Isaiah and Ways of Reading the Bible

Part of why the Bible is so fascinating to me is now is because for so long I read it wrong. I missed so much in earlier readings due looking it as a past document instead of a live one that is applicable to past, present and future. I’ve read it too much with the view of the writer's original intention without regard to symbol or figurative language - even though symbols and "double-meaning" are what separates man from animals.

I’m reading a book on reading ("On Reading Well"):

“The ability to understand figurative language, in which ‘a word is both itself and something else,’ is unique to human beings and, as one cognitive psychologist explains, ‘fundamental to how we think’ in that it is the means by which we can ‘escape the literal and immediate.’ We see this quality most dramatically in satire and allegory. Although very different, both satirical and allegorical language employ two levels of meaning: the literal meaning and the intended meaning. In satire, the intended meaning is the opposite of the stated words; in allegory, the intended meaning is symbolized by the stated words. Satire points to error, and allegory points to truth, but both require the reader to discern meaning beyond the surface level. In this way, allegory and satire—and less obviously, all literary language—reflect the transcendent nature of the human condition and the “double-willed self” described by Paul in Rom 7:19”

I'm reminded where the high priest Caiaphas said unwittingly of Jesus but accurately nonetheless, “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

The simplest lines in the Bible now resonate with meaning in a way they couldn’t before partially because I have more biblical knowledge, as well as I’m more alert to my own perennial tendency to underestimate God’s love. Take for example today’s first reading from Isaiah:

‘Comfort my people, comfort them’
says your God.
‘Speak to the heart of Jerusalem
and call to her
that her time of service is ended,
that her sin is atoned for,
that she has received from the hand of the Lord
double for all her sins.’

An incomplete way to look at this passage is to see it merely as God’s instructions to Isaiah. The better way is to look at it as instructions to Christ in 30 A.D. and to us today.

The fascinating tidbit is this verse is linked in many Bible commentaries to Job 42:10. So I trotted out to Job, chapter 42, which comes after Job has experienced a ton of Job-like negative experiences:

“And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

So the verse from Isaiah is saying the Jews received double for all her sins, and yet it points to Job saying that Job got twice as much as he had more for his troubles. How to reconcile these? Maybe that we get twice as much grace as our sins dictate?

The world-changing view of Job is that he’s actually Jesus. (Which I first learned from GK Chesterton.)  Job's depicted as a righteous person who unfairly receives suffering. That’s Jesus to a “T” obviously, who was the only righteous person outside of Mary. So the way I look at the verse from Isaiah - in a paraphrased way - is that God the father is saying to Jesus through Isaiah: “Comfort my people, comfort them. Speak to the heart and call to her that her sin is atoned for, that she has received from the hand of the Lord double the expiation needed by way of your crucifixion.”

I never would’ve read Isaiah that way years ago. I would’ve read it only in the historical moment, without the supernatural (yet well within human capacity)  idea that Scripture applies to past and present and future.. I would’ve read it as Isaiah being reminded by God that now the exile in Babylon is over and that all is well - except that it seems unfair the Israelites had paid double for their sins. It’s true that the writer’s actual, original intention could be simple hyperbole: “hey, you’ve paid double for your sins so don’t worry about it!” But if we’ve learned nothing, we’ve learned that nothing is accidental (title of Fr. Groeschel book), including most especially what’s written in the Bible. Christ, in a way, paid double for our sins since he had no sins to atone for.

Isaiah Variations

It's fascinating how the Church seeks to console us. For example, the first reading from Isaiah 30 the other day is textbook Christ:

    “The Lord will give you the bread you need and the water for which you thirst.”

But other translations are less, shall we say, generous, from the Jerusalem's “The Lord has given you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction.”  Knox has it: “Bread he will grant, though it be sparingly.”

So it's kind of a buzzkill to go to the other translations although the Church's generous translation I take as more definitive given the prerogatives she enjoys.

And Pope Benedict gave me permission tonight when I read this in his Blessings of Christmas:

Perhaps the right way to celebrate Advent is to let the signs of God’s love that we receive in this period penetrate our soul, without resistance, without questions and quibbling. Warmed by these signs, we can then receive in full confidence the immeasurable kindness of this child who alone had the power to make the mountains sing and to transform the trees of the wood into a praise of God.

(The preface to that was this:

It may be difficult for us to accept this joyful music when we are tormented by questions, when we are afflicted both by bodily illness and psychological problems, and these would tend to make us rebel against the God whom we cannot understand. But this child is a sign of hope precisely for those who are oppressed. And this is why he has awakened an echo so pure that its consoling power can touch the hearts even of unbelievers.)

