The Best Years of our Lives and 하녀 (The Housemaid)

As I work my way down the list of the AFI's list of American films, it comes to my notice that the Korean Film Institute has developed a similar list.  Might it prove amusing to view items from the two lists side by side?  Having done so purely by accident this first time, I find an interesting contrast, one that might bear comparison.

The American film in question is that rarest of creatures, an entirely original work that has not been duplicated, and has no predecessor.  In very nearly every way--tone, technique, execution--it resembles other films from its period.  But the role that it was created to fill is quite singular, one that has since been filled largely by documentary films, not scripted ones.  At the end of the great war, America experienced something that was not entirely alien, the return of large numbers of men who found themselves and their country other than as they remembered.  Each of the three men whose return and readjustment director William Wyler chronicles need to remember what it is to love, and each does so in his own way.  For Fredric March, this means loving a wife (stunningly portrayed by Myrna Loy) who is not exactly the woman he left behind, and children who are children no longer.  The ostensible protagonist of the film, Dana Andrews, must find love in the more Hollywood sense, and his story taken individually is basically indistinguishable from a generic romance.  The most difficult love, that of oneself, must be found by Harold Russell.  It is this role that takes the movie to another level, filled necessarily and without flourish by real life amputee Harold Russell.  Taken individually, each story would serve for a pretty decent movie.  Seen simultaneously, they transform the movie from one America wanted, to one it needed. 

As destabilizing as WWII was for America, the Korean War was unfathomably more so for Korea.  Imagine that the Civil War had not only been lost, but that the North and South remained in that conflict for over 50 years.  As South Korea moved through--not to say recovered from--this period, Director Kim Kiyoung (notably born in the North) took a wildly different approach to filmmaking than Wyler had.  There is no talk of love.  No talk of recovery.  No mention even of the war, which might make the parallel rather forced in some eyes.  But the very fact that these themes, so craved in America at the time of her recovery, are not even considered in this film, which tops all lists of the best Korean films ever made, makes the contrast that much more remarkable.  What Korea needed after the armistice was not healing.  Such a thing was impossible.  The country would never recover, and to even dream of it would be to surrender to despair.  What it needed was to muddle through somehow with the horrors that were now reality.  And that is the idea of the film.  Man is not noble and redemmable, as in The Best Years.  He is a savage, of whom the best we can hope is that he be controlled.  As is observed in a jarringly didactic final scene,

--그게 남자의 약점이야. 높은 산을 보면 올라가고 싶구, 깊은 물을 보면 돌을 던지고 싶구, 여자를 보면 원시로 돌아가고 싶어

--원시가 뭐예요, 솔직히 남자란 야비한 동물이라고 하세요. 이 집에 젊은 하녀를 둔것이 아마, 범의 입에 날고긴가부다.

 

For Kim, in a way that Wyler could not have conceived, man cannot see a mountain without climbing it, a lake without throwing a stone into it, or a woman without wanting to have his way with her.  And women fare little better in the film.  The title character is, of course, a beast of pure desire, but the seemingly innocent wife is just as lustful--for wealth and status.  It is this lesson that Kim wished to impart to the post war audiences of Korea, interestingly with no admonition to overcome it.  Simply a darkly frank admission that it was inescapable.

It Happened One Night

I don't know why they continue to make romantic comedies.  I suppose after City Lights, the first and most perfect romantic comedy ever made, those who decided such things had to see what the perfect romcom would look like with dialogue.  Well, they did it, and this is it. One Night is every romcom that follows it rolled up into one, and done with wit, charm, emotion, and art.  Even the flaws of the romcom are captured perfectly, the  contrived last minute change of heart that could have been avoided with a well-timed conversation. 

And the leads.  Not enough can be said about how charming, funny, believable, and attractive they both were.  All the Matthew McConaghooeys in the world aren't fit to touch Gable's hem--although Channing Tatum comes close.  Can we pitch Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Aniston, and ESPECIALLY Kate Hudson onto a bonfire, and use it in the arcane ritual of bringing Claudette Colbert back from the dead?  Even her reanimated corpse would be dazzling by comparison.

James

I find myself trapped in a reader's dilemma.  Usually I fancy myself a nontraditionalist when it comes to literary criticism, to wit: My experience reading something is my experience, and the author's intent can go fuck itself.  But reading something of which the authorship is uncertain has made me rethink that approach.  This was especially true reading the book of Hebrews, where the mystery of the authorship dogged me at every page.  I expect that to be even more true of this book.  Not because the authorship is a complete unknown--it's pretty clearly somebody named James--but because the possible authors are each of them distinct historical personages with fascinating stories and perspectives.  It feels as though I have to decide which glasses to wear before reading:  James the Less?  James the Just?  James the Great?  James the Son of Alphaeus?  James the son of Zebedee? James Marsden?  I especially find myself fogged up by the fact that several of these people are referred to differently by various religious traditions, but are in fact the same person. 

