The Beginnings of an Abstract

So I'm looking at the story of Saint Petronilla (I'd include a link, but both wikipedia and new advent have failed me by giving either weird versions of the story or no real story at all) for a paper to give at Kalamazoo this coming year. The version I'm working with comes from Ælfric's Lives of Saints.

The summed up story is that Peter makes her ill for her benefit. Then Titus asks him why he lets her be ill when he heals everyone else and Peter says that it's good for her, but to prove that he can heal her, he tells her to get up and make dinner. So she does and she's totally healthy; she makes dinner, then goes to lie down and Peter makes her ill again. And from this she learned to fear God and later God healed her again and she went on to heal many others.

Now, aside from the fact that Peter comes off as looking like an arrogant jerk, it is interesting that in this time of healing for all, it is illness -- imposed illness, even -- that is edifying for her. The whole passage (there are a lot more miracles and the most detailed sound lifted out of Acts and dropped into other places) is meant to tell the miracles of Saint Peter to honour him and to edify the reader. However, the second story about Petronilla (there are two at the end of this series of tales of Saint Peter) is very different stylistically. So I am hoping to examine the intent of these exact tales. And in any event, it's a neat story.

And I was in Arcadia

I'm back in Toronto.

An Update of Sorts

I am sure that all two of you are waiting with bated breath to hear the results of the e-mail I was writing a while ago.

So far it is optimistic! They sound interested, although understandably cautious. Right now the conversation is on hold until the prof I was talking with returns to York from a trip, which will be later in August.

And until then I have work for one more week and at the same time I prep for my trip to York to visit Eaquae Legit.

And in that time, I am making trilobites from copper wire.

On Succeeding in Life, or Not

Students chart zigzag routes, study finds

The two paragraphs that I found most interesting in this article are these:

"The downside of the findings, Prof. Finnie said, is that the numbers show that many students are not content with the choices they make out of high school. (The Statscan numbers do not take into account enrolment patterns of mature students.)

Some switching is probably healthy, Prof. Finnie figures, but so much movement suggests that a portion of students are either turned off by their campus experience, don't have enough information going in, or are unprepared."

"The downside" is an interesting choice of words. I would not call this situation a downside so much as the inevitable push for students to know by sometime in grade 10 Exactly What They Will Do For The Rest Of Their Lives After University Which They Will Certainly Attend Or Fail And Die Alone In A Gutter Somewhere Forgotten By Everyone. Of course many students are not content with their choices that they make just after high school! What do you expect? I mean, really! We are taught that we have to go to university, and if we take a year off after high school we will never go back. I was told that countless times by numerous people in my final year of high school when I had decided to take a year off to make some money to afford to go to school. Aside from the fact that I would have gone back anyway, I half went back just to spite everyone who said I'd never do it.

If you are going to expect people to jump right in and never get to know what the real world is like, you can't expect them to stay in their first choice right out of high school. How many people stick to their first job? I'd bet that that percentage is lower than the figures given for students who don't change either programmes or schools.

That incessant belief that people have to be students to be really successful and that they should know what they want to do right out of high school is a huge problem. If we would accept that maybe, just maybe there are other options, and maybe not everyone who can be successful -- even a successful academic -- should go to university as soon as they finish high school, maybe we would have a far more successful and happier society. And maybe we wouldn't have so many people who are only in school because their parents are making them and they've been told that if they don't go to school they won't succeed in life.

Prepping for Applying to Grad School

So I'm looking to apply to the Research English and Literature programme at the University of York. I really want to do a research degree instead of a taught degree, and as their Medieval Studies programme only does a taught degree for the MA level (and their course modules are very sparse and uninteresting to me), I will try to look at medieval stuff through the English department. There are a number of profs who are both in English and Medieval Studies (which is multi-disciplinary at York), so that should not be a problem there. What I do need to do, however, is find a topic that I would like to research for a year, that I can research for a year, and that someone will be willing to supervise me for.

I am seriously thinking about studying disability in medieval fables and the roles that disability and the disabled have in medieval fables and in fables in the middle ages. One source I can look at is the Romulus Anglicus version of Aesop's fables, said to be written around late antiquity or the early medieval period, as well as Alexander Neckham's Novus Aesopus, assuming I can find a copy. One thing that cannot be contested is the presence of disability in Aesop, and by these two sources, it is evident that they were used and re-worked in the medieval period. The real question there would be, is there enough to write a thesis? A search of Google, JSTOR and of the UofT library system suggests that at the very least, Aesop and disability has not been deeply examined (which means either I suck at searches, I've found a new and exciting topic and it's mine all mine, or there's not enough to make it worthwhile to write on it). I could also look at other fables from the middle ages, which would take at least a bit of searching.

And now that Greg has shown up and helped me write an e-mail to a prospective supervisor, I wait! *Quakes with FEAR*

Adoration, and Classes, and Wedding! Oh my!

