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Samotność przełamana
Ta książka jest pocieszeniem i zapewnieniem, że życie ludzkie, wbrew temu, co często słyszymy, nie oznacza: „jesteś skazany na samotność”. Przeciwnie, chrześcijaństwo to droga powrotu do komunii z Tym, który pamięta o nas od zawsze i nieustannie – i nie godzi się na naszą samotność. Erik Varden OCSO z wielką erudycją, a jednocześnie z delikatnością, analizuje kondycję człowieka, w centrum stawiając „pamiętanie”. Przywołuje historie z Biblii, by uzmysłowić nam, że celem ludzkich zmagań jest niebo – i że nie jesteśmy na naszej drodze sami.
176 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
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About the author
Erik Varden
22 books39 followersErik Varden is a monk and bishop, born in Norway in 1974. In 2002, after ten years at the University of Cambridge, he joined Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in Charnwood Forest. Pope Francis named him bishop of Trondheim in 2019.
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September 1, 2023
Faith in Faith
When Pandora’s Box in the ancient Greek myth was opened, all the evils that we experience in the world escaped and had humanity at their mercy. But something important remained in the Box, whether as divine compensation or practical remedy is open to interpretation. This residue was hope, the human ability to have expectations despite the trials and traps encountered in life. The central point of the story, therefore, seems to be not that the world has become evil through the hapless action of opening the Box, but rather that human beings have a way of dealing with those evils.
This Greek appreciation of hope as not just a virtue but also a skill for human survival and well-being was all but lost with the arrival of the Christian religion in the world. Paul of Tarsus, a cosmopolitan Jew of the Diaspora had a revelation. This revelation was not simply that a certain Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah - an opinion which Paul felt had been justified by certain Hebrew Scriptures. Even more significant than Jesus, whom Paul had never met, was the revelation of the paramount importance of the human attitude, virtue, or capacity that he called faith.
For Paul, it is faith, not the Greek (or for that matter the Jewish) idea of hope on which the fate of humanity depended entirely. Nothing in the Scriptures supported this view in the least. In fact, the Hebrew Scriptures are chock full of cases in which disobedient doing rather than inadequate believing provokes divine displeasure from Adam & Eve onward (Lot’s wife is an extensively analyzed example in Varden’s Chapter 3 which blatantly contradicts the doctrine of faith which he is trying to establish). So Paul simply asserted his idea of faith with no further justification.
The Pauline idea of faith caused profound theological problems during his lifetime, throughout the entire history of Christianity, and into the present day (right into Varden’s Chapter 2). Faith, according to the doctrines of all Christian sects is not something that can be achieved by good works, or prayerful techniques, or by simply living an ethical life. Faith is an unaccountable gift from God which is given without reason, that is to say arbitrarily, to some people but not others. Since faith is the only attribute necessary and sufficient for salvation, the question of who has it and who doesn’t is obviously central to one’s existence as a Christian. Strict Calvinists and Jansenist Catholics are among the many groups for whom Pauline faith, not Jesus, is the paramount religious doctrine.
It is with this background that I read The Shattering of Loneliness, which is in large part a first person account of faith - what it is, how it is experienced, and what it has meant to one’s life. I am sure that Varden’s account of faith has many unique features determined by his history and life-circumstances. But I am also confident that his story is typical in its essentials as what is generally termed a conversion. In fact I have a suspicion that Varden’s story is not merely an instance of the reception of Pauline faith; it is in fact an enactment of the Pauline script of faith, a script which sought to replace the Greek myth of hope but which doesn’t do nearly as good a job at promoting human well-being.
My suspicion is based on several things recounted in his book. Varden, like many of us, is, through either nature or nurture, a spiritual seeker in the specific sense that he noticed the presence of evil in the world around him and it bothered him. He has encountered the worst evil second-hand through anecdotes and reading about Nazi occupied Norway. But he is aware that the problem of evil is much more pervasive than any particular set of circumstances. For him, evil is the central human issue.
Varden makes this explicit. Evil, in good Christian theological tradition, is an absence, an inadequacy which creates a very personal problem for him:
Varden’s ‘peak experience’ (the modern jargon seems appropriate in the context) occurred while listening to Mahler’s Second, or Resurrection, Symphony in which Mahler sets some German folk poems and songs. One of these, The Boy’s Magic Horn, Varden found arresting, particularly the verses:
Varden’s response was immediate: “At these words, something burst. The repeated insistence, ‘not in vain, not in vain’, was irresistible. It was not just that I wanted to believe it. I knew it was true.”
What I find most significant about his report is, first, that this belief which has overcome him has no immediate content. It is a sort of ‘oceanic’ feeling of excited repose, of being suddenly complete and connected with the universe. It is not about Jesus, nor God, nor any divine presence in the world. It is solely an intense experience of... well something finally responding to his spiritual emptiness. So this emptiness was no longer ‘in vain;’ it had a reason in the feeling of completion. Simultaneously, he experiences this contentless revelation as ‘the truth.’ The truth concerning what is not immediately clear, even to him. What is clear is that he has an intense drive, which he calls faith, and which must be satisfied (contrasting accounts of a similar musical experiences but ones not interpreted in terms of religious faith my be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...).
He then continues, “... at that moment, my consciousness changed... I was aware of not being alone... I could no more doubt the truth of what I had found than I could doubt that I existed. The sense of it has never left me.” He diagnoses himself as having had a spiritual metanoia, a fundamental change which he equates to an ontological shift, that is, an alteration in his mode of being. This then, much like the story Paul tells of himself on the road to Damascus, is the first substantive belief as contents of his faith - he exists differently now than he had before, or at least that he realised before.
This new state of existence is not merely new, it is objectively better. Varden reports in fact that he has been given a “privileged insight, provoked by the music, I had found my deep intuitions confirmed.” He has been given something, a privilege, which not everyone else has; and whatever his incipient beliefs about the world have been before his experience are now confirmed. He is validated, vindicated by his revelation. He could now understand the music in a very different manner. It too had become ‘truth’ as a second component of his faith. He has become inherently superior, not only to what he was, but also to others who have not received the grace of faith. But there is more. His faith-experience had shown to be true things that he he had suspected all along. And what was that?
The insight that had been validated was in fact his long-standing suspicion that the world was a very inhospitable place and that what he had been reading had in fact been: “the chronicle of man’s presumption against man, [which] corresponded to the world as it was, the world I inhabited. Its reality had seeped into me. I saw before me as a suffering mass overshadowed by death.” It is highly significant, it seems to me, that Varden is overcome not by the inherent goodness and splendour of the created world as recounted in the book of Genesis (which Varden does not mention), but by the very gnostic view of creation as irreparably evil. This is the third component of his faith; yet he has yet to reach anything approaching the divine.
