So Jesus was a socialist but not like that.
immersion in an imagined past as if that were a revolt against modernity and not just about the most modern thing you could do
Was this not equally common in the premodern, just with less comprehensive propaganda systems? Ages of gold, silver, iron, the virtues of the sage-kings, etc. The same thing is baked into the Iliad ffs.
Dreher wants people to opt out collectively, as part of a community. That's not individualism as such. It's not even that far from what people come here to do.
Opting out of what exactly? (I'm not whacking that much NYT vebiage.)
Because if he wants people, communally, to opt out of extra-communal politics fuck that noise.
Oh, the NYT only really mentions him in passing. Most of it is about the apparently astonishing discovery that ancient or relatively ancient forms of worship provide a perspective on and a sanctuary from the present chaos. Dreher's idea, so far as I understand it, is for family groups to opt out of contemporary culture entirely, so far as is possible, but without ending up in the US white evangelical ghetto. I don't know anyone has put it into action, but as I am just down the road from a Benedictine abbey first founded in 685 (no longer an abbey, of course) I don't find the idea entirely ridiculous.
I love Gibbon, but I think he got monks wrong.
How gibbers Gibbon? (In my mind of course monks are mostly just landlords sitting on alienated bits of the fisc.)
It seems fundamentally unserious to base your spiritual beliefs on a preference for a particular sort of architecture. And the idea that the outside world at present is uniquely intolerable and ghastly and will lead to a fundamental overhaul of life and society seems to indicate both ignorance and solipsism.
Or: I see this column appeared in the New York Times.
9: I can think of worse things than architecture to base your spiritual beliefs on.
It's not even that far from what people come here to do.
It's not the "having a community" part that seems objectionable, it's the "well, we've solved it for ourselves!" part. If it's really a problem with the times in general, isn't it kind of selfish to just find something for yourself, even if "yourself" is a "yourselves", and be done with it? I don't think the commentariat here is really all that comparable!
It seems fundamentally unserious to base your spiritual beliefs on a preference for a particular sort of architecture
Yeah I can't bring myself to say this to Owen but if your preferred style is chosen by Soviet communism, post-war welfare state Britain and France, 50s-60s imperial America, and Finland, it's probably a stretch to impute any particular political values to it. Similarly if weird Catholic academics, late 19th century Yorkshire nonconformist city fathers, railroad tycoons, and Prince Charles all love fake Gothic, well, this pretty much tells you some people like Gothic.
No, I think that tells you that Prince Charles lives in a late 19th century of the mind, when these things were fashionable.
It seems fundamentally unserious to base your spiritual beliefs on a preference for a particular sort of architecture.
For many, spiritual beliefs flow from whatever gave them a sense of the profound (or divine, or spirit, etc.). That's going to be partially aesthetic and certainly cultural. I can't get too het up over it--at least they probably won't be dogmatic in any sort of tragic way.
Further to 11, if the answer is "sure, but that's what we all do in modernity, we find our groups", then I'm not convinced there's actually a problem as these people represent it. If the thing about modernity is that you aren't just slotted into a group (as the author seems to think is desirable, given her comments about religions faring better among youth raised in single-faith no-questions-please families), but instead you have to find your group and maybe figure out what kind of group you want to be a part of anyway (if the thing about enlightenment is that it doesn't tell you what to think, but instead tells you to think), then that seems ... fine? (And of course, then these people are just doing the done thing.) If the objection to that is that no free liberal individuals as modernism conceives them can actually commit, really, to something, that self-legislation is a crock, and you need some external authority telling you what to do, then I think that's just demonstrably wrong, and leads to host of other wrong and bad beliefs, and is certainly incompatible with any progressivism worth the name, even if some momentary goals might overlap. (If the issue is that such under modern liberal capitalism all that is solid melts into air, previously thick bonds between people and each other, or people and institutions, are replaced with purely monetary relations, etc., but your solution is to take your intentional community and go home, then didn't Marx already make fun of you 150+ years ago? And it isn't really a solution unless it has totalizing, and hence non-progressive, aims; as a (communally) private retreat, it's just shutting your eyes to it, and ignoring everyone else.)
