Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom in the past between primary and secondary of worlds. I'm your host, Andrew Snyder, and I am always grateful for your company. Today I have a really fun conversation playing for you, But first I want to let you know about a new patron benefit if you've been listening for a little while, or you've otherwise been following me on x or Twitter or wherever, you know that over the summer I let a course called the Fiction and Philosophy of C. S.
Lewis Well.
I'd really love to shift into leading these kinds of public studies, making some more podcast content, and engaging with some other independent projects. I'd really love to do all this sort of thing on a full time basis. That's the goal that I'm trying to work toward, and I'm really in an experimental phase right now as to figure out how to best move in that direction. On one hand, I want as many people as possible to be able to join in on what we're doing, because I believe
in what we're doing. I have a heart for public education, for engagement in the humanities, for on my own side, pursuing wisdom and trying to be more human, but also in trying to help others come along with me in that venture as we talk to interesting people, engage with interesting ideas, and read interesting stories together and so on hand, I want as many people as possible to be able to join in on these ventures, but I also need to make sure that I'm bringing in enough income for
me to make this work. I've had a family to support, and so I can't spend all this time doing things that I love if it's not bringing in what we need financially. And so with that being said, I've made all the content from the Lewess Course available to patrons at the ten dollars a month tier. I have believe that's I think twenty six videos, which are also available through the Patreon podcast feed, and so you can sit down and watch the video, go through the presentation, or
you can just listen to it on the go. And that covers nearly all of Lewis's major works of fiction, and so there's content on all of the Ransom series, Screwtape Letters Till We Have Faces, the Great Divorce, the Chronicles of Narnia, and also a little bit on his unfinished first attempt at a sequel to out of the
Side on Planet the Dark Tower. And so again all of that is now available to ten dollars a month patrons, and if we get ten new patrons at this level during the month of November, then I'm also going to make the beay Wolf and Boethius course content available at the same level, and if that in turn does well, well,
we'll see what happens from there. But you know, as long as we can keep a sustainable level of financial support coming in, I would really love to set the entry bar as low as possible to allow as many interested people to come in, because, I mean, anyone's interested in this kind of content is going to be interesting, and so I love to continue spinning off bigger and
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Now.
For our conversation today, a few of the participants in the Life Death and Meaning with Beowolf and Bowethia's course have returned to discuss some general highlights from this study. Now we're covering a lot of material here, and this was eight weeks of study that we can pressed into one conversation, and so it's broad level. There's no intention to cover all the material, but I think that it was still worthwhile, still engaging, and I hope that.
You enjoy.
All right, So welcome to the was it two to three week reunion of the Life Death and meeting with Bewolf and Bowethia's Course. I'm joined here by a few of the participants. We had a pretty good turnout. Overall, about thirty people were in the course. We had I don't know somewhere ranging from four to eight or so regular active participants in the live meetings. But basically, this is just a time for us to talk broad scale about our engagement with these tags, what makes them so significant,
and why everyone should read them. And so let's just go around the room here as I have you on my screen, and tell me briefly who you are, whatever you want to share, and what led you to this study. Aubrey, you you can go first.
Yes means Aubrey, I live in Chicago, and I just really was looking for some like something between a book club and a grad school. Of course, that's something that would yeah, really be like a good engaging of course, but that I could keep up with without a lot of homework. And so I think I came across hand around Twitter, and but this is like a perfect way to jump back into some classic literature and have some good companions to do it.
So that's how I jumped in.
Good Yeah, I'll hear in that description of something between a book club and a grad class. That's exactly what I'm aiming for. So glad to hear that, all right, Chase.
Yeah, Chase, I'm from Texas, live in Austin, Texas. Right now. I have took part in the Lewis study, which but ifitted immensely from and really just enjoyed it. And that just gave more desire to read a kind of figure out what Lewis was inspired by. And so yeah, I joined this class and excited for the other classes as well.
Good Yeah, further up and further in, and you know, Tolkien and Lewis were definitely my entry away to really discovering literature. I'm talking about that before that, you know, my my backgrounds and philosophies. It's not like I haven't read literature, but it's been more in the was typically described as philosophical study, not so much just literature fiction, sagas and myths and you know, that sort of thing. But it's really when I really discovered Tolkien just a
few years ago. Honestly, that then just changed the trajectory of my life. And you know, from there Lewis the natural next step, and then from there, well everywhere else. It's a yeah, I can definitely sympathize the the uh Lewis wardrobe entry away to all these other worlds. Mariah, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Okay, Yeah, I'm Mariah obviously, and I'm from the middle of a corn with Cornfieldville in northern Indiana, so there's that. And I am a master's master's program in philosophy dropout. And I actually found Andrew's podcast while I was in the process of moving to my master's program. I was finding something to listen to, like while I was driving back and forth for like five hours moving all my
stuff to Ohio. And yeah, when I saw on Twitter that he had a something going on with Boethius and Bilwolf. I was just excited because I am kind of like the person who's in philosophy but has always been interested more in literature, I think. And uh, sort of how I ended up dropping out, I guess is that I'm more interested in literature than I am in philosophy.
But that's a long story.
So I just I kind of wanted something that would keep like the intellectual juices flowing while I was in the process of figuring out what to do with the rest of my life. Basically, yeah, that's kind of how I ended up here.
So so what I'm hearing is I'm responsible for you dropping out of your grad program.
No, that happened.
That happened a long time, a long time before I got really invested in well, I guess.
And no, honestly, I sympathize with the sentiment there, you know, even though I you know, my primary job is in academia. This is the kind of thing I really enjoy doing, you know, outside of the institution, just reading good books with people who like reading good books and talking about important ideas, and so that's just what I love doing. And so you know, I can sympathize with the dropping out of grad school because of your interest, not necessarily lack thereof.
I can sympathize with that, all right.
So I mean as far as I guess why why I'm here, and obviously I put it together, but the reason why, you know, I was led with this interesting combination.
I've never seen Beowulf and Boethius directly paired together before, but I think it really makes sense when you understand what both of them are doing, especially with this common theme of how do we live a life of meaning with knowledge of the fact that we're going to die, right, with knowledge of the fact that the world around us is constantly moving, right that the wheel of fortune is
constantly spinning. We can't base our identity, we can't base our happiness, our human joy in things that are moving, because well, they're going to do just that, They're going to move, and so you're setting yourself up for despair.
Right.