Anyway . . .

1:1 Is this meant to indicate that the intended audience is Christians of Hebrew origin, or is it used in a more metaphorical sense?

1:5-8 This raises something of a sticky issue for me, namely that of prayer.  For some time, my approach has been that if something is needed, God needn't be asked, and if something is not needed, God oughtn't be bothered.  A god who needs convinced, or even nagged, seems to be no God at all.  My approach to prayer is rather more like that of Ernest Holmes, in that the saying of something makes it true--at least a little.  If you declare with the whole force of your conviction behind it, it become 10% more true every time you say it.  Something that was 0% true to begin with with see no measurable change, but something that was 90% true to begin with becomes 99% true with the force of your declaration.  Anyway, What James proposes here fits nicely with that  approach.

1:9-11 This presupposes the audeince's familiarty with Jesus' parables of the seeds sown on different soil.

1:13 So far James' theology is perfectly compatible with mine.  I had forgotten about this verse, and wholeheartedly endorse it.

1:19 Advice I could do well to apply more often.  Especially the part about being slow to speak.

1:27 I especially like this summary.  Much more meaningful than Paul's simple exhortations to abstain from this or that.  James' instructions are simply to shine, to let the pure, clear light of the divine be reflected by and through you with as little diffraction as possible.

2:1-7 I was thinking of this tendency, especially among so-called progressive Christians, earlier today.  I think of Amos' reference to the "Cows of Bashan" who pontificate while reclining on their divans, and contrast that with true religion, the obliteration of material distinctions.

2:11 Again, a beautiful contrast with Paul's approach.  Following any set of "don'ts" becomes quickly burdensome, because failing in one is a failure in the whole set.  Following a list of "dos" is different.  Failing to do one good does no undo another.

2:16 I can't agree with this more.  How could I live with myself knowing that I had failed to help a fellow human?  Indeed, what justification do I have for living if I don't help others?

2:18 Haha indeed.  Well-played.

3:5-12 I might argue this point a little.  I can cetainly see James' point, but what is true for him is not true for all.  I know plenty of people whose tongue is perfectly under control, and yet they are useless individuals.

3:17 I have on occassion been accused of being wise.  This is no surprise, I suppose.  I am smart and knowledgable, and these things put together often give the appearance of wisdom.  But in any conversation where I'm called upon for advice, If I go on for too long I find myself reaching a point where the advice gets away from me and starts to develop a life of its own.  All of a sudden, I've created a monster, a speech act that has has become self-aware, and conscious of its own preservation.  Wisdom must remain tied to its practice, it cannot be allowed to run amok and feed itself--to become ambitious, as James puts it. 

4:5 Now wait a minute, what on Earth does this mean?  And what is being referenced here?  It's not any specific scripture that I've ever read.  That in itself carries a pretty weighty implication, maely that there are inspired books that have not been preserved for prostperity.  The content of the verse is of note too:  that the divine spirit is a limited commodity, not to be wasted.  This echoes Jesus' experience when the woman with an unclean flow of blood touched him, and he perceived a power reduction.  That carries aaaaawl sorts of bizarre metaphysical implications.

5:1-3  I especially love that he uses the past perfect here.  It's not a warning, it's an announcement.

5:12 Again, James has hit upon one of my pet peeves:  "Do you promise?" what the fuck does that mean?  I said I would do it.  I either will, or I won't, and, my promising will not change that fact.

5:16 I've often wondered what the value of confession was.  In James' theology, it's pretty clear: to keep us humble.

만화 2권

Rie Honjyou: 비밀의 밤놀이

원래 일본에서 나온 책인데 한국어로 번역됬다.  그러므로 한국의 문화와 사고를 잘 반영하지 않다.  또는 2반 생활에 대한 책이기 때문에 쓰~~윽 물건을 넣는것밖에 내용이 별로 없다 ㅎㅎㅎ . . . 그래도 이 책덕분에 확인된 생각 하나 있다.  한국 문화는 추가하는 문화이며 일본 문화는 빼는 문화.  즉 한국 사람은 뭣을 추가할까 말까 할때 꼭 추가할 것이며 일본 사람은 그 반대 뺄 것.  부응해서 이 만화에서 장명사이에 이행을 빠지며 설명도 없다.  이해 안 된 정도로 말이다.  아이구~~~

채정택: 다세포 소녀

표면으로 보면 이 책은 지나치게 야한 소극이지만 깊게 살펴보면--위에 언급한 만화와 달리--한국의 생활을 반영한다.  원조교제하는 것은?  한국에 있다.  볔태 선생님? 그것도 신문에서 나온다.  특히 그 가난을 등에 업은 소녀란 얘기 핵심을 찔렀다.  한국에 가난을 겪는 애가 많은 사실과 그를 같이 가는 감정을 다세포 소녀란 만화가 완벽히 표현한다.

