The Invention of Unambiguity

I woke up this morning with the germination of an argument in my head, and although I don't think it's quite finished, I wanted to get some of it down before I lost it, or before it's choked on the weeds of other things growing in my head.

So many moral arguments these days go back to the scene of the Fall in Genesis 3. Quotations of this passage, I have noticed through the years, seem to follow Milton more than they do the Bible, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that the humans' sin, according to some (and this being not an academic argument I won't adduce my sources), is made possible by the serpent's introduction of an ambiguity into God's command: "Did God really say, 'You must not eat of any tree in the garden'?" In the story, it's certainly true that this speech turns the conversation into channels the serpent wants; but is it the introduction of ambiguity?

Look at Eve's response: "God said we're not to eat of the tree in the middle of the garden, or even touch it, or we will surely die." But notice that God had not forbidden them to touch the tree; God merely told them not to eat of the tree. Eve, who in the story seems to have got her information secondhand from Adam, has invented an unambiguity -- or Adam has invented it for her. At its best, such an invention is piety, intended to make the command, and the tree, numinous. But surely an unfallen race has no need of piety?

I suggest that it is the invention of unambiguity that provides the serpent with its opportunity. Adam and Eve, who had not yet sinned and known it, nevertheless were primed to fall by inventing unambiguities for themselves. A better answer to the serpent would have been (and Adam, who had heard God the first time, and who was present -- many misogynists forget that -- ought to have provided it): "God said not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and we trust God." Of course, perhaps the best answer would have been no answer at all; but as we all know, Adam kept his mouth shut, letting Eve give the faulty answer; the serpent persuaded her of God's duplicity, and humanity fell.

So why, these days, is there so much talk about sin being the result of introducing ambiguities into God's Word? Far more sin -- indeed, the first sin -- is the result of humans' invention of unambiguity. Ambiguity, on the other hand, is what makes faith -- fides -- trust -- possible; put more strongly, faith can only exist in the presence of doubt. As C.S. Lewis remarks in his essay "On Obstinacy in Belief", one who has eliminated doubts about the Other is not trusting but knowing. And the entire history of God's faithful people at their best is a history not of knowledge but of trust: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Abraham's credit was given hundreds of years before the Law of Moses was given...and yet we still insist that the return to God's laws will restore our credit, that the insistence upon as many unambiguities as possible will pull our fallen society to its feet.

God's command is actually much easier, and much harder, than that. God, the inventor of ambiguity, creates doubt so that faith, and the freedom to choose it, is possible. God desires us to step out into apparent nothingness, which is much harder than obeying a bunch of rules; but God also asks us to do so in the presence of the indefinite, which is much easier than walking in lockstep with the demands of other humans.

Which is why we should treat God's more direct commands with much more respect than we do when we bandy them about and declare the case closed -- no dialogue -- no questions.

This whole theme could proliferate, but I think I'm going to stop here.

A Year's Worth

I noticed a week or so ago that I have had this blog for a year now. So much has changed since I began, but then, things are changing all the time. Take any given year from a life, and probably it will contain a stream of changes that escape the memory unless they are recorded. They say you never step into the same river twice.

So, one year and several readers later, Ink and Penwipers celebrates its birthday. *glances around, nodding* Yeah.

So that ten days and the bucket of progesterone? Make that one day. I'm okay, though I would still rather be someplace that's else. Though things are looking up: my new job is quite nice, very much the thing that earns me money without taking it out of my soul.

Oh, and speaking of which, I've had a book recommended to me and I need to get my hands on it: The Reinvention of Work, by Matthew Fox.

In other news, I got a letter this morning telling me I've been called to jury duty next month. This could be interesting. Or not.

...and dare I ask what a female wedgie is?...

In the last few days, according to SiteMeter, Ink and Penwipers has been found through searches for Umbridge fanfic, Peter Wimsey slash fic, and female wedgies. I can't help thinking these folks went away awfully disappointed. On the other hand, I appear also to have a few new regular readers from various places. *waves* Welcome!

