Levinas

I think I shall persist with Levinas rhyming with Aquinas. It's Lithuanian and all I know about that is there was this one woman a friend in common I had with that woman who wanted her name pronounced Alana all well and good but then why did she spell it Elena. And why should I pronounce it the a la mode Francaise, it's not like they are offering me a free pastry and French pastries are overrated, not enough sugar if you ask me, and deep frying always adds yeah yeah damn french with their self-assured snobbery they can insult you even without looking at you or saying anything, hey I like my food deep friend and I am not going to apologize to any french person for my peasant tastes unless she is very attractive and wearing something in lycra

I am a little troubled. I don't think it's my failure to understand Levinas, that after all is my success. OCI is a speck on the horizon, in the good sense. I have a Primer of Syriac Grammar and an invitation to Kottayam for 21-23 September which I think is next week. What I really want to pick up from Kottayam is an Iron Cross, not the German kind the kind with the Holy Spirit descending upon a budding empty Cross resting on three steps and a Lotus, with an iron chain. But obviously I'll get some text books and have a Syriac Lesson or Induction day don't want them thinking I am not interested. A man can want two things at once and still ask to be taken seriously I hope.

Oh I nearly commented over breakfast but thank god I was more interested in me toast and chai and that curried sago type thing upon which I put two large spoonfuls of sugar, yep Sr Anna from Thailand, I think they are planning to fail her but they haven't quite told her yet. Problem is no one is certain how much English she understands. When she arrived in May she couldn't speak a word. So she has improved a lot. She mentioned she teaches dance therapy at a hospital and a hostel for young women in Thailand, either that or I completely misunderstood her. So she wants some assistance with the assignments which have to be done in English. I was going to mention well in England you'd get done for racism you accepted her on the course took her money and now you are saying she shouldn't have come unless she was fluent in English, how do you think English Universities boost their funding. But what's the point eh. I did mention when Fr Matthew the course director suggested I not attend the counselling/psychology sections but a spirituality class was starting on the 17th when he didn't seem to know what exactly the module was just spirituality whether he might give me a clue where the class would take place, and I continued, in England we have things called timetables but here it seems to me more some sort of grapevine in Malayalam and things could change minutes before the class starts. Generally if I am the only one standing around in the corridor either I am very keen or someone from another class lets me know where they have all gone, and when I get there I am redirected somewhere else. Luckily I don't have to do assignments though I like bullshitting so I do them anyway.

But like I said I concentrated on my toast. Not much point in getting involved unless I intend to appeal to Senate and the Indian Legal System and as far as I can tell it really doesn't work that way over here. Sr Anna is an unimportant sister from an unimportant congregation based in Thailand which DVK does not appear to want to forge long term deep relations with. They could print her a Diploma but they aren't going to, it's not to maintain standards, it's to maintain the kudos of the printed diploma, it's a bit like an old fashioned knighthood, if you start doling them out to slimy creepy businessmen, transvestite singers and football players then all the snobs who would have paid big money for one are going to get themselves a Harvard MBA instead.

Oh yes and I managed to work out that when Levinas talks of Le Visage, he doesn't I believe make any comparison with the Carmelite/Catholic devotion to the Holy Face which after all is a face, features of the Cross Carrying Christ as revealed to the True Icon Veronika and is behind many a modern gnostic thriller detective hunt novel. Because he seems certain that the face has no features, when people make the usual ah it is hard for a soldier to kill someone face to face, or what Fr Jose suggested in his intro lecture yesterday, when a child beggar confronts you with her large eyes etc, he just ignores peeps. He means more no one can see the face of God and still walk with men. That kind of face does not have features, Le visage se devisage. The Face defaces itself. He has a thing for making up reflexive verbs.

The point of life is to confront the Face and walk no more with men. In the Other, in the command thou shalt not kill, only complete self-renunciation follows. Instead of pain and misery oh the injustice, woe is me, when all is said and done as the Japanese fairy tale relates, the King and all his courtiers burst out into peals of laughter. It's the slap in the face that could be a kiss. Ah as he puts it the true revolution never ends, but it is done in secret in catacombs and never joins up to demonstrate and shout in the street.

I understand how he found it so difficult to forgive Heidegger. The Americans describe Heidegger as a German Red neck, and one who could sing like an angel. You want to forgive him, you know you must, but then everything you have partially eaten, all the undigested world rises up in your throat and if you start to spue you when will it end. But then I find it hard to forgive those who know not how to timetable.

La petite bonte he suggested, I don't know what that means but he is like Therese you have to be willing to be ground back into the earth smaller and smaller, la petite bonte aren't things, not little wrapped sweeties to hand out to beggars. It's what the Other invites you to become. How could you ever forgive anyone who learnt to sing the song and then