Greguerías: III

It's been forever since I continued this project--four years at least--but I find myself having to cover a friends Spanish classes while whe's out of town next week.  What better way to brush up a little?  I've decided to start posting the original Spanish with my translations, as much of a pain as it is to add all those fucking accents . . .

Las únicas que saben de arquitectura comparada son los golondrinas

The only ones who understand comparative architecture are the swallows.

 

El bújo es un espantapájaros que se come los pájaros.

The owl is a scarecrow that eats the birds.

 

EL reloj que atrasa es un reloj ahorrativo

A slow watch is a thrifty watch.

 

Poner notas a los libros es un atrevimiento, como la sería el retocar los cuadros de una exposición

To put notes in a book is insolent, like touching up the paintings in a gallery.

 

Lo mejor del cielo es que no puede inundarse de hormigas.

The best thing about heaven is that it can’t be flooded with ants.

 

El arroyo trae al valle llas murmuraciones de las montañas.

The stream bring the gossip of the mountains to the valley.

 

Lo irracional es así:el animal que se mira en un espejo cree que es un amigo o una amiga, nunca él mismo.

It’s as irrational as this:  the animal who looks in a mirror and sees a friend, never itself.

 

La mano del ladrón es un manojo de ganzúas con uñas.

The hand of a thief is a bundle of lockpicks with fingernails.

 

El campesino que lleva un conejo colgando de la mano lo lleva la elegancia con que un inglés lleva un piaaguas.

The peasant who carries a rabbit dangling from his hand does so with the elegance of an Englishman carrying an umbrella.

 

Era unos de esos días en que el viento quiere hablar.

It was one of those days when the winds wants to speak.

 

Los bancos públicos son los pentagramas de las iniciales del amor.

Lovers carve their initials into the bank of the river as if it was a musical staff

Literally: Public banks are the musical staffs of the initials of love.

 

 

Lo peor de la ambición es que no sabe bien lo que quiere.

The worst thing about ambition is not knowing well what you want.

 

El camello tiene la nuez en la joroba

The camel has the nut in his back.

 

El léon en su jaula parece vivir de renta

The lion in his cage seems to pay rent

 

Había tanta gente esperando el tranvía, que parecía la inauguración del primer tren.

There were so many people waiting for the trolley, it seemed like the opening ceremony.

 

Cuando el cocinero hace mucha espuma al batir, le crece el gorro

When the cook has a lot of foam to beat, he cocks his hat.

 

Not sure about my translation of this one.  I will need to consult a native speaker to see if "cock (one's) hat" is acceptable.

 

El ballenero lanza la aguja enhebrada del arpón y cose la ballena al barco.

The whaler hurls the threaded needle of his harpoon and sews the whale to his boat.

 

La ardilla limpia con el plumero de su cola el sitio en que se sienta.

The squirrel uses his tail to dust off his seat.

La golondrina llega de tan lejos porque es fleche y arco al mismo tiempo.

The swallow can fly so far because it is at once bow and arrow.

 

El sueño es un pequeño adelanto que nos hace la muerte para que nos sea más fácil pasar la vida.

Dreams are little steps toward death that make life easier to live.

 

El cráneo es la bóveda alta del corazón

The cranium is the vaulted ceiling of the heart.

 

El cacahuete tiene algo atravesado en la garganta

The peanut has something blocking its throat.

 

Aparece lo práctico en la civilización cuando se inventa la herradura

Practicality only appeared in civilization when the horseshoe was invented.

 

En el otro mundo se debe de respirar mejor.  Respiraremos sin pulmones a pleno aire.

They breathe better in the other world.  Without lungs, we would breathe purer air.

El micrófono es ya don Micrófono, un personaje de americana y cuya aureola son las ondas reveladoras del ser milagroso.

The microphone has already become Sir Microphone, an American character whose aura is the waves that reveal he is a miracle.

 

Los sillones de mimbre son los esqueletos de los sillones tapizados

Wicker chairs are the skeletons of upholstered chairs

 

La ópera es la verdad de la mentira, y la cine es la mentira de la verdad.

Opera captures the truth in lies, and cinema the lies in truth.

 

En el lavabo del vagón nos lavamos del negro crimen del viaje

We wash our hands of the black crimes of our journey in the sinks of the passenger train.

