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Hello everybody, I would like to welcome you to my conversation with Rachel Fulton Brown We had a conversation I think was it about a year and a half ago now I think and I would say that she is probably one of the people that I’ve been asked the most to have back on the channel especially considering some of the discussions that I’ve been trying to have about feminine symbolism and its place in Christianity and We talked we touched a little bit about that last time in our talk I’m hoping that we can dive into it a lot more in this discussion today This is Jonathan Peugeot welcome to the symbolic world I’m so happy to be back So you’ve been first of all, maybe just a few minutes You’ve been quite busy in the past since about a year and a half. You’ve also had this flurry around you I get the feeling. Oh, I hope that it’s kind of calmed down Maybe you can tell us where you’re standing right now in terms of your position and the controversy that’s been kind of swimming around you Oh, do we have to talk about that? Let’s talk about symbolism I am happy to talk about that either. I was like I wanted to give you Okay, I will just I will say Milo. There you go. Okay, let’s talk about symbolism All right. Okay. So let’s talk about symbolism. That’s my favorite. That’s my favorite subject Anyways, and so as as all of you know, we’ve been Ivan for the past I would say six maybe three four months. I’ve been making an effort to give Some framework and talk about feminine symbolism I’ve I put out a video talking about the place of the Mother of God in art Kind of the development of her imagery I’ve also put out some videos talking about popular culture and how we have these strange tensions in the representation of feminine symbolism And so I know that you know, Rachel has written this book just recently about about the place of Mary in medieval worship And so I thought she would be a great partner to talk about this. So maybe maybe you can tell me a little bit about I mean, I know you watch my video so I’ll send and you said you’re eager to talk So let’s let’s see what you have to say to start out with Well, my first thing is you’re very you’re you’re completely right about the symbolism of Mary That I and what I’m encouraged by is that what have you read my book because it sounds like you have I have not read your book Well, that’s even better articles you’ve written, but I have not read your book Well, but that that’s even better because you’re talking about Mary is the place where God becomes present and that’s exactly what I’m showing in my Mary in the art of prayer that in the Western tradition I know you’re usually working with the icons in the in the Eastern tradition, but that’s what’s wonderful about it That in the Western tradition, which is drawing on the Eastern imagery. That is her primary characteristic right she is I think you talked about it in your in your lecture. She’s the temple and she’s also all of the other Places in which God manifests his presence. You mentioned I think the ark. She’s the burning bush. She’s the cloud that leads the Israelites as they’re moving through the desert. She’s the the all the different furniture of the temple right she she could be the the Holy of Holies most intimately because that’s the place where the ark is kept and therefore that’s where God becomes present in her. She’s also in in the in this this interpretive tradition. The the city of Jerusalem itself so often say that the image of the heavenly bride in Revelation is read as her that this is this is the relationship between her and and Christ. She’s the tree of life that standing beside the throne because as the mother she stands beside the throne. That her son sits on she sent throne that her son sits on. She’s the Holy Mountain and it expands out in my in my book I go through I mean a lot of it is a very long list right if you’re going to describe what it means to think about the incarnation to say God entered into his creation through Mary. In effect you end up having to describe the whole of creation because you’re trying to describe the way in which she contained in her womb. He the one whom the heavens themselves could not contain and so ultimately what she is is heaven and I think you in your lecture you did a lovely job of showing that that in the icon in the Orthodox iconography. She’s always shown framing Christ that she is the one who frames and presents her son to the world. She is the one who shows him to the world because he becomes incarnate through her but that this mystery becomes cosmic because he is the creator of the world into it. He enters through her so I maybe you don’t need to read my book it’s already there. Well I really do take I mean I really do take what I know of the Mother of God from the iconographic tradition plus also the the himnography and the services in the Orthodox Church the way that we speak about her in that tradition. So I think that like you said I think that in terms of the symbolism I’m sure there’s perfect alignment because especially you know I’ve done the first 1000 years or maybe the first 1200 years you you you know you really had the same a very similar mindset in terms of how to read scripture and how to see the incarnation. So can I say could I say something on that? Yes. So as the historian right to say it’s not just that it’s the same tradition it’s people are reading each other right it’s the the the Orthodox the Eastern Orthodox sources are the direct the direct source of the Western devotion and that that’s something that we sometimes talk about the Catholic Church which doesn’t technically exist until the 16th century it’s just Christendom. The Latin Church we talk about the Latin Church and the Greek Church as if they’re never talking to each other and the reality is I mean it’s very interesting particularly in the descriptions of the Mother of God it’s the same tradition it’s not two different traditions that happen to be parallel it’s the same tradition. So particularly that that in my book I talk in in chapter three about the way in which the West picks up the Greek imagery that much of the Greek imagery which if you’re saying you’re getting it from the iconography from the liturgy that the most important sources are are of course the hymns and things that are sung about her so the Akathistos hymn. The Akathistos is translated into Latin in the ninth century so it’s completely available to the West right all of that wonderful cascade of titles that’s in the Akathistos is known in the West. Likewise the homilies that the great eighth century homilies that are written for the Marian feasts by Andrew Crete and Germanus of Constantinople and John of Damascus those are known in the West they’re translated in the West. Andrew Crete is is certainly known in Rome because in the seventh the seventh and eighth centuries at the very time when the liturgies are being developed for the Marian feasts many of the books are from the East right they’re Syrian and Greek and they bring with them this this Marian tradition we know that from 687 in Rome that all of the feasts of the Virgin are commemorated with the Great Procession and we could talk about the procession and the way the imagery is used there. But they’re known in the West adopted in the West directly from the Orthodox tradition so it’s not a coincidence or just a sort of simple parallel it’s the same tradition. Okay that’s very interesting to me because I like I did not know at all the historical manner in which it’s developed I just look at the images I look at the art and I look at the you know I listen to the hymnography and I say okay yeah this is the same. These are the same images so I think that that link to the fact that like you said I mean I knew in theory that a lot of the popes the early popes actually came from the East but I didn’t hit me that then yeah obviously that would bring with them this whole liturgical tradition but plus also like you said the writings the homilies all this development of the