Today's post will be a mere rundown of business, as I am far too tired and depressed to devote a whole post to any of these things:

Episcopal notes: I am going to write a setting for the Hymn of Praise (the one that begins, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth. Lord God, Heavenly King," etc.). I'm warming up to Rite II, okay, but the settings my church is using for the Rite II canticles stink. It's that fake-adventurey-syncopated-fanfare stuff that could only have been written by the same people who in the WWII era drew plans for houses shaped like long cardboard boxes with random brick buttresses sticking out of them. The only thing I can think of that's worse for a Hymn of Praise is a 1970's TV soundtrack fluegelhorn sound. So I'm going to write a setting, and I'm going to sing it in my head to keep the other setting out.

Fic notes: Have been taking a small break from "Shadow", mainly because I can only be prolific in sharp bursts, and partially because I'd like to let Giles sleep a little bit longer. And in the meantime I've been dibbling out a little AU post-series fic involving Ethan Rayne,... because I can. As some of you know explicitly, and no doubt the rest of my readers have figured out on their own, "Shadow" is bound to end with Elisabeth going back to her own dimension; but I have a whole "alternate-alternate universe" story arc going where she winds up wholly integrated in the Sunnydale dimension, which I probably will only write snippets of here and there because it just goes on forever. Most of the action in my AAU takes place in Oxford, because if I'm going to write a Mary Sue I'm bloody well going to send her to Oxford and make her (eventually) a don. Because I can.

Life notes: Am about ready to pull an Elisabeth at this point -- just pack a backpack and head off for parts unknown. That is all. Except I'm afraid of ending up on a Hellmouth. Though how that could be worse than this is difficult to see at the moment. Ah well: ten days and a bucket of progesterone hence I may be singing a different tune. I know...can I move to Canada?

Oh! and I almost forgot:

Genealogy notes: Per a bit of news from my brother that we have a hidden Jewish heritage, I went to the library and looked up my grandfather on RootsWeb. I did not find any Jewish heritage. Instead, I traced my paternal line back to 1524 and Yorkshire, England. So much for that: but I discovered in that line, born in 1584, a Robert, a.k.a. "Robin the Bold". I thought this was very amusing, and a fair tradeoff for not being Jewish. And, of course, I can exploit it for my fic; it makes a great name for Elisabeth's stake.

I think that's all.

Ruddy Puns!

A certain woman who wears a clerical collar (names have been withheld to protect the guilty) and is fond of striking out puns willy-nilly was part of a conversation this evening about the topic du jour, that is, the Episcopal Church and homosexuality. Another was talking about the conservative position on the issue (with which she disagreed), and our clerical friend whispered something to a few others. When pressed, she was forced to admit that she said she thought the conservatives took their scriptural text from the book of Second Penis --

now excuse me while I go to bed chuckling.

Roses By Several Names

Taking a break from my various writing projects to comment on a local op-ed piece written by a Robert P. Jones for the Springfield News-Leader.

The topic is the Episcopal Church and its recent splash in the media because of its decisions at General Convention about one gay bishop in particular and the blessing of same-sex unions in general. Jones's editorial concerned the latter, specifically the Convention's compromise decision not to develop liturgy for blessing same-sex unions while at the same time providing that each diocese may choose freely whether or not to perform such blessings. Jones writes:

As one who grew up Southern Baptist, I was struck both by how natural the solution of respecting the integrity of local churches, especially on controversial issues, seemed to my own religious sensibilities and how alien this principle has become to the contemporary form of the denomination that instilled this value in me.

It is more than a little ironic that a denomination that historically affirmed local church autonomy -- based on a theological conviction that individual believers and churches are free to follow the present-day workings of the Spirit of God, even in directions others do not understand -- has become far more hierarchical, authoritarian, and rigid (virtually turning opinions on the issue of homosexuality into a litmus test of fidelity to God) than those it has traditionally criticized for quenching the Spirit in "dead institutions" and "empty ritual."

Just last month the Missouri Baptist Convention cut off its million-dollar endowment to William Jewell College, a Missouri liberal-arts school founded by Baptists and dedicated to academic and intellectual excellence, because the college refused to take the stand the MBC wanted on the same issue -- namely, expressly prohibiting homosexual activity in the student body and providing "education" to its students telling them what to think about the issue. Now, the MBC can do whatever it likes with its money, and William Jewell purposely left that money out of its budget-planning in expectation that their chosen course of action would have that result. No big -- though I thought I'd mention just in passing that the tornadoes of May 4 hit Jewell particularly hard, and some of the departments no longer have buildings.

