{"id":1209,"date":"2006-11-15T10:22:08","date_gmt":"2006-11-15T15:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mourning-light\/"},"modified":"2006-11-15T10:22:08","modified_gmt":"2006-11-15T15:22:08","slug":"mourning-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mourning-light","title":{"rendered":"Mourning light"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started Kaddish<\/a> by Leon Wieseltier this week. It’s about his explorations into that mourning prayer following the death of his father. My brother gave it to me a few years ago.<\/p>\n

I’m only starting out — about 70 pages into its 574, but much of it is sorta epigrammatic, so it’s not a long slog — and it’s helping me formulate questions about faith, prayer and language. It also yielded this wonderful paragraph during this morning’s reading:<\/p>\n

I have read of people whose lives are transfigured in an instant. I do not believe that such a transformation can happen to me. For what changed those people was not only the instant, but also their subsequent fidelity to the instant. This is the paradox of revelation. It disrupts the order of things and then depends upon it.<\/p>\n

Without tradition, a revelation is merely an epiphany. It can inspire nothing more than art.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I started Kaddish by Leon Wieseltier this week. It’s about his explorations into that mourning prayer following the death of his father. My brother gave it to me a few years ago. I’m only starting out — about 70 pages into its 574, but much of it is sorta epigrammatic, so it’s not a long … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mourning light”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-jv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1784,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/missingthepointnet","url_meta":{"origin":1209,"position":0},"title":"Missingthepoint.net","author":"Gil","date":"November 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I was going through our office's mail just now, so I could grab my industry-specific magazines before they get filed. I have to keep up with some of our competitors, like Genetic Engineering News and Pharmaceutical Processing. We're all on each other's mailing lists, usually under funny names and fake\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14769,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-455-charles-bivona","url_meta":{"origin":1209,"position":1},"title":"Episode 455 – Charles Bivona","author":"Gil","date":"October 12, 2021","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 455: Charles Bivona Writer, poet, professor, editor and old friend Charles Bivona returns to the show for a wide-ranging conversation about art, depression, anxiety, midlife health crises (his diabetes, my CLL), Buddhism, Vietnam & contagious trauma, writing his autobiography on Patreon, and more. Our 20+ years of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/bivona2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C777&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/bivona2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C777&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/bivona2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C777&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/bivona2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C777&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/bivona2021comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C777&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":646,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/kick-em-when-theyre-down","url_meta":{"origin":1209,"position":2},"title":"Kick ’em when they’re down","author":"Gil","date":"September 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought about going to the Giants-Saints game tonight, since there were tons of tickets available and it would've been a way to support the Red Cross efforts down in the gulf. 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