There is an interesting inversion which Varden, like many of his co-religionists , adopts at this point in a strategy of transparently faux humility. The proximate cause of much human misery is the power exercised by others. So Varden is keen to abjure such power by insisting on the fundamental insignificance of human beings. They are merely dust and they have no real power. All power is God’s alone. It is God who freed Israel from Pharoah; and it is God who delivers humanity from its oppressed state. Only by renouncing individual pretensions to power can the world be healed.
However, Varden also makes it clear that by renouncing power, power is acquired by the faithful believer. The faithful becomes agents of divine power. The paradox is obvious to all but the faithful: God, not his servants, is accountable. Individual minions are simply following divine orders, as interpreted by either themselves or by their churchy superiors. Power is not a abjured, but rather given a seal of approval, an imprimatur, which simultaneously justifies its use by those who claim to be worth nothing, and diverts human attention from those exercising power to an abstract and remote divine entity. To the extent made necessary by circumstances, evil is thus transformed into the pursuit of good - Gnosticism by the back door it might be said. I don’t think this is a pose. It is a real article of faith. One might call it faith in faith, the fundamental principle of Christianity and the contents of the Christian equivalent of Pandora’s Box, the tool for coping with evil. It is this faith in faith which makes the Christian religion so impenetrable as well as do dangerous.*
There is much more which flows from Varden’s experience that could be used to extend the analysis (See the postscript below for an outline of some further material), but the above is sufficient I think to make some meaningful suggestions. My overall conclusion is that Varden’s story is straight out of St. Paul’s playbook. It’s not a distortion of Varden’s narrative to appreciate that he has a point for point experience of Pauline conversion. Such an event would have quite literally been impossible for ancient Greeks and Hebrews. Paul’s story has become a model for ‘how to do it’ and has become assimilated, no doubt largely unconsciously, into personal explanations for what such experiences mean over millennia. There is a vocabulary and a sequence which is almost standardised.
Further, this idea of Pauline faith shows itself in Varden’s descriptions as exactly what it is: a very powerful psychological urge which initially has no clear object. Faith exists before the object of faith has even been encountered. This is the case with Varden. It was also the case with Paul who spent several years contemplating what his experience required of him before he went on the road spreading not so much the good news of Jesus (of whom he says almost nothing) but the good news of faith. Faith, in other words, appears to create its own object. The drive of faith is to find something with sufficient content to satisfy the need it creates. The ultimate consumer product perhaps. The fact that faith in faith destroys every principle of epistemology and thus inhibits distinguishing the Good News from fake news is dramatically illustrated by American Evangelicals.
It is certainly possible to argue that hope can as easily produce similar self-serving nonsense to that created by faith. Business, political and academic idealists do it continually. Just as faith is directed toward an abstraction called the divine, hope is equally directed to an unspecified abstraction called the future. And indeed this latter abstraction is often stuffed with as much self-serving, delusional, wishful idiocy as that of faith. Much obsessive idealism can be classified as faith in hope. However the difference is that hope has not be divinised by the Christian Church. Although it is considered a ‘theological virtue’ (a subtle slur on Greek thought which ignores the bottom of Pandora’s Box), it does not have the doctrinal status of Pauline faith. And hope is much easier to discuss, compromise about, and combine than the quite rigid matter of faith in faith.
Finally, Varden’s memoir demonstrates the more or less total victory of Pauline faith over Greek hope. It is not an exaggeration to note that Varden’s faith in the divine is inversely proportional to hope in his fellows. Faith is a personal capacity; Hope is a communal trait. The world for Varden is lost, literally hopeless. Just as for Paul, there is no ‘us’ except those who share faith. Faith not hope defines community. Varden’s faith not only relieves him of the pressures of dealing with the things that are wrong in the world, it also creates, quite literally, an alternative reality in which his new being exists. There exists already in the minds of the faithful a “new heaven and a new earth”. Christian faithfulness is a tribal mark. Hopefulness designates an open community and demands a bit more courage.
* The practical consequences of this paradox of faith in faith are visible most notably among Varden’s own monastic brethren. Monks tale a strict vow of personal poeverty. But their monastic establishments - priories, abbeys, churches, schools etc. - do not. Historically, these establishments have grown wealthy and powerful, in large measure because of the enforced poverty of their members, thereby encouraging less than abstemious monastic life-styles. This has provoked a need for periodic ‘reform’ of monastic groups, of which Varden’s Cistercians are but one example.
[For more on the Pauline concept of faith, see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
For more on a positive theology of hope, see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...]
Postscript: Varden’s concern about ‘loneliness’ is, if I am correct in my analysis, one of the great ironies of Christian culture. Christ was lonely, Paul was lonely, Augustine was lonely, Luther was lonely, more recently Karl Barth was lonely. Pope Francis seems particularly lonely at the moment. Vox clamans in deserto, a voice crying in the wilderness, as the Gospel of Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah. Christianity destroys natural community with intent (cf. Mark 10:29). Perhaps loneliness is an inherent characteristic of a religion which insists on the absolute importance of something called personal faith of which the person concerned can never be certain. I offer it as a thought rather than a conclusion.
What Varden means by ‘Remembrance’ is also another euphemism for ‘having faith in faith.’ It’s use in the text is solely to explain the relevance of things ‘remembered’ in Christian doctrines of faith - the Resurrection, The Real Presence, The Holy Trinity, Miracle-working, etc. His underlying message is clear: if you are a victim of loneliness, it is likely because you do not appreciate these sorts of doctrinal realities. The cure for your loneliness is your participation in a community which professes these doctrines (even if neither you nor they understand fully what these doctrines mean). Your willingness to make the required doctrinal professions will assure you of the good-fellowship of any number of other believers. And, who knows, God might just share some of his saving grace with you along the way - a variant on Pascale’s Wager in which the currency is emotion rather than ready money. This of course is another speculative offering rather than a conclusion.
When Pandora’s Box in the ancient Greek myth was opened, all the evils that we experience in the world escaped and had humanity at their mercy. But something important remained in the Box, whether as divine compensation or practical remedy is open to interpretation. This residue was hope, the human ability to have expectations despite the trials and traps encountered in life. The central point of the story, therefore, seems to be not that the world has become evil through the hapless action of opening the Box, but rather that human beings have a way of dealing with those evils.