The plans of the American Anglican Council and its allies, in protest against the decisions of General Convention on this issue, are to employ a similar strategy of fiscal flanking; those bishops, parishes, and programs that disagree with the decisions of General Convention are planning to change their funding patterns to reflect their opinion, and of course they are well within their rights to do so, wherever they have authority over the funds involved. However, the plans to redirect funds apply only to General Convention, not to local churches, dioceses, or institutions, since it is clear that the line does not run cleanly through the church. The plans include also a resolution to maintain faith and communion with the church and to respect and support individual bishops whatever their position on the issue.

I do not know what the disaffected Episcopalians would do if they were in the majority, but being in the minority, it seems fairly clear that, with the added proviso of mutual respect, they have taken a similar course of action to that of the Missouri Baptist Convention in particular and the Southern Baptist Convention in general. I expect, however, that if the Episcopalians who disapprove of any sanction for homosexual behavior were in the majority, they would simply cast their votes and be done with it. What interests me is that the Missouri Baptist Convention's behavior indicates that they feel themselves to be similarly in the minority, though they have all the votes and the purse strings to boot.

Which brings me to the point I wanted to make, which is slightly different from that of Dr. Jones, but nonetheless relevant. I believe that this sense of moral embattlement, far from helping anyone's cause, actually makes the situation worse. What we are attempting to determine, in this issue (and in all other morally debatable and controversial issues) is a) whether homosexual behavior is always and unequivocally wrong; b) whether "homosexual Christian" is an oxymoron; and c) whether this issue's resolution is essential to continued communion among churches. To feel that the other side is not listening, that they have some kind of charismatic power over one, that one's cause is doomed to be shouted down, is a virtual guarantee of erratic and aggressive behavior, and I should know. For a church body to insist on dictating how its constituents think is to me the greatest argument for the weakness of Christianity, because it indicates that the body does not believe it sufficiently to let it defend itself. It indicates that they feel the gospel of Christ to depend almost solely on their ability to promulgate it in society. Fortunately, this is not the case. But it makes it no less irritating to watch.

I don't believe, of course, that "the gospel of Christ" and the established doctrine on one particular sexual issue are one and the same. But I think the same principle applies to the one as to the other. Unless we do away with the posturing and the martyr complexes, we are not going to solve any of the points I outlined above, especially the last. Or, for that matter, any controversial issue which comes down the pike.

I've only been in the Episcopal Church nine months, but I do believe that Dr. Jones is right in saying that for a so-called "dead institution", it is remarkably alive to the movement of the Holy Spirit -- and I believe that applies to people on both sides of this issue. For a church that has been present for every possible accretion of ecclesiastic tradition, it seems more to hark back both in liturgy and practical administration to early church times than the rugby scrum that is the governance of many "free-church" denominations. And I also believe that regardless of what happens as we deal with this particular issue, the signs are that faith, justice, and love will prevail among the churches. I feel fairly certain that if I were in a liberal church that was hit by a tornado, my conservative Episcopal brothers and sisters would still show up with chainsaws, flatbed trucks, blankets, and food. Just call it a feeling, nothing more definite than that. (I hardly need add that the liberal Episcopalians would do the same for their conservative brethren and sistren.)

I too have an opinion on points a), b) and c), but I'm not going to bring it out till I've ruminated some more. For now, well -- there ya go.

Just a Few Things

Check out my blogroll; I have added Erin Noteboom's Vivid, partially because she has been so kind as to link me, and the far greater part because her site is utterly cool, and her poetry blows me away. I like to go there to remind myself of the seductive, almost magical quality of well-placed words, because so often I forget. More on this in a moment. Her link replaces the link to my favorite G.K. Chesterton site, as that link pretty much made it look like G.K. Chesterton has a blog. And now I have a blog bunny...I'd love to see what a blog by G.K. Chesterton would be like. He would like the blog, I think, if he could be persuaded to get over the shock to his conservative sensibilities that the world of the computer would present. I'll just sit and grin here for a moment, thinking about G.K. Chesterton's blog; and then I'll move on.

