by Anne White
Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life...Thou hast set my feet in a large room; should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking––the strain would be too great––but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. (School Education, p. 170)
About two years ago, Malcolm Guite did a video in which he introduced viewers to the philosopher-critic-professor George Steiner, and read a passage from Steiner's 1991 book Real Presences. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to paraphrase it. "People of many beliefs understand something about both Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. The horror of the Crucifixion mirrors the deepest pain of their own lives. The hope of the Resurrection, no small thing even for non-believers, is symbolic of their own 'liberation from inhumanity and servitude,' no matter where they might be looking for that liberation. Friday is so terribly dark that 'even the greatest art and poetry are almost helpless.' And Sunday is so blissfully happy that such things will 'no longer have logic or necessity.' However, it is Saturday, stretching between Friday's 'suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste,' and Sunday's 'dream of liberation, of rebirth,' with which we need to concern ourselves here." In Steiner's own words:
The apprehensions and figurations in the play of metaphysical imagining, in the poem and the music, which tell of pain and of hope, of the flesh which is said to taste of Ash and of the spirit which is said to have the savor of fire, are always Sabbatarian. They have risen out of an immensity of waiting which is that of man. Without them, how could we be patient?
Did you get that? Even for Christians, who celebrate the joy of Sunday and feel the grief of Friday, this human life is made up largely of
one
LOOOONNNNNNNNNG
Saturday.
And that's okay.
It's exactly because of Saturday that human beings need story, poetry, art, and music. These things arise out of our "immensity of waiting." They represent something we're longing for, hoping for, searching for. At their best, they combine the memory of Friday's suffering with the hope of Sunday's happy ending.
And when Lucy was tired of eating the Faun began to talk. He had wonderful tales to tell of life in the forest...about feasting and treasure-seeking with the wild Red Dwarfs in deep mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor; and then about summer when the woods were green...Then to cheer himself up he took out from its case on the dresser a strange little flute that looked as if it were made of straw and began to play. And the tune he played made Lucy want to cry and laugh and dance and go to sleep all at the same time." (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis)
But don't scoff at our need for this kind of play and poetry, for the wildness of imagining, for our Beethoven's Sixth Symphony ability to enjoy a picnic on the banks of the river but follow it up with a thunderstorm. The life of "born persons" anticipates the full-on light of Sunday (though seen only in glimpses), and includes the half-remembered darkness of Friday (though we must not succumb to it).
"It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill, I know that much. But I can't remember and what shall I do?" And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's Book. (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C. S. Lewis)
As Steiner said, without this sense of longing, how could we learn patience? (And without understanding that same sense in others, how could we learn empathy?) It is that same longing that makes us attempt to recreate the forgotten story, or to reproduce that beauty we have seen in glimpses.
No, we are not decadent on the whole, and our uneasiness is perhaps caused by growing pains. We may be poor things, but we are ready to break forth into singing should the chance open to us of a full life of passionate devotion. (Philosophy of Education, p. 336)
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