imagery of the Mother of God so that’s very fascinating to me that’s for certain. So even even the things like you in the West there are there are different devotional traditions and it would be interesting to talk about those if you want to but in the West what my book is about is the hours of the Virgin which is a particularly Western tradition that it’s modeled on the divine office that the monks and nuns would say but it’s basically a cycle of Psalms that are recited. In addition to the regular office but a cycle of Psalms that are recited in honor of Mary but the framing imagery is quite powerful there and that’s what I try to show in my book that the that the chants that are describing Mary in the Marian office like blessed art thou among women blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Musically frame the chanting of the Psalms so that that antiphon blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb frames the recitation of Psalm eight which is a description of creation right so it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s sort of musically and an oral verbally in words. Reproducing the imagery that you’re talking about right she’s shown as framing him in the in the iconography in the chant the the the chant that describes her frames the chant that describes God and and that’s replicated throughout the office. That is a practice that’s particular to the West but the choice of the Psalms depends on the imagery that’s used in the liturgy in the East and that’s what I show that the Psalms that they choose in the West to say in this Marian office are the ones that the Eastern homilists draw on the most to describe her so it’s it’s it’s a wonderfully married tradition. Yeah one of the things that that I try to help people understand especially people who are coming from the Protestant tradition who really struggle with the imagery of the Mother of God and I totally understand it I mean I think that as a Protestant myself that was the first. That was the first the emotional kind of reaction when you see some of the things but as you start to analyze the hymns and you start to analyze even the longer prayers or the or the services which kind of are more have a have a more Marian theme you see this movement the movement that you just mentioned in the Antiphon which is blessed art thou amongst women blessed is the fruit of your womb. So it’s always this you always have this movement from the outside towards the inside you have the movement from the space to let’s say the the the definer of the space from so you always kind of move from from let’s say the space of the revelation to the revelation itself. And I mean that’s something that I’ve seen as a structure and so it is it is kind of this like elevation of of the space of the space of manifestation because it’s full of glory that you know it is it is in a way the way that by which we’re able to see what you know the divine manifesting itself and then there’s this like rise up towards praising God himself praising Christ and praising praising through Christ praising God so it’s always this movement or moving moving up it never stays at this because people are afraid that somehow we’re treating the Mother of God as if as if she’s got herself. Exactly. I’ve been having lots of long conversations in my Facebook on that because people have come and friended me for lots of different reasons and some of them are because of Milo and others because they’re Catholics and it’s very interesting to me to see the tensions there that there’s this a fear. I mean the Protestants are really often quite afraid that we are worshipping Mary and it doesn’t matter it seems curious that the Catholics I don’t have I need some more Orthodox friends. The Catholics are saying no we don’t she is the one who you know helps us see God right and in the in the tradition I’m writing about in the in the Middle Ages. It’s it’s not just physically that she helps us see God in incarnationally right that’s the whole I can I can I can a graphic tradition that you work in depends on that understanding that as John is Damascus is saying you know like you can the the image points the prototype you can only make images of Christ because of the incarnation right otherwise you don’t have you can’t represent the divine visually because there’s no visualization. But the same thing in the in the Latin tradition is that she is also holding God in her mind right she’s the model contemplative because I mean as she hold things in her heart and she understands Christ as she she lives with him in his earthly life. You talk in your lecture about how she’s at the marriage of Cana sort of nudging him and I’d like to talk about that nudging him to to to you know perform his first sign that she is the one who who who who directs the contemplation to God as well so all of it is all it’s both in the incarnation and in the understanding of his divinity that she’s a creature who points us to the creator that’s that’s her primary her primary mystery. Yeah and there is I think that also in the movement this is something that I that I’ve been thinking about a lot in the movement of the hymns around the mother of God and the manner in which we speak of her in the manner in which we we celebrate her you can see the proper movement from creation to the creator because one of the problems that you get that I remember even experiencing that in in the in the Protestant Church where they say you only we only worship God. We only worship God we don’t we don’t worship anything in creation but because they because they have this strange they don’t they’re not able to see how you move that way then you have strange moments like in church when somebody let’s say somebody does a sings a song and then people clap. Right. Okay so what are you what are you clapping to what are you clapping to the person who who sang because if you’re doing that then you are you’re you’re worshiping your that person but you don’t have the proper theology to understand how you can move up like how you can kind of gather that celebration of what you saw up towards the creator how you can both celebrate the vehicle the vehicle of manifestation and and move towards the towards the creator. The creator himself but in that I think that the movement that we experience through encountering the mother of God and and moving towards the incarnation that’s the proper movement and can help us understand how we can interact with creation and the creator you know all all in this celebratory manner. Yes. Anyway that’s just something that I’ve been thinking about so much because I I mean even when I remember even I was when I was Protestant I had that I kind of had that that problem where it’s and I even remember in some churches they would say things like oh we shouldn’t clap because they knew the problem they understood the problem of celebrating you know celebrating something that’s happening but then not knowing how that moves up towards not understanding this kind of hierarchy of how it moves up towards the creator. So there’s there’s so there’s another way I’ve tried to argue for Protestants since it’s both you and I are converts right that I was a Presbyterian until recently when I entered the Catholic Church, but I obviously been I’ve been studying Mary now for 30 years right and what I’m interested by is I studied Mary as a Protestant in effect because what I have been working on is the exegesis right the scriptural interpretation and the liturgy and the ways in which in medieval Christianity the scriptures were understood to speak about Mary so I really started from a very Presbyterian place it’s like a need to understand what the scriptures say. And I think we talked about some of this and maybe in our first video possibly but just to reiterate that my first my first book is on the commentary on on the song of songs and the ways in which the song of songs is used in the Marian liturgy as a way of describing her relationship with Christ her relationship with Christ. Her relationship with her son