Eternity in Our Hearts | SL 1.9 (June 2020)
In this newsletter
- Eternity in Our Hearts
- Film Review: Our Little Sister
- Kipling's "The Gardener"
- A Time For Everything? Reading Ecclesiastes 3
- Pray With Us
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The Tea Garden at the Portland Japanese Garden (photo by Tyler Quinn from japanesegarden.org)
Eternity in Our Hearts
Week twelve of Covid-19 lockdown in the UK has come to an end. It's now full summer, but things are not changing much. The Kirk family is doing well. We continue to feel sheltered from the storm.
Last week I watched one of the most senseless, evil, and emotionally devastating videos I've ever seen and then I watched the neighborhood where we lived less than a year ago—the Target and Aldi we visited every week—razed to the ground. We have many good friends who live within five blocks of where George Floyd was pointlessly killed.
I deeply lament the violence on all fronts. Strangely, I feel the most saddened by the total breakdown of discourse and the shameless lies, misrepresentation, and half-truths that seem to have led us here and seem to be amplifying all the worst aspects in our society. As Christians, we might start by examining our own assumptions and thinking about how to be humble advocates for truth, justice, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Here are some things that I've read that have helped me think through issues of discourse and truth (mercifully, with the exception of the short articles by David and Nancy French, none of these things are about the present crisis, but rather the broader issues of disagreement and discourse):
1. Barry Cooper and James Cary have a wonderful podcast episode where they chat with Brant Hansen about his new book called The Truth About Us. It's about how we are all evil and how we live better, more lighthearted, fruitful, fun-loving lives once we admit that. I found it timely, important, funny, and spiritually down-to-earth in the best sense. Highly commended.
2. Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. Haidt is a social psychologist who brings years and years of research and wisdom to bear on issues of political and religious discourse, trying to understand why we talk past people we disagree with almost constantly. This is a challenging and not particularly politically correct book, but if you're interested it will certainly be eye-opening.
3. Alan Jacobs wrote a book called How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds when he realized that the undergraduates in his classes were almost incapable of serious, respectful disagreement. It is short, clear, and very helpful. We would all benefit from learning how to think and listen again because, honestly, social media.
4. David French, whom I find to be a faithful voice of reason in journalism, wrote a helpful, short, and Christian analysis of the breakdown of discourse on recent events: The Center is Not Holding. His wife, Nancy French, wrote one of the more honest, balanced, and strangely hopeful pieces I have seen in the last week: What My Family Saw at the Nashville ‘I Will Breathe’ Rally.
In spite of all this, I truly believe—in fact, I think it is a theological imperative for every Christian to believe—that the LORD will bring every deed to judgement (Eccl 3:17; 12:14). I've been encouraged by these words that I rediscovered last week from the Rev. John Ames, the narrator of Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer-prize-winning novel Gilead. I hope you don't think them trite or untimely. Remember that The Iliad is the story of a futile war and that God "has put eternity into man's heart, yet ... he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end" (Eccl 3:11).
I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets.
In the rest of this newsletter, I am going to be sharing some art and reflections that I've found quite meaningful recently. I hope they will be of some encouragement and respite for you too.
As always, this newsletter is unapologetically long-form, peek at what interests you and skip the rest.
The Natural Garden at the Portland Japanese Garden (photo by Jack Jacobsen from japanesegarden.org)
Work & Ministry Happenings
- For the moment things are quiet. This month I am focusing on creating a plan to finish the PhD by next year and settling into focused work on that and not much else.
- Update on travel/teaching plans in light of Covid-19 coming next month...
- Keep your eyes open for a small thank-you for all your generosity, prayer, and support.
Our Little Sister (2015) by Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Our Little Sister: An Appreciation
I wrote this little review to recommend a film I think is wonderful. Our Little Sister (2015) is a slow, poignant, funny, hopeful yet melancholy drama written and directed by contemporary Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda. The international community recently recognized Kore-eda’s genius when his heartbreaking Shoplifters (2018) won the most prestigious prize in film, the Palm D’ore, at the Cannes Film Festival.