That's why people who seem to be at the top of the world, you're successful actors and CEOs and musicians and people who have the circumstances that you know, all of us tend to want. Why they'll still just destroy their lives or you know, just kill themselves out of nowhere. And I think what that reveals is the fact that
circumstances just not enough. You know, we all tend to think that if I just get that new job, I get that raise, I get that relationship, I get that whatever it is like, then I'm going to be happy. Then I'll be content with my life. But the reality is, sometimes the worst that could happen is we actually get the things that we think that we want, because then we could recognize those still don't satisfy, and then the
question is where do we go from there? And so I think that BeO Wolf and Boethius both do such an important job of helping us to anchor ourselves and things that don't change in the good that's required of us, in the good that is eternal and unmoving. That they both deal with that meaning in a world and a life that's changing, in a life that, regarding our flesh, is going to die. And so this seems like a
natural fit for me. And of course we get, you know, the Lewis connection going in both directions, and that Boetheius is such a quintessentially medieval text in the classical sense. And then with Beowulf, we get the northern spirit, and so it's just interesting how these things can come together. Well, taking just a broad scale approach to wherever we go with this. We're obviously covering two monumental texts, so I'm
open to wherever this goes. But I would love to hear about books on Beowulf first and what your first experience was of reading Beowulf's what did you think?
What did you feel?
Were some thoughts that you had, whether that was for this class or even just the first time if it was before this class, And so we'll just keep the same rotation going. Aubrey, tell us something about your experience with Beowolf.
Yeah, I think I read a portion of it in a high school literature class, and I just remember being very confused by it, and so it's like I kind of remember like snippets of Grendel's mother and something like that, and from this course.
So actually when I saw that, like this was the next course that you had coming, I was not interested because I.
Thought, I like that.
I just have a bad memory of really not understanding that and just leaving like confusion in my mind. So so yeah, that was my first experience, and it was really good. To kind of to have to get to work through that again and CEO, Actually, that's like there's a reason that it's a classic piece of literature that we read over and over again.
Yeah, and I don't think that experience is unusual. I'm pretty sure I first read at least a section of it in high school, I think directly around the Grandel fight, and that was pretty much it not allowed to really really grip you or to stick with you. And it wasn't until a couple of years ago, when maybe it was like three years ago. This point when I voluntarily read through it for the first time, very much spun off of my interests in Lewis and Tolkien, and I
just instantly knew that there's something important here. It's something that our age, which tends to be pretty ambiguous and flimsy, needs, you know, just the the rock solid conviction of I'm going to do what I need to do right that that's essential, concrete message, abaywel of something that we fundamentally need. And so, you know, I hope and you kind of suggested this that this experience was at least a little
bit better than what you remember from high school. Is there anything in particular from this go at it that has stood out with you or like you know, why it's important or kind of whatever you want to comment on.
M M, yeah, I would say.
Really that, I mean the thing that you mentioned of like we we just need to do what we need to do, but and saying it that way, like it sounds like kind of a dry duty, and that's I don't think that's it at all. But like viewing viewing what you need to do as like really having like there is a there is a noble quality to really face you know, face whatever is really a challenge that's in your realm of responsibility and it's not a dry duty.
That's how you really live out a noble life. And so that I mean, I've thought about that a lot, just like in my day to day work challenges of things that are like intimidating conversations or things that I would really rather find a way out of, but really viewed in the light of like, no, these are these are the things that are in my realm of responsibility, and.
There is there there is really.
Like a character and like a value in virtue in in facing them because these are the things that have been given to me to deal with and then looking at the way that that is, you know, taking care of other people in my work setting. So yeah, that that has been really like really just helpful in thinking about kind of my day to day uh tasks and like, you know, having to face face myself in ways in the things that I try to get out of.
Good And I like that a lot.
It really shows that, you know, reading good stories, if you're reading them in the right way, it should have immediate impact on the way that you actually live your life. If it doesn't, then you're either not reading good stories, you're not reading good stories in the right way. And yeah, I like you said that it's not just duty for duty's sake. That Beowolf he's not a Stoic. Now, I think that there's some wisdom to get from stoicism, but
that's not really how it described Beowolf. The northern noble spirit is fueled by a love for what is good.
And what is worth preserving.
And so yeah, he goes out and does his duty, but it's for the sake of protecting the feasting and the merrymaking, and you know, in the great meat halls, it's for protecting his kin, his family, for serving those
who need his service. And so even in the day to day, you know, we're not in isolation that the things that we do actually matter, and if there are things that are worth loving that we do love well, that should propel us to do the things we don't necessarily want to do because we're part of a bigger community.
And I think that Bewolf does that really well. It makes me think of the you know, the Pharamere idea, Right, we don't we fight to defend what we love essentially, not just for the sake of fighting or for the sake of doing our duty. Cool Jase, tell us a little bit about your experience with Beowulf.
Yeah, so, I I think I read Beowulf. I think in middle school we did kind of like a product project on it and had to do maybe like stop motion and watch like the movie. And I don't know what translation they use, but I definitely I feel like it downplayed.
Like religious aspect of it.
And was more it was a lot drier, so I didn't really quite understand it or see the appeal. So jumping into it and this was awesome, and I was shocked to see like since it is it was like a like a old English myth that it was had that religious aspect put into it kind of after the fact, but in this writing the poet put in, I thought it was pretty cool to see, just like to think of like King Alfred having read it at the time and then he obviously.
Thought highly of it.
By trying to translate it, and so just kind of seeing like, Okay, here's stuff that a king, you know, from so long ago, like found, you know, ideas or virtues and stuff that he could heat qualities that he would have probably tried to emulate from beowf as a as a king. So yeah, just really appreciated that mirror echoed just a lot of the same things that ever were saying.
Yeah, and that.
It does definitely have a Christian framing to it, despite the fact that you know, the story is describing you know, pagan Scandinavia, Denmark and beyond. And I think it speaks to a pretty commonly accepted medieval idea that the pagan, the pre Christian pagan is not necessarily anti Christian, they're just pre Christian. Now, obviously there are elements of paganism that most certainly are anti Christian, but in the basic
sentiment of desiring to do what is good. They're making use of the light that they have as God's image bearers who are naturally drawn to that light. And so, you know, a lot of times there's this popular conception that the medieval Christians just tried to like stamp out everything that came before them, but it's really not the case at all. Right, there's a reason why. There's the reason why we have these myths, there's a reason why
we have classical pre Christian literature. It's because the Christian Church thought it was worth preserving, you know, so why such things survived through the so called dark Ages, which is a term that you used conventionally, not necessarily qualitatively, and so you know, they really viewed this idea that, okay, the the pre Christian pagans that are using the life that they have, and so to that extent, you know, Tolkien even mentions this in this commentary on.
Beowulf, that you know, if.
If Christ in his herowing of Hell can redeem you know, the Old Testament, pre Christian prophets, and you know, saints and patriarchs and whatnot, well why not shill chiefs in as well? Not necessarily definitively, but you know, maybe so it's at least I think it's a compelling way to understand I think pre Christian paganism. Mariah tell us something about your experience with BeO Wolf.