as in the mystery bride and bridegroom because she’s the bride of God, but also very intimately in their in their earthly life, because there’s this. I’m not sure we want to go into this but in medieval and Orthodox exegesis you understand that the scripture speak on a number of different levels right and so there’s the story level the history. There’s the moral level the the topological level the lessons that we get as souls from the scriptures, and then there’s the allegorical level which is the mystery of Christ and his relationship with his church and the song of songs is read, I mean it’s like God in Israel so that’s the allegorical level. It’s Christ in the church but there’s also this this interesting problem of, well, who is Solomon in describing his relationship with his love and if you read the Old Testament as Christians do as always patterning itself on Christ. The song of songs is also patterning his relationship with with Mary who is his, his, his mother his bride his sister his love his friend. I mean all of those relationships come into it and and so it gives the medieval Christians a way of imagining their conversation, as it were, in this in the new book, and I’m certain that’s just set off alarm bells for everybody. Whereas, in the new book I’m showing, as I said the way in which the Psalms are understood to reveal this kind of relationship, and that matters, because of course the only reason. The only reason Christianity is Christianity is because we recognize Christ, Jesus as the Lord, and, and therefore in the in the Christian tradition we read the Psalms as speaking about Christ. So, for example, on on Good Friday, we, we, we chant Psalm 21 in the Septuagint numbering right, you just use the Septuagint numbering I can just stick with that right. Good. As in fact, Christ’s words from the cross because they were what Jesus said you know my Lord my Lord why have you forsaken me, which is the psalmist’s exclamation so we take that as the speaking of Christ that this this whole exegetical tradition is the only way we have access to, to, to the fully full understanding of Christ as Lord but it’s similar that it’s the way we have access to Mary in his in her relationship with him. And if you’re nervous about that. Well Calvin does it too. So, it’s interesting that I think a lot of modern Christians don’t actually understand the the exegetical tradition on which even Protestantism depends. No, I agree. I think that recovering the this this tradition is is so primordial to me I mean that’s, that’s what I’ve been, I’ve been like, trying to do so much is trying to help people see the matter in which the Christ becomes the fulcrum, and then we look at these patterns in the Old Testament, as always manifesting, let’s say, the mystery of the incarnation. And so, it’s to me it makes so much sense that in the Old Testament you do have this, this place for the, the, the, let’s say the the manner in which you, you contain or not contain but let’s say the temple the the ark all these vehicles of manifestation. And, and they’re very important in the story. And so, the question is once God becomes enters into the personal story once God is incarnate, then that pattern must continue the pattern must find its resolution you could say. And so then what is the resolution to to that pattern in the story of Christ, it’s obvious that the resolution is Mary because she, she is the one who, who had him in his womb but also there are these mysterious verses where it talks about her, you know, gathering all these things in her heart like this, the gathering all the all the things she sees in her heart and that is just also this image of this, this space which gathers in and kind of shows you the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the spark, the divine spark let’s say. And then, then it also becomes the, the church, it also becomes the believer, just the believer, the, the human person, ourself that, that in a certain way, you kind of vacillate between saying that the mother of God is our hope because she is the one who, who had the living Christ inside her, which is what we want, but we’re also aiming towards Christ himself, which is, you know, which is the image of God himself. And so you kind of have this, this vacillation between, and it’s interesting because I always see in, in the imagery of the mother of God, it’s interesting that, for example, some images, they will be used the same images for Christ as for the mother of God. And you can understand it because you can understand that each, each image has a kind of substance, like a substance part, which is underneath and let’s say, let’s say a, or a feminine part and a masculine part. So the ladder, for example, like Christ will be described as a ladder as well. And the mother of God will be described as that ladder, but there is the ladder, which is the, let’s say the, the support for the movement. And then there’s the actual ascent and descent, which is also the ladder. I don’t know if, I don’t know if you, you see what I’m going here. I do, because it, she’s the mirror. And that’s the, the other element of the scriptural tradition is to appreciate that the Marian tradition depends on the Septuagint. And that’s why the, I mean, the Orthodox tradition, and it particularly depends on the books of wisdom, wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. And those are the, those are the texts that are used in addition to the Song of Songs and the Psalms to describe Mary. And one of the most important passages describing her is that she’s, this is from wisdom seven, she’s the mirror of his majesty. Right. So Mary is the most, she’s all of us as, as human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. But the great mystery is, of course, she is the most perfect creature ever made. Because she was the one who contained him in her womb. He makes her to be his mother. Which means she is the most perfect reflection of God. So all of the, this is why, it’s like she becomes most like God. That’s what Dante describes her, that she has the face that is most like Christ’s. And in the Western art, it’s like the greater similarity you can show between the two of them. There’s a, she’s his mother, so his flesh is her, her flesh is his flesh. Or he gets his flesh from her as a creature. But she is made so perfectly in his image, she reflects him most perfectly. It makes utter sense that all of that imagery. And you, you end up with this, the mirroring constantly, right? It’s like you see her, you see him in her, you see you, he, you look at him, you understand why she so resembles him. Yeah. And in that, I think that one of the, I would say one of the side effects of modernism, one of the side effects of the modern age has been a kind of objectification of creation or a lack of capacity to see in creation this mysterious space for the divine to manifest itself. And I wonder if you’ve thought a little bit about the relationship, let’s say, with the changes in the way we understand her, that the West has understood Mary, especially in kind of Germanic countries and Protestant countries, and that shift towards a almost mechanistic vision of Oh yes. Yes. I think that that’s, losing Mary means we lose the vision of reality that I think you have been trying to describe in your lectures. That she, meditating on her means you’re meditating on creation and you’re meditating on the sort of, well, one, you’re suggesting the proper relationship between ourselves and God, God and creation, but you’re also understanding the creature, right? And that’s, I was talking about the different titles that Mary has in the Middle Ages, that she is, she’s heaven, she’s the stars, the sun, the moon, the dawn, you’ve talked about the dawn a bit, that she’s the earth, she’s the mountain, she’s the rivers, that’s some trees, lots of trees, those are all from Ecclesiastes, flowers. You’re realizing that you’re looking for the signs of the divine in his artwork, and that she points you to that as well, because you’re meditating on her through