Welcome! Please help yourself to coffee and snacks Please make a name tag for yourself Please fill out the information card on the table Please consider serving: Sign-up to bring refreshments to a class
As you watch the movie clip, consider the following questions: What elements of culture do you see here? How is Tolkien acting as a “Culture Maker?” https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=IrOqnZdvI6M
Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.
“ Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”
Fought in WWI Trench Fever Lost two close friends Philologist Lover of Nordic and Anglo-Saxon myths Professor of Anglo Saxon Led C.S. Lewis to Christ Literature instead of scholarly argument.
On Fairy-Stories Humans as Subcreators Eucatastophe: The joy of the happy ending The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe , the sudden joyous “turn:” . . . . this joy, which is one of the things which fairy- stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” . . . It is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur.
It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels — peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. http://www.rivendellcommunity.org/Formation/Tolkien_On_Fairy_Stories.pdf
In Paradise perchance the eye may stray from gazing upon everlasting Day to see the day illumined, and renew from mirrored truth the likeness of the True. Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see that all is as it is, and yet made free: Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys, garden nor gardener, children nor their toys .
Evil it will not see, for evil lies not in God's picture but in crooked eyes, not in the source but in malicious choice, and not in sound but in the tuneless voice. In Paradise they look no more awry; and though they make anew, they make no lie. Be sure they still will make, not being dead, and poets shall have flames upon their head, and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall: there each shall choose for ever from the All. http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html
First Four Weeks: 9/20, 9/27, 10/4, 10/11 Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling More Abstract Asking Questions Discussions Seven Weeks: 10/18, 10/25, 11/1, 11/8, 11/15, 11/22, 11/29 Team: Heaths, Galanes, Englesons, Sandy Smith, Val McGowen, Sean Devereaux, Lily Kaufmann Areas of Culture Personal Stories Discussions Final Week: 12/6
What we make of the world Physically Interpretationally Cumulative Horizons of Possibility and Impossibility
Publicly Through Shared Goods Multi-culturally Within Spheres On Different Scales Adds Diversity
What strikes you about what you’ve just heard about culture: what it is, what defines it, how it operates? Did anything surprise you? What matched or differed from our discussion of culture at the beginning of class?
Amos 5:18, 21, 22a, 23a, 24: “Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings, I will note accept them…. Take away from Me the noise of your songs…. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever- flowing stream.” NASB God’s Due Inescapable
What does this aspect of culture/cultural artifact: Assume about the way the world is? Assume about the way the world should be? Make possible? Make impossible or very difficult? What new forms of culture are created in response to this aspect of culture/cultural artifact?
What does this aspect of culture/cultural artifact: Assume about the way the world is? Cars, fuel, unified land, engineering, maps, wealth, need, support Assume about the way the world should be? Smoother, faster, safer, straight distance, removal of obstacles, uniformity Make possible? Distance travel, cheaper goods, new commerce, commuter jobs Make impossible or very difficult? Sustain population growth without fuel, local jobs, small business, monetary support What new forms of culture have been or are being created in response to this aspect of culture/cultural artifact? PhillyCarShare, electric cars, tolls, Smart cars, EZ pass
To take away from today’s conversations: What spheres of culture am I a part of? Have I thought recently about the presumptions inherent in the cultural artifacts which surround me? Do I think/believe I can influence culture? Is God calling me to be a culture-maker?
Q Commons Event at the Watertown campus (9/24, 7-9p). Q Commons is a live-stream event that also includes local presenters discussing how to advance the common good in our cities and communities. Presenters include: Author Os Guinness, discussing our societal differences Neurologist Dr. Caroline Leaf, speaking on mental health Our very own Cynthia Silva Parker, continuing the conversation on racial reconciliation An interview with Michael Flaherty
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