I feel that the post title, while felicitous as is, would have read even better as, "Censer? I have anosmia." It makes the beat on "no" fall in the same place as "know" in the original. I know you may have intentionally decided to play up the awkwardness, but I can't help but lament what might have been.
It has to be third person because the verb reading is "scents her".
Why do these assholes always compare themselves to punk?
I saw a Latin mass once when I was a kid. It was strangely haunting and beautiful. And oddly, it was also my grandfather's confirmation. For reasons I never found out he was confirmed in his 60s. I wish I knew why, as I refused my confirmation when it was time and it became a major point of contention between my father and me, and the wound is still there though buried deep. But I never thought to ask my grandfather while he was alive and by the time I became insanely curious about it everyone else who knew and could give me a straight answer had either died or gone senile. My father only said it was because his father was stubborn, an answer I laughed at because that's not why anyone does or does not do anything, it's why they keep doing it.
I always thought of the Latin Mass Catholics as reactionaries, but I don't know enough Latin to get puns in Latin. Maybe the NYT knows better than I do? I guess the last generation who grew up with the Latin Mass is dying off, but that generation would have been very happy with an American Franco.
Overall, I read the article differently. It looked to me like people who wanted small-o orthodox Christian theology* and to avoid being the de facto tool of Republican politics because they've realized how badly that is working in practice. If any significant number of Christian culture warriors abandon the culture war to focus on their own communities (as opposed to trying to restrict all communities), our elections look much different.
* "We're not going to save ourselves, God will," is completely standard Christianity, though it is considered bad form among most believers to mention it when trying to evade questions about Nazi party membership.
18: ah, ok, I had read it as nonsensical. One could still choose "Scents her? He has anosmia." Another possible reading (the opposite of "nonsensical", if you will) could be "Sense her?" and then we're back to "I have anosmia." But I'm just exploring the space of options in a world never to be born.
(Yes, this hypothetical person who feels that smell is the only relevant sense is a curious sort! Maybe he just doesn't feel like sensing has been accomplished unless he exercises the complete set.)
I'd be more sympathetic to their claims of wanting to withdraw from the culture wars if everyone I knew that loved the Latin Mass and veils wasn't also a reactionary Trump voter.
So around the time I washed out of my PhD program in Islamic studies I became very interested in the early period of Sufism and the similar movements, primarily asceticism, that preceded it (I think this was because of my disgust at the political situation in the US at the time, these were the early Bush years). There were similar movements to Christian eremetism and monasticism. Keep in mind that Islam is a very societally oriented religion. I discerned three main periods. There are the first few generations, the first among the Companions of the Prophet and the Companions of the Companions. It is absolutely political, or rather deliberately apolitical, and occurs at the time of the First Fitna, the civil war between the Companions after the assassination of Uthman,the third Rightly Guided Caliph, and with the ascendancy of Ali as the fourth and last of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. You'd read these stories about so and so who always used to sit in the mosque and relate stories of what the Prophet said or did (early hadith) and now he no longer comes, where is he, is he ok? And the reply would be that since the fitna broke out he stays in his house (lazem or iltazam al-bayt). A generation or so afterwards is the second development where these early ascetics would go out into the wilderness to find God and oddly to modern ears, meet Christian ascetics and eremites and ask them advice on the best method to achieve this. The most common word used to describe this was 'uzla meaning retirement, retreat, seclusion. The third development begins around the late 10th early 11th centuries and could be traced to the Persian Sufi poet Abu Sai'd Abu'l-Khayr (Sufism had already been a known and named thing for at least two centuries by then) who writes down the first formal rules for Sufi orders. There is a proliferation of Sufi orders after this but many of these remain integrated with society, and in fact become crucial parts of the civil social order until the 20th century.
since the fitna broke out he stays in his house (lazem or iltazam al-bayt)
Maybe there was a pandemic?
He has anosmia
But then in the post, you know, he suffers from anomie. This was thought out!
