I have encountered that period of life where I am becoming reacquainted with my dentist. Those neglected visits have caught up and upon my check-up I was given the option of having them do 'all the work' in one visit or I could spread it out over two of three visits. There was a time when I would want simply to get it over with and suffer through the discomfort in one visit. This time, however, it made sense to spread it out. I take this, in one sense, to be an act of maturity. When faced with discomfort or challenge there is a tendency towards collapsing the tension. We want resolution and so either we drive towards synthesis or reject one or several of the points sustaining the tension.
A recent example of this was my periodic encounter with the threat of disembodiment posed by the internet. In this position I can come to the tempting desire of wanting to collapse the tension between what I see as beneficial and what I see as harmful. If I can reject the benefits (and withdraw my online presence) then I have resolved the tension but at what cost? Perhaps none. It may be that such a decision will only prove edifying for myself and others. But this would not be the result merely of that single decision it would rather assume that I would then venture into and navigate the tensions and paradoxes of other spaces as I can never inhabitant or envelop a collapsed tension but only move in the spaces upheld by tension (and maybe even at times find rest in them).
We cannot collapse the tension of life as a blessing and a curse as much as I can get all my dental work 'over with'. To the extent that I force the collapse of these tensions to that extent I foreclose the possibility of blessing. And here is another paradox. To encounter blessing is to live in curses. Christ's body broken (cursed but spaced for entry). Christ's body resurrected (blessed whole). I am beginning to see my drive towards collapse intellectually and relationally but it is fruitless.
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
- Leonard Cohen
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
The Dream of Collapse
Thursday, May 20, 2010
All at Origin
I am hoping to eventually post more thoroughly on my current reading of Marion's God Without Being but for now I have impressions. The resurrected Christ has been given all. And in turn all has been given to the church,
"so that the church may return it to the Word. . . . In theology it is not a question, any more than elsewhere, of working to a completion yet to come: completion, for the Church, is accomplished definitively at Easter, hence at the origin. Accomplishment occurs at the origin and moreover alone renders it possible, fertile, pregnant with a future. . . . Theology cannot aim at any other progress than its own conversion to the Word."
What came to my mind with regards to 'all' and origins was the notion of conversion. A few months ago I had one of my rare spurts of inspiration around writing fiction. I have been keeping loose journals from around the end of high school. The beginning of my journal writing corresponds exactly with my conversion experience (not to be read in the aorist). I thought that I could use some of those entries as fodder for a character that was a little naive and misguided. So I began to read my entries. They were short, pointed, lacking in style or in poor style but as I read them I began to be moved by a person who I no longer was. A sense of wanting to be converted by him emerged within me. I don't think this is nostalgia and I have no interest in going back but there is something operative in those writings that speaks of an all. I would not become that person if I did convert but perhaps there is a returning to that site or a navigating that site for understanding how the 'all' embraced the particular and remained particular in relation to the 'all'. Are there conceptions of conversion that avoid a static evanglicalism or a banal 'journeying'. Can we understand our conversion as orientation to the One who now orients us? You have abandoned your first love . . . repent and do the things you did at first. (Rev 2:4-5). Marion looks to the Eucharistic site (as so many of the theologians I have been reading do) but I do not find it there yet . . . I am not sure I ever will. Perhaps I will eventually be found there but something is missing.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Plan A and Plan B and a Whole Lot of Drama
The plan (A) once was to find work in an area that I found stimulating, meaningful and rewarding. The plan (B) is becoming about how I can responsibly support my family while remaining faithful to our beliefs and sense of calling. I see these as drastically different plans.
Plan A sought to accommodate to the requirements of particular institutions so that I could fit within them. This has been true about my work in the church. Attaining the relevant education was not a serious issue. I pursued this primarily in a selfish manner (understood in the most faithful way). I even got a chance to do a little teaching. This was also a great experience. By and large I did not feel a great deal of pressure placed on me to mould and be moulded in a particular manner (though all my teaching was as an adjunct or assistant). I tried working in community service for a short time. I have some fond memories but at almost every turn I was confronted with an internal frustration that I still cannot quite articulate. I worked in an environment which, as a whole, wanted me to do something that I either did not understand or did not feel capable of doing. This feeling has been translated in the church. I have worked full time as a pastor for about three years now. There are probably only two aspects of this work that I have really connected with. One, not surprisingly, has been preaching. The church affords me significant prep time and are fairly receptive to my style (although there is some murmuring about it leaning a little to close to lecturing . . . which I think is an accurate criticism at times). The other area, a little more surprising, is in the church's rites of passage particularly funerals and child dedications (weddings not so much). I appreciate these because for the most part I sense that these times are actually meaningful to those who participate. The people involved have their lives intersecting something beyond their usual rhythms. This has happened in other jobs but it appears to occur largely outside the actual stated goals and parameters of the position I am filling. A good part of my time ends up in trying to figure just how I can find the resources to do something that does not make a great deal of sense to me. I pursued pastoring because I loved studying and discussing the Bible and I loved the hope that came when we could vulnerably care and pray for one another. I am hoping in my remaining months at my church that I will reconnect with those things in some way.
