Chapter 32
Good Monday Morning to this week 32 of 2022
For now we see as in a mirror and are baffled, but then face to face; now I know in fragments, but then shall I understand even as I also have been understood.
1. Corinthians 13.12
People have always helped their history along: They did not wait until dramatic events such as feuds and battles or lengthy processes such as neglect and weathering turned once proud buildings into ruins. They preferred to cut short the process and build artificial ruins straight away. They can be admired above all in English and German castle gardens of the 18th and 19th centuries. Antiquated structures such as towers and mossy temples, even half-ruined aqueducts and amphitheatres, not to mention all the artificial grottoes and miniature gorges complete with rock bridges cheerfully parading in velvet and silk.
At that time, there were master builders who specialised in such artificial ruins, had various types of patina in their catalogue of samples and knew how to carve a stone to make it look as if the ravages of time had been at work. The commissioners were concerned with effect, that is, effect without cause, pasteurised transience. I like to imagine that there were two schools of thought: one that offered the prospect of ruins with an unlimited guarantee of durability, and another that advertised that further decay was already included in its buildings and that showed durability from an other angle.
As with the ruins you can observe in literature quite alike. Many works of the ancient have become fragments from the future as soon as they are written. They are not deliberately enigmatic or mysterious but strive for clarification, differentiation, illumination: an inexhaustible reservoir of ideas.
Often enough, intentional literary fragments are mere glimpses of profound meaning.
For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. 1. Corinthians 13.12
Wishing you a good start to the new week with fragments of the future in what you do today.
Philemon