I don't know, you can retain the anomie/anosmia repetition without "suffers" in both places. But I both trust and see that it was thought out much further than I could originally follow!
I guess I just love a trochee - amphibrach - trochee. (Yes I looked that up.)
I don't know, you can retain the anomie/anosmia repetition without "suffers" in both places. But I both trust and see that it was thought out much further than I could originally follow!
I guess I just love a trochee - amphibrach - trochee. (Yes I looked that up.)
ugh, but who can take a double poster's opinion on anything seriously?
But I wanted to retain the repetition of suffering.
8: I thought you'd never ask ...
The fleet of galleys and transports sailed in tempestuous weather from the port of Pisa, in Tuscany, and steered their course to the little island of Capraria; which had borrowed that name from the wild goats, its original inhabitants, whose place was occupied by a new colony of a strange and savage appearance. "The whole island (says an ingenious traveller of those times) is filled, or rather defiled, by men who fly from the light. They call themselves Monks, or solitaries, because they choose to live alone, without any witnesses of their actions. They fear the gifts of fortune, from the apprehension of losing them; and, lest they should be miserable, they embrace a life of voluntary wretchedness. How absurd is their choice! how perverse their understanding! to dread the evils, without being able to support the blessings, of the human condition. Either this melancholy madness is the effect of disease, or exercise on their own bodies the tortures which are inflicted on fugitive slaves by the hand of justice."
but understanding your thirst for eighteenth century scorn, I offer even more:
I. Prosperity and peace introduced the distinction of the vulgar and the Ascetic Christians. The loose and imperfect practice of religion satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or magistrate, the soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal, and implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of their interest, and the indulgence of their passions: but the Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired by the savage enthusiasm which represents man as a criminal, and God as a tyrant. They seriously renounced the business, and the pleasures, of the age; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage; chastised their body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as the price of eternal happiness. In the reign of Constantine, the Ascetics fled from a profane and degenerate world, to perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the first Christians of Jerusalem, they resigned the use, or the property of their temporal possessions; established regular communities of the same sex, and a similar disposition; and assumed the names of Hermits, Monks, and Anachorets, expressive of their lonely retreat in a natural or artificial desert. They soon acquired the respect of the world, which they despised; and the loudest applause was bestowed on this Divine Philosophy, 4 which surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the laborious virtues of the Grecian schools.
11: A universal community is almost a contradiction in terms. See Usenet, Twitter, and so forth.
To maintain the virtues - if you'd prefer, the habits of thoughtfulness and consideration - that can only be cultivated in a community you need particularity. And if one of the problems of our times is a lack of those habits and dispositions, how else is it solved but by going somewhere -- even virtually -- and trying to set up something where you can practice and nourish them. It's not after all a monastery, though even monks have some dealings with the outside world.
Speaking largely for myself, I find aesthetics are central to anything that might be called spirituality. Without music and poetry and to a lesser extent painting and architecture,. I'd have no clue.
It's certainly true that a lot of Latin Mass types are somewhere on the spectrum between neo and paleo fascists; but not all of them are. I have been to theologically and politically impeccable Catholic services of such crushing banality and ugliness that they said nothing to me at all.
Overall, I read the article differently. It looked to me like people who wanted small-o orthodox Christian theology* and to avoid being the de facto tool of Republican politics because they've realized how badly that is working in practice.
This strikes me as both charitable to the subjects of the story and correct. Ajay is uncharitable, but also correct:
It seems fundamentally unserious to base your spiritual beliefs on a preference for a particular sort of architecture.
Here I vote for unseriousness, and therefore with pretty much all of humanity. Are we Catholic or Muslim or Hindu because we have weighed the competing claims and made a careful, rational choice? Rarely. We are expressing an aesthetic preference for certain modes of thought and art.
I don't exempt myself from this. I regard my own atheism as an expression of an aesthetic preference.
Catholic services of such crushing banality and ugliness that they said nothing to me at all.
Hah! As a child I went to Catholic church during the late 70s/early 80s when they were still sort of coming to grips with the consequences of Vatican II.
