The Dead Poets Society: Meandering Answers to Formal Questions

Oftentimes, when I’m just getting to know someone, and we’re heading through all the small talk, I mention I’m an English major, said “someone” quips, “Oh, well, you must LOVE The Dead Poets Society!” I then find out why, as an English major, I should love this film: apparently a Robin Williams character inspires boys to live in the freedom of creativity through introducing them to the reality of poetry. Literature, according to the new “someones” in my life, comes alive in this film, and begins changing the lives of boys who are stuck in a patriarchal, strict, formal, 1950s private school situation.

Recently I was introduced to a video on YouTube, the link as follows: 

             

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obTNwPJvOI8

 

I think every anxiety I’ve ever had about attempting to become an English professor is contained in this short, badly-done video. But then, there’s the girl with the pigtails, the eternal optimist, hoping to make a difference in the world through writing, research and… teaching “like Robin Williams in The Dead Poets Society.” Hmmmm, thought I, it’s time to watch this film.

            (WARNING: Spoilers throughout!) It’s a lovely film in a lot of ways; I got goose bumps in all the right places, I think, even when they did ridiculous things like stand on their desks. I cried at the end, but that’s no surprise: this is ME we’re talking about… I happen to be the person who cries at the end of Monsters, Inc. every time: heck, I cried near the end of Dickens’ great novel David Copperfield, when Dora dies (don’t judge me!).

            But something was not satisfying about this movie. I’ve been sitting on that dissatisfaction for a couple of weeks now, and I see now that the movie is connected to other thoughts I’ve had in relation to some of my classes: the aestheticism that John Keating (Robin Williams’ character) promotes is extremely Paterian, and therefore reminiscent of Oscar Wilde. In other words, literature is not the primary agent of change in these boys’ lives, but an aesthetic philosophy, a philosophy which is in diametric opposition to the philosophy of “The Educators” in this film. “The Educators” is a poem by postmodern Scottish poet D. M. Black, and it begins like this:

In their

limousines the

teachers come: by

hundreds. O the

square is

blackened with dark suits, with grave

scholastic faces. They

wait to be summoned.

                                    These are the

educators, the

father-figures. O you could

warm with love for the firm lips, the

responsible foreheads. Their

ties are strongly set, between their collars. They

pass with dignity the exasperation of waiting.

As it was written in 1969, this poem is in dialogue with the issues brought forward in The Dead Poets Society. As the poem moves forward, a dwarf, which can be read as a symbol of myth, imagination, and creativity, is literally dismembered by the educators, with graphic and systematic efficiency. I had to do a formalist analysis of “The Educators” for my Critical Approaches class, and its relation to the film struck me immediately. At the end of the poem:

They

return to their cars. They

drive off smoothly, without disorder;

watching the road.

The ending is full of irony, given the violence which precedes their calm, "disorderly" exit. According to Black and the makers of The Dead Poets Society, this is how education was in post- war America. If it was the case, it was a good thing these power hungry, brain-washing preachers of conformity were overthrown, and a new definition of the word “education” was developed. But is Keating’s new definition adequate? Is it the answer to the problems in an old model?

            Firstly, it struck me that there is actually very little poetry quoted in the film from great “dead” poets. I caught some Shakespeare, as well as some Byron, here and there; John Keating’s name is obviously an allusion to John Keats, the great Romantic poet. But I kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for some of the “greats” to be brought forward as an answer to the stifling atmosphere at Welton Academy. Mostly, Keating spends his classroom time teaching the boys to get new perspectives, and to balk their current education restrictions. He gets them to tear out the mathematical introduction to poetry in their text books, to stand on their desks (symbolic of said “new perspective”), and to march in unison in the courtyard (symbolic of conformity), always emphasizing to the boys their uniqueness as human beings, and the creative contribution of beauty they can make to the world.

            Ah, beauty: this is where Walter Pater comes in. Pater was an English essayist and critic: his dates are 1839- 1894. Keating isn’t really preaching a return to the poets, but a return to beauty and imagination as an end in itself: Pater writes, in the conclusion of his work The Renaissance: 

"To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. […] The theory or idea or system which requires of us the sacrifice of any part of this experience, in consideration of some interest into which we cannot enter, or some abstract theory we have not identified with ourselves, or what is only conventional, has no real claim on us. […] For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love […]. Of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for art’s sake, has most.” 

I LOVE Pater’s prose, by the way: it’s gorgeous! But art for art’s sake, the beauty of the moment (“carpe diem” anybody?), living with passion… John Keating, I’m taking bets, loves this guy to bits. This language also has sexual connotations, and it seems that many writers have illustrated the natural conclusion of this philosophy, if it is taken to its extreme. Try Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray: Wilde was an aesthete of the Paterian mold, but he saw the logical end of attempting to live Pater’s transcendence through the worship of beauty. Try again, (but don’t read!) D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In that novel physical experience is the goal, the only way to achieve the actual connections in life.