I've come to see Isaiah as a primer for Jesus - it seems like it's what he read and memorized and understood to apply to him. Thus when the prophet says: “he will hear and immediately answer”, Jesus took that as gospel, such that when he heard someone crying out to him (the lame, the sick, the blind) he should immediately cure them.

It's always interesting to me to turn the Scriptures around and see them as God condescending to us to have them apply to him as well. It's more of a “we're all in this together” type of feeling.

Kick it Diarist Style

Jonah Goldberg goes diary style!:

In order to turn a grind into a groove, I'm going to kick it diarist style. “What is diarist style?” you ask…Well, diarist style isn't quite a column and it's not quite a “news"letter, but you just might get a slice of cantaloupe at the end, if by cantaloupe you mean something that only in the vaguest sense could be compared to a cantaloupe. A loose inspiration for my technique is the old "Diarist” feature in The New Republic of the 1980s; a bunch of unrelated observations very loosely hung together by a topic sentence that masquerades as an unbelievably forced segue.

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Work battered me; I felt like Fort Sumpter. I was hog-tied and whip-corded by the rather complex programmatical computer program. It was tiring more so because of the unexpected nature of the task; I'd anticipated a short putt and ended up needing a long drive. And difficult to debug! This one gives up her secrets reluctantly, like Lake Superior giving up her dead. But 'twas at least an easy inaugural day of the workweek. Took it by the “smooth end of the handle” then, as Thomas Jefferson once advised.

While on elliptical read more of the excellent country music songwriter's book. Hilarious and a perfect spice in my reading repertoire. Need a funny, brainless book to liven up the mix much as “This Town” did for me earlier this year.

Then read more of O'Malley's history of Vatican II. The author is painfully biased on the side of the more progressive proponents of the Council but it's a decent read as far as information goes. You do get a sense of how difficult the key issues were and I think to a certain extent both sides can now say, “I told you so.”

Progressives can say, “isn't this so much better, especially given Islam, how we're on the right side of religious liberty? And that Catholics are reading and studying the bible now? And that they can understand the Mass better? And that with less clericalism the flock is better set up to understand its duty to evangelize instead of just relying on priests?”

And the conservatives can say, “Oh didn't I tell you? Look at how we've stripped mystery from the Mass, decreased reverence, undermined the authority of church leaders! Look at the statistics on Mass attendance, vocations to the priesthood and religious life…How much good did Vatican II really do?”

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I always read the Deuterocanonicals and wonder what, exactly, St. Jerome had against them. I always think of him as THE ultimate Bible expert given that he translated them from the original languages at such an early date in church history. I found this on the 'net so it has to be true:

In his later years St. Jerome did indeed accept the Deuterocanonical books of the Bible. In fact, he wound up strenuously defending their status as inspired Scripture, writing, “What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume (ie. canon), proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I wasn't relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us” (Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]).

I always think I'd like to read some of the salty St. Jerome. He's got some of that St. Pio type of person in him, the type that tells it like it is and lets the chips fall where they may.

So I ran to my Logos app and found the letters of Jerome. Sweet! And I came across this immediately - loved the first line:

After shipwreck one has still a plank to cling to; [ed. note - A favourite metaphor with Jerome to describe the nature of Christian penitence.] and one may atone for sin by a frank confession. You have followed me when I have gone astray; follow me also now that I have been brought back. In youth we have wandered; now that we are old let us mend our ways. Let us unite our tears and our groans; let us weep together, and return to the Lord our Maker. Let us not wait for the repentance of the devil; for this is a vain anticipation and one that will drag us into the deep of hell. Life must be sought or lost here.

This is well-stated by St. Jerome:

Does any one wish to praise Origen? Let him praise him as I do. From his childhood he was a great man, and truly a martyr’s son....So greatly did he abhor sensuality that, out of a zeal for God but yet one not according to discernment, he castrated himself with a knife. Covetousness he trampled under foot. He knew the scriptures by heart and laboured hard day and night to explain their meaning. He delivered in church more than a thousand sermons, and published innumerable commentaries which he called tomes. These I now pass over, for it is not my purpose to catalogue his writings. Which of us can read all that he has written? and who can fail to admire is enthusiasm for the scriptures? If some one in the spirit of Judas the Zealot1 brings up to me his mistakes, he shall have his answer in the words of Horace:

'Tis true that sometimes Homer sleeps, but then
He’s not without excuse:
The fault is venial, for his work is long.

Let us not imitate the faults of one whose virtues we cannot equal.

