Hi, Everybody!
So, two things:
1, the bizness:
Jeff Seiler is winning the Green Dante/Green Virgil Cover for $1300 (US)! If you want in on this action, just comment on this post, or e-mail momentofcerebus@gmail.com As Dave said, the auction ends on Friday at Midnight (CDT). To prevent douchebaggery, I'm limiting the bidding to WHOLE US Dollars, in FIVE DOLLAR INCREMENTS. So if you wanna make Seiler lose his faith in humanity, you gotta come up with at least thirteen hundred and FIVE bucks (You Ess.). After the deadline, I'll contact the winner and figure out how we're getting Dave his money. (Seiler suggested that the increase should be in FIFTY dollar increments, and as much as I wanna get Dave mo' money, I was trying to eliminate the one penny douches...)
The remastered Volume 1 is available digitally for $9.99.
If you got a couple of extra bucks and want to do a fellow Cerebus fan a solid, frequent commentator Mike Battaglia has a go fund me here.
Friend to the Blog, and the guy who sets his phasers to the Light Side: Steve Peters has another Kickstarter going. (I have a joke in one panel.)
2, I ran out of pages from issue 289/290 to run in front of Dave's Genesis Question commentaries. Dave suggested I use Jewish, Christian or Muslim religious images. But then, Superman's Frenemy: David Birdsong sent in a bunch of (so far) unused Cerebus in Hell? images and now I'ma gonna run them. So:
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| image by Doré, Sim & Birdsong |
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15 February 15
Hi Troy and Mia!
Okay. Ecclesiastes 3:11. This is really getting far afield from what I
consider formal Scripture, but let's persevere.
For the sake of meeting Mr. Ross' thesis on its own terms, I'll start
with the supposition that Ecclesiastes is scriptural, the word of God.
3:11 reads
He hath made everything beautiful in his
time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out
the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
In HIS time. The fact that the "his" is lower
case would suggest that it refers to the "everything" rather than to
God. Which would imply a strictly
masculine nature to "everything". Not an uninteresting theory (if
true): that the masculine "everything" was made by God and everything
feminine or neuter wasn't actually made by God but, rather, occurred as
implications of the masculine "everything". I can't think of an analogous assertion in
scripture.
If the lower case is a typographical error
and does refer to God, it would seem an awkward construction to me: Can an omnipresent being be said, accurately,
to have a "time"? ALL time is
GOD's time, presumably.
"He hath set the world in their heart
so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the
end." Again, not an uninteresting
theory, if by "the world" we're technically talking about the
YHWH. There is, at least, an arguable
internal logic to the verse, first drawing a distinction between the
"everything beautiful" being masculine (compelling the inference that
the feminine and the neuter came into existence by some other means than being
"made" by God) and then suggesting that the feminine and the neuter
-- as expressed by the incarnation of the YHWH -- are, by nature,
impediments. Not only external to
God's creation, but designed to inhibit and prevent understanding of
that creation.
It also seems a strange -- and specific --
citation for Mr. Ross to use, suggesting as it does that "no man can find
out the work that God maketh" when that's exactly what Mr. Ross is
endeavouring to do: to find out,
identify and document what he sees as the irrefutable science behind Genesis.
Of course this is also the chapter that begins
with what became, slightly modified, in my boyhood, the lyrics to "Turn,
Turn, Turn". The Byrds? I forget. I think it was The Byrds, though. "To every thing [interpolated: there
is] a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Followed by a lengthy list of dichotomous
"things". "A time to
[Hebrew: bear KJV: to be born…
[I'm making an exception here in citing the
Hebrew AND KJV versions. It seems to me
a "bridge too far" to be commenting on non-scripture AND citing the
KJV translators improvisations: so for
the rest of Ecclesiastes 3, I'll stick strictly to the original Hebrew
terminology]
... and a time to die; a time to plant and
a time to pluck up that which is planted".
Interesting dichotomies:
"kill/heal"; "break down/build up";
"weep/laugh"; "mourn/dance" (!); "cast away
stones/gather stones together"; "embrace/be far from embracing";
"get (or seek)/lose"; "keep/cast away";
"rent/sow"; "keep silence/speak"; "love/hate";
"war/peace".
A time to love and a time to hate? It's hard for me to imagine any good time to
"hate". Even harder for me to
see such an assertion as scriptural.
