So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—

Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres

Trying to use words, and every attempt

Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words

For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which

One is no longer disposed to say it.  And so each venture

Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate

With shabby equipment always deteriorating

In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,

Undisciplined squads of emotion.  And what there is to conquer

By strength and submission, has already been discovered

Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope

To emulate—but there is no competition—

There is only the fight to recover what has been lost

And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions

That seem unpropitious.  But perhaps neither gain nor loss.

For us, there is only the trying.  The rest is not our business.

T.S. Eliot

The Four Quartets—East Coker

1943–1944

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The beginning of June marks the start of GOVERNINGWorks’s third month.  The retirement of Associate Justice David Souter and the nomination of Federal Circuit Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor as Justice Souter’s replacement are among the noteworthy events to have occurred since GOVERNINGWorks began publication.

In addition to having to endure the divided and divisive political maneuvering it would seem we now must expect with a Supreme Court nomination, the politics of biography attends Judge Sotomayor.  Her personal story is impressive.  Her intermittent comments on the role elements of her biography play in her decision-making have added fuel to questions already arising about President Barack H. Obama’s use of “empathy” as a factor in his choice and the relationship of a nominee’s biography, jurisprudence and suitability to serve on the Supreme Court.

Biography is important.  It is not destiny.

“Hermeneutics”—the study of interpretation, especially of Biblical texts—was the single most important challenge I faced in seminary.  When I entered seminary, I began the study of religion, theology, history and law in a new way.  I had studied these subjects in college.  Seminary offered new breadth and depth, including Hermeneutics.

As a seminarian, my teachers (and the line of scholars and religious extending back in time) understood (“presupposed,” is the hermeneutical phrase) that I was to search myself along with books before me.  I was expected (and taught) to question my faith and my life as I questioned the texts before me and the facts related to them.

Hermeneutics did not dominate my studies.  I was not required to declaim my biography on entering the classroom, researching and writing and engaging my colleagues.  I was not expected to generate a specific and unchanging answer to any specific or dispositive question.  There is no necessary or static answer to the question of how biography, faith, understanding and action relate.

Rather, I was expected consciously to investigate and articulate factors relevant to belief, understanding and action.  Hermes, the son of Zeus and Maia, is the messenger, the interpreter.  (Interestingly, he is also the god merchants, thieves and oratory.  Make of that what you will.)  Hermes flits among the gods and humanity interpreting what the gods are on about.  But Hermes does not fix how or what we believe, understand or do.  That is up to us.

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Starting in 1993, Vanity Fair magazine began running The Proust Questionnaire.  It “has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.”  My answers are as follows:

1. 1.What is your idea of perfect happiness?
   

            Music

2. 2.What is your greatest fear?
   

            Ceaseless physical pain

3. 3.What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
   

            Impatience

4. 4.What is the trait you most deplore in others?
   

            Impatience

5. 5.Which living person do you most admire?
   

            My wife

            Andreas Gursky

6. 6.What is your greatest extravagance?
   

            Selvedge denim

7. 7.What is your current state of mind?
   

            Responsive

8. 8.What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
   

            Life without regret

9. 9.On what occasion do you lie?
   

            When asked on what occasions I lie

10. 10.What do you most dislike about your appearance?
    

            Posture

11. 11.Which living person do you most despise?
    

            Robert Mugabe

            Omar Hassan al-Bashir

12. 12.What is the quality you most like in a man?
    

            A personality consisting in perspicacity, clarity, humor & discretion

13. 13.What is the quality you most like in a woman?
    

            A personality consisting in perspicacity, clarity, humor & discretion

14. 14.Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
    

            “I would argue…”

15. 15.What or who is the greatest love of your life?
    

            What:  Music

            Who:  My wife

16. 16.When and where were you happiest?
    

            Paris, March 2004

17. 17.Which talent would you most like to have?
    

            The ability to play the piano

18. 18.If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
    

            The inability to play the piano

19. 19.What do you consider your greatest achievement?
    

            My life with my wife

20. 20.If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
    

            Person:  A concert pianist

            Thing:  An elm tree

21. 21.Where would you most like to live?
    

            Where I am   

22. 22.What is your most treasured possession?
    

            My fountain pen & my pocket US Constitution—gifts from my wife

23. 23.What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
    

            Suicide

24. 24.What is your favorite occupation?
    

            Writing & making coffee

25. 25.What is your most marked characteristic?
    

            Height

26. 26.What do you most value in your friends?
    

            A personality consisting in perspicacity, clarity, humor & discretion

27. 27.Who are your favorite writers?
    

            Irenaeus of Lyon

            Augustine of Hippo

            Peter Abelard

            Theresa of Avila

            Thomas Jefferson

            James Madison

            Alexander Hamilton

            Abraham Lincoln

            W. Somerset Maugham

            Rainer Maria von Rilke

            E.M. Forster

            Sinclair Lewis

            T.S. Eliot

            Robert H. Jackson

            Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

            Richard Wright

            Tennessee Williams

            Paul Celan

            James Baldwin

            Harper Lee

            Richard A. Norris

28. 28.Who is your hero of fiction?
    

            Larry Darrel

            Atticus Finch

29. 29.Which historical figure do you most identify with?
    

            I admire rather than identify with historical figures

30. 30.Who are your heroes in real life?
    

            Augustine of Hippo

            Abraham Lincoln

31. 31.What are your favorite names?
    

            Benezio

            Suki

32. 32.What is it that you most dislike?
    

            Violence

33. 33.What is your greatest regret?
    

            Wasted time & effort

34. 34.How would you like to die?
    

            Peacefully & before infirmity

35. 35.What is your motto?
    

            The agglomeration of:   

            Sapientia non est numerus

            Only connect

            Hell is other people