Friday, January 6, 2012

body is soul not suit: sister radish

Holy. How does Wendell have such... 'suchness' as they say? His glowing essayist life is funny in contrast to his wrinkles. And pictures of Lewis juxtaposed with Narnian river nymphs. I was raised evangelical Christian and taught the earth will burn (fuck the earth), pure market economies stay true (why not move in: 401k, walmart 8%). Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr had the pivotal moment when he realized the innocence of mankind in the individual-soul not in collective-behavior. Enter nonviolent resistance. Enter aslan's how. Aslan didn't come into Narnia to alleviate suffering but to teach how to suffer properly. Highlights from here:

They conclude that the formula for man-making is: man = body + soul. But that conclusion cannot be derived, except by violence, from Genesis 2:7, which is not dualistic. The formula given in Genesis is not man = body + soul; the formula there is soul = dust + breath. ...

If we credit the Bible's description of the relationship between Creator and Creation, then we cannot deny the spiritual importance of our economic life. Then we see how religious issues lead to issues of economy, and how issues of economy lead to issues of art, of how to make things. If we understand that no artist--no maker--can work except by reworking the works of Creation, then we see that by our work, by the way we practice our arts, we reveal what we think of the works of God. How we take our lives from this world, how we work, what work we do, how well we use the materials we use and what we do with them after we have used them--all these are questions of the highest and gravest religious significance. These questions cannot be answered by thinking, but only by doing. In answering them, we practice, or do not practice, our religion.

The significance--and ultimately the quality--of the work we do is determined by our understanding of the story in which we are taking part.

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