Colossians 3:2-3: “Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
There are times we Christians forget this, both in our pilgrimage life and in our other life.
Read morewhat is freedom
"Since true freedom means the ability to desire and choose, always, without error, without defection, what is really good, then freedom can only be found in perfect union and submission to the will of God. …
“Therefore, the simplest definition of freedom is this: it means the ability to do the will of God. To be able to resist His will is not to be free. In sin there is no true freedom.”
Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, pp. 200-201.
Zen experience
“The whole aim of Zen is not to make foolproof statements about experience but to come to direct grips with reality without the mediation of logical verbalizing.”
Merton, Thomas. “A Christian Looks at Zen.” (1967) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), p. 346.
‘I don’t understand Zen; and neither do you’ is about as foolproof a statement as I can make.
curiosity or scholarship?
“Curious knowers typically do not want to identify the knowledge they have arrived at as bearing an intimate link to their own persons or idiosyncrasies or place or interests; and they will certainly not wish to claim intimacy with what they study in the sense that a student occupying a world of gift and participation must. The curious, formed by mathesis, are always different in kind from what they are curious about, so their purpose is not to participate in what they study, but rather to isolate their object, and then to display it like a butterfly pinned in a display case. The voice the curious adopt in representing their knowledge will, therefore, avoid the first person, and will avoid, also, laying claim to the knowledge represented as though it were inextricably linked to the persona, charisma, or skill of the knower.”
Griffiths, Paul J. Intellectual Appetite: a Theological Grammar. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009, p. 149.
Griffiths makes a lot out of the difference between being curious and being studious and scholarly. He is in favor of the latter. Curiosity tends to be a mile wide but only an inch deep. Studiousness and scholarship is a mile deep no matter how wide it is.
Look again at his last sentence. He really does not like the stilted artificial voice found in most academic writing. You might recognize it: all third person and passive voice. Griffiths calls us to write like the knowledge we share actually makes a difference. The merely curious keep it at arm’s length.
Commonplaces, part 3 of 3
(In which we take a whack at translating this topic to the digital age.)
I suppose that most of you have been thinking “Yeah, but this app …” or “If you just scanned that …” or something along those lines. True. There’s always “an app for that.” (Sidenote: I just learned that, while Apple trademarked the phrase from their commercial, the trademark only covers using “the phrase in relation to retail store services featuring computer software and services.” Brian X. Chen, in “Wired” 11 October 2010, link.)
I mentioned Obsidian in an earlier post. I got there by way of paper-based note systems I learned in school. Then a long period of just making marks in the margins of my books as I read them. (Really interesting today when I come across a dated marginal note and I think to myself “I read this book 20 years ago? Got no memory of that happening.” But it also tells me that certain themes have been in my thinking for a long time.) Next, there were the years of laptops and my knowing that there had to be a way to use the computer to help with this, but not wanting to start down a path of, say, creating a database and having the software company die or – possibly worse – finding a simpler, better solution and feeling I had to copy everything over. Some time back, I thought I’d found the solution in Evernote.
Evernote does all kinds of great things for note-takers. One thing that really grabbed me was that it would sync my notes between devices. At one time users could sync several devices for free, say your work computer, your home laptop, and your phone. Same notes anywhere! Then, of course, the company saw it needed more income and cut free syncing down to two devices (which also kept larger groups of people, say a company or family, from doing this with a pile of devices). That was still okay with me because I wasn’t using Evernote for work or to share notes with anyone. And I could always copy and paste notes into email on my phone to send myself something at work, if need be. Clunky, but it worked. Finally, Evernote just started to get too feature-filled for me, the antipodes of their target power users.
I added Simplenote to my app collection. Also free. And I could sync my couple of devices. It is, as the name implies, simple. I use it to make shopping lists on my way to the hardware store or to make quick reminders to myself. Basically, I use it as a mid-term memory adjunct. Then I delete these notes. After finding that Simplenote was working for me, I started copying my reading notes out of Evernote to Simplenote.
A long process, yes, but it gave me a chance to do some typo fixing and to add keywords, or tags. It had occurred to me that the way Evernote seemed to be trending, they could either decide that everybody had to ante up for a monthly subscription, or they could be sold to another company that would take the whole thing in some other direction, or – worst case – they could just die and take my notes with them. In short, I was making a backup. At some point I got that done, but then needed to double enter any reading notes in order to keep the Evernote original and the Simplenote backup in step. This would have been easier if Simplenote had an API that could be used by IFTTT or Zapier or some other service that automates actions on the web. (If you don’t know those tools [both companies were founded back in 2011], here’s a sketch of how they work: say you are out hiking the Appalachian Trail and want your Instagram photos also to show up on your WordPress blog … rather than posting twice, you enter some information into, e.g., IFTTT about the two sites you want to connect; then describe the thing you want to happen; and from then on when you send a pic to Instagram it will automagically also show up on your blog. I’ve heard of somebody actually doing that.)