One result was a deeply misguided attempt to be "hip" and "contemporary" by replacing the traditional choral music with some truly gawdawful hippies accompanying their banal hymns with acoustic guitars.
I was in the same place. We kids used to make fun of the guitar choir. Especially the kid whose mom made him be part of it. I think the grown-ups didn't like it much either, so they stopped after a while.
The hard "b" in the middle of "smells and bells" objectively improves the aesthetics of the phrase relative to the alternative.
40: I was just thinking that. The d -> b transition is more graceful, more aesthetic, better suited to oppose the ugliness of modernity, etc.
To maintain the virtues - if you'd prefer, the habits of thoughtfulness and consideration - that can only be cultivated in a community you need particularity. And if one of the problems of our times is a lack of those habits and dispositions, how else is it solved but by going somewhere -- even virtually -- and trying to set up something where you can practice and nourish them.
Well, I don't think that that is one of the problems of our times—distinctively, I mean, of our times—but if you take this much more reasonable tack, you have a much different story from the one presented. Among the many elective affinities is this one, wherein people swoon over gothic architecture, pomp, ceremony, and deviant sexual practices (restrictions on how, when, and the aftermath of intimate relations, I mean). That's kind of a story! It's not a story that's different in kind from the one you might write about Zach Pinsent and that circle of people, who frankly just prefer older styles of dress, to the point of learning how to make clothes in that style, and they don't present themselves as reacting to modernity or atomistic individualism or despairing of the political or whatever. (And they're doing something far more publicly eccentric than attending Latin Mass.) You know? The modest version of this is defensible, but it doesn't seem to be the understanding of the story or the self-understanding of the people interviewed.
23: finally!! Keep going: did you focus on any particular regional differences in your reading? I don't know all that much, despite half-hearted efforts, apart from reading a stupendously Islamophobic survey history of India (by an Anglo-American) that seemed to view Sufism in India as "some kind of covert Vaisnavism" (this is what I wrote in my reading notes and it may be uncharitable; the book turned pretty quickly into a juicy hate-read).
On the OP, maybe this is just something I will never understand about faith, but why is the distinction between "we need to do it" and "God needs to do it" not completely transparent to people on the ground? Is the article worth reading at all?
why is the distinction between "we need to do it" and "God needs to do it" not completely transparent to people on the ground?
Because the central religious experience is when those two merge. They're ten Commandments, not 10 amazing ways to build an elective community: number 7 will blow your mind. Obviously traditions differ over what and how many things God takes an interest in. But at their centre is always an absolute and non-negotiable command to do something, even if it is only to love your neighbour. God doesn't even have to be involved. You still end up with the categorical imperative rather than the possibly helpful although maybe a touch passive aggressive suggestion.
I thought "transparent" might mean "you see through the latter into the former", like the joke about the guy who, when he gets to heaven, asks God why he didn't save him from the rising flood, and is told that "I sent three boats!". (The way the question "do I believe that p?" is said to be transparent to "p?". But I admittedly wasn't and am not sure what lk meant.)
You still end up with the categorical imperative
"We need to do it" is an imperative!
45.1 I was mainly focused on the early and classical periods, and Mesopotamia/Iran/Egypt/N Africa/Central Asia, there didn't appear to be regional variants early on, but later after the formation of the formal Sufi orders they vary widely by region. Particularly in relation to political power, whether reclusive and withdrawn from power centers, co-opted by the state, or resisting incursions by outside powers (colonial especially, see Abd al Qadir Al-Jaza'iri* who resisted the French invasion in Algeria and fought them for decades, Omar Mukhtar, the Senoussi Sufi Shaykh who resisted the Italians in Libya, Imam Shamil of Daghestan, a Naqshbandi shaykh who fought the Russians) or even seized it like Usman dan Fodio the Qadiri shaykh who founded the Sokoto Caliphate in Nigeria.