This Greek appreciation of hope as not just a virtue but also a skill for human survival and well-being was all but lost with the arrival of the Christian religion in the world. Paul of Tarsus, a cosmopolitan Jew of the Diaspora had a revelation. This revelation was not simply that a certain Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah - an opinion which Paul felt had been justified by certain Hebrew Scriptures. Even more significant than Jesus, whom Paul had never met, was the revelation of the paramount importance of the human attitude, virtue, or capacity that he called faith.
For Paul, it is faith, not the Greek (or for that matter the Jewish) idea of hope on which the fate of humanity depended entirely. Nothing in the Scriptures supported this view in the least. In fact, the Hebrew Scriptures are chock full of cases in which disobedient doing rather than inadequate believing provokes divine displeasure from Adam & Eve onward (Lot’s wife is an extensively analyzed example in Varden’s Chapter 3 which blatantly contradicts the doctrine of faith which he is trying to establish). So Paul simply asserted his idea of faith with no further justification.
The Pauline idea of faith caused profound theological problems during his lifetime, throughout the entire history of Christianity, and into the present day (right into Varden’s Chapter 2). Faith, according to the doctrines of all Christian sects is not something that can be achieved by good works, or prayerful techniques, or by simply living an ethical life. Faith is an unaccountable gift from God which is given without reason, that is to say arbitrarily, to some people but not others. Since faith is the only attribute necessary and sufficient for salvation, the question of who has it and who doesn’t is obviously central to one’s existence as a Christian. Strict Calvinists and Jansenist Catholics are among the many groups for whom Pauline faith, not Jesus, is the paramount religious doctrine.
It is with this background that I read The Shattering of Loneliness, which is in large part a first person account of faith - what it is, how it is experienced, and what it has meant to one’s life. I am sure that Varden’s account of faith has many unique features determined by his history and life-circumstances. But I am also confident that his story is typical in its essentials as what is generally termed a conversion. In fact I have a suspicion that Varden’s story is not merely an instance of the reception of Pauline faith; it is in fact an enactment of the Pauline script of faith, a script which sought to replace the Greek myth of hope but which doesn’t do nearly as good a job at promoting human well-being.
My suspicion is based on several things recounted in his book. Varden, like many of us, is, through either nature or nurture, a spiritual seeker in the specific sense that he noticed the presence of evil in the world around him and it bothered him. He has encountered the worst evil second-hand through anecdotes and reading about Nazi occupied Norway. But he is aware that the problem of evil is much more pervasive than any particular set of circumstances. For him, evil is the central human issue.
Varden makes this explicit. Evil, in good Christian theological tradition, is an absence, an inadequacy which creates a very personal problem for him:
“I crave a completion no created thing can give. I walk this earth as yearning incarnate. I am at home, yet a stranger, homesick for a homeland I recall but have not seen.”I suspect that both psychological attributes - the moral sensitivity to one’s environment and the urge to do something about either it or oneself - are common among those undergoing the conversion experience. Certainly it had been the case with St. Paul himself who had been an enthusiastic follower and enforcer of Jewish law before being knocked from his horse on the road to Damascus.
Varden’s ‘peak experience’ (the modern jargon seems appropriate in the context) occurred while listening to Mahler’s Second, or Resurrection, Symphony in which Mahler sets some German folk poems and songs. One of these, The Boy’s Magic Horn, Varden found arresting, particularly the verses:
“Have faith, heart, have faith: nothing will be lost to you.
What you have longed for is yours, yes, yours; yours is what you have loved and fought for.
Have faith: you were not born in vain. You have not lived or suffered in vain.”
Varden’s response was immediate: “At these words, something burst. The repeated insistence, ‘not in vain, not in vain’, was irresistible. It was not just that I wanted to believe it. I knew it was true.”
What I find most significant about his report is, first, that this belief which has overcome him has no immediate content. It is a sort of ‘oceanic’ feeling of excited repose, of being suddenly complete and connected with the universe. It is not about Jesus, nor God, nor any divine presence in the world. It is solely an intense experience of... well something finally responding to his spiritual emptiness. So this emptiness was no longer ‘in vain;’ it had a reason in the feeling of completion. Simultaneously, he experiences this contentless revelation as ‘the truth.’ The truth concerning what is not immediately clear, even to him. What is clear is that he has an intense drive, which he calls faith, and which must be satisfied (contrasting accounts of a similar musical experiences but ones not interpreted in terms of religious faith my be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...).
He then continues, “... at that moment, my consciousness changed... I was aware of not being alone... I could no more doubt the truth of what I had found than I could doubt that I existed. The sense of it has never left me.” He diagnoses himself as having had a spiritual metanoia, a fundamental change which he equates to an ontological shift, that is, an alteration in his mode of being. This then, much like the story Paul tells of himself on the road to Damascus, is the first substantive belief as contents of his faith - he exists differently now than he had before, or at least that he realised before.
This new state of existence is not merely new, it is objectively better. Varden reports in fact that he has been given a “privileged insight, provoked by the music, I had found my deep intuitions confirmed.” He has been given something, a privilege, which not everyone else has; and whatever his incipient beliefs about the world have been before his experience are now confirmed. He is validated, vindicated by his revelation. He could now understand the music in a very different manner. It too had become ‘truth’ as a second component of his faith. He has become inherently superior, not only to what he was, but also to others who have not received the grace of faith. But there is more. His faith-experience had shown to be true things that he he had suspected all along. And what was that?
The insight that had been validated was in fact his long-standing suspicion that the world was a very inhospitable place and that what he had been reading had in fact been: “the chronicle of man’s presumption against man, [which] corresponded to the world as it was, the world I inhabited. Its reality had seeped into me. I saw before me as a suffering mass overshadowed by death.” It is highly significant, it seems to me, that Varden is overcome not by the inherent goodness and splendour of the created world as recounted in the book of Genesis (which Varden does not mention), but by the very gnostic view of creation as irreparably evil. This is the third component of his faith; yet he has yet to reach anything approaching the divine.
There is an interesting inversion which Varden, like many of his co-religionists , adopts at this point in a strategy of transparently faux humility. The proximate cause of much human misery is the power exercised by others. So Varden is keen to abjure such power by insisting on the fundamental insignificance of human beings. They are merely dust and they have no real power. All power is God’s alone. It is God who freed Israel from Pharoah; and it is God who delivers humanity from its oppressed state. Only by renouncing individual pretensions to power can the world be healed.