Yeah, so I think. Actually, I know when I first discovered Beowolf, it was because I was a total Tolkien nerd when I was like eleven, twelve whatever, but not through the usual entry point. I actually started with a similar ilion and the languages so like super nerd, which basically meant that I found out that Tolkien had based some of the languages in the Lord of the Rings on Old English. So I was like, well, why don't I find like something in Old English to read? And
then I quickly realized that wasn't necessarily feasible. But at the same time, my mom was like trying to do like homeschool curriculum for us, so she gave me an option of three things. It was either nineteen century English literature, nineteenth century American literature, or a courts on medieval literature. And of course, being the nerd that I was, I was like, wholesale, We're doing medieval literature like that is
one hundred percent No questions asked. So I did a unit on Beowulf, Piers the Plowman, Chaucer, and there's one other thing that I don't remember what it was, but I think, yeah, Beowulf in Piers the Plowman really stuck out to me. I recommend if you're interested in like other old English poems. But YEAHO, So my first experience with Beowuff I like half remember kind of same thing
as Aubrey and Chase. Just I got really deep into the like nerdy word parts of everything and not necessarily did I see like the whole picture and kind of like what was going on, So kind of coming back to that, I really appreciate just like I guess all the poetry that is actually there reading in translation, but then kind of like piecing together the old English being like this is really beautiful actually some of the imagery, and then but like how that all interplays with the
like the deeper themes. And I think it hadn't really registered how much it is a poem about death until I, well, I guess, like when I started this trying to get in, I guess when I signed up to do this course, it was because Andrew had posted the quote of Tolkien saying that like basically every piece of literature is about death, and it hadn't really registered how much. Beowulf also follows
that in so many ways. And I don't know if I have a lot to add I think to what to what Aubrey said as far as like the action part of we have to act in a world where we are subject to time and fate and death, and that there's something about that, the way that like the heroes can be virtuous in the face of that and can actually act in their day to day lives and still I don't know, come through and and be virtuous people. That really struck me this time around.
So yeah, So first of all, I have to say that you're my hero, and you have entirely validated my desire to homeschool my children so they will be half a school.
Yeah.
I was public school like a Doric hudn't get to read any medieval literature growing up. So that's a fantastic entry point. Very few people enter Tolkien via this somewhere early.
Both.
Yeah, and.
It's more I was gonna say, but I just totally lost it. Oh cool, let me just ask at me, can or won't necessarily lead to some penetrating insight. But what would you say was your favorite part of Beowulf
looking at the narrative. I know, for me in particular, I mean, obviously there's the dragon fight and everything that's that's pretty cool, But I think that the fight with Grendel's mother stood out to me the most in this study because I just feel like there's so much symbolism built into the way that that takes place, you know, from the fact that he is standing, you know, above her underwater layer and you know, he basically says, you know,
I don't know if I'm going to live. I don't know if I'm going to die, and then he just like jumps into the water. That's basically his big speech, and so, you know, he definitely demonstrates the fact that living is not the greatest good, and living well is the greatest good.
Right.
It's about the quality of your virtue, about being the best you you can be for the time that you have, recognizing that the fate of all mortals is to die, and that's something that we're all going to encounter, and so the worst thing that can happen to you is not you dying. The worst thing that can happen to you is not really living. And I'm nearly quoting William Wallace on that from Braveheart. But and so get to see you that, Okay, it's the quality of your life
that's most important. And then the fact that you know, he dives in the water, which water usually simplizes his chaos and the unknown, and he's willing to venture forth, and you know, he kills the sea beast with the sword of a nephelm, and so we get some Enochian connections there, the fact we're holding, you know, Grendel and his mother are part of the race of giants that war with God, and so we get that enoch connection there, which is just interesting to me. And I could go
on and on. I don't get too specific about it, but that's there's so much symbolism built up in that regarding the religious, the Christological nature of Baywolf. Even the fact that you know, the people standing up above the water, they see you know, blood and water gush up and they assume that he's dead, and then he pops with the head of Grendel, and so I just think there's such a great Christological imagery.
Built into that as well.
As the fact that you know, his sword melts like icicle, speaking to the northern symbol of like winter being the death that kind of awaits all things headed towards the end. And so he's the one who brings forth the spring out of the endless winter, and so he you know, breaks the witch's curse essentially to pull in a Lewis reference. And so there's just so much built into that scene.
That's what it has stood out to me. But I'll have to just share a little bit about kind of just however deep or not.
Deep you want to go with this.
Just tell me what's your favorite part of the story.
I'llbrey right, I would say everything that you just said, So I'll share a different piece. What is the name I'm forgetting what's the name of the character who like taunts Faiwolf when he yes, okay, when when frith Is is taunting him and then bill Wolf is responding or he you know, he's pointing out a failure of perceived failure that bill Wolf had in the past, and then you know he has to respond and kind of respond to that and basically say yeah, you know, yes, that happened.
However here, you know, here was the noble piece in it, and you know, be quiet, I'm going to go ahead with what I need to do.
Anyways, that made me think of.
Theodore Roosevelt's The Man in the Arena. If anyone is familiar with that, it's it's great. We quoted in my office.
All the time.
Well, tell us about it.
Yeah, so.
He I think it was part of a speech, and it begins he says, it's not the critic that counts, but the man in the man who's in the arena, daring greatly and and risking what he has to fight the fight. And so well, well, I one time I had just come out of a really really bad client meeting and I was like almost in tears in my boss. My boss emailed this saying to me, and I.
Was like, why is my boss sending me this quote about boxing?
This is it's not so.
Insensitive, but but it's really become to be like a cherished just metaphor in our in our work that you know, like you will be criticized. There were many things, many things that you could be criticized for, but it's really not it's not the critic opinion that is important. It's you know, it's are you in there fighting the fight and you know, putting putting yourself at risk for something that is valuable. That's the important thing to consider in
evaluating your actions. And so this scene where Wolf is, you know, being being criticized by someone who has not been really taking the risks that should have been taken to protect this people, you know, the scroom people, and then Bail of Us coming in and saying, well, you know, I'm going to take the risk to do this and.
To take care for people that.
Uh yeah, that piece I've reflected on a lot is a good, you know, more more ancient statement about yeah, it's really not the critics voice that counts, but it's are you and there doing what's right?
Yeah.
