The SOPA Protest: An Unintended Internet Sabbath?
Wikipedia’s recently blackout in protest to the SOPA bill presented before Congress, and its possible threat to the free exchange of ideas over the web for the common man. According to the Wiki SOPA article, “On January 18, the English Wikipedia, Reddit, and several other websites coordinated a service blackout to protest SOPA and its sister bill, the Protect IP Act, or PIPA. Other companies, including Google, posted links and images in an effort to raise awareness. An estimated 7,000 smaller websites either blacked out their sites or posted a protest message. A number of other protest actions were organized, including petition drives, boycotts of companies that support the legislation, and a rally held in New York City.”
My friend Julie-Rae educated me on this matter, to which I attended to but a cursory look, my mind occupied with the immediate concerns of school and family. However, I did have an opportunity during the protest to go to Wikipedia’s site and do a “test search” to see what the blackout actually looked like. I can’t remember what search term I put in, but the article showed up briefly, but half a second, followed by a blacked-out screen with a questions of whether or not the viewer wanted to see the act pass, and its possible consequences (re: the black screen).
First and foremost, I agree with the protestors, although not in the hyperbolic sense as some of my friends online. Interestingly, in my own personal research for an upcoming discussion on Frankenstein with my AP classes, I came across John Milton’s Areopagitica (Milton’s Paradise Lost is heavily alluded to in Shelley’s Frankenstein) which, all the way back in 1644, protested a similar move by the English government, and includes the wonderful credo“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties,” as stated by its introduction in the Norton Anthology of English Literature. Mine is the brief nod and “of course it’s crap,” agreement to the SOPA bill, then on to changing my 8 month old son’s diaper.
But my initial reaction to the blacked-out screen was not one of activist outrage.
It was relief.
I am one of those people who, due to a lack of discipline and the temptation to indulge in every discussion, film, Youtube post, or blog which comes my way, will willingly stayed glued to the screen until my eyes water, and jump from blue hyperlink to blue hyperlink. Wikipedia’s blacked-out screen suddenly put an end to this, albeit for a moment. A moment of a minor epiphany. I was given a brief Sabbath from the Internet.
Let’s take ourselves back to the core, essential definition of Sabbath. It comes from the Hebrew shābath, “to rest.” In more religious contexts, it is the day set aside by Christians and Jews to focus on God, which means a reprieve from work, errands, duties, and other activities which draw our attention away from Him.
Using more technological terms, a Sabbath is a means to “switch off,” from the distractions of the world.
We’ve all gotten to this point, perhaps, of wanting to turn off our cell phones, our laptops, shut off the iPod, leave our cars and tramp off into the woods for a few hours and communicate, perhaps with a friend or Nature, face to face, sans all technological applications. In our 24-7 nonstop society, this has turned into a real need, one that, for me anyway, often goes unfulfilled. There is too much to do, to see, to learn! And, O Happy and Accommodating Internet, look what thou hast provided! Unlimited information and discussion, and always at my fingertips.
I’m not saying this is inherently a bad thing. It would be the height of hypocrisy, given that this will soon be posted on my blog which I enjoy others reading online, to make such an absolutist statement. Yet Wikipedia’s blackout offered me a meditation on the dynamics between humanity and technology, and that need to periodically, perhaps more than we realize, to “switch off.”
I don’t think it is a mistake that the authors I most enjoy chose to forego or criticize technology. Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, wrote “My chief delight and satisfaction is annually to desert the world of modern technology. When winter fades and spring blossoms into summer, I feel an overwhelming urge to travel back once more. Mouse Warriors and Badger Lords come striding through the realms of my imagination.” JRR Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings, once wrote that the LOTR epic was essentially about the struggle of Man, the Fall, and the Machine. Sauruman’s downfall, in part, is due to his interest in the mechanical over his interest with things that grow. CS Lewis, in a more balanced view, stated in his essay “Is Progress Possible,” that with technology, “We can become neither more beneficent or more mischievous. My guess is we shall do both; mending one thing and marring another, removing old miseries and producing new ones, safeguarding ourselves here and endangering ourselves there.” GK Chesterton insisted that science, and thereby technology, should be used and viewed as “a tool or a toy.” Each author, in other words, put technology in its proper place.