So I am fortunate enough to be coming an anticipated shift in my life. I am leaving a job and physically moving to another area. This is a great opportunity. I count it also a slightly more severe fortune that I have not been able to secure any work in Manitoba after my move. I turned down one opportunity and I was passed by on some others.
Two motivations are primarily driving this line of thinking right now. One is an increased sensitivity towards the sort of doxological end that my life is taken up into. We are created as worshiping creatures so I need to be aware of where my knee is bending. Second, I am trying to figure out to what extent to need to 'suck things up' and be happy that I have a job on the one hand or attentively listen to what I might be 'called to' on the other. I feel at times like I am being terribly immature about all this neglecting the great opportunities and work environments that are afforded to me (all this may well boil down to just that). However, I am becoming increasingly aware that not all work is created equal. I have worked some shitty factory-type jobs in which I was more meaningfully connected to my co-workers and I have worked some jobs in which I felt the need to create meaning for a audience that wanted to receive at low cost (if not free . . . well they do have to pay my salary). I need to emphasize that I am not discarding as meaningless everything happening within a given church. But that cannot keep me from clearly articulating, as best I can, the interface of biblical reflection, critical thought, and prayerful posture over top of my ongoing experience. What emerges from this complex? What emerges is a desire to either radically re-configure plan A so that I no longer seek to 'fit' into a professional role. Or it is to follow Plan B which is simply to express that which sustains my spirit and call and allow the so-called necessities of living to become secondary or derivative.
I have heard that someone facing great temptation about how they were to live their life once said a human cannot live by material food alone but rather life is nourished with feeding on every word that comes from God. There are stories of another who cried out,
Come!
All you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread?
Should I listen? I don't even know where that voice is coming from. But something feels near. The voice anticipates and says shortly after,
Seek the LORD while he may be found.
I am really not hoping to be dismissed as suffering from hyperbole or melodrama but it doesn't matter. Marion says that the difference between being and non-being is the difference between a world that can found and fund its own being and the one who is called from non-being into being. I find increasingly a lack of resources (not a lack of looking for them) to found and fund my being and so I do hope in being called forth. I am drawnto plan B but terrified that I may follow it and I am terrified that I may not follow it. I believe that perhaps in this time the LORD may be found. I don't know. What I do know is the impending and persistent approach of slumber that seems to come at times when above all one should be keeping watch.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
A Brief Note On Platitudes
So what was it I was doing with that open letter? The letter was met with mixed responses most of which were confused and more than a little annoyed. I can see now that much of the content was a limp wristed flailing at many things (many of which were not well founded in AUFS). But I have to say that I was quite pleased with responses which ranged from the almost sympathetic to some equally unfounded flailing (fair enough).
One thing that stuck with me was the notion of platitudes which I was accused of making in my statements on motive. I have not wanted to write that criticism off. A number of the commentators either rejected my apparent use of platitudes outright or acknowledged the temptation towards them (even their potential genuineness) despite their ultimate uselessness. I am thinking of this because of my Farewell post that I left this blog with about a year ago. I find looking at it an embarrassment at least the last line. I hoped to spend more time staring out peacefully into the world. The definition of platitude in my Oxford Canadian Dictionary says, a trite or commonplace remark, esp. one solemnly delivered. I think I am guilty on that account. But what keeps a statement from being a platitude? What makes a statement moving? When I wrote that last line I was thinking that simply staring out silently into the world will actually be more beneficial than the time and energy I put into blogging. So why didn't I just say that? I think I am guilty of platitudes primarily because I am bad poet.
