update from sparkleup

writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/reverse/background.md

@@ -1,6 +1,16 @@
 ## The Fundamental Unhappiness of Identity
 
-How do we remember the past?[^background-remember] How do we remember all of those countless conversations that make up our friendships, our relationships, our enmities? How do we remember the past?
+How do we remember the past? How do we remember all of those countless conversations that make up our friendships, our relationships, our enmities? How do we remember the past?
+
+The Book of Job remembers it through just the discourses. It remembers entire conversations, entire histories of friendship, through the lens of those two weeks Job spent in the cold fire pit, covered with ashes and sores. It remembers them all through discourses and speeches and prayers. Perhaps strangest of all, though, it remembers them disjoint and out of order.
+
+Edward L. Greenstein discusses the transpositions, interpositions, and interpolations that go into the book of Job. Take, for instance, Job's first speech. "For many reasons," he writes, "the passage 4:12-21 should be read here, right after chapter 3, as the conclusion of Job's first speech." \parencite[16]{greenstein} In that speech, Job bemoans the horrors that have befallen him and his family, spelling out in poetic detail all of the ways he wishes he'd never been born.Where, in the traditional ordering, this would lead to Eliphaz's first speech, Greenstein instead places a description of a vision that had, in those orderings, been given to Eliphaz. He provides three reasons: in similar tales, it is the complainant who receives a vision; Job, rather than his friends, receives the theophany in this story; and both Job and Eliphaz himself refer to Job's vision in later chapters.
+
+I can't speak to the details beyond this and a few mentions in the Apocrypals episode on the Book of Job. Both describe the ways in which the original story would have been kept on leaves of papyrus, how easy it would have been for such leaves to be shuffled --- accidentally or intentionally --- by some time-forgotten redacter.
+
+The Book of Job remembers its events out of order, and attempts to fix it, whether its addressed explicitly in the text as Greenstein does or through footnotes as Alter and the NOAB editors do, cannot be done so without addressing this fact.
+
+-----
 
 I met her through a friend, Andrew. My boyfriend at the time, actually. I'd flown down to Florida some time in 2009, I think, to visit him. A quick jaunt down to Clearwater where his ex-Scientologist mom and step-dad had set up their own business, bought some ridiculous house on the beach, and raised their only child.
 
@@ -77,10 +87,3 @@ I remember, of course, the me who struggled with being me, the Matthew who did n
 
 
 
-[^background-remember]: The Book of Job remembers it through just the discourses. It remembers entire conversations, entire histories of friendship, through the lens of those two weeks Job spent in the cold fire pit, covered with ashes and sores. It remembers them all through discourses and speeches and prayers. Perhaps strangest of all, though, it remembers them disjoint and out of order.
-
-    Edward L. Greenstein discusses the transpositions, interpositions, and interpolations that go into the book of Job. Take, for instance, Job's first speech. "For many reasons," he writes, "the passage 4:12-21 should be read here, right after chapter 3, as the conclusion of Job's first speech." \parencite[16]{greenstein} In that speech, Job bemoans the horrors that have befallen him and his family, spelling out in poetic detail all of the ways he wishes he'd never been born.Where, in the traditional ordering, this would lead to Eliphaz's first speech, Greenstein instead places a description of a vision that had, in those orderings, been given to Eliphaz. He provides three reasons: in similar tales, it is the complainant who receives a vision; Job, rather than his friends, receives the theophany in this story; and both Job and Eliphaz himself refer to Job's vision in later chapters.
-    
-    I can't speak to the details beyond this and a few mentions in the Apocrypals episode on the Book of Job. Both describe the ways in which the original story would have been kept on leaves of papyrus, how easy it would have been for such leaves to be shuffled --- accidentally or intentionally --- by some time-forgotten redacter.
-    
-    The Book of Job remembers its events out of order, and attempts to fix it, whether its addressed explicitly in the text as Greenstein does or through footnotes as Alter and the NOAB editors do, cannot be done so without addressing this fact.

writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/reverse/intro.md

@@ -33,25 +33,17 @@ If Matthew died in 2012 and Madison wasn't born until a few years later,[^intro-
 
 If Matthew died in 2012, why was I not born then?
 