*A true intellectual of the highest caliber, and a mensch to boot. The French betrayed him upon his surrender and initially sent him into exile in Marseilles IIRC instead of Damascus as he'd requested and had been agreed upon, some time later the French relented. At one point in Damascus there were anti-Christian riots and some massacres and he opened his house to the Christian community of Damascus. He was widely respected and revered and no one would fuck with him. I wanted to write on him.
Neb, of course my claim is larger than that these people are united by a love of silly clothes and a peculiar style of architecture. Granted that some such people do exist. In fact a peculiarly loathsome example (whom I knew slightly, decades ago now) died very recently.
But they are not the only sort who take a deep interest in orthodox or traditional spiritualities nor even the only ones to seem eccentric as a result. Some people are serious about it and devote considerable resources of intellect and character in ways that simply aren't open to members of the SCA because there's nothing there and no tradition to engage with.
I thought lk meant by "transparent" almost its literal opposite -- that the distinction should be impossible to overlook or to ignore.
46/47: never mind, I can't seem to explain myself. That's a bad sign, though. Maybe I need to pray for mental clarity.
Moby has the right idea. Latin Mass and/or traditionalist Catholics come in a variety of political flavours, mostly but not exclusively right-wing. Some are functionally, even if not philosophically, pretty liberal. (I'm non-Catholic and a liberal, to be clear.)
On the right, there are integralists like Ver/meule and Soh/rab Ah/mari, who see no value in the liberal principle of state neutrality between different conceptions of the good, and would be happy for the government to privilege Catholicism and abandon the viewpoint-neutral first amendment. This is not far from being 'very happy with an American Franco'. (I'm not sure what they say about electoral democracy.)
There are those like R/od Dre/her (he's capital-O Orthodox now, but whatever) who don't think giving up the US constitution is a good idea, but are convinced that they won't be allowed, while remaining within secular institutions, to speak and live (what they see as) the truth, so they need to retreat to their own institutions and communities. (This particular view doesn't have to deny that people can find other forms of life subjectively meaningful. The problem it's meant to solve isn't anomie. The claim is that the requirements of an objectively meaningful life, based in the metaphysically ultimate verities of the true religion, are or will soon be incompatible with working within secular institutions.) He's on the right, but genuinely conflicted over Trump. (Dre/her's been good so far on the coronavirus, for example.)
But then falling under Moby's paragraph 2, there are Trad/inistas: "intellectually serious, socially-conscious, and wholly orthodox Catholics. Many are Latin Mass-goers, disgusted by our contemporary social and economic climate." Also, there are others who are theologically and culturally traditionalist while being politically unaffiliated and quietist.
I'll take the last one to be the guidance of the holy spirit, since it's unsigned by any human author
If I'd seen 53 before posting 54, I'd have gone with an OPINIONATED HOLY SPIRIT joke.
So waht are these Sufi orders, organizationally, politically-economically? Anything like Christian or Buddhist monastic orders?
55: WHO ARE YET ONE!
I don't think this is much clearer, but: I have a fundamental problem specifically with the idea that God will save anyone. My way of getting around this problem has been to understand that if salvation is happening, or is going to happen, you will not see it, and you should keep your head down and assume nothing. I find the alternative -- the alternative which is actually "having faith" for most people -- terrifyingly, vertiginously unwise.
I can't ever see skepticism as a dangerous temptation. I see it as an invisible line you have to walk to know your way. However, I'm not surprised that I'm doing a terrible job talking clearly about something I don't understand at all. I think I'll go visit the Philosophy and Theology shelves downstairs and make myself cozily uncomfortable reading for the afternoon.
Also, there are others who are theologically and culturally traditionalist while being politically unaffiliated and quietist.
My vague impression, from when I was more open to these things, was that this is comparatively common. Catholics who were very Catholic but checked out from politics, possibly excluding abortion.
The long tail of Catholic traditionalism goes to interesting places, like the Society of Saint Pius X and sedevacantism and Pope Michael. And Hut/ton Gibson, who is somehow still alive.
I'd love to hear more about Sufism. It's such broad movement, and yet whenever I read anything about Islam it always shows up in surprising and interesting ways. Not just politics, but philosophy.
