...the plasticity of the real...

"Art is an instant that endures without a future."

"An artist is one who is fascinated by the plasticity of the real."

We seem to have given much thought to possibility of art after the Holocaust, but is it indeed vulgar to consider art as existing within the camps? The survivors speak of life in the camps as having all memory, all reflection, all hope driven from their consciousness by the incessant terror and brutalization. The minds and spirits held room for only pain thought for survival. So is there an affinity to art in the unending "instants that endure without a future?"

On the other hand, the camps were a place of extreme rigidity, in which the only plasticity allowed was a very explosive and unpredictable plasticity that did not lend itself to fascination. There was no instant or place for art whatsoever.

The fool in his heart...

Now it is of course true that this movement of Being between ground and manifestation is not rounded and complete itself, but rather occurs only in the straining of beings beyond themselves; something becomes true in itself only in so far as it is true for others, and something becomes good and worthy in itself in so far as it is worthy of being striven for by others.

-- von Balthasar, "The Glory of the Lord"

A somewhat simple matter. The psalmists of the Old Testament are everywhere addressing God. In all situations, through every emotion, their focus and attention is directed towards the LORD God. Not so for those born from the modern age. These have been trained to relate primarily to their own selves in the passage through their lives.

So in fact, the fool who has said in his heart, 'there is no God' may not be an out-and-out atheist. Rather he is one who is so pre-occupied with relating to himself that God is ignored and considered of no account. The fool is ignorant of God. 

3 am of June 12, 2007

Waking in the night

from seemingly fitful sleep

I see my life with unusual clarity

observing myself from a distance

and from the deepest interior

as though through the eyes of God

I sense a sober judgment

bestowed on me as a gift

It is like the visitation of an angel

whose only message

is the light of how God sees me

how God knows me

The enriched and the evil

are those who have refused

the visits of the angels