-In reply to asking myself that, I say, "If Matthew died in September of that year, then he was sick long before. This was part of his long, slow death rattle."
-
-He'd been sick for months. He'd contracted something terminal, been infected with some terrible, memetic illness earlier that year. Words had been whispered, implications, innuendo, little hints in growing silence and distance. These drilled their way into him, teased out an immune response in the form of defensiveness, then left a husk behind.
-
-Some long winter followed. He had died and crumpled to the ground. He mouldered a while before decomposing into the soil. He lay dormant beneath the earth, waiting for a thaw. Madison began to grow[^intro-grow] during that false spring that hits at the beginning of March, those two weeks of warm weather that convince you that winter must be over, it must have passed and it was time to air out the house, to wash your jackets and hang them up for the year. We always forget about the second winter, but false spring is enough for the buds to peek out.[^intro-change]
-
-Stories are as bound to time as we are, and all we can do is steal back a bit of that memory through however many words. All we can do with these memories pinned in place is regard them from a second level of distance and make guesses. All I can do now is make guesses as to the meaning of however many conversations — those very real words lost to the whims of technology — that lead to the slow and not always but often painful death of who I was.
-
 -----
 
-[^intro-approaches]: The Book of Job, out of all of the books in the Hebrew bible, is buried deepest under layers of guesses. Even in the Christian bible, the only book that comes close is Revelation. Perhaps it is the dire nature by which both approach the world. Job takes a look at the world, heaves a weary sigh, and says, "I suppose this is it. This is the lot we have been given in life." While Revelation looks at the world and growls deep in its throat, a sound coming from the belly, and says, "This must not be it. This cannot be the way in which the world works."
+The Book of Job, out of all of the books in the Hebrew bible, is buried deepest under layers of guesses. Even in the Christian bible, the only book that comes close is Revelation. Perhaps it is the dire nature by which both approach the world. Job takes a look at the world, heaves a weary sigh, and says, "I suppose this is it. This is the lot we have been given in life." While Revelation looks at the world and growls deep in its throat, a sound coming from the belly, and says, "This must not be it. This cannot be the way in which the world works."
 
 Or perhaps it is the way in which they view death. While Job looks on death almost fondly, Revelation reiterates the Christian sentiment that death has been defeated using the genre of apocalypse (that is, a revealing, a pulling back of the curtain). The world that was is no more, and as there is everlasting life beyond it, it is worth considering only in that context and otherwise only worth discarding.
 
-[^intro-thesis]: Gustavo Gutiérrez, in his investigation into the Book of Job *On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent*, posits that Job exemplifies *disinterested religion* --- that is, a non-transactional faith that holds even when there is not a direct benefit or punishment. "[The author of the Book of Job] believes it to be possible, although he undoubtedly knew the difficulty that human suffering, one's own and that of others, raises against authentic faith in God. Job, whom he makes the vehicle of his own experience, will be his spokesman." \parencite[1]{onjob} I find this argument extremely compelling as a way to describe the entirety of Job and its role in both Judaism and Christianity, my own thesis does not necessarily have anything to do with theodicy.
+Gustavo Gutiérrez, in his investigation into the Book of Job *On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent*, posits that Job exemplifies *disinterested religion* --- that is, a non-transactional faith that holds even when there is not a direct benefit or punishment. "[The author of the Book of Job] believes it to be possible, although he undoubtedly knew the difficulty that human suffering, one's own and that of others, raises against authentic faith in God. Job, whom he makes the vehicle of his own experience, will be his spokesman." \parencite[1]{onjob} I find this argument extremely compelling as a way to describe the entirety of Job and its role in both Judaism and Christianity, my own thesis does not necessarily have anything to do with theodicy.
 