 

Las gallinas blancas están en paños menores

The white hens go around in their underwear

 

Los murciélagos nos pasan de parte a parte como balas perdidas

The bats pass us from place to place like stray bullets

 

Los que se desperezan son como salvajes que disparan su flecha al aire

Stretching is like shooting your arrows into the air

 

Cuando más admire la paternidad es cuando veo salir al niño con las mismas largas narices del padre

One admires paternity the most is when seeing the children come out with the same long noses as their father.

(One wonders if to have a long nose has some sort of cultural significance)

 

Hay un momento en que el astrónomo debajo del gran teloscopio se convierte en microbio del microscopio de la luna, que se asoma a observarle.

There’s a moment when the astronomer under his great telescope turns himself into a microbe under the microscope of the moon, who pokes her face out to observe him.

Es que lleva el paraguas abierto cuando ya no llueve parece un paracaidista caído del nido

When you carry an open umbrella you look like a parachutist fallen to Earth.

 

La S es el anzuelo del abecedario.

The S is the fishhook of the alphabet

 

Lo único que comen las puertas son esas nueces que les damos a partir

The only thing that doors eat is the walneuts they came from.

 

Cuando el cisne submerge en el agua cabeza y cuello, es como la mano be un brazo femenino que busca en el fondo del baño una sortija.

When the swans ducks head and neck underwater, it’s lika a feminine hand searching for her ring in the bottom of the tub.

 

Bajo la sombra de ese árbol que hay medio de la llanura están en cuclillas y de tertulia todas las ideas del paisaje.

Under this solitary tree in the middle of the plain, all the ideas of the landscape are squatting in a group.

 

Es dificil imaginar que una monda calavera sea una calavera de mujer.

It is difficult to imagine that a woman’s skull could be plain.

 

Las cenizas de cigarro que quedan entre las páginas de los libros viejos son la major imagen de lo que quedó en ellos de la vida del que los leyó.

The cigar ashes between the pages of old books are the best symbol of the ashes of the lives of those who read them.

 

Aquella noche era la luna como la coronilla del obispo de la noche.

That night the moon was like the mitre of the bishop of night.

 

El ruido de los pies descalzos de una mujer sobre los baldosines da una fiebre sensual y cruel.

The sound of a woman’s bare feet on the tiles imparts a cruel and sensual fever.

 

La golondrina es una fleche mística en busca de un corazon

The swallow is a magic arrow in search of a heart.

 

El cepillo es un milpiés que se escapa simepre del sitio en que debía estar

The comb is but a millipede escaped from its proper place.

 

Cómo dicen ¡adios! y cómo están hechas para decir ¡adios! las mangas largas de los pierrots.

How they say goodbye! and how they are made to do it, those long sleeves of the pierrots!

 

El saltamontes es una espiga escapada que ha comenzando a dar brincos descomedidos

The grasshopper is an escaped ear of grain which has begin to jump wildly.

 

El whiskey es el árnica del estómago

Whiskey is a tonic for the stomach.

 

Hay pensamientos pacificadores, como éste: “El sexo daría interés a un peñasco.”

Pacifists sometimes think “Sex would make even a boulder interesting.”

 

Cuando en la mesa solemne nos encontramos en el plato la tarjeta con nuestro nombre, pensamos que ya podían habernos hecho un siento.

When we finally find the plate with our namecard by it at fancy dinners, we think “they could have made us a chair by this time.”

Los papeles que se tiran arrugados en el fondo del cesto se desarrugan como con vida propia y submarina

The crumpled papers in the bottom of the basket uncrumple themselves as if with a submarine life of their own

 

El gesto de sacarse el pañuelo del faldón del frac es un gesto indecente e ignominioso

The gesture of clearing the tails of one’s coat is both ignominious and indecent.

 

Mete tanto ruido una cucharilla al caer porque es el niño de los cubiertos el que ha caído

The falling teaspoon makes so much noise because it is the child of the cutlery on which it falls.

 

Hay cielos sucios en que parecen haberse limpiado los pinceles de todos los acuarelistas del mundo

The are dirty skies in which all the painters of the world seems to have washed their brushes.

 

El mono parece proceder del coco peludo como si hubiese salido de su huevo

The monkey seems to have come from a hairy coconut as if from an egg.

 

La jirafa es un caballo alargado por la curiosidad

The giraffe is a horse lengthened by curiosity

 

El más pequeño ferrocarril del mundo es la oruga

The caterpillar is the world’s smallest train.

 

 

Cuando baja una mujer por una escalera de caracol parece haber sido despedida del Paraíso

When a woman descends a spiral staircase, she seems to have been thrown out of heaven..

