And we do that by listening to what he says through the Bible, à la Bonhoeffer. (Psalm 143 was important enough to me in the 1980s that I memorized it.)
What I meant to imply with that may not have been clear enough: I was being quiet and letting David, the psalmist, speak, pray in my stead, because I was hurting.
A side note on that is the similarity between the first petition in the Lord’s Prayer and David’s concern in verse 11 of that psalm,
For your name’s sake, Lord…
The priorities of petitioners’ hearts were the same.
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Pseudonymously, Kierkegaard employs this technique, or something similar to it in regard to Abraham’s faith in Fear and Trembling, a technique that one translator/commentator (Bruce Kirmmse) calls “Negative Cartography” in reference to the subtitle of the book, “Guide to an Unknown Country.” The fictitious narrator of the book states clearly, many times throughout the book, that he does not have faith, and represents himself in ways that make it clear he is a typical, contemporarneous member of the Danish church. Throughout the book the narrator keeps describing what faith is not, or what the boundaries of faith are, or the highly formulaic “Teleological Suspension of the Ethical”. But he repeatedly confesses that he does not know what faith is experientially. He can only describe it from the outside.
This is not the technique that Kierkegaard uses to inform himself of God as far as I can tell. Obviously, I have only read a tiny fraction of his work so far. His knowledge of Scripture is deep and wide. His work is utterly steeped in it. Part of the challenge reading Fear and Trembling is the constant scriptural reference by SK’s choice of vocabulary, turn of phrase, etc. As one reads his work thoroughly broadly, one may disagree with SK regarding matters of interpretation and how he interprets Scripture, but he was not “making it up.”
In the small portion of his work that I’ve read so far, it’s obvious that SK was intellectually a man of his time and geography. Romanticism, and I think particularly German Romanticism, is just as clear as Hegel and many other streams of thought. He had a voracious rational mind that was thoroughly Christian.
Mike, I really recommend you find some of his books and start digging in. I linked The Essential Kierkegaard up in the last quote I shared. Start with his shorter religious works. “The Two Ages” (p. 252) is where his later, and mostly signed (not pseudonymous) works are found. The EK is an anthology with large excerpts, so everything is shortened; not entire works, but I think they’ve made a good effort to provide enough of each work to give an accurate “thumbnail” of the entire thing.
It’s better to discuss informed, rather to argue speculatively what might have been.
Dale, with all that in mind, I recommend you completely and thoroughly reread the quote from SK’s “Lily in the Field” and think over what Kierkegaard actually said and why, etc.
Find out what he was really saying as much is as possible. I think you are arguing against problems that don’t exist.
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In case people missed the quote from Kierkegaard’s discouse on The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air in all the bits and pieces that followed it, here it is again. It’s a perfect morning to share it, while I’m listening to birds from all directions.
Enjoy.
FROM the lily and the bird as teachers, let us learn
silence, or learn to be silent.
Surely it is speech that distinguishes humanity above the animal and then, if you like, far above the lily. But because the ability to speak is an advantage, it does not follow that the ability to be silent would not be an art or would be an inferior art. On the contrary, because the human being is able to speak, the ability to be silent is an art, and a great art precisely because this advantage of his so easily tempts him. But this he can learn from the silent teachers, the lily and the bird.
“Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness.”
But what does this mean, what am I to do, or what is the effort that can be said to seek, to aspire to God’s kingdom? Shall I see about getting a position commensurate with my talents and abilities in order to be effective in it? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. Shall I give all my possessions to the poor? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. Shall I then go out and proclaim this doctrine to the world? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. But then in a certain sense it is nothing I shall do? Yes, quite true, in a certain sense it is nothing. In the deepest sense you shall make yourself nothing, become nothing before God, learn to be silent. In this silence is the beginning, which is to seek first God’s kingdom.
…In the deepest sense, to become silent in this way, silent before God, is the beginning of the fear of God, because just as the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so silence is the beginning of the fear of God. And just as the fear of God is more than the beginning of wisdom, is wisdom, so silence is more than the beginning of the fear of God, is the fear of God. In this silence the many thoughts of wishes and desires God-fearingly fall silent; in this silence the verbosity of thanksgiving God-fearingly becomes silent.