The opening minutes of Our Little Sister tellingly reveal, one by one, three women in their twenties before they sit down together for breakfast. These three sisters inhabit alone a gorgeous, aching, traditional home, where wood and paper doors that slide without locks reveal the sheltering garden. This scene is filmed with the three sisters seated on the floor around a low table with the camera brought down to their level, echoing the great master of the Japanese family drama, Yasujirō Ozu. We are brought into the lives of these sisters in the most intimate and unobtrusive way.
At breakfast they discuss their father, whom they haven’t seen in the fifteen-or-so years since he abandoned the family to take up with another woman. He has now died. The funeral is approaching and they are obligated to attend. On arriving they are met by Suzu (Suzu Hirose)—the fourteen-year-old little sister they didn’t quite realize they had. Suzu is the product of the relationship that destroyed their family, and yet they are drawn to her. She is their sister, the only thing left to them by their father.
During the funeral the sisters, especially the oldest Sachi (Haruka Ayase), make a study of Suzu’s character. Suzu’s own mother died when she was young and their father married for a third time. She is now orphaned with an indifferent step-mother for a guardian. Although their father’s third wife humbly takes the credit for caring for her husband during his illness, Sachi discerns that it was really Suzu who tended to their father.
After the ceremony the four sisters climb to a beautiful overlook, where they honor Suzu with sincere appreciation for the way she nursed their father during his final days. By the fifteen-minute mark Kore-eda accomplishes an incredible feat of filmmaking: has brought us to know and care for these women.
As they depart the funeral, Sachi, Yoshino (Masami Magasawa), and Chika (Kaho) invite Suzu to come and live with them. The drama unfolds in the ebb and flow of the next year as these sisters welcome Suzu and wrestle with the realities of their personal lives and the legacy their parents have left behind.
We slowly learn that their mother abandoned them not long after their father and that Sachi (perhaps fourteen or fifteen at the time?) raised the three of them. When their mother does appear, late and out-of-touch, she tells Suzu, “Sachi's a tough one, she grew up instead of me.” The old house that their mother left her daughters to inhabit becomes the central symbol of the film. It stands for the bond between the sisters and it stands for the traditions of their ancestors—their grandmother’s plum wine that they faithfully make each Spring from the tree she planted the year their mother was born. But most acutely the home stands for the struggle these sisters face as they build their own lives from the failure of their parents’.
They are old souls. Personality, birth order, and the minor dramas of quotidian life are balanced perfectly with masterful characterization. Each sister is drawn in the way she relates to men, cooking, food, and the others. When Yoshino breaks up she moans about and drinks. When Sachi breaks up she buys more pears then they can possibly eat. Chika still loves seafood curry because she was too young to associate it with their mother before she left. Steady slow focus on the actresses allows their subtleties to show through a gaze, grin, or glance. Kore-eda surfaces the depth of the story through these graceful touches.
The relationship and comparison between Suzu and Sachi is the axis that the arc of the film slowly turns around. Both of them lost their same father at the same age but under completely different circumstances. As they grow closer together they are forced to wrestle with themselves and with how their loss is shaping them. Which choices must they be responsible for? Which choices were made for them? Toward the end of the film Sachi reflects to a close friend that Suzu had her childhood stolen from her. “The same thing happened to you,” he replies. “Your childhood was stolen too by the adults in your life. You should take it back, gradually.”
You can watch Our Little Sister with a 7-day free trial from arthouse streaming service Mubi or you can rent it from Amazon.
World War I graves at Ypres (photo from Wikipedia).
Rudyard Kipling's "The Gardener"
Alan Jacobs recommended this short story in his newsletter, Snakes & Ladders last week and, having never done so before, I read it last Sunday morning. Man, was it beautiful and rich. It is about the loss of a young man in World War I. It has a stunning denouement that might just bring a tear to your eye—it certainly did mine.
I thought it was so good that I typeset the story in a pretty little PDF so that you can enjoy reading it (it's in the public domain).
If you want someone to read it to you, I discovered this episode of The Guardian books podcast, where the story is introduced by none other than Neil Gaimon and beautifully read by Marion Bailey. (I have to say that Neil Gaimon gives away the crucial twists of the story in his intro! I would skip it and listen after you've read/listened to the story.)