 

¡Como rompe los calcetines lo que tenemos de monos irremisibles!

No idea.

 

La niña con el aro en la mano va al jardín como al colegio, a jugar con la circunferencia y la tangente.

The girl with a ring in hand goes to the garden as if to school, to play with the circumference and the tangent.

 

Tengo suprimido el parenthesis de (q.e.p.d.) porque no hay nada que ponga más nerviosos a los muertos.

We have to put parenthesis around the letters (R.I.P.) because nothing makes the dead more nervous.

 

Los tornillos son los gusanos de hierro.

Screws are but iron worms

 

No me gustan esas sillas de tubo metálico que parecen arrodilladas.

I don’t like these chairs made of metal tubing that look like they’re groveling

 

At this point I'm really feeling how inadequate my Spanish level is to this task.  I think I'll put it on the back burner for a while.  My apologies to anyone who saw this and mistakenly thought of it as the authoratative work of an expert, rather than the doodlings of an amateur.

Jeff Talarigo: The Pearl Diver

As effective as this item was on a basic level--namely a fairly straightforward personal narrative, with some interesting structural elements--I found myself relating to it on a much deeper level.  I doubt very much that the author intended for it to function as a metaphor for the isolation that is fundamental to all human life, but such was its effect on me.  How Is my experience any different from Miss Fuji's?  Trying my best to make human connections and be useful in what is basically an internment camp.  The eponymous character wasn't imprisoned exactly.  She had every opportunity to leave the island and join the rest of society, but she didn't.  When she tried, she found that her ersatz prison was in fact more comfortable, and returned to it. 

And so do I.  I just returned to America for a brief trip, and was nothing but eager to leave that place.  I don't belong there any more.  For better or worse, I have become a part of my prison, of my own making though it is. 

Midnight Cowboy

Wow, it sure took me long enough to finish this film.  At least five times I started it and had to turn it off because it was simply too upsetting.  Brilliant, but terrible, in exactly the same way Requiem for a Dream is.  I can't be the only one to draw that parallel.  Both movies use the medium of film in exactly the way it was meant to be used, playing with time and consciousness in ways that perfectly evoke the intended sensations without being obscure or obvious.  Nonetheless, I hated it, and I doubt you could pay me to watch it again.

Anthony Trollope: The Warden

It's been a while since I read something for pure pleasure--or more specifically to distract me from other, less pleasant things.  For that purpose, I could not have done much better than this book. Posessed of all the charm of Dickens, but with significantly more insight into his characters, Trollope takes aim not at social evils, but at personal ones.  Trollope even goes so far as to make light of his generally more regarded contemporary, terming him "Mr. Popular Sentiment", an author guilty oversimplifying the rather complex issues of their day to ones of simple villainy. 

Trollope goes to great lengths to avoid this, and makes a point of humanizing all of the characters--even the least sympathetic--in remarkably believable ways.  Whereas Dickens' creations behave like caricatures, and are correspondingly amusing, but free of substance, Trollope's are at every moment believable, human, and more to the point, a mixture of vice and virtue.  "In this world," as he observes, "no good is analloyed, and that there is but little evil that has not in it the seed of what is goodly" (194).

Which made the book somewhat more troubling to read than a similar one of Dickens' might have.  The fact that the most noble of characters--John Bold, here-- brings about disaster through his good intentions, and the most sniveling of men--the eponymous Mr. Harding--is fundamentally noble accurately portrays the state of the world.  To take a proud stand against a social evil is rather pigheaded and misguided, as it turns out.  The greatest battles of all, and the only ones wirth winning, are those within ourselves, those we fight against our own mixed nature. 

Paul Nation: Learning Vocabulary in Another Language

Having heard Mr. Nation speak at a conference of English teachers some years ago, and having been impressed with his approach, I suspected this to be the definitive work on the subject.  Accordingly, I checked it out from the library to read over the summer, but life happened and I didn't finish it before it was due to be returned.  As fate would have it, it then appeared again on the reading list for one of my classes this semester, and I was called upon to not only write a paper on it, but also to give a thirty minute presentation in Korean. 

I won't bore the reader with reproducing here my paper or my presentation, but I will say that it was at once the most stimulating and the most frustrating treatment of the subject.  Stimulating because it adresses the topic from multiple nooks and crannies, and gives each topic a thorough and grounded treatment.  Frustrating because in the course of finishing it, I discovered that the very experiment I wanted to conduct for my thesis next year had already been done, and referred to offhandedly by Nation here.  If only I had finished the book over the summer, my disappointment would not have been reduced, but the time lost would most certainly have been.  It's difficult not to think of all the research I did before Mr. Nation unknowingly popped my bubble as being in vain, but of course, no knowledge is in vain.  I have to start over on a new topic, it is true, but I do so with a fortified understanding that it juuuuuuust barely beginning to make sense of the strange and seemingly inexplicable process of second language acquisition.

