Kristina Razoumova- Hymn 101 Lyrics

Hymn 101 Lyrics
My Choice

Written on 10/22/15

                  Last class we were asked to listen to the Hymn 101 song by Joe Pug without watching the video and write down some ideas on what came to mind.

“Yeah I've come to know the wishlist of my father.

I've come to know the shipwrecks where he wished.

I've come to wish aloud among the overdressed crowd.

Come to witness now the sinking of the ship.

Throwing pennies from the seatop next to it.”

I believe this verse is about Joe reflecting upon what his father wanted to achieve and how at times these goals presented hardships and how now he is on a similar path.

           

“And I've come to roam the forest past the village

With a dozen lazy horses in my cart.

I've come here to get eyed

To do more than just get by

I've come to test the timber of my heart.

Oh I've come to test the timber of my heart.”

This verse seems to be talking about a man who is trying to get back to nature and get closer to the spiritual and away from the practical ways of the society around him. He has come to get judged and evaluate life.

“And I've come to be untroubled in my seeking.

And I've come to see that nothing is for naught.

I've come to reach out blind

To reach forward and behind

For the more I seek the more I'm sought

Yeah, the more I seek the more I'm sought.”

In his attempt to find spiritualty he has come to peace and stopped worrying about the everyday things that society worries about. He found a sense of peace within himself and a care free lifestyle.

“And I've come to meet the sheriff and his posse,

To offer him the broad side of my jaw.

I've come here to get broke,

Then maybe bum a smoke.

We'll go drinking two towns over after all.

Well, we'll go drinking two towns over after all.”

Going off of the care free lifestyle, he seems to not be accepted by the legal society but he doesn’t seem to care because he is searching for something the society lacks.

“And I've come to meet the legendary takers.

I've only come to ask them for a lot.

Oh they say I come with less than I should rightfully possess.

I say the more I buy the more I'm bought.

And the more I'm bought the less I cost.”

He is talking about getting rid of material positions because the more someone focuses on the material, the practical, things the further they get to the spiritual.

“And I've come to take their servants and their surplus.

And I've come to take their raincoats and their speed.

I've come to get my fill

To ransack and spill.

I've come to take the harvest for the seed.

I've come to take the harvest for the seed.”

The harvest and seed lyric reminds me of the discussion we had in class about how is rituals the the focus is on the desire to live and that is what I feel he means by this statement. He is going back to the primitive ways and his music expresses his desire to live and to connect to the beauty. 

“And I've come to know the manger that you sleep in.

I've come to be the stranger that you keep.

I've come from down the road,

And my footsteps never slowed.

Before we met I knew we'd meet.

Before we met I knew we'd meet.”

The before we met I knew we’d meet lyric reminds me of the idea of death. He knows one days he will die (meet god).

And I've come here to ignore your cries and heartaches.

I've come to closely listen to you sing.

I've come here to insist

That I leave here with a kiss.

I've come to say exactly what I mean.

And I mean so many things.

The part about ignoring your cries and heartaches is his way of escaping society and all the bad that is going on that is going against “the Good” (god).

“I’ve come so close to listen to you sing” reminds me of the idea of experiencing beauty but ultimately realizing you have been a mere spectator and cannot be part of the perfection.

“That I leave here with a kiss” makes me think of the kiss of death, he may want to make thing right in his life before leaving the physical world.

The say what I mean and I mean so many things part may relate to the meaning of life.

And you've come to know me stubborn as a butcher.

And you've come to know me thankless as a guest.

But will you recognize my face

When God's awful grace

Strips me of my jacket and my vest,

And reveals all the treasure in my chest?

This verse is him recalling on his life and he admits in his younger days he way seeing “the Good” but was not allowing himself to accept it. But in the end the was good in him and he knows he tried to make things right but accepting “the Good”.

The “And reveals all the treasure in my chest” part makes me think of the freeing of the soul.

Kristina Razoumova-Van Gogh Shoes & Socrates

Van Gogh Shoes & Socrates
Outside Reading

Written on 10/19/15

As we discussed in class there is a difference between the shoes themselves and the paining of the shoes by Van Gogh. I have connected this idea to a reading I did outside of class on Socrates.

                  The Socrates reading discussed that during Socrates’ life in in 470-399 BCE there were many tragedies and world conflicts. As a result of these events there was an increase of skepticism in Athens. People began to focus less on the metaphysical and more on the pragmatic, or the practical (Kaye).