I think that's a fantastic reflection based off that great scene. And so you know, Beyoolf shows up to purge. He wrote of Grendel, who's been stalking Denmark for a number of years now, and Unfirth, uh he you know, this is the guy who he couldn't stop the threaten himself. So I assume, just out of envy, he starts picking this fight with Beowulf, saying well, you know, aren't you the guy who lost that swimming competition with Breca, And he says, well, yes, because I went off to kill
all the sea monsters. Also in Foirth, you're a kinslayer. And I've learned to really appreciate this what it seems to be a trope of Germanic literature, these bragging insult fights. You know, Chase and I were just talking on the Fellowship podcast from the poetic Eda the Harvard Song, which is a just insult match between Loki and Odin. It's
just so brutal and kind of vulgar. You know, my favorite part is right when it kicks off, and you know, they just start interacting with each other, and you know, Odin says to Thor, you know, you look like someone who's mom died. It's just like so absurdly brutal. But this is apparently just like standard practice in Germanic literature
to have these bragging insult fights. But I think Beowolf really stands to stand above the fray really in that, you know, his whole thing is to demonstrate his genuine virtue, not simply to tear down Unfirth, although he does kind of do that, that's not his main objective. His main objective is, you know, as you said, Aubrey, to demonstrate the fact that he is qualified to do this virtuous thing. And so he definitely exemplifies the path of virtue that
isn't dependent on his critics. He's just dependent on what he needs to get done for the sake of those who need to have it done. So that's a good connection. And I've definitely heard that the reference to Roosevelt, but I need to look at that myself a little bit more. Well, Chase, tell us about your favorite part of Beowolf.
Yeah, I mean both those are great, great ones.
Mind is.
Really liked this quote from We Lost where he says, let us go to him, help our leader through the hot flame and thread of the fire, as God is my witness. However, rather my body will robed in the same burning blaze as my cold viper's body, going home bearing arms. And I think it just shows like Beowoff didn't have an air, but he at least like provided such an example that at least one of his men, you know, like it doesn't.
Who knows if he's the.
Biggest guy or the smallest guy in the group or whatever, but he did.
Really inspire him to come help.
I mean, I can't imagine seeing somebody that has like fought so many monsters, so many great battles, and you're seeing them like starting to fall and then being like, I'm going to Russian. I mean if he if Beoweff's not able to do it, how are you going to be able to help?
Right, And so.
Just shows kind of the loyalty between them too.
Yeah, that is a fantastic point. We Loft is definitely a very inspiring character, and it's he gives a great speech, and you know, I particularly love the way that Tolkien phrases that, because yeah, I feel like for grain empowering speeches, you need kind of archaic language. It just adds something to the power behind it. And I feel like Tolkien
says that really well. Although it's just as I mean, definitely inspiring in the Hani and Shippy and elsewhere, and it really speaks to their idea of honor that we saw this previously, that you know, what makes people honorable is the fact that they submit to the honor of those who are above them. And it's in honoring your Lord that you gain some share of their honor, and
that can be tangible. Right, This is why the great lords would give out rings and you know, ways of tangibly demonstrating the honor that you know, as they receive honor, they also distribute it back to those who are indeed honorable, and so honor is a communal exercise. It's not something that you do by yourself. Now, of course, you can also go wrong. I mean that there's a reason why in Tolkien story you have sour On the ring Lord. Right, he's the bad lord, but it's still the same basic
idea at play here. And yeah, and we laugh. We're told that he's not really like a tested warrior. I think that you know, he has some kind of legendary sword, but he hasn't even used it yet, and so this is not somebody who's really tested his metal. But he is somebody who recognizes the role of honor, and that makes him honorable to the point where you know, he and Beowulf for literally sharing one shield side by side and fighting back the dragon's breath. Yeah, definitely, I think
a profound part of the story. Mariah post about one of your favorite parts of Beowulf.
I'm glad you said one of your favorite parts, because it would be hard to pick a favorite part, although I have to say I really do, at least this time around, I did enjoy the end, which sounds like always going to pick the end. Of course, he always going to pick the end of the story. It's his favorite part because it's easy. But no, I've I really appreciate Bailwulf's death, and I think one of the reasons that I appreciate that is just bouncing off what Andrew says.
There's a passage where.
He gives like he takes off his his collar of gold and he hands it over to to be Loaf, and he like, I mean, that's like his last act on earth is to like transfer that over and so there is the honor of your elders. But then and like the lords you have old over you. But then he's giving up that command at the very end, and just like that handing over of honor and the honor that or the dignity that he dies with is just
really striking in in this. I think the way that he like it's part of that last act is to to look at all of the gold that he has has just won from the dragon, and to see that and to thank the Lord Almighty for the gold that he's handing over to his people now. And I don't know, like something about reading that through this time, just the beauty there, the poetry of the way that it's described it.
It was really beautiful. I don't know that just it's not a lot to say, but it released it out to me.
Yeah, and as it should.
That is, he has a great dying, brief dying monologue right where he thanks God that he was able to die for the sake of his people and to bestow this honor upon them.
Now.
Well, that itself I think is good and noble and virtuous. He died as the good King. And again I think in a way that it is meant to give the Christian reader a Christological connection there right through his death
as people are enrich. At the same time, the material gold is not actually going to do his people a lot of good, which is why they end up burying it with Beowulf because point they don't really have strong leadership, and yeah, we seems to be the one who's going to sort of pick it up, but he's still no Beowulf relative to the threats that are facing the Giats at this point. And so you know, you got the
Swedes and some of the others on their borders. And it's pretty clear that the people at Beowulf are about to be eliminated, which is why they say, you know, the gold's not gonna do with any good, let's just go ahead and bury it with Beowulf as a way
to honor him. And I think that our Christian poet who's telling us this story is very much demonstrating the hopelessness of paganism that yeah, maybe they can hold back the tide for a time, but in the end, like what do you do with mortality without any clear hope of the immortal? And so there are these shadows like Beowulf has this idea that he's going somewhere good, like he's going to God he and I think that's mentioned, but it's still not super clear kind of what that is.
It's a shadow of a hope. I wouldn't say it's the fullness of a hope that you get through Christian revelation. And so I think that a poet is really setting us up for that kind of despair that's intrinsic to paganism. And you know, the question is where you go from there? Well, surely our Christian poet would be able to tell you.
So I think he's doing some theological there as well, just demonstrating this Northern spirit of the fact that the noble warriors, they don't fight for ultimate victory, they fight for the victory of today. Right, There's this idea that in the end, most of the humans, most of the gods, even in the Norse mindset, most of them are going to die at the hands of the monsters. And so your hope isn't final victory. What your hope is, well, I'm going to defend things that are worth defending as
long as that possibly can. But there is a kind of hopeless tragedy even in what amidst the greatest of the Northern hope. And you know this is that obviously, Tolkien and Lewis very much lashed onto and believe that it's fundamentally true except for the eu catastrophe of the resurrection, you know, which happens in the Gospel of Christ, but that itself is a historical telling of the myth that
is the entire timeline. And so they, you know, Tolkien to Lewis both believe that the Northern mythos was essentially right, and thinking that we're headed for this endless winter, that the monsters, or even the Swede, which are kind of a standing for the monsters, that they're going to come in and wipe everything else out. But the hope is resurrection, right, The hope is the happy turn that comes in the
utmost hopelessness. And so I love how they're able to sort of baptize this mythos and I think that our poet of Beowulf is definitely setting us up in that direction as well well, before we shift gears to Boethius. Is there anything that anyone else wants to say about Beowulf?
