The Cat's Table 4:15 AM

From the inspection of class divisions to the unresolved threads of personal history, there is much to appreciate in Michael Ondaatje's latest novel The Cat's Table. Though for me most beautiful aspect was reading a prolonged meditation on childhood through the eyes of the main character Michael and his two young friends Cassius and Ramadhin.

While the novel is not supposed to be autobiographical, Ondaatje clearly draws on his own experience as a child emigrating from Sri Lanka to Britain. Michael - the 11 year old first person main character voice - is making a three week journey from Colombo to England to resettle with his mother. The ship taking him is the massive Oronsay.

For a novel, it is deeply poetic. Written mostly in short chapters - often just two or three pages long - even the book's form is fragmented and reminiscent of the twists and distractions of a child's life.

I loved that about it.

Of course in hindsight it's hard to know exactly what childhood was about. It's difficult even to remember what we felt a month ago, so one's formative years are hard to pin down. But Ondaatje goes there.

The ever inquisitive natures of Michael, Cassius and Ramadhin sung the novel to life. Their narrow-focussed naivety reminded me of my own. "Because, our greatest pleasure was when one hundred spoons were flung by a steward into the pool and Cassius and I dived in with competitors to collect as many as we could in our small hands ... And if I had been asked to choose a career then, or at any time during those twenty-one days, I would have said I desired to be a diver in some similar competition for the rest of my life." (p. 86)

A fixation on new things - mattering not whether "high" or "low" culturally - is another great aspect of Michael, Cassius and Ramadhin's adventurous spirits. Like the familiar story of the child who plays with the cardboard box rather than with the expensive gift inside, Ondaatje's three musketeers care little for what doesn't grab their immediate intrigue. But they have noses for what's important.

For them it is not dining at a dinner table further up the social chain that matters (the Cat's Table in the title refers to the humble seating position of the three boys) but the simple fact that they are on a boat for a long time, going a long way, with endless interesting people to keep them busy and awake at night. That is the blinding beauty of childhood in general, and The Cat's Table.

Near the start of the journey is a passage demonstrating the lack of "down time" and endless mischief the boys occupy themselves with. "It was almost midnight and the three of us were smoking twigs broken off from a cane chair that we lit and sucked at. Because of his asthma Ramadhin was not enthusiastic about this, but Cassius was eager that we should try to smoke the whole chair before the end of the journey ... We slid quietly into the swimming pool, relit our twigs and floated on our backs. Silent as corpses we looked at the stars. We felt we were swimming in the sea, rather than a walled in pool in the middle of the ocean." (p. 20-21)

It's a grand image. I can feel the silence and awe of the three souls, suspended there, caring nothing for the world at large, but only what they were seeing, smelling, smoking. And most profound is the amazing clarity - beyond learning, experience and the adult world - that they possess in that moment.

The father who runs 5:14 AM

With a whiff
Of the boy
In the distance
As a glimmer
Of light
Sees his stride
It is him
And the father
Is running
Flailing arms
Charging limbs
Bringing life

As the boy walks
With head
All a-drooping
As the boy strolls
With ambling
Intent
Yes the father
Is sprinting
To meet him
Running fast
With his face
In the wind

As he meets him
Near clean
Bowls him over
This boy
Has been down
In the dirt
But the father's
Content now
To hold him
He is home
Any offering
He's worth

One reason it is good for young men to pursue employment 7:46 PM

I found this when researching the Transfiguration ahead of a talk on Matt 17.

Something borrowed 5:06 PM

One paragraph in this article about the trend towards non-ownership speaks of something much more significant than the pragmatic benefit of not possessing as much stuff. Writes Sue White:

The problem for humans is true security doesn't come from our possessions. "You see this with people who've been through trauma. For people who have lost everything, their security can no longer be vested in what they own; it has to transfer itself to something deeper inside," psychologist Dr Anna-Marie Taylor.

However, the psychologist goes on that "status for the next generation is as much measured in Facebook friends or Twitter followers as in the type of car you drive". So, maybe we're having ourselves on if we think we're moving towards utopia here.

But I think this movement of choosing not to own as much and to borrow more is really happening. It is basically confined to urban dwellers at the moment. But I think it's a movement. Having seen a number of friends manage incredibly well without owning cars, I am considering not renewing my car's registration next year. My mate who works in economics tells me he thinks long-term renting might even be a smart financial decision. And as food sells at a competitive price in tightly-packed city malls, the cost of eating out is just about cheaper than regular grocery shopping, not to mention time-redeeming.

But for me at least, the reason a "thingless future" (great title) is appealing, is it moves me towards living out Christ's call in Matthew 6:

19 "Don't collect for yourselves treasures [a] on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Of course the possibility is that one's status and identity - when freed from cars, houses, and kitchens - is then caught up in other things - popularity, productivity, and influence. But for now there seems at least a glimmer of goodness in this new movement.

What? 4:11 PM

Like a tide of spring air through an open window is straight language. Elusive evocation can be beautiful in poetry. But most people "under the sun" just want to know what you're on about. "Let's hear it."

There is something thoroughly refreshing about bluntness and some people are so good at it.

In his final interview in 1963, CS Lewis responded to how to develop a writing style:

"The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him. I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it."

h/t Justin Taylor

The other person who left us in no doubt of what he thought, is CH Spurgeon. Nowhere is this seen more obviously than in 'Commenting and Commentaries'. The large annotated bibliography features Spurgeon's uncensored thoughts on commentaries from every book of scripture.