And I think Wikipedia, unbeknownst to them, showed that to me as well a few nights ago. That night, the black screen and white lettering glowing faintly from my monitor, reminded me that it was well past time to switch off. I walked outside, the twilight air cool, and gazed up, drinking in the vesper air. I remembered Kerouac in his book Lonesome Traveler, on watch as a fire lookout on Mt. Desolation: “Sometimes I’d yell questions at the rocks and trees, and across gorges, or yodel ‘What is the meaning of the void?’ The answer was perfect silence, so I knew.” Or Thomas Merton, who most likely would have brought the Psalms to mind: “Be still, and know that I am Lord.” This idea of man alone, with the One, or himself, or just the lone nightingale in the tree beyond. A blacked out screen, beckoning to this, a single breath alone, before bed and rest.
Sabbath.
Worth contemplating. Even if you are not a poet.
How To Be a Poet
(to remind myself)
Source: Poetry (January 2001).
The Man on Thursday
I have been diving into GK Chesterton again: purchased What’s Wrong With the World, Tremendous Trifles, and am tempted this evening to buy his novel Manalive, which includes one of the most exquisite opening paragraphs I’ve read in a long time. Here it is:
A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness, and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxication of the sea. In a million holes and corners it refreshed a man like a flagon, and astonished him like a blow. In the inmost chambers of intricate and embowered houses it woke like a domestic explosion, littering the floor with some professor’s papers till they seemed as precious as fugitive, or blowing out the candle by which a boy read “Treasure Island” and wrapping him in roaring dark. But everywhere it bore drama into undramatic lives, and carried the trump of crisis across the world. Many a harassed mother in a mean backyard had looked at five dwarfish shirts on the clothes-line as at some small, sick tragedy; it was as if she had hanged her five children. The wind came, and they were full and kicking as if five fat imps had sprung into them; and far down in her oppressed subconscious she half-remembered those coarse comedies of her fathers when the elves still dwelt in the homes of men. Many an unnoticed girl in a dank walled garden had tossed herself into the hammock with the same intolerant gesture with which she might have tossed herself into the Thames; and that wind rent the waving wall of woods and lifted the hammock like a balloon, and showed her shapes of quaint clouds far beyond, and pictures of bright villages far below, as if she rode heaven in a fairy boat. Many a dusty clerk or cleric, plodding a telescopic road of poplars, thought for the hundredth time that they were like the plumes of a hearse; when this invisible energy caught and swung and clashed them round his head like a wreath or salutation of seraphic wings. There was in it something more inspired and authoritative even than the old wind of the proverb; for this was the good wind that blows nobody harm.
Wandering Tree 2011 Review: A Dialogue with C.S. Lewis
Note: Less a review and more of a reflection. Much thanks to an unknowing Bruce Edwards, who wrote a much more informed and coherent Lewis dialogue here, from which this piece gets its inspiration. Happy New Year to all!
The roar of laughter rang from the small cabin as I tramped into the forest clearing, stamping my feet for warmth. The windows were lit from the dancing light of a roaring fire in the hearth. Smoke wafted from the chimney, as if the house itself were enjoying a pipe along with the inhabitants inside. My fear of freezing overtook my shyness, and I knocked on the door.
A balding man in a worn tweed jacket, smoking a Woodbine, answered. His face lit up with assumed recognizance, competing in welcomed warmth with the fire within, and he boomed a glad tiding:
“Hullo there, Mr. Pyne- er, Wanderingtree. We’ve been having a lovely soak in your forest these past few days. Come in, and pull up a chair, for heaven’s sake, you’ll freeze out there. You know, at least know about, Tollers, Charles, and Warnie, I take it?”
“I do, sir.”
“Jack.”
“Mr. Lewis, for now, I think. Sorry. It’s been a hell of a walk.”
“The road is always long and hard, when you don’t stop for rest and perspective,” Tolkien muttered through the pipe in his mouth. He turned back to Charles Williams and continued his discourse with him.
Lewis took my arm and steered me toward an armchair. He smiled knowingly. “Been immersed in my books and still not taking the hint, eh?”
“I suppose. I mean, what a terrific year, though.”
“The boy.”
“Rowan, yes. Rowan William Pyne, born April 23rd. Holy Saturday, in fact.”
“Congratulations. And the girl.”
“Isabelle! Yes, my niece was just born a few weeks ago on December 7th.”
“Wife, house, and job.”
“All present and accounted for. No complaints, really.”
“And yet,” Here Lewis looked me dead in the eye.
I faltered. What word really summed it up for me, both in spite of and also incorporating the blessings I’ve received this year?
“Er, rushed. Yes, rushed. I feel I’ve rushed past everything. People, places. I can’t remember all of it, really. Stopped writing the blog for a while. Been reading like a fiend, however.”