I find [...] "having faith" [...] unwise.
Why? Because if there were a retributive deity its rules would in principle be unknowable?
I think that's right, but I'm just going to stop because something is wrong with my brain and this will only get painfully dumber the longer I type. Really sorry, neb, you can delete my comments.
You aren't sounding dumb to this reviewer.
I'm not going to do that, I don't think 59 was unclear, I'm not sure why MC is asking or making that suggestion.
Hey. I didn't suggest anything about anyone.
Lurid, you sound anxious rather than confused. Your brain seems fine to me. If it's failed to come up with the perfect reformulation of the Nicene creed, or some similar resolution of impossible difficulties, that's no reason to beat yourself up.
40 is wrong. "Bells and smells" is correct. In rhyming or assonant phrases the harder consonant always goes first. See for example "Doctorate, schmoctorate. As long as you're happy". Rock and roll. Boogie woogie. Ding a ling.
57 I can't say that I know a lot about Christian or Buddhist monasticism. But they were far more popular in Islam by around the 12th century onwards. I mean just about everyone belonged to one. Trimingham's The Sufi Orders in Islam is a good introduction.
just about everyone belonged to one
So these (mostly at least) aren't monastic orders.
No, not monastic, though they had lodges where they met and performed various ceremonies (zawiya khanqah), had spiritual leaders, etc, all the other trappings. It's hard to exaggerate just how all pervasive they were in Islamic societies until the mid-20th century.
67 Seconded.
I don't think this is much clearer, but: I have a fundamental problem specifically with the idea that God will save anyone. My way of getting around this problem has been to understand that if salvation is happening, or is going to happen, you will not see it, and you should keep your head down and assume nothing.
My main focus was on Ibn al-'Arabi and his school, he was amazingly influential at all levels, from popular manifestations of Sufism to the highest intellectual traditions. But he's very difficult to read, kind of like an Islamic Heidegger. The main doctrine associated with his school is the "unity of being" (wahdat al-wujud) though he doesn't ever use that term himself. He has a theory of universal salvation that he justifies at scriptural, theological, and philosophical levels (the way he always does everything). Even Satan is saved, the very fact of creation demands it. So you've heard of the 99 names of God. Some are more fundamental than others and pertain to the very nature of the godhead. Two of them are etymologically related terms meaning all-merciful, all-compassionate and are regularly used by Muslims in every day as an invocation and are at the beginning of almost every chapter of the Qur'an. This is the bismillah. The names are Al-Rahman and Al-Rahim, Rahman is an intensive form. Rahma means mercy, compassion; rihm is womb. There is a line in the Qur'an that says "Al-Rahman created the human being" So Ibn al-'Arabi spins it out and says that nothing can come from Al-Rahman but objects of mercy ("marhumat" the passive participle form, "marhum" is a commonly used euphemism for deceased). And he'll go on, also brining hadith into it, such as one where the Prophet cautions a Companion not to tell anyone that it is sufficient for salvation to know that there is no god but God lest no one perform the other duties of the religion, and then there are the philosophical justifications. It's wild stuff.
one where the Prophet cautions a Companion not to tell anyone that it is sufficient for salvation to know that there is no god but God lest no one perform the other duties of the religion, and then there are the philosophical justifications.
Oh, that's very awesome. They seemed to have, compared to Christianity, nipped that problem in the bud.
(Late on this, but lurid, you're great and there was nothing wrong with what you said.)
72 Wahhabism, colonialism, revolutions, dictators...
Wahhabism, colonialism, revolutions, dictators
WE DIDN'T START THE FITNA
75: Colonialism was ending mid-20th.
You know, I was going to further respond to NW, but then I realized that the actual article is too incoherent and silly to actually sustain it. <sarcasm>I'm sure the book will be more intellectually substatial</sarcasm> and I welcome the opportunity to review it for some publication or other.
Thanks for 73. All I've read of Ibn al-'Arabi are translations of his mystical love poems but those are about as great as mystical love poems in translation can be.