The story is complex and deeply rooted in Rudyard Kipling's experience of the loss of his own eighteen-year-old son in The Great War. There's an enlightening analysis of the story with connections to Kipling's own life in this article.
The Moonbridge at the Portland Japanese Garden (photo by Michel Hersen from japanesegarden.org)
A Time for Everything? Reading Ecclesiastes 3
A Time for Everything?
The poem that opens Ecclesiastes 3 is probably the most famous passage in the book. It has fascinated people of many faiths and cultures for millennia. But what is this poem saying, or, perhaps better, what picture of the world is it painting for us?
Eccl 3:1–8 (HC&M)
1 For everything exists a season and a time, for every delight under the sun:
2 A time exists for birthing and a time exists for dying,
a time exists for planting and time exists for uprooting something that is planted.
3 A time exists for killing and a time exists for healing,
a time exists for breaking down and a time exists for building.
4 A time exists for crying and a time exists for laughing,
a time of wailing exists and a time of gaiety exists.
5 A time exists for casting stones and a time exists for collecting stones,
a time exists for embracing and a time exists for being distant from embracing.
6 A time exists for seeking and a time exists for losing,
a time exists for keeping and time exists for throwing out.
7 A time exists for rending and time exists for sewing together,
a time exists for being silent and a time exists for speaking.
8 A time exists for loving and a time exists for hating,
a time exists for war and a time exists for peace.
This is a strange poem. It doesn’t develop an idea or an image but lists contrasts that stack up to create a haunting rhetorical effect. Each line of the poem establishes a pair of opposites. Using contrasting ideas to indicate the whole of something is a rhetorical move called merism (e.g., “night and day”=“all the time”). The list begins with birth & death, which, not only suggests that the whole of life is discussed within the poem, but also ties the poem to the overall preoccupation with mortality in the book of Ecclesiastes. The actions called out in the poem range across the whole span of human life from work to pleasure and from the positive to the negative. These actions are often presented as a set of ethical options so that as humans we must use discernment to decided when the appropriate time for each action comes around and then act accordingly. There are problems with this interpretation that you may already sense even if you can’t put your finger on them.
First, if this poem presents ethical options then it seems to recommend a kind of subjective and individualistic ethic where we’re supposed to ask ourselves, “Is this a time for me to kill?” “Is this a time for me to hate?” When Scripture clearly commands us “You shall not kill” (Exod 20:13), and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:17–18). Although I believe there are times when it is moral to kill, we certainly don’t need to walk around asking ourselves if this or that moment is one of them.
Second, the pairs of contrasts stacked up in the poem do not clearly represent moral or ethical options in all cases. Is uprooting wrong while planting is right? Is silence wrong while speaking right? How about casting away and collecting stones? How about birth and death? Though you might respond that these things are right or wrong in their times, we then come back to the first point and ask whether it is probable that the poem is recommending an approach to ethics where we’re asked seriously to weigh the value of killing vs. healing in every given case.
What the poem might actually be up to gets clearer when you realize that the grammar of the Hebrew text often turns out a bit ambiguous in English. Although it is possible to translate, “There is a time when you ought to...” the grammar leans more strongly toward a translation like the one above, “There is a time that belongs to... .” In this case, the poem is not speaking to human agency but rather saying that each of these actions has its appointed time. Think about birth and death again, these aren’t generally events that you have any control over and yet they encompass your entire existence. This poem is not about moral agency but the predetermined nature of human action and experience.
Finally, the “ethical options” interpretation doesn’t fit with the thrust of the rest of the book that well. The book is not primarily concerned with ethics, although they certainly factor in a secondary way. The focus is rather on human work and effort in the world and its just rewards. The verse immediately following the poem reads: “What gain has the worker from his toil?” (Eccl 3:9; 1:3).
This is the decisive clue. Although the moral value of each action is not perfectly clear, each pair features an action that is constructive/positive and an action that is destructive/negative. The sum total of all these pairs is a balance sheet that resolves to zero. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Not sowing and harvesting (that would be a profit!), but rather sowing and uprooting. When we come to the question in v. 9, we have to say there is no gain for the worker in all his toil. Human action in the world is a zero-sum game.