However, Varden also makes it clear that by renouncing power, power is acquired by the faithful believer. The faithful becomes agents of divine power. The paradox is obvious to all but the faithful: God, not his servants, is accountable. Individual minions are simply following divine orders, as interpreted by either themselves or by their churchy superiors. Power is not a abjured, but rather given a seal of approval, an imprimatur, which simultaneously justifies its use by those who claim to be worth nothing, and diverts human attention from those exercising power to an abstract and remote divine entity. To the extent made necessary by circumstances, evil is thus transformed into the pursuit of good - Gnosticism by the back door it might be said. I don’t think this is a pose. It is a real article of faith. One might call it faith in faith, the fundamental principle of Christianity and the contents of the Christian equivalent of Pandora’s Box, the tool for coping with evil. It is this faith in faith which makes the Christian religion so impenetrable as well as do dangerous.*
There is much more which flows from Varden’s experience that could be used to extend the analysis (See the postscript below for an outline of some further material), but the above is sufficient I think to make some meaningful suggestions. My overall conclusion is that Varden’s story is straight out of St. Paul’s playbook. It’s not a distortion of Varden’s narrative to appreciate that he has a point for point experience of Pauline conversion. Such an event would have quite literally been impossible for ancient Greeks and Hebrews. Paul’s story has become a model for ‘how to do it’ and has become assimilated, no doubt largely unconsciously, into personal explanations for what such experiences mean over millennia. There is a vocabulary and a sequence which is almost standardised.
Further, this idea of Pauline faith shows itself in Varden’s descriptions as exactly what it is: a very powerful psychological urge which initially has no clear object. Faith exists before the object of faith has even been encountered. This is the case with Varden. It was also the case with Paul who spent several years contemplating what his experience required of him before he went on the road spreading not so much the good news of Jesus (of whom he says almost nothing) but the good news of faith. Faith, in other words, appears to create its own object. The drive of faith is to find something with sufficient content to satisfy the need it creates. The ultimate consumer product perhaps. The fact that faith in faith destroys every principle of epistemology and thus inhibits distinguishing the Good News from fake news is dramatically illustrated by American Evangelicals.
It is certainly possible to argue that hope can as easily produce similar self-serving nonsense to that created by faith. Business, political and academic idealists do it continually. Just as faith is directed toward an abstraction called the divine, hope is equally directed to an unspecified abstraction called the future. And indeed this latter abstraction is often stuffed with as much self-serving, delusional, wishful idiocy as that of faith. Much obsessive idealism can be classified as faith in hope. However the difference is that hope has not be divinised by the Christian Church. Although it is considered a ‘theological virtue’ (a subtle slur on Greek thought which ignores the bottom of Pandora’s Box), it does not have the doctrinal status of Pauline faith. And hope is much easier to discuss, compromise about, and combine than the quite rigid matter of faith in faith.
Finally, Varden’s memoir demonstrates the more or less total victory of Pauline faith over Greek hope. It is not an exaggeration to note that Varden’s faith in the divine is inversely proportional to hope in his fellows. Faith is a personal capacity; Hope is a communal trait. The world for Varden is lost, literally hopeless. Just as for Paul, there is no ‘us’ except those who share faith. Faith not hope defines community. Varden’s faith not only relieves him of the pressures of dealing with the things that are wrong in the world, it also creates, quite literally, an alternative reality in which his new being exists. There exists already in the minds of the faithful a “new heaven and a new earth”. Christian faithfulness is a tribal mark. Hopefulness designates an open community and demands a bit more courage.
* The practical consequences of this paradox of faith in faith are visible most notably among Varden’s own monastic brethren. Monks tale a strict vow of personal poeverty. But their monastic establishments - priories, abbeys, churches, schools etc. - do not. Historically, these establishments have grown wealthy and powerful, in large measure because of the enforced poverty of their members, thereby encouraging less than abstemious monastic life-styles. This has provoked a need for periodic ‘reform’ of monastic groups, of which Varden’s Cistercians are but one example.
[For more on the Pauline concept of faith, see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
For more on a positive theology of hope, see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...]
Postscript: Varden’s concern about ‘loneliness’ is, if I am correct in my analysis, one of the great ironies of Christian culture. Christ was lonely, Paul was lonely, Augustine was lonely, Luther was lonely, more recently Karl Barth was lonely. Pope Francis seems particularly lonely at the moment. Vox clamans in deserto, a voice crying in the wilderness, as the Gospel of Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah. Christianity destroys natural community with intent (cf. Mark 10:29). Perhaps loneliness is an inherent characteristic of a religion which insists on the absolute importance of something called personal faith of which the person concerned can never be certain. I offer it as a thought rather than a conclusion.
What Varden means by ‘Remembrance’ is also another euphemism for ‘having faith in faith.’ It’s use in the text is solely to explain the relevance of things ‘remembered’ in Christian doctrines of faith - the Resurrection, The Real Presence, The Holy Trinity, Miracle-working, etc. His underlying message is clear: if you are a victim of loneliness, it is likely because you do not appreciate these sorts of doctrinal realities. The cure for your loneliness is your participation in a community which professes these doctrines (even if neither you nor they understand fully what these doctrines mean). Your willingness to make the required doctrinal professions will assure you of the good-fellowship of any number of other believers. And, who knows, God might just share some of his saving grace with you along the way - a variant on Pascale’s Wager in which the currency is emotion rather than ready money. This of course is another speculative offering rather than a conclusion.
July 1, 2021
I don't agree with a certain analysis of this book; I don't believe Varden was trying to persuade the reader that if he becomes Christian, he'll find others of the same belief and thus shatter loneliness.
No. I think Varden believes that once you become Christian you will cling on to the remembrance of Christian beliefs and these beliefs will make you realise that you are not alone, you are never alone because Someone walks with you. And this belief shatters loneliness.
I find this truly comforting, but in my opinion Varden does not make his points clear or strong enough for this book to earn its title. I did enjoy his way of incorporating random true stories to make his points. However, I do feel like the first half of the book was stronger in this aspect than the second.
No. I think Varden believes that once you become Christian you will cling on to the remembrance of Christian beliefs and these beliefs will make you realise that you are not alone, you are never alone because Someone walks with you. And this belief shatters loneliness.
I find this truly comforting, but in my opinion Varden does not make his points clear or strong enough for this book to earn its title. I did enjoy his way of incorporating random true stories to make his points. However, I do feel like the first half of the book was stronger in this aspect than the second.
April 27, 2023
Una gozada absoluta de libro, profundo, piadoso, interesante y a la vez de fácil lectura.
El autor, obispo de Trondheim y monje cisterciense, se adentra en la búsqueda de Dios y su necesidad por parte del hombre.
