Many of us could give a number of reasons for our faith.  These range from the deeply personal, like a conversion experience a la Tolstoy in William James, to the logical approach Sheldon Vanauken describes in A Severe Mercy where he assents rationally to Christian doctrine without any actual feeling of faith, without making the "leap of faith" that Kierkegaard describes.  I remember once defending Catholicism to a skeptical atheist on the grounds of its survival in the face of nearly impossible odds.  "Think of it," I'd urged as I paraphrased Pentecost, "11 uneducated blue-collar laborers running around claiming they'd found God!  Who would have listened?" without - I argued - the impetus of grace.

These reasons are all very well and good.  Today it is not-quite Christmas, and so I think it is appropriate to share some of the recent feelings I've had towards Christ.

In Brideshead Revisited, the following dialogue caught my attention:
“Is it [Catholicism] nonsense? I wish it were. It sometimes sounds terribly sensible to me.”
"But, my dear Sebastian, you can't seriously believe it all."
"Can't I?"
"I mean about Christmas and the star and the three kings and the ox and the ass."
"Oh yes, I believe that. It's a lovely idea."
"But you can't believe things because they're a lovely idea."
"But I do. That's how I believe."

It is a lovely idea, indeed, to arrange a manger scene and show kings and mighty spirits bowing to the innocence of a baby.  A lovely idea, too, that we selfish small-souled people could turn our right cheek to someone who had struck our left.  That we could bless - or even be - the meek, the humble peace-makers.  That we would place others before ourselves; love our enemies; give our cloak to the one who had asked for our shirt; and cease to be Scrooges, even briefly.

How often do we do these things?

Not very, perhaps, and with the feast of Christmas arriving tomorrow it's a timely moment to re-read the Sermon on the Mount, arguably the most beautiful and utopian ideal for humanity that has ever been envisioned.  As Chesterton said, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried."  This leads me, then, to a short passage from The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis that has somewhat defined my faith of late.  It is Puddleglum addressing the evil queen as she tries to convince the protagonists that no "over-world" exists, but only her own dark, underground kingdom.  Aslan is the Christ-figure in the books:

"One word, Ma’am . . .One word.  All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder.  I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst of things and then put the best face I can on it.  So I won’t deny any of what you said.  But there’s one thing more to be said, even so.  Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things–trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself.  Suppose we have.  Then all I can say is, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.  Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world.  Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it.  We’re just four babies making up a game, if you’re right.  But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow.  That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world.  I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it.  I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can, even if there isn’t any Narnia.  So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland.  Not that our lives will be very long, I should think, but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say."

And so goes our faith to an extent.  It is a lovely, beautiful, often-untried idea.  It seems so improbable, so impractical, so old in the midst of modernity.  But that Sermon on the Mount, and the personality and vision of Christ expressed in the Gospels, remain among the most objectively beautiful passages ever written.  Remain among the most compelling worldviews ever made.  And - with a nod to Pascal and his wager - I am going to live as much like a Christian as I can, even if there isn't any Christ or Heaven or Hell (although I believe that there is).  It's not a question, sometimes, of the truth of my faith or of my feeling secure in it.  It is a question of exquisite beauty, and this our faith possesses abundantly.

Merry Christmas and God bless us, everyone!

-LC

Having presently embarked on my journey through law school – a quest which I cannot help but analogize to a Dantean voyage ascending from the realm of depravity (Intro to Criminal Law) to the forms of Truth and Justice (*please roll eyes and insert skeezy lawyer joke here*) – my apartment’s small patio garden serves as one of my greatest consolations and sources of joy. (Hours of reading cases does not afford me the luxury of having nothing to do but commune with Lady Philosophy, so I have to seize from ordinary moments whatever “life and food for future years” they allow me.) Upon moving in about one month ago, before I’d even unpacked all my clothes I had already planted small pots of basil, tomatoes and sunflowers, and window boxes of rudbeckia.

A garden, no matter how small, poses a unique challenge and opportunity to its keeper. The end goal, of course, is cultivating fruitful plants: juicy tomatoes and savory herbs to enhance one’s cooking and sunny flowers to smile up at you when the going gets tough. However, you cannot just drop some seeds in a pot, add dirt, water periodically, and wait for them to grow. Growing a garden requires a particular attentiveness. Shades of green indicate the plant’s over-, under- or adequate watering. Dead leaves must be removed. The seedlings must spend sufficient time in the light and sufficient time in the shade. Even then, beyond ensuring the circumstances are ideal and you are providing what your garden requires, you must wait, let time take its course. If you poke in the soil to see if the seeds you’ve planted have begun to spout, you risk exposing them to the elements while they’re most vulnerable. If you water them excessively with the hope to hasten their growth, you might unearth and drown them. If exposed to the sun the whole day (just photosynthesize already!!), they whither and die. You find yourself, therefore, tragically and incontrovertibly powerless in the face of time. You’ve done all you can to cultivate your garden; the rest is left to fate, the efficient cause of the plant, God, the seed’s biological imperative to survive and propagate itself… pick your Power!. The point is, it’s out of your hands.

Why be coy? The metaphors we can draw from gardening and agriculture are perhaps some of the earliest to which we’re introduced, even as children (note: magic beans lead to trouble; Johnny Appleseed was the man!), and philosophy and theology have long employed them as parallels to the human experience of physical, intellectual, and spiritual growth. We’ve had all of this hammered into our heads since sixth grade when we learned what a metaphor is, but simply intellectualizing it cannot bring forth the fruit that one’s individual practice of gardening yields. Go plant something! Cultivate a garden, cultivate wisdom. :)

~ KS

My dear friends,

Yesterday, my parents and I had the lucky opportunity to make an excursion to see Monet's home and beautiful gardens in Giverny, about 2 hours north of Paris.  After spending a few hours there, I could totally relate to Monet's decision to retreat there to crank out canvas after canvas of water lilies for, oh, about the last 40 years of his life.  (His kitchen is painted top-to-bottom Van Gogh yellow, and the modest table comfortably sits 14!)  The tranquility is truly out of this world -- any PLSer would have been in awe.  My parents practically had to drag me to the bus before it pulled away ... not that I would've minded being stranded in the middle of Normandy for the rest of my life.

This first Pensee post isn't meant to stimulate "ze leetle gray cells," as fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot would say, as much as it is me trying to share a beautiful moment with y'all (Peace, Love, PLS style).  And although not as worthy a pursuit as Truth, Beauty has its own place in our attempt to live the Good Life.  Right, Grizz?  ;)

Bisous,

Octavia