something something handmaid's tale...

What if - now go with me here, this is kind of crazy - what if - and I know how this is going to sound - what if we're not - look, I can hardly believe I'm saying this - what if we're not living in a television show or even a movie? I know, right? It's just crazy, but there it is. I can't shake this feeling that this is all *real*, you know? That it might even be bad for us to explain this real life using the plots of television shows and movies. Like, maybe we should, I don't know, life life straight with no chaser. Who knows? This lived life could then help us understand television shows and movies. If I really wanted to go completely off the rails I would say there is a stark difference between life and a work of art, that life never has the completeness, the sense of timelessness, of a great film or even a great television show (there have been only a few of these, and sadly, The Handmaid's Tale isn't one of them). But no, you're right, these are the warblings of a mind under strain from overwork and time spent away from the comforts of home. This is a time of national crisis. It has to be. Movies and television shows tell us it is. They tell us that dark forces are encircling us even now, dark forces that will create a dystopia we can binge watch through our living room windows.

playing along with the Prologue (which isn't a prologue) to the Gospel of John

     Here we have John 1.3. Please pardon the rough translations, which are hardly original or interesting; I'm just trying to work things out.

All things through him came into being, and without him nothing came into being. That which has come into being in him was life, and life was light of humankind... (πάντα δι᾽αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων…);

or,

All things through him came into being/were made, and without him nothing came into being which has come into being. In him was life, and life was the light of humankind... (πάντα δι᾽αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν. ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων…).

     So much hangs on the placement of a period. For what it's worth, to my ear the second makes more sense. Come to think of it, though, if you have Robert Grosseteste's De Luce in mind, the former begins to make more and more sense. For Grosseteste, light, as in a pure, metaphysical light enlivening all that was and is to come into being, was the first created substance. He even conceives of what we might call a singularity of light that then expands in all directions instantaneously (that last point is perhaps a matter of interpretation). So it's possible to say that 'What came into being in him (Jesus, the Logos) was life, and life was the light of humankind.'

P.S. - What if, instead of ‘came into being,’ or ‘was made,’ it’s ‘came to pass’? Does that work here? It enfolds making, sustaining, and providentially guiding all things to their ends. Need to think on this.

venus calling...

It being a long hot summer, the surprising news might have escaped your attention. There appear to be traces of molecules in the atmosphere of Venus, molecules that should not be there. Before any of us get too excited, we should realize that this could be the result of odd photochemical reactions we don't understand. That said, one real possibility is that these molecules, called phosphines, could be traces or echoes of life, at least at the cellular level. Odd to say, these phosphines seem to be riding currents some thirty miles above the surface of Venus, a surface that is about as inhospitable as you can imagine apart from the very real vacuum of space itself. One article I read (I didn't copy the link) suggested that these phosphine molecules could be the last remnants of a biosphere that once thrived a billion years ago. That's possible, as Venus isn't so different from earth, except for all the ways it is different. The pressure at the surface is like that found at ocean depths of 900m, and the surface temperature is about 740K, or about 860 degrees American. Why is it so hot you ask? The pressure for one thing, but mostly because the atmosphere is 98% carbon dioxide. So, I don't know if Venus has an atmospheric biosphere, or if we've detected the molecular echoes of life long extinct, or if it's simply a chemical anomaly. I do know that I have an interest in heat, pressure, and CO2.