I'm just going to go off of kind of what you were saying right there. It reminds me of like how many guys now like nowadays, you don't they have battles and other people that are at the army and stuff, But there's so many, so many men in young men that like dream of, hey, there's a there's a horde of enemies coming on the stay back and find them and just save some time, you know, for like your
people or your loved ones or whatever. And so it's just like a definitely a feeling that I think is throughout.
History yeah, and there's something very natural about that. I mean, you know what, guy doesn't kind of wish that there were still dragons around to go defeat, you know, punder the gold And you know, I think that's very I think it's a natural drive, and I think it can be a problem if that natural drive doesn't have any
kind of legitimated outlet. Right, that's when people kind of start breaking stuff or picking fights that aren't worth picking or I mean that explain so much of social media, right, all the fights that take place on Twitter. It has this illusion of I'm doing something virtuous for truth and goodness, when in reality you're just sitting out a tweet and there's no real consequences that can.
Come from it.
It's this faux valor that speaks to a genuine desire for valor. And the question is what do we do with that? And you know, a bad place to star is not necessarily with literature that describes good valor. I mean, you got to do something with that still, but that's
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Yeah. Good, that's a good point, all right. I Or you can say, just kind.
Of a fun thing in the question of like why read it today? It was really fun for me, like being a Tolkien fan also to then just read this and there you know a number of things that in.
Tolkien you're like, where did he come up with?
That idea or like why does he give all the dwarves like basically the same name but with these tiny differences, And then to to get a little more familiar with some of his sources and like, oh, okay, he didn't just make that up. That actually is a historical thing that he he used. So that was for me to to learn where he was playing some of those just like, you know, things that I thought works in his writing.
Yeah, yeah, you go, Chase.
I was just gonna say I had that exact feeling when I was reading Quata earlier this week. I was like, was listing out first name to the dwarfs that were and it was like over Bomber, and I'm like, I thought these were just random right.
Oh, I know, I feel like talking like she kind of plagiarized some stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, most of his his dwarves and even Dandolf, like the names are just lifted from this list of dwarves at the beginning of the poetic Atta. Tolkien does regularly. Lewis says this a number of times, where they'll take these concepts, sometimes even just names, and then just looked
them over. I mean I didn't catch this, but in our conversation by the poetic at a you know, Thomas brought up to the fact that even some like the horse names are just picked up and brought into Lord of the Rings, and so they're no shame in doing that. And I think that if you are already familiar with Tolkien, you're already familiar with Lewis, then it really is such a joy to discover these things in reading the things that they were reading. And that's the best way to
get familiar with them. I mean, obviously there are a number of books about Tolkien that are useful, but if you really want to get into his head, like, read the stuff that he was reading, and that's going to
give you a behind the scenes picture. And so yeah, I mean to anyone listening to this, if you haven't read any of these Northern stories, whether they're talking about the Norseless Myths and Legends or Beowulf, but you are familiar with Tolkien, then read these because it is really fun to do see those connections and things that they pulled from.
You know, even in.
Well nevermor I'm gonna go do off track, but yeah, and so that's definitely a fun thing to discover. All right, Well, I guess we can go in and shift gears a little bit toward Boethius, who probably these days is even less familiar than Beowulf to you know, unless you're kind of operating within that sphere. You know, most people, I don't know if this is still the case. You know, most people who are roughly our age have probably read
a section of BeO Wolf in high school. I don't know that many have read any of Boethius in high school, although they certainly should. And so yeah, so tell me a little bit about your first reading of Boethius and what stuck out to you, as generally or specifically as you want to go with that.
I'll brey, Yeah, this is.
My first reading.
I'd never heard of it before, and uh boy, it's I mean, I think the thing that that struck me so much on reading was like, oh, this is like
it's just so immediately readable. And I mean, certainly there are things that you have to you have to chew on and think through, but like so digestible, and it really struck me as like a lot of these questions that we ask, like you know that we ask now about how to deal with suffering that we think are like these groundbreaking, like, oh, there's no answer to this question, and I'm like, I'm just kind of wandering in the
world like listless and no one can help me. Like no. In fact, there here is like a quite a quite reasoned you know, that has the test of time, really helpful way to think about and and kind of hold your hand and walk you through a time of suffering and a way to uh to think to think about things and progress through that difficult time.
Yeah, that's good. And like you said Boethius, despite the fact that this is an early medieval text, that the Constellation of Philosophy, it is very approachable. I mean, I don't think it's a bad way to go if somebody wants to pick up their first book of philosophy. Now, obviously you'll get more from it the more that you study, and the more familiar are with some of the things that he references or pulls from without referencing, just like anything else. But he's very readable just to pick up
and start reading. If you can read the Book of Ecclesiastes, you can read the Consolation of Philosophy, and that he deals with such perennial issues of well life, death and meaning. You know, how do we maintain happiness? How do we discover happiness in a world that is constantly changing? And I guess you should say something about the setup of the book for anyone listening who's not familiar with it, that you know, Boethius was a Roman senator following the
deposition of the last western emperor of Rome. And so at this point you have the barbarians in charge, but the Roman infrastructure is still basically in place, and so Boethius is the he's the center, and he's always something like a personal assistant to the barbarian king who's in charge.
And yeah, this is a guy who, by any reasonable standard, seems to be someone who lived according to virtue, He lived according to reason, He seems to be a good man in any sense that we would normally use that kind of phrasing. But part of his pursuit of virtue meant that he was involved in uncovering some corruption in the senate, you know, a lot of bribes and just
things that weren't supposed to be happening. And so he earned some enemies, and so some of those enemies conspired against him and convinced the king that Boethius was essentially conspiring with the Eastern Roman Empire to try to get them to come in and you know, retake Rome and you know, all these things that just there's no evidence
this was actually happening. He was also accused of practicing magic and like witchcraft and you know, kind of occult type stuff, and the king just apparently went with the charges throw him in prison. And so this guy who knew great probably wealth, definitely honor, he had all just ripped away through no fault of his own. So here he is imprisoned, awaiting what will come to be his execution, and he's left wondering like, how did I get here?
How can I trust in providence? How can I maintain something like human happiness, human flourishing When everything that I once held deer was ripped away from me?
What do I have left?
