I've continued to support my problem of buying more books than I can possibly find time to read by purchasing an Advance Reading Copy (ARC) of Yann Martel's Beatrice & Virgil (the one that won't be in bookstores until sometime in mid-April). I'm really looking forward to reading it for a couple of reasons. Despite the fact that I was annoyed when given Life of Pi in my freshmen English class in college (I wanted something I had already read. You know, to prevent me having to do much work...) I actually enjoyed reading the parts of it I read to write the paper. I wasn't on the English teacher track at that point, and I'm now a little bit disgusted with myself for not reading this a little more closely. Oh well.
Not sure which is the actual coverart. Or which I like more. Guess I'll just be surprised. :)
The book is fairly short, but it promises to leave me thinking for a good, long while afterwards (which I prefer greatly to the tome that's answered all its questions 50 pages before the author stopped writing...). It'll also be nice easy reading after the other stuff I'm trying to tackle this spring break.
Second thing.
N. T. Wright's book, After You Believe, is not easy reading. It's much different from the two previous books in the same line of thought in both density of information (is this even a thing? it's the best way I know to describe what I see on the page... nearly every paragraph begs to be read and reread to start to move towards understanding his point) and his decision to express his point with much more theological language than I'm used to encountering these days. I'm getting acclimated again, it's just taking a little while.
However, this is not what I really have to share.
Amid the dense, theological language, Wright turns to Hamlet to help illustrate one of his points in the second chapter. While discussing how living a life of "virtue," or Christian character as he has carefully constructed thus far, often requires readjusting our nature to what we may be comfortable with at the moment, Wright quotes this passage from act 3, scene 4:
Refrain tonight;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence; the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out,
With wondrous potency. (lines 165-170)
Wright's inclusion of this quotation allows him to draw connections to what's going on in the "religious world" (I hate this term, but can't come up with an applicable alternative at the moment...) at the time Shakespeare penned these words and to offer encouragement given the difficulties of beginning to engrain this a type of life into our daily schedules until it becomes second nature.
Undoubtedly, I have misrepresented some of what I understood Wright to have said and am likely to have simply misunderstood some of what he intended in these passages. His book is challenging me to think more about how I think and how I live, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Hopefully I haven't scared anyone off from it. The best thing for both of us would be to talk about what he's mentioning in the book and figure it out together.
Anyone have any insight on extra application of the passage from Hamlet? I'm very interested in any additional perspective (literary/theologically/whatever). He seems to stick to a few stories that he continually references, so your help will really help me as I continue through this. Thanks.
also, this Thursday, March Madness vs. Incredible books on my shelf. Not sure who's going to win that fight...
I'm digging both of the Beatrice & Virgil covers. Let me know how it is...especially since it's shortish. :)
ReplyDeleteThis also makes me want to fasttrack After You Believe to the top of my reading list so I can have an intelligent conversation about it with you, BUT without having read any of it...the Hamlet quote is very interesting. And it seems to mirror the churchy idea of spiritual discipline(s). The place I always get hung with this type of stuff is actually mentioned in the third line of the Hamlet quote: "For use almost can change the stamp of nature." Because of course abstinence, discipline, or forcing ourselves to act a certain way doesn't actually change our nature; it just makes us act (in the theatrical sense) a different way. Meanwhile, the promise of a life lived in Father is the transformation of our nature, and that subsequently produces a "virtuous" life, the throwing out of the devil, as it were. Maybe I'm missing something in what you are saying or what Wright is saying, but this is where I often see a disparity that I can't seem to reconcile.
What you're saying makes good sense. I'll try to explain some of the context in which the Hamlet example is helpful. Keyword: try... : )
ReplyDeleteWright seems to be using this scene to make a point about the conundrum with which Christians often struggle: Since even the ten commandments are rather impossible for us to keep, and since God accepts us anyways, "why bother with all this morality?" (Wright 58).
Wright notices this tension in the scene mentioned in Hamlet as well. Young Hamlet returns to Denmark to find his mother in cahoots and in bed with his uncle (well he doesn't walk in on them, but he realizes what's going on...). Since she feels she cannot rectify the situation, she has rejected the idea of "'putting on' a virtue you don't yet possess as an excuse for doing what she wanted" (59).
Young Hamlet makes the case that despite her lack of a previously established positive habit in this area (she's sleeping with her husband's brother, after they conspired to kill him...), she should begin to "assume a virtue, if you [talking to mommy] have it not" (III.iv.160).
Wright seems to argue that the only other option we have in these cases is to let our customs dictate our behavior based habits (59).
The inclusion of the whole Hamlet episode is in an effort to debunk this statement that closely restates Martin Luther's take on virtue: "If developing character by slow, long practice is what it's all about, doesn't that mean that for most of the time we will be acting hypocritically, play-acting, pretending to be virtuous when actually we aren't?" (58).
The statement above makes good logical sense, but is tempered by the scene from Hamlet which illustrates how far we can travel to the opposite extreme in our effort to not be hypocritical.
These consistent choices provide the framework for the Spirit to do what he needs in our lives. <-- This is the gist of what I took from this section.
I understand the tension between two understandings of character in which, on the one hand, we are responsible for much of the shape we are in, but on the other hand, are either unwilling (Hamlet's mom) or unable (without the Spirit) to change our character into more than a better acting (as you used the term) version of ourselves.
I guess my assumption has been that putting on virtue in this way is somewhat like my "Here am I" statement. It makes me more readily shaped by Him when He's ready to move. It's not a situation where behavior modification is substituted for the Spirit's work or a way to achieve some sort of self-righteous goal, it's just me responding to what the Spirit is already telling me: that I need to be chasing after the things that are right in lieu of wasting my life.