Monday, October 06, 2008
On My Own
Well Chantal is off to Thailand for a few weeks. I view myself as a bit of a loner and so I was actually looking forward to some time on my own but as I soon as I got home from the airport the house felt so empty. I guess I am a bit of a suck. Just sitting at home listening to some good lonely music. If any of you have never heard of the fabulous Winnipeg band The Weakerthans then listen up,
Sorry for not posting as much. I have been working on more not-for-public-consumption pieces which have been rewarding but I am sure I will surface here again some time soon.
Friday, September 12, 2008
The Saddest Story . . . Ever
Do you remember when you first started writing stories? The story would inevitably begin with a title and 'Chapter One'. Yesterday I was looking in our junior church library for a children's book to read on Sunday. After finding it I opened it only to find a page on which a kid had started a story. The illustration occupied primary place with a horizon dotted with mountain peaks and the most pressing image being a mountain on which a small dog appeared to be climbing. The mountain was imposing with its peak nowhere to be seen as its side was near vertical stretching beyond the limits of the page, it was also snowing. At the top of the page a few lines were written,Chapter One: The Lost PuppyOnce upon a time a puppy was looking for a home and a name. But nobody wanted him.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The Year was 2002 . . .
August marks the birthday for IndieFaith though the site itself has earlier unknown origins. For those of you who have felt some distaste over the name IndieFaith I will let you into its history. I was originally experimenting with Angelfire's free websites and when you registered your domain name it always began with www.angelife.com the there were some choices for a /directory after which you added your /name. 'indie' was on of the few intelligable subdirectories to choose from and so www.angelfire.com/indie/faith was born. The name itself has always left me feeling a little uneasy. Indie can strike me as too pretentious or too individualistic. Though on the other hand it can also garner feelings of marginal authenticity. I am happy to remain a little uneasy with my title. Here was my original post in IndieFaith Forum,
Theology of presence Theology of covenant, Tomaato, Tomahto. This is a quote from A Homily on Acts 2 “To have faith in the Bible is to believe its promises and to believe in its record of God's work in the life of human history. The Bible then becomes a whole. We see the promise to Abraham, the Exodus out of Egypt, deliverance of the Promised Land, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Acts Church. However, these spectacular events are accompanied by the wandering in the desert, the exile, the destruction of the Temple. For whatever the reason God appears to break into history at different times with varying degrees of force. The Bible gives us no reason to think that, outside of God's own timing, does the present Church body need to perform in the same manner as the Acts Church. If anything the Bible illustrates how consistently we have misunderstood how it is that God will act and fulfill his will. It is impossible to reduce God's Spirit to a formula and so we must ask what it is that God desires of us.” This then is not a theology of presence, but to shift away from the academic, a theology of the present. In light of covenant promises and accounts God’s presence in the past, how is that God speaks to today. For this dilemma I offer another quote, “Theologian Gustavo Gutierrez extends Hegal's notion of philosophy into theology and says that theology rises only at sundown.” We cannot expect a Christian theology unless we commit to working our “days” amidst the brokenness of our world, and then seriously reflecting on that at the end of the day. I walk around my neighbourhood and I see hookers, dried puddles of blood, domestic disputes, and kids with knives. However, I also hear the sound of hammers, children laughing, and gardens being planted. Move past a theology that binds itself by well-seeming borders and opens itself to engage with those it purports to redeem.
Birthday wishes and monetary donations are welcome.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Confession; Or Mixed Martial Artist as Hebrew Scholar
On occasion we run across blog entries that give us a glimpse of the all-too ordinary lives of the bloggers. The bloggers begin with some shame in their confession wondering if the few readers they have could possibly respect them after such a confession. Perhaps it is professor of sociology admitting they watch (and are addicted to) American's Next Top Model or an admitted film snob confessing his guilty pleasures. Well anyway, here goes.
I grew up enjoying wrestling. I had two older sisters and so I never got many chances to wrestle growing up and so I watched the WWF or bush league AWA and wrestled with pillows in my basement. Now, fortunately, over time I drifted away from the wrestling entertainment business and in 1993 I came across something else. I am not sure if I heard about first or simply saw the VHS cover in a small corner store in my town that rented videos. It was called the Ultimate Fighting Championship. 
In retrospect I see something actually quite beautiful in that convergence. It was a truly interdisciplinary step (though it was of course admitted that it favoured some). I lost track of UFC for years until this year. In our recent move we now get some channels that play some UFC matches. Things have changed. There are now time limits and rounds and they stand up the opponents if there is not enough 'action'. The shift has moved away from free-style and is geared now towards a more 'exciting' fight. Plus nearly everyone is now trained in the style Gracie introduced.