            Therefore, I admit it: when Knox Overstreet in The Dead Poets Society bends over and kisses an all but senseless maid lying on a couch at a party, it gives me the creeps. His rally cry? “Carpe diem!” He worships her beauty, but the relational, mutual aspect of this opportunity is utterly negated. I know I was supposed to take Knox’s side in the fight that ensues with Christine’s boyfriend, but part of me felt that the blows were deserved. Later, when Christine says to Knox, “you don’t even know me!” I thought: exactly. She is a beautiful, physical body to Knox. He is living “poetic passion” and the “desire of beauty”… but it leads him to objectify another human being.

            Then of course, there’s the main character Neil Perry. He is prevented from living his passion, the beauty and transcendence of the moment through acting, and this circumstance leads to his suicide. Besides the fact that I felt his controlling father was over done, I couldn’t help but feel that his suicide was more than the result of the brain-numbing atmosphere at his private school. His suicide happened, in part, because Keating offers him freedom with no form, with no end, with no structures. Neil has no ability and no point of reference for this approach to life, and indeed, it could be argued that humans are not made to live a “formless” life. The diametric opposition of the two philosophies he is offered results in no middle ground… he wants one but must have the other, so he kills himself.

           

            One of my favourite priests of all time, Fr. Clair Watrin, always says, “You were made to be captured! The question is: what will you let capture you?” This comment, I think, reveals true freedom. Freedom, according to The Dead Poets Society, is the ability to live the passion of the “hard, gemlike flame” as per Walter Pater and the worship of beauty. True freedom, I think, is the ability to choose a form that we will live out of: the freedom of “formlessness” is an illusion and trap. Personally, I have chosen the “form” of the Catholic faith, and that form lets me know that beauty reveals the ultimate End, an Object for the transcendence of art: God. Imagination, creativity, and beauty are a means to communion with the Most High. This End places a moral structure on poetry and experience of beauty, thus preventing the use of people in order to experience beauty and passion for their own sakes. The “form” at Welton Academy is not to be desired, as it devalues the students and squelches individuality, imagination, and creativity, but Keating’s answer to this problem is also not sufficient.

            And I suppose you’re free to disagree with me. Just know that you're replying from a form that has captured you!

AMEN- Musings on the Book of Tobit

Poet and Critic T. S. Eliot

I have so much to catch up on here; I decided to make my organizing principle the Book of Tobit. I recently re-read it: it’s amazing how scripture can stand out to you in different ways, depending on what’s happening in your life!

Here I am on IMPACT Calgary, and things are falling into place so well. I have been conducting some reading for my special project essay, and recently my subject has been T.S. Eliot. His view of himself in relation to tradition is so different from C. S. Lewis, and vastly different from W. B. Yeats: “In a peculiar sense [the poet] will be aware also that he must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past. I say judged, not amputated, by them; not judged to be as good as, or worse or better than, the dead; and certainly not judged by the canons of dead critics. It is a judgement, a comparison, in which two things are measured by each other. […] Someone said: 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know” (“Tradition and the Individual Talent,” 1945). C. S. Lewis, I think, saw his era as “amputated” from the past, and believed that the past cannot be judged at all by the present, given the past could have no conception of what was to come. Yeats, I think, would take offense to Eliot’s linear feel of time: to Yeats, time moved in a gyre. This gyre moved inevitably towards cataclysmic change, and then the gyre would begin again. Eliot’s “pile-up” method of history and literature, where the current era is always on the top, always taking advantage of the past and enriched by the past, contains an almost Victorian confidence. I’ve been struggling a bit with all of these views: I feel as though I sense pride in everyone, but that, in a sense, by making judgments about literature and arguing for a case, no matter how convinced we are of ourselves and our argument, it will come across as full of pride, as “my way or the highway.” All three poets / writers / critics, on the other hand, DO contain an awe of the past which makes them feel small and insignificant in the currents of literature and its place in history. We can make judgments, but with the knowledge of our place amongst those who have come before and those who will come after.

What does all this have to do with the Book of Tobit? I was struck by both Tobit and Sarah’s prayers to the Lord, made in all humility, and yet made with all honesty regarding their feelings, sufferings, and what they think should be done in their situations! Tobit acknowledges that the Lord’s judgments are “many and true” and yet feels that “I have heard insulting calumnies, and I am overwhelmed with grief.” He begs God to act, in all confidence. Sarah too begins her prayer with “Blessed are you, O Lord, merciful God,” thereby immediately acknowledging her place before the Lord, but she is free to judge, in her situation, how God can help her: “look favorably upon me and have pity on me; never again let me hear these insults!” (Chapter 3). It strikes me that the ability to make judgments and arguments for the “right” course of action is the gift of God to humans. We are allowed to approach our fellow man with our judgments and thoughts about life, literature, and actions, as long as we have knowledge that we don’t know the whole picture, we may be wrong, and God may want to work in ways we don’t expect. Lewis, Yeats, and Eliot can be approached in this way. This is the reason why I can make judgments about THEIR judgments as well.

