This Christmas, my parents definitely surprised me by giving me a Playstation 3, something I had neither asked for nor expected. I was very thankful, but a little surprised by the selection of games that accompanied it: Skyrim, Borderlands 2, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II. All of them were rated R particularly for graphic violence (Borderlands 2's cover is a man in a bloody, eyeless mask pretended to shoot himself in the head- ironically, it's one of my favorite games for the sardonic interpretation of the meaningless of violence, but that might be me reading into it a bit :).
Call of Duty, however, was by far the most graphic and violent of the three games, not only because of the knifing but because of its stark realism, rather than the almost cartoonish style of Borderlands. But I digress. One of the intriguing aspects of the game was the multiple endings available to the player based on a few decisions you made, all of which seemed to be unconnected to the actual decision (I read about all the endings on wikipedia after I finished the game and was thoroughly disappointed). For instance, if you choose to shoot a man in the head or in the chest, he'll either die or come back at the very end. If you choose to shoot a different man in the head or the knee, he'll either die and sink with the ship or the Chinese air force will come to his aid and he'll survive. Did I mention it was violent?
The most gratuitous, however, was a decision you had to make as a mole in a terrorist organization. The leader, the villain of the story, forces you to kill a captured soldier, one of the main characters in the plot line. As the mole, you can either kill the soldier or try to shoot the leader (you fail if you do). But get this: if you try to shoot the leader, a cyber attack will be unleashed at the end of the game, the leader will escape from prison, and snap the neck of an old soldier in a wheelchair. As I read this on wikipedia, I was instantly regretting my decision to not kill the captured soldier, but later thought better of the decision, considering the limits of my knowledge.
To be cliche, hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to see after the facts the outcome of a decision and realize that things would have been different if you had chosen otherwise. This is the foundation of wisdom and repentance But we cannot hold ourselves accountable to something that we couldn't have known. When reading or watching a murder mystery again, it's easy to point out and read into the story who the culprit really is- but it fails to treat the first time viewer fairly, who could never have been expected to know the ending. Likewise with the Bible, it's easy to think that some of its characters are idiots and completely lack faith (some did, much as we do). But that's because we know the ending of the story- they didn't.
In my ethics class this past semester, we talked extensively about consequentialism, an ethical theory that suggests that an action is morally right or wrong based on its outcome. It's an attractive theory in many ways, including our intuition that we should try to do the most good that we can. Consequentialist theories all suffer some issues, but I think the crucial issue is this: we're not in a position to know the outcome of our actions. True, we can reasonably assume certain outcomes and should be held accountable if we do something foolish even with good intentions, but we really don't know the full ramifications of any given action; we know that dropping a pebble in water will cause a splash, but we don't know where the ripples end. We can't know the full consequences of our actions. God does.
I think that we can't always see why a particular action is good, or why, when God gives revelation to a person, telling them to do something absurd, that action will (ultimately) end well. But we're not in a position to know that, and we have to believe God. Faith is a fundamental aspect of the moral life, because we are not the ultimate moral arbiters of the universe. And thus, even though my choice had a terrible outcome, I shouldn't have shot the captured soldier in Call of Duty.
(I personally think that a version of virtue ethics is probably the best way of looking at Christian ethics, but that's another story :)
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Update
I'm currently writing this on my phone as I drive through the Pacific Northwest, road tripping with my sisters. I'm in Idaho right now, which might be my new favorite state (though that might just be me reacting to the vacuum that is Wyoming).
That being said, I might not write for a while until I get home again (which won't be until late June, maybe even into early July. But I also have had a lot of thoughts I'd love to write on. For instance, the necessity of pain and discomfort for joy (partially inspired by Wyoming, sleeping in a tent in below freezing weather), the connection of the limits of our knowledge with moral responsibility (as seen in Call of Duty: black ops II), as well as what's the difference between pain and shame (not sure-but has that ever stopped me from writing?)
Anyways, I hope all of you are well and I will share my hundred pictures of mountains and trees from my trip when I get a chance!