This being said I started seeing previews for UFC 87 and got swept up by the hype. The day after the pay-per-view event I scoured the internet looking for highlights. I found my body tensed through each round and my emotions shifting from exhilaration to fear and concern. I witnessed respect and sportsmanship (among most). And heard the stories of those who left Wall Street to fight or how grew up homeless and found this as a way out. And highly anticipated the main event for the night the welterweight champion (and Canadian) George St. Pierre vs the scarper Jon Fitch (if you really want to you can see the fight here).
So anyway, what can I say I really enjoyed the fights. I do not translate this directly into a popular masculine spirituality. How do I justify or understand this expression? To be honest I am not sure. I actually find these matches more respectful than most other sports. In other sports there is always the temptation to 'cheat' in order to gain an advantage. In the UFC I believe the only rules are no biting, eye gauging, punches to the back of the head and groin shots (though they wear cups) and I have never seen someone try to use these things to there advantage. I don't think these guys are saints, but I do think the nature of the sport allows for more 'honest' competition.
I suspect at bottom the allure of these competitions is the basic desire to be King of the Castle to be capable of some expression in which we are able to control our environment. In this way I can relate my interest in mixed martial arts to my interest in Hebrew in college and philosophical theology now. In college I held firmly that the Bible was the final authority on truth and practice and so in order to best control the play of interpretations I studied the biblical languages. In this way I could use this authority to legitimize or undermine interpretations (and thus control the playing field). This gave way to the study of hermeneutics and its role in philosophy. I began to think that there were philosophical assumptions that guided my interpretations and so I needed to master that field in order to remain in control. Our actions are almost always in the service of stability.
. . . Wait! This is supposed to be a confession! Only guilt and shame, no excuses! Anyone else? The pastor is in . . .
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
There and Back Again
Well I am sure all of you were very worried about my pilgrimage into the city. Well I made it and after walking about 30-40 km in day (I had to get a ride back the next day, I was wrecked) I had an entirely new appreciation for those who could run that (although they were likely not carrying a 40lb backpack). The pain really all focused in the hips . . . who knew? Sleeping on the ground probably didn't help either. Anyway, here are some shots from along the way.
In the words of Whitesnake,
here I go again on my own
Goin down the only road Ive ever known,
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone
An I've made up my mind
I ain't wasting no more time
so here I go again . . .
Good grief my driveway was long enough. The one thing I must certainly learned from the last two days is that walking makes the world huge.
My backpack became heavy enough quickly enough so I decided to take the train tracks to save some time.
Stand By Me anyone? Probably wasn't a good a idea.
The cookie cutterization of Baden . . . it was such nice little town.
Well country mouse finally made it to the city and plopped himself down on the first bus stop bench to get downtown. What you didn't see in pictures was an over 5 hour walk that included a brief downpour where I huddled under my tiny $1.50 tarp. Also during which time my hips seized up like an old man.
Next stop was City Hall where I found out there was a free concert going on.
There where not any good acts playing so I decided to try and take a nap in Victoria Park.
After some wandering around and confirming my sleeping arrangements I made it back to the concert to watch Sloan.
I parked myself on the sidewalk where I looked over to see one of the best pieces of theological graffiti that I had seen in awhile. For some reason I like the phrase "All of God". There is a type of totalizing abandon in this phrase fitting of someone like God and well there are worse adjectives to use of God than 'insane'.
After the show I headed towards my 'camp site' which was a cemetery on a Mennonite church property on the edge of the downtown area. I debated internally on the ethics of sleeping in a graveyard but felt in the end that it should be on of the most welcoming of spaces and accessible to the weary traveler.
The first spot a lay down at looked good but when I got up to look around I was faced with this guy and he royally freaked me out.
So I moved over and lay next to a Gascho and certainly did not sleep like the dead that night. I tossed and turned and slept intermittently after which I got up at about 5:30 and hit the street again with my wobbly hips in search of breakfast and whatever was to come . . .
Monday, July 28, 2008
When they ask about the stones . . .
Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. . . . Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been [a] in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day. - Joshua 4:5-7, 9
Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor. Joshua said, "Why have you brought this trouble on us? The LORD will bring trouble on you today." Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. - Joshua 7:24-26a
They were picked up from the river bed, exposed for the first time to sun and air. The stones of the river bed settled and secure in water remained always dry. What is God comes from the deep.