Hebrews

Possibly the most interesting thing about this book, before even getting into its famously elegant theology, is its authorship.  For some reason I have a hard time accepting its anonymity, even though there is no way of knowing exactly who wrote this masterpiece.  In fact it really bothers me, more than it should.  I find that I've gotten into the habit of reading these books through the eyes of their authors, and the inability to do that here leaves me feeling a bit adrift.  How often are we able--even forced--to take a text purely on its content? 

1:1-4 The tone of this section is one of review, the statement of generally accepted facts.  If, as by most accounts, it was written around 63 C.E., that speaks to the pretty rapid establishment of such doctrines as the ransom and Christ's relative divinity.  It is worth noting here that that divinity is still only relative, Christ being the exact imprint of God's very being, but not God himself.

1:10 And here it is also seen that the idea of Christ's prehuman existence is generally accepted by the church even at this early date.

2:1 At first I had trouble following this logic, but the author seems to be saying that if people suffered for disregarding the messages of angels, how much more so if they disregard the message of one whom God has placed above angels.

2:6 "someone has testified somewhere" is a rather unconvincing form of citation, but no doubt the audience would have been intimate with the source material in Psalms.

2:9 A parallel between the sufferings of Christ and those of the readers.  Just as Christ had to be lower than angels before his ascension, so to are the readers merely preparing for their ultimate glory.

2:14 This is an interesting bit of theology.  The devil here seems to receive a promotion, from a mere tempter to one with actual power over death.

2:18 In what sense was Christ's suffering necessary to his position as high priest for the descendants of Abraham?  Was it a matter of credibility?  Or training?  Or something more metaphysical?  The implication here is that he needed to understand the human experience fully in order to minister to humans, which is consistent with the theology in this book so far, but not with absolute divinity.  And no mention is made of a ransom in this passage.

3:2 The transition between Christ and Moses is a little shaky here, and feels like a rhetorical necessity to introduce the ideas in v.7.  In general the transitions seem more thematic that logical, not building a logical structure, but telling a fluid story.  This in and of itself is enough to suggest that Paul was not the author.

4:1 Again a thematic, rather than a logical, transition to the new idea.

4:4-9 But a very solid bit of reasoning here, that results in some intriguing theology.  By this logic, we are still in the sevnth day of Genesis, and the days mentioned therein could not possibly be literal 24 hour periods.

4:12 I'm always intrigued by mention of "the word" in the Bible.  Most take it, and especially so here, to mean the Bible itself.  But in this context, an interpretation of the word to mean Christ himself is rather easy to support.  It is even possible, given the context, that the word mentioned here is the same  word spoken in Genesis 2:3, the blessing of the seventh day, or the word of power that swept over the waters of the Earth before giving them shape.  All interpretations are tempting, and a theology that combines the three seems best suited to answer the question.

4:14 The lack of a transition here would imply that it is Christ who has been referred to in the previous verses.

4:16  This is the second mention of boldness and confidence as being virtues for the reader, an idea that doesn't really crop up in other letters.  In fact, in the vast majority of the Greek scriptures, humility is to be preferred.

5:2 Could it really be said that Christ was subject to weakness?  If so, that draws a nice distinction between weakness and sin.

5:11 I laughed inwardly at this.  I wonder aobut the "solid food", the more complex truths that are being withheld here from the dullards in the audience.

6:2 I want to know about their basic teachings!  Don't skip over them!  I am especially interested to know what their version of eternal judgement was, since it was evidently so basic.

6:18  What are the two unchangeable things?  I only count one here: God himself.

7:3 In this way, the author of this book is a bit like Melchizedek as well:  "without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life . . ." Yes, I'm still obsessed with the authroship of this book.

7:4 This begins a very different line of reasoning here, altogether more well constructed and persuasive than the first half.  Even the vocabulary is different.

8:9 There's the slightest of chinks in the logic of Hebrews here (it seems appropriate to refer to the book as its own author).  It goes to some lengths (the entirety of chapter 7) to set Melchizedek up as evidence of the flaws in the Levitic code.  In this verse, however, it acknowledges that the fault was not with the code itself, but with the Israelites failure to follow it.

8:11 Now this is a fascinating verse.  "They will not teach one another, or say to each other 'Know the Lord'."  At any rate, this would prevent what went wrong with the first covenant from repeating itself.  But what would that look like?  Watever it is, as Hebrews observes in 5:11 it is still a ways off from the early Christians.

