Chasing the Truth, by All Means. Part 1.

It was not possible for man to know himself and the world, except first after some mode of knowledge, some art of discovery. The most perfect, since the most intimate and intelligent art, was pure love. 

The approach by love was the approach to fact; to love anything but fact was not love. 

Love was even more mathematical than poetry; it was the pure mathematics of the spirit.

Charles Williams: Descent into Hell. p69.

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Okay, you probably read that and sighed. Or, read it twice or thrice, which is my hope!

This quote reminds us that to use our minds in the loving pursuit of knowledge is an act of worship...and that to honor anything that is less-than-true is to commit hellish idolatry. But, what really kicked my cranium was the last line--that to love is to enter into an equation--my mind on one side, and truth on the other.

What's this jazz about "...love more mathematical than poetry"? Has anyone in the history of humankind ever called poetry mathematical? Really?

Makes me fall deeper in love with poetry, real poetry, poetry written by honest seekers of truth. And, helps me to see why I hate some poetry (and some modern art): they're not seeking truth, they're just deconstructing with no interest or intent to reassemble the pieces to find truth--they like the fact that they've reduced something to sharp little shards of meaninglessness.

I think I blogged about the 81 page book of poetry where I understood only three or five pages...or, I kinda thought I might have understood them, perhaps? That author can be commended only for getting someone to print his stuff. Probaly goes over big at Berkeley.

Phoo.

That said, I think deconstructing in order to reconstruct--cool. Be it architectural elements or somebody's philosophy or a corpse on the autopsy table--we take stuff apart, learn, and build deeper truths from what we've learned!


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Charles Williams is a favorite author--he was one of the "Inklings," completing that famed trio with C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, sharing many the tale and pint at the Eagle and Child Pub there in Oxford. (Son Daniel told me it was also known as the "Bird and Baby" or the "Fowl and Foetus.") Williams wrote tales that match Stephen King for weirdness but omit the gore.