The advantage of the human being over the animal is the ability to speak, but, in relation to God, wanting to speak can easily become the corruption of the human being, who is able to speak. God is in heaven and the human being is on earth and therefore they can hardly converse. God is infinite wisdom; what the human being knows is idle chatter; therefore they can hardly converse. God is love and the human being, as we say to a child, is a little ninny even in regard to his own welfare, and therefore they can hardly converse. Only in much fear and trembling is a human being able to speak with God, in much fear and trembling. But to speak in much fear and trembling is difficult for another reason, because just as anxiety makes the voice fail physically, so also much fear and trembling make speech fall into silence. The one who prays aright knows this, and the one who did not pray aright perhaps learned this through prayer. There was something that lay very heavily on his mind, a matter that was very important to him; it was very urgent for him to make himself rightly understood by God; he was afraid he had forgotten something in the prayer, and, alas, if he had forgotten it, he was afraid that God by himself would not remember it–therefore he wanted to concentrate his mind on praying with all his heart. Then what happened to him if he did really pray with all his heart? Something amazing happened to him. Gradually, as he became more and more fervent in prayer, he had less and less to say, and finally he became completely silent. He became silent. Indeed, he became what is, if possible, even more opposite to speaking than silence; he became a listener. He thought that to pray is to speak; he learned that to pray is not only to be silent but is to listen. And so it is; to pray is not to listen to oneself speak but is to become silent and to remain silent, to wait until the one praying hears God.
…
Out there with the lily and the bird there is silence. But what does this silence express? It expresses respect for God, that it is he who rules and he alone to whom wisdom and understanding are due. And just because this silence is veneration for God, is worship, as it can be in nature, this silence is so solemn. And because this silence is solemn in this way, one is aware of God in nature–what wonder, then, when everything is silent out of respect for him! Even if he does not speak, the fact that everything is silent out of respect for him affects one as if he spoke.What you can learn, however, from the silence out there with the lily and the bird without the help of any poet, what only the Gospel can teach you, is that it is earnestness, that there must be earnestness, that the bird and the lily shall be the teacher, that you shall imitate them, learn from them in all earnestness, that you shall become as silent as the lily and the bird.
Indeed, this is already earnestness–if it is understood properly, not as the dreaming poet or as the poet who lets nature dream about him understands it–this, that out there with the lily and the bird you are aware that you are before God, something that usually is entirely forgotten in speaking and conversing with other human beings. When just we two are speaking together, even more so when we are ten or more, it is very easily forgotten that you and I, we two, or we ten, are before God. But the lily, who is the teacher, is profound. It does not become involved with you at all; it is silent, and by being silent it wants to be a sign to you that you are before God, so that you remember that you are before God–so that you also in earnestness and truth might become silent before God.
The Essential Kierkegaard p. 333+.
Available free here:
You will need to set up a free account to borrow it online.
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Memory is frequently the bond slave of despondency.
Wisdom can readily transform memory into an angel of comfort.
C.H. Spurgeon
…if they would prayerfully rake the ashes of the past, they would find light for the present
Nice metaphor.
…rehearse his deeds of grace.
It’s about God’s providence, in your life and others’.
Surely it must be an affliction for a tender child to be separated from his father. Art thou a child of God, and yet satisfied to go on without seeing thy Father’s face? What! thou the spouse of Christ, and yet content without his company!
We no longer speak of health as the natural or normal condition of our bodies and the world. We speak of health as the hoped-for result of the use of products produced by the health industry, which thrives upon illness. As the land and people languish, the economy prospers (for a while).
From the Introduction in Wendell Berry’s “The Need To Be Whole” (Patriotism and the History of Prejudice) 2022.
I expect this new acquired book to be my reading companion over the next days - and maybe more quotes from it to show up here.
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Wow,…ouch. I can see a huge problem in some cases–sometimes the maddest people I meet are those convinced of a delusion who I can’t treat, in good conscience (delusional parasitosis, Internet false diagnosis of low testosterone, Hashimotos, negative tests for Lyme, for example). . On the other hand, being a praise addict can make me want to treat someone who doesn’t need something, just for the idea of having helped them. I sometimes have to stop and think before I prescribe.
The addition of meds that make us achieve happiness chemically faster than by hard work and living in the real world (benzodiazepines like Valium and opioids like oxycodone) makes it harder yet. By definition, they make us more painful or anxious to come off them, and we think that only they can help us. However, most people I see come off them are much happier.
The first part of the Hippocratic oath is “do no harm”–it’s harder than I thought. I have to be people’s physician, not their friend.
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I’m curious as to those who like Kierkegaard–have any of you also read Dorothy Sayers, by chance? I was just reading the introduction to “Letters to a Diminished Church.”
It reminds me a bit of Kierkegaard’s work–but I have not read much of either. Maybe @Jay313 ? Thanks.