all of this symbolism, right? If you’re the rose, the lily, the cedar of Lebanon, the palm tree, the spices, all of those things, you’re in effect understanding that creation is this great work of art, and we seem to, you know, the problem is, you know, how do you contain God in your understanding? How does she contain God in herself that ultimately becomes encyclopedic, right? But it becomes encyclopedic in this understanding that you need to understand the properties of all the creatures in order to properly praise her, because in praising her, you’re praising the creator. And that, again, it’s that wonderful reflection, that she reflects the creation, she reflects the beauty of, I mean, it’s not even nature, right? Nature seems separate and distant, and we’re not a part of it. She’s the image of what it means to be human in creation. I don’t know if you know a little bit about the controversy, the Orthodox controversy surrounding the, what’s called, Sofiology. Do you know a little bit about that story? Yeah? Well, not maybe directly, but I’ve been tangled up in it, in criticism of my book. Okay, well, I think it’s important to, I think it’s, maybe we can talk a little bit about that, because there is, there was this move in the 20th century, and I think you can feel it also in Catholicism a little bit. There’s this move also in Orthodoxy to kind of push things further in terms of the place that the Mother of God has. In the Orthodox Church, there was a theologian, Volgokhov, who tried to link, let’s say, the wisdom of God so closely to Mary that to make her almost like an incarnation of Sophia, and in the tradition, in the patristic tradition, there’s a kind of, there’s a shift, because in the patristic tradition, often Sophia, our wisdom of God, is Christ, like that he’s, that it’s seen that it’s Christ who is the wisdom of God, but then in the text, the wisdom is often described as feminine, and so there is, I think that the best resolution of that was, is that image of the Mother of God with Christ on her lap, which is, that is the best image of Sophia in the sense that it is, it’s so important for her last night at the time they went to her funeral. t does not take away from her the problem that Sophia actually has, is the idea of the within her pathway to the Mother of God, I think in the 22nd century, there was a period when both apartheid and Belial, her mosque and her temple, kind of goes together because he gets his body from her and so there’s this kind of coming together. But maybe you can tell me a little bit about how you got pulled into the this criticism. Well because that’s the way she’s described in the West in the in the medieval tradition that she is Sapiensia but she’s also Mata Sapiensia. She’s wisdom and the mother of wisdom and it one of the texts that I talk about in depth in my book is Richard of Saint Laurent’s book on the praises of the mother of Mary de laudibus well whatever. And in his preface he talks explicitly about this mystery right that because she’s the most perfect reflection of him because she’s filled with him she you know carries all wisdom and so that twinning is again it we’ve been talking about it already that she’s always creature right that is that is very very clear in all of the Latin texts. She is his most perfect creature but because she’s so perfectly mirroring him she becomes god like and you you’ve talked about that too in your lectures that in the orthodox tradition we are you know theosis is a thing right. Well she is most transformed into the perfect reflection of the divine and that includes as wisdom. So in the in the medieval tradition particularly in the 13th century she’s the patron of the University of Paris the faculty of arts because they understand that because she contained wisdom she contains wisdom right so she contains all the language arts she contains the quadrivium the mathematical arts she knows the you know all the mysteries of theology she knows the mysteries of the angels which is to say if you were filled with god this is what you’d know and it’s complicated because back in the in the early tradition developing her liturgies drawing on the text where wisdom speaks for example proverbs well is that Christ or is that his mother well it’s it’s you have to you have to play the sort of face vase game you know the there’s that that it’s it’s a what do you call optical illusion right that you have is it two faces or is it a vase right and and thinking about Marian imagery is often like that it’s always you know the faces show you the vase the vase shows you the faces she is wisdom she shows you wisdom he is wisdom she contains him and so it’s actually a meaningless question ultimately it’s like which one’s which right and I think that as we understand I mean it all points to the mystery of the incarnation itself exactly that one of the reasons I think that wisdom is portrayed also as feminine in the Old Testament is because of this idea of wisdom as this as the you know the the presence of god in the world like like like you were saying this kind of this kind of so it is it can be first of all even in the Old Testament it kind of makes sense to have this it’s kind of underlying wisdom which is kind of under the world it makes sense to represent it as feminine and then as we are the body of Christ also we we are the bride of Christ we have all this whole there’s this whole eschatological aspect to it which I keep telling people that the problem with I think the problem with sociology was that it was uttering something which is eschatological and was trying to utter it as if in a manner which was not just leaving the mystery of the eschatology to what extent we will participate in God like to what extent we are called to be deified you know the church fathers always kind of leave it up and say you know St. Maximus the confessor always says to the extent that that’s possible that’s always the phrase he uses kind of leaving it up to like I don’t know exactly how far how far it goes like you said maintaining the creature uncreated creature distinction but that this is kind of full participation of the of creation itself in the life of God shining forth fully being fully united with with its creator in a way that we can’t fully contain and I think that that mystery of how the mother of God there’s this this this vacillation between the imagery of wisdom between Christ himself and his mother is pointing to me to that eschatological possibility and that’s kind of how I see it that’s kind of how I resolve it in in my in my mind at least I like that and but and the thing is I think what I the other thing going back to something we were suggesting early this mystery is that you you came to all of this by making the art right this is a very this is a very visual mystery always and and that’s I I find that I mean this is where Protestants I think you know struggle right it’s like you can’t do this just with words that much of it is only accessible to us in the the visual representations the kinds of things the kinds of images that you work with and that you make because it’s once you show it it’s like the the throne of wisdom images right it captures that entire mystery and then you have to meditate on and talk about it and encapsulate it but there’s there’s something in the the the visual representation that does go beyond what we’re able to talk about although as I said in the in the liturgy it’s it’s also represented in the in the chant right so the framing can the framing can take place in in words in in sound but it it’s you need both the visual and the oral I think to capture the fullness of how hard it is to think what does it mean that he entered into his work yeah yeah and I think that that’s really the thing and there’s some things which it’s so funny because there’s some things which which you if you say they become untrue as soon as you say them you know that the and I and I really think you know the I think about for example the the the idea that we’re called to be united with God to participate