Friend or Foe, Number 2

Passage from the text:
"He laid his hand on the hobbit's shoulder in friendly fashion; but Frodo felt the hand trembling with suppressed excitement. He stepped quickly away, and eyed with alarm the tall Man, nearly twice his height and many times his match in strength.
'Why are you so unfriendly?' said Boromir. 'I am a true man, neither thief nor tracker. I need your Ring: that you know now; but I give you my word that I do not desire to keep it. Will you not at least let me make trial of my plan? Lend me the Ring!'...
Frodo dodged aside and again put the stone between them. There was only one thing he could do: trembling he pulled out the Ring upon its chain and quickly slipped it on his finger, even as Boromir sprang at him again. The Man gasped, stared for a moment amazed, and then ran wildly about, seeking here or there among the rocks and trees."

Pg#: 390

Commentary [Connect]:
There's something about people being too excited about something that turns you off; know what I mean? It just sows distrust- there's something strange about it that causes an instinctual aversion. As if there's something disordered about that desire in them to obtain something. Like something wicked will be done. Or worse. I think everyone has experienced this at one time or another...

Fortunately for Frodo he has a magic ring that will let him escape from any situation. I fear Frodo might have to relive this event until he is rid of the Ring- and that's bummer.

By the way, do you remember what I said in that earlier blog? Frodo did it again! I'm not sure if the ends justifies the means here- that could be an ethical question for another blog post though.

#40

We Look to Our Surroundings for Advice on What to Do In Times of Danger

Passage from text:
"'I said to myself: 'dreaming again, Sam Gamgee,' I said; and I said no more just then. But I've been thinking since, and now I'm not sure. What do you make of it, Mr.Frodo?''
'I should make nothing of it but a log and the dusk and sleep in your eyes, Sam," said Frodo, 'if this was the first time that those eyes had been seen.......
'Gollum, maybe?'"

Pg #: 374

Commentary [Prediction and Whatnot]:
So Gollum is moving in on his Ring and the company has noticed. I think what's interesting here is not only that there is an ominous mood to the conversation but that everyone prior to this conversation was thinking this same thing, that Gollum was pursuing them, and yet no one bothered to voice their suspicions up till now- their something-ith day of travel. Life lesson; communicate how you feel about weird things because more than likely someone else is thinking the same exact thing.

Examples:
"Does it smell like smoke in here?"

"Was that guy creepy, or what?"

"I feel a quiz coming on next class period."

I also predict that the character spheres of both Gollum and Frodo are going to get infinitesimally close to touching- without making contact- until one, final, dramatic, allegorical, climax finál.

#39

What Questions May Arise

Passage from the text:
"'[W]hy cannot I see all the others and know the thoughts of those that wear them?'

'You have not tried,' she said. 'Only thrice have you set the Ring upon your finger since you knew what you possessed. Do not try! It would destroy you. Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others. Yet even so, as Ring-bearer and as one that has borne it on finger and seen that which is hidden, your sight is grown keener. You have perceived my thoughts more clearly than many that are accounted wise. You saw the Eye of him that holds the Seven and the Nine. And did you not see and recognize the ring upon my finger? Did you see my ring?' she asked turning again to Sam.'
'No, Lady'"

Pg #: 357

Commentary [Character Development]:
So Frodo has changed, for the better or the worse. Now he can "see" things and know things better than before. But is this good?
Whether or not it is, it's unfortunate that Frodo has to experience the darkness of the Ring (why is it capitalized all the time anyways?) in order to be wiser or more cunning. While being able to see and know the thoughts of all the others that bear their own rings is interesting, I'm not sure that it will work to Frodo's benefit. Frodo is a weak hobbit that has already succumbed to the power of the ring three times. Who's to say he won't try again? And hop on over to the dark side while he's at it... But Frodo knows better, right?

#38

Peace Be With You

Passage:

"We live in a day and age characterized by an extraordinary amount of agitation and lack of peace. This tendency manifests itself in our spiritual as well as our secular life. In our search for God and holiness, in our service to our neighbor, a kind of restlessness and anxiety take the place of the confidence and peace which ought to be ours. What must we do to overcome the moments of fear and distress which assail us all too often in our lives? How can we learn to place all our confidence in God and abandon ourselves into his loving care?.... Since peace of heart is a pure gift of God, it is something we should seek, pursue and ask him for without cease."

