Christmas seems to bring out the child in all of us.
So perhaps it should not have surprised me to find His Majesty playing with Tinker toys this morning.
The Metaphysics of The Family is the principle that discourse of family is the best, primary, most literally true way of conceptualizing ultimate reality.
Reality is conceptualised in abstracted ideal terms derived-from the type of relationship characteristic of Family: the reality and distinctness of men and women, parents and children, marriage and procreation, and the structural primacy of loving relationships.
I am, of course, talking here about the (often implicit) metaphysical theology associated with Mormonism and ‘the Restoration’ — and emphasising how on the one hand it represents a massive departure from the tradition of intellectual and philosophical theology going back to Greek and Roman times; and how on the other hand it is an abstract and systematic crystallisation of what has probably been the mainstream and most common understanding of Christianity among ordinary, simple people whose conceptualisation derived from the abundant Biblical discourse of family relationships.
I personally find the Metaphysics of The Family to be a deep, revealed truth of reality.
For me, ‘The Family’ is therefore not merely an important moral value (e.g. ‘family values’ which Christians might promote as one of several moral values); but the fundamental principle that holds within it nothing less than the secret of the underlying pattern of the whole of the manifested universe.
Excerpted from:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-metaphysics-of-family-revisited.html
On the dangers of mass movements:
… In fact Gandhi’s own ashram, with his own very expensive ‘simple’ tastes and innumerable ‘secretaries’ and handmaidens, had to be heavily subsidized by three merchant princes. As one of his circle observed: ‘It costs a great deal of money to keep Gandhiji living in poverty.’
… The events of 1920-1 indicated that though he could bring a mass-movement into existence, he could not control it. Yet he continued to play the sorcerer’s apprentice, while the casualty bill mounted into hundreds ,then thousands, then tens of thousands and the risks of a gigantic sectarian and racial explosion accumulated. This blindness to the law of probability in a bitterly divided sub-continent made nonsense of Gandhi’s professions that he would not take life in any circumstances.
— Paul Johnson, Modern Times
Each holiday has its own character and its own image. Our American 4th of July is about sun, noise, grilling, healthy flesh. The image of Thanksgiving is a good appetite and the stuffed extended family lolling about afterwards, desultorily playing at games. Christmas is unusual–it has two main images
The first theme is the happy, domestic one. It’s the family gathered around the tree. Lights are dim. There’s probably a fire and a fireplace. People are happy and smiling.
The other image is the spiritual feeling of the clear, cold night sky with the remote and beautiful stars. Christmas spirituality is the spirituality of looking up at the night sky when everything is still.
Our normal image of the birth of Jesus combines the two. We see the cozy stable, warmly and dimly lit by a lamp, with the small family gathered in around, and the animals gathered in, and the shepherds and such. Then around them the night and the stars, especially the one bright star.
Easter is a morning holiday. Christmas is perhaps more about Christmas Eve than Christmas morning. Certainly there are more rituals associated with Christmas Eve then there are our Christmas morning. Christmas Eve is when the candles are lit, when the children act out the nativity, when we dig dirt to fill our paper bags for luminarias, when we set up the stockings and put out milk for Santa.
The other night holiday is spooky. Christmas Eve isn’t. But the night, the clear, cold night, still takes the holiday out of the ordinary.
Sunrise and sunset are great for casual glancing enjoyment in passing. But if you really look at them they seem to demand something more. You see that there is a glory about them that approaches the transcendent. You want to have an appreciation that is worthy of the site. You want to commune. And you can’t. If you try–when I try–frustration results.
For many people, Christmas is a pretty frustrating holiday. I love Christmas, personally, but I understand the frustration. Christmas isn’t only a time to have a shindy. There is a spiritual element there, a grandeur, and it demands that you reach out for it, and your reaching always never quite succeeds. You never fully commune.
Today I told my family that I had had a dream. When they were grown, I said, and I and their mother were gone, I dreamed that on Christmas Eve when all was quiet and still, when the only light was from the tree and the dying fire, I would be permitted to return. I would be permitted to sit by the tree and remember when they were young. Perhaps, I told them, if they briefly awoke they might hear the sound of rocking, and know that the old ties were still there.
The truth is that I already spend part of Christmas Eve night that way. After the children are all gone to bed and I’ve finished wrapping and bustling, I usually sit by the dying fire for awhile. I contemplate the lights, and think of Christmases that have gone, and the Christmases to come when my children will be grown. My wife says I puzzle her. For someone who loves Christmas so much, she says, I can get remarkably melancholic about it.