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Oh the occasional gold nugget I get from Lino Rulli's Catholic Guy show. Yesterday he talked about potentially having Greg Kinear on the show, an actor who is playing a role in an upcoming film based on the bestselling novel about the boy who went to Heaven. (I think the book is called “Heaven is Real”.) And co-host Fr. Kegron said that he doesn't want to read the book because it makes Heaven so much less mysterious. It makes too much like Earth! I much agree. Like the kid makes it sound like, “oh yeah and I saw Uncle Joe up there. He said to say, 'hi'”. And that you see your pets up there and all that and Lino said a funny and true thing about how for most people God is like number 5 or 6 on their list of who they want to see, after their kids or parents or grandparents or pets.

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The weather is inching up towards fine-spiritedness. It definitely has its moments of late especially when the sun is out and the wind is down. Still not porch-sitting weather but I tried it out anyway for a few minutes. The grasp of winter is loosening its death-grip.

Meanwhile the Reds lose regularly as could be predicted by events beyond their control: very difficult opening schedule combined with too many injuries and the killer loss of Chu-Chu Soo.

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Set up my new Google Chrome browser, thanks to Mozilla firing their chief for having done the unthinkable and contributed to an anti-gay marriage campaign. You can't make the intolerance up. I'm sure Google isn't any better than Mozilla but it was motivation enough to switch browsers. It was surprisingly enjoyable, setting up the bookmarks on the bookmark toolbar, organizing the favorites folder and playing with the new look and feel.

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A nugget from the Rachel Cusk piece in The Paris Review:

The electric light, with the absolute darkness outside, made people look very fleshly and real, their detail so unmediated, so impersonal, so infinite. Each time the man with the baby passed, I saw the network of creases in his shorts, his freckled arms covered in coarse reddish fur, the pale, mounded skin of his midriff where his T-shirt had ridden up…

I thought about "look[ed] very fleshly and real, their detail so unmediated, so impersonal, so infinite" was similar to how people on the beach look with details not unlike her description of a fellow with "mounded skin of his midriff where his T-shirt had ridden up". And yet it's hard to see her interpretation of this. I see the beach as a sort of unexpected revealing, a small intimacy, what she sees as "impersonal" and "infinite". I do get the unmeditated part though. Unmediated by clothes.Ah and sad, but I think I'm going to have to give up The Americans. Way too much nudity.

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Chinese spoken in next cube over;
they laugh in English.

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Another from Cusk:

I remembered the way, when each of my sons was a baby, they would deliberately drop things from their high chair in order to watch them fall to the floor, an activity as delightful to them as its consequences were appalling. They would stare down at the fallen thing—a half-eaten rusk, or a plastic ball—and become increasingly agitated by its failure to return. Eventually they would begin to cry, and usually found that the fallen object came back to them by that route. It always surprised me that their response to this chain of events was to repeat it: as soon as the object was in their hands they would drop it again, leaning over to watch it fall. Their delight never lessened, nor did their distress. I always expected that at some point they would realize the distress was unnecessary and would choose to avoid it, but they never did. The memory of suffering had no effect whatever on what they elected to do: on the contrary, it compelled them to repeat it, for the suffering was the magic that caused the object to come back and for the delight in dropping it to become possible again. Had I refused to return it the very first time they dropped it, I suppose they would have learned something very different, though what that might have been I wasn’t sure.

So true, that imperviousness to suffering in babies and others. Reminds me of some who spend into debt relentlessly without being chastened despite bankruptcies. I suppose there is in addiction a sort of repeal of the normal cost-benefit analysis: addicts want what hurts them and makes them miserable (such as in the case of Heather King's alcoholism in which there was no joy in drinking) although admittedly perhaps there's still cost-benefit going on since to give up on the addiction is a different kind of ache, and a big one given the pain of drug withdrawal.

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So heard a Dominican on XM radio talk about how the Church's Lenten disciplines are not prohibitions for the sake of the exercise of power but directional indicators, which are meant to turn us towards the good. The preacher said that most people today want a “freedom of indifference” rather than a “freedom of excellence”. The first kind of freedom is a freedom to do whatever you want without goal or meaning. The second kind is illustrated by the virtuoso piano player. The pianist became great through practice and that practice leads to the freedom to play great pieces.

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Make the longish trek down to the barber I noticed tall skyscrapers of stone that showed darker streaks or patches where still damp with recent rain. I rather liked this human sort of thing, that buildings of inhuman height still bow before the Creator of rain by showing that evidence on their walls. As much as man may think he has tamed the environment even a simple thing like rain can alter the appearance of man's impressive works.

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There's a Bible professor on Twitter who posted a snarky picture of Willie Wonka with the caption, “So, Jeremiah 29:11 is all about you? Remind me again about your time in the Babylonian Exile”.