En 6 capítulos sencillos pero muy enjundiosos, Varden acude continuamente a la memoria del cristiano para hacernos ver que el hombre tiene una necesidad de consuelo insaciable; que debemos recordar en todo momento nuestra redención pero también la época en que fuimos esclavos; que tenemos que vivir para Dios; que el perdón se da siempre a alguien concreto, no en abstracto; que el objetivo de nuestra vida debe ser vivir en el Espíritu de Dios; y que estamos hechos de anhelo de Dios, el único que colma nuestro deseo.
Sólo una frase, de las muchas que tiene el libro para meditarlas: "La acción de Dios no es mágica. No cancela las huellas de la vida que hemos vivido. Nuestras heridas permanecen, pero a través de su proceso de curación son hechas gloriosas."
Un libro corto, pero muy hermoso, al que los lectores creyentes le pueden sacar mucho partido.
El autor, obispo de Trondheim y monje cisterciense, se adentra en la búsqueda de Dios y su necesidad por parte del hombre.
En 6 capítulos sencillos pero muy enjundiosos, Varden acude continuamente a la memoria del cristiano para hacernos ver que el hombre tiene una necesidad de consuelo insaciable; que debemos recordar en todo momento nuestra redención pero también la época en que fuimos esclavos; que tenemos que vivir para Dios; que el perdón se da siempre a alguien concreto, no en abstracto; que el objetivo de nuestra vida debe ser vivir en el Espíritu de Dios; y que estamos hechos de anhelo de Dios, el único que colma nuestro deseo.
Sólo una frase, de las muchas que tiene el libro para meditarlas: "La acción de Dios no es mágica. No cancela las huellas de la vida que hemos vivido. Nuestras heridas permanecen, pero a través de su proceso de curación son hechas gloriosas."
Un libro corto, pero muy hermoso, al que los lectores creyentes le pueden sacar mucho partido.
April 12, 2023
An honestly revelatory read and one of the better spiritual reads I have picked up in recent years. Spiritual writing currently tends to be horrifically out of touch, in the genre of self-help, or cynically twee. Varden slips past these obstacles and writes with a clear honesty and authenticity that you cannot help but be carried away on. The layering of at times secular art in order to concretize his points is well-done.
This is a must-read for Christians of all denominations.
This is a must-read for Christians of all denominations.
December 13, 2025
I’m going to be thinking about being dust with a nostalgia for a glory for a long time. Also really appreciated the discussion of what it means for our remembrance that God is outside of time- what a gift that we get to remember God’s faithfulness to all lives, not just our own short one, and call it remembrance because God has never been confined to the plane of one life at a time.
To own that I am dust is an act of daring. By that admission, I make peace with my poverty. I resolve to dwell within it. I accept that, for all my desire to live, I shall die; that I am dust with a nostalgia for glory. I am taught to let glory, by grace, lay claim to my being even now, to make it resonant with music of eternity. I learn to look towards eternity as home.”
“In the light of Christs Easter victory, even our worst memories of freedom compromised can become occasions for praise. Our wilderness years reveal their redemptive meaning.”
“Too easily we associate the Holy Spirit, and the whole mystery of Pentecost, with charismatic experience and extraordinary action: as something to which we dare not aspire…no, the Spirit is essential…the Spirit refashions our souls according to the Fathers first intention. He makes what is perishable eternal. He raises us from death to life. He renders dust resplendent with a sheen of eternity.”
“Our time is wary of words. It shuns dogmas. Yet it knows the meaning of longing. It longs confused, without knowing what for. But the sense of harbouring a void that needs filling is there.”
To own that I am dust is an act of daring. By that admission, I make peace with my poverty. I resolve to dwell within it. I accept that, for all my desire to live, I shall die; that I am dust with a nostalgia for glory. I am taught to let glory, by grace, lay claim to my being even now, to make it resonant with music of eternity. I learn to look towards eternity as home.”
“In the light of Christs Easter victory, even our worst memories of freedom compromised can become occasions for praise. Our wilderness years reveal their redemptive meaning.”
“Too easily we associate the Holy Spirit, and the whole mystery of Pentecost, with charismatic experience and extraordinary action: as something to which we dare not aspire…no, the Spirit is essential…the Spirit refashions our souls according to the Fathers first intention. He makes what is perishable eternal. He raises us from death to life. He renders dust resplendent with a sheen of eternity.”
“Our time is wary of words. It shuns dogmas. Yet it knows the meaning of longing. It longs confused, without knowing what for. But the sense of harbouring a void that needs filling is there.”
January 18, 2025
“Beware, lest thou forget the Lord.” (Deut. 6:12)
Fantastic. Refreshing and provoking despite its relative brevity. I would like to read this at least a handful more times, or maybe re-visit continually, so that everything that struck me can sink in. Varden shares so many stories of people’s intense pain and suffering that are yet also suffused with hope, joy, redemption, fulfillment, etc etc. This is why I’ll have to revisit the book! That there are people who have survived Soviet gulags and Nazi brutality with their spirits intact is extremely humbling. They witness to a supernatural strength.
Reading this was a small but significant exercise in cultural education. (I felt acutely American — “‘Monolingualism,’ Makine once remarked to a journalist, ‘produces a totalitarian vision of the world. This object is called a book and that’s it.’” p. 148)
Alongside plenty of insight from the heavyweight Greek Church fathers and the Latin liturgical tradition were stories from everyday people, highly-acclaimed (but mostly unknown in America) artists, and fictional characters from across Europe, particularly Soviet & post-Soviet Russia, France, Norway, and Germany. A number of these people were not Christians, but their art and lives point to that common human yearning which “is not alien to the Christian condition, but finds fulfillment in Christ. The gospel does not obliterate our longing. It validates it, assuring us that what we long for is real and substantial.” (p. 156) Expectatio gentium!
Reading the poetry and lives of Stig Dagerman, Anna Akhmatova, Paul Claudel, Andreï Makine, Rainer Maria Rilke, St. Seraphim of Sarov, Maïti Girtanner (Google her right now!!!), and even Tolstoy’s fictional-but-not-a-little-self-projecting Father Sergius was so enjoyable and comforting. (And I’m a sucker for etymology, another feature of this book!)
I particularly appreciated chapter 3, “Remember Lot’s Wife.” (Each chapter title is a verse from scripture.) The perspectives offered were unique, heartfelt, and thought-provoking, which is not something I’ve yet seen when people discuss Lot’s wife. It’s nice to read something about her that doesn’t give a sense of disdain or discompassionate moralism.
