A week of fasting has now gone by, and we're just about a quarter of the way completed. It's a been a long, slow week which seems to have passed quickly.
I'm marking some work on Donne's Batter my heart… sonnet. It's fascinating how often students substitute a comfortable, cliched idea of what Donne is talking about for the shocking actuality. Self protection, I suppose. Perhaps that's why religious scriptures are prey to sometimes egregiously wrong-headed interpretation. We need to defend ourselves against the remorseless, painful reality with which they confront us, and reading into them what we would like to have them say helps build necessary barriers.
I've sometimes found that reading English versions of The Holy Qur'an is a bit like being subjected to an assault. I suppose the fact these versions are in English serves as some kind of protection against its insistent, remorseless probing.
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