in God to be full of of of God to the extent that that we can attain that but if you say as soon as you say I am deified or I am as soon as you say that that becomes untrue because right not then it becomes a grabbing onto your own prideful thing and so the difference between and the difference is really the difference between Eve reaching up and grabbing the fruit for herself and the mother of God who in her in her humility and in her her kind of willingness to just say yes and to just say yes to to this this this amazing thing that was happening to her and to almost be in to even be effaced in the story in the gospel story she’s quite effaced there are few mystery mysterious um I think there there are a few really key verses that that are if you read them if you kind of pierce into them you actually see that there’s something else going on but that that’s the difference and that’s why and I think that that’s why that’s the difference between Eve and Mary is that in a way in a way the the fruit was given to to Mary the fruit that that Eve wanted to take from the tree was given to to the mother of God in her humility the fruit of of knowledge and the fruit of life was given to her and that’s that’s what the incarnation is it’s like she is this flip side of what happened to at in the beginning she kind of resolves she resolves in the incarnation the whole question of how we can participate in God how we can be given to be united with God and what does that mean what does that look like we should talk about the feminine imagery yeah all right okay okay so I’m very I’m very interested in in the the video you did on with symbolism and propaganda the you were reading the inversions of the feminine character the that that pattern of inversions that’s showing up in the superhero movies yeah where the women are you know you put women in the role of the masculine heroes yeah right yes and it’s a huge problem and I liked I liked the way you showed this like we need to watch for these patterns because that’s when we start seeing where the symbolism is most active and are we assuming your viewers have seen that video do we want to talk it I would say probably of all the videos that I’ve ever never made probably we can assume that that video has been watched by whoever’s watching this I think I like so we’re talking Ghostbusters and we’re talking about we’re talking Ghostbusters and we’re and some movies that I haven’t seen and Star Wars and things like that and um I the Wonder Woman is the one exception that I think what your analysis was actually very astute there where she has to take out the church that I hadn’t thought of that one um but this this this curious need to take a masculine role and simply stick a woman in it and then say look we’ve you know empowered women I think that’s nonsense I think it’s ridiculous and the more I start seeing it the more um well I’m fine I mean disgust is an interesting response right I’m finding I I find the humiliation of the men for the elevation of these women into the masculine roles profoundly disturbing right it’s it’s really really awful and I think it’s it’s it’s it’s Milo it’s what he was trying to say about the Ghostbusters movie right it’s like they’re not female character they’re not feminine characters they’re just women in masculine dress and what I find interesting is that’s one of the things that in the past used to be a criticism of there’s this famous phrase in the not in the I think it’s in the Gospel of Thomas it’s one of the Gnostic Gospels that the sort of famous thing like oh the Gospels that the church didn’t want well one of them was one of them is saying when Christ says when Jesus says to the apostles when they’re complaining about Mary being there and it’s a little it’s a little ambiguous whether it’s Mary the mother mother of Jesus or whether it’s or Mary Magdalene or one of the other Mary’s and um and and Jesus says to them well that’s okay I’ll make her man yeah I know and then she can be saved and everybody goes ah and the thing is they’re right to say ah because we don’t I mean women don’t need to become men yeah in order to be um you know transformed in because we’re already made in the image and likeness of God that’s the great mystery of Christianity how is it that he’s we are made male and female in the image and likeness of God and what does that that you know pairing of masculine and feminine actually mean and I think you know that’s what I’m starting to realize that all of the work that I did in my first book on the song of songs it’s the relationship between the masculine and the feminine that’s what that book is about it’s about the mystery of the relationship between the masculine and the feminine yeah and what happens is I mean this has been my my understanding is that what actually happens in that equation is a strange phenomena where it’s actually the feminine which suffers the most in the end because yes is this idea that you know in order to be important in order in order to have value then you have to have these masculine characteristics and then all the private you know the the private sphere the the all the the traditional feminine qualities are actually seen as somewhat degraded somewhat you know uh useless utterly they’re destroyed yeah and and and then there there is this you know yeah anyway so so I I think that there’s a lot of room for seem like there’s a lot of room right now for people who would want to tell some good stories uh that would have okay so I’ve been thinking right it’s a way one I also you I know I can’t remember who you were talking to in this video but you talked about the the domestic right the mother makes the home um and and we did a we did a video in three craters um with one of our guests where he does house renovations um Adam Paul Levine and we talked specifically about that imagery of the home being associated with the mother the grandmother and you start realizing it’s like no wonder everybody’s miserable right we have no homes anymore because the woman isn’t in the home and you know there we have all these sort of tropes and jokes and in our culture about oh you need the gay the queer eye for for the house renovations Adam is gay too but that was another that was another video that we did and it’s like talking about his his his adventures as a conservative and a gay man um that that we recognize the necessity of making a home and yet dev valued it completely saying oh women should be out in the workplace and what they did in the home is is degrading to them and it’s like how is that possible no what you have done is degrade the feminine not elevate women and you culture right it’s it’s if you don’t if you cannot value the way in which mothers create this space for their husbands to go out into the into the workplace and be strong and and and if productive for their children to be nurtured and and and challenged and and cherished and given courage to go out into the world um this is i mean but i know you’re friends with Jordan but this is one of the things that i think he’s gotten completely wrong um that he he create he’s sort of focused on this image of woman as chaos that the man then has to order it’s like no no no no no there’s there’s feminine chaos and feminine order there’s masculine chaos and masculine order and the feminine order is exactly what Mary is embodying for for Christ right she is the place from which he goes out into the world she the ordering structure i mean that’s why she’s all of those images of creation because she is literally the ordered cosmos right that he takes takes body in and then if you think about that the the wonderful the marriage of kena is just like my favorite story of ever i mean all the marrying stories are wonderful but so he’s there they’re at the marriage they’re at a wedding right they’re at the joining of a man and woman to make a home so that there’ll be children so that they’ll be you know heroes and and and and and you know daughters and sons that go out into the world and daughters making their own home and Mary is