"What profit hath he that worketh, in
that wherein he laboureth?"
I think I understand the question
(assuming it isn't purely rhetorical: hardly a safe assumption given the tone
of the rest of the chapter). I guess my
answer would be that work itself provides the profit from that work. It's always easy to slip into the (as I see
it) self-deluding idea that we're working towards something in our
worldly works. Work itself tends to be
"goal oriented" in the sense that we want to accomplish smaller tasks
and larger tasks and still larger tasks and that eventually we will "Get
There" and we have a vague or specific mental image of what
"There" is or will be. In my
own, personal, experience there isn't really a "There" apart from
getting something done. In my case a
26-year, 6,000 page graphic novel. My
mental image, while I was producing it, was of something that would be
celebrated and materially successful.
Which it is, but on a very, very, very small scale. Having made something exactly as I thought it
needed to be made, I've ended up with a very small audience with a work that is
almost completely unknown and far more widely reviled than admired.
But, it is what it is.
In retrospect I think I can see more
clearly what I was actually doing and that it was inevitable that it
would end up the way it ended up. And I
can also see that its inherent value was AS hard work. Period.
My intention for it -- at least judging by the eleven years since it was
finished -- proved meaningless -- less than meaningless -- but the hard work I
put into it proved, it seems to me, to be the sum total of its value. Which is why I continue to work hard -- even
harder than I did then -- because it seems to me that that's how you find
favour in the sight of God: by keeping
strictly to worship of God and religious observance, being 100% or as close to
100% reliable as you can get, and in between worship of God and religious
observance by working as hard as you can work at whatever you're working
at.
I could make a persuasive argument that
there is greater value to different kinds of work -- that trying to document
Comic Art Metaphysics as accurately as I can in excruciating visual detail is valuable
work: valuable in the sight of God -- but I have also become aware that
most perceptions attached to work amount to self-mythologizing: magnifying potential importance in order to
maintain motivation. In my heart of
hearts and my mind of minds, though, I'm fully aware that as long as I was --
and am -- putting in thirteen hours a day six days a week, I could probably be
as fruitfully shovelling manure. Perhaps
even more so since the capacity for self-mythologizing is less possible in the
latter instance, so the work becomes a purer form of itself.
As with everything else, I think it comes
down to innermost motivation. Choosing
work instead of sloth seems to me a good choice, both as a general life choice
and as the best minute-to-minute, second-to-second decision. Don't slack off. Work.
And I see inherent value in that as a straight-line-cradle-to-the-grave
policy. I hope I can maintain it, although my body does, at least, seem
to be falling apart.
So, to me, "IN THAT wherein he
laboureth" is the pertinent element of the question. Work AS work has merit. Work with the idea that it is getting you
somewhere I think doesn't have merit and is, in fact, a vice. Ultimately, everything that is work is physically
incarnated and everything physically incarnated is ultimately dust. Dust to
dust. Ashes to ashes.
I have seen the travail which God hath
given to the sons of men, to be exercised by it.
Of course, there are two different
interpretations of "travail" -- one is "work" and the other
is "trouble" -- as there are two different interpretations of
"exercised" -- one is "physical work-out" and the other is
"self-troubling".
Mr. Ross' selected verse follows with these
observations following it:
I know that no good in them, but for to
rejoice, and to do good in his life. And
also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his
labour: it the gift of God.
I agree that a man needs to do good in his
life, as best he can conceive of that in terms of being charitable and
agreeable and helpful, personally.
"Rejoice", I have a certain amount of trouble with. Isn't it better that I use any time that I
might allocate for "rejoicing" for doing more work and doing more
good? I'm not a great one for
"victory laps". Sometimes I
think I've gotten pretty close to Right in what I'm doing but I think it's a
safe assumption that I'm probably wrong and that I'm only going to make my
situation worse by celebrating being "Right" instead of just ploughing
right back into doing everything wrong but with right intent.
Eat and drink? At a minimum for
sustenance. I can see that but
not much beyond that. "Enjoy"
is just not in my nature. Satisfying
moments delivered by God. I'm deeply
appreciative of those because they're always unexpected and I always assume
that each one is the last one I'm getting.
It seems a much healthier way to live:
I'm basically shovelling manure from now until I fall over and die so
that's really all I'm anticipating. Something happens every few weeks or every few
months that isn't that? Well, hey, Bonus!
