repetition

From Repetition by Soren Kierkegaard.

If, on the other hand, there is nothing in particular one has to accomplish on one's trip, one can just wait for something to happen. One will sometimes see things in this way that others miss, look past the important sights, catch an accidental impression that has meaning only for oneself. Such a careless vagabond does not usually have much to communicate to others, and if he does try to communicate something, he easily runs the risk of undermining the positive opinion good people might have concerning his moral character and manners

Isn't this what is at work every time I go walking, or engage in conversation, or perform music, or even every time I read? There's a certain amount of gambling to each of these things, but a part of every gamble is being aware of the very real possibility that it will end in catastrophic loss or humiliation or, maybe worse, boredom.

My priorities in reading have very little to do with comprehensive knowledge of a work, or the ability to detail main arguments and trajectories and define terms. And I rarely feel embarrassment about failing to remember, or the way that my memory of a text works (I can never remember cold, I almost always need triggers). Perhaps because, in my opinion, forgetting is the only way to make sense of something or, perhaps, because my interest in smaller matters has usually looped me back around to the heart of the matter anyway.

sewer baptisms

While reading an article about the Paris sewer system, I came across this pasage.

The sensuous flow of water (and even the advocacy of cleanliness in readiness for sexual pleasure) struck at the heart of conflicting concerns with moral purity, hygiene and social order. Washing had long been associated with pagan sensuality in early Christian belief, and, for most of the nineteenth century, the bathroom was restricted to the homes of the rich, tourist hotels and luxury brothels.

Which of course makes me think of baptism, or further connections between morality and cleanliness. This passage makes me notice how infrequent the connections are in the new testament between baptism and moral purity. More frequently, baptism is coupled with death. For instance, in Romans, "By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." Dead to sin, not cleansed from it. Sin as neither crisis nor structure?

A cursory investigation indicates that in the gospels, cleaning and washing are almost always in reference to the body, physical cleanliness and especially disease. The epistles are where cleanliness shows up in reference to morality.