In Paul’s 2nd epistle to Timothy, chapter 3, verses 14-17, we read this ringing endorsement of inspired writings: But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
This is how the same chunk o’verses reads after I run ’em through my ScriptureTranslator2000: Make sure to remember all those things you’ve read and studied that ring true, including the beautiful stories from childhood, from seminary, from the standard works and any other texts that have been meaningful to you. Truth makes a person wise and such wisdom can lead to faith, including faith in Jesus Christ, who was goodness personified. God inspires people to write wonderful things, words that teach, that correct, that enlighten, that instruct, and such inspired words are meant to make us better people better able to serve others.
I do love reading the scriptures. I’m a Sunday School teacher through and through – and I get jazzed when I think of the collected wisdom (and folly!) contained in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, our LDS standard works, plus the sacred texts of other world religions (though, in full disclosure, I haven’t read the Koran nor the Upanishads. But that’s what the Millennium will be for, right?) I’m also an English teacher, and so I get equally jazzed about the readings I like to call “truth with a lower-case t”. That’s a verbatim quote from the board in my classroom, by the way. I love encouraging my students to search out ‘truth with a lower-case t’ wherever they can find it. Such concepts, whether they be found in Shakespeare or Sexton, in Aesop Rock or Aesop’s Fables, are as precious to me as the standard works, and someday, when I have time, I’ll compile all those truth snippets into one beautiful binder that I can spend my retirement years paging through. For now, I’ve decided to occasionally share some here, these chapters and verses from my own personal canon. (Do I even need to say that I would LOVE to know what goes into yours?)
We shall start, then, with a gem from Carson McCullers, specifically from her heartbreaking novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, because I have such a testimony of the truthfulness of her observations. (No, that is not me being sarcastic. That is me being sincere. And if you know me in real life, I will have started at least four conversations with the phrase, “Have we talked about Carson McCullers …?”)
The story features a rural Georgia love triangle: a giant of a woman, Miss Amelia Evans, rather masculine in her overalls, falls in love with a dwarf in a cape, a strange figure named Cousin Lymon, who is besotted with Amelia’s ex-husband, Marvin Macy, who is still in love, albeit a cruel, selfish, exacting love, with his wife when he gets out of prison. Unfortunately, no one loves the one who loves ’em back. In fact, these folks do some pretty terrible, selfish things in the name of love. Inside this strange, shimmering, Southern Gothic story, McCullers has included these inspired words – and they speak truth to my heart about the (sometimes) terrible isolation and loneliness that accompanies love, about the (often) selfish desires that drive us, even when we fool ourselves into thinking we truly care for another person:
There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world-a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring-this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.
Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else-but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.
It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about McCullers’ assessment. Sometimes this description of love is so bleak, I have to turn away. But they stay with me, these words, reproving, reminding, haunting me. I have a theory that in a really solid long-term relationship, both parties must take turns being the lover and the beloved. I don’t think all love is doomed – or don’t want to think so. And if I’m honest, I’ll admit that as much as it hurts to be the unrequited lover, being the beloved of someone else can be a suffocating experience.
What do you think? Do McCullers’ words contain ‘truth with a lower-case t’ for you?
And what would you include in your own personal canon?
First, let me say that it is always nice to hear that someone who is a teacher really knows McCullers and thinks highly of her work. I believe she is the most underrated American writer. Few other writers so fully capture the essence of the American (and human) experience. I think what Carson says in the quote is true more often than we would like to admit and is one of the best explanations for feelings of isolation. Yet I know that Carson herself did not buy into this quote fully; it was written just before her divorce from Reeves, whom she later remarried. Also, she did later acknowledge that this was a rather harsh view of love. Her last short story, “The March,” which, weirdly, was not included in the collected short stories book, reflects a much more optimistic view of love and depicts a healthy romantic relationship.
I also love McCullers and I’ve read the quoted section many, many times. There are so many writers in my personal canon (and, FWIW, I don’t really distinguish between capital-T Truth and truth. It is all the same to me.) that I’ll have to think seriously about my list. McCullers would be there, Munro, Robinson, Tolstoy — so many others.
It strikes me now as such a keen description of attachment. Nothing about a love affair is fixed, static. Love ebbs and flows, transforms every moment, we move from the lover to the beloved and back again. How easy to go from that spark of attraction or pure love to attachment and greed. In any case, it reminds me of a part of a Carol Ann Duffy poem that I love called “You”:
I’m curious as to how you guys keep track of these treasured T/truths that you love. Just from an organizational standpoint–how do you keep track of these quotes, etc.?
I used to remember a lot of what I read, but I also have documents in Word, little scraps of paper stuck in books, quotes written in margins. The trick is remembering where I’ve put what. :) Actually, I’ve been trying to be more organized lately and I carry around a little book so I can keep it all in one place.
Hmmm . . . I have Word docs, too, and sometimes I rip pages out of magazines and/or make copies of passages from books and stick them in a huge folder, but it’s terribly disorganized. Not a good system.
I haven’t read McCullers since high school, but I loved The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (who doesn’t?). Your post makes me want to be an English teacher so I can read and teach these amazing works of literature! As far as my personal canon, there are so many books that have influenced me. I’d have to say The Bros. Karamazov (mostly the chapter on the Grand Inquisitor), Crime and Punishment, Of Human Bondage, and The Stranger are in my top five with Plato’s Republic and One Hundred Years of Solitude close behind.
By the way, have you read Tom Perotta’s latest book The Abstinence Teacher? It’s an easy read, and I enjoyed it a lot. Also reading “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” which is beyond charming.
I also loved The Abstinence Teacher.
I’m reading “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” right now. :) And ditto on “The Brothers Karamazov.”
Great stuff. I have a weakness for Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor. I’ve always considers them the Bar-B-Que of literature. And I love Bar-B-Que. I also love 19th Century Am and Brit Lit entrees. And Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky from the grill. Actually, I’ve never seen a literary menu without several favorites on it. So I guess I’ve redirected the question for me–I like a seasonal menu rather than a fixed canon.