Down the Turl of Ideas

 

Cloudy Grey Afternoon Musing -- 

When do ideas come to you? When do you capture ideas and how? Is there quiet, thinking time a certain time of day? Is there a place, a time, a method? Do you thrive on routine or on flexibility? 

Now the last day of many days
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!

(Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Or, is it from your memory? Learning is a lifelong process and often something we learn about, read about, or experience comes back to us via memory. Either in an "ah ha" moment or a gentle reflection that reveals something. 

Fleeting like a fully bloomed flower, ideas tend to burst forth with wonder and delight, but if you don't capture it in some way, it fades and droops, and might be hard to retrieve again. This is a big reason why I journal and everyday let out some thoughts, even if it's not anything earth-shattering. 

I coyly inserted a little quote from Percy Bysshe Shelley as he was known for his big (atheist) ideas that got him expelled from Oxford, just down High Street, in fact, at University College. Despite his aversion to Christianity, his poetry is rather brilliant and not without lots of Christian imagery and language.

Turl Street in Oxford is one of my favourite streets. It connects Broad Street and High Street, so it a very handy path, but also is a central smaller street that is a source of many branches of paths diverging from it. It not only offers the cut-through to High Street from Broad Street, but along the way, it also provide a branch directly to to the Radcliffe Camera (Brasenose Lane) and then the other direction toward Cornmarket via Ship Street or Market Street. There are great shops along Turl, like Oxfam bookshop, The Missing Bean coffee shop, and some of the loveliest colleges (Exeter, Jesus, Lincoln). One of my favourite restaurants used to be there (a victim of Covid time). A spire can be seen at the end where High Street greets it (it used to be a church, now the Lincoln College Library). And a huge Horse Chestnut tree stands on the corner of Turl and Ship Streets behind the Jesus College wall, branching well above and over it to provide shadows and beautiful greenery to anyone along Turl Street.

Turl Street can be really busy sometimes,  it can get congested with delivery trucks and bikes, students, tour groups, and construction/restoration projects. The moments when I can capture it in a stillness is fleeting, and I try to embrace it almost by instinct whenever I turn onto Turl Street. I find that I reach for my phone to see if I will be able to snap a photo of the delightful street. The way the road curves ever so slightly as it approaches High Street is visually appealing, with the lines of shops on the right and Lincoln College on the left.

So when I think of ideas, I think of Turl Street as the guide - the street that leads to all kinds of directional paths branching off. It's one small road with 5 different possibilities. It's this visual and real life exhibit of how one idea has the ability to branch off into many ideas depending on where we take it. As humans, we have these amazing capabilities to plan, strategize, make choices, learn, adapt, change our mind, re-design. It's with a sense of appreciation and wonder I think of ideas and how we use them as the catapult into some exciting. 

Desktop Domain

 

Before my thoughts, surveying
Time's evidences old,
All deeds with comfort weighing
That thy handwriting hold.

-from Psalm 143 (The Sidney Psalter)

It can be a bit dreamy, imaginative, and reflective here at my desktop domain. It's a place I love coming to in the early hours of the morning, sometimes before the sun is peaking high enough to cast light through the window. Each morning this is my view. It is the spot where my journaling pages set my mornings in the right direction with reflection and prayer. With a cup of coffee within ready reach of course. I read a chapter in the Bible, currently reading through the Gospel according to Matthew. Next my current philosophy book is open for as many pages reading I can squeeze into my time (getting close to finishing Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard). If I do have a time restraint, I will set my Minee timer for a visual representation of how much time I have.

Here is where I can let my thoughts stretch out. In my mind and onto pages. Window to my right, bookshelves to my left. An inspiring little location in my small home. I am so thankful for this little space. To have a pleasant space to sit with my journal and open up to the next blank page is a gift.

Sometimes I will jot out a story idea, with plot and characters. Sometimes I will write about an experience or something I have learned from a day or experience, which tends to provoke deeper thinking of things to work on or grow from, which then leads to prayer. Onto the blank pages often appear scribbles of prayers, because I know I need it and the source of everything I need is at the other end of that wordy jumbled prayer sentence. Thank you, Lord.

Take some slow moments for deep thoughts, musing, calm. Take a breath. Welcome a new day and all that it will bring.

Nor let thy face be hidden
From one who may compare
With them whose death hath bidden
Adieu to life and care.
My hope, let mercy's morrow
Soon chase my night of sorrow.

-from Psalm 143 (The Sidney Psalter)

Choosing Either/Or

 

It is now sufficiently clear that reflective love constantly consumes itself and stops quite arbitrarily now here, now there; it is clear that it points beyond itself to something higher, but the question is whether the higher cannot straightaway combine with first love. Now, this higher something is the religious, where rational reflection ends, and just as for God everything is possible, so neither for the religious individual is anything impossible.

- Either/Or, Søren Kierkegaard

Many philosophers and thinkers have asked the toughest question in created ways. Questions such as why are we here? What is our purpose? To these questions we have all perhaps tossed out our own answers, or tossed out the questions altogether. Too difficult to answer. Just go on living how we choose. Yet, everything we choose is a direction either toward ourselves (our own desires) or toward something bigger (the ethical and good).

I am reading Søren Kierkegaard's Either/Or, a not-so-usual book of two parts, written by pseudonyms. Part I is from the point of view of the aesthetic/hedonistic/sensual lifestyle. Everything is subjective and according to what he feels and experiences. He praises idleness and pleasure. Part II is from the opposing viewpoint. Judge Vilhelm taking stances against these lifestyle choices and voices his case from the side of ethics and accepting responsibility. Kierkegaard forces his readers to decide for themselves which viewpoint either that, or that, as the most life-affirming. Kierkegaard might conclude that we (most of us) find ourselves on the side of the aesthete in Part I.

