rowan williams

a little book I found in the library called grace and necessity 2005.
though intellectual it is both beautifully 'grounded' (lots of examples) and understandable.
before I take it back I need to read it again:
it really inspires and I don't want to miss any vital clues
page 5 . . .'whether there is an unavoidably theological element to all artistic labour.'
page 14 'What he (maritain) is clear about is that the production of beauty cannot be a goal for the artist. If the artist sets out to please, he will compromise the good of the thing made.'
I fully understand the first sentence but the second is problematic.
but on the same page:
'maritain notes that contemporary art is confused about beauty: either there is a cult of the beautiful for its own sake . . or there is a replacement of beauty by an appeal to a work's fidelity to the artist's subjective integrity - personal honesty doing duty for 'formal splendour' (aquinas' "splendor formae")
[for me, though, the one thing probably leads to the other making me guilty on both counts]

darkness again the last two days or so.
wondering if this darkness has it's source in the last darkness;
whether the way out of that darkness might be the way out of this one too.

but,I forget again, there are never any roadmaps
and it is mere foolishness to hark back to 'old routes'.

which is surely just how it is with my music too isn't it?

do I know who my enemy is?
when I knew I could fight.
and fighting made me strong.

who is my enemy now?
still just doubt?
or something more rebellious?

my situation corners me
and I must do my best to trust in a barren place

and yes that is how it is with my music too
-------------

wanted today to make a little opera of the story of balaam and bakal.
I won't be able to of course.

a man,not the man

I am a man and not the man.
I'm not saying that I have never understood this
but it is true that I didn't conceive of it in this way.
there needs to be the man before you can.

the man is actually all that many of the psalms are about:
one of this fortnight's re-revelations . . .

even when alone reading the psalms is something one does with others
a communion then.
[it's hard to put into words without it becoming mere dogma,
or even worse: psycho-babble]
--------

I worked on my violin concerto the other night.
just tweaking things in the first movement for a recording.
[I've had to do another one because the gpo upgrade changes everything.]
sound became a source of light for the first time in many months.

today I was still rubbing out the end of the octet:
(my piano covered in bits of used rubber)
not knowing what this piece is about.
perhaps the not knowing is what it's about.
there is whimsy in the second movement
I need to understand that better before I can finish it happily.
no rush.

so the music isn't some idle decoration
to placate a restless mind?

struggling with the end of this 'octet'
I realise that I have no idea what it means
any more than I understand my prayer . . .
although I do somehow know what it mustn't mean.
(I think)

the question is
can my music shed light on my prayer too?
[ie. can it not work both ways around?]

does the music inform my prayer
and does the neglect of my music hinder my prayer?

self-faith in me reflects in the faith I have in my own music.
faith in you is faith in you . . . .
aren't these different kinds of faith
or do they flow from the same source?

a few leads today:

burnt fingers;
nothing to hold onto;
the purifying fire which leaves only truth untouched;
your gentle refusal to let me see or know
except by faith.

let go let go you say
but have faith have faith
this is the only holding onto
everything else is subject to alteration, modification and the cycle of decay and renewal
except faith
and it is in the darkness of faith that I am
saith the lord

when I read genesis this time
I realised that I myself am the pharoah who does not let your people go.
until I have lost nearly everything.

the ark if the covenant is made of beautiful things:
colourful, lively things
not drab black and white things. . . .

oh, and the music?
yes yes you cry
of course
(and didn't I really know this all along?)

the music does not lead to knowledge
but it does not lead away either