Pg#: Back Cover of Searching for and Maintaining Peace of Heart

Commentary [Parallels]:

In a world where money is king, drugs make you happy, and sex is synonymous with love there is no peace to be had. How can there be? If I'm too occupied with my sycophantic, entrepreneurial endeavors that will eventually lead to my "big success" my oodles of riches how am I live with my busied existence? If I rely on "natural" substances to escape/manipulate/skew reality, to my detriment, without which I'm not sure that I can be happy, where is my purpose? If I subscribe to the belief that sex will automatically lead to love or that it's something to be dealt out loosely and freely, how am I ever meant to go past pleasure and enter into self-giving? And of course these are rhetorical questions meant to illicit a firm "I don't know", but, isn't there some grain of truth that is gained by them? To be sure, Jacques Phillippe does not spend the whole of his book diatribe-ing about the various poses in which society today lies in the disturbed, agitated shadows of assuring the safety and success of one's own life at all costs.

#37

What's In a Symbol?

Passage from the text:
"In dealing with symbolism one enters an area where reflection, synthesis, and contemplation are more important than investigation, analysis, and science. One cannot apprehend a symbol unless one is able to awaken, in one's own being, the spiritual resonances which response to the symbol not only as sign but as "sacrament" and "presence." Needless to say, when we speak of symbol here we are interested only in the full and true sense of the word. Mere conventional symbols, more or less arbitrarily taken to represent something else, concrete images which stand for abstract qualities, are not symbols in the highest sense. The true symbol does not merely point to some hidden object. It contains in itself a structure which in some way makes us aware of the inner meaning of life and of reality itself. A true symbol takes us to the center of the circle, not to another point on the circumference. A true symbol points to the very heart of all being, not and incident in the flow of becoming."

Pg#: 55

Commentary [Deciphering]:
So symbols aren't just things that tell you what other things are.
This symbol here indicates that the image near to it is a registered trademark.

Symbols also go past a mere representation of something else.

What the each of the above symbolize is rather obvious, from left; first aid, nurse, hospital beds, nurse tending to a patient, man with an arm sling, prescriptions, blood testing, family doctor, shots, balance between grains and fruits, "natural" acupuncture (because of the leaf), and labs.

Religious symbols are usually the best at capturing Merton's purest sense of the symbol



One might say that what characterizes a good symbol is that it's purpose and symbolism is not immediately known...

#36

"The Street is for Celebration"

Passage:
"A city is something you do with space.

A street is a space. A building is an enclosed space. A room is a small enclosed space.

A city is made up of rooms, buildings, streets. It is a crowd of occupied spaces. Occupied or inhabited? Filled or lived in?

The way the buildings are lived in. And what goes on in the streets."

Pg#: 46

Commentary [Reflection]:
I feel as if Merton could write about anything. The expanse of his style is impressive. This is the beginning of his commentary on unity, habitation, and love within the world's most ubiquitous framework of civilization, the city.
The first six sentences are truths, common ground (axioms), that everyone can stand on. The nuances in meanings that Merton then plays on are whether or not these spaces are occupied- like a bathroom or a hotel, or inhabitated- like a fishbowl or a neanderthal's cave; in essence, filled or live in.

And what is he trying to say here?

That it is not simply enough for something to function as something else, that the way in which things are done is just as important as what is done. Are these city-dwellers a community or a conglomeration of private, separate lives? This will determine whether or not the "street is for celebration."

#35

Symbol or No Symbol

Passage from the Text:
"This morning I said Mass, through no fault of my own, in a white chasuble which had, on the back, a picture of a lighted candle up against a design of a Gothic rose window. Now already on the altar two large candles were burning with bright flames perfectly and unobtrusively fulfilling their symbolic function. What possible sense could be made by a picture of a candle on a celebrant's back? We have no rose window in our chapel. But certainly the fact that we have none does not mean that we need one, still less that the need can be partially fulfilled by a picture of one- and, of all places, on the chasuble! An added note of absurdity came from the fact that the candle was realistically presented with a notch melted out of one side!"

Pg #266-267

Commentary [Love of Thomas Merton]:
There's a reason why I love Thomas Merton. This last piece is one of them. I never truly thought about the importance of religious symbolism [or lack theirof] in Catholic Churches and art. What surprised me was how much his argument made sense. If a candle by a rose window signifies nothing in particular in the church in which Thomas Merton celebrates- or nothing in particular at all- then truly, what is the point? He really got me thinking. Then he started talking about the sensationalism found in stained-glass windows and that really got my blood boiling. I was ready to put Disputed Questions down, but thought it better to stick it through. The reason why I was mad was because I knew everything he was saying was true, I had simply not accepted those truths yet and made them my own.

The title of the section this passage appears in is called Absurdity in Sacred Art, by the way.


In case you're curious.....



















that robe-looking thing is a chasuble.

#34