the one nudging him to say you know they have no wine and i love his response to it’s like you know and it’s read in a lot of ways in the in the um the exegesis like woman it’s not my time and you could just feel the son saying that to his mother not yet mom but on the other hand you know she needs that little nudge to go into his his role as as you know the savior and performing the signs and there’s i think in that that that that exchange between the two is is like the most the most wonderful moment of of real human interaction between a mother and a son but also the cosmic reality that it’s the feminine that gives the masculine the the space to become hero within right and so i i i think that we have somehow managed to degrade motherhood i mean that abortion is like oh a woman has a right to choose to murder her child what are you thinking that that you have made women into monsters by defining their femininity on the basis of their their their ability to kill that’s just it’s it’s mind-boggling to me no i i totally agree i think one of the things you said now is very important when you talked about how there is this the way also that jordan talks about you know like order and chaos and how orders masculine and feminine is chaos and i think that that it is obviously far more subtle than that and and the way that we see it um i think that the basic structure of heaven and earth that we find in the beginning of of of genesis is a is is a good way to do it because it is that let’s say um you could say order and potential i like potential better than chaos has such a negative sentiment like order and potential but then i think chaos is real though i think i’d like to talk about that a bit but go on the thing is that order actually happens in between that’s that’s one of the more difficult things that i think that that jordan kind of gets wrong in terms of of i mean it’s fine the way he does it but he gets wrong it’s not that it’s not that you have the city and you have the outside of the the city which is chaos it’s more like you have this axis in the center which is let’s say that let’s say like a connection to heaven or connection to identity a connection to to uh your name all that and then you have potentiality and what happens in between is order order is the proper joining of feminine and masculine i love that that’s so that’s when you see so the city can have had the city is always represented as feminine because it is the space in which in which the ordering happens but it’s also like the the particular questions the particular problems of of establishing an order you know the questions it’s like how do we do this how do we do that we put a window here do we put a roof how like what is it that we’re going to do and then the the the the the let’s say the name which answers those those particulars and the interaction between those two is what actually creates what we’d called and i think that that’s a that’s a far more um it’s a far more accurate way to understand it it’s also it’s a it’s more closer to the biblical image because heaven isn’t doing anything and earth isn’t doing anything it’s when the name starts to come down you know when god speaks down into earth and then calls forth earth to produce it’s the earth that produces he you know it’s not so so earth does participate in this gathering together you know to kind of answer the to to to answer to the name of what god is saying like let the earth produce uh uh you know trees and it’s like the earth is the one is the one that produces the trees so this it’s this interaction so it really is more that there is like the that’s when you can really see it differently that it’s the kind of the sexual union between heaven and earth which creates the child which creates this this yes so that this is fertile right this is this is fertile ordering and and that’s you know that though that you need the the couple in the home right you need the masculine and the feminine in order for there to be children that it’s it’s uh um and this the the the mystery and i think i mean christianity i think understands this beautifully right that you and you were talking about ephesians too in one of your lectures that you know that the the way in which um we are bride and bridegroom with god as soul and and and god but the masculine and the feminine are modeling that because it’s only with that balance and and um um well that’s the ordering that we actually end up with fertility right and otherwise what you’re talking about with the inversion the fem those women in the stories that become the the soldiers and the men who are humiliated again i cannot i cannot tell you how disgusting those images of men being made small are to me i i despise them i will not go see movies anymore because nothing happens but that some and you know i’m a fighter right i’m a fighter in a lot of ways right i’ve you know fought for milo you know for the last two years i’m a fencer i know what fighting is i am not a woman who thinks you know one i do want the man to come rescue me because i do um but on the other hand that there’s a there’s a there’s a proper supportive role that both of them play that has nothing to do with these the the characterizations that are in these these contemporary movies where the the man is a terrible father what what is the point in in in you know the incredibles with him not being able to take care of the children that’s ridiculous fathers are perfectly well you know you need them to be nurturing and and encouraging and you know the dads are always the ones that throw the babies up in the air and give them you know the the sort of taste of adventure right where the moms are going oh no you need both of them you need the mother sitting there going don’t be you know be careful dear and you need the dad going we and and those are both parenting roles and somehow we’ve we’ve turned it into this you know one or the other that’s ridiculous you you need both both both modes in order for the child to flourish for their for there to be daughters and sons that are empowered and strong and capable no i agree i agree and i think that that’s and i think that that that maybe it would be interesting now that we’ve been actually talking about this and kind of this idea of this of the the union of the two and the relation with the two i’m thinking i probably will i probably will maybe make a video on that directly because i think that that we’ve hit on something that to simply record to simply talk about order and chaos as let’s say an actual city or manifestation is order and and the outside is chaos i think it it misses it misses the essential part which is that the city is the joining of heaven and earth it’s the joining of yes that’s why it’s kind of invisible order and actual actual particulars and lovely and and this is the that i did a course last year on cities and towns and one of the things in the middle ages and one of the things we talked about was the symbolism of city planning in in the period and because i’m also i haven’t you know sort of what my new big new project is now that i worked on prayer for 15 years i’m working on virtues and vices but specifically virtues and vices in in the city right in this in because the city is the place where human beings live right yeah like the nature is is in in um in conversation with the city but cities are human habitations right and for the medieval city mary is at the center there like the cathedral that’s notredame is our lady in the middle right it’s our and the city forms around the cathedral the city literally cathedrals are the place where the bishop is so a city is technically bishop’s seat but the city forms around the cathedral and the cathedral is an image of our lady because in the cathedral in the church god becomes present right so it’s it the whole architecture of medieval cities is premised on the ordering around um this twinning of of god and creation god and creature mary and christ no i agree and i think that you know that’s when you start to understand some of the