And so in a rather extreme situation, but we think it's dealing with something that we've all experienced in some way, shape or form, where we experienced some kind of loss and we're left asking why, especially when there's no obvious fault of our own, And you know, ultimately we're all faced with the fact that we are going to die, and so so much of what we tend to build our lives on is going to be ripped away from us sooner rather than later. And so the question is book,
what do we do with that? So this is a perennially human question, and that's one of the reasons why I think that Boethis is so readable, he's so relatable, and that it applies to all people at all times. You know, I said that not many of us have probably read Boethius in high school, but I think it should be included in high school. You know, I think that if I had read something like this, you know, when I'm first really starting off.
Coming into my own I felt.
Like it would have played a significant role, as it has when I discovered it a little bit later on. And in fact, you know, C. S. Lewis says that, you know, up until like a couple hundred years ago, anybody with any kind of education in the Western tradition would have had appreciation for Boethius. And so the fact that most people today who are educated in the Western European tradition have no idea who he is really speaks to the fact that just ideas have taken a very
different direction. Culture has taken a very different direction than what Boethius has to offer. All right, Chase, tell something about your experience with Boethius.
Yeah, it was the same.
I had never heard the name Boetheis or the book or anything like that.
I agree.
I think it definitely is something that should be taught in schools or you know, just young people should read.
Really, just.
To start off, I think it was interesting watching the video you had provided that was showing kind of like what historically was happening during.
That time at the Fall of Reme.
And just kind of seeing like, Okay, what's going on in Bothy's head, what's kind of has he experienced and.
How he was kind of betrayed.
And I just think it's great how it's framed from the start where it's like, you know, he's kind of in despair, woe is me, like just all in his emotions, and that is being brought out of it, working his way through it.
And seeing, you know, it's not.
The superficial things, is not where where happiness is coming from. There was a quote that I really liked from it was and so when I'm being in doubt with a godlike quality virtue of his rational nature, thinks that his only splendor lies in the possession of animate goods. It is the overthrow of the natural order. Other creatures are
content with what is their own. But you, whose mind is made in the image of God, seek to adorn your superior nature with inferior objects, oblivious of the great wrong your creator just shows, like, you know, where we just put some perspective and kind of how we can you know, hurt what our creator had planned for us, just by kind of obsessing over what we don't have.
Yeah, and this line, it might even be the same section, maybe a different section. But when he says that when we who are by nature above the animals, right, or somewhere between the animals and the angels, but you know, when we go in the other direction, when we value material things over the things of the spirit, right, that the upward direction of heaven, that when we'd go down, we actually descend lower than the beasts, because well, the
higher you are, the further down you can fall. You know, this is why Satan was something like the chief Angel, especially if you're taking the you know Milton's approach that what made Lucifer to fall in Paradise lost is the fact that you know he was so close, perhaps as close as a being could be to God. And so he saw that gap as being more narrowed essentially, and so he jumped into it. But in so doing, he jumped into the abyss because while he was looking for
something that he could never possibly find. And you know, this is what Tolkien says of you know, Melcor in his fall, Malcor being the satan like figure in Tolkien's story when he says that, you know, he's off looking for the imperishable flame and the void, but he couldn't find it because it dwells with a lubitar, and so it's like he's grasping after that which is above him. But in that grasping, he is pulled down to the
lowermost place he could possibly pull down. Well, so too, you know, when we take the dive, when we move away from our nature, we actually become worse than the animals. We become something like the demonic because of our high stature, as God's image bears. So it places such a great responsibility on us to live in accordance with nature. And what that means is recognizing our place in the grand hierarchy. You know, there's that great section and I think it's
book five. You know, he says that you have you know, at the lowest level, you have something like a mollusk, and then you know, it goes up to the beasts that have a greater sensive sensation, right, the greater awareness of the environment. Eventually you get up to humans who are able to think more abstractly. Right as Aristotle says, we're the rational animal, and so we can do more than the beasts can. But then you know, we're below
the angels, and ultimately we're below God. And for Boetheist, part of the life of meaning is simply finding your place in the cosmic hierarchy. It's a very anti democratic approach. And I don't mean politically, but I mean, you know, like when Lewis talks about this and a number of his essays, or you know, Screwtape proposes a toast where he says that democracy is a helpful political institution to prevent tyranny. But it's not the way that reality actually is.
The reality is hierarchical, and we need to find our place, much as beof would say, we need to honor those who are above us, and that's when we receive honored. But when you step out of the great dance, will everything falls apart into disharmony, in chaos. And I think that we see that very easily looking at the culture around us, that when everything becomes democracy, well that everything is flatten out to nothing. But that's not the way
that things are. That results in chaos, It results in disorder. And so I think that's just an important point that Boethis brings us into alignment with. Right Maria, I tell us something about your experience with Beowulf, I mean Boetheis.
Yeah, well it's it wasn't the first time I heard of it, because as a philosophy undergrad, I should hope I have at least heard of Boethius, although I had never read the entire.
Thing all the way through until this time around.
I know I've been I've been assigned various bits and pieces of it before, but I have never usually just like the arguments so very very technical, and not kind of looking at it as the whole thing.
Getting the picture of baits.
I think that is apart from the fact that C. S. Lewis is literally all over in here, or I guess Boathis is all over C. S. Lewis, because I just kept reading like every paragraph.
I was like. C. S.
Lewis says that somewhere basically so we have Tolkien in Beowulf and C. S Lewis and Boathis or that there's a little bit of both of course in both places.
But yeah, I think.
My my favorite thing about this really I think thinking as a creative person, someone trying to find that higher like that place in the hierarchy, Like what what do I do with all of the gifts that I have, Like how do I use my my time and myself in such a way that I can can find that spot. I really appreciate just the human element of reading Boatheus and seeing him working through and as his own consolation.
It's the consolations of philosophy. Well, he doesn't know that this is going to become the most read book in for centuries. He doesn't know that, so he is just going through, Well, this is what I do to be the virtuous person that I am. This is how I take myself out of the despondency of despair that I should rightfully feel, because I have felt all this injustice against me and am sitting in a prison cell.
But he's he's looking at what he knows about the world and what he's learned through what he's studied, and is finding that place by kind of harving it out
in a way. So would look back to maybe Bao of in some way like he's taking action to do this thing when you the most logical thing would be to take no action at all, because he is in that in that state where it's like, well, what's the point, But here he is still creating something, still putting that beauty out into the world, that that goodness out into the world, and kind of I don't know, just taking
that place in that hierarchy. I think, not that he's like making it in that democratic kind of way, like just choosing, but I think he's like, well, this is who I really am, this is what I actually should be doing to pursue the good.
And I don't know that there's something in that that just really it popped out to me.
