Mid-afternoon. Morning you and Carol were readying garden area with bags of mulch for spring flowers. You had a Penn Station sub for a late lunch, then bank, and now Kroger’s, which is where you are now. You also found the “Angel” material mid-pile in the bottom left drawer of your rather cluttered work desk under the basement stairs and have it ready to mull over.
Home after another errand, this time getting an insurance rider for my MacBook Air in case it is lost or stolen, and I feel much better. I did check the blog since 15 August 09 and found two references to Adler’s The Angels and Us, the first on 17 February 10 – reference to angels as objects of thought not imagination, and the second on 9 July 10 – reference to/for having the rebellion against the Supervisor for the right reasons. And, I made the following comment in the 9 July 10 blog:
“I think about this. ‘Am I writing these books for the right reasons?’ It is important to know the truth as much as one can. But in this case, in the story, you have to dig deeper and pick up an angelic-like perspective to keep it in context. No good Angels, bad Angels in this story. Enough has been written on that aspect. But, an angelic perspective can be viewed through the Supervisor. I don’t want to go there. Even in imagination. One can get caught up in self-deception, the best example I can think of is Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Obviously, it is Milton himself who is thinking for Satan, not Satan. Milton used reason to allow Satan to think he is doing his work for the right reasons. He wants to be close to G---D, to be like G---D, as it were. Satan is depicted as very bright, which is one of his problems. Such an existential dilemma for him.”
So, although I didn’t remember this exactly, this is the reason I do not want to make comparisons or contrasts between Angels and Betweeners. I don’t see the reason to do so. Even just focusing on contrasts between the two in fiction conjures up the idea that comparisons might be made between the two. I have enough trouble dealing with this in real life. This business in fiction lends itself to another interpretation. Milton after all, used the Bible as background, but I am using my head and you, Amorella. Let’s see, how does the old adage go – I don’t want to go where Angels fear to tread (even in fiction). – rho
Noted. Post. More later. - Amorella.
This is much too holistic in scale, this is way beyond my scope and mind.
It is, boy. That's why I'm here to help. - Amorella.
** **
Below is material from your Paradise Lost introduction lecture notes on “Angels”. The material is taken from Joseph Adler’s The Angels and Us, published by Macmillan in 1982.
I, Amorella, am doing the gleaning and editing of Richard’s notes used both at Indian Hill High School (beginning in 1982 through June, 1984) and William Mason High School (from September, 1984until the summer of 2003) located in southwest Ohio. This posted material is relevant to both the Merlyn series and this blog.
Characteristics of Angels (as viewed from earth in a variety of researched human cultures – their art and literature):
1. 1. Angels are human in appearance with intellectual ability, usually garbed in white, and are sometimes winged (as messengers); they come to earth only briefly and always gaze towards God’s kingdom not man’s; angels have symbols of light such as a flashing sword to make the invisible world visible
2. 2. Angels are objects of thought, not imagination
3. 3. God’s Grace is the power to see the Divine Essence directly
4. 4. Angels cannot produce miracles
5. 5. Angels can affect/effect the will of individuals through sense and imagination
6. 6. Angels have a changeableness within their natures
7. 7. Angels have no dependency on sense-experience or imagination
8. 8. Each Angel loves God before self and loves fellow angels by manifesting that love to them
9.
9. Angelic minds are purely intellectual; they do not reason or think; they draw no conclusions
10. Angels never sleep; their knowledge is innate
11. One Angel cannot move the will of another Angel; each has telepathic speech
12. Angels communicate their receptivity to the Will of God and to their obedience to God
13. Angels do not know space and distance; they are composed of non-material stuff
14. The human soul has a different kind of immortality than Angels do
** **
You challenged your students, those who were interested in such things, to think about these definitions when reading selections of Milton’s Paradise Lost or any other cultural literature that showed Angels as characters within the stories or as images in works of art. That was the objective. Hell’s Angels were also defined in Adler’s books.