She reportedly was a feminist and Christian apologist who found help for her faith in part after reading George MacDonald’s “Unspoken Sermons.”
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Sadly, I haven’t read Dorothy Sayers. I need to rectify that. But I did find this quote, and if that’s being a feminist, sign me up.
“Every woman is a human being—one cannot repeat that too often.”
—Dorothy Sayers
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Well, I read that her book “Gaudy Night” was the first feminist mystery story 
Dorothy L. Sayers - Wikipedia. She was an intellectual. I have enjoyed her Wimsey stories, but was intrigued by her other side more recently. (not that I’ve read much, sadly).
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Dorothy Sayers Quotes:
There’s nothing you can’t prove if your outlook is only sufficiently limited.
A man once asked me … how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. “Well,” said the man, “I shouldn’t have expected a woman (meaning me) to have been able to make it so convincing.” I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also.
Books… are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development
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So far, everything that you, @MarkD and @jpm quote from Berry makes me want to read more Berry. I have actually accumulated a good deal of his work but just can’t read fast enough. And the stuff on my ereaders is far less obvious than the heaps of books on the chair behind me, my nightstand, the lid of the turntable, the filing cabinet next to my desk, etc. etc.
We need more prophets with such clear sight and voices.
@Randy, I have only read Sayers’s Harriet Vane mysteries, which include P. Wimsy. @Jay313 Her feminism in those is a beautiful type, but incredibly subversive for the time — a strong, ethical woman with a past that people focus on, rather than the woman who is trying to make a new life for herself. Love Sayers!
(Except that she uses too many extended quotes in French, and I read the books before the Internet and Google Translate were known to the general public.)
While I was waiting at the hospital last week, I was going to read some of a bio I have on Sayers, that I bought at the Wade Center last summer at Wheaton College. (The Wade Center is the largest repository in the world of C. S. Lewis’s work and papers, but it also includes Tolkien, Sayers, MacDonald, and two or three other authors I”m not thinking of. ) But I lacked the concentration. The bio on Sayers is called Subversive and is by Crystal Downing. Sayers, like Berry and so many others, is on my list. Thanks for the title. Would you keep us posted, as you find things worthy of sharing. I think she surely has a lot.
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Liam, I just ran across your post the other day, when I was looking for something else, and it goes really well with Kierkegaard’s “Lily in the Field, Bird of the Air.” Kierkegaard encourages his listener to learn from nature how to be before God and how to attend to Him.
Thanks for pointing to such neat books as you always do.
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Just splendid, Randy!
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I started rereading Jenny O’Dell How to do Nothing the other day and had a long stretch of mindless activity that I could fill with it, while I worked today. I’ll try to gather some of my favorite points from it as I go again.
Nothing is harder to do than nothing. In a world where our value is determined by our productivity, many of us find our every last minute captured, optimized, or appropriated as a financial resource by the technologies we use daily. We submit our free time to numerical evaluation, interact with algorithmic versions of each other, and build and maintain personal brands. For some, there may be a kind of engineer’s satisfaction in the streamlining and networking of our entire lived experience. And yet a certain nervous feeling, of being overstimulated and unable to sustain a train of thought, lingers. Though it can be hard to grasp before it disappears behind the screen of distraction, this feeling is in fact urgent. We still recognize that much of what gives one’s life meaning stems from accidents, interruptions, and serendipitous encounters: the “off time” that a mechanistic view of experience seeks to eliminate.
….
In the face of the increasingly materialist and pragmatic orientation of our age…it would not be eccentric in the future to contemplate a society in which those who live for the pleasures of the mind will no longer have the right to demand their place in the sun. The writer, the thinker, the dreamer, the poet, the metaphysician, the observer…he who tries to solve a riddle or to pass judgement will become an anachronistic figure, destined to disappear from the face of the earth like the ichthyosaur and the mammoth.
This book is about how to hold open that place in the sun. It is a field guide to doing nothing as an act of political resistance to the attention economy, with all the stubbornness of a Chinese “nail house” blocking a major highway[1]. I want this not only for artists and writers, but for any person who perceives life to be more than an instrument and therefore something that cannot be optimized. A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act like dams that capitalize on our natural interest in others and an ageless need for community, hijacking and frustrating our most innate desires, and profiting from them. Solitude, observation, and simple conviviality should be recognized not only as ends in and of themselves, but inalienable rights belonging to anyone lucky enough to be alive.