These musings apply to mission here in Calgary. The Archangel Raphael hears Sarah and Tobit’s prayers in the presence of the Lord, and is sent by Him to heal them physically, spiritually and emotionally. In a sense, God gives them exactly what they asked for. But in another sense, God blows them away with his answer to their problems! His answer is beyond their wildest dreams. Says Raphael: “Take courage! God has healing in store for you; so take courage!” I think I knew that this was the case for me before coming on IMPACT, but the reality of God's healing has been full of pleasant surprises.

Take, for instance, the call out of myself with music. God is asking me to come to the front lines to lead His people in worship! My gift for music has often been buried, or given to people who I know love me and won’t judge me: it is a gift that has been wrapped up in wounds, pride, and selfishness. It’s time for the veil to be lifted, to be transformed from glory to glory. Tobit’s healing at the hand of Raphael and his son Tobiah is such a good illustration of this! “Then, beginning at the corners of Tobit’s eyes, Tobiah used both hands to peel off the cataracts. When Tobit saw his son, he threw his arms around him and wept. He exclaimed, ‘I can see you, son, the light of my eyes!’” I want to see THE SON through my worship. I want others to see Him too, and to be moved to worship the One they see with new eyes. Tobit’s immediate reaction is to praise: “Blessed be God, and praised be his great name!” (Chapter 11).

And so we come to the great Name: JESUS. I have been convicted recently of the necessity of praying His Holy Name. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2666, says that this Holy Name “contains all: God and man and the whole economy of creation and salvation. To pray ‘Jesus’ is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the ONLY ONE THAT CONTAINS THE PRESENCE IT SIGNIFIES.” The Book of Tobit ends with the same word that ends the entire Bible: “Amen.” This is how we end our Creedo as Catholics as well. The “Amen” at the end of Tobit strikes me because it is stating the fact that Tobit, Tobiah and Sarah have been living their lives as a prayer. By closing the story with an “Amen,” a “so be it,” a “yes” to God, the writer of Tobit acknowledges that the line between “real life” and “prayer life” is no line at all. Our prayer informs our life and our life informs our prayer. The Catechism says, in paragraph 1065: “Jesus Christ [there’s that Holy Name again] himself is the ‘Amen.’ He is the definitive ‘Amen’ of the Father’s love for us. He takes up and completes our ‘Amen’ to the Father: ‘For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter Amen through him, to the glory of God’ [St. Augustine].”

This entry contains a lot of heavy musings! I’m actually full of joy and peace right now, but also in awe of what God does for us. To sum up, I begin with Jesus and end with Him. Period. T. S. Eliot was wise when he wrote in his Four Quartets: “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.” This applies to research, scripture, tradition, journeys on missions, you name it. Am I learning my place before God? You bet. Did I know it before? Absolutely. Head knowledge to heart knowledge takes the working of grace, however. But at the end of my mission and life, may my cry be AMEN, and may the One who bears the Holy Name purify my AMEN through His constant saving action.

AMEN!

The Shepherd: Philosopher and Lover

I've been meditating on one of my favorite art history symbols of Jesus: that of the shepherd and philosopher above. Notice that he has the staff of the philosopher, the shaven face of the Greeks, and that his other hand is placed oh-so-gently on the lamb. Jesus is all about the integration of the human and divine, in his very essence, and in the humility with which he comes to us as a man. He can truly be a "philosopher" and all that word contains, including wisdom and knowledge in its fullness, and yet take the humble position of the shepherd. I have been reading my man Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) and recently I came across the following: "Human knowledge is insufficient and the conclusions of science cannot indicate by themselves the path towards integral human development. There is always a need to push further ahead: this is what is required by charity in truth. Going beyond, however, never means prescinding from the conclusions of reason, nor contradicting its result. Intelligence and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in intelligence and intelligence is full of love." The emphasis is his, not mine.

Talk about lightening bolts from God. This summer I specifically asked him to help me integrate the various aspects of my life, including my passion for literature and communication and my love for Jesus and missionary work. If Jesus can be both philosopher and lover, so can I. If Jesus can be an academic as well as a humble man who goes to the hungry and broken, then so can I. If the great man Benedict XVI can talk about intelligence as nothing without love, then I can talk like that too, and hopefully live it out.

