclusion arises not from the non-overlapping principle itself but from the fact that it is assumed in one part of the analogy and violated in another part. It is trivially easy to get absurd consequences even from correct claims if we are allowed to be inconsistent in applying them. The second post, however, which develops more lines of reasoning than just the faulty analogy, is much better, and makes a few decent points, although you have to dig for them a bit.
Both posts, however, seem to involve a confusion about NOMA, leading the main argument of the second post to beg the question against it. This is a pretty common confusion, one I've noted before in a slightly different context, and so it's worth pointing it out. And the confusion lies in thinking that the existence of people who conflate the two somehow is a problem for NOMA:
Seriously, there are billions of people who actually believe things like this; I’m not making it up. Religions have always made claims about the natural world, from how it was created to the importance of supernatural interventions in it.
But NOMA is effectively a diagnosis of a category mistake, a fallacy, and you don't refute a claim that a certain move in reasoning is fallacious by pointing out that someone commits it. The NOMA proponent can quite agree that people often commit the category mistake -- indeed, it is precisely the point of NOMA to do so. NOMA is put forward precisely in order to say that people who treat religious claims as claims about the world, or scientific claims as claims about morals, are engaging in a rational confusion. What would refute NOMA is not people making this alleged confusion, but people who are making this alleged confusion who are clearly doing so in a way that is rationally consistent. NOMA is not the claim that nobody ever treats religious claims as factual or scientific claims as ethical; it's the claim that whenever they do so they are being rationally inconsistent. Likewise, it is entirely possible for lots of people to be rationally inconsistent in their religion, and that is perfectly compatible with the claim that it is possible to be completely rationally consistent in one's religion. The former does nothing to block the other.
One sees this in the failure of a certain part of Carroll's argument. Carroll, urging people not to jump too quickly in calling ethical matters religious, says:
Be honest and clear about what you actually believe, rather than conveying unwanted supernatural overtones.
Unfortunately, Carroll himself doesn't quite follow his advice, because at several points he states things in a misleading way. For instance, he says that religion and science are incompatible because people have religious beliefs that are inconsistent with scientific conclusions. The indefinite quantification here would ordinarily be taken to indicate a universal or near-universal claim: that there is something about science and religion themselves that makes them generally incompatible. But such a claim is not proportionate to the evidence to which he actually appeals, which doesn't show a general incompatibility, but only, at most, that some religious claims conflict with some scientific claims. That is, it only establishes a particular conclusion, and leaves open the question, "What about the other claims?" Are all religious claims in conflict with scientific claims? The NOMA proponent will say, "Look, there are obviously religious claims that don't, because there are ethical claims that are also religious claims, and ethical claims and scientific claims can't conflict because they fall into rationally distinct categories -- to make it look like they conflict you have to engage in a category mistake." Carroll himself knows for certain that 'religion' as usually understood extends to such claims, because he takes the trouble to argue against atheists and nonreligious who take the term to extend so far, and it's precisely in this context that he gives his advice. Thus Carroll himself fails to be clear, glossing over the fact that many common uses of the term 'religion' do, in fact, work as the NOMA theorist claims it should, and therefore glossing over the fact that his argument is just as revisionary for our understanding of the term 'religious' as the NOMA theorist's is. Likewise, the way he states the incompatibility thesis is misleading; in the way his words would ordinarily be taken it isn't proportioned to the evidence with which he supports it, and if taken in such a way that it would be proportionate to the evidence given, it is consistent with NOMA. The cases of people taking religious claims as factual or factual claims as religious are in themselves only inconsistent with NOMA if one begs the question against it.
Thus NOMA can't be refuted by the fact that some people take some claims about fact to be religious. The real problem with NOMA is that the reasons for accepting it are generally rather vague, and in practice boil down to one particular reading of what is usually known as the fact/value distinction. This way of taking the distinction is highly controvertible, and thus NOMA is built on a pretty tenuous support -- and, indeed, I think it is ultimately a rationally unsustainable position for precisely the fact that its way of taking the fact/value distinction is itself rationally unsustainable. But it gets plausibility in part because most of the arguments brought against it are very flawed; as I said, Carroll's confusion here is a very common one. (An additional reason for the support it gets is utilitarian: it is a compromise position that has potential appeal across a wide spectrum of views. Thus many people find it attractive as a peaceable proposition, a claim that if accepted would allow for peace in a contentious area, even independently of any reasoning or evidence in its favor. But, of course, pointing this out is not a refutation of NOMA, but merely a diagnosis of one of the reasons why it is popular among such a wide variety of people.)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
A Brief Note on Talking about the Conjunction Fallacy
Suppose we take the standard Tversky-Kahneman example of the conjunction fallacy:
Most people will pick #2. But in standard probability theory, the probability of #2, being more specific than #1, will always be less than or equal to the probability of the more general #1. Making this mistake in contexts requiring standard probability theory is what is known as the conjunction fallacy.
