Saturday, December 25, 2010
The Girl with the Star Tattoo
The last few months, but especially December, have been marked by me getting engrossed in Steeg Larssons Trilogy “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl That Kicked the Hornets’ Nest”. During dreary winter days in London it has provided suspense and pleasure- I admit. But something else has made these books fascinating: the main character Lisbeth Salander is a grown-up Pippy Longstocking. She does not have family and hence has learned to fend for herself. She does so thanks to a photographic memory, impeccable computer skills and a violent streak. The latter she has acquired because of her dysfunctional past: abusive father, foster homes, more abuse etc. On the surface she has developed coping mechanisms which have made it possible for her to survive in a world that seems bent on destroying her, but deep inside...?
I found it quite easy to experience sympathy for Lisbeth, and I mean sympathy, not pity. Though she is a bit rough, Larsson depicts her as quite a likeable character. But she is profoundly miserable and unable to receive love: without wanting to spoil the plot, film three ends on a bitter-sweet note when Lisbeth meets Mikael, the one who has helped her overcome great difficulties: she is barely able to thank him, for fear that this might create the wrong kind of
emotional bond, and thus another opportunity to get hurt. And I am not alone in liking these books, which is why they are on the bestseller list here in the UK. People identify with Lisbeth: she is the archetypical wounded human being for whom relationships seem difficult, dangerous, transient. Is this the “condition humaine” that Malraux was speaking about? Aren’t we all cast into this world, vulnerable, needing to somehow find meaning in what seems to be a cruel and meaningless world?
The Christmas feast is of course the time when we remember the God who made himself vulnerable. In many ways the Incarnation is deeply unromantic: a king decides to become a subject, not simply for a day, but with his whole being. In so doing he has embraced all the vulnerability, lowliness and the me
ss we find ourselves in. As the French writer Charles de Foucauld puts it “God became so small that no one has need to be ashamed in his presence”. That is the wonder of this season, that we did not get overpowered by an irresistible force, but that we were wooed by a little child, who turned out to be a king. Which is why another girl did not see the need to run away when this person came into her life: rather than getting on her bike and leaving, this girl simply agreed to receive this king into her life...and the rest is history. Many icons depict her, not with a tattoo, but with a star on her forehead nevertheless. May we all, in this season, discover the gentleness of God’s love, made visible in the poverty of a child. And may people like Lisbeth not feel the urge to turn away, but run toward him who has loved us all enough to become a human being.
Best wishes during this season,
Martin
Sunday, December 12, 2010
שاפוחלמ- are you getting me?
For the last few weeks, I have begun to dabble with modern Hebrew. The f
irst exercises consist in drawing enormous letters on pre-marked pieces of paper: you don’t have to understand what you are writing, just to draw nice signs. The next step is to identify words, using a list of well-known words such as Tel Aviv, coffee, banana. And there the problem starts: my textbook is small, the signs barely legible at the best of times, and ך and ן ,ו all look the same to me. I had a similar experience during my first time on the Moscow underground: Сокольническая and Кольцевая looked pretty much the same to me, especially with dim light and sweaty brows. So I panicked…my Hebrew studies are done at my desk, so the only reaction I showed was to close the book, frustrated, until the next day.
But it made me think: semantics, the study of meaning, tells us that there is a relationship between a signifier, such as a sign, letter or word and what they stand for. But for this relationship to be meaningful you need to be able to read the sign and to distinguish it from others. If “no parking” and “stop” signs look the same to you, you are pretty much unable to follow normal highway code and your drivers’ license should be removed. If you are unfamiliar with the meaning of a Celtic football shirt in Northern Ireland, you could end up with a broken nose if you wear one and enter the wrong part. “Lost in Translation” is based on the typical dilemma of signs having different meanings in different cultures.
Going further, some signs are not even seen as signs, just scribbles, if you don’t know what you are looking for. In the boy scouts, I learned a dozen signs or so, for example. It means “I accomplished my task and went home”. But the average forest hiker might not even notice the circle, since he is not looking for signs, and even when he stumbles upon them he does not interpret them as such; simply a silly little circle, either found at random or assembled by a playing child, with no meaning whatsoever.
During the four weeks before Christmas Christians traditionally focus on the truth of God’s coming into history. Not only do they think about Christmas (that is for later, beginning with 24th December), but also about the end of the world, when God is supposedly coming back and wrapping up this world. Christians believe that the return of Christ cannot be calculated via astronomic formulas, but that there will be signs of his coming which should make human beings alert and ready. In fact one of the things that human beings should do, according to the Bible, is to read the signs of the times, in order not to be caught unawares. But, and this is where Advent ties into my Hebrew studies, how can you look for signs if you don’t know what to look for. If ever scribble looks the same, if ever pile of rocks could be a message by your fellow boy scout, if a bow could mean a thousand things, how can you ever be sure. Well, you can’t!
The very fact that we don’t exactly know what we are looking for is supposed to make us more deliberate and attentive. I remember walking through the forest as a twelve year old explorer on some of those exercises and my eyes were wide open: every twig, ever rock, ever leaf was examined in order to make sure I was not missing something. This meant we had to walk more slowly, but also that we were significantly more attentive. As over time, as we grew better at orientee
ring, w e knew more where to look- so we got better. I think Advent is meant to be such a training period: the pace of life is supposed to slow down enough for us to live life more deliberately. As we do, we might just catch one or the other of the signs of the presence of God in this world. And as we apply to read these signs, we begin to discover a whole new alphabet. One of the books of the Bible says “The heavens declare the glory of God”, in other words for those who know how to read the alphabet creation is full of signs of God’s action. At the beginning it might fell as frustrating as being on the Moscow underground or learning Hebrew: but with a bit of practice, it could get quite exciting. Enjoy the rest of Advent!
