Like a pliant sleeve


 


The title of this post is from Gottfried von Strassburg's magnificent--and unfinished--medieval poem Tristan--in a scene in which Isolde manages by a technicality to be able to conceal her love for Tristan even when swearing while holding a red-hot poker. Thus it was made manifest and confirmed to all the world that Christ in his great virtue is as pliant as a windblown sleeve …’ (… daz der tugenhafte krist wintschaffen alse ein ermel ist)

All of which is an elaborate introduction to a slender theological musing.(actually, it just sprang to mind as an obvious reference--and then I realized that probably 99.9% of people out there would not get it. Such is the mind of a medievalist, even thirty years later.)

The musing is this: isn't it astounding that a medical technician , with a petri dish and a few pipettes (or its equivalent) is able to call down a host of souls from heaven? Isn't it marvelous that a person puttering around in a laboratory is able to force the hand of God so effortlessly, with God performing an array of the greatest miracles in the world--the incarnation of an immortal soul--at command? Moreover, God does this in full knowledge that most of these souls will be thrown back to death in a matter of, at the very most, days?
Is it not marvelous that God the Judge is as pliant as a windblown sleeve to the will of some bozo in a white smock?

Posted: Tuesday - October 31, 2006 at 02:13 AM        

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