I recommend this to anyone seeking Christ in all things, and seeking something real and refreshing in their life. I was going to say “spiritual life,” but “the spiritual life is not, cannot be, a pious pastime. It is premised on a total surrender to the promise and demands of the gospel.… No platitudinous spirituality can encompass the grandeur of this sacrifice of praise.” (p. 129)
—
“Our transience (the fact that we are set to die) belongs [to what we are by nature]; it is kept in check by [that which we are called to become by God’s promise]. To be created in God’s image — to be human — is to carry in the depth of one’s being a longing to transcend the boundaries of human nature so as to have a share in the divine life.” (pp. 138-139)
“…Conversion must be constructed in aspirational, not reactive terms; as an option for what is good, not against what is bad — or dangerous.” (p. 75)
“Beauty awakens a man from the stupor of cynicism, conferring insight that no human life can be contained by an abstraction.” (p. 154)
Fantastic. Refreshing and provoking despite its relative brevity. I would like to read this at least a handful more times, or maybe re-visit continually, so that everything that struck me can sink in. Varden shares so many stories of people’s intense pain and suffering that are yet also suffused with hope, joy, redemption, fulfillment, etc etc. This is why I’ll have to revisit the book! That there are people who have survived Soviet gulags and Nazi brutality with their spirits intact is extremely humbling. They witness to a supernatural strength.
Reading this was a small but significant exercise in cultural education. (I felt acutely American — “‘Monolingualism,’ Makine once remarked to a journalist, ‘produces a totalitarian vision of the world. This object is called a book and that’s it.’” p. 148)
Alongside plenty of insight from the heavyweight Greek Church fathers and the Latin liturgical tradition were stories from everyday people, highly-acclaimed (but mostly unknown in America) artists, and fictional characters from across Europe, particularly Soviet & post-Soviet Russia, France, Norway, and Germany. A number of these people were not Christians, but their art and lives point to that common human yearning which “is not alien to the Christian condition, but finds fulfillment in Christ. The gospel does not obliterate our longing. It validates it, assuring us that what we long for is real and substantial.” (p. 156) Expectatio gentium!
Reading the poetry and lives of Stig Dagerman, Anna Akhmatova, Paul Claudel, Andreï Makine, Rainer Maria Rilke, St. Seraphim of Sarov, Maïti Girtanner (Google her right now!!!), and even Tolstoy’s fictional-but-not-a-little-self-projecting Father Sergius was so enjoyable and comforting. (And I’m a sucker for etymology, another feature of this book!)
I particularly appreciated chapter 3, “Remember Lot’s Wife.” (Each chapter title is a verse from scripture.) The perspectives offered were unique, heartfelt, and thought-provoking, which is not something I’ve yet seen when people discuss Lot’s wife. It’s nice to read something about her that doesn’t give a sense of disdain or discompassionate moralism.
I recommend this to anyone seeking Christ in all things, and seeking something real and refreshing in their life. I was going to say “spiritual life,” but “the spiritual life is not, cannot be, a pious pastime. It is premised on a total surrender to the promise and demands of the gospel.… No platitudinous spirituality can encompass the grandeur of this sacrifice of praise.” (p. 129)
—
“Our transience (the fact that we are set to die) belongs [to what we are by nature]; it is kept in check by [that which we are called to become by God’s promise]. To be created in God’s image — to be human — is to carry in the depth of one’s being a longing to transcend the boundaries of human nature so as to have a share in the divine life.” (pp. 138-139)
“…Conversion must be constructed in aspirational, not reactive terms; as an option for what is good, not against what is bad — or dangerous.” (p. 75)
“Beauty awakens a man from the stupor of cynicism, conferring insight that no human life can be contained by an abstraction.” (p. 154)
January 25, 2020
I picked up "The Shattering of Loneliness" on the recommendation of a priest on Twitter (knew it was good for something!) Erik Varden, who was a monk at the time, though is now a bishop in his native Norway, has written an interesting book that is difficult for me to characterize. The blurb on the back says it "aims to be an essay in theology" though I am not sure it works as such. It is part theology, part apologetic, part personal testimony, part literary criticism and part philology. The author discusses his conversion in the introduction, as Varden was a scholar at Cambridge in England and an agnostic before entering the monastic life.
The book itself is a reflection on admonitions in Scripture to "remember," each chapter taking its title from a passage of Scripture ("Remember You Are Dust," "Do This In Memory of Me" and so forth). Remembering for Varden does not merely mean remembrance of personal experience, but almost memory in a Platonic sense: a calling to mind the depths of human nature, with all of its longings. This ultimately led Varden to the Catholic Church, but his book is addressed, I think, to people of his backgroud--non believing, highly educated Europeans. Much of his interpretation of those scriptural commands to remember drawn on music, literature and art for inspiration, and indeed at times the book is a bit too erudite even for my tastes. But it might appeal to someone who was intellectual and skeptical of organized religion, but who long for something more than mere secular reasons to live, someone who feels keenly that deep longing but does not know how to satisfy it. Indeed, Varden meant it to appeal to both believers and non-believers. As it is, I gained much knowledge and even wisdom from this little book, and I heartily recommend it to anyone hope to "remember the Lord always" or even to seek Him for the first time.
The book itself is a reflection on admonitions in Scripture to "remember," each chapter taking its title from a passage of Scripture ("Remember You Are Dust," "Do This In Memory of Me" and so forth). Remembering for Varden does not merely mean remembrance of personal experience, but almost memory in a Platonic sense: a calling to mind the depths of human nature, with all of its longings. This ultimately led Varden to the Catholic Church, but his book is addressed, I think, to people of his backgroud--non believing, highly educated Europeans. Much of his interpretation of those scriptural commands to remember drawn on music, literature and art for inspiration, and indeed at times the book is a bit too erudite even for my tastes. But it might appeal to someone who was intellectual and skeptical of organized religion, but who long for something more than mere secular reasons to live, someone who feels keenly that deep longing but does not know how to satisfy it. Indeed, Varden meant it to appeal to both believers and non-believers. As it is, I gained much knowledge and even wisdom from this little book, and I heartily recommend it to anyone hope to "remember the Lord always" or even to seek Him for the first time.
October 26, 2025
Muito mais do que sobre a solidão é sobre a experiência cristã. Leva-nos a fazer memória de acontecimentos que não vivemos mas que nos são estruturais. E ao fazer esse percurso, puxando para o presente o que há séculos nos sustém, é imensamente actual nas referências que faz.
Teológica, espiritual e culturalmente muito bem conseguido e muito interessante.
Poderia facilmente ser complexo e desnecessariamente intelectual. É tudo isso na medida certa.
Teológica, espiritual e culturalmente muito bem conseguido e muito interessante.
