Lane: Landscapes II

                   

                Lane discusses very liminal and deceiving things in these pages that are sometimes hard to grasp. I am glad that we discuss them in class most times and do not just leave them hanging off the edge, leaving us all in the deep end to plunge! He says that the holy is no longer what appears, when it is seen. It is neither ordinary or extraordinary, but one making the other whole and new, each time it arrives at a given scene. He talks about the problems of the poets, because they see it so wholly and never in pieces, therefore defeating the purposes of the theologians with their dualism state of minds seeing it as subject AND object. My favorite thing that I found most interesting is when he discusses how it is to shield us humans from His greater glory that God hides Himself. He uses masking qualities in order to shield us out; almost seemingly to protect us. For examples, the marvel of God's hand in the creation, the bread and wine of holy communion representing the actual real blood and body of Jesus Christ, and the complex mystery of the own self as a being. I find this interesting, because I have never really thought of it as shielding Himself from us, but more of a protecting vibe. Shielding sounds so negative and deceiving, like He is trying to prove something of Himself. While I feel He is simply protecting us from His tremendous glory, as He did for Moses in the burning bush. Protection has a much more positive connotation to the ears and sounds a lot more like He is doing something in our favor, rather than something to help out Himself, which is not necessarily the being He is described as being. Masks help us in many ways as human beings in order to try and branch out to what help us form who we really are or at least try and aim to be or even just whom we want to be. Masks, in some ways, help us decide and make choices as to who that person, that new person inside of us, gets to be. The glass is seen very darkly, as Lane puts it, seeing as it is all very unclear as to what is being transformed. Even all ordinary things assume a new importance each time they are made or brought up to life. I enjoyed the example or analogy made in class about people's clothing choices. That is, in a sense, a freedom of one's own. It is how we dress, mostly, that shows who we choose to present ourselves as, or how we choose to represent the upcoming weather of the day, or how we choose to truly represent whatever the heck we want to! Mostly, it is a choice of how to display one's self. This was a beautiful and perfect analogy that helped me understand Lane's complexities and phrases. Thanks!