Rhetoric, in global politics and in Paradise Lost

"Part of the problem is that as countries go their own way, they are each arguing that they are acting for the greater global good." (From the NYT, "Challenges Await U.S. at Group of 20 Meeting")

Isn't that what we always do? We need to claim we are doing the right thing to draw others to our cause; we need to claim to be doing the right thing even to fully believe in our own cause. Justification is the foundation for any rhetoric, isn't it? Today in my English class, we were looking at the first book of Milton's Paradise Lost, in which Satan is rallying the fallen angels to "awake, arise" from the burning lake, and he announces his purpose to never do any good, only evil. My professor pointed out that in using the pre-established language--English, in Milton's poem--Satan can't help undermining his own argument. The language reflects the position (the reality) that God is good and Satan is choosing evil instead. Satan would be more insidious if he camouflaged his goals. Deceptive idealism is more potent than honest evil, methinks.

There's another issue with Satan's rhetoric, too. Satan says he is choosing to be always "contrary." This undermines his authority: if your identity and decisions rest on doing the opposite of what the other side does, then you are effectively still passive. This is an idea I've thought about quite a bit on my own, so it was great to hear it articulated by a professor in connection with literature! (I believe I've made the point before on this blog, with regard to stereotypes. If I refuse to do something purely on the grounds that it fulfills a stereotype about women, then I am still being controlled by sexism.)

Aaaand I have to go back to working on my thesis and reading the newspaper and buying groceries so I will conclude this rambling commentary.

Cameras [Question of the Day]

The question at the Ten Thousand Questions blog today asks about your attitude toward being photographed. Funny they should ask that today, because this weekend I was photographed in a rather unusual way.

To clarify: it wasn't an unusual way for a photographer to take a picture; it was an unusual way for me to have my picture taken. You see, my darling sister is taking a photography class, and I was visiting her this weekend.

"Can I take photos of you?" she asked me.
"Sure!" I said.
At which point she added, "--naked?"
"What?"

As it turned out, "naked" meant 'shirtless but covered with a shawl.' So it wasn't the scandal she initially phrased it as. My innocent little sister, talking about naked photos and asking her subject if she was ready to strip...

We were in the studio at 10pm on a Saturday, after watching an artsy and quite lovely show on campus ("Dead Man's Cellphone"). The little college was quiet, and the first door we tried for the arts building was locked. When we did get inside, S. flicked on lights as we walked between walls covered in photographs, paintings, prints. In the studio, she turned on the lamps like giant flowers, unrolled a black backdrop, attached the camera to the tripod. Shirt off, scarf on; door latched, overhead lights off. It was cold, the air on my bare back. The black scarf was softer than I expected, and it draped nicely. I couldn't see too clearly with my glasses off, and perhaps oddly, this half-blindness made me feel more naked than my half-dressedness.

So I clutched the scarf, and peered around, watching my sister fiddle with the camera, and not quite being able to see what she was doing. Click, click, click. "Turn... Can you... Oh, right there." Click. Click. The studio and the set-up were foreign, but my sister with a camera? Entirely familiar. So, shirtless and scarf-wrapped, a camera capturing my naked back, in the winter studio, I was still at home. S. was taking pictures, and I was just the subject. The photographs would not be about me, but about the pictures they portrayed.

Disenchantment

I have a passion for God and a passion for what God is doing with the small group(s) I'm leading/guiding and a passion for God to save the people I talk to. God has been leading me in new ways, and I have been listening in new ways. I just came back from a great weekend where God was so clearly present and working through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, through the body of Christ gathered together, learning together, worshiping together.

And yet it is so hard for me to have faith in my chapter of Intervarsity. It is so hard for me to expect that I can receive or give anything at the large group gatherings. Why do I go to them? Is is routine? others' expectations? a sense of higher obligation? I can't say. Surely it's some combination of those, and other factors I can't really pin down. But as I have been freed, subtly and gradually, from the crushing sense of duty that circumscribes my actions so often, I have come to see how little I believe in the large group meetings. The fact is, I don't trust them. I don't trust that I will meet God there, I don't trust that the teaching there will be sound, I don't trust that I will even have meaningful interactions with people there.

I persist in believing and proclaiming that it is good to go there, and yet I can't say what I am so sure is good about it. Going to IV large group is an obligation for me. It is the Law: fellowship and corporate worship are good. But the Law is a burden, producing fatigue and resentment. I am not under the Law but under the Spirit, and yet the Spirit certainly has not transformed my attitudes and feelings in this area.

I used to feel that large group was good and enjoyable and that I learned things there. Now I am disenchanted with it and I can't really pin down why. I am afraid of the crowd of people, afraid of not knowing my place, afraid of judgment. And so I am afraid to give, lest everything be taken from me, and I don't even want to pray for God's blessing on the fellowship because I can't find it in myself to believe that He is present there.

Yet I know God is present, and I know He works there. I can't find it in myself, but all things are found in God. Help Thou my unbelief. Lord, teach us to pray.