Some examples of his less-positive scribblings:

Although the notes are good, the student had better spend his money on larger and better books.

Five volumes with absolutely nothing in them beyond a spinning out of the text.

This author has enjoyed considerable repute and is still prized by many, but we can never bring our soul to like him, he always seems to us to be so graceless.

These books are too learned for much to be learned from them; perhaps if they had been more learned still they would have been useful.

Translation second rate, criticism none, notes very short.

A huge mass of learning, said by great divines to be invaluable. To most men these volumes will simply be a heap of lumber.

Merely the text arranged and a few rather ordinary notes. We do not see what a man can get out of it. But, hush! It is by an archbishop!

I think both Lewis and Spurgeon are antidotes to the attitude which tends towards beautification of all truth to the point that it becomes neither beautiful nor true. They are similarly an antidote to the crass clarity which favours straightness above human sensitivity.

There is a method of writing employed by both men where the sheep get through the gate without feeling harassed into it.

'City pent' 5:57 AM

I've been reading some Keats after stumbling over a short edition of his poems earlier in the week. This one hits me.

To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven,--to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?
Returning home at evening, with an ear
Catching the notes of Philomel,--an eye
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career,
He mourns that day so soon has glided by:
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.

On a few levels I relate to this. First, it's because I live most of my life in the city, quite a long way from non-asphalt lairs. Second, because I relate to the feeling of having been in natural surrounds for a day and returning with a heart and mind more acutely aware of the beauty of the things around. I think the ritual of going amongst natural creation is vital for awakening all your senses. And third because however long one spends among wildflowers and clouds, it always passes by too quickly. It doesn't deliver exactly what you hoped. Or it does, and you get back with gaps still in your heart.

Why the cross of Jesus can't be called a display of cosmic child abuse 12:46 AM

Christians claim that when he was murdered on the cross, Jesus was absorbing into himself God's anger at humanity (that is, anyone who has ever lived past, present, and future). Verses including 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 are the fuel for such claims:

...You became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia ... They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

This kind of theology has always been contentious and divisive. It is as much about one's approach to the Bible as it is about anything else. It's the kind of the thing that has divided Catholics and Protestants right down the middle.

More recently, the theology of the cross been called "divine child abuse". And, at a cursory level, I can understand where those people are coming from. The phrase was coined by a Christian author in his book in 2003, as far as I can tell. It's since been picked up by new-Atheists as they deride Christian theology for all it's not worth.

It's a lazy description though.

Richard Dawkins on the Australian talk show QandA famously ridiculed the cross suggesting:

If you believe in the New Testament, that God, the all-powerful creator of the universe couldn't think of a better way to forgive humanity's sins than to have himself put on earth, tortured and executed in atonement for the sins of humanity, what kind of a horrible, depraved notion is that?

But the major misconception surrounding the Dawkins view is that sin doesn't mean much. It is a light thing. A small thing. Something to be glanced beyond. Dismissed, even. Thus, at the heart of the problem, is a diminished view of God.

The kind of God Dawkins would prefer is one that is exactly like him. A God who shares his views. A God who would not take care of the vast problem of sin by himself. A God who would, strangely enough, write a book like the God Delusion. That would be the only kind of God Dawkins could respect.

I am prompted to write this post because a) people interested in Christian theology (like a friend of mine) peruse blogs and b) because a verse stood out to me the other day. It's a verse that speaks to the absurd idea that God would engage in divine child abuse.

From the old testament prophet Habakkuk in 1:13 it says:

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.

It is a quote talking about God. And it suggests a fundamental difference between God and us. While we can throw dinner parties for evil - entertain it any day of the week - God can't and won't.

So when Dawkins says God "couldn't think of a better way" to deal with our sin, he's missed the point. For it was never a matter of God "thinking of" a different means to pay for sin. Dealing with evil is not a mere exercise in strategic thinking. It is about who he is.

It's not like, needing to clear the gutters God sat down to map out a solution. It's not like, having a headache God considered how he would get rid of it. It's not like, remembering a friend he didn't like, God had to devise a plan not to cross paths with him.

No. It's that God "cannot tolerate wrongdoing". He can't just think his way out of it. If humans were to have any future with God, something had to be done about who we were in the core of our being. Otherwise, we couldn't be around God.

To take a human analogy, Dawkins is saying: humans should just live underwater. During summer, when it gets hot, humans should dwell beneath the sea. Well, as a scientist I don't need to tell him that's not possible. It's not going to happen.

And it is the same with God. As human lungs cannot suffer water, God's lungs cannot put up with human sin. He objects to it. He disagrees with it.

And that is fundamentally why the cross is essential for the longevity of human relationship with God. Jesus - the man who is God - took sin and God's anger at sin into himself. And the guilty ones - us - are able to go free.

The reason this is hard to grasp hold of is because we have diminished God. Like Dawkins, we hope for a God of our invention. A God just like me. A God who likes everything that I do. But children with parents who never objected to anything they did, would become troubled adults indeed.

Once we fathom God's way of viewing evil and sin, we are then able to appreciate how amazing is the love he had for us in taking responsibility for it, on our behalf. I am blown away completely by this. It has upended my life dramatically. I pray it might do the same for you, dear internet reader.