I've recently had two "run-ins" with people in academia who, I feel, live their life based on hierarchies: the university, to them, represented the epitome, the pinnacle of life. Contrast that with all the wisdom of God becoming man, becoming a humble shepherd. In Lesson 1 of Discovery, which we led last night in the parishes of the Calgary diocese, one of the scripture passages we looked at is John 10: 10-15. Verse 11 says "I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." During faith study training this past Saturday one of my fellow Impacters pointed out the stupidity of sheep: why does Jesus "lower himself" so much, even to the point of dying for his stupid sheep? Because the sheep have value given to them by the shepherd. They represent his livelihood, his whole life. He has bought and paid for them.

To love is to flow outside of oneself, and Jesus does this through his death.

Two days ago I sat in the library reading articles on C. S. Lewis and historicism. It felt unbelievably good. It felt even better in the knowledge that I'm a missionary this summer, and that my missionary work doesn't fall off of me at the door of the library. Every smile I give and every moment I offer up is a prayer for the conversion of souls.

The main challenge that I've had in ministry so far is encountering a sort of "been there, done that," attitude towards the basic message of God's love as expressed through Jesus Christ. The four-point Gospel message is something we'll be growing in until we die. We won't know the fullness of his love, nor express it properly, until the great Beatific Vision. Until heaven, I will be perusing the fact that I'm made for a relationship with God, that I break it through my sin, that Jesus has restored that relationship through humbly becoming man and dying and rising for my sins, and that I have a choice as to whether or not I will participate in that relationship. I can expand in this great mystery to no end, and praise God that this is so! This fact keeps me child-like, humble, and more attune to the sufferings of others.

May I never tire of discovering the depth of his love. May I remain in awe of the kerygma, just as Father Gerard Manley Hopkins maintained his awe of the simple flight of the falcon, in awe of its power and majesty, despite its being something that happens every day. Hopkins dedicated his poem, The Windhover, to Christ our Lord:

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,	5
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion	10
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

IMPACT Calgary video blog #1

Hello everyone!
My contribution this week is multi-medial (if that's even a WORD). I think it pretty much speaks for itself!

I hope to do another video with my parish team, and then soon after that give you some of the nitty gritty of IMPACT life.

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N74CiNtt7k

"Been a long time": Led Zeppelin and Calgary's IMPACT 2010

Well, the last time I wrote here I was when I was blogging for IMPACT 2009 in Saskatoon. It's time for more blogging, but this time you get the insider look, the personal touch, the struggles, the love, the mission.....

The title of my blog reminded me of the great rock god Led Zeppelin: "Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time!!!" (Robin sings/screams at the top of her lungs.....) It HAS been a long time for me, a long time since I was on mission, a long time since I've had to be this extroverted and energetic, a long time since I've had to sacrifice as much as I have in the last week. I was curious, so I looked up the lyrics to that great musical piece, and found that other lyrics applied in my circumstance. Here's a sample:

"Its been a long time since I rock and rolled,
Its been a long time since I did the stroll.
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back,
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from.
Its been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.

Its been a long time since the book of love,
I can't count the tears of a life with no love.

Open your arms, opens your arms,
Open your arms, baby, let my love come running in.
Its been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time."

This song also implies that the desire of the heart is happening NOW, and in my case I can say that it's true. I've been longing to give the love of Jesus in a big way. I've seen a lot of glory in my life, but now is the time to be transformed "from glory to glory" as our IMPACT theme says (2 Corinthians 3:18). I'm going to open my arms and let the love come running in, but I hope it runs out from me too. I'm going to rock and roll and do the stroll. Let's do it!

We had our first Sunday in the parishes this past Sunday. St. Pius X is probably one of the most welcoming communities I've ever seen, and so is the University of Calgary Catholic Community. I see God's hand in a big way in my parish placement. There are a lot of families and different ages represented at St. Pius: our parish priest is the gentle and soft-spoken Fr. Silvano, a holy and faithful Filipino priest. There are two deacons at St. Pius as well. I had the pleasure of listening to Deacon Stephen preach this past Sunday, and the man is ON FIRE. He spoke about God's love and how we're taught in stages: first we learn to love our neighbor as ourselves, then to love as we love Jesus, and then to love as Jesus has loved us. He brought the IMPACT mission into his homily too...

I'm very excited about the U of C Catholic Community. Before coming to Calgary I had had many convos with various people from Calgary about the community and the bridging role of the St. Pius team for the new Calgary staff team this fall! All that talk, and I've been placed here, able to be a bridge as much as possible. The community is already on board for Cornerstones, music, you name it. Eden, the sacristan, got us working right away: I got to bear the cross for mass last night. Fr. Thao is our Vietnamese bundle of joy at U of C Catholic. I have never seen someone vibrate so completely as when Fr. Thao laughs. What a great university student chaplain!!

More to come, so stay tuned!

Memorare:
Remember O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession, was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. AMEN.