Communion: Words for Good Friday

I wrote this collection (would it be called a collection?) of reflections last summer in response to a prompt on communion.  I was reading Williams at the time [Shadows of Ecstasy] and (as tends to happen when reading Williams) my writing seems to have been shrouded in obscurity and abstraction.  

But these pieces still burn bright for me, even if they're rather inexplicable to others.  I post them today in honor of Good Friday and a dying God.  

Under the Mercy (as my dear friend would say).   

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candlelight flickers

through gentle darkness, warm

mystery embraced

awash in chanted scripture

echoing soft

harmonies fall

and rise back

into the death of god

and all else fades

but the common union

between man and god and god and man

bread and body, wine and blood

as symbols and sacraments blur

and all is one and in one

and every breath

is holiness

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That which is, becoming that which it is not.  The mundane becoming sacred.  Barriers breached.  Between man and God.  The physical and the eternal.  Not union – the blurring of all into one, the destruction of difference, the swallowing up of self – but communion, the joining of that which is disparate, of symbol and reality, mystery and clarity, temporal and divine.  “Neither is this Thou, yet this also is Thou.”  Lewis states that, other than our neighbour, it is the holiest reality we will ever experience.  Yet it is holy in exactly the same way that our neighbour is holy.  The mystery of fellowship.  Of joining.  Of being one, and not one.  It is humanity taken into God, for it is a taste of the Trinity, and the sacred mystery that undergirds existence – the One that is Three.  It is real when the priest transmutes the elements into body and blood and the incarnation takes on flesh once more – expressing the lengths that Christ will travel for his beloved.  It is real when the Protestant partakes of the symbol – grape juice and saltine – and the spirit is set free to worship God in truth, deep calling out to deep.  And it is real when the Quaker rejects shadows and shells, attesting to the fullness of that which is, was, and will be – the sacred humanity of her neighbour and the God who dwells among them.  And when we are ready, it is real in the strange bright mystery of co-inherence – the bound togetherness of all things. 

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I read a book recently, in which there is a scene.  A scene in which seven siblings, standing beneath a sacred tree, link hands to pit the fullness of their spirit—their united selves—against the evil which threatens them.  There are sacred rituals that take place, sacred symbols that are exchanged, but the reality behind the sacrament’s shadows is the reality of seven hearts that beat as one.  Seven spirits who would each, unhesitatingly, exchange themselves for the other.  Seven children who feel the pain of the other as their own. 

The great horror of this story, the great and unabidable hurt, is that this circle is broken.  Evil wreaks its havoc, and the siblings lose themselves within their own isolated battles for courage and hope.  The generations turn, but nothing is ever the same.  The wholeness that was is no more. 

And I think it was this loss that broke me.  This loss that made me weep long into the night of the book’s ending.  For I had tasted—I had touched—the world as it should be, and it had been torn asunder by forces of decay.

Is it sacrilege to say that this is what Christ came to restore?  This unity of heart and mind.  This sacred circle of brothers and sister, bound by name, and blood, and every feeling of the heart.  This communion of the saints.    

my life in the sun

These last few days (and weeks) have been glorious in Oxford.  Sunshine and warmth and blossoms that fill the air with perfume and color.  I guess I've never really understood about the spring before - about why it's the season for twitterpation and first kisses.  But with a sky so blue and colors so bright it's impossible to feel anything but beautiful.  

That is, unless you're spending the day studying in the library.  Which I was - for a while.  So, in order to cope, I created a new routine: get up (with the assistance of three alarms), spend an hour saturating in the sun while eating a croissant and sipping coffee at Combibos (my new favorite coffee shop), make it to the library around the time they were opening their doors, write, saturate in the sun over a picnic lunch in the Botanic Garden, return to the library, write . . . you get the picture.   

my morning routine

lunch in the Botanic Garden across from Magdalen College

Eventually, however, I gave up on the library all together.  It wasn't helping my panic attacks, so now I just study in the parks . . . permanently.  Usually writing by hand, and then returning to my room to type up the notes at night.  But today I actually took my computer with me.

iced vanilla lattes help the writing process immensely 

the University Parks

So no, it's probably not the most efficient study plan.  And yes, the writing is going terribly slow.  But at least I'm happy while I'm doing it.  'Cause like I said, it's impossible not to feel pretty - at home with earth and sky, content, delighted, capable of flight - in the springtime.

Oxford Writing

This is a picture of me writing my first ever Oxford essay, back in 2008.  It still pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about the writing experience.

On that note, off I go to get some more writing done. 