I guess, yeah, you know. I mentioned the class that I see a number of connections between Boethius and Kurkeguard, and Kirkerguard says in one of his journals, with God's help, I shall become myself. It's like the true you, who you are by nature. One hand, it is given, that's what it means to be natural. But at the same time,
human nature is something that has to be appropriated. It has to be intentionally pursued because by virtue of living in a fallen world, by virtue of living in a moving world, it is so easy for us to get swept down the river, to move downhill, rather than holding on right, conserving what is good that a lot of times people think conservation or like you know, being a conservative of the most basic philosophical sense, means that well,
you don't move. That's not the case at all. What it means is you actually exert a lot of effort to fight against the tide of movement, and so it's not in action. Actually, it takes a lot more work to preserve than it does to move somewhere else. Because when we live in a world that moves, movement is easy.
Standing still takes the hard effort. And you know, I love that at the beginning of the story, the dialogue he's having with himself essentially that he has Lady philosophy show up, and you know, he's living in despair like most of us would be in that situation. Right, you have something ripped away from you. You have your life ripped away from you. They're no fault of your own. It's natural to fall into despair. But Lady Philosophy shows up
and rebukes him. And the first thing she does is she sends away these false muses that were accompanying boetheis leading him to, you know, wax eloquently about his despair. And you know, he was this this like you know, tortured poet motif and so. And by the way, I know nothing about Taylor Swift, so I'm not making a
connection there. She he you know, these muses were leading him to, you know, write poetically about his own despair, and so he's all inwardly focused, and she drives him away and sends in the true muses, the true muses which will actually will lead to the uplift of his soul, the expanding of his soul in love toward that which is genuinely true, good and beautiful, and things that by virtue of being human he has access to at all times,
in all places. And so it doesn't matter if you are at you know, if you're the Emperor of Rome, it doesn't matter if you've been stripped of all earthly fortune, and you're awaiting your execution by virtue of being human. You have access to the virtue of being human, which is to reflect the divine image and to enjoy the beatitude that comes with connecting to God as the source
of all beatitude. And so there's such profound hope, such existential consolation that can come from getting at what Boehis was doing. And I think that there is something so special, so powerful about you know, as Maria is saying that Boethius is not just somebody who is sitting down to write a book of philosophy. This is a guy dealing with the genuine issue of where where do I find
meaning in this situation? You know, it's the same reason why I think that there's particular value in something like, you know, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Now Boethis is better than Marcus Aurelius. However, you know he didn't write his meditations to be published. There's something like his private
journal that was published after his death. And I think whenever you get an enduring philosophy text like that that's not meant for publication, very often, it's more real, it's more grounded, it's not trying to just be new and innovative and fashionable. There's something more fundamentally true and human
about it. And so I think that Boethius, regarding just that where it comes from, as well as the content, it's just so remarkably human and so remarkably grounded in a time where, you know, we tend to think that everything's just kind of chaos and happens and there's no truth, there's no up and down. Everything is opinion, there's no direction where to go. But you read Boethius, and well, you find order in the chaos. You find the great dance,
even when everything seems to be falling apart. A couple a year ago, maybe a couple of years ago, I don't know. I taught medieval philosophy at my public university and I made them read the entirety of The Consolation, which was just such a great experience. And there are very few people who walked away saying, you know, I
hated that. You know, most people, even people who didn't go into it with explicitly with a Christian worldview at all, saw that there's something beautiful here, there's something grounding here, and I think it's hard to not walk away with that after reading it. Well, I've probably been monologuing too much. Is there is there anything else that any of you would like to say about this text wherever you would want to go with it?
I think just from your talks, I was kind of thinking about why it's important, you know, for people to read today.
Is I think there is like.
Pushed by society, like a like a victim mentality in terms of like you've been wronged and it's valid to only feel wronged forever, you know, and people need to be there for you. And well, it's good. It doesn't really ever talk about how to get away from like the spiraling of being a victim or something. It's not moving past it, and so I think that's I mean, we wouldn't have had this if he was just writing about his despair, and so I think it could definitely
be used today for that. Also, just from reading it, I haven't done a whole lot of study and philosophy or anything, but it definitely has encouraged me to read a lot more, especially just to get any of the connections that he references, wanting to know kind of what he was thinking, Like you were saying, it's just always going up, who are they inspired by? And I even thought it was kind of interesting. I think it was
the Vulcan Stadia that was written. I think they were thinking it might have been about the some of the Burgundians, which looking at them, they weren't like a whole lot earlier than when Boetheist would have been around. And so it's like two different things that are just connected different parts of the of Europe. So it's cool to see.
Yeah, And I mean regarding that victim mentality, and obviously that is huge, and that's something that I had found my students on a regular basis.
You know.
Boethius makes the point that if you are in a state of exile, like exile from the place where you feel like you should be, it's only because you've exiled yourself. And that connects it back to Lewis as well, right, that no one's in hell unless they've chosen to be there, and that real human freedom, that real human good, real human beatitude, punemonia, happiness, whatever term we want to use here, They cannot be taken away from you. You can only
surrender it. It doesn't matter if you are, you know, thrown in jail, it doesn't matter if you lose your job through no fault of your own, doesn't matter, if you get betrayed or cheated on or like whatever happens. Like, yeah, it can be heartbreaking. And if you're not heartbroken over heartbreaking things, and you're probably not authentically engaged to begin with. However, that heartbreak doesn't need to break your soul. It doesn't need to break your happiness. You're flourishing in the most
significant sense. You know, the shadow is but a small and passing thing, and there's light and high beauty forever beyond its reach to now brings back to talking, and so if we are going to enter into that true despair, that abandonment of hope, it's only because we've abandoned it.
And you know, even even Socrates makes this point when he's in platu Apology, when he's standing before the court of Athens, and he has all these trumped up charges against him, and it becomes clear at this point that they're going to execute him for practicing philosophy. You know, he says, you cannot do harm to a good man.
The only way that Socrates believes that he could be severed from his tie to goodness would be if he severed that tie if he said, oh, you're right, I'll stop practicing philosophy or I'm just gonna run off into exile.
He says, being a.
Coward would be a far greater evil than dying at the hands of wicked men. And I think there's something very true about that. And I think there's something that Boethius even directly references regarding the martyrdom of Socrates. And so Boethius leaves us no room for being a victim, because the truth is, none of us no better, how
you know, heartbreaking. Some of our stories are no matter what evils we've experienced, like none of us have been stripped of our position at thrown in prison through no fault of our own, like none of us have been there. And if that's the case, then we can't read the account of Boetheis and then have any room left to play the victimhood identity card. We simply don't. And so I think reading someone like him, who he was martyred for his virtue, it just robs us of any kind
of victim wood status. And there's something very ennobling about that. It allows you to maintain freedom no matter what fortune spinds your way, and I think this is very powerful, it's very nobling, and I also agree that it's interesting to read just different writings that we have from this general time period. It's just it's interesting to see, Okay, what's going on in Rome, what's going on in the Pagan North or even the somewhat Christian North, and there's
just so much diversity of culture. But at the same time, we're dealing with a lot of the same ideas of how do we live meaningful lives as mortals, and so that's an idea that's just fundamentally human. It's just it's interesting to see how that comes out in different ways and stories and myths and philosophies anything else that anyone wants to mention about anything, if yeah, go ahead.