Anyway, the short of it is that a) my process was still taking up too much time; b) I was still concerned about a company making radical and precipitous changes (Anybody like me still sending out Tweets? No, I didn’t think so.); c) I was/am still nervous about putting the work into making all these reading notes and not having control over where they are stored somewhere out there “in the cloud”; d) I’m still concerned about software updates rendering my notes no longer readable or accessible; and e) I’m still cheap enough to think there must be free options available, or at least as free as making paper notes was.
That’s where Obsidian comes in.
It’s free software. Instead of storing your notes up on their servers somewhere, they’re stored on your own computer (so making the regular backup is on you). Your notes aren’t kept in some format that’ll be difficult to move to another platform, they’re text files – specifically Markdown files so you can easily input basic formatting that plain text files don’t allow for. If you need syncing, that’s possible. Linking notes to each other is really simple. Searching for that one note you need is also very simple. And, yes, you can use tags to collate notes (this is the 21st century after all). You don’t need an Internet connection to use it. Obsidian is one of those apps that can be either simple or complex, depending on what you need it to do.
My bibliographic references go into a note, each of the reading notes goes into its own Obsidian note. They’re linked to each other. No indexing needed, because it’s all searchable. Which means I can do this: search my whole commonplace collection for a term; among the results I spot a reading note that’s particularly apt; click back to the source bibliography info; see a list of all my reading notes taken from that source. And then click backwards through those steps to check other results. Or jump ahead with another search.
And in the end, for me, it’s just the tool I need to keep my Commonplaces handy, sortable, searchable, copyable … usable.
Commonplaces. Notes from your universe of sources kept in one common place.
Commonplaces, part 2 of 3
(In which we continue to extract text from Theodore Graebner’s The Pastor as Student and Literary Worker.)
“The commonplace book may vary in size according to the purpose which it is to serve. Any note-book will do if the literary task is limited to a single object. … Since, however, the preacher and theologian does a great amount of reading which has no immediate objective; and since it is impossible even for the best memory to retain the vast array of facts and data that, in the course of systematic reading, pass through consciousness; and since not only the facts but the sources and authorities from which they are derived are frequently of the highest importance,–it is an absolute requisite of fruitful reading that significant data be retained by means of some mechanical device. And the mechanical device which will serve every literary purpose, whatever it may be, is the commonplace book. … Its single purpose is that of serving as a repository of facts which, though we have no present intention of embodying them in a paper, essay, etc., yet appear worthy of preservation in such a form that they will be available whenever the occasion arises.” (pages 98-99)
So, what’s the process? Graebner explains his well-thought-out technique:
“Get a large blank-book bound in stout boards. It may have its pages lined, if the owner so prefers. On the title-page write: ‘Excerpts A,’ or any other title which will render easy later references to it in your Index Rerum [index of things]. Write only on the right hand pages, leaving each opposite page blank. What shall go into this book? Anything that occurs to you as possessing such value that you can imagine some future necessity of reference to it.” (page 99)
A little later he describes the book this way: “A common-place book should not be too small, nor, again, too bulky. A volume of one to two hundred pages, about 8×10 inches in size, will prove most convenient. Needless to say, the paper should be good enough to permit the use of pen and ink.” (page 100)
“Take the time to copy out the portions that are of value, writing at the head the complete title of the book, and opposite each extract the page on which it is found.” (page 100) Copy them out of whatever resource, book, article, and so on is at hand. Copy these extracts out in whatever order you read them.
It’s notable that Graebner directs his readers to use their commonplace books to extract information from books that they do not own. This is for books you borrow from a library, a friend, a co-worker. If the book is on your own shelf, if the journal article is in your own filing cabinet, you don’t need to spend the time copying it out. How then do you capture information from your own books? You use your “Index Rerum.” Let Graebner explain:
“All lines of literary endeavor meet in the Index Rerum. Proper indexing alone preserves for future usefulness the results of study and research. What the most powerful mind is unable to do,–to record the data of any department of knowledge and their sources,–the Index Rerum will do, and do it unfailingly.” (page 122)
“Our object must be to index every volume to which we have devoted study, and to index it with a minimum expenditure of time and energy. The most practical method is not that of continuous indexing. By this I mean the making of entries during the reading of a book.” (page 124)
He then goes on to discuss the comparative advantages of using a card index or a blank book. Using a blank book as your Index Rerum of course means that it’s impossible to interfile terms in absolute alphabetical order, but Graebner assumes that it won’t be a heavy time burden to scan down a page of references – such as: Grace; Gospel; God, Attributes of; Government; Greed; Grief; Glory; … to find where you’ve indexed the concept of Gentleness.
So even though Graebner comes down on the side of a blank book over a card index, he allows as how if he were starting over he would use a looseleaf notebook as a way to combine the advantages of both systems while overcoming many disadvantages of either.
