Quote of the Week: Halloween Costume Advice from St Bernard of Clairvaux
October 30, 2009
“You create a monster if you remove a finger from the hand and make it hang from a head, above the hand and on level with the arm.”
St Bernard of Clairvaux, Five Books on Consideration. trans. John D. Anderson and Elizabeth T. Kennan (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1976), 101.
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The trick is knowing whether you are a finger or a head, but to know that I guess you have to be a head in the first place; or submit with all docility to the body part label assigned to you from above.
All who are ears, let them hear.
Dear B:
Why would a finger hanging from a head be “on level with the arm”? Most arms don’t hang from the head. And most fingers aren’t long enough to reach all the way from the head to arm level.
Arms hanging from the head, or head-tethered fingers reaching to arm-level, both indicate that one was working with a monster to begin with, and dismembering it by decorating it with fingers has not actually created a monster.
As I’ve told you before, you really need to take responsibility for your philosophy.
Best,
E