Remembering old days, my childhood days and my children’s, that will not come again, is part of the melancholy. Another part is my inability to fully penetrate into the heart of Christmas. I have never fully gone inside.
But I keep trying. Because there is a voice that whispers. It promises that someday I will be at the very manger, and all the old Christmases will be one.
The Devil invented lies to turn the power of speech into a weapon of falsehood. And God invented the parable, the poem, the epic, the song, and the sonnet in order to turn the power of lies into fables, myths, types and shadows, to turn fiction into a weapon of truth.
I know more people who were converted by Aslan than by Aquinas. What does that tell you about the power of fiction?
Thus John C Wright
I have recently seen the Pixar/ Disney animated movie Inside Out – I would like to bring it to the attention of readers.
It is an outstanding and beautiful piece of work – and perhaps of special interest to Mormons, who are the modern standard bearers for the family – because this movie is a celebration of the family: indeed I have never seen a secular movie of the past fifty years that is more deeply pro-family.
The movie is indeed deep – it goes as deep as secularism can go; but, of course, stops short of a Christian perspective – and as a consequence it, overall, is a bittersweet tragedy of yearning – rather than the tragi-comedy it would be if it pointed towards Heaven.
I am not going to provide any plot-summary or spoilers – but just to say that some of the depictions of the very best moments of having a child are simply wonderful – and perhaps especially for those of us who have had a young daughter blessed with health, energy and high spirits.
G. tells us his muse is a goober. Mine is a crusty old retired Sith Lord.
Thus Kevin D. Williamson.
His Majesty: “Whatever became of ‘legal, safe, and rare’, anyway?”
Mirror touch synesthesia.
(more…)
This may be of interest:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/what-did-christ-save-us-from-discarnate.html
I have been reading – or rather, mostly listening to audiobooks recordings of, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) this year – who I came at via CS Lewis’s best friend Owen Barfield.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/dale-brunsvolds-epic-audiobook.html
And I have, of course, been reading them through the lens of Mormonism. So, overall, I have been reflecting on what Steiner has to say to someone who accepts the truth of Mormonism.
Of course, Joseph Smith died before Steiner was born – and I am pretty sure that Steiner knew nothing substantive about Mormonism. More’s the pity – because my general impression is that Steiner experienced many genuine mystical revelations which could potentially have been interpreted much more clearly, fruitfully and correctly if only he had had a basis in the Mormon revelations – lacking which Steiner’s own interpretations are extremely hit and miss.
To expand on that point – my impression is that Steiner ‘saw’ some of the same kind of revelations as Joseph Smith, but interpreted them and explained them differently.
For instance, I think Steiner perceived but misunderstood pre-mortal existence as reincarnation; and he ‘felt’ the effects of the Restoration on human history and consciousness, but interpreted it in terms of the Archangel Michael ‘taking over’ from Gabriel as the main proximate transformative agent of Man’s spiritual evolution.
And Steiner perceived that the nature of personal revelations was to be in terms of what Mormons call ‘impressions’ happening in clear and alert consciousness; rather than the kind of unconscious deep trances, automatic writings and ‘channelling’ which was so popular among the early 20th century clairvoyants (and, indeed, remains so in the New Age).
Reading Steiner, or listening to Daale Brunsvold’s mellifluous reading, the general impression is that most of what he wrote is either just factually wrong, wildly confusing, or perhaps just extremely difficult to interpret – BUT there are real gems of insight which I personally have found very helpful.
As a particularly stunning example, consider this prophecy from 1918 which seems to me THE most convincing prophecy of modern times I have ever encountered.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/understanding-rudolf-steiners.html
So, I am tentatively recommending that, if they feel inclined, philosophically-inclined Mormons might potentially benefit from engaging with some of Steiner’s vast ouvre – or at least dipping a toe into some of the major works.
As many of you know, I am working on rewriting Isaiah into easy to understand language. As beautiful as it is, it can be obtuse at times in English. In Ancient Hebrew, he is much more blunt and outspoken. He spends a lot of time telling them that they are worshiping God hypocritically and in vain. But it gets better than that. He just doesn’t spend the entire time telling them they are jerks. He also told them about the name of his son, Maher-shalal-hash-baz. (more…)