I am going to have a very busy year, this next year. Right now a small group of us at the Newman Centre are planning a weekly Eucharistic adoration service. Many churches have adoration services, including Newman (on Fridays at 1pm), but less common is a service where there is music involved. It's certainly not new, but it's not extremely common, either. We are still sorting out exactly the format and pattern of music and silence, but we are looking to combine those two elements in the adoration service. There was one thing that struck me as interesting. From what I can tell, it was suggested that there might not be a demand for an adoration service, especially as the one that they already have does not have an overwhelming attendance. To that, two things came to my mind: first that 1pm on a weekday is not the most accessible time slot by any stretch of the imagination; and second, that just because there has been no perceived demand does not mean we cannot create a demand. If it is made, they will come.

I also thing this may be a good way for me to keep myself praying in a regular manner. Sure, I go to church every week, but that time is like tithing, in a sense. It is time and prayer given willingly, but it is entirely expected that I give them, because they are not mine to withhold. Other prayer and time are fully free gifts, and they are good gifts to give, and good to spend with God. And I feel I have not done so well at that this past while. So in addition to my looking forward to worshiping in this manner and getting something like this going at Newman, the accountability involved in organising such a time would be good.

The next major thing I have is that I just finished shopping for classes. And it was something like dragging the bottom of the barrel for the degree I'm less enthused about. At the end of the day I am taking The Medieval Tradition, Celtic Spirituality, and The Medieval Child to finish my Medieval Studies degree, and Canadian English, Psychology of Language, Advanced Phonology, Advanced Syntax, and Disorders of Speech and Language to finish my Linguistics degree. The Psychology of Language class is rather a last minute addition. I had planned to take Introduction to Semantics, if only to have another 200-level arts class instead of a 300-level science class, but it conflicted with the time that Eucharistic Adoration is at. So we will see how it goes. The first semester will be five classes and almost entirely Linguistics, save for the year-long The Medieval Tradition (nothing like leaving the intro course until last, right?). And then the second semester will be four classes and almost entirely Medieval Studies, save for Advanced Phonology. I hope that it will all go well. And I am very sad not to have room for a Latin class. Well, technically, I do, but I'd rather relax with only 4 classes. We will see if I decide to drop in a 200-level Latin just so I can read 30 lines a night and it'll all be Caesar, having built bridges, killing Gauls.

And then, to top it all off, I need to start planning a wedding and making phone calls (anxiety!!!) and all that jazz. I should really get on finding a photographer very soon.

A New Way of Looking at Narnia, Perhaps?

One opposition I have often seen in people towards Narnia is that "it is an allegory and Aslan is blatantly Jesus". They find that it is too simplistic, and when they pursue their evidence, they find it is tangled and confusing, which is even worse because it's not even a perfectly clear allegory or metaphor for Christ and Christianity.

I disagree with this, however. I am reading Wetherbee's translation of Silvestris's Cosmographia (I may yet drag Greg into reading it in Latin with me!), and I am seeing parallels in the story telling to what I see in Narnia. Or rather, parallels in the understanding of the relation of the story to the "real" world. Especially right now I am seeing a different way of understanding the figure of Aslan. In Cosmographia there is a character called Noys (νουσ). She is not God, nor is she Jesus. Neither does she appear to be created or creation. She is rather the mens dei, the mind of God, Providence, "true Minerva to me".¹ She is, in a way, that pattern of God's mind upon which the universe is founded. From what I understand of the whole story, God never once figures Himself in it. Rather, Noys is His representative to Natura, Hyle/Silva (primordial matter personified), et al.

The role of Aslan holds some similar characteristics to the role of Noys. Aslan is not the Emperor over the sea, nor is he really an exact parallel to Jesus. Aslan's primary role, in many ways, is as a guide for Narnia, and he ultimately keeps and restores Narnia to order, to the pattern intended for it. He creates the world and sets people to rectify its flaw from the beginning (the presence of Jadis, also similar to the flawed nature of Silva); later he restores Narnia from the curse of the Hundred Years' Winter; and throughout all of the story of Narnia we see Aslan acting as a director and judge of sorts, conforming creation to the pattern for which it was created.

I'm still only just beginning to investigate, so this is still a certain degree of speculation, of course. We will see how far I can reasonably take this and hopefully I'm not stretching it beyond reasonability.



1 Vite viventis ymago,
Prima, Noym -- deus -- orta deo, substantia veri,
Consilii tenor eterni, michi vera Minerva"

The image of living life, first, Noys -- God -- rising from God, substance of truth, course (pattern) of eternal counsel, true Minerva to me

Victor Turner Strikes Back!

Alison mentioned our old friend Victor Turner this evening to me, and then in discussion with Greg I realised that liminal theory could be applied to the notion of Other in society.

