Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - Part of a conversation after reading The Journey of the Magi, by TS Eliot
Hobbes: I didn't really understand all of it. He talked about birth and death mixed up together. Oh! I know! We usually talk about birth as the time when you come out of the womb, but I think that birth is when you first learn something, first have an experience. Maybe at death there is a flash of peace that is like that moment of inspiration at birth.
Calvin: I think the narrator is talking about the death of his old ideas, of his old religion. He travelled to see Jesus, and knew that he had found the truth. Now all his old life, his old religion seemed a waste to him, just a waste of all his past efforts. Now he wants to die, because he is no longer interested in the life around him.
Hobbes: He saw that Jesus was good. I think that Jesus could have been good without going against the Romans and being so famous. If he had gone on being good and teaching quietly, and curing people who were ill, he would have lived to do more good, rather than being killed.
Laura: That's an interesting point. Do you think that Jesus was deliberately causing his own death?
Calvin: Yes - he had to die in that way, it was how he could redeem people from sin.
Hobbes: But he could have done so much more good if he hadn't died then.
Laura: You two are talking about two different aims. Was his aim to do good to the people he met, or did he have to die in order to do more good? (pause) There are some interesting images in the poem - let's look at them. It says, "Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver."
Hobbes: That's chance, gambling away your life - dicing is a kind of gambling, isn't it? Before he saw Jesus, [the narrator's] life was wasted, was gambled away.
Calvin: The pieces of silver: Judas. That predicts the betrayal of Jesus, it's there at his birth.....
Comments
Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - <em>Untitled Comment</em>
Posted by Patricia in Wa
All I can say is WOW!!!!
Patricia
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What I liked about the conversation was how clearly it showed the boys' different approaches.
Laura
Edited by laurainchina on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 3:53 AM
Saturday, January 10, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
Absolutely wonderful. What a great view into their minds and the connections they make.
Anne/Navhelowife/MYW
