My young relative is a forester and I think he would agree with me that there's some perversity in treating tree planting as akin to natural processes in a way that agriculture is not. In fact the only real difference is temporal.
I am being stimulated by Hannah Arendt on work at the moment and she's really interesting on fabrication - the process of creating the human world with work. The problem as she identifies it is that this turns everything into a means-ends continuum: you cut the tree down to make the table which you need to have the meeting which you need to run the organisation.. and so on. There is no "end" because each end is defined as a means for something else and the intrinsic value of every thing is lost.
In another sense it is a triumph of accounting and economics in that one knows the worth of everything and the value of nothing.
So going back to trees, we have the paradoxical situation of having permanently changed the atmosphere with the work (in Hannah A's distinction) of burning fossil fuels to power the fabrication of the human artifact, but we can only understand the remedial effects of what we might do to rebalance things in terms of their utility. Trees become theoretical units of carbon and their processes in the human conception become inefficient/efficient ways to store carbon depending on what the question is that is being asked and by whom. There's a form of violence in all these activities, which we justify as means to an end even though the end is never really achieved, largely because we have lost the vision of whatever it was that we were trying to do under a (metaphorical) pile of paperwork and blueprints of clever new inventions.
Other people, nature and everything else become pawns in some greater narrative. It's "not great" that this woman hurt herself, but won't someone please think of the real victims in this event, me and mine. We are the soldiers fighting for the noble cause, these other things are unfortunate collateral damage.
It is being done, especially where farmland has become marginal. Old abandoned farms are being restored to prairie. You can plant a prairie by preparing the site thoroughly, choosing the right native species for your soil and sun, and managing weeds aggressively during the first 2–3 years.
Just last night we watched a program on Washington Agriculture were owners of an overused, depleted farm were restoring the land to prairie. It can be done.
It is being done, especially where farmland has become marginal. Old abandoned farms are being restored to prairie. You can plant a prairie by preparing the site thoroughly, choosing the right native species for your soil and sun, and managing weeds aggressively during the first 2–3 years.
Just last night we watched a program on Washington Agriculture were owners of an overused, depleted farm were restoring the land to prairie. It can be done.
Good stuff. There's a patch out here on the lakefront that's nice. But it takes some work.
Interesting as trees and prairies are, this thread is about divine self-pardon. If anyone wants to discuss the merits and demerits of tree-planting, please start a new thread.
I guess... some sort of penance would have been specified by his confessor?
That depends on the church and how confession is approached, or even if it involves an ordained priest at all.
As noted upthread, Gonzales is Catholic.
Indeed. So I assume he means sacramental confession.
Yes that's exactly what I meant. Wouldn't such a confession of a grave sin like this usually involve the imposition of a pretty severe penance alongside the granting of absolution?
There is an interesting story in the records of a neighbouring church. In 1791, William, an Episcopalian, approached his local Church of Scotland and asked to be summonsed for discipline. They refused as he wasn't a member of their congregation. He then made a pest of himself, approaching the minister and various elders individually. Eventually they caved, and summonsed him, at which point he told them that he had committed adultery with a neighbour, Margaret, a widow, who had fallen pregnant, although he wasn't sure whether he was the father of the child.
The church agreed he could undergo public repentance. One elder suggested they could benefit from the situation by also fining him, but the other elders said that the impact of any fine would be felt more by his wife and children than him, and they did not fine him.
He did two Sundays in the Place of Repentance. Generally a member of the congregation would do at least three Sundays for adultery, but they seemed mindful that he wasn't a member of the congregation.
I don't know why he felt the need to be publicly disciplined by a church he did not attend. Possibly he was tormented by guilt? Possibly his neighbours were Presbyterian and he felt under pressure? I don't know what form any censure from his own church would have taken, but presumably it would have been less public.
There is a tragic backstory:
Margaret had travelled into Aberdeen to conceal the pregnancy, and had killed the baby. She was imprisoned. It would be understandable if William was wracked with guilt.
I could guess. Maybe he felt too ashamed to be up front with his own congregation. Maybe the spiritual style of his own church didn't allow for public expressions of repentance because Calvinism tends to say you're chosen or you're not. Max Weber comes to mind. My own migration started with gentle PCUSA Presbyterianism and wound up in progressive Episcopalianism; I can sometimes feel the shift in the way people approach liturgy and practice even today.
Christian is Christian. Church-shopping like that feels pretty natural to a 21st century American, but at the time I suppose that would have been a more dramatic thing to do. And if he's not a total narcissist, I can't imagine him not feeling some kind of guilt about the whole affair.
Maybe the spiritual style of his own church didn't allow for public expressions of repentance because Calvinism tends to say you're chosen or you're not.