I very deliberately put it in those terms, because I think people are often quite sloppy in discussing it. What is it that makes this a fallacy? Contrary to what some people seem to assume, the notion of probability in standard probability theory is not a particularly natural one; in fact, it is (in comparison with many other notions of probability) very artificial, and took an immense amount of thought and effort to develop even at a fairly advanced stage in the history of mathematics. Its importance derives not from its being our root notion of probability (or likelihood, or any other such terminology), but from its being a derivative notion of probability that is both very mathematically tractable and of fairly extensive utility. But it's clear enough that when we talk about probability in colloquial life we are generally talking not about probability theory but about analogical and presumptive reasoning, which are very different. For instance, we usually mean by 'probable' nothing more than 'fitting the appropriate profile well'. Thus what makes this a fallacy is not using a notion of probability in which #2 is more probable than #1, but in confusing this notion of probability with that of standard probability theory, or (perhaps more commonly) using this looser notion of probability where standard probability theory would be more appropriate. People do, in fact, make this error, so it is a genuine fallacy; and, in fact, we should expect this given that the notion of probability used in standard probability theory is so unnatural. But we should be careful not to characterize it in such a way as to suggest that the less mathematical notions of probability are themselves fallacious, because they are involved in different kinds of reasoning, and each kind of reasoning must be examined on its own merits. One of the points of the 1983 paper by Tversky & Kahneman was the distinction between "extensional" and "intuitive" probability inferences. They argued that their cases showed "people's affinity for nonextensional reasoning". However, even they sometimes slipped into talking about the latter form of reasoning as if it were a degenerate form of reasoning -- "seductive," as they called it, introducing a perhaps ineliminable "incoherence" into our reasoning, where "incoherence" means simply "not satisfying the constraints of probability theory" -- when in fact all the conjunction fallacy shows is that this reasoning is inappropriate in cases where standard probability theory should be used. There is no reason to think that these kinds of reasoning lack a proper domain, nor is there reason to think that in their proper domain the constraints of probability theory are even relevant to them.
(Of course, in practice we also have to keep in mind interference from implicatures. That is, if we are not careful #1 can easily be read, in the context of #2, as meaning "Linda is a bank teller (and not a feminist)." This is a pretty standard way of reading things -- if A is contrasted with (A & B), it is very natural to take the original A as meaning A alone, that is, (A & not-B). And, while reading this way will often, perhaps usually, allow us to interpret what we are reading correctly, this implicature also sometimes confuses us, and we act as if it existed even where it would make no sense for it to exist.)
UPDATE: By happy happenstance it turns out that Robin Hanson pointed to a paper on the conjunction fallacy that argues that incentives and group interaction can both massively reduce the extent to which people commit the fallacy, and that therefore there are certain areas (economics, for instance) where it may not be as serious an issue as some have speculated it might be.
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
Which is more probable?
1. Linda is a bank teller.
2. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
Most people will pick #2. But in standard probability theory, the probability of #2, being more specific than #1, will always be less than or equal to the probability of the more general #1. Making this mistake in contexts requiring standard probability theory is what is known as the conjunction fallacy.