imageries of like for example that the in constantinople when there were problems they would uh they would parade an icon of the mother of god on the wall like around and and the mother of god is seen as the protract protect protectress of the city there are images called the the protecting veil where you see you see the mother of god standing and she holds her veil over the people and she’s kind of covering the people with her veil and you see that it’s the miforian right yeah yes you see the same image in in the west but more you see you see her holding out her her cape and you see all these people inside her cape kind of like you know this mother hen that has all these people inside her her cape and so you really do see that that image of of the feminine as this kind of gathering in this you know the wall around or or or and that’s why i always try to help people understand that that the relationship between masculine and feminine happens at many levels right like you said what you said is perfect like the center of the city has let’s say the spire and you have this idea let’s say of a divine ray that would come down like a like this divine manifestation the glory of god which descends on on the the holy of holies uh and and that is in christianity like the eucharist the altar the the invisible transformation that happens in the in the eucharist but then it’s also it also has it has this masculine ray that descends you could call it but it also has this space which is the feminine space which you need right for that to be seen and then you exactly right so then you can go out and you have on the wall the wall you have an aspect of the wall which is the protective aspect which is holding in then you also have an aspect of the wall which is the war you’re standing with this with this bow and art with this bow and arrow shooting the enemies on the outside and that’s the masculine aspect which is you know kind of fighting beating off the the darkness and so each each layer has this joining of masculine and feminine you know at every at every uh let’s say point of the way and when you start to see it that way it’s okay to understand it primarily as just this first opposite like heaven and earth and this kind of masculine feminine and this normal opposite but you have to understand that the world i talk about this all the time the world is that is microcosm within microcosm within microcosm and so so every part has that for it to exist it needs to have a joining of heaven and earth at every level of of the manifestation of the city let’s say yes and that that one of the things that i find i have always found most frustrating about all modern discussion of masculine and feminine imagery is it it refuses that necessary interaction it’s like um the eric neumann’s book on the great mother is there’s a lot of merian imagery in there and he makes some major mistakes right there’s i did a blog post about this um in i have a page on my blog fencing bear at prayer that the lady in the logos and i’ve done a number of posts about this this problem of the merian imagery that um neumann in his great mother um suggests that christianity doesn’t carry this imagery and every single image that he’s invoking of the mother as you know vessel and container and space and all they’re all merian right but he just somehow didn’t know it um and and that’s been a sort of curious feature of of modern discussions of the medieval and orthodox tradition of devotion to mary it’s like they’re blind that they have no understand there and they don’t understand that the feminine is you know in an interaction with the masculine in the way we’ve been talking about and that the wisdom is interaction you know it’s not just body woman is not just body she’s wisdom she’s contemplation she’s knowledge so it’s the either or problem is is it’s been frustrating me for my career and that it eliminates the complexity because then when you end up looking you end up looking at stories and people don’t understand it’s like why do you have artemis who’s the who’s the the the the goddess huntress like that just it’s no that that you have to be able to see these pairing of math and feminine at all levels and in all aspects of reality where there is an aspect of the hunt and and you see like artemis is also the protector of the the young the protector of the of the of the animal young which is like that’s interesting because a hunter would want to protect the young because the hunter wants to keep hunting and so and all of a sudden you see this other aspect of hunting which is you know the duck preservation society and it’s like so the hunter isn’t just the one shooting the animals he’s also the one protecting the animals at the same time and so you see in the mystery of artemis you can see how things are always more subtle than we tend to want to think so i think that is the that’s an excellent that’s an excellent example because the reason there’s so many deer in the united states is the hunters have made sure there are yeah right that you you you care for the population because you understand them as as as creatures yeah and and so i think that that’s that’s maybe sometimes it’s the danger sometimes of the symbolism and and i can take some blame for that when i try to talk in broad categories and and in broad structures to help people see the structures uh right away but it’s important to be able to then dive into that and see how you know it’s it’s it’s not like wine you know symbolism is like wine you know you you you drink wine and then all of a sudden once you get used to you start to see all these subtle these subtle tastes and these subtle things that are happening that aren’t right there at the first at the first glance but if you’re not practiced in doing it people think you’re crazy that’s right and that’s no that that’s that’s what happens it is like drinking wine it’s well but but so i it’s my role to keep mentioning milo because he’s my best example of a lot of things um but i i started writing about the ways in which he was performing a lot of this this imagery in his talks and and you know and i compared him to jesus because you do um in in the sense that i recognized him not just talking about the patterns but performing them right so that they’re they’re ways in which he was you know traveling around the country and his tour bus and so he’s like jesus collecting followers and there’s a bunch of young guys and they’re traveling around he’s giving talks and that pisses everybody off and then he gets you know his career destroyed and oh wait you know exactly what story are we in that you you you start you start seeing the patterns that we are living um and and i think one of the things you’ve been trying to show in your talks is we live these stories right once you are um sort of true conversion as augustine tells it in his on on catechizing is you recognize yourself in the story right you christians recognize themselves in the whole history of of creation and salvation and you should start seeing ways in which the famous passage from the lord of the rings um frotto and sam recognize we’re in the same story right we’re in this pattern we are living this pattern constantly which then gets us to the the other thing that i wanted to to bring up in the masculine and feminine that that we are we are what the imitation of christ or the imitation of mary means is you start recognizing them as the pattern for human life and understanding what mary and jesus’s interactions show us about the proper relationship between um the masculine the feminine and this goes back to what you were meditating on the mary and eve story right so hold on we’re getting there you you mentioned and and this is one of the one of the stories that i have liked um jordan’s um interpretation of the beauty and the beast story so that the the mat the feminine hero hero the feminine story for the heroine is taming the beast that’s that’s good right that the indeed the feminine proper relationship of a wife to a husband is is both encouraging him and