The prof says “I use Jer 29:11 in my classes as an example about the importance of context.” (The verse goes, “For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”)

It reminds me of one of my blog tags: “Can't I love Isaiah too?”, recognizing, of course, that my historical situation is different that Isaiah's intended audience.

But really what a killjoy the professor is, as well as those who posted the snarky picture. Isn't that verse applicable to everyone, or does God not know the plans for some and wish to harm others? I know it's easy to cherry pick Bible verses, but really the Bible has comforting verses for a reason.

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They had Miss Development on the company radio show today. Development is pita (pain in the ass) in which we have to basically learn something new tangentially related to our job, etc.. It's a way to force you to feign interest in something you're not currently working on to check off some sort of activity that looks good on paper. But I like the “and/both” character of her answers: “We feel the employee owns his or her own development but we also expect supervisors to motivate and hold employees accountable.” Genius. Supervisors AND employees own their development. Why didn't I think of that? Reminds me of the classic “you have two number one priorities” line.

Then the host asked “what if someone is happy where they are and doesn't want to do development? Will that be used against him?” Again the pluperfect answer from a corporate perspective: “No, it won't be used against him but development is not optional.” A bit oxymoronic. How can this be?

I asked the following in the chat window: “How come development can't be seen more broadly, more in a liberal arts sense, such as taking a class in music appreciation, reading a classic novel, or learning a language?”

She said that was a good question but we need be focused on what can improve the bottom line more directly. Again predictable but I had to ask.

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Tiredage! A non-word so let the lawsuits fly. The day was sprung early; I moved with alacrity from bed in order to imbibe in my rich reading life. Reading is the reason to get up in the morning, with coffee a close second.

Read Bill Luse's buddy's novel, Rick B's, and it's surprisingly engaging. The guy writes with verve; humorous and biting. There are some excellent images in there, such as referring to the cycle of unwed mothers begetting more of the same as the “apostolic succession of single mothers”. A character in the story refers to the lower class as “mean but loyal”. It surprises me how interesting the writing. Eccentric but in a pleasing way.

Also read more of the intriguing backstage look at country music titled Country Music Broke My Brain. And then all about George W. Bush's new painting career (googled for images of the paintings). So interesting. Bush's painting hobby seems like something I might want to take up when retired ala Churchill, Bush and Bill Luse. Seems like that's a retirement activity par excellence. It's interesting that Bush would go in that direction though. He seems not the type. As he said in an interview with his NBC-employed daughter, whoda thunk he would be a painter and she'd be working for the enema?

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That Jennifer at Conversion Diary is normally pitch-perfect as far as understanding her audience, but I wonder if she's (over)plugging her book, ala Fr. James Martin. Doesn't even come out till the end of this month. On the other hand, I understand she's a new author and enthusiastic and in a blog you're going to write what's on your mind.

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Thought about the ceaseless nature of a priest's work, how our priest gave us the “balm of Gilead” today in word and sacrament as he does every Sunday. There's a Sisyphean quality to Mass: the priest performs a ritual that appears to have a temporary effect in that spiritual muscles will tighten inexorably and there is thus a constant need for the softening agents of word and sacrament. Reminds me how my uncle, a priest, saw his homilies as useless given most people don't remember them very long. Unlike, say, constructing a building, which has a long-lasting tangibleness. But that's to judge by human standards and ignores the great reality that our bodies and spirits are creaturely and are designed by God to need refreshment, and the highest good is the human, not the material.

Stuff Mostly Unrelated but Tied Together By Helpful Asterisks

My beer coaster with Kindle backdrop

The gospel the other day could be read not only as criticism of the Pharisees but, if reversed, the characteristics of God?:

“Observe all things whatsoever they [the Pharisees] tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen…They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces…

Reversing we have:

Observe all things whatsoever God tells you, and follow His example. For He practices what He preaches. His burden is light and He'll help to carry it. Many of his works are performed in secret, not to be seen…He loves places of honor at soup kitchens, seats of honor at sinner's houses.

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I feel like I'm in full “shark” mode, book-wise. Am hungry for text and hungry not just for the ineluctable delights of Kindle but also hungering for print editions as well, especially for classics. Burton's 17th-century classic Anatomy of Melancholy is on my short list, even more so given the high praise of Dr. Johnson (who said it was one of the few books he could read in the morning and smile, he apparently having a disgruntled morning disposition). Then too it'd be nice to have Joyce's Ulysses as well as a Chesterton Complete Works edition (though Ignatius Press's offerings are lame to the extreme - ugly paperbacks! At least if you're going to do paperbacks made them attractive, i.e. use gloss.)