That being said, I might not write for a while until I get home again (which won't be until late June, maybe even into early July. But I also have had a lot of thoughts I'd love to write on. For instance, the necessity of pain and discomfort for joy (partially inspired by Wyoming, sleeping in a tent in below freezing weather), the connection of the limits of our knowledge with moral responsibility (as seen in Call of Duty: black ops II), as well as what's the difference between pain and shame (not sure-but has that ever stopped me from writing?)
Anyways, I hope all of you are well and I will share my hundred pictures of mountains and trees from my trip when I get a chance!
Friday, June 7, 2013
Self- Rejoinder
In my last blog post, I mentioned that the
ability to keep thoughts to oneself is a crucial part of a healthy mental
state. I stand by that statement, and definitely think that in the context of
me writing a blog, I needed to realize that it is good for me to be quiet.
However, not because I need to be more quiet (though, as many of you would be
quick to note, I could always be more quiet :), but because thinking in the
context of a conversation makes my thoughts inauthentic and fake. This is what
I wanted to get at.
A good friend, as good friends do, questioned
and clarified her thoughts on the statement "Blogging,
while increasing introspection, has a propensity to starve the unexpressed
thought, a staple of having a healthy mental life." She noted that it is
important to also have the communication and, if I may take some liberty, the
communion, of expressing your thoughts among people that matter. And I agree,
claiming that this is a much more foundational stake of a flourishing human
life than keeping one's thoughts private.
Here's a better resolution of what I was going
to say. The aspect of the human heart I was trying to point out is that we all
deeply yearn for acceptance and belonging. We want people to think that we are
good, worthy of their praise, and worthy of them. At times, this makes me feel
like a little child, yelling
"EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME I AM SUPER DUPER AWESOME."
Sometimes I do that. And yet, at other times, this deep desire to belong is
beautiful, is painful, is meaningful.
Here then is vulnerability- that we want to be
accepted by others, for who we are, by those of whom we desire their esteem.
The problem is that we are imperfect, and others do not accept us in our
imperfection. And so we fake ourselves, putting on masks to please and placate
others. It's stupid and I hate it.
This is partially why I hesitated to continue
blogging- because it makes me think about how I can make my thoughts acceptable
(or worse, praise-eliciting). And then I don't think what I think, I think what
I think you (you vague, diffuse notion of my general audience) want me to
think.
So, in agreeing with my friend, true
vulnerability requires me to be honest and unreserved about who and where I am.
And this requires the expression of my thoughts, the risk of being rejected,
and the
bravery of authenticity.
However, I think my previous point about the
need for an internal privacy of thought still has hold here in vulnerability.
Because just as true vulnerability requires us to be ourselves, it requires the
people that we want to be considered worthy by are the people worthy of giving
us their opinion. (As an aside, there is still a naive, childish element of me
that just wants the whole world to love me, but a more mature side recognizes
that there are certain people that I could care less what they think of me. In
fact, I think the reason that I still want their acceptance is not to be
accepted, but out of a fear that their criticisms or judgments would be true of
me- not that they don't love me, but that there is something about me that is
unloveable. Maybe.) There is something exclusive about true vulnerability- it
means that we are judging somebody as being more worthy of knowing us. Perhaps
this is true only in a broken, sinful, world, but it is very true (and deeply
impacts how we experience love). Think about marital intimacy- as
Christians love to (rightfully) proclaim, choosing to marry somebody means
rejecting everybody else, and having an exclusive relationship with your
spouse. Think about true worship- it means claiming that God is above all else,
and that we will have no other gods- and not just "before" Him, but
even with Him. Read Hosea. (I think there's a lot of interesting things to be
said about this, but I shall retire).
In conclusion, retaining thoughts for yourself
have a dual role- in a practical way, they mean that we don't share parts of
ourselves that we think are unacceptable. And while vulnerability is important
for us particularly in our brokenness and sinfulness, perhaps it is better to
remain quiet about your faults than to mask them with falsehood. In the end,
though, this is unhealthy and inhibits true vulnerability, which inhibits true
friendship and connection. Secondly, though, retaining your thoughts is a way
of suspending the need to be accepted by others and becoming authentic-
thinking what you think not through the lens of others, but for yourself (which
I don't endorse as always right- heaven knows that I need to be corrected as
much as anybody, but I also need to be myself.)
And so I have more thoughts. And I'm not going