Poderia facilmente ser complexo e desnecessariamente intelectual. É tudo isso na medida certa.
November 23, 2025
Vacker men ganska svår bok, behöver läsas flera gånger.
July 14, 2024
This book did not overhaul or even significantly shift my outlook on things, but it did provide a fantastic space for reflection on things already familiar. That space is urgently needed in my own life and I suspect in many of our lives. Each chapter was a blend of exegesis, meditation, art history essay, and poem. This is a book that I hope to revisit many times.
August 2, 2020
Simply beautiful
January 10, 2023
A very interesting - half theological half philosophical - journey through memory.
January 3, 2020
"The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance" is a beautiful collection of six meditations on biblical themes pertaining to memory (as such, to me this book's heart is closer to its subtitle than its main title). Erik Varden, a Cisterican abbot (in a few days to be ordained a bishop), writes elegantly and movingly about the spiritual life. Each meditation is inspired by a biblical passage such as "Remember you are dust" (Genesis 3:19) and "Remember Lot's wife" (Luke 17:32) and Varden teases out a brief but rich exegesis of the text (in the meditation on Lot's wife, Varden gleans from Origen's commentary on Lot's wife). Every meditation is divided into two sections and after Varden's remarks on the biblical passage, he turns to a work of art that he regards as a suitable companion piece to the passage, drawing on an array of foreign literature such as the Russian Anna Akhmatova's poem "Lot's Wife" and the ancient tale of St. Mary of Egypt. Each chapter includes an image that aids the reader in contemplation. I highly recommend this graceful, beautifully-written book.
April 7, 2025
Takie 4,5. Kochaaam w tej książce łączenie filozofii i poezji/ literatury z tematyką teologiczną. Rozjaśniła mi ta pozycja nowe ścieżki, które warto dalej pogłębiać - jeśli chodzi o wiarę. Nawet się zaśmiałam kilka razy, więc jeśli autor chciał być zabawny, to wyszło. Ale sama samotność jest tutaj według mnie wątkiem pobocznym, a przynajmniej nie wybrzmiewa dosłownie. Aczkolwiek wiem, jak jej zaradzić, bo o Leku na samotność jest sporo ;) Brakowało mi może tego filozficznego zagłębienia się w samotność. No czegoś mi zabrakło, jeszcze w sobie nie odkryłam czego, ale mimo to - warto.
Read
April 24, 2021"How tempting it is to sacrifice the tangled and colorful threads of a man's life to the monochrome dullness of an abstract definition!"
June 18, 2022
Bellissima l'apertura dove ha una certa importanza nella vita dell'autore, il capolavoro della Seconda Sinfonia di Gustav Mahler. Molte cose interessanti, anche se devo dire che al centro del volume perdo un po' di interesse e non riesco a cogliere il filo esatto che lega o vari capitoli. Però il finale centrato sulla Bellezza è veramente formidabile e giustifica pienamente la piccola fatica di arrivare fino in fondo, se mai si avvertisse.
August 24, 2021
3'5
El arte "secular" puede arrojar una luz sorprendente sobre la teología. Puede revelarnos lo que los hombres y mujeres anhelan.
Esta cita extraída del libro podría resumir buena parte de su contenido. El autor se vale de las Escrituras y de algunas obras literarias y artísticas para confeccionar una serie de pequeños ensayos sobre la idea de memoria cristiana. Empieza por recordar que polvo somos, que venimos de la materia pero somos materia llamada a algo más. Y desde este punto de partida hila una serie de recordatorios adicionales extraídos de las Escrituras.
Lo que en un principio es una estimulante y fresca exposición, con el paso de las páginas se hace más oscura, más árida y difícil de penetrar.
Lo que no pierde en ningún momento es belleza.
El arte "secular" puede arrojar una luz sorprendente sobre la teología. Puede revelarnos lo que los hombres y mujeres anhelan.
Esta cita extraída del libro podría resumir buena parte de su contenido. El autor se vale de las Escrituras y de algunas obras literarias y artísticas para confeccionar una serie de pequeños ensayos sobre la idea de memoria cristiana. Empieza por recordar que polvo somos, que venimos de la materia pero somos materia llamada a algo más. Y desde este punto de partida hila una serie de recordatorios adicionales extraídos de las Escrituras.
Lo que en un principio es una estimulante y fresca exposición, con el paso de las páginas se hace más oscura, más árida y difícil de penetrar.
Lo que no pierde en ningún momento es belleza.
January 19, 2025
Bishop Erik wrote this book like an essay, and the topic of Christian remembrance is very good and ultimately provides a good analysis of loneliness and how forgetfulness in the Christian life is a strong source of loneliness, however the book needs a stronger thesis statement and introduction regarding remembrance and its satisfaction of loneliness.
August 31, 2025
This is a beautiful book to encounter the intimate presence of God. Bishop Varden gives beautiful meditations on the various commandments of God, beyond the traditional 10 Commandments. He interweaves both his own meditations as well as literary and cultural touch points that draw the themes deeper into the mind and soul. This will be a book of great benefit with each recurrent read.
January 23, 2022
A real gem!!
I'm not sure if a book this recent can be called a classic but that's what this book is!! A brilliant, readable book for people who have a faith and those seeking that missing something. I'd give this 6 stars if it were possible!
I'm not sure if a book this recent can be called a classic but that's what this book is!! A brilliant, readable book for people who have a faith and those seeking that missing something. I'd give this 6 stars if it were possible!
December 2, 2021
A beautifully written and perceptive introspection on the "Christian condition".
July 19, 2021
This book begins confidently, but it’s the final chapter which truly is astonishing.
January 29, 2022
One of the best books I have ever read
January 15, 2024
Piercing and beautiful.
August 24, 2024
5.0/5
La mejor exposición que he visto sobre el deseo en el cristiano.
Sinopsis/Resumen
Erik Varden —monje, filólogo y obispo— traza un itinerario por la memoria cristiana como hoja de ruta para encontrarse con Dios desde nuestra sociedad post-cristiana y post-religiosa.
Crítica formal
El estilo tiene tintes académicos (citas, analogías, asume familiaridad léxica y semántica del lector), pero predomina su estructura de exposición en párrafos cortos con ideas atómicas y claras, facilitando el acceso universal al libro.
Aunque es claramente una colección de ensayos —algunos con fines universitarios o incluso publicables en la academia—, se lee como un libro de espiritualidad contemporánea, porque apela a la vivencia personal desde la catolicidad (universalidad), aportando su plétora de referencias, metáforas e imágenes solo como suplemento a las ideas claras que formula en cada capítulo.