For the aesthete asks what we all might ask, "What is the human race? Either the sadness of the tragic, or the profound sorrow and profound joy of religion. Or is that not the peculiarity of everything that emanates from that happy people - a melancholy, a sadness, in its art, in its poetry, in its life, in its joy?"

Just as in life, we are not given answers. The reader must confront such questions and choose their reasons for agreeing with a choice of oneself, or the choice of obliging the familial and social responsibilities. This sub-created conversation between two opposing views allows the reader to engage in a deeper way with these fictional characters as we grapple with the meaning of why we choose a certain way of life.

We choose from an either/or set before us almost everyday, so which side do we find ourselves on?

What is it, then, that I separate in my either/or? Is it good and evil? No, I simply want to bring you to the point where that choice truly requires meaning for you. It is on this that everything hinges. Only when one can get a person to stand at the crossroads in such a way that he has no expedient but to choose, does he choose what is right.

Being a Sub-creator

 

What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator'. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out int he Primary World again.

- "On Fairy Stories", J.R.R. Tolkien

I sat at my desk whilst in Oxford, with a view at the window out toward the main quadrangle of Wadham College. It pleased me very much to sit there with a few books and my journal. Naturally, when I am in Oxford I feel the remnant presence of the footsteps of those beloved authors and thinkers - C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, Owen Barfield, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Burton. I walk the paths of Christ Church Meadow and admire the knotty, old trees that look like Ents (from Middle-earth). I shop in Blackwells Bookshop imagining Dorothy L. Sayers working there under Basil Blackwell. I pass by the Narnia door and lamp post off Radcliffe Square and imagine C.S. Lewis stomping by a few times a week to meet his brother Warnie for lunch at The Mitre. It is easy for me to see the beauty held in the imagination, from the past, and into my present. I think of how these places not only inspire me now, but inspired centuries of students and professors in various ways. 

I am there. My feet trod along the same streets. I seek to re-visit some of the books by these writers that I love, as if to have another conversation with them whilst walking in their footsteps. I want to know their daily life and routine. Where did they grab a meal and tea? What books were they reading? Did they travel out of town, by train, bicycle, or car? I might make-up a story in my head about a meeting or lunch they might take with someone, as I head down The High for a spot of lunch. I might imagine their wanders through the flowering meadows in the middle of the city. And I imagine them sitting at their desks at home, writing their next book. What inspired them that day as they were out and about?

Tolkien coins the term and ideas around sub-creating. He explains that God is Creator, of everything we know and don't know, see and don't see. He has gifted us with abilities to create as well, through art, music, words, work, business, etc. We are all creating a story to tell. So, we in turn become creators, yet since we are not God, we are sub-creators of a secondary world, underneath the umbrella of the one true God as ultimate Creator. It is under these realms of the creation we explore our talents and gifts by way of sub-creating.

When I first discovered this through Tolkien, I was so inspired. It was a way of explaining and confirming what I had always thought to be so important. To do good with what I have been given. For me that good has always been writing and creating something - whether that is journal entries, poems, stories, or blog posts. But for others, it might be completely different. Yet in the same air of creating 'something' it is sub-creating. It may never be complete in our lifetimes, yet it is not in vain. Our work, our efforts will be perfected in the heavenly kingdom. Tolkien's short story "Leaf by Niggle" is the perfect companion here to illustrate that idea. 

When I sit down at my desk to write wherever I am, I always keep this in mind. This idea of being a sub-creator, for it is a gift from the Creator. Just holding that thought close and near inspires me to do my work of sub-creating, even if it's only a few minutes, or a small thing.  

The Light of the World

 

A visit to Keble College Chapel, Oxford

To see "The Light of the World" by Holman Hunt (1827-1910)

Marvelous pre-Raphaelite painting.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
- Revelation 3.20

Tucked into a small side chapel in the grand Keble College Chapel is the great painting by Holman Hunt, "The Light of the World". Hunt painted two of these, the other original is in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. I have been blessed to be able to see both of the original paintings in person. On this recent trip to Oxford, I wanted to take a little time to visit the one in Keble College.

It was a windy, chilly day in Oxford. We had lunch on Broad Street at a new favourite spot, Theo's Cafe. Then, we took the little walk beyond the Weston Library and by Wadham College and Trinity College. Keble College comes next, which stands across the street from the beautiful Natural History Museum. Keble College stands out amongst colleges as it is both newer and also built in brick, so it has a very different tone. Grand and spacious it is though, and worth a visit. Worth a visit alone for the chapel. 

Entering the chapel by the huge wooded doors the immediate hush greeted us with a calmness and quiet from the gusty winds outside. A few other people were shuffling about the chapel as well. My feet took me straight up the center aisle feeling the immensity of the space, up the steps toward the altar, and to the right through the small door into the side chapel. To spend a little time with "The Light of the World.

The painting absolutely glows. I love the play with light and the dusky early evening light. The lantern light reflects off several other places in the painting showcasing the overgrown vine on the door, allowing the viewer to see that there is no doorknob on the outside of the door. One must open up to Christ - He will not force open the door. But He is always pursuing. He knocks. We have the freedom and choice to open to Him, or not. 

Christ holds a light, but He is also the Light of the world. He tells us to be lights of the world, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew (Ch 5.14-16), which has always been my favourite verse:

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

I stayed in the chapel for a little bit. No one else was in there so I took my time. I could have stayed easily for an hour, just sitting there looking at the painting under different angles and light. To sit with my journal and write, and pray. It is a place that holds a quiet meditative closeness to God. A place I will go back to with a very glad heart.