Here’s how it would work in a looseleaf notebook. Write the subject word at the top of a page. Under it enter the brief reference to either your commonplace book volume and page number (for extracts from books and pamphlets you don’t own), or the book title and page number (for items you own). The big advantages of the looseleaf notebook are that you can get your index terms in strict alphabetical order, and that you don’t have unused pages wasting space.
Commonplaces, part 1 of 3
(In which we define “Commonplace” in the context of reading and study.)
What are “commonplaces”? Why do I tag the quotations that I post here “commonplaces”?
Wikipedia can tell you that: “Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: sententiae (often with the compiler’s responses), notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes. Entries are most often organized under systematic subject headings and differ functionally from journals or diaries, which are chronological and introspective.” Source in Wikipedia
I’ve read various explanations for why the word “commonplace” is used this way. The simplest is that hereby you gather all your reading notes into a single location – a common place – rather than spreading them out over several locations.
But, wait! There’s more!!
A little over a century ago, beginning in 1916, Professor Theodore Graebner (of Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis, MO) began a series of lectures to the seminarians on the topic of their self-directed continuing education after they entered parish ministry. Mainly at the students’ request, his lectures were published in 1921 under the title The Pastor as Student and Literary Worker. I came across the 2nd edition (1925) around the time I graduated from seminary. Graebner’s system for capturing useful information really caught my eye.
But as the personal computer era was dawning, I never really used his paper-based system in any sustained way. I’ve recently begun using a free app called “Obsidian” to organize reading notes on my laptop. It seems to provide me with the things Graebner laid out all those years ago, with the addition of hyperlinks between notes. Obsidian also brings all the advantages and disadvantages of working in digital media that we’ve learned to enjoy or struggle with. As this post isn’t about Obsidian, but about Commonplaces I want to copy out some of Graebner’s words. I think they’re fundamental to any note-taking system, even in the digital age.
"Wide and diversified reading, continued through many years of application, is the essential thing. There is no royal road to literary accomplishment, as little as there is a royal road to knowledge. …
“How to gather, classify and dispose the matter which goes into composition and how to make such matter readily available for elaboration into literary form,–be it a newspaper article, a sermon, a conference paper, a Synodical essay, a treatise, or a book,–and how to perform this work with a minimum of wasted time and fruitless effort, requires, first of all, the application of certain mechanics of authorship, and the keystone to this preliminary work is the commonplace book.” (page 98)
Well, there it is: the reason for the commonplace book is to help you organize notes from your “wide and diversified reading” so you can create your own wide variety of literary works.
Books as Sources
“I have few of the aptitudes of the scholar, and fewer yet of the methodical habits and industry of the man of business. I live in books a certain part of each day, but less as a student of books than as a student of life. I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey. My memory for the facts and the arguments of books is poor, but my absorptive power is great. What I meet in life, in my walks, or in my travels, which is akin to me, or in the line of my interest and sympathies, that sticks to me like a bur, or, better than that, like the food I eat. So with books: what I get from them I do not carry in my memory, but it is absorbed as the air I breathe or the water I drink. It is rarely ready on my tongue or my pen, but makes itself felt in a much more subtle and indirect way.”
(Burroughs, John. “The Summit of Years” in “The Summit of Years” Volume 15 of The Writings of John Burroughs. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1913; pages 5-6)
Burroughs recognizes his limitations. And in his use of books he notes that he gets inspiration from them but so transforms the content that it really does become his. This is what I hope happens with the books from which these “Commonplaces” come.
turn to the contemplative
Note:
John Burroughs, certainly no Christian, notices that as we grow older, we naturally pull back from the noise of society and turn more toward things of lasting value. That is, we become more contemplative the more we mature. This reminded me of something I read recently in Falling Upwards a book by Richard Rohr where he talks about ways in which the spirituality of attentive Christians changes as we age.
Quote:
“The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world. I hardly know which feeling leads, wonderment or admiration. After a man has passed the psalmist’s dead line of seventy years, as Dr. Holmes called it, if he is of a certain temperament, he becomes more and more detached from the noise and turmoil of the times in which he lives. The passing hubbub in the street attract him less and less; more and more he turns to the permanent, the fundamental, the everlasting. More and more he is impressed with life and nature themselves, and the beauty and grandeur of the voyage we are making on this planet. The burning questions and issues of the hour are for the new generations, in whom life also burns intensely.” (vol. 15, p. 1)
Source: Burroughs, John. “The Summit of Years” in Volume 15 of The Writings of John Burroughs. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1913.
Breadth and variety in study
“There is no more effective means of keeping the mind fresh and its faculties at the height of their performance than the occupation, within proper limitations, with some side-line of study. When we inquire how it is that some men maintain even into old age a peculiar freshness of mind and true balance of mental faculties, here is the answer.”
From: Graebner, Theodore. The Pastor as Student and Literary Worker: Lectures Delivered at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Second, revised edition. St. Louis : Concordia Publishing House, 1925, page 68.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 