Prompt 30: September 2, 2023
Since the beginning of this endeavor, the political hopes I had expected to calm my fears have shown themselves to be more and more vain. Luckily, this dissatisfaction is exactly what Ode To Culture was started for, and was initiated by the advice, recommended readings, and conversations from our membership. I thank you all! What I have grown to understand is that the world (as we experience it) is made up of motives; disgust, intrigue, dissatisfaction, desire, indifference, hate, and perhaps most importantly–affection. This is captured by Dante in the final words in Paradiso, after reaching the highest place in heaven to witness God.
Yet my wings were not meant for such a flight —
Except that then my mind was struck by lightning
Through which my longing was at last fulfilled.
Here powers failed my high imagination:
But by now my desire and will were turned,
Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly,
By the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.
That Love, “that moves the sun and other stars” is exactly what I mean in the motives that construct our perception. It is yet clearer in Revelation 4:11
Thou art worthy, O God, of all glory and honor and power.
For thou created all things, and for thy pleasure, they were and are created.
This is the fundamental claim of faith; that the world exists in paradoxes characteristic of God’s nature.
I don’t mean to expound on some romantic view of what exists and why, but to acknowledge the phenomenological reality of our experiences, of our actions, and of the Bible. The reason I bring this up is that the last prompt opened up a deeper question of what a government can do– which opens an even more desperate question of what a government can’t do.
I don’t believe a government can care.
Care is a human product. Just like these other motives listed above, the materialist principles are mute and these feelings cannot be theorized into existence. Care is the result of our tendency to appreciate things. By contract, the forces that join people to corporations, companies, administrations, agencies, and committees do so in contrast to the way things are. This is not to say individuals cannot hold these positions without pure motives, only that any group without an identity is incapable of affection.
All this to drive home the question: Who Cares? What kind of care is sufficient? Wendell Berry’s essay, It All Turns on Affection provides insight into why affection is necessary to human survival, but let’s tackle this question from the human scale– how do you care?
The thread is open. Create boldly, and may the Spirit guide us all