Traveling by Train

There is a strange exhilaration in train travel. Standing on an open-air platform, under a white-cloud speckled sky, waiting for a metal monster of motion and noise to come hurtling, rumbling, trudging down rusted tracks.

There is magic in moving across country, over rivers, beside fields of flowering yellow, with no roads or cars in sight.  Just spacious glass-filled images of running horses, rugged keeps, and ancient trees.

In Scotland, rumbling down to the border city of Carlisle, we passed a train, all clashing purples and bright reds, barreling in solitude through empty fields, and I couldn't help but wave hello to the Hogwarts Express.

Holiday on the Island

I am back at Oxford, after ten days of being filled with coach travel, Scottish treats, ocean views, and the laughter of friends.

I'm hoping that all of this fullness will spill over from my spirit into my writing, and that I'm ready to hunker down to four weeks of academic rigor as I prepare my option and theory essay for submission, and an outline of my dissertation for presentation to my adviser.

But that's tomorrow's worry.

Today I am full of migraine medication, sleep, espresso, an almond croissant, and bright memories.

Amberle, one of my good friends from undergrad (though how exactly we became friends is a bit of a mystery), flew in the Wednesday before last, the day after I sent off a rough draft of my theory essay to my supervisor.

I went to Heathrow to meet her, brought her back to Oxford, and then proceeded to drag her on a several mile walk through the city, and out to a country pub that (rumor has it) Lewis used to love.

We were attacked by a goose on the way.

Day two involved a visit to the Bodleian, and a very long walk around Magdalen's dear park, into the fellows' garden, pictures on their bridge, and more attacks by rabid killer geese, who flew at us, proceeded to follow our every move, glared daggers, and only allowed us to pass if we hid behind groups of elderly women.

I know he looks innocent, but don't be fooled.

Such excitement.

We also ducked in to Univ (University College), where Lewis did his undergrad, to pay our respects to the Shelley memorial.

And, of course, we paid homage at the Eagle and Child, the Inklings' pub.

Day three was an early morning into London, a stop by Leicester Square to purchase theatre tickets, and a London Walks tour of Westminster Abbey and the changing of the guard.  A Pret lunch at St. Paul's (somewhat of a tradition at this point), a meander across the Millennium Bridge, and a tour of the Globe, as well as a rather exciting hunt for the location of Shakespeare's actual theatre.

They were rehearsing Twelfth Night while we were there, and I couldn't help thinking, That's my play, when I heard the monologues.

Dinner back in Leicester Sq., and then on to The Phantom of the Opera, my third time seeing it, but the first time in nearly eight years.  We were in the last row of the highest balcony, but the singing was wonderfully powerful, and the actress who played Christine gave a uniquely shattered performance – this was not an enamored singer, horrified by a view of ugliness (as Christine often seems to be played – the horror and resistance coming after the phantom's face is seen, not before), but a manipulated and vulnerable child, caught, from the beginning, in waking nightmares she can't escape.  The perfection usually required of Christine's voice gives her character a false sense of control, I think, but this Christine allowed her anguish to affect, and even distort, her music, so that, while she rose to tremendous heights (sometimes despite herself: sing my angel of music!), she also faltered and broke.

And hearing the music sung so well, I was reawakened to the reality that the movie, while a fun celebration of color and pageant, simply falls horribly short on vocals.

Back late, late, late to Oxford, and then packing, getting one hour of sleep, and returning to London to catch the coach to Scotland.

Visiting Kohleun in her beautiful house, with gardens and windows and flatmates with whom to drink coffee, and exploring St. Andrew's with tea crawls and trips to the sea.

Then, on Tuesday, a day in Edinburgh before heading to Cumbria for walks in the Lake District and time with the Doubs – dear friends from days in Egypt.

And I left my heart in a used bookstore where 80-year-old copies of Virginia Woolf's books dwell – but despite painfully cheap prices, there is no room in my suitcases to indulge my adoration.  But I did purchase a 100-year-old calf-skin bound copy of Milton's collected works, using my dissertation as an excuse.

Then back on a Megabus coach (crowded and stinking of urine) to trek down the country to London, and then home to Oxford.

And now I am alone again, with my books and my laptop, preparing to throw myself into research and writing, and wondering if the day will ever come when I have a home to fill with beautifully aged books, and long hours to write for joy and not for degrees, and days to see friends who do not live half a world away.  How I envy Wordsworth his sister and his Coleridge and his writing cottage in the Lake District, yet we must each live our own journeys, and mine, I am afraid, will always be torn between countries and continents and missing faces until the day when all things are made new, and wholeness swallows up the jagged separations.