The room was warm. I removed my sweatshirt, tossing it onto the empty dining room chair on which Lewis had flung my jacket. Lewis took this moment to light another cigarette. Laughter and the pouring of ales from casks into heavy tankards by Williams and Tolkien. Lewis took two and gave one to me, taking a long pull at his own. He smacked his lips.
“Yes, and I do appreciated the attention to my books- by the by, more MacDonald in your diet, I think, but I do like this man Brian Jacques. Coarse and gentle at the same time, like a swaggering pirate bending down to pet a puppy. Been meaning to have a pint with him since he has arrived. But to the point, of course: down with my pen, and up with your own. ‘Ink is the great cure for all human ills’ I think I said long ago, with some naiveté but some truth as well. What stopped you?
“Nothing to…”
“Balderdash and rubbish, my boy!”
“Well, then, not enough time to…”
“Equal parts trash and buffoonery! Didn’t my demon Screwtape teach you anything in his wicked way? ‘Humans live in time…therefore…attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself and to…the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity…in it alone freedom and actuality are offered.’”
“So when I rush past things and don’t stop to value or appreciate…”
“Then you live in the Future, that thing ‘least like eternity. Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust and ambition look ahead.’”
“Hmmm…”
“Let me guess: Christmas slipped away from you this year almost as if it never occurred? Even though you were with family?”
“How did you know?”
“The Incarnation remained in the manger. You kept chasing the star. Poor show, my friend, it needs to stop.”
“New Year’s resolution time, then?” I asked jokingly.
Lewis grimaced. “Every morning,” he said, “and not with the morose face of the perpetual penitent. He offers the morning star, you know. And the repair, if you let it, is always constant.”
I leaned back and stared into the fire, which had started to burn low, with idle, comfortable clicks, snaps and sparks. Williams and Tolkien still conversed animatedly, with Lewis now joining their laughter. Snow fell into view from the window, framed by the dancing lights and shadows of the room. More people entered the cabin, more than I thought possible- new friends and old, family living and dead. Hugs, cries of greeting, and glasses filled and raised. A call for a game, where followed jocular competition. The beginnings of a poorly sung song. More laughter.
I took a deep breath. Then another. Lewis beamed.
“More of that next year, my boy, understand? Well, good New Year to you.”
To you too, Jack.
Welcome, Wanderingwebb!
I invite you to check out Wanderingwebb, the new blog of my good friend Calon: godfather to my son Rowan, and fellow compatriot on adventures real and imagined. Our journeys through our respective Forests often overlap, and I can guarantee thoughtful commentary, insights, and musings. Check it out!
New England
So far, I’ve not looked out and contemplated the night sky during my New England stay. My nose is too often in books, or on screens, studiously- avoiding is the probable verb- the one Star of which I should be searching. May I have the courage to crane my neck up.
A Rustle in the Long Dead Wood
I’ve just deleted the “Farewell” post which had announced the end of Wandering Tree, because I find myself lured back to these woods, and looking upon them with fresh eyes. ’Tis the season of Advent, of Christmas. Another celebration of the Incarnation. So I should not be surprised, perhaps, that I sense new life is announced in a season of decay and neglect. This forest blog, which lay dormant for many months, needs feet to crush its dead leaves and crunch through its snow, for there is still, and always has been, a Star in the sky pointing the way o’er the next hill, and in those cool, frosty mornings, beyond the mist and fog.
I’m not sure what brings me back. I’m sure of Who. I hope you’ll be here to explore with me.
Rapture: In Other Words, Impatience and Distraction
I would be lying if I said the recent silliness of Harold Camping’s Rapture predictions and the subsequent commentary which followed before and after had not caused an interior restlessness and conflict within me. Not that for one moment I believed any of Camping’s nonsense, but the fact that I am Christian put me, unfortunately, under the big tent of Christianity which Camping chose to turn into a circus. And, I felt, once the circus lights went out and the event was over, there would be a lot of crap to clean up.
Predictions like Camping’s do not adhere to orthodox Christianity, as N.T. Wright explains here. Rather, “end of times” scenarios follow more the politics of distraction and impatience than Christian doctrine. One only has to point to words of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew (“No one, not even the son, knows the day or hour…”) to render Camping’s predictions moot.
However, I, like many Christians, found myself defending my faith as a whole, for many chose to paint the entirety of Christianity with Camping’s brush. My unfortunate fascination with comments left on various news stories, such as I find on CNN.com or NPR.org, found this tendency in abundance. Many were vitriolic dismissals of faith in the “invisible man in the sky,” or at its worst, a secular call for the eradication of all religions (at which I wondered what the implementation of their plan would be like should they have their way). A shared agreement with the ridiculousness of Camping’s assertions was secondary to a general bashing of religion.
