Lux perpetua luceat eis.The Economist takes a baby step toward understanding KW in terms of acting Pastor rather than Politico:
He veered towards the latter course, but in doing so may have undermined the papacy's authority in the eyes of the world. If, for example, the Catholic church's teaching on sexual behaviour had plainly been the outcome of a deep reflection from its grass roots (female as well as male, in poor countries as well as rich) it would have carried great moral power, even among those who disagreed. But its views commanded less authority when they seemed (Esse quam videre -- ED.) to originate from a small number of powerful (and unmarried) men.
On the other hand, Pope John Paul would not have been true to his own deepest beliefs if he had been concerned, first and foremost, with how things seemed in the eyes of the world. He regarded himself as accountable to God; and how he fared by that measure is not something that any human being, whether believer or atheist, may presume to judge.
***
If I'd been a ranch, they would've
called me the Bar Nothing.
Gilda, 1946
I can never get a zipper
to close. Maybe that stands
for something, what do you think? I think glamour is its own
allure, thrashing and
flashing, a lure, a spoon
as in spooning, as in
l'amour in Scotland, where I once watched
the gorse-twisted hills unzip
to let a cold blue lake
between them. St. Augustine says
the reason why humans behave
as they do is because they are
not living in their true
home. In Rita Hayworth's
first film, for example,
Dante's Inferno is a failing Coney Island
concession, and Margarita Cansino
plays the part of Rita
Cansino playing herself. And the true
home of glamour, by which
I mean of course the grammar
of glamour, is Scotland
because
glamour is a Scottish variant
of
grammar with its rustle of moods
and desires. Which brings us back to
the zipper and why we want it
to close, each hook climbing another
the way words ascend a sentence, trying on
its silver suture like clothes. In a satin
strapless gown, Gilda slowly peeled off
her black arm-length gloves, showed
how to strip down, diagram a sentence:
Put
the blame on Mame, boys. In 1946, a pin-up
of Rita Hayworth and the name
Gilda rode on the side of the atomic bomb
tested at Bikini Atoll; it was summer
and you could buy a record, hear the sound
of her beating heart. By her last
film,
The Wrath of God, her hair was a burning
bush; she couldn't remember
her lines, whether it's memory or loss
we're in need of most: to remember
the way home or forget
who we are when we get there.
Every man I have known has fallen
in love with Gilda and wakened
with me. St. Augustine asked,
But when I love you,
what do I love? He asked the earth
and the breeze, perfume, song,
flesh, the sun, the moon
and stars:
My question was the attention
I gave to them, and their response
was their beauty. -- Angie Estes
from
Chez Nous, Oberlin College Press
...
"But what do I love, when I love Thee? not beauty of bodies, nor the fair harmony of time, nor the brightness of the light, so gladsome to our eyes, nor sweet melodies of varied songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs acceptable to embracements of flesh. None of these I love, when I love my God; and yet I love a kind of light, and melody, and fragrance, and meat, and embracement when I love my God, the light, melody, fragrance, meat, embracement of my inner man: where there shineth unto my soul what space cannot contain and there soundeth what time beareth not away, and there smelleth what breathing disperseth not, and there tasteth what eating diminisheth not, and there clingeth what satiety
divorceth not. This is it which I love when I love my God.
And what is this? I asked the earth, and it answered me, 'I am not He;' and whatsoever are in it confessed the same. I asked the sea and the deeps, and the living creeping things, and they answered, 'We are not Thy God, seek above us.' I asked the moving air; and the whole air with his inhabitants answered, 'Anaximenes was deceived, I am not God.' I asked the heavens, sun, moon, stars, 'Nor (say they) are we the God whom thou seekest.' And I replied unto all the things which
encompass the door of my flesh: 'Ye have told me of my God, that ye are not He; tell me something of Him.' And they cried out with a loud voice, 'He made us.' My questioning them, was my thoughts on them: and their form of beauty gave the answer."
Classic Authors: The Confessions Of St. Augustine (Book 10)
In the original Latin:
"Quid autem amo, cum te amo? non speciem corporis nec decus temporis, non candorem lucis ecce istum amicum oculis, non dulces melodias cantilenarum omnimodarum, non florum et ungentorum et aromatum suaveolentiam, non manna et mella, non membra acceptabilia carnis amplexibus: non haec amo, cum amo deum meum. et tamen amo quandam lucem et quandam vocem et quendam olorem et quendam cibum et quendam amplexum, cum amo deum meum, lucem, vocem, odorem, cibum, amplexum interioris hominis mei, ubi fulget animae meae, quod non capit locus,
et ubi sonat, quod non rapit tempus, et ubi olet, quod non spargit flatus, et ubi sapit, quod non minuit edacitas, et ubi haeret, quod non divellit satietas. hoc est quod amo, cum deum meum amo.
Et quid est hoc? interrogavi terram, et dixit: non sum; et quaecumque in eadem sunt, idem confessa sunt. interrogavi mare et abyssos et reptilia animarum vivarum, et responderunt: non sumus deus tuus; quaere super nos. interrogavi auras flabiles, et inquit universus aer cum incolis suis: fallitur Anaximenes; non sum deus. interrogavi
caelum, solem, lunam, stellas: neque nos sumus deus, quem quaeris, inquiunt. et dixi omnibus, quae circumstant fores carnis meae: dicite mihi de deo meo, quod vos non estis, dicite mihi de illo aliquid. et exclamaverunt voce magna: ipse fecit nos. interrogatio mea intentio mea, et responsio eorum species eorum."
University of Pennsylvania: Augustini Confessiones
