the russian doll

I finished Notes from the Underground, by old Fyodor a couple of weeks ago. I think I will need at least a year to absorb it (and even then, not completely), but so much of it resonated with so much of me (who I am and who I have been) that I don’t think it’s too early for reflections – even if they are no more than reflections upon myself.

“I am a sick man… I am a wicked man.”

I was sitting in a very very American coffee shop in the Middle East called Starbucks, perhapsyou’veheardthename? It is a strange thing when one, standing in a desert in North Africa, climbs a staircase planted in the middle of a sea of asphalt, and when his last foot finds that last step he is lifted high off the ground and set down only a few hours later on a different continent, wearing different clothes, reading different books, drinking different coffee. It is just curious enough to inspire the word “surreal”, even though the religion of being rational is a bit too dogmatic to allow such superstitions to linger too long upon the mind’s stage or the lips, even.

But, if just for a moment I could blaspheme, then I would tell you that the whole thing was surreality within surreality, nested to so many iterations that even now the rediscovery of every layer evokes amusement in me, like a child’s first encounter with Madame Matryoshka and the company she keeps.

For the man of the undergound was all at once himself, an earnest but bitter slave of intellect, and then also (one layer out) he is a satire of something earnest and bitter, and in both of these ways he was myself also, and he was sitting in Starbucks. Or else he was sleeping through days in his college dorm room for hours upon hours. And in the understanding of all of this – while I was both the bitter man and also the satirist – between them, I was also the young man who woke up 30 minutes earlier on Sunday mornings in order to walk across a sleepy college town to get to church, knowing that he needed all of that time in order lose all his sanity and gain it again before he took his place in that “dark winter pew” that was so infinite.

It is a comfort that when you see yourself at your worst, all typed-out and printed up, justified from left-to-right on the page; that when you are looking at yourself like that, that you are not only that person, but you are also another [if only ever so-slightly] better person who can hold a book and see it all.

I do not know where I am going with all this, except to say that if I ever was the man in the underground – this anti-hero and mouse – then I still am, somehow. But if I was ever more than this, then that I also am, too. And it is this latter one in which I rest. It is this latter one which will rise one day from the underground, incorruptible, Lord have mercy.

Captain

P.S. Based on a lot of reviews and also a good bit of reading about their translation technique and philosophy, I’ve come to view the translations of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky as probably the best choices out there for Russian literature (trans. into English) – or at least a good place to start. So, that’s my recommendation on which translation to read, which is a pretty important decision. If you happen to know more about Russian-English translations than I do (which can be easily accomplished) feel free to offer your own insights.

down and then up, but forward OR breathing

i think that very few people realize it when they have been the hands [the smile, the embrace] of Christ to me because i am not homeless and i am not starving. i saw the image of Christ this weekend in many faces in arkadelphia.

and He is teaching me to love my enemies (which He has taught me are my neighbors). sometimes i feel that i am good at loving the samaritans, but not so much the levites. perhaps someday i will learn to see Christ in all of these – even those which arouse neither love nor hate, and so are the “least of these”.

Not all who say to me “Lord, Lord” shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father.

if left to stand for only a matter of seconds, espresso develops a sharp, bitter, unpleasant taste. If however, dairy is added when the shots are pulled, the dairy does not dilute the flavor of the coffee, but rather enhances it, making it strong, but also richer and smoother than it could have been otherwise. i tend to think that these aspects of espresso have at least some minor applications to the way the Holy Spirit works through people, using them and those gifts which He has given.

i have been striving against (and yet moving toward) Pacifism for about 2 years now. Pacifism is [perhaps?] beginning to emerge victorious. and all of that before i had read ben witherington’s latest blog.

hopefully,
Captain