Anyway my Bible-mania is spreading. The proximate cause of this itch was receiving a Folio magazine. (I checked Anatomy of Melancholy on the Folio Society website and it's $180!  No way Jose.)

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I love the poetry of Isaiah! I dipped into it a bit in the spectacularly gorgeous Oxford edition. It sings, it singes! Yes the prophet does both!

Read a bit of Chesterton's poetry this morning. Dreamy. Certainly uneven but still there's a vivid image here and there and coupled with a Christian underpinning, something rare in most poetry I come across.

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Somehow I'm not surprised that the 13th century interlocutor of St. Christina the Astonishing didn't reveal the details of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory as seen in Christina's vision. Somehow it seems like God holds these sorts of secrets close to His vest for obvious reasons (i.e. to discourage presumption or despair). We can speculate and some visionaries have given us numbers of a sort: most folks in Purgatory, some few to Heaven and significant group to Hell. Ah but wouldn't that be a bit prosaic, and thus unlike God, for us to die and find the reasonably predictable outcome of the above ratios? Isn't that too human a judgment? Wouldn't it be far more surprising to see 80-90-100% go to Heaven or, heaven forbid, those numbers going to Hell? I remember reading a Medjugorje seer quote those approximate numbers and felt almost disappointed. But ultimately I guess I don't understand how everyone can be going to Heaven when we've already seen in the angelic world a significant host choosing the devil and Hell. It seems unlikely that humans are somehow exempted from the awful cost of free will.

(On that happy note...let's end on something more positive:)

Various & Sundry

I'm getting scads of emails from folks wanting a 2010 edition of Babes of the Blogosphere: Catlick Edition. (Okay, only one person, but she's an avid reader of this blog which ought count for something.) It's a tempting offer, given how much fun last year's was, but I loathe the idea of leaving anyone off. Good writing is sexy and so there are a lot of sexy blogosphere babes. You know who you are.

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Announcement: Effective Janurary 1st, this blog will limit Tiger Woods' role in its marketing.

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There was an interesting article in the paper Sunday about how Charles Dickens life has become something of a fascination:

Of the making of books by or about Charles Dickens, there apparently is no end. He wrote constantly, published promiscuously, lived intensely, dreamed extravagantly.

Dickens influenced, inspired and challenged others to produce amazing things, too. The thriving field of what we might call Contingent Dickens — works based on Dickens’ works, or on his life or on the Victorian era that his vivid word portraits made famous — is a significant literary genre in its own right.

Consider A Christmas Carol, one of his best-known tales, being performed on stages nationwide. Consider the new film version of the same tale, with Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge, the mean old miser who gets his holiday comeuppance. Consider Drood (2009), the brooding, brilliant Dan Simmons novel that features a distastefully conniving Dickens. Consider The Last Dickens (2009), Matthew Pearl’s fictional picture of Dickens’ American lecture tour. Consider Mr. Timothy (2003), Louis Bayard’s strikingly atmospheric novel that imagines the adult Tiny Tim, the cheerful sickly lad in Carol.

Wrapping one’s arms around Dickens is no easy task. He was too big, too restless, too productive, too accomplished, too complicated, too mysterious.

That mysterious streak is part of the reason for the fascination. The article prompted me to read some of Chesterton's remarkable biography of Charles Dickens and it feels as timely as if it could be written yesterday. On the lack of heroes:

[Thomas] Carlyle killed the heroes; there have been none since his time. He killed the heroic (which he sincerely loved) by forcing upon each man this question: "Am I strong or weak?" To which the answer from any honest man whatever (yes, from Cæsar or Bismarck) would "weak." He asked for candidates for a definite aristocracy, for men who should hold themselves consciously above their fellows. He advertised for them, so to speak; he promised them glory; he promised them omnipotence. They have not appeared yet. They never will. For the real heroes of whom he wrote had appeared out of an ecstacy of the ordinary. [Carlyle] was disappointed with Equality; but Equality was not disappointed with him. Equality is justified of all her children. But we, in the post-Carlylean period, have be come fastidious about great men. Every man examines himself, every man examines his neighbours, to see whether they or he quite come up to the exact line of greatness. The answer is, naturally, "No." And many a man calls himself contentedly "a minor poet" who would then have been inspired to be a major prophet.

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"The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it." - St. John of the Cross

Also o'er the weekend read a lot about my new favorite book of the Bible - “the book of Consolation” as it is sometimes called - that of Isaiah, specifically chapters 54 & 55. Sure it feels like cherry-picking, as if attempting to procure promises without conspicuous effort on my part. Sure it was written to those in deep exile, pre-Christ. But hey it's part of the Bible too!