Hollow of Darkness

Every time someone mentions TS Eliot I get this burning desire to read this poem. I picked up a complete collection of Eliot plays and poem and read almost all of the poems following our history class today which made reference to Eliot, and I can't help sharing.

The reason I love The Hollow Men is that it recalls the themes from one of my favorite books, Heart of Darkness. Kurtz, mentioned in the second epigraph, is, in my very humble opinion, the best representation of darkness in all symbolic literature. Kurtz is a "Paper mache Mephistopheles" (best description of any character ever. just sayin.), a hollow man. C.S. Lewis describes such men as "Men Without Chests" (sort of. there is nuance between the arguments, but they are fundamentally the same.)

Don't get impatient and stop reading halfway through--the end is the most dramatic line of doom and it will send shivers down your spine and haunt you for at least a few days.

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

    A penny for the Old Guy

    I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

    II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

    III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

    IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

    V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                              For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                              Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                              For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

put that in your pipe and chew it

Pastor David spoke on this passage today, and I was overwhelmed by the incredible-ness. I must say that Romans 12 is in the running with the Sermon on the Mount for my all-time favorite part of the bible. I just had to share; hope you enjoy it at much as I did.

Romans 12

¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. ²Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

³For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. ⁴Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. ⁷If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; ⁸if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

⁹Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹²Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. ¹⁸If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"says the Lord. ²⁰On the contrary:
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." ²¹

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

(also...coming soon...an *original* blog post. not that this isn't totally better.)

Writer's Cramp

There is nothing more frustrating than lacking inspiration for pent up creative genius. History and English papers have reduced my writing abilities to faltering metaphors like: "the room was as dark as America during Jacksonian nationalism" and "his words made as little sense as Bacon's obsession with chickens."

So much for my plans of being a starving, talented artist on the streets of Portland. Thank you, fate, for foiling my elaborate plans once again.

Constitution Barbeques

In history class today, we learned about abolitionists in the US before and during the civil war. Abolitionists do not sound like the kind of people with whome you would want to spend a relaxing afternoon. On the 4th of July, they would burn the Constitution and talk about how evil America was. I think they probably barbequed meat too.

America was pretty evil then, incidentally. Even those who opposed "the South", pretty much still hated black people, and many of them were not against slavery so much as they just wanted to keep the problem in the South and change the laws that let southern police come up north to take black people. The South wasn't a whole lot better, obviously. Aside from the fundamentally wicked institution of slavery, they called for a federal police force, proving that they weren't really so much in favor of states rights after all.

So the abolitionists had a point. But they weren't very popular, and I imagine them all looking a little like Ron Paul. If there were abolitionists today, I'm not sure we'd like them as much as we like Ioan Gruffudd in Amazing Grace; they would be the kind of people like Ralph Nader that everyone makes jokes about, but nobody puts signs in their yard for. Conservatives would mock them and liberals would probably ignore them. They would sound kind of like Tom Stockman in Enemy of the People, though maybe less articulate and more passionate. If there were abolitionists today, they would not be polite or politically correct.

Abolitionists were probably not nice people.

In retrospect, it is easy to side with abolitionists, because we mostly think slavery was wicked and that it is good that people like Lincoln faught wars to make it stop, and make the US into "we the people" (thank you, Nicholas Cage, for that little tidbit). It was abolitionists and not racists like Lincoln who probably did the most to actually lobby for equality in the long run, but it's hard to image ourselves in their places. Saying that black people should be equal to white people was like saying that money is wicked, and that making a profit should be outlawed. There would be lots of people who kind of sympathized with you, but ulimately liked making money and used profit to feed their families. There would be even more people who thought you were insane, and probably some that thought you were a Marxist. It may even be like declaring yourself as a Russian during the Red Scare. Lots of people would say you were un-Patriotic (given your 4th of July rituals, they may have a point), and Joe McCarthy would put you in jail.

Wearing peace signs and shopping at Urban Outfitters is cool, but being an abolitionist is not cool at all. Being an abolitionist means that you are wildly unpopular, disliked and if you walk down the street, some people might spit on you, or crucify you, or write nasty articles about you in the Collegian. Being an abolitionist means that you care more about your cause than anything else in the world; even more than you care about money or fame or your own life.

People like Jesus and Ghandi and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr are abolitionists.

I would like to be abolitionist.

However, due to the environmental ramifications, I do not suggest, or plan on, burning the Constitution.

Culture Heroes?

Everyone should read this article:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2008/06/heroics.html

{thank you, Matt, for sharing}

Let me add to this otherwise brilliant argument that hero worship of soldiers is completely understandable. Americans have been effectively brainwashed since the cold war to embrace this "Us vs. Them" mindset which legitimizes the black marks on our historical record. If Joe McCarthy wasn't enough, phrases like "if you can't stand behind our soldiers, stand in front of them" {sorry, David, did I steal your witty little comeback? =P} --one of the most illogical positions I have heard in my life {think about it: if you disagree with what soldiers do...do it FOR them!}--and the conservative response to the 60's/70's/80's have finished the job.

My point {and I'm sure the author of the article's point} is not to bash soldiers, but to question America's worship of death. The cultural "myths" and icons that we worship epitomize the things our culture treasures and values. What does it say about America when one is unpatriotic for resisting evil with good? Or when our greatest heroes are instruments of death? Or when concern for others has been shrouded by unapologetic national interest?

You can call me names all day, but in the end these are the kinds of questions that keep you up at night and force you to question your most precious beliefs.