In my web explorations I’ve recently stumbled upon Caute, a blog by a Unitarian minister in Great Britain. It is interesting and thoughtful, exploring radical religion through a liberal Christian lens. I highly recommend it.
However, this entry is not about Caute, even though that could be an interesting reflection, his thinking is so compelling; but rather this entry is inspired by a link I stumbled upon at the Caute blog.
Baruch Spinoza is one of my heroes. As Jorge Luis Borges (another hero, but that’s another entry, some day in the future), in Yirmiyahu Yovel’s translation, sings to us:
Like golden mist, the west lights up
The window. The diligent manuscript
Awaits, already laden with infinity.
Someone is building God in the twilight.
A man engenders God. He is a Jew
Of sad eyes and citrine skin.
Time carries him as the river carries
A leaf in the downstream water.
No matter. The enchanted one insists
And shapes God with delicate geometry.
Since his illness, since his birth,
He goes on constructing God with the word.
The mighties love was granted him
Love that does not expect to be loved.
Caute’s link is to Christopher Lydon’s Open Source homepage. Lydon may not be one of my heroes, but he is, to my mind, one of the best interviewers on contemporary radio. The Open Source page provides not only the above link to a scholarly Spinoza biographical sketch and the Borges poem quoted here, but, at no extra charge, Lydon’s interview Spinoza: Mind of the Modern conducted with two Spinoza scholars, Rebecca Goldstein and Antonio Damasio.
What a treat.
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