On both sides, as mentioned before, this event followed more the politics of distractions and impatience than Christian doctrine. Our sound bite culture thrives on the new gossip, the new product, and the new conflict; distractions are embedded into our culture. Why settle for what you have now? Here’s what’s next. Yesterday was old news, and this story is just breaking. And what better stories are there than the odd, the weird, the sensational? Therefore, it is no surprise that the news jumped on this fringe group.
In the realm of Christianity, talk of Rapture and End Times distracts us from who we are called to be in Christ, in the here and now. CS Lewis uses his demon Screwtape to drive this point home in letter 15 of The Screwtape Letters:
“He [God] does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future- haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth- ready to break the Enemy’s commands in the present if by doing so we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other- dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes who end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.”
This is the position Camping and other end-time theorists put themselves in when divining supposed Rapture scenarios. Does it not also follow that a notion of impatience is built into this as well? In my Anglican tradition, we are called within the liturgy of the holy Eucharist to proclaim the mystery of faith: “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.” We live in anticipation of a new creation initiated by Jesus in his death and resurrection. Wright notes in After You Believe that this is not a waiting room mentality but a “call[ing] to be genuine, image-bearing, God-reflecting human beings. That works out in a million ways, not least in a passion for justice and an eagerness to create and celebrate beauty.” Wright also notes that this anticipation is not one of destruction for “the vision of Revelation 5 is not a vision of the ultimate end…but of the heavenly dimension of the present earthly reality.” What we see in Camping’s world-view, then, is less a joyful anticipation of this reality than a forced demand for some event of finality, a drawing up of borders and walls rather than a participation in the infusion of God’s love into the world. The latter allows God to work as He will, and to join Him in that work, the former is an impatient stomping of a child not getting his way. A metaphysical tantrum, if you will.
Small wonder then that the culture as a whole gets impatient as well. “This is what you say you stand for, but what we see is something completely different.” A valid and truthful observation and the honest vitriol are usually pointed to this hypocrisy.
Our gospel reading today from John redirects the Christian to what should be the focus of his/her faith: Christ himself. “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do.” And what works are we talking about here?
Heal.
Love.
Give life.
Feed the poor.
Reach out.
Bless.
Judge Not.
Tell stories.
Offer yourself.
Give thanks.
Raise up.
We announce the kingdom in these ways.
I get caught up in theoretical arguments and theological debates, mostly as an observer. And this week was no exception. However, as one of my fellow congregants as Ascension Church stated, “You always look for something redemptive out of crazy.”
Situations like Camping’s false predictions force us as Christians to ask “What are we really all about?’ or more to the point “WHO should we really be about?” Because God works through, regardless. And my attention was thankfully redirected back to this.
Someone asked a nun this week on her blog what she thought about all this Rapture talk, with the impending end of the world on Saturday. She gave a prompt, Spirit-inspired reply:
“Ask me about it on Monday.”
The books we never abandon
The books we never abandon. A great post by Professor D.G. Myers from his Commonplace blog with a few relevant quotes by C.S. Lewis. Of primary consideration: are printed books going the way of the dodo in favor of etexts?
Over at Transpositions guest authors are offering their Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis Book Review: Introduction. Of particular interest to me is an analysis of Lewis as literary critic, as his scholarship colored his philosophy of education. Lewis offers a countercultural, metaphysical understanding of literature which goes against modern interpretations of the function of literature. The more I read into this, the more I recognize the stark contrast of his understanding to contemporary scholars. In my role as a teacher of British Literature, I find Lewis is, quite frankly, both an illumination and a a relief, though I must put in more study in order to articulate this countercultural relevance. To wit: I am required to lay down a curriculum of literature which endeavours to create an appreciation of literature of the past and form a culturally literate student body. When my seniors graduate, they then enter an undergraduate realm where this cultural literacy is undermined and slowly torn down. Critical thinking and appreciation gives way to political manipulation and a theoretical watering down of literature to the point where the question is less “What is literature?’ to “What?” The underpinnings of a purposeless posit of literature gives way to a purposeless study of literature.
This is an uncharitable, broad brush stroke on a perceived divide between secondary and undergraduate education, but I really think Lewis’ ideas hold some key to this. More later, but in the meantime, enjoy the erudite minds of Transpositions.
