Medieval

Gospel Reading: Matthew 13.31, 44-52
(Click HERE for last Sunday's readings)

Wendell Berry imagines an exchange between the prophet Isaiah and entomologist E.O. Wilson. Wilson had written dismissively about our sentimental affection for ancient people with outdated ideas. He wondered how useful a person who didn't know about the electromagnetic spectrum would be to us modern people.

Berry's vignette goes like this:

Isaiah (finger in the air and somewhat oblivious of the historical superiority of the modern audience): The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as of the flower of the field.

Edward O. Wilson (somewhat impressed, but nevertheless determined to do his bit for “evolutionary progress”): But . . . but, sir! Are you aware of the existence of the electromagnetic spectrum?

CURTAIN

I love that little play. Religious people have wasted plenty of breath resisting any science that challenges the literal sense of the Bible. But a few anti-religious people have returned the disfavor and denied the possibility of ancient wisdom, given all the obviously wrong information people once carried. Wrong information about things like our solar system, biology, and the infield fly rule. OK, even lots of modern folks don't understand the infield fly rule. But you get my point.

It's radical to think that someone of another century--particularly one from medieval times, the so called 'dark ages'--might see things that we don't precisely because of their limited world view. What difference does it really make that my information is accurate about which celestial body orbits another if I've lost the capacity to wonder about them?

I'll forge into new blog territory in terms of imposed self disclosure (isn't that what blogs are?) and include a poem I wrote 12 years ago.

Distraction

Alden is fixed on a knot in the floor:
Small discoveries lead ruthlessly to others.
A nail in the baseboard left unset.
A withered fruit dropped from the pepper plant.
Now this.
Grandeur eludes or bores him,
So he's gone prone,
Licking at the blemish as though its lost dimension might be tasted.
Distraction is his only discipline
And the world is mustered
And patient.

-Fall 1996

I guess on a day in the fall of 1996 my eyes were opened to all kinds of unseen things by my infant son's flailing about on his belly. His perspective was terribly limited. Or maybe I should say his perspective was wonderfully focused.

To use the imagery from Sunday's gospel, I wonder just who in our house in 1996 would have been most likely to find a pearl of great price? At less than a year old Alden couldn't change the oil in my car or macramé a plant hanger. But I saw the world differently, I saw things I wouldn't have because of his perspective--belly to the floor, arms and legs and tongue splayed.

Maybe our obsession with accurate information (which I hope my internist and my accountant never get free of) blinds us to things. It's not that we need to let go of modern knowledge or grow suspicious of modern things. We just need to open ourselves to the possibility that even some strange medieval person might see things in life's forest that our nifty new trees obscure.

The painting is "Hemlock" by Heidi Christensen, an artist who was studying at Virginia Seminary when I was a student.