La estructura de los capítulos me ha gustado mucho. Pequeña introducción histórica al problema, tesis, breve exposición, hilvanado con un ejemplo de la Tradición, luego con otro de la Historia del Arte a modo de demostración , y recapitulación en la Tradición con su tesis ya probada. Muy efectivo.
Crítica personal
Comentaba con mi ahijada cómo este libro NO me ha cambiado la vida porque —gracias a Dios— catequizado vine de casa (léase, la parroquia). Pero sí que me ha abierto mucho los ojos, me ha dado muchas herramientas para mi relación con Dios y, sobre todo, para catequizar al mundo desde su situación.
Varden se erige como uno de los grandes pensadores cristianos del cuarto de siglo que viene. Humanamente, desearía que algún día se sentara sobre la sede petrina; pero conozco demasiado al Señor como para saber que sus planes siempre son mejores, así que me conformaré con rezar por él.
La mejor exposición que he visto sobre el deseo en el cristiano.
Sinopsis/Resumen
Erik Varden —monje, filólogo y obispo— traza un itinerario por la memoria cristiana como hoja de ruta para encontrarse con Dios desde nuestra sociedad post-cristiana y post-religiosa.
Crítica formal
El estilo tiene tintes académicos (citas, analogías, asume familiaridad léxica y semántica del lector), pero predomina su estructura de exposición en párrafos cortos con ideas atómicas y claras, facilitando el acceso universal al libro.
Aunque es claramente una colección de ensayos —algunos con fines universitarios o incluso publicables en la academia—, se lee como un libro de espiritualidad contemporánea, porque apela a la vivencia personal desde la catolicidad (universalidad), aportando su plétora de referencias, metáforas e imágenes solo como suplemento a las ideas claras que formula en cada capítulo.
La estructura de los capítulos me ha gustado mucho. Pequeña introducción histórica al problema, tesis, breve exposición, hilvanado con un ejemplo de la Tradición, luego con otro de la Historia del Arte a modo de demostración , y recapitulación en la Tradición con su tesis ya probada. Muy efectivo.
Crítica personal
Comentaba con mi ahijada cómo este libro NO me ha cambiado la vida porque —gracias a Dios— catequizado vine de casa (léase, la parroquia). Pero sí que me ha abierto mucho los ojos, me ha dado muchas herramientas para mi relación con Dios y, sobre todo, para catequizar al mundo desde su situación.
Varden se erige como uno de los grandes pensadores cristianos del cuarto de siglo que viene. Humanamente, desearía que algún día se sentara sobre la sede petrina; pero conozco demasiado al Señor como para saber que sus planes siempre son mejores, así que me conformaré con rezar por él.
May 1, 2025
Anamnesis is one of my favorite words, and it is an essential element of living an authentic Christian life. It informs the liturgical year, and the structure of the liturgy. It is a portal by which we traverse time and space to console Jesus upon the Cross at every Mass. But it is such a deep and multifaceted word, and I believe this book explains it in a way that has never been done before.
Erik Varden breaks down six important exhortations to "Remember" in the Bible, and he takes us on a journey, referencing art, music, and literature which demonstrates the properties of remembrance he is explaining. We begin in a dark existential place, with "Remember you are dust", and travel through what is essentially Salvation History, and the salvation of our own hearts. Varden is not afraid to be brutal and to show forth the full brunt of evil in the world as a backdrop and a context for Christian remembrance. He finds kindred spirits among disparate artists and writers who show forth what it means to forget as well as what it means to remember.
This book is absolutely devastating and profound, and it is now among my favorites.
Erik Varden breaks down six important exhortations to "Remember" in the Bible, and he takes us on a journey, referencing art, music, and literature which demonstrates the properties of remembrance he is explaining. We begin in a dark existential place, with "Remember you are dust", and travel through what is essentially Salvation History, and the salvation of our own hearts. Varden is not afraid to be brutal and to show forth the full brunt of evil in the world as a backdrop and a context for Christian remembrance. He finds kindred spirits among disparate artists and writers who show forth what it means to forget as well as what it means to remember.
This book is absolutely devastating and profound, and it is now among my favorites.
February 20, 2023
I ran into this book by skimming over titles in Google Play. I think what drew me was the title which fascinated me. And I'm glad I did because the book is a thoughtful consideration of remembering as a Christian and I found it actually quite helpful to read. Not necessarily easy, but helpful.
The chapters tend to have similar structures: a theological reflection at the start of the chapter, followed by an account of a person exemplifying the theme. The reflection gives context and deepens the discussion, but the account grounds the theology in everyday life, which is a good thing because one could get lost in the theology.
I really enjoyed this book, but I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure how much of it I actually understand. There are so many threads and so many ideas, that I'm pretty sure that I lost track of them. That's why I'm planning on re-reading it in the next few months, just to see if I actually understand it or not. Then, perhaps, I can update this rather lacklustre review.
The chapters tend to have similar structures: a theological reflection at the start of the chapter, followed by an account of a person exemplifying the theme. The reflection gives context and deepens the discussion, but the account grounds the theology in everyday life, which is a good thing because one could get lost in the theology.
I really enjoyed this book, but I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure how much of it I actually understand. There are so many threads and so many ideas, that I'm pretty sure that I lost track of them. That's why I'm planning on re-reading it in the next few months, just to see if I actually understand it or not. Then, perhaps, I can update this rather lacklustre review.
July 29, 2025
This book has an extraordinary and stark introduction, and its theme promises reams of good thought. But the book itself seems unaware that it needs to come down somewhere. Why is remembrance important? What does it DO? Why is it human -- or divine? And why do you have examples without definitions or theses?
All that said, the excerpts and stories Varden tells are great threads to follow into other reading.
All that said, the excerpts and stories Varden tells are great threads to follow into other reading.
September 1, 2023
An absorbing, intriguing, insightful book. Most persuasive when Varden is engaging with figures from the past, real and fictional - Swedish playwright Stig Dagerman, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Lot's wife...and when writing autobiographically, about his childhood, his fears, his sense of history. See my comment on first posted review by BlackOxford.
November 20, 2024
Did Lot's wife look back because she was ignorant? Or because she loved her sin?
Or was she nostalgic for the good things she experienced in Sodom and the comfort of her home, and the renunciation demanded of her continued to be difficult after the initial burst of decision?
Remember Lot's wife. Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.
Or was she nostalgic for the good things she experienced in Sodom and the comfort of her home, and the renunciation demanded of her continued to be difficult after the initial burst of decision?
Remember Lot's wife. Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.
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