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Advent Book Club - The Un-born
Dec. 20th, 2020 11:17 pmWell, I eventually bought Frequencies of God by Carys Walsh which friends had decided to read as an online Advent book club, but not until after lockdown ended and then I've been poor at actually reading it and haven't been moved to blog before today.
But the time between getting into the Cathedral and the start of the carol service was a good chance to read reflectively (and having been put very near the dais, there was enough light.
It's based around the poems of R.S. Thomas and today's was The Un-born
The thing that struck me about it was the pronouns. I've been involved in various conversations of late around the pronouns to use for God and what I found very odd here is that the unborn child is "it" throughout. I've noticed some (usually older things) us it of foetuses and even small children and I find it very odd. It might make sense in German where it is Das Kind and Das Mädchen, i.e. grammatically the words for child and girl are neuter but I find it really odd and somewhat dehumanising. I tried playing with replacing it with they/them as I read it, but that still felt weird.
I'm not sure I really grasped what Thomas was getting at in the middle passage and Walsh's explanations didn't really elucidate the bits I didn't get.
"Was its part written" this had resonances with Psalm 139, but weirdly not with the bit that Walsh quotes.
She says she quotes vv13 &14, although in fact it's 13-15
But not verse 16:
But the time between getting into the Cathedral and the start of the carol service was a good chance to read reflectively (and having been put very near the dais, there was enough light.
It's based around the poems of R.S. Thomas and today's was The Un-born
The thing that struck me about it was the pronouns. I've been involved in various conversations of late around the pronouns to use for God and what I found very odd here is that the unborn child is "it" throughout. I've noticed some (usually older things) us it of foetuses and even small children and I find it very odd. It might make sense in German where it is Das Kind and Das Mädchen, i.e. grammatically the words for child and girl are neuter but I find it really odd and somewhat dehumanising. I tried playing with replacing it with they/them as I read it, but that still felt weird.
I'm not sure I really grasped what Thomas was getting at in the middle passage and Walsh's explanations didn't really elucidate the bits I didn't get.
"Was its part written" this had resonances with Psalm 139, but weirdly not with the bit that Walsh quotes.
She says she quotes vv13 &14, although in fact it's 13-15
13For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
But not verse 16:
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