9:14 The logic is pretty compelling here.  If I accepted all of the premises upon which it was based, I might even be convinced of ransom theology, which I am generally inclined to view as silly.

9:17 Stretching the metaphor just a wee bit here

10:1 I can't help but be reminded of the Perfection of Wisdom here.  I wonder if Hebrews is conscious of the fact that even these doctrines are shadows of a celestial reality.

10:26 These verses are a bit troubling taken out of context, but they make perfect sense here.  The problem with the first covenant was that the sins were not erased from the hearts of the Israelites, they were merely covered over.  And like any paint job, it needed regular touch ups.  The sacrifice of the second covenant doesn't cover over those sins, it erases them.  And it replaces them in the hearts of believers with the law itself.  If even after that, they willfully persist in sin, there truly does remain no sacrifice.

10:37 The very little while here certainly has taken rather a long time, however.  And here is the weakness of the exhortations here.  Hebrews' call to confidence, endurance and faith is very effective . . . in the short term.

11:1 People often take this verse as a distinction between faith and hope.  "Faith," such an one might say, "is based on fact--even though the facts have not been witnessed."  But I, for one, fail to see the distinction.  That sounds an awful lot like hope, or worse yet credulity.

11:7 See, what Noah did was not faith.  He had assurances, a concrete warning.  The faith mentioned in 11:1 doesn't fit this definition.

11:8 Which makes it no wonder that Kierkegaard chose Abraham as his model for the real mystery of faith, not Noah.  He acted in faith, and somehow, a terrible bloody intention was purified.  That scene, unsurprisingly, is not mentioned here.

11:13 And just as Abel, Noah and Abraham all died without receiving their promises, so did all those who first read this letter, and all who have since.

11:19 Ahhh, here it is.  The kicker. 

11:23 Here's an interesting riddle.  Hebrews here speaks of Moses; parents displaying faith.  Plural.  What mention is there ever of Moses' father in Genesis though?  An interesting line of inquiry.

11:26 Now surely Hebrews is taking a liberty here.  Moses could not by any stretch of the imagination be said to have had an idea of the Christ.

11:30 And it also seems like a stretch to say that the wals of Jericho were felled by faith.  It was pretty clearly God who did that, not man.

11:35 Those who were tortured here had no idea of a resurrection, though.  They suffered not for hope of something better, for the fulfillment of a promise, but for virtue.  Because it was impossible for them to do otherwise and live.

11:40 I find this verse entirely opaque.  Are they to be joined with the readers then?  Syntactically very unclear.

12:1 The train begun in ch.7 continues to pick of speed here.  Notwithstanding the petty chinks noted above, this is a pretty forceful piece of writing.  I'm almost convinced.  Poetic.  Soaring, even.


12:14 and Hebrews takes a breath here.  Havnig made its point rather unassailably, it relies on that strength to make its final plea.

12:18 Here's an interesting moment.  Hebrews reminds the reader that the reality of God is something at once rather terrifying and wonderful.  Best for the reader to focus on the wonderful, it seems to say.

12:25 And I can't help but feel here that Hebrews finally gets to the things that it referred to in 5:11, the solid food, so to speak.  The Buddha would no doubt approve of this passage, insofar as all creation is shakable and, therefore, not exactly real.

13:1 The denouement.  Be loving.  Be true.  Live simply.  Be steadfast.  Be humble. 

13:18 Who is "I"?!?!?!? Somebody who was on trial, and who knew Timothy, and was in Rome.  Certainly sounds like Paul to me, but the tone and focus are so different.  Nonetheless, the book also closes in the manner Paul was accustomed to.  If not Paul, certainly someone who knew him.  For my part, I choose to believe that Hebrews was written by Melchizidek, who is somewhere still alive, and still writing such beautiful things.

Red Pine (translation and comentary): The Diamond Sutra

Before getting into the linguistic puzzle that is The Diamond Sutra, I feel obliged to mention that the level of scholarship displayed by Red Pine in this edition is without peer.  Not only has he translated the text in a way that seems to capture the essence of the Buddha's message, and supplemented that translation with extensive and credible notation, not only has he added his own insightful and transparent commentary, but he ahs gone to the additional step of selecting and compiling the commentary of the very best Buddhist thinkers of history.  This last step is one of both scholarship and humility, and the edition as a whole seems to be enough to have taken any man a lifetime to put together.  I am agape at the amount of work and sagacity that this volume represents.

