Below is a YouTube copy of MPB's Gene Edwards interviewing Millsaps Professor Suzanne Marrs about her book Eudora Welty: A Biography.
This is a couple of years old and Dr Marrs may not even know it's still available on the Internet.
I have to admit that I'm not the biggest Eudora Welty fan, and it's for pretty stupid reasons. Her writer's voice and her characters are so finely aligned with my cultural background that her stories make me feel like I'm listening to gossip and not fiction and it's been that way ever since I could read.
Faulkner's writer's voice was very different for me. He was more like someone confessing things they'd really rather not talk about, which is hugely compelling by itself.
That being said, I dearly love hearing Suzanne talking about Miss Eudora. She speaks from the two very different cultures, the one she was born to and the one she adopted after twenty something years in Mississippi, which I find exciting, and she has a powerful mastery of words that's both beautiful and descriptive, but also structured and efficient. Her book reads much the same way as she speaks.
The thing that separates this book from really any other other biography I can think of is that Marrs is a fine academician and she does all the things that requires, but she's also writing about someone who was a loved friend for many years and the merger of those two points of view makes the book worth reading.
If you haven't picked it up, I recommend it.
She has a great speaking voice too. It's not an actor's voice or a radio voice but a really authentic voice, filled with humanity and personality. I love Gene Edwards, but I can tune him out pretty quickly, Suzanne's voice compels you to listen though, like you'll miss something if you don't.
Watch the video, it's great:
The Life Of Boyd Campbell Jackson Mississippi
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Reconsidering Genesis
The creation story in Genesis is perhaps the most criticized part of the Bible, but I love it most of all.
It is not a scientifically accurate account of the creation of the universe, the earth, and the life upon it, but knowing what it is not allows me to sit back and listen to the story for what it is.
While other cultures populate their myths with gods who are very human and nearly human and some even have the audacity to believe their political leaders were gods themselves, the Jews instead recognize a very basic truth of life: we are alone.
There are no demi-gods in this story, and no golden age. We're not shadows of greater beings or slaves to a master. We are simply creations, like all the other creations, and we're given no clear reason or purpose for our existence other than knowing God wanted us to be.
In Genesis, God is inscrutable. There is no mention of his existence before the moment he creates light and he remains a mystery throughout the story. We're given no clue why God creates us or what he wants from us. The same is true even today. We may believe in God, but we have no idea of what he is or what his purposes are.
He creates us, protected in his perfect garden. We are alone and naked and unaware, but in some way we cannot understand we are like him and he favors us and has a purpose for us.
God is merciful and recognizes our isolation and creates for us a companion so that in this life we'll at least have each other. The point is not that they were male and female, or who came first, but that in this life we have only each other to cling to, and how valuable we are to each other.
God creates the forbidden tree and calls it "the tree of knowledge of good and evil". Now, anyone who's ever spent any time with human beings knows that before the end of the story, we're going to eat of that tree. It's our very nature to do so.
We're told that it's disobedient, and perhaps God creates the device that separates us from all the other creatures with some sadness, but he must have known that we would seek out this knowledge, why else would he create the tree?
Had we not eaten of the tree, then the whole of history would never have happened. We would have remained innocent and ignorant in the garden forever. God created us with the capacity to fill the earth, and even cross the boundry of the sky to walk on the moon, but none of it would have happened had we not eaten of the tree.
The loss of innocence comes from knowing the difference between what is innocent and what is not. The capacity for that knowledge is what separated us from the other animals and we were made to follow that path.
God isn't surprised by our choice. He knows that our fate, and our highest purpose lies outside the garden. It's told as if it's a punishment, but it's not because God doesn't abandon us outside the garden. He stays with us and appears to us to guide us and help us several more times after that.
There's no Prometheus to give us fire in this story, no Dianna to help us hunt and no she-wolf to suckle us. We go into the world naked, with nothing but our wits to help us endure and the knowledge that God is with us.
It's so easy for us to dismiss this story and assume the people who wrote it were ignorant and uneducated on the true history of creation, but I think they understood a lot more than we give them credit for. Perhaps they didn't understand the mechanics of cells and gravity and such things, but if you give the story a chance you'll see that they understood a great deal about the condition and nature of man and the situation we find ourselves in, even today.
The story of creation isn't about an event thousands of years ago, it's about this moment, today, and the situation we find ourselves in every day. We are born no different from Adam and Eve leaving the garden. We have only our wits, each other, and God to help us survive.
It is not a scientifically accurate account of the creation of the universe, the earth, and the life upon it, but knowing what it is not allows me to sit back and listen to the story for what it is.
While other cultures populate their myths with gods who are very human and nearly human and some even have the audacity to believe their political leaders were gods themselves, the Jews instead recognize a very basic truth of life: we are alone.
There are no demi-gods in this story, and no golden age. We're not shadows of greater beings or slaves to a master. We are simply creations, like all the other creations, and we're given no clear reason or purpose for our existence other than knowing God wanted us to be.
