Being Human in Faith, Art, and Science

Odysseus and Penelope. The Louvre.

Guys make stuff. That's not all they do, but if you've got a healthy male, you're going to have stuff "gittin' made." Oh yes, women make things, children make things, sick and old guys make things, but the SINE QUA NON of being a guy in his prime is making things.

Making = work
Sustaining = labor.

Hannah Arendt, in The Human Condition helped me to understand what it means to be human, in faith, art and science. She distinguished, or explained the distinction that exists, between work and labor. In my own words, work is the process of making something new come into existence, so that the new thing takes on a life of its own. Labor is the process of making something happen that is related to necessity and consumption, mainly for keeping life going.

Building a bed is Work.
Making up a bed after sleeping on it is Labor.
Impregnating a woman is Work.
Delivering a baby is Labor.
A wife teaching her husband how to carry responsibility --so she can live a life of Labor under his auspices--is Work.
A man wooing a woman so that he can marry her, love her for the rest of his life, and provide for her and her children, and make babies through her--so that he can live a life of Work through her-- is Labor.

Common Grace and Natural Law.
There is no distinction in honor or worthiness or merit between Work and Labor, according to the Bible. Both are honored, and required, as a matter of fact. Just as God gives good gifts to all people, regardless of nationality or status--the rain falls on the just and the unjust, all people everywhere have enjoyed the benefits of marriage of a man and woman--so God seems to impose some demands on all people everywhere, such as that it is necessary to exert oneself. Sometimes that exertion is in labor, sometimes that exertion is in work. But all people everywhere, everywhen, have to exert themselves to work or labor, upon pain of hunger or sickness or loneliness or social rejection. Even children are honored by the works that they make.

Rejoice when people lie about you.
They couldn't find anything true.

James Carroll Beckwith. The Letter.
public domain.

Rosie as a golf tee. State of Florida Archives. Used by permission

See, there was this elephant. And, well, everyone only gets to touch one part. So people think the elephant is all "leg" or "trunk" or whatever.

The argument goes like that: and that God is like the elephant. I.e., that we think God is the part of the elephant that we touch.

The problem with the argument, so far, is that the one telling the parable is taking the role of the Prophet, the Inspired Revealer of Truth. As if his view were the whole thing.

The writers of the Bible claim to be speaking for God, to fill in where we are limited by our own touching and feeling and other partial perceptions.

The idea here is that our bodies are material and our animate life is spiritual, but our body has a soul, and our soul has a body.

Sometimes I'll go "Ouch" when my car hits the curb. That experience leads me to speculate that our use of tools is, in some way, an extension of one's body. And that the stuff we attach to our bodies are in some way much more a part of us than the mere accidents (latin, accidens) that they seem.

For the whole article, follow this link.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/128/2

or click here

Tool Use Is Just a Trick of the Mind

The twenty-fifth day of December.
In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood; the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king;
in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
the forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace in the sixth age of the world,
Jesus Christ the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary,
being made flesh.

Proclamation of the Birth of Christ.
From the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Mass.

Hello Friends.
After a year's absence, I find that the powers that be no longer have my Blog by this name anywhere to be found. I am back, though.

If you happen to have a saved copy of any of the old blogs, I would much appreciate getting a copy.
Thanks.

BCM