I should have been more explicit and drawn out that for Ibn al-'Arabi mercy pertains to being itself. So universal salvation is built in to very fact of creation. It's ontological at root.
78 Wahhabism just regionally in the Arabian Peninsula during the 19th and early 20th centuries, as they took over Ottoman controlled territory they stamped out Sufism. There were massacres of Sufi scholars in Mecca and Medina when they took over. Elsewhere too. And then throughout the Islamic world with the rise of the Saudi petro-state.
I'm going to watch "Dude, Where's My Car?" again.
Hey, thanks to all of you. You'll have to take my word for what the mental block felt like.
Anyway, let's invite comment 153 from the other thread into this one. More from Al-Jazeera. Iftar in a refugee camp during lockdown.
I keep thinking of these lines from Büchner's Lenz, a semi-documentary "novel" about an 18th century writer with schizophrenia:
Oberlin spoke to him of God. Lenz quietly drew away and looked at him with infinite sorrow on his face and finally said: as for myself, were I almighty, you see, if I were, if I could no longer put up with all this suffering, I would just save, save everyone, for all I want is peace, peace, just a little peace, and to be able to sleep. Oberlin said this was blasphemy. Lenz shook his head dejectedly.
I don't have schizophrenia and my mental state is nowhere near this bad, but I feel that one to the core right now. Those thoughts from Ibn Al-'Arabi do give me some comfort. I found a book on Sufism on my shelf! Opportunistic UC Press sale purchase, I suspect.
84 I just watched Fearless the other night, which is very early 90s, and Jeff Bridges' character offers up pretty much were I am on the theology point. Rosie Perez comes at it from a different place, and the resolution of their interaction -- which I won't spoil here -- struck me as more interesting that a lot of early 90s film fare. The film isn't perfect, but that what is? Other than Galaxy Quest. Still it might speak to you as it did to me.
We watched Galaxy Quest on Friday night! I love that movie.
It's the only thing Tim Allen did that is worth seeing.
One of many things Alan Rickman did that is worth seeing, so I think you need to have the Alan-sounding name first.
I had forgotten he was in it, or rather I didn't know who he was in 1999, but he's so, so great in it.
I knew who he was well before 1999 because I either saw his Tony-winning performance in Les Liaisons Dangereuses or I saw Die Hard I can't remember which now.
Apologies. He was in Die Hard, not the lesser-known sequel Die Hard: I Can't Remember Which Now.
Those thoughts from Ibn Al-'Arabi do give me some comfort. I found a book on Sufism on my shelf! Opportunistic UC Press sale purchase, I suspect
Glad to hear it. Weirdly/coincidentally Ahmet Karamustafa also wrote a number of really great chapters on Ottoman cartography for the monumental History of Cartography project. Available free here if anyone is interested: https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V2_B1/Volume2_Book1.html
small-o orthodox Christian theology
I keep reading that as "smell-o", which means the post and title must have been effective.
We watched Galaxy Quest on Friday night! I love that movie.
We watched Galaxy Quest on Saturday night. Weird.
There's still time for someone to watch it on Sunday night.
I have some friends who are big-O Orthodox hipsters, an interracial straight couple who adopted from foster care and used to live around the corner from us. The mom is a working musician who does tutorials for Girls Rock and is involved in all sorts of cool arty things and the dad is a teacher and draws sailor-tattoo-style icons. They're obviously part of a peer group where this is a thing but I've never felt close enough to them to really ask wtf.
Like religious icons in that style?
96: we watched it on Thursday night!
Oh, God, my individuality is disappearing.
I don't even have a history of watching Galaxy Quest.
There's still tonight, One.
I watched Against All Odds, in which James Woods plays an utterly deplorable character. Bridges is no angel, but you don't have a problem rooting for him. The ending is a little out of synch with the usual Hollywood romance picture.
94: Wow, that History of Cartography thing looks like an amazing resource of which I was previously unaware. Thanks, Barry!
99: Exactly. But it's not just them. There's a whole subculture even here.
That implies it's in lots of other places.
103 It really is a monumental achievement.