 Rather, I'd like to posit that there are at least two possible outcomes for Job *after* the events of the book. On the one hand, Job might follow the path of Qohelet in the eponymous book (called Ecclesiastes in Christian bibles), or he can follow the path of Jonah. That is, he can maintain his disinterested faith, or doubt can overtake him. He can become the wise, if perhaps jaded, author of a text that argues "there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 8:15, NRSV) Or he can become the reluctant prophet who says to God that he is "angry enough to die." (Jonah 4:9, NRSV)
 
-[^intro-symbols]: The framing for The Book of Job takes the form of a fable, a set of universal symbols designed to instruct as well as entertain. The structure is as follows: 
+The framing for The Book of Job takes the form of a fable, a set of universal symbols designed to instruct as well as entertain. The structure is as follows: 
 
 Job is a prosperous and pious man living in the merry old land of Uz. He is wealthy in livestock and in family, with his 7,000 sheep, his 3,000 camels, his cattle and she-asses, his slaves and his ten children. His seven sons love and respect each other, and he loves them all in turn (though he does seem a tad suspicious of their piety, making sacrifices in their names on their appointed days).
 
@@ -73,13 +65,21 @@ Stories are as bound to time as we are, and all we can do is steal back a bit of
 
 Yet again, God gives Job up to the Adversary — "Only preserve his life" — who strikes Job with a rash from head to toe, leaving him to sit among the ashes and scrape at his flesh.
 
-[^intro-adversary]: This is the translation of the phrase in Hebrew, *ha-satan*. Alter notes that it wasn't until much more recently that this was refigured as specifically Satan: "The word *satan* is a person, thing, or set of circumstances that constitutes an obstacle or frustrates one's purposes." \parencite[466]{alter} The Jewish Publication Society concurs. (Job 1:6, JPS) It is a job title more than it is identity. In fact, the transition from the Adversary to Satan himself is fraught. The specifically academic New Oxford Annotated Bible (NOAB) retains the New Revised Standard Version translation as Satan qua Satan, but acknowledges in translation footnotes each time the term *ha-satan* shows up that this is "Or the Accuser; Heb. *ha-satan*". \parencite[736]{noab}
+-----
 
-[^intro-intercalary]: Between the two halves of the fable --- Job's fall and God's reinstatement of him --- lies an intercalary period of at least a week wherein his friends --- Though perhaps this ought to be put in qualifying quotes: "friends" --- Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar[^intro-elihu] commiserate with him, sitting silent for seven days and nights, before the last chapter of the book with the conclusion of the framing device. God commands that Job's friends offer up sacrifices on his behalf, and when they do, all of Job's wealth is restored twice over. 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels and so on, down to seven more sons and three more daughters (which he gives the delightful names Dove, Cinnamon, and Horn of Eyeshade). Job lives another hundred and forty years, long enough to see four generations of offspring, until he dies "aged and sated in years." (Job 42:17, Alter)
+In reply to asking myself that, I say, "If Matthew died in September of that year, then he was sick long before. This was part of his long, slow death rattle."
 
-[^intro-elihu]: There is also Elihu, but more on him later.
+He'd been sick for months. He'd contracted something terminal, been infected with some terrible, memetic illness earlier that year. Words had been whispered, implications, innuendo, little hints in growing silence and distance. These drilled their way into him, teased out an immune response in the form of defensiveness, then left a husk behind.
 