When your children ask tell them, "You are God's because you have come from the deep." As the stone is dry our life is from the deep but the deep does not penetrate entering our sanctuary though God is our sanctuary and perhaps God is the deep. Tell them also if you want to look for God then look to the deep. Holiness is deep and perhaps the deep is holy.
They picked stones in the valley and hurled them at Achan, his wife, sons and daughters. The stones met with the soft resistance of flesh bloodied with life but dry inside, always dry, purely dry. Gather the stones and when your children ask about them, tell them, "God possess all and God takes what is not gift. God takes all those that take as God takes. We have not God's eyes though we extend our reach as though we can possess. What God has given can be received. It can be received because God has given. What you take, God takes back, always even if it takes longer than Achan. You will feel the stones of greed, hatred or age and these stones will shake loose all that your hands grasp. And things will return to God as they already were."
Tell them that . . . when they ask.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Life is not for us; Life is not for me . . . Life was not for him
Life is not for us; Life is not for me
These words came clear and true. These words dismantle thoughts and plans. There is simply no reason to believe that this life is for us. This certainly does not mean that life is not good. Our manner of living is the construction of spaces that allow us to experience as though life is for us. This is, I suspect, idolatry. An intermediary was required for the unforgiveness and overwhelmingness of nature. It is claimed that this too was the role of Yahweh and Christ's Father. I recently watched Into the Wild which dramatized the life of Christopher McCandless (aka Alexander Supertramp; self-photographed above shortly before his death). McCandless attempted to live outside the constructs of life-for-us as he wander the US with little or no money. His pathology eventually led him to Alaska and an ill prepared stint of living alone in the wild. His time in Alaska became more and more grim in the movie as food grew scarce. I knew the movie was almost over and I was waiting for a 'magical rescue' a la Hollywood so that all would be well. But Christopher died. As far as movies go, I am hesitant to say this, but I was happy it ended that way. There was no triumph of the human spirit (well there was triumph of the spirit but not of the mind or body). Is this perhaps the other end of the spectrum? Existence without the constructs of life-for-us is in fact non-existence. Life/nature has no need for us and will outlast us without flinching.
What then of the relationship between the biblical God, humanity and nature? First, we are by no means the gods of nature. We are neither her saviour or destroyer. I have no answer to this. I suppose that for now I went to be more fully convinced that life is not for me and that the constructs of life-for-us are in fact idolatrous. I think there remains though something of wild. Not perhaps of McCandless' wilderness but of a more holy as wildness. Here again my reading of Williams is not far from mind. Williams on Augustine's spirituality,
There is no rest in mere self-awareness, because to know the self properly is to see it in the midst of the vast landscape [read wilderness] of God's workings, a landscape with no human map, trusting only to the hand of God.
. . .
The mystery of Augustine's God is not the static and solitary purity of Plotinus's "One;" timeless and unchangeable as he is, Augustine's is rather the inscrutable God who speaks out of Job's whirlwind and makes himself known in a dying man - not "far above," but penetrating every corner, mysterious with the tragic and terrifying mysteriousness of experience and history.
The question then becomes the monastic one of fleeing the world (life) and still living in the midst of it; Of living outside the constructs of life-for-us and still promoting life, or of life after the death of life. But first let me contemplate simply that life is not for me, life is not for us. May this lead in part to a type death and so perhaps to a type of life. A life-for-God
Thursday, October 11, 2007
A Hope of Movement and a Movement of Hope
My hope is to begin making significant shifts in whatever 'free' time I have in the coming days. My reading and writing has been demonstrating too many aspects of compulsivity. What can I read that will make for clever posting? What can I write that will engage a wider audience? Daily hits are up (normally reaching double digits!) and according to Google Analytics I have hosted visitors across the globe. Though I know I should not I remain under a subtle illusion that my work here will somehow surface as 'significant' in writing something either thoughtful or provocative. There are seasons where deadlines, clear structures and clear goals stimulate helpful thought. This season is closing for myself (though I hope to experience its warm evening breezes again). I hope to move into a hibernation where I might find undemanding spaces of contemplation. Ideas, memories, pathologies must be given some room to engage each other internally as though in a highly confidential support group. Guest speakers may be allowed to visit occasionally but they will be of a different sort than the harsh pedagogues they have been co-habitating with recently.