Nonetheless, the editor, outstanding as he is, is not the real star of this text.  Out of nearly five hundred pages, only the first 27 are the sutra itself.  It is that dense, that rich, it took that much explication to make it even remotely accessible.  The text centers upon a central puzzle, which I perceived to be slightly semantic in nature.  The Buddha repeatedly tells Subhuti X is not X. Thus is it called X.  For example, in chapter 9 he says "Those who return no more do not think, 'I have attained the goal of returning no more.'  And why not? Bhagavan, they do not find any such dharma as 'returning no more.'  Thus are they said to 'return no more'." Again in 10 he says "The transformation of a world, Subhuti, the 'transformation of a world' is said by the Tathagata to be no transformation.  Thus is it called 'the transformation of a world." 

The first part of this argument presents no problem.  The Buddha is merely saying that what we thought is real, turns out to not exist at all.   That which we thought was a return turns out to be no return, and that which we thought of as a transformation turns out to be no transformation at all.  But the second part of the argument, "thus is it called X" is a bit of a problem.  If it does not exist, why is attention drawn again to the term itself?  Furthermore, why is the conjunctive "thus" used to indicate that the terminology is not just a semantic trick, but an entailment of its nonexistence?  The Buddha goes on to use this same structure in some form for nearly every concept that he mentions.  He must be doing more than merely drawing our attention to the fundamental nothingness of certain dharmas--indeed, this makes sense, as Subhuti already was viewed as an expert on nothingness at the beginning of this sutra.  The Buddha must be taking Subhuti (and us as his proxies) past the idea of nothingness into something more.

And this is where I am grateful to the attentions of the editor.  He doesn't seem to struggle with the seemingly incomprehensibility of these statements as I did, but the combination of his own commentary with the included commentary of centuries of other Buddhist thinkers unlocked it for me a bit around chapter 19.  In speaking of a body of merit, Buddha again employs the familiar structure: ". . .'a body of merit' is spoken of by the Tathagata as no body.  Thus is it called a 'body of merit'."  But while he usually stops at theat, here he adds the additional information "Subhuti, if there were a body of merit, the Tathagata would not have spoken of a body of merit as a 'body of merit'."  Aha!  The puzzle untangles a little.  Bodies of merit, returning no more, transformation of a world, do not exist.  But here tThe Buddha reveals that the "Thus is X called X" structure is added to that fact to  reveal how we know that it is true.  We know that X is not X because X is called X.  If X existed, there would be no way to speak of it. 

Which raises the question of why mention it all?  If the very speaking of something is evidence of its nonexistence, what is the point of any sutra, let alone this one?  Red Pine's commentary put a pin in the crux of the question:  "Not only can a thought of enlightenment not be found, neither does a body of merit exist.  And yet the Buddha speaks of a body of merit . . . Rather he insists on it, and he insists on it precisely because it does not exist" (322).  The perception of emptiness is not the ultimate enlightenment.  If it were, Subhuti would have finished his path before this conversation.  Rather, the key is to perceive both emptiness and non emptiness.  "The dharma eye sees beyond emptiness to what advances liberation," as Pine puts it. 

The truly enlightened one perceives both the emptiness and the non emptiness of reality.  What is real?  Is a shadow real?  It has no substance.  It is merely a trick of the light, a perception of something that doesn't exist.  And yet it exists.  We can says that a shadow exists.  It is neither real nor not real.  And as any seemingly solid object is merely an illusion caused by the way atoms and light meet, as the things we think we see or touch--but do not really--are merely convenient mental constructs, so too is any dharma that can be spoken: neither true nor not true.  Pine quotes Chi-Fo as saying "neither atoms of dust nor worlds are real.  If atoms of dust wree real, they couldn't be combined to form a world.  If worlds were real, they couldn't be separated into atoms of dust" (414).  Both the things we perceive, and the atoms that seem to constitute them, on closer examination "turn out to be rather arbtrary views of reality founded on nothing more than linguistic conventions,  which are themselves the detritus of previously established arbitrary views" (420).  So is it true of any dharma the Buddha has spoken, and by extension any philosophy, creed, or religion that has ever existed. 

But the key is not to abandon those dharmas!  The Subhhutis of the world discover that everything is pretty much an illusion, especially things associated with the dharma teachings of organized religion.  And so they become free thinkers, scoffing at the idea that there is any meaning to life at all, and contenting themselves to live in a manner that they deem virtuous.  There is nothing wrong with this way of living, but it is a mistake to think that it represents enlightenment.  True enlightenment comes from the knowledge that all dharmas are not only empty, they are also not empty.  The fact that we cannot express the something which exists in an above us does not mean that it does not exist.  Enlightenment comes from making peace with the fact that everything we think we know about reality is neither true nor not true. God, Subhuti, "God" is spoken of by the Buddha as no God.  Thus is it called "God".  Subhuti, if there were a God, the Buddha would not have spoken of God as "God".