Stepping stones in the garden of the first Kyoto Imperial Palace (photo from Wikipedia)
Eternity in Our Hearts
The next few verses explain the poem:
Eccl 3:10–15 (ESV)
10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man. 14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.
Verse 10 & 11 contain two poignant enigmas in arresting language. When it says “beautiful in its time” this is probably not a warm fuzzy beauty, but something more austere. The emphasis is on the coherence and determination of God’s plan. Like looking at an image of deep space from the Hubble Telescope, Ecclesiastes looks at God’s unfolding plan and calls it “beautiful.” Placing “eternity into man’s heart,” then, suggests that God has given mankind a sense of or desire for the whole without the ability to apprehend it. It is not that he has put eternity in man’s heart in order to prevent them from figuring everything out, but rather that he has done it in such a way that man is unable to find it out. Ecclesiastes’ own interpretation evokes the sense of longing for something lost, unknowable, unattainable.
Verse 14 attributes the poem’s zero balance to God’s sovereign action. God is in control of time and he has set humanity within it (cf. Eccl 1:4–11), giving us gifts and longings, and causing us to fear him, but ultimately we cannot understand or influence the whole. All of human activity has its place in God’s pre-determined economy. From this perspective, we lack the power and agency to make a profit, to change the course of things.
Sand & Stone Garden at Portland Japanese Garden (photo by Wayne Williams from japanesegarden.org)
The Fullness of Time
Gal 4:3–5
3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
While it might at first appear that the connection between Ecclesiastes 3 and Galatians 4 hinges on a cute link with the word “time,” there is a profound theological bridge here. Paul highlights the sovereignty of God to accomplish our redemption according to his plan: there is a time for redemption, a time for Christ to be born. Paul also gestures at the predicament that Ecclesiastes says all of humanity is trapped in: we are enslaved to “elementary principles” and to the law. This is a spiritual analogy to what Ecclesiastes describes as humanity’s “bondage to death,” i.e., vanity, our bounded, finite nature, powerless to effect change (Eccl 1:2; 12:8). Finally, Paul shows us what God’s plan consisted of—nothing less than God himself being born of a woman, entering time, taking up our vanity.
In his Institutes, Calvin cites Gal 4:4 as a proof of Christ’s humanity, “Again, there are countless passages that reveal he [Christ] was subject to cold, heat, hunger and other infirmities of our nature. We should, however, choose those [verses] which are capable of edifying our hearts with true assurance.” Calvin goes on to cite the following verses which build up to form a portrait of Christ’s response to Qohelet’s frustrations and longings:
Heb 2:11, 14–15, 17
11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.
14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest...
Brilliantly, Calvin demonstrates that where we were powerless as humans to effect change, God himself has effected change as a human. God steps into vanity and opens up a door for us to escape vanity. God moves to redeem. God’s sovereignty, God’s time, God’s action.
LORD we are trusting in you and in your control and timing of all things. We cannot see the end from the beginning. We cannot accomplish the change and redemption in this world that we so desperately want to see. LORD, bring justice. LORD, bring peace. LORD, have mercy.
The Pavilion in the Flat Garden at the Portland Japanese Garden (photo by Jonathan Ley from japanesegarden.org)
Pray With Us
- Pray for peace built on true justice.
- Pray for good political leaders.
- Pray perhaps especially for church leaders to be non-partisan voices for truth, reconciliation, justice, and the gospel of Christ.
- Pray for my progress on my dissertation (I'm about to be a totally broken record on this one).
Meghan in the Japanese Gardens at Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul.
Notes:
- The translation of Eccl 3:1–8 above is from Robert D. Holmstedt, John A Cook, and Philip S. Marshall, Qoheleth: A Handbook on The Hebrew Text (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017).
- John Calvin is quoted from Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 Edition, translated by Robert White (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2014), 240.
- I've long thought that the aesthetics of Japanese gardens provided the perfect "visual exegesis" for Ecclesiastes 3. Here's the summary from "Japanese Gardens" at Wikipedia: "Japanese gardens are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden designers to suggest an ancient and faraway natural landscape, and to express the fragility of existence as well as time's unstoppable advance."