I very deliberately put it in those terms, because I think people are often quite sloppy in discussing it. What is it that makes this a fallacy? Contrary to what some people seem to assume, the notion of probability in standard probability theory is not a particularly natural one; in fact, it is (in comparison with many other notions of probability) very artificial, and took an immense amount of thought and effort to develop even at a fairly advanced stage in the history of mathematics. Its importance derives not from its being our root notion of probability (or likelihood, or any other such terminology), but from its being a derivative notion of probability that is both very mathematically tractable and of fairly extensive utility. But it's clear enough that when we talk about probability in colloquial life we are generally talking not about probability theory but about analogical and presumptive reasoning, which are very different. For instance, we usually mean by 'probable' nothing more than 'fitting the appropriate profile well'. Thus what makes this a fallacy is not using a notion of probability in which #2 is more probable than #1, but in confusing this notion of probability with that of standard probability theory, or (perhaps more commonly) using this looser notion of probability where standard probability theory would be more appropriate. People do, in fact, make this error, so it is a genuine fallacy; and, in fact, we should expect this given that the notion of probability used in standard probability theory is so unnatural. But we should be careful not to characterize it in such a way as to suggest that the less mathematical notions of probability are themselves fallacious, because they are involved in different kinds of reasoning, and each kind of reasoning must be examined on its own merits. One of the points of the 1983 paper by Tversky & Kahneman was the distinction between "extensional" and "intuitive" probability inferences. They argued that their cases showed "people's affinity for nonextensional reasoning". However, even they sometimes slipped into talking about the latter form of reasoning as if it were a degenerate form of reasoning -- "seductive," as they called it, introducing a perhaps ineliminable "incoherence" into our reasoning, where "incoherence" means simply "not satisfying the constraints of probability theory" -- when in fact all the conjunction fallacy shows is that this reasoning is inappropriate in cases where standard probability theory should be used. There is no reason to think that these kinds of reasoning lack a proper domain, nor is there reason to think that in their proper domain the constraints of probability theory are even relevant to them.
(Of course, in practice we also have to keep in mind interference from implicatures. That is, if we are not careful #1 can easily be read, in the context of #2, as meaning "Linda is a bank teller (and not a feminist)." This is a pretty standard way of reading things -- if A is contrasted with (A & B), it is very natural to take the original A as meaning A alone, that is, (A & not-B). And, while reading this way will often, perhaps usually, allow us to interpret what we are reading correctly, this implicature also sometimes confuses us, and we act as if it existed even where it would make no sense for it to exist.)
UPDATE: By happy happenstance it turns out that Robin Hanson pointed to a paper on the conjunction fallacy that argues that incentives and group interaction can both massively reduce the extent to which people commit the fallacy, and that therefore there are certain areas (economics, for instance) where it may not be as serious an issue as some have speculated it might be.
Bible Hermeneutic Meme
Mark memed me. The idea is to list five scholars or books that changed your hermeneutic approach to the Bible. It's actually a very difficult meme for me; I can't really trace any major elements of my approach to reading Scripture to any books I can think of, beyond the fact that I think one of the things that the Bible does is provide models for how to read the Bible, models that should be emulated in practice. But there have been a few works that enriched my thinking about various aspects of reading Scripture. Here are a few.
(1) Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis. What it says on the tin. The medievals have their faults, but they were better readers than most moderns.
(2) Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. Similar thing here, although Smalley focuses less on the spiritual senses and more on the literal sense.
(3) Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation. Very readable, and I like his general approach, although I didn't agree with all of his conclusions when I read this back in college.
(4) C. S. Lewis, Miracles. Even setting aside the discussion of miracles as such, this little work sheds quite a bit of light on miracle stories. Chapters 14, 15, and 16 are especially notable in this regard.
(5) The works of Brevard Childs: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, The New Testament as Canon, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context. I haven't read Childs in a long while, but I found him quite helpful in college.
But in the end there's no mystery about Scriptural hermeneutics: it's reading and praying and researching and learning, over and over again.
(1) Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis. What it says on the tin. The medievals have their faults, but they were better readers than most moderns.
(2) Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. Similar thing here, although Smalley focuses less on the spiritual senses and more on the literal sense.
(3) Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation. Very readable, and I like his general approach, although I didn't agree with all of his conclusions when I read this back in college.
(4) C. S. Lewis, Miracles. Even setting aside the discussion of miracles as such, this little work sheds quite a bit of light on miracle stories. Chapters 14, 15, and 16 are especially notable in this regard.
(5) The works of Brevard Childs: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, The New Testament as Canon, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context. I haven't read Childs in a long while, but I found him quite helpful in college.
But in the end there's no mystery about Scriptural hermeneutics: it's reading and praying and researching and learning, over and over again.
The Soul Unswerving and the Fearless Tongue
St. John Baptist's Day
by John Keble
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord : and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers. Malachi iv. 5, 6.
Twice in her season of decay
The fallen Church hath felt Elijah's eye
Dart from the wild its piercing ray :
Not keener burns, in the chill morning sky,
The herald star,
Whose torch afar
Shadows and boding night-birds fly.
Methinks we need him once again,
That favour'd seer—but where shall he be found ?
By Cherith's side we seek in vain,
In vain on Carmel's green and lonely mound :
Angels no more
From Sinai soar,
On his celestial errands bound.
