Strange Loops and Theology, Part 4: Soul Shards and the Imago Christi

In Chapter 1 of I Am a Strange Loop Hofstadter begins with a section entitled "Soul Shards." He then offers us a poignant autobiographical story involving the death of his father. A couple months after his father's death Hofstadter's mother was looking at a photograph of her husband and declared, "What meaning does this photograph have? None at all. It's just a flat peice of paper with dark spots on it here and there. It's useless."

In response Hofstadter writes, "The bleakness of my mother's grief-drenched remark set my head spinning because I knew instinctively that I disagreed with her." Why? Hofstadter goes on to recreate his response to his mother:

In the living room we have a book of the Chopin etudes for piano. All of its pages are just pieces of paper with dark marks on them, just as two-dimensional and flat and foldable as the photograph of Dad--and yet, think of the powerful effect that they have had on people all over the world for 150 years now. Thanks to those black marks on those flat sheets of paper, untold thousands of people have collectively spent millions of hours moving their fingers over the keyboards of pianos in complicated patterns, producing sounds that give them indescribable pleasure and a sense of great meaning. Those pianists in turn have conveyed to many millions of listeners, including you and me, the profound emotions that churned in Frederic Chopin's heart, thus affording all of us some partial access to Chopin's interiority--to the experience of living in the head, or rather the soul of Frederic Chopin. The marks on those sheets of paper are no less than soul-shards--scattered remnants of the shattered soul of Frederic Chopin. Each of those strange geometries of notes has a unique power to bring back to life, inside our brains, some tiny fragment of the internal experience of another human being--his sufferings, his joys, his deep passions and tensions--and we thereby know, at least in part, what it was like to be that human being, and many people feel intense love for him. In just as potent a fashion, looking at that photograph of Dad brings him back, to us who knew him intimately, the clearest memory of his smile and his gentleness, activates inside our living brains some of the most central representations of him that survive in us, makes little fragments of his soul dance again, but in the medium of brains other than his own. Like the score to a Chopin etude, that photograph is a soul-shard of someone departed, and it is something we should cherish as long as we live.

When I read this section from I Am a Strange Loop, I immediately thought of Jesus of Nazareth. Again, Hofstadter is not a religious person, so I hesitate to use this very emotional aspect of his book to make a religious point. But I think in what I’m about to say Hofstadter would agree that I’m making a faithful extension/application of his argument.

To see the theological implication I perceived in Hofstadter’s soul shard speech to his mother let me recast that speech asking you to reflect on a new way to think about the Imago Christi, The Image of Christ that is to live in us:

In the living room we have a book that contains the stories and words of the life of Jesus. All of its pages are just pieces of paper with dark marks on them, just as two-dimensional and flat and foldable as the photographs of the people we love who have died--and yet, think of the powerful effect that those stories have had on people all over the world for 2,000 years now. Thanks to those black marks on those flat sheets of paper, untold thousands of people have collectively spent millions of hours shaping their lives to imitate his life, producing communities and actions that give indescribable pleasure and a sense of great meaning. These saints have conveyed to many millions of people, including you and me, the profound emotions that churned in Jesus’ heart, thus affording all of us some partial access to Jesus’ interiority--to the experience of living in the head, or rather the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. The marks on those sheets of paper are no less than soul-shards--remnants of the soul of Jesus. Each of those letters and words has a unique power to bring back to life, inside our brains, some tiny fragment of the internal experience of Jesus--his sufferings, his joys, his deep passions and tensions--and we thereby know, at least in part, what it was like to be like Jesus, and, thus, many people feel intense love for him. In a very potent a fashion, when the saints celebrate Eucharist, sharing the stories of those who knew Jesus intimately, what is activated inside our living brains are some of the most central representations of Jesus that survive, making little fragments of his soul dance again.