Except that he was an Episcopalian who went to the Church of Scotland (Reformed/Calvinist) church seeking the kind of public expression of repentance common in the Church of Scotland at the time.
Maybe the spiritual style of his own church didn't allow for public expressions of repentance because Calvinism tends to say you're chosen or you're not.
Except that he was an Episcopalian who went to the Church of Scotland (Reformed/Calvinist) church seeking the kind of public expression of repentance common in the Church of Scotland at the time.
There is an interesting story in the records of a neighbouring church. In 1791, William, an Episcopalian, approached his local Church of Scotland and asked to be summonsed for discipline. They refused as he wasn't a member of their congregation. He then made a pest of himself, approaching the minister and various elders individually. Eventually they caved, and summonsed him, at which point he told them that he had committed adultery with a neighbour, Margaret, a widow, who had fallen pregnant, although he wasn't sure whether he was the father of the child.
The church agreed he could undergo public repentance. One elder suggested they could benefit from the situation by also fining him, but the other elders said that the impact of any fine would be felt more by his wife and children than him, and they did not fine him.
He did two Sundays in the Place of Repentance. Generally a member of the congregation would do at least three Sundays for adultery, but they seemed mindful that he wasn't a member of the congregation.
I don't know why he felt the need to be publicly disciplined by a church he did not attend. Possibly he was tormented by guilt? Possibly his neighbours were Presbyterian and he felt under pressure? I don't know what form any censure from his own church would have taken, but presumably it would have been less public.
There is a tragic backstory:
Margaret had travelled into Aberdeen to conceal the pregnancy, and had killed the baby. She was imprisoned. It would be understandable if William was wracked with guilt.
What was the place of repentance and what did they do?
Comments
I am being stimulated by Hannah Arendt on work at the moment and she's really interesting on fabrication - the process of creating the human world with work. The problem as she identifies it is that this turns everything into a means-ends continuum: you cut the tree down to make the table which you need to have the meeting which you need to run the organisation.. and so on. There is no "end" because each end is defined as a means for something else and the intrinsic value of every thing is lost.
In another sense it is a triumph of accounting and economics in that one knows the worth of everything and the value of nothing.
So going back to trees, we have the paradoxical situation of having permanently changed the atmosphere with the work (in Hannah A's distinction) of burning fossil fuels to power the fabrication of the human artifact, but we can only understand the remedial effects of what we might do to rebalance things in terms of their utility. Trees become theoretical units of carbon and their processes in the human conception become inefficient/efficient ways to store carbon depending on what the question is that is being asked and by whom. There's a form of violence in all these activities, which we justify as means to an end even though the end is never really achieved, largely because we have lost the vision of whatever it was that we were trying to do under a (metaphorical) pile of paperwork and blueprints of clever new inventions.
Other people, nature and everything else become pawns in some greater narrative. It's "not great" that this woman hurt herself, but won't someone please think of the real victims in this event, me and mine. We are the soldiers fighting for the noble cause, these other things are unfortunate collateral damage.
It is being done, especially where farmland has become marginal. Old abandoned farms are being restored to prairie. You can plant a prairie by preparing the site thoroughly, choosing the right native species for your soil and sun, and managing weeds aggressively during the first 2–3 years.
Just last night we watched a program on Washington Agriculture were owners of an overused, depleted farm were restoring the land to prairie. It can be done.
Good stuff. There's a patch out here on the lakefront that's nice. But it takes some work.
Though I do believe this is a tangent...
Interesting as trees and prairies are, this thread is about divine self-pardon. If anyone wants to discuss the merits and demerits of tree-planting, please start a new thread.
North East Quine, Purgatory host
Hostly hat off
Indeed. So I assume he means sacramental confession.
Yes that's exactly what I meant. Wouldn't such a confession of a grave sin like this usually involve the imposition of a pretty severe penance alongside the granting of absolution?
The church agreed he could undergo public repentance. One elder suggested they could benefit from the situation by also fining him, but the other elders said that the impact of any fine would be felt more by his wife and children than him, and they did not fine him.
He did two Sundays in the Place of Repentance. Generally a member of the congregation would do at least three Sundays for adultery, but they seemed mindful that he wasn't a member of the congregation.
I don't know why he felt the need to be publicly disciplined by a church he did not attend. Possibly he was tormented by guilt? Possibly his neighbours were Presbyterian and he felt under pressure? I don't know what form any censure from his own church would have taken, but presumably it would have been less public.
There is a tragic backstory:
Christian is Christian. Church-shopping like that feels pretty natural to a 21st century American, but at the time I suppose that would have been a more dramatic thing to do. And if he's not a total narcissist, I can't imagine him not feeling some kind of guilt about the whole affair.
Argh! Misread that bit. Thanks for catching that.
What was the place of repentance and what did they do?
Point. I will hereby revoke my misplaced reflections.