For those who are not familiar with Arthur Van Gennep's liminal theory, later used by the anthropologist Victor Turner, it goes as follows:

There are three stages: Separation, Liminality, and Reaggregation. First a person is separated from their community; then they are in a state that is called Liminality where they are neither a member of the community, nor a stranger; then, once whatever rites of passage need to be completed, they are taken in again, or reaggregated, back into society with a new status. The concept comes from the Latin word limen meaning "threshold". When you are on the threshold you are neither in nor out of the house. You are in a state of liminality.

Apply this then to the notion of Other. I will direct you to Alison's post at In The Middle where she says, regarding the role of disabled people in the sacraments in the Middle Ages, that

[t]he ritual difference between a child and an adult is the basis for my use of the term “sacral disability”: being barred or hindered from full participation (inclusion in the rites and sacred responsibilities considered the norm for their age) in the religious life of the community due to a perceived Otherness. Spiritual adulthood carries different rights and responsibilities than legal adulthood, and thus the requirements for sacral adulthood do not necessarily correspond to the requirements for legal adulthood, and this highlights the need to examine each vernacular in its own context.

What we see here in this suggestion is that in the case of sacral disability, someone is being denied permission to take part in an essential rite of maturity in a community: they may not step onto and across that limen that will take them to adulthood. Disability, then, may be described in terms of whether or not one is permitted to undertake that liminal experience at all. If one is not permitted to take the Sacrament of Penance or the Eucharist, why? If it is a status question, in terms of not having attained adult or mature status through the community's rite of passage, why have they not undertaken this rite? If the community is blocking them, why and how? Preventing an individual from undertaking a rite of passage must be for a reason and it is liable to set up a state of Other, although may not necessarily do so.

This may not describe all cases of Other, but it is a different way of considering the notion which I must examine further.

Sense and the Other

I've often thought on the senses and how people experience them. Last night Greg and I were talking about how there is an inherent sense of Other between people in that we cannot know through their person how they are experiencing something. We can know through a series of metaphors and things that are similar in our own experiences, but we cannot know it through their own bodies and souls. This, of course, speaks to a certain weakness of language in its inability to clearly express certain things fully.

Along with that discussion came up the experience of music, and how we experience music. Music is not experienced merely aurally, but on some level that is deeper. Greg said that it is almost visual, which struck me because that is also how I tend to experience music. There is something behind the eyes, just beyond my reach, but I can often sense a whole series of scenes and images when I listen to music. In the same way, light has volume and sound. How often have we said that a very brightly coloured shirt is loud?

And this, I think, can probably be extended to all of the senses in truth. They are not merely experienced on the surface through the organ that receives them, but they are experienced deeper. How many people have memories associated with smell, so that even the scent of it draws up an emotional well? How many find that sound and light draw out images and signs and hearing in our soul? Even touch and taste must hold keys to our memories, our experiencing of the world.

I suspect they go deeper to a common root, a central core. There is some centre in our being that receives this input and interprets it holistically. Psychologists and scientists will speak of the plasticity of the brain -- its ability to adapt itself in the occasion of injury or unusual differences to allow for normal functioning in an abnormal manner in terms of what part of the brain is doing what. Perhaps this is related to that, but I believe that receiving of sensory input goes to a centre that is not just divisions of the optical, and the aural, and the olfactory, and the gustatory, and the tactile, but from those divided regions on the surface of the sphere to the core of it where there is no Smell, or Sight, or Sound, or Taste, or Touch, but rather it is the heart of Sense. Just as there is neither Jew nor Greek, they are made one as Sense in the hearts of people.

Perhaps I am entirely off base on this. Perhaps I am not. Perhaps I am merely rambling by this point. But if this is indeed the case, what does this mean for our experience of the world, and what does this mean for the divisions of the world between One and Other? If this mingling of the senses into Sense is true in each of us, does it expand beyond that to something that resembles a greater consciousness, a greater awareness? Is it simply restricted to individuals and we are forever divided by our experiences?

And suddenly I am reminded of the notions of Catholic Mystery. Especially of the Mystery of the Trinity and the Mystery of union in marriage and union of the Body of Christ that is the Church and the Eucharist. Is it possible that this centre that is Sense in all of us is not just real, but essential for our being and that it ties into that which comes from Christ and makes us One and Whole with Him?

Sonnets of Lightness and Darkness

In a step away from academic endeavors, I recently received a reminder of an online journal, The Alexandrian, reaching near the deadline for its July issue, themed Time and Eternity. I decided to send in two sonnets I wrote some time ago which are read as a pair, Sonnets of Lightness and Darkness. They are something of a cosmology with an element of psychomachia. It had been my plan to submit them to a journal some time ago, but I never got around to it. Greg was kind enough to help me edit them into their present copy. His insights on the senses and the use of visuals was most helpful indeed!

And now, I guess, I wait to see if they are accepted.