-[^intro-fractions]: Job's life being torn to shreds means that his brief time here on Earth, the only time he has with nothing after it, is one that divides one's life into finite fractions, into a before, a during, and an after. Job is struck for, what, two weeks? We may only guess, as the Adversary's second visit to the sons of God and the Lord. And yet those are two weeks out of a finite number of years.
+Some long winter followed. He had died and crumpled to the ground. He mouldered a while before decomposing into the soil. He lay dormant beneath the earth, waiting for a thaw. Madison began to grow during that false spring that hits at the beginning of March, those two weeks of warm weather that convince you that winter must be over, it must have passed and it was time to air out the house, to wash your jackets and hang them up for the year. We always forget about the second winter, but false spring is enough for the buds to peek out.
+
+Stories are as bound to time as we are, and all we can do is steal back a bit of that memory through however many words. All we can do with these memories pinned in place is regard them from a second level of distance and make guesses. All I can do now is make guesses as to the meaning of however many conversations — those very real words lost to the whims of technology — that lead to the slow and not always but often painful death of who I was.
+
+-----
+
+Between the two halves of the fable --- Job's fall and God's reinstatement of him --- lies an intercalary period of at least a week wherein his friends --- Though perhaps this ought to be put in qualifying quotes: "friends" --- Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (there is also Elihu; more on him later) commiserate with him, sitting silent for seven days and nights, before the last chapter of the book with the conclusion of the framing device. God commands that Job's friends offer up sacrifices on his behalf, and when they do, all of Job's wealth is restored twice over. 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels and so on, down to seven more sons and three more daughters (which he gives the delightful names Dove, Cinnamon, and Horn of Eyeshade). Job lives another hundred and forty years, long enough to see four generations of offspring, until he dies "aged and sated in years." (Job 42:17, Alter)
+
+Job's life being torn to shreds means that his brief time here on Earth, the only time he has with nothing after it, is one that divides one's life into finite fractions, into a before, a during, and an after. Job is struck for, what, two weeks? We may only guess, as the Adversary's second visit to the sons of God and the Lord. And yet those are two weeks out of a finite number of years.
 
 This centers God's response as the sticking point. He spends four chapters responding to Job the conversations that have taken place between him and his friends. While these conversations make up the majority of the book, His response solely in the context of this framing device (which, we must remember, is an older folktale which has been re-cast as a framing device for the rest of the book) gives us a particular flavor of 'God works in mysterious ways' with more nuance than one commonly finds when that phrase is employed.
 
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ Stories are as bound to time as we are, and all we can do is steal back a bit of
 
 And if He does not exist? The folktale and the book as a whole do not depend on the existence of God in their interpretation. They still work to repudiate the idea that, if bad things happen to you, it is because you're a bad person.
 
-[^intro-change]: Our Job, though, our poor, ruined man, has he changed? Has he grown into something new? Has he integrated who he was during those weeks or months of grief with who he was before that? Has he built for himself a new identity? Has he become braver? More fearful?
+Our Job, though, our poor, ruined man, has he changed? Has he grown into something new? Has he integrated who he was during those weeks or months of grief with who he was before that? Has he built for himself a new identity? Has he become braver? More fearful?
 
 There is a saying that, with near-death experiences, there are two likely outcomes. One is that you become a braver, more vivacious person. You live your life all the fuller because you got so close to not living at all. After all, if you have been given a second chance, why not?
 
@@ -101,4 +101,4 @@ Stories are as bound to time as we are, and all we can do is steal back a bit of
 
 And sure, it might be a spectrum, and there's probably that absolute midpoint where there is no change. You make it through that brush with death and come out the other side precisely the same as you were before. There is terror in this prospect, that death might be so overwhelming that there is nothing you can do but wrap that experience up in butcher paper, tie it with twine, and set it up in the attic.
 
-[^intro-grow]: Alter argues that the names that Job gives his new daughters points to a change. "The writer may have wanted to intimate that after all Job's suffering, which included hideous disfigurement and violent loss, a principle of grace and beauty enters his life in the restoration of his fortunes." \parencite[579]{alter} This is indeed a beautiful take on it, too. Job comes out the other side and names his daughters after growing things, beautiful things. Dove and Cinnamon and Horn of Eyeshade, the most beautiful in the land and a sign of Job's joy in living.
+Alter argues that the names that Job gives his new daughters points to a change. "The writer may have wanted to intimate that after all Job's suffering, which included hideous disfigurement and violent loss, a principle of grace and beauty enters his life in the restoration of his fortunes." \parencite[579]{alter} This is indeed a beautiful take on it, too. Job comes out the other side and names his daughters after growing things, beautiful things. Dove and Cinnamon and Horn of Eyeshade, the most beautiful in the land and a sign of Job's joy in living.