And then, immediately, back to shovelling manure.
I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall
be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doth
it, that men should fear before Him.
I think only God could definitively make
those statements. From a man, they're
just interesting opinions.
That which hath been, is now: and that
which is to be, hath already been, and
God requireth
that which is driven away
The first half of the verse, in light of
our modern scientific understanding of the fourth dimension, time, seems more
like the kind of citation that Mr. Ross should be looking for. I find it, personally, critically important
to be aware that everything that will happen has already happened in a
fourth-dimensional sense. My life of shovelling manure non-stop between here
and the grave has already taken place.
Either I managed to do that, or I didn't. MY job, as I see it, is to cleave as strictly
as possible to my intended path: to make it match my intention and not to slack
off or backslide or allow myself to be corrupted. "God requireth that which is driven
away". I think that presents the
problem for men (and women) of being careful of what they drive away. Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
requires being able to discern which is which:
what in your life is the baby and what in your life is the
bathwater. No easy task, I don't think.
And moreover, I saw under the sun the place
of judgement, wickedness there; and the
place of righteousness, iniquity there.
If the author of Ecclesiastes is a prophet
then I assume that we could take these as scriptural gospel. If not, a great deal would depend on who the
author is, what he saw, the circumstances under which he saw it and whether he
has drawn the correct inferences. In
Ezekiel or John's Apocalypse, there is usually an angel or other incarnated
being who says, "Behold, under the sun, the place of judgement, wickedness
there and the place of righteousness, iniquity there." Ezekiel and John both infer, as well, personally,
elsewhere in their books, but you can usually tell human inference from
Revelation in that way: if its
infallible doctrine, an angel will be the one who imparts it or it will be
directly attributed to God.
This, to me, reads as pure human inference:
I said in my heart, God shall judge the
righteous and the wicked: for a time there, for every purpose and for every
work. I said in my heart, concerning the
estate of the sons of men that they might clear God and see that they
themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth
beasts, even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other:
yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no prominence above a beast;
for all is vanity. All go unto one
place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
I definitely try not to get above my place
-- as I understand it these days -- but even in my own severely limited
self-perception I have to say that I've never yet seen any beast shovel
manure. I think that animals basically
"enact" with very little in the way of free will. Yes, like beasts, we die, but while we're
alive we have a much wider spectrum of free will choices to pick from,
assessments that we need to make, choices we need to choose or not choose and
consequences we have to live with. To
me, that separates us, dramatically, from the beasts. The odds are probably pretty good that
"all is vanity" -- that is, all is "in vain" -- but that's
up to us. At the end of the day, none of
us will be able to say that we didn't have choices and that we didn't make
those choices ourselves. If you
consciously choose vanity and vanities then you won't have much to complain of
when you are made to suffer the consequences of that. "You knew that that thing that you
worked to be able to buy was dust, so why didn't you put your time and energies
elsewhere? Why actively choose vanity when there's a wide spectrum of non-vain
choices? Or, at least, choices that you yourself deem to be non-vain or less
vain?"
We do all return to the dust, but only
physically. There's something there, in
man and in beast, a light that goes out at the point of death. And then we can see only what that man or
that beast WASN'T: the inert, "physically left-over" mass. If that was what they were, they would
still be it.
Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of man
that is ascending, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the
earth? Wherefore I perceive that there
is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works: for that is
his portion; for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?
Ecclesiastes is traditionally attributed to
Solomon and this certainly reads like a rationale for creating an
ostentatious abattoir of a temple with your name on it.
My question would be: how do YOU know that the spirit of the sons
of man IS ascending OR that the spirit of the beast "goeth downward to the
earth"? In answer to the question:
Who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?, as a monotheist, I think
John's Apocalypse is the definitive answer to that question. This is what the End Times of this epoch are
going to be like. I, as a man, have a
very limited ability to understand what is being described there, but it
does, for me, keep everything in perspective.
All I can do is what I think is right and not do what I think is wrong
in the hopes that my life and my spirit and all of my actions find themselves
on the right side of the ledger: not in
support of the Beast or Satan or the Harlot but in support of God.
That, I see as my job, my works.
Next week, God willing: Habakkuk 3:3!
Best,
Dave
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Next Time: Girls! Girls! Girls!-Past Matt