Hell’s Angels: (Those devoid of Light and the Presence of God)
1. Lucifer (Satan) “the light bearer” is superior to all the other Hell’s Angels and by his free choice is most opposed to God and to the ultimate Good in humankind
2. The Angels sinned not by seeking evil rather than good; but by pursuing good in the wrong way that manifested pride in self rather than love of God
3. Lucifer’s act of defiance was the cause of the other Angels sinning
4. Lucifer acts (with respect to the biblical Job) solely as God’s agent, not as an independent force; Satan is the cause of human sin neither directly, nor sufficiently, but only by persuasion, to which some humans, but not all, succumb; (humans are helped by the Grace of God)
5. Satan tempts the world and the flesh, but sometimes the sins are caused by human beings alone
6. Sin is not ordinary wrong choice because sin turns humans from God and from the species’ ultimate Good, not just the good works of earthly life
7. Satan could have known the Knowledge had God given him Grace but Satan rejected Grace because of pride of self. He wished to attain God’s Grace without God, thus, Satan desired good, not evil, but he sought to seek the good (Grace) the wrong way
8. Adam and Eve also wanted their own way (to be like God), not God’s way, thus, like Satan, their choice paralleled Satan’s choice
** **
You went on (as an objective of the lecture) to show how Milton’s Protestant oriented Paradise Lost parallels aspects of the biblical book of Genesis and how Milton attempts so show why humans made this choice first through Eve’s reasoning with Satan before both she and Adam fell from Grace. Your focus was on the reasoning used by Satan and Eve because your added objective was to reinforce the logic lecture you had given at the beginning of the British literature course.
This is the way it was in my heartanmind. In my focus I felt I was avoiding someone saying I was “teaching to a religion”. I was never called in by parent or administrator on this lecture. Selections of the biblical text were also in our text book. In all my years teaching I only had one person who choice not to read the biblical text in the British literature text. I gave him something else to read, it was a simple as that, the student and his parents were satisfied.
Now, what does this have to do with The Rebellion as I don’t feel this fourth book parallels either the Bible or Milton, if anything it is a kind of alternate universe that parallels our own human existence, our own sense of humanity. I admit that the concept of the humans in The Rebellion copy the theme of humans ‘falling’ as it were (becoming two dimensional rather than three) because they choose to do good for the wrong reasons. That will be an important point, especially in book five I assume. I will be disappointed if it isn’t, yet if you, Amorella, come up with something better for their [the Dead’s] fall, that will be fine with me.
Now that you have the characteristics of “Angels” (from a non-religious text by Adler) simplified in your mind I can show you the characteristics of the Supervisor, the Betweener, in these next three books in the Merlyn series.
I don’t know that I am ready to receive this information. I am still caught up with Adler’s Angels. One of the questions I wrote in the scribbled drafting of my notes is in essence: “From a human point of view what would the universe be like without Angels?”
Think about it, boy. That is how the universe is in the Merlyn books, no Angels; however there is a Betweener known as the Supervisor. The books’ universe is as an apartment building. The Supervisor is in charge of both the Dead and the Living. Nature is a form of maintenance to allow for the Living and higher human-like consciousness, the maintenance of nature in the physical universe does not exclude even higher consciousness. Few rules and nothing in the rules is absolute, this allows for environmental simplicity. Space and time do not exist for the Supervisor, but they are understood. Everything that runs through consciousness of any sort, virus, cell and plant life for example, are understood. All evolutionary life (as humans define it) is understood.
This concept will be carried through book five and six also. And, as you have been thinking about Paradise Lost, I am going to conclude with a parallel with a few lines from Milton:
They [Adam and Eve], looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
In these fictions this concluding theme begins with the “Pouch Text” selection in Chapter Eleven of the first book Braided Dreams:
“. . . Rabbi Hevron sat his old body in the old chair in the office. He stared upward at the south corner. ‘Where did God go?’ he thought. ‘The world today is like God was never here.’
I miss my Sarah as old Abraham must have missed his. I never found a Rebecca to take her place. We never had children, it was I who was at fault this time not Jessie, I mean, Sarah. God made a promise to Abraham and ultimately to Sarah too. God made a Convenient with Abraham and Sarah that millions would be born, millions as in the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the beaches. He promised a good life one day when there were millions of us in the world. He promised everyone a good life once there were enough of us in the world. Humanity has certainly spread their seeds and eggs. The world is quite full of us, probably too much so. Where is the promise kept? I am old, why not now. Then, the Lord works in mysterious ways. People of the book all say that. We all can trace ourselves back to Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his only son because he thought God wished it so. An angel told him to stop before the sacrifice, then a promise afterwards.
We are all old, dear God. I am not alone. For the love of humanity, do us a favor for once. What do you want from us? From all of us? How can we all learn to sleep together under this same tent. Our world is as a desert. We are bones alone. Millions slaughtered in the last great world war. He rethought that statement. Millions slaughtered around the world, not just us Jews. They should be remembered. The good, the bad. It makes no difference. Death comes to us all. We seemed to have forgotten the promise to Abraham and Sarah was not to us alone, but to all the nations of the world.”
** **
Amorella, I cannot imagine bringing these two grand themes together. How will this ever be done? How is the theme being braided through so far?
As we progress through the books you will see this more clearly. All for tonight. Post. – Amorella.
It is, boy. That's why I'm here to help. - Amorella.
No comments:
Post a Comment