domesticating him right um george gilder has talked about this well in men and marriage and he uses that beauty in the beast story too right the the sort of princess and the barbarian that you have the guy outside the city who is you know hunting and making conquests and things and she by it’s a very interesting sort of problem is saying the young man who asks a woman to marry him is in effect surrendering to her that’s why he kneels in our in our tradition kneels to her it’s also a worship of it’s also mary right it’s a it’s a serving of mary as lady right and so you kneel to the lady and say i i want to serve you and she accepts him and by making that surrender to her he is willing to be brought into her home right which you can think about it’s like a lot of guys don’t like giving that up right they like you know having their own independence and they’re there you know they can play video games or i think video games are actually good we don’t need to that that’s not a bad thing um but it’s it’s guy things right and and and there’s always that trope of you know the band of young men the frat boys and stuff one of them finds a girlfriend that’s hard for the band of men because he’s going to be drawn into her world now and domesticated and made you know yeah less beast like that’s right starts to shave and starts to shave dresses right you know and that’s good because she is ennobling him right she is giving him character and purpose if they have children he gets to be a patriarch right you don’t get to be a patriarch unless you have kids fatherhood is good it ennobles and and and dignifies men but there’s another story that nobody’s mentioning you know what it is i’m waiting with bated breath i’m like what is the other story go ahead the taming of the shrew right of course yeah we are and that is what i mean that is what milo has been talking about right feminism is cancer because these women are shrews right they’re shrill they’re ugly they are you know refusing the the authority of a man quite directly but what they’re doing is refusing to respect that relationship they are i mean it’s a funny and it’s funny in the story right that in in the play um katherine kate becomes tame but she was an awful person before that right there is real feminine vice which is is the kind of thing that that you know milo’s been trying to point to that is real that women can be awful to men and i think that that is what god because they’re human beings i mean my goodness right we’re both right so there’s no and that’s i mean it is a problem when you make the feminine the source of all virtue we’re not we’re also eve right we’re also disobedient we’re also grasping we’re also we also lie we also bear false witness i’m thinking of an example um and and to have this this image that’s why it’s both mary and eve right it’s it’s just like it’s both adam and christ that that virtue and vice are something that both men and women need to to um have models for and work for and it’s it’s wrong to put the the woman in the place of being the only virtue just as it’s wrong to put the man in the place of the only heroism that’s not our relationship with god it’s it’s it’s that we are and the the great mystery is of course that mary when god says to her you know you’re to become the mother says yes right and that’s that’s that that that is the quintessential moment of the man kneeling before her right angel is often shown in the in the iconography of the annunciation coming and kneeling before mary well that’s a pretty interesting image god kneels before his mother and she accepts him and then the the twinning is is of course in the western iconography that she is then assumed into heaven crowned by him and bows to him all of these gestures of recognition and obedience are incredibly powerful and incredibly important yeah no i i totally agree i think though i always tell people that we are right now with kind of the crazy a lot of the problems that we’re having now the feminism and and a lot of the kind of intersectional attitude we’re also paying for something that started a long time ago i mean we i think we’re we’re it’s the pendulum swing from the enlightenment it’s the pendulum swing from a world where only reason has value where only a certain type of knowledge a certain type of action where where uh conquering was the only virtue and we lost the medieval balance that you talk about between between this this kind of the relationship between a you know a knight who is strong and who is who you know who who goes to war and is able to protect his country but who also kneels to his lady and is also is also ennobled by his relationship with his lady and so that that that balance was definitely lost and now we’ve got the other side whereas if we we’ve been telling people the only thing that has value is this this kind of rationalistic vision of the world and so women are saying well okay well then i want that like i’m gonna if that’s the only thing that has value then i’m going to take that and sadly except for what interestingly they’re doing in this well freudian terms hysterical way yeah right that they’re doing it with emotion completely uncontrolled it they’re not even behaving rationally right and and all of the stuff i mean i was thinking about the cavanaugh hearing obviously that all of the stuff around you know this what and there’s a number of people have been writing about this um uh tony easel and has written quite passionately about it and quite perceptively about it recently in new english review and christopher garrote has been writing about it the need for masculine authority um and and and the the real effect of having so many women in the public sphere well we’ve become every caricature there ever was about women it’s it’s you know they’re hysterical they’re overly emotional they they can’t you know think it’s like and and they’re you know when you have a supreme you know a proper you know structured rational judicial hearing for you know figuring out whether or not this person is is appropriately qualified to be a supreme court justice and people screaming outside the doors banging on them have you have you lost your minds ladies you are behaving like every worst caricature you say was the misogynistic literature of the middle ages well the misogynistic literature of the middle ages also included images of mary right and it’s like that that literature what you’ve been doing is saying well every bad image of women is not real and it’s like well then stop behaving like them all right i i i’m really tempted to say okay mom okay mom i think that i think that that we we we got the message and uh listen i i i think we i think we had a good conversation we’ve been going for a while and i think that that last that last message from rachel is i hope it goes viral let’s do it well rachel thank you so much for for talking to me i uh i really enjoyed it i actually felt like we break we broke some interesting ground in in kind of showing some of the the problems in the way that things have been um let’s say represented in the in the past few years and i think that there’s a lot to talk about and hopefully we’ll have a chance to uh to do it again and i and i wish you i know we didn’t talk about all your your kind of difficulties and everything but i do wish i don’t want to no i i want i’m just saying i wish you the best and i and i pray that that you that you will um that you always remain on top of the fray and that you’ll continue on as you are right now well i have i mean when people you’re wondering about you know strong women and great battle warrior warrior this is mary for goodness sake she’s la conquistadora she’s she’s you know the you talked about her you they they parade her um parade they process her icon on the walls of constantinople to save the city you don’t need any other warrior god you know warrior um woman you got mary all right rachel so so uh so thanks again and uh so everybody i will i will see you soon thank you if you enjoyed 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