                  Socrates found this to be a problem as he believed “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Kaye). Thus, he attempted to move people to a deeper truth by getting them to think about their thinking.

                  I believe this connects to the discussion in class because the shoes themselves are the practical. People look at them as an object that is there to serve a purpose or their “usefulness” (Guest speaker). However, our perception changes on the shoes when we look at the artwork because it represents the new world the artist has opened up to us. The beauty the artist encountered during his experience with the shoes was focused on the metaphysical not the practical. The artist was moved to a deeper truth than the physical shoes. That is why when we, the spectators, look at the paining we can see the “whole word of being”, making the artwork itself the origin (Guest speaker). 

Medieval Philosophy: A Beginner’s Guide, Kaye, OneWorld Publications, 2008. 

Beauty and Suffering

12/2

Can pain be beautiful? That is one way to phrase a question I’ve been struggling to answer this whole semester. Ever since the fist class where we discussed what beauty is, I’ve wondered if beauty can be found in suffering. As I have already written about, experiencing beauty often includes unpleasant emotions along with positive ones. But there is a great difference between understanding the sense of longing we experience when we encounter beauty and seeking beauty in misery. Beauty and suffering aren’t opposites, but they do not seem compatible at all. 

I struggle to find an answer to this question in part because I have no personal experience in great suffering. By the grace of God I have been sheltered from much sorrow. Bouts with physical ailments or short spans of anxiety are the closest encounters I have had to suffering. Any degree of anguish I have felt has healed with time. I am not nearly as familiar with pain as I should be to write on this subject with any authority, but I shall try anyway with the little knowledge I do have. 

The only times of great total pain, pain that afflicts every portion of my being, I have felt were before I became a Christian. My broken and lonely heart remained inconsolable until the Lord called me to Himself. Only in hindsight can I see that my hurting was integral in my calling; without experiencing the pain and despair brought upon by sin, I never would have been able to accept God’s love. Beauty reflects the Father, and my pain brought me to Him, but I don’t think that means my pain was beautiful. It was deserved; I was responsible for my own broken heart. It was clearly preordained and therefore meant to happen. Even so, I don’t think it being ‘right’ qualifies it as beautiful. If anything, God’s plan for my redemption through suffering was beautiful, but that means the plan carries the beauty, not the pain. 

Looking to the cross also helps shed light on the relationship between suffering and beauty. Nowhere in the bible can I find anyone describe the death and suffering of Jesus beautiful. We remember the crucifixion as ‘good’ only for what it means for us sinners: freedom from sin, death, and Satan. The beauty of the cross does not lie in Christ’s suffering, but in our forgiveness. Here, beauty is only found in the fact that Father’s will was done. Jesus’ unfathomable pain was not the purpose of the cross, it was the means by which the purpose was accomplished. Again, it is God’s plan that is beautiful, not sin’s effects. 

Sin is anything contrary to God and therefore cannot be beautiful in any way. Suffering is a byproduct of sin, so it too cannot be beautiful. However, it should be clear by now that God is powerful enough to bring about good even through suffering. As Paul writes in Romans 8:28 "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purposes.” Suffering is included in “all things”. I guess that answers my question. Beauty can be found in how God works through our suffering, not in the suffering itself. 

Art as Symbolic Form

Art as Symbolic Form - Suzanne K. Langer

Assigned Reading

What grabbed my attention most about this article was Langer's discussion on the reason we place importance in art being that it expresses the emotions that simple words cannot.  Langer argues that there are different types of symbols.  There is the typical definition of a symbol:  a word used to convey or refer to a concept.  But what is most important are the differences in the definition of 'symbols' that are used within art.  First off there is the Art Symbol which contains artistic import.  Artistic import is what gives life to the piece of art by providing it with emotional content or tone.  Then there are the symbols used within art.  The symbols used within art are what we would typically think of a symbol as, she gives the example of a rose to symbolize womanhood.  The symbols used within art create the expressive form of the art, the arts tangible elements:  the interaction of colors, shadows, surfaces, or sounds.  When we experience art it is not the symbols within the art that cause an emotional experience but rather the Art Symbol.  The Art Symbol is what expresses the emotions we seek out in art or create within our own art.  It is because of the presence of the Art Symbol that we have a high regard for art.