Until that day I must, with the king and queen of Perelandra, bid my farewells until we pass out of the dimensions of time, and wish the splendour, the love, and the strength upon us all.

shifting seasons under an ever-moving sky

I've always been surprised at the frequency with which one seems to get asked about one's favorite season.  Personally, I've never really had an answer.  I mean, how does one differentiate between hot, hotter, and hottest?  Granted, I'm not being completely fair, but most of my life has measured seasonal change in temperature and little else.  Even in Oregon the seasons weren't particularly radical.  At least, not where I was walking through campus with my head stuck in a mountain of books.  Drizzly, rainy, sporadic sunshine.  Nothing too exciting.

But here, here I love to watch the seasons change.

Granted, most of winter wasn't particularly spectacular, though there is nothing much lovelier than snow falling in glowing lamplight.

But these days the world is awash with sprinkling petals -- consumed with flowering trees.

And in our college courtyard, I watch a tree, day by day, unfurl tiny, jewel-green leaves, sure I've never seen life bloom so gradually. 

But the autumn is definitely how I'll remember Oxford (due, in part, to the reality that it used to be the only way I remebered Oxford and will always be the way I saw it first).  The walls of ancient colleges ablaze with flaming vines.

As Virginia Woolf put it, "If the spirit of peace dwells anywhere, it is in the courts and quadrangles of Oxbridge on a fine October morning."

And over it all, a sky that changes day by day, hour by hour.  That glows in swimming blues, and yearns in charcoal grays.

To quote Woolf again (from Jacob's Room with some small alterations [and I'll reward anyone who spots them]):

They say the sky is the same everywhere. But above Oxford -- anyhow above the roof of Christ Church -- there is a difference. Is it fanciful to suppose the sky, washed into the crevices of Christ Church, lighter, thinner, more sparkling that the sky elsewhere? Does Oxford burn not only into the night, but into the day?

What did I do to deserve to live somewhere so spectacularly, hauntingly beautiful?

Oxford in Bloom

Spring, it would seem, is finally here.  Yesterday and today: actually WARM outside. 

Just ask Corinne.  

  

Cressida: "the nonsocial, nonpolitical, nonhuman half of the living structure" [Cixous]

Here's a reflection I wrote on the 2nd best play of the term, Troilus and Cressida.  Somehow I failed to post it (I really need to stop doing that).  
_________________________________

I went to watch Troilus and Cressida last night (Feb. 8th), with a group of friends from college.  It was a student production, playing at the same theatre where I watched The Last Five Years in the fall of 2008. 

And, once again, I left the theatre shaken. 

I had never watched, nor read, Troilus before, and so had no idea what to expect.  I knew it was, on some level, about two lovers in the midst of the Trojan war, but I didn’t know that it was also, much more forcefully, about the dissonance between the heroic world of warrior men, and the women’s realm they took for granted and violated without notice. 

Never having read the text, I’m unsure how much of the theme’s prominence was due to the original and how much to directorial choices, but either way it was a powerful (and sickening) depiction. 

From the beginning, women, clad in silk nightshifts (for the Greeks) and adapted Grecian togas (for the Trojans) set up the space – space that was then vacated of female presence (or, in the few cases that women remain on stage, active female presence).  Initially, I found the costume choices jarring, not least because of the dissonance between the semi-historical Trojan dresses, and the modern military attire of the men.  But as the play wore on, I came to appreciate that dissonance as a symbol of the utter separation of the two worlds.  As Kim (my  flatmate) pointed out during intermission, she disliked the costumes because they made the women vulnerable, and these “were not vulnerable women.”  But I think that was the point.  They make the women vulnerable despite themselves—barefoot in a world of boot-clad men—as the play goes on to graphically demonstrate that they are. 

But where I first truly grew uncomfortable (and began to sense the direction the play must be going) was in the “joyous” scene where Troilus and Cressida finally come together and swear their vows, and where Pandarus declares that if Troilus is true, let all faithful men be named Troilus, but if Cressida is false, let all faithless women be called Cressid.  She cannot be honored for a faithfulness that is expected of her, only dishonored by betrayal. 

And, of course, the injustice of this curse is staggering.  For women are not granted choices in a time of war.  They are treated as property, not beings with agency, yet they are still judged by adherence to ideals they have no choice in upholding (or violating). 

And so it is that Helen is talked about in all male-councils, bargained with as a possession that will increase or decrease male honor, and kept or given away on this basis alone. 