The thing about words. In a high-school creative writing class I was once assigned a project called instant poetry. I can't remember the procedure, but it required one to think of one's favorite words in certain categories, redivide the categories, and make poems out of the result. It was a good assignment, because there was a structure to it, and yet the words were all my own. I remember shuffling the cards on which I had written my words, and looking reverently over them, and repeating some of them to my friend, who was in the same class. She didn't seem to be as enthusiastic as I was, so I asked her (thinking perhaps I was hogging the limelight somehow) what some of her words were. She said, "I don't understand why you're going on about it like this. They're just words."

I was shocked. Nay, I was horrified that my friend (who was quite a good writer in her own right) had this -- sacrilegious attitude toward words. I mean, just words?! It was the first time that I realized that one could actually step out of the river of language long enough to stop caring about it.

Unfortunately, I've found myself doing just that in recent years.

I don't blame my graduate English studies for this, not exactly. I value very highly the intellectual muscle and skill in rhetoric that I built up earning my B.A. and M.A. I love the feeling of a well-honed argument, like a hand-turned table leg, like a nail struck into place with one hammer-blow. And yet the part of me that still loved wading in the river of language just to splash like a child was sometimes frustrated, writing seminar papers. Of course, I told my freshman comp students that though they may love creative writing and hate academic writing, the latter was still worth learning; but I remembered holding the same sentiment myself in their place years before, and I couldn't help secretly wishing that argument could incorporate some of the uses of poetry. If I wrote with the parallelism of the psalmists in my critical arguments, I wished I could also write with their pungency as well -- and get away with it.

But time and work and illness all took their toll; and here I am musing on the lost magic of words -- of simple words: ask, tingling, crackle, purple, fern, canter, cantor -- we give thanks to thee for thy great glory --

Here I am thinking that I want to do something new. I want to take what I've known in my bones forever, and what I've learned at the hands of others, and create some new (for me) kind of excellence. But I am beginning, and I wish I had a teacher, or a guide; someone to play Virgil to my Dante. Not that I think myself as great as Dante, but that I think myself as much in need of a guide as Dante thought himself, both in writing and in life.

Except that maybe...We have reached the open sea, with some charts; and the firmament.

I do not know. Meanwhile I will play with the shiny words.

*New Chapter Dance*

Here it is, Chapter 20. Phew, it was long.

Enjoy!

The Character Interview Meme

Dipping a toe into the shark-infested waters...

Or, alternatively, into water with nothing in it at all, which is much more likely.

The game: ask my characters any questions you like, and I will pass the questions along and bring you back their answers. You may interview any of the characters I've written, including canon characters that I've adopted and assimilated (mua-ha-ha-ha).

You're right, James, this is kinda scary, especially considering my track record with meme audience participation. Oh well.

A Kaleidoscope, Including a Few More Things About Fic, and a Ramble About Early Childhood

Let's get the fic stuff out of the way first. I've been trawling rec sites because I am so vain as to hope desperately that some kind stranger has discovered my fic and liked it. Also, I wanted to get an idea of who in my fandoms is generally acclaimed. At the moment I'm feeling rather discouraged, not so much that my fic remains unreviewed by any but my core readers, but more that I dislike my writing at the moment. Sometimes I wonder whether I'm losing my touch, whether what I put out there is really not that special anyway. Usually, if I think such things, I brush it off by thinking that I'm Just A Writer, and the important thing is to write so that I'm pleased with it, and wherever I fall in the continuum of talent -- doesn't matter. At the moment, however, I embody a little, vain scream: Somebody please tell me I'm good!

Now, here's a story I always end up telling eventually, so if you haven't heard it before, you must be (relatively) new in my life. Or else I unaccountably forgot.