Oh yeah, I just want to come at the the.
What what Blutha says about the wicked being you know, victims of their own wickedness, and yeah, and you know, choosing they they are in despair because they choose to be there, and talking about how you know that should drive us to pity the wicked, not envy.
Them, and like in in.
Success in wickedness is like the greatest unhappiness that you could have that. That has I've been in Proverbs in my Bible reading this month, and it has really illuminated to me, like how many times that concept is repeated in Proverbs, like the wicked falls into his own snare.
So that has been just an interesting little thing to see.
Yeah, and that idea is also in Plato as well, that the worst thing could befall somebody is for them to have evil desires and to have them granted. And yeah, Boethius definitely talks of that a good bit, that the wicked, that the tyrant that you know, maybe they have on a material level what most of us seem to want, but what all of us genuinely desire is true happiness.
The problem is we tend to mistake lesser goods for the higher goods, and as we do so, we become less ourselves, further removed from the beatitude for which we are designed. And so when you're looking at you know, the wicked prince, the wicked movie star, the you know, the boss who's a jerk above us, like whatever level we're looking at here, we see someone in power who
we don't think deserve it. Well, yeah, maybe they have what we think that we want, but what they don't have is the actual stuff that makes for real meaning, the actual stuff that makes for real happiness. Augustine has a great quote to this suffect from the City of God. I don't have in front of me, but something like you know, the the the slave. You know, although he is a slave, if he is a good man, he is free. Whereas the tyrant is a slave not only to one man, but he's a slave to as many
masters as he has vices. And so just because you have what you think you want doesn't mean that you're free. It doesn't mean that you're happy. It may actually mean that you're just simply enslaved to your base desires. And that's not freedom. You're not acting your desires, you're not musing on what is true, good and beautiful, but you're being amused by I mean, the fish bait in front of you, the hook in front of you. And that's not freedom, that's not life, it's not goodness. It's not
what we're designed for. And so Boethius definitely is a good job of helping us to recognize what goodness is, regardless of where fortune happens to be spinning her wheel at the moment and principally, as he says, all fortune actually is good fortune for the good because either you know the you know, you win the lottery as a good person, then it doesn't mean you have to you know, throw that away, but you hold it in open hand, and you know, if you are basing goodness, and then okay,
you can use that fortune to do good things. At the same time, if you are based in goodness and you you know, go bankrupt through no fault of your own, well that's also good because now you're going to be even more grounded than the things that don't move. And so either way it's a win. And so we don't need to be so concerned about what's going to happen in the realm of moving fortune. But we need to properly relate ourself to fortune itself. And as we do so, well,
everything becomes good. And there's something so freeing about that.
Cool.
Anybody else want to bring up anything, It's okay if not. We've been going for a little while. But I just don't want to cut anyone off. If you have anything else.
I just don't want to keep it going forever.
But I mean, I guess kind of piggy backing over the whole discussion that we just had. I just keep thinking how much this drives home, how much that well, I guess we aren't meant to be that animal like swine person, and how much we are meant for the good and can actually choose to seek that out.
I tried to find it.
There's probably a lot of quotes, but there's a quote where he talks about the people that don't look up at the stars, but there's kind of a backwards implication that like we are actually meant for the stars or not not to say like we're meant to be like the celestial Well, we are meant to be the celestial beings, but in some sense like we're meant for that that heavenly.
Immortal good. And so yeah, just.
We have that option to turn our mind to better things. And it's just we have that option, which is pretty cool.
That is pretty cool. You know, eternity is written on our hearts, we're told it's and I think that really in tune with our nature. Then you know, you can't look up at the night sky and feel nothing. If you do, then well there's something wrong with you, because like when you look up at the expanse of the cosmos, you look up about the beauty, the stability that's above
and beyond you. I mean that should make you more expansive, more given up to the love of the glory that was here before you and will be here after this mortal life ends. It's this certain sense of we're looking toward home to reference till we have faces. Right, this is the place where we feel like we ought to have been born. It's that desire that we all kind of have. There's a reason why most pre modern peoples naturally made myths about the heavens, that there's just something
real there that goes beyond the mere matter. You know, there's that great exchange in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader right where where Eustace is, you know, talking to this little star, and you know he says that, well, in our world, star is just a ball of gas. And you know he told that, well, even in your world, that's what a star is made of. It's not what
a star is. And so just because now we have a materialistic explanation of things that people didn't once have, that doesn't negate the metaphysical, you know, just as I think it was Chesterton who said that, you know, imagine you had a kettle of water boiling on the stove, and you could ask, if someone could ask you, why is the water boiling, and you could talk about how the heat is causing the water molecules to speed up and bounce around, and you know that's what's leading the
water to boil. Or you could say I'm making tea.
Like.
Both of those are true, and the one doesn't negate the other. And so just because we've grown in our understanding of the material world, that doesn't mean at the same time we're negating the metaphysical. And so you can say that at the same time, here's what we understand the material and make up with the stars. But also you can say with boetheis that we look up at the stars and we're looking up at glory, we're looking
up at home, we're looking in the direction of God. Right, whether you understand that, you know, metaphysically or whatever, I think that is still true. You know, this is why in the end of the Discarded Image, which you know, and Lewis is talking all about the medieval and early Renaissance view of the world, he deals with the question of Okay, I've laid out the beauty of this system of understanding our place in the world, But how do we handle the fact that it's not true?
Like what would we do with that?
And he says that when we say it's not true, well we need to ask what we mean that Ultimately, our vision of the cosmos always comes down to a model, and that model is going to spit out the kinds of answers based off the kinds of questions that we're asking it. And so larga us change is we started asking different questions and we're getting different answers, namely materialistic answers.
But I think that if you ask the metaphysical questions, well you can get metaphysical answers that make sense of our basic experience of the world. And so it's both and situation. And I think that reading the Medievals helps us to recover that enchanted vision of what the world is, that the world is, well, it's more than just stuff, and I guess with that we can go ahead and wrap.
I've definitely enjoyed this course and I've enjoyed this conversation as sort of a large scale overview of where we've been and kind of where it directs us on where we're going. And so thanks to everyone for showing up again.
Thank you, Thanks sell again, thank.
You again for listening.
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