In Genesis, God is inscrutable. There is no mention of his existence before the moment he creates light and he remains a mystery throughout the story. We're given no clue why God creates us or what he wants from us. The same is true even today. We may believe in God, but we have no idea of what he is or what his purposes are.
He creates us, protected in his perfect garden. We are alone and naked and unaware, but in some way we cannot understand we are like him and he favors us and has a purpose for us.
God is merciful and recognizes our isolation and creates for us a companion so that in this life we'll at least have each other. The point is not that they were male and female, or who came first, but that in this life we have only each other to cling to, and how valuable we are to each other.
God creates the forbidden tree and calls it "the tree of knowledge of good and evil". Now, anyone who's ever spent any time with human beings knows that before the end of the story, we're going to eat of that tree. It's our very nature to do so.
We're told that it's disobedient, and perhaps God creates the device that separates us from all the other creatures with some sadness, but he must have known that we would seek out this knowledge, why else would he create the tree?
Had we not eaten of the tree, then the whole of history would never have happened. We would have remained innocent and ignorant in the garden forever. God created us with the capacity to fill the earth, and even cross the boundry of the sky to walk on the moon, but none of it would have happened had we not eaten of the tree.
The loss of innocence comes from knowing the difference between what is innocent and what is not. The capacity for that knowledge is what separated us from the other animals and we were made to follow that path.
God isn't surprised by our choice. He knows that our fate, and our highest purpose lies outside the garden. It's told as if it's a punishment, but it's not because God doesn't abandon us outside the garden. He stays with us and appears to us to guide us and help us several more times after that.
There's no Prometheus to give us fire in this story, no Dianna to help us hunt and no she-wolf to suckle us. We go into the world naked, with nothing but our wits to help us endure and the knowledge that God is with us.
It's so easy for us to dismiss this story and assume the people who wrote it were ignorant and uneducated on the true history of creation, but I think they understood a lot more than we give them credit for. Perhaps they didn't understand the mechanics of cells and gravity and such things, but if you give the story a chance you'll see that they understood a great deal about the condition and nature of man and the situation we find ourselves in, even today.
The story of creation isn't about an event thousands of years ago, it's about this moment, today, and the situation we find ourselves in every day. We are born no different from Adam and Eve leaving the garden. We have only our wits, each other, and God to help us survive.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A Life of Suffering
This is the subject of a post I've been working on for a long time and just haven't finished yet, but my friend Nicole wrote a pretty remarkable piece today that moved me to go on and put something down even if it's not complete.
The question is: if there is a God, why would God allow suffering, really horrible, pitiful suffering, worse than most of us can't even imagine?
The atheists have an answer: they say it's all random; good and bad happen randomly and there is nothing more to it. It's tempting to believe their answer, but random can't exist mathematically, so there has to be another explanation.
That puts the ball back in the court of the believers.
Perhaps the answer lies in perspective. In this human form our perspective is so very limited. We are so bound by these pitifully weak bodies, by time, by space, by gravity, by physical needs, by fear, by doubt, that it's very difficult for us to see suffering for what it truly is.
Consider this: all suffering, no matter how horrible, no matter how long lasting, is only temporary. Even if suffering ends in a tragic senseless death, it still ends. We all have suffering, even though some of us seem to have more than their share, and all suffering ends.
Love, however, is eternal. There are people who died forty years ago that I love as much today as I did the day they died. Millions of people love Jesus, a man they never knew, who lived in a place they've never been, and died almost two thousand years ago. Love supersedes death. It is perhaps the only thing we know that truly does.
God created us out of love many thousands of years ago. There has been an unimaginable amount of suffering since then, but all that suffering, all the wars, the disease, the failure, the crime, the evil that men do, it is all gone now, yet the love remains, we remain.
This boy may not have had love in his home in the brief time he was there, but, just like Nicole with her writing, many thousands of people have loved him since, and now his suffering is over and he has God's love forever.
I can't tell you why God allows suffering, perhaps it's just unavoidable in these imperfect bodies, but, a physical life of suffering is unimaginably brief when compared to an eternal spiritual life of love.
These bodies are pitiful. They're weak, they don't last very long and they make us vulnerable to an endless variety of suffering, but they are not us. We are eternal and when we shed our physical bodies we shed all the suffering that goes with them.
So yes, there is suffering, but it's not the end of the story. If we could see our true lives, our true spirits then we would know that suffering is but a brief moment that passes and is gone forever and forever is a very long time.
The question is: if there is a God, why would God allow suffering, really horrible, pitiful suffering, worse than most of us can't even imagine?
The atheists have an answer: they say it's all random; good and bad happen randomly and there is nothing more to it. It's tempting to believe their answer, but random can't exist mathematically, so there has to be another explanation.
That puts the ball back in the court of the believers.
Perhaps the answer lies in perspective. In this human form our perspective is so very limited. We are so bound by these pitifully weak bodies, by time, by space, by gravity, by physical needs, by fear, by doubt, that it's very difficult for us to see suffering for what it truly is.