I hope to continue to post here but I will not be anxious as daily hits begin to reflect my own visits and the few and faithful who have remained (for almost five years now!). I have been reading on and posting on the possibility of change or transformation. I hope to engage more fully in the process now. This is not to say that a forum of expression such as this cannot be a part of someone's transformation. In my case the hope of writing for recognition has demanded too much control and vanquished transformation's subtle (I did not, and would not, say weak) movement.
No matter how we articulate our positions or what our political or religious orientation we remain all too bent on conquest. We do not believe that it is possible to receive a gift, to be touched. We do not believe that there exists in life sufficient (never mind abundant) spaces where time gives of herself. Well, okay I have not believed. Time may yet be our lover but we have been all too aggressive with her.
I have experienced movement and it has given me hope for movement. Achievement and status are not our friends. They have taken their turn with time and left her vengeful on any who would take advantage again. This is all turning out very poetic as I do indeed have time early this morning where autumn colors dapple the valley of trees out my window and the morning hues of pink and blue are just beginning to gain intensity. I have time and I peace right now and for this I am thankful. I can do no more.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Letter 10 - Rilke, Art and Life
This is the final paragraph in the last letter that Rilke wrote to Franz Kappus,
Art too is only a way of living, and, however one lives, one can, unwittingly, prepare oneself for it; in all that is real one is closer to it and more nearly neighbored than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend proximity to some art, in practice belie and assail the existence of all art, as for instance the whole of journalism does and almost all criticism and three-quarters of what is called and wants to be called literature. I am glad, in a word, that you have surmounted the danger of falling into this sort of thing and are somewhere in a rough reality being solitary and courageous. May the year that is at hand uphold and strengthen you in that.
I suspect that most of us with some appreciation towards the arts feel a little sting in Rilke's parting words. I also suspect that Rilke is not interested in criticizing professions as such but in criticizing those who "pretend proximity". Nature, reality and truth will not be fooled. Rilke believes that they can be trusted, but this in turn means that they must be trusted. We cannot fool or manipulate art and beauty. Proximity and presence is key both to the formation of identity and to the healthy relationships with others. Rilke's call inward demands that we begin analyzing or most primal walls, those interior walls that divide our passions, goals and compulsions. What have ghettoized in our self? What is it in us that remains hermetically sealed? This movement is necessary first because it in turn affects our external sensual reality. In greater self-understanding we develop courage and stability to allow ourselves to "presence" reality and not pretend proximity. There is no peer review here that can validate our interior and the movement is not natural. Much of Rilke's admonishing focuses around receiving the difficult. This can of course be reduced to pathology and veiled masochism, but this is not truly difficult. The relationship between presence and difficulty is key here. To experience presence we need identify particular dividing walls and either dismantle or at least gate them. Walls, however, are the very essence of our grasp for control and power. To take down a wall is contrary to the nature individual self-preservation, or at the very least it is an act of trust beyond one's self. The movement of difficulty is the movement of de-centralizing a personal position of power. This however, is also the movement and possibility of presence, even communion.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Remains a Traction
If we are fortunate we will encounter still, quiet thoughts; thoughts unadorned or at least modestly dressed. Much of life loses its traction in these spaces. Almost all becomes small and space expands and breath moves naturally like the sea. These times exist but most often come after humbling.
In our waking and clamoring thoughts we are at the work of tower building and border fighting. We have not taken time to see what is past the first wave of thistles in fallow ground. They too have their season and are not eternal. There is a moment of trust in taking your hand off the plow.
And trust is what it comes to. Trust is all of nothing. Trust is the hole in the middle (but it is and must be the middle); the delicate space between two people. This is a space we long to secure with law or force but as we clutch at the other in need or aggression the space dissolves yields itself without resistance.
But recall the quiet awful strength in that absence. Remember that moment of lonely self-truth. Is there something that finds traction in such absence? Let it linger.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
The Great Dead-End in the Sky (revised)
After taking my crash course in transcendence and immanence via Blog U I finally gave myself just enough time to reflect a little on what I was talking about. I came quickly and securely to the conclusion that there is no "outside" but of course many outsides. There are many boundaries to cross and many mysteries of many more boundaries.
