BEER Group Read. spring and a burning bush

[John Bailey]

Anyone here have a strong knowledge of the significance of the burning
bush in strands of Jewish mysticism? I only know it through a
half-remembered Catholic childhood, in which the bush was basically an
avatar of God, or maybe just a speakerphone.

The otherworldly light recurs in the novel and Maxine's response to it
changes. What's the 'God' here? I reckon there'll be a few theses
written on it.

Also on certain acts of refusal or turning away. No posting spoilers,
to be polite.

On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> First day of spring. Equinox. A pagan celebration co-opted by The Church. Someone, Laura, wanted
> an example of simple fine writing: how about here, first page, about the Callery Pears on the Upper West Side
> and "sunlight finding its way past rooflines and water tanks to the end of the block and into one particular tree,
> which all at once is filled with light." Such an image, why?
>
> I suggest we get the author's almost-religious love of nature and light, the pantheistic or panentheistic vision, as we wrote
> about it in that Book of Light, Against the Day embodied in that illuminated Callery Pear tree that catches
> secular Maxine like that Biblical bush caught Moses.
> "As a powerful religious symbol, the burning bush represents many things to Jews and Christians such as God's miraculous energy, sacred light, illumination, and the burning heart of purity, love and clarity."--wikipedia
>
> If Oedipa wanted, tried, to hear the Word, but couldn;t Maxine sees god in a Callery Pear tree fifty years later.
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