Wednesdays with Words: Mirrors of Sins and Limitations

 I have been reading Alan Jacobs’ excellent book, The Narnian, off and on for a year now. Actually, more off than on which is why I haven’t finished it.

Don’t let that deter you, though, because it is really very good and very readable.

Friday night, I had two and a half hours at basketball practice,  N-boy for an hour and a half and R-girl for an hour.  I have been lamenting how behind I was in writing quotes in my Commonplace Book, so I put on my headphones and listened to Jars of Clay’s two latest albums and copied, copied, copied.  I made notes from four books including The Narnian, and I knew as soon as I wrote it down what quotes I was going to use for WWW this week.

They’re on a theme that Lewis addresses again and again, “Chronological Snobbery.” We cannot look back on the people of the past and assume that we are smarter, better, more sanctified, etc. than they.

Long before [Lewis] ever thought of defending Christianity, he defended –in articles, lectures, and a book– the beauty and wisdom of the premodern literature of Europe.  Such a defense required that he root out what he called “chronological snobbery”: “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.” (pg 164)

Jacobs discusses that idea for a while, and then he makes this astounding statement about the great books:

“The great books of the past then if we read them properly and carefully, can be mirrors in which we see the sins and limitations of our own period.” (pg 166)

First, I love that Lewis calls out those who practice this “chronological snobbery.” We aren’t somehow more evolved or improved upon people; people are people from their time or ours. We have the same struggles, the same desires, the same sins, the same emotions that people have had in the Bible and in The Odyssey, let alone in the Renaissance and Medieval ages.

But second, I loved the imagery that Jacobs used of a mirror.  I immediately saw the graphic I wanted to do.  I don’t tend to the visual, I tend to be very word oriented, so I was excited to imagine and then create exactly what I wanted for the graphic. This is a skill – along with improving my photography skills (or lack thereof) – that I am working on this year, so I hope you will indulge me.

That being said, I’ve created a Pinterest Board for Wednesdays with Words.

A lot of participants have been creating graphics to go with their posts.  ALL I WANT ARE THE WORDS. I am going to try to start pinning your posts to the board (or you can request pinning rights and pin directly if you choose).  If you make a graphic, I’ll use that. If you use my blue square, I’ll use that. If you use some other image in your linked in post, I’ll use that. I want to encourage people to keep words and share them with us and I think that will be a fun way to do it.

I’ve now hosted WWW for about six months, and I have loved every minute of it.  Thank you for participating, that’s really the most fun part!

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