Consider this: all suffering, no matter how horrible, no matter how long lasting, is only temporary. Even if suffering ends in a tragic senseless death, it still ends. We all have suffering, even though some of us seem to have more than their share, and all suffering ends.
Love, however, is eternal. There are people who died forty years ago that I love as much today as I did the day they died. Millions of people love Jesus, a man they never knew, who lived in a place they've never been, and died almost two thousand years ago. Love supersedes death. It is perhaps the only thing we know that truly does.
God created us out of love many thousands of years ago. There has been an unimaginable amount of suffering since then, but all that suffering, all the wars, the disease, the failure, the crime, the evil that men do, it is all gone now, yet the love remains, we remain.
This boy may not have had love in his home in the brief time he was there, but, just like Nicole with her writing, many thousands of people have loved him since, and now his suffering is over and he has God's love forever.
I can't tell you why God allows suffering, perhaps it's just unavoidable in these imperfect bodies, but, a physical life of suffering is unimaginably brief when compared to an eternal spiritual life of love.
These bodies are pitiful. They're weak, they don't last very long and they make us vulnerable to an endless variety of suffering, but they are not us. We are eternal and when we shed our physical bodies we shed all the suffering that goes with them.
So yes, there is suffering, but it's not the end of the story. If we could see our true lives, our true spirits then we would know that suffering is but a brief moment that passes and is gone forever and forever is a very long time.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Paranoid Theory 415: Sex Sells
Embarrassment Can Help Your Career.
Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton were both pretty, but remarkably talentless blonds headed for obscurity. If The Love Boat were still on the air they would have been guests long ago. But then, "leaked", "private" sex tapes rocketed them to super-star status with both their names in the top ten-percent of all-time Internet search terms.
People have long suspected that one or both starlets were secretly in on the release of the tapes in hopes of just this effect. Even if these two weren't involved, it's not hard to suspect this might not be a bad idea for those willing to do anything to promote themselves.
Disney Dollars
Nobody spends more time and effort developing their intellectual properties than the corporate sharks at Walt Disney Inc.
Currently, Disney's current hottest properties are High School Musical and Hanna Montana. Teeny Bopper stardom is short-lived though, so it's not hard to suspect that Disney might be very interested in discovering the next step to protect these cash cows.
Recently, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, one of the stars of High School Musical, had nude photos of herself leaked to the internet, making her name one of Google's hottest new search terms. Soon afterwards, photographs of Hanna Montana star Miley Cyrus' naked back were huge news, even making it as a "hot topic" on ABC's (a Disney Company) The View.
One Plus One Equals....
Cyrus is fifteen, Hudgens is eighteen. Now, I'm not saying that Walt Disney Inc. intentionally leaked scandalous photographs of these young stars to promote their careers, but there are millions of dollars at stake here and corporate slime-balls being what they are, you have to admit it's a possibility, no matter how sleazy.
If you're still not convinced, consider this: Britney Spears was once a Disney product before her hit song, Baby Hit Me One More Time went through the roof on the heels of its sexy MTV video.
All this might just be unfortunate coincidence, but you have to admit; as conspiracy theories go, this is a heck of a lot more likely than Newt Gingrich blowing up the Twin Towers
.
Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton were both pretty, but remarkably talentless blonds headed for obscurity. If The Love Boat were still on the air they would have been guests long ago. But then, "leaked", "private" sex tapes rocketed them to super-star status with both their names in the top ten-percent of all-time Internet search terms.
People have long suspected that one or both starlets were secretly in on the release of the tapes in hopes of just this effect. Even if these two weren't involved, it's not hard to suspect this might not be a bad idea for those willing to do anything to promote themselves.
Disney Dollars
Nobody spends more time and effort developing their intellectual properties than the corporate sharks at Walt Disney Inc.
Currently, Disney's current hottest properties are High School Musical and Hanna Montana. Teeny Bopper stardom is short-lived though, so it's not hard to suspect that Disney might be very interested in discovering the next step to protect these cash cows.
Recently, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, one of the stars of High School Musical, had nude photos of herself leaked to the internet, making her name one of Google's hottest new search terms. Soon afterwards, photographs of Hanna Montana star Miley Cyrus' naked back were huge news, even making it as a "hot topic" on ABC's (a Disney Company) The View.
One Plus One Equals....
Cyrus is fifteen, Hudgens is eighteen. Now, I'm not saying that Walt Disney Inc. intentionally leaked scandalous photographs of these young stars to promote their careers, but there are millions of dollars at stake here and corporate slime-balls being what they are, you have to admit it's a possibility, no matter how sleazy.
If you're still not convinced, consider this: Britney Spears was once a Disney product before her hit song, Baby Hit Me One More Time went through the roof on the heels of its sexy MTV video.
All this might just be unfortunate coincidence, but you have to admit; as conspiracy theories go, this is a heck of a lot more likely than Newt Gingrich blowing up the Twin Towers
.
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