But wafted to her glorious place
By harmless fire, among the ethereal thrones,
His spirit with a dear embrace
Thee the lov'd harbinger of Jesus owns,
Well-pleas'd to view
Her likeness true,
And trace, in thine, her own deep tones.
Deathless himself, he joys with thee
To commune how a faithful martyr dies,
And in the blest could envy be,
He would behold thy wounds with envious eyes,
Star of our morn,
Who yet unborn*
Didst guide our hope, where Christ should rise.
Now resting from your jealous care
For sinners, such as Eden cannot know,
Ye pour for us your mingled prayer,
No anxious fear to damp Affection's glow,
Love draws a cloud
From you to shroud
Rebellion's mystery here below.
And since we see, and not afar,
The twilight of the great and dreadful day,
Why linger, till Elijah's car
Stoop from the clouds ? Why sleep ye ? rise and pray,
Ye heralds seal'd
In camp or field
Your Saviour's banner to display.
Where is the lore the Baptist taught,
The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue ?
The much-enduring wisdom, sought
By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among ?
Who counts it gain**
His light should wane,
So the whole world to Jesus throng ?
Thou Spirit, who the Church didst lend
Her eagle wings, to shelter in the wild***,
We pray Thee, ere the Judge descend,
With flames like these, all bright and undefil'd,
Her watch-fires light,
To guide aright
Our weary souls, by earth beguil'd.
So glorious let Thy Pastors shine,
That by their speaking lives the world may learn
First filial duty, then divine****,
That sons to parents, all to Thee may turn;
And ready prove
In fires of love,
At sight of Thee, for aye to burn.
* The Babe leaped in my womb for joy. St. Luke i. 44.
** He must increase, but I must decrease. St. John iii. 30.
*** Revelation xii. 14.
**** He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers. Malachi iv. 6.
To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. St. Luke i. 17.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Two Poem Drafts
Cloudscape
The cloud was an elephant chasing a whale
with a sun-gloried body and a vaporous tail
and a turtle went swimming in deep azure sea
as I walked by the road with my heart careless-free.
Before and behind him in long, slinking style
swam the whisps and the puffs of two dread crocodiles
and the sun turned the whale into loving-cup lambs
who kissed and who played in the gaze of their dam;
then a boar and a reindeer did battle with horns
as the angels went sweeping and twilight was born.
Take time from your day, and the wonders you'll see
if you walk by the road with your heart careless-free!
A Subdued and Pure Crimson
My reason said to me,
I am overarched
this subtle arrow
that leaves no mark
has wounded me
with logical worship, blessed
to adore her name,
her deity confess,
and sacrifice
with all the love of ardent mind,
on altar place the best in me
that thought can find.
My spirit said to me,
Heaven is to have the eyes
to see her
in the draping light
and by seeing to be joined
in beatific vision
to her, my new happiness
and passion's wisdom,
who charges me with fire
and lifts me high
in sight's exaltation
to meet her eye to eye.
My instinct said to me,
I am undone
and will ever be troubled
by this troubling one
who turns me over;
and in my reins
I am cast into ache
of love's violent pains,
so pleasant yet harsh,
such a cruel delight
that beats through my veins
and leaps in my sighs.
The cloud was an elephant chasing a whale
with a sun-gloried body and a vaporous tail
and a turtle went swimming in deep azure sea
as I walked by the road with my heart careless-free.
Before and behind him in long, slinking style
swam the whisps and the puffs of two dread crocodiles
and the sun turned the whale into loving-cup lambs
who kissed and who played in the gaze of their dam;
then a boar and a reindeer did battle with horns
as the angels went sweeping and twilight was born.
Take time from your day, and the wonders you'll see
if you walk by the road with your heart careless-free!
A Subdued and Pure Crimson
My reason said to me,
I am overarched
this subtle arrow
that leaves no mark
has wounded me
with logical worship, blessed
to adore her name,
her deity confess,
and sacrifice
with all the love of ardent mind,
on altar place the best in me
that thought can find.
My spirit said to me,
Heaven is to have the eyes
to see her
in the draping light
and by seeing to be joined
in beatific vision
to her, my new happiness
and passion's wisdom,
who charges me with fire
and lifts me high
in sight's exaltation
to meet her eye to eye.
My instinct said to me,
I am undone
and will ever be troubled
by this troubling one
who turns me over;
and in my reins
I am cast into ache
of love's violent pains,
so pleasant yet harsh,
such a cruel delight
that beats through my veins
and leaps in my sighs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)