From the introduction of How to do Nothing
O’dell provides an intelligent, thoughtful look at the the way human worth is eroded in a world where everything is commodified. Her work provides an excellent example of how a young, postmodern thinker has something valuable to say about the world, what’s wrong with it, and how to live in it, while fulfilling our duties to our communities.
O’dell describes herself as “ the quintessential California atheist” yet decribes thoughtful discussions with a friend who is RC. Independent of her disinterest in faith, she says much that is of value to Christians.
1 Chinese Nail House
More from the intro of Jenny O’Dell’s book How to do Nothing. Even though the book is not a Christian book at all, she points to values that Christians can, and I believe should, embrace. People and things are not valueable because they are useful and can have a price tag attached. Productivity is not the bottom line for humans and the rest of the natural world. The Protestant Work Ethic is not our friend.
These two lessons should give you a sense of where I’m headed in this book. The first half of “doing nothing” is about disengaging from the attention economy; the other half is about reengaging with something else. That “something else” is nothing less than time and space, a possibility only once we meet each other there on the level of attention. Ultimately, against the placelessness of an optimized life spent online, I want to argue for a new “placefulness” that yields sensitivity and responsibility to the historical (what happened here) and the ecological (who and what lives, or lived, here).
In this book, I hold up bioregionalism as a model for how we might begin to think again about place. Bioregionalism, whose tenets were articulated by the environmentalist Peter Berg in the 1970s, and which is widely visible in indigenous land practices, has to do with an awareness not only of the many life-forms of each place, but how they are interrelated, including with humans. Bioregionalist thought encompasses practices like habitat restoration and permaculture farming, but has a cultural element as well, since it asks us to identify as citizens of the bioregion as much as (if not more than) the state. Our “citizenship” in a bioregion means not only familiarity with the local ecology but a commitment to stewarding it together.
It’s important for me to link my critique of the attention economy to the promise of bioregional awareness because I believe that capitalism, colonialist thinking, loneliness, and an abusive stance toward the environment all coproduce one another. It’s also important because of the parallels between what the economy does to an ecological system and what the attention economy does to our attention. In both cases, there’s a tendency toward an aggressive monoculture, where those components that are seen as “not useful” and which cannot be appropriated (by loggers or by Facebook) are the first to go. Because it proceeds from a false understanding of life as atomized and optimizable, this view of usefulness fails to recognize the ecosystem as a living whole that in fact needs all of its parts to function. Just as practices like logging and large-scale farming decimate the land, an overemphasis on performance turns what was once a dense and thriving landscape of individual and communal thought into a Monsanto farm whose “production” slowly destroys the soil until nothing more can grow. As it extinguishes one species of thought after another, it hastens the erosion of attention.
Why is it that the modern idea of productivity is so often a frame for what is actually the destruction of the natural productivity of an ecosystem? This sounds a lot like the paradox in Zhuang Zhou’s story, which more than anything is a joke about how narrow the concept of “usefulness” is. When the tree appears to the carpenter in his dream, it’s essentially asking him: Useful for what? Indeed, this is the same question I have when I give myself enough time to step back from the capitalist logic of how we currently understand productivity and success. Productivity that produces what? Successful in what way, and for whom? The happiest, most fulfilled moments of my life have been when I was completely aware of being alive, with all the hope, pain, and sorrow that that entails for any mortal being. In those moments, the idea of success as a teleological goal would have made no sense; the moments were ends in themselves, not steps on a ladder. I think people in Zhuang Zhou’s time knew the same feeling.
There’s an important detail at the beginning of the useless tree story. Multiple versions of it mention that the gnarled oak tree was so large and wide that it should shade “several thousand oxen” or even “thousands of teams of horses.” The shape of the useless tree does more than just protect it from the carpenter; it is also the shape of care, of branching out over the thousands of animals who seek shelter, thus providing the grounds for life itself. I want to imagine a whole forest of useless trees, branches densely interwoven, providing an impenetrable habitat for birds, snakes, lizards, squirrels, insects, fungi, and lichen. And eventually, through this generous, shaded, and useless environment might come a weary traveler from the land of usefulness, a carpenter who has laid down his tools. Maybe after a bit of dazed wandering, he might take a cue from the animals and have a seat beneath an oak tree. Maybe, for the first time ever, he’d take a nap.
Listening to this reminded me of our conversation about What We Mean When We Talk About Meaning, and exchanges I’ve had with @SkovandOfMitaze @Klax @MarkD @Jay313 @Randy @NickolaosPappas and @Mervin_Bitikofer
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