So it is that Cressida is traded to the Greeks, while Helen kept, because giving Helen back (despite general consensus that she is a whore without worth) would lessen Trojan honor, proving that they could not keep what they had stolen.  So Cressida is traded in order to return a captured Trojan (male) and uphold Trojan (male) promises. 

And Pandarus weeps, not for his niece given to the enemy, but for the boy who loves her, for this, he is sure, will destroy him.  It would be better, Pandarus declares, that Cressida had never been born than that this separation pain Troilus. 

And while Hector is welcomed into the Grecian camp as a brother in arms, worthy of honor despite the hundreds of deaths he has caused, Cressida, innocent of shedding a single Grecian’s blood, is met with sexual and physical assault. 

And, of course, Troilus sees her with Diomedes and judges her by standards of strength and choice she does not posses. 

Meanwhile, Andromache's pleas that Hector remain at home are received with the declaration that she is bringing him dishonor, for he has given his word that he will fight that day.  Never mind that Hector’s death, and Troy’s overthrow, will mean the enslavement of his prophetic wife and sister.  No, it is masculine honor at stake, not women’s freedom. 

And Achilles, who has promised his Trojan love that he will not fight, breaks his word to the woman in order to honor his love for his (male) companion, Patroclus. 

And the play ends with the Trojans singing, in the face of Hector’s death and Troy’s doom, of the honor for which they will be remembered.  And the women, weeping, sing with them – despite the knowledge that they have no part in the heroic deeds that will be passed down in memory, and will, instead, outlive their men to die in captivity and enslavement far away from home. 

And it makes me rage, because they simply don’t get it.  The men, with their honor and their male bonds and their realms of action and decision, do not understand the cost.  They break no promises, and are therefore innocent.  And, in their own way, so breathtakingly, fragily, beautiful.

The play itself was well acted, especially by Pandarus, Hector, and Thersites -- the wretched fool -- played by an actress with incredible physical control.  Cressida fidgeted too much, and though I understand the intention behind filling her with nervous energy, the movement was generated by the actress, not the character, and therefore distracted from the imagined reality, rather than adding to it.  Overall, Cressida, as a character, was not portrayed as overly sympathetic (this is not a girl I'd particularly want to know), but then I kind of think that's the point -- she doesn't deserve sympathy because we like her, she deserves it because she's just an ordinary human girl who's been wronged.  And thanks to some pretty impressive directing, the fight scenes, rather than being half-hearted and corny (as I feared they would be) were stylistic and interesting -- feeding the actors' energy and our own.    

"Medea I will become"

They huddled together, a mass of breathing, heaving, humanity: women, sibyls, witches, spirits, chorus, fates, woman.  Medea.

Medea unveiled.  De-masked.  Fractured, powerful, dangerous, vulnerable, mourning, mad, screaming, agonized, laughing, victorious, deadly.  Each of the actresses, both Medea and not Medea.  Medea as she becomes, Medea as she was, Medea as she is not.

By far the best play of term, it held us in its grasp for only fifty minutes.  A bare stage, a flurry of movement, a wailing, cacophony of voices.  It embodied the chaos of a conflicted soul, a woman torn between her choices.  This Medea was not guilty or innocent, evil or good, justifiable or monstrous, woman or demon, but all at once.  This Medea was the raging presence of all her sins and all her virtues -- her past guilt and long forgotten innocence.

It was a Kristevean revelry in the rage, rhythm, and passion of the chora, yet created from its chaos meaning that crystallized like diamond, digging deep.

And at its climax, splattered with the blood of a torn child, Medea stood, gloating in her furious, avenging glory, and crouched, shattered with grief, agonizingly gentle as she gathered the torn pieces of her once-breathing child. 

Here's a link to a brief clip from the play.

A Rowing Life

So, I never truly posted about rowing, so here's a taster from last fall, written by one of my teammates, the fabulous Corinne Smith: back it down, stern pair.  She's an English MSt student, the only other postgrad on the team, and I think she excellently captures the gist of the rowing experience.  If I had written it though, the title would be, "row it on, bow pair."

Our team has changed a bit since last term, as we lost several girls when the weather turned dreary (not that it wasn't dreary already), and our two captains now row with us (since, having rowed Christ Church, we're no longer a novice crew).  But the experience remains basically unchanged, the only real difference being that we now punctuate our midnight study sessions with erg training -- need to work on that stamina.   

And for the record, we did lose.  And lose.  And lose.  Good thing that I'm not in it for the racing.  Just the early morning training sessions.  =)