I always wondered as a kid whether some astronaut would travel so far into outer space that they would encounter a wall. I pictured this wall overwhelmingly black and monolithic. The problem was that there was always an unconscious question of perspective when imagining this wall. If it was indeed a wall in the grand sense of dead-ends then to what extent did it spread out and how it could not have already been visible from every perspective in every place? It seemed to me that if you encounter this wall of immanence than you will at once be surrounded by it forced into the realization that there never really was any space. But if there is no immanence and no wall to encounter then we remain exploring the outsides of this great inside and the question of God sheds it coat and stretches its arms . . . outward.
And then of course there was the more pressing question for me as a child. If I encountered this wall was there anything with which I could dig through it?
To finally get back to one comment made by N.Pepperell from Rough Theory made below.
The debate then comes down to whether meaning can be grounded only by a reach "outside", or whether something immanent and relational is instead possible.
I can't imagine a non-relational possibility.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
What is it Again that I am Doing?
I am beginning to challenge my sub-title of exploring A Social and Theological Cartography. I think that my work is sufficiently theological but I am not sure what I mean by exploring a “social cartography”. I do not have much of a head (or at least background) for social and political theory. I am of course concerned with the social in terms of place, people and relationships (of whatever sort; economic, physical, cultural, linguistic, etc.).
What is it exactly, however, that I am “charting”? As it stands my sub-title appears to be dividing the sacred and secular. However, my guiding image is the quote by Rilke which speaks of the other world which is this one. In many respects my cartographic method is more literary/aesthetic/poetic (with a touch of philosophy) than social (at least in terms of theory or method). Am I charting social and theological realities or am I in the end simply trying to chart The Real via these tools. If I may be so presumptuous as to assume that I hope to chart reality (leaving the term unqualified) then I think it may be unnecessary or inappropriate to speak of my work as a “social cartography” as I have been more or less convinced of the modern construction of the social. I am not entirely comfortable with the adjective “theological” mostly because I do not find myself working alongside many of the theological projects in the blogosphere (I am using this reference given my medium).
Somewhere in the midst of this is a concern for holiness or the sacred and the forms it takes or the forms we shape around it. My guiding image of what a map is flows from the Tabernacle which was embedded in the life of Hebrews and helped them navigate the reality of God-Among-Us. Perhaps I hope to map the sacred. But this too is not right. The most sacred space in the Tabernacle or Temple was between the wings of Cherubim and was an absence. Is it then a phenomenology of the sacred? Perhaps. But I don’t know enough about that term to use it.
Do I resign myself to pursue
A Social and Philosophical/Aesthetic/Theological Cartography . . . of (Sacred?) Reality.
Perhaps all that we end up charting is ourselves, our interior and exterior location (see posts and comments below) and three-dimensional structures (such as the Tabernacle and culture) are built as our maps are further constructed in relationship.
And, if prostrated, perhaps the sacred will move within.
Monday, July 09, 2007
The Lord's Left Hand
I had a dream last night that I was punching someone's face. After some time the man I was punching said to me, "You know your right hand really makes an impact but I can hardly feel your left." Lately I have been reflecting on my future education possibilities. My recent reading has reawakened some old interests that I wanted to pursue when I was at McMaster. As I was thinking about how I might eventually pick this back up a memory from high school struck me. Having reached 6 feet around grade 9 I was a pretty good little basketball player. However, as I grew older one guy noticed that I never dribbled with my left hand. He constantly exposed this weakness in me. It was of course at this time that I remembered the dream from the night before. Even if my overall goal was to be a basketball player (or boxer, or a theologian, or a pastor, or a Christian, etc.) I still need to develop the weaker aspects of my game. I suppose this observation is common enough but it is nice to be struck by it (with a relatively gentle left) in a timely way.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
A Line in History
When I asked him about whether it was good or healthy that he made fun of that part of his life he responded by asking, “How do you break a line in history?” I took this to mean either how you break the line of history or how you create a line in history. How do separate then from now? This is what I took him to mean. However, what he said was, how do you break a line in history. Perhaps it should be read, how do you break a line in history. Humour or especially laughter assumes a sense of distance and perspective. This is certainly true in the cruelty and self-preservation of laughter. Here laughter insulates or objectifies.
Perhaps this is not humour at all but something else. True humour may be the precise opposite. Humour allows the raw absurdity of reality to have its way if only for a moment but it is also more than this. Humour (godly humour?) allows this reality to hit us, to flow in and through us, in a posture of faith that transcribes its significance for us.
“We will laugh about this someday” is a gesture of hope that can be realized. One day we will find ourselves in a position of both vulnerability and security in which certain lines of history (and there are many) can be broken and forever transformed.