When I was in first grade, we lived in Colorado, where winter meant snow. Specifically, the kind of snow that hangs around for days, that melts a little under the sun and refreezes to a crust during the night. Needless to say, the rule at my school was You DON'T Throw Snowballs. EVER. And, needless to say, this rule got broken quite often, despite the lectures about bits of ice in refrozen snow and lawsuits and devils with pitchforks. One day my best friend and I were enjoying our recess, and this kid (his name was Shane, I still remember), creamed my friend with a snowball, right in the face. She cried, because dadgum it, it hurt; her face was all red and she was lucky not to have any damage to her eye. My eyeballs were red, but more in a Voldemort way: I wanted justice: I wanted revenge. But I didn't get the chance, either to tell the teacher's aide on duty or avenge my friend, because the whistle blew to call us into our lines. We all lined up; I noted Shane's rust-colored coat one line over and several people up. I reached down for a small handful of snow from a stray pile on the pavement. I threw, almost half-heartedly, as if knowing it'd never properly make my point; it flipped the bottom hem of his coat before dropping harmlessly to the ground: he didn't even notice. Mrs. Anderson did, however. So I spent the rest of my afternoon crying in the hall in impotent rage. "Why won't you just admit you were wrong?" the teacher's aide said at one point. I just wept and glared at her: Because that wasn't the point! The point was, my friend was served up with a massive iceball in the face, and my snowball didn't even register, and yet who was in trouble? I think my mother was called on this occasion, but nothing ever came of it; I was so upset that they could hardly make me suffer more by way of punishment.

I tell this story because it is the defining anecdote of my life. Dramatic irony and mild good luck weave through my whole story, point-counterpoint: if someone is to be caught out, it will be me; and the resultant hell I put myself through constitutes pretty much the entire weight of the episode. I am still that six-year-old child crying, "It's not fair!" -- only now it's with multisyllabic words and a phalanx of logical statements.

Just once, I'd like to have hit that kid in the face with a real snowball, and gotten some more bang for my buck. Because frankly, I'm not saintly enough to take the high road, and lurking timidly along the low road is even worse than striding down it.

In more encouraging news, Gene Robinson's confirmation to the bishopric of New Hampshire has passed the House of Deputies at the Episcopal General Convention, leaving only the House of Bishops left to vote. I understand that he was elected by the diocese because he is a good priest and they think he would make a good bishop; what's controversial is that he has a committed union with another man. I have a lot to explore on the topic, as I have been thinking about it a great deal; but not tonight. No; later, when I feel a little bit less like a first-grader.

Off to work on Chapter 20, which so far includes the following: rain, the Doublemeat Palace, an omelet, a dream, and Giles's yummy moss-green sweater.

A Few Things About Fic

Hurray, a fic of mine (well, ours) has been reviewed and recced! Sez Branwyn, about my and Jessica's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes fic The Vicissitudes of an Idiom:

It lacks something in subtlety, but it made me laugh until I was faint. I might have just been in a mood, but I think you'll laugh too.

Of course, slapstick isn't supposed to be subtle, but I'll give her that one. More irritating were the people who said patronizingly, when it was first published, that they had it figured out before the end. I mean, as if we were trying to hide the "idiom" in question.

More later.

The Color of Seven

Thanks to Jemima, whose color wheel completely rules, and Natasha, who betaed my code, I have now posted a schematic of my numbers and letters. What's this all about, you may ask? Synaesthesia, that's what it's about. As I mentioned when I began this blog, I am a cognitive synaesthete -- that is, my numbers and letters are irrevocably associated with certain colors, which I see in my mind whenever I think about text, or look at it in print. Like many synaesthetes, I didn't know this was an actual phenomenon until a few years ago; until then, I thought it was merely idiosyncratic. Now, I keep finding fellow synaesthetes everywhere; Virginia is one, and I discovered today that Natasha is one too. We discussed our various colors, and discovered that our vowels matched almost exactly! This is interesting, because the inborn associations between colors and letters often vary greatly from synaesthete to synaesthete. I remembered reading somewhere that there was some study being done on the percentage of color-grapheme associations; I can't find it now, but as I recall the most common commonality was an association between red and the letter A. My A is more of an orange-vermilion color, as you can see from the schematic.

Of course, the difficulty about having such an interesting brain is that it presents a temptation to some serious navel-gazing. But I will be shameless today. I mean, what else is a blog for? But if it interests you, check out the synaesthesia webring linked above; there are some fascinating facts out there, as well as a teeming plethora of schematics like mine.

UPDATE: Found a page with Sean Day's research results from an inquiry into colored letter trends among synaesthetes. Eeen-teresting.