“When I am empty, I am.
When I am full; I am not.
What am I?”
— Answere: hole
“I am what I am not.
You cannot see me.
Yet you look at me to see.
What am I?”
— Answer: A Mirror
Have you grown weary of our journey into doubleness? I hope not, but I understand if you have.
It can be a bit tedious. It is an analysis of the ordinary, and perhaps somethings are just not meant for analysis. ee cummings seemed to believe this. Consider the opening of his poem since feeling is first:
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
Regarding romance, the poem rejects the analytic, grammatical, logical mode. Most people, including myself, would agree (in part). Neither Spock nor a 401k arouse very much passion in me. Yet, words and they ways in which we use them are filled with romance and mystery.
Even more shocking, one needs analysis, grammar, and logic in order to appreciate this poem. One even needs them to arrive at and communicate such an idea. Neither the reader, the writer, nor even the concept can stand wholly outside such realms of order.
Part of the intellectual delight of the poem stands upon a certain duality, a kind of doubleness. I am not referring to the duality of romance and syntax. The duality I refer to is more elusive because it is not as much present in the poem as in the creature of poetry–ourselves.
What should we make of the fact that to discuss the need for romantic abandon and intuition requires a kind of analytic reflection which appears to contradict its very conclusion? Indeed, to some extent, grammar, syntax and analysis provide part of the metaphysical groundwork of the poetic insight. Is not the awareness of such a reality itself a trap which bars those in the know from experiencing the reality?
In a like manner, one can only claim that simplicity is best after experiencing and knowing the complicated.
Our knowledge of certain things appears to be intertwined with a knowledge of their opposites. And in the above case, such knowledge can only exist in a being who is, to some extent, that very opposite thing! Simple beings do not and can not say they like simple things better. Non-grammatical, non-syntactical beings cannot claim the romantic superiority of such.
There is a remarkable doubleness in man, a doubleness which, while similar to that found in nature, is yet different. Thus mankind marks a certain development in our discussion of double-vision or imagery.
In the last two posts, nature has been described as an image and sign of divine presence and power. And in some sense, I could merely expand upon this and say, mankind too. But ‘too’ fails to get at the reality either sufficiently or accurately.
If the human person were merely more of nature. Than this post would be redundant. Humanity might be included under the heading of nature. But humanity does not merely extend the natural realm, though it does indeed do this. Humanity, even while a part of nature, ultimately transcends and transforms nature.
I do not mean this in the sense that humanity is unnatural, though it can be that as well, but rather that humanity introduces an aspect of the super-natural. Humanity stands both within and without the ordinary order of things.
The following is a brief list of ways in which humanity transcends or transforms mere nature:
- self-awareness/analysis
- totality/participation
- otherness/likeness
- freedom/imitation/morality
- obedience/love
- personhood/polis
- soul/logos/imagio dei (being and mediation))
The following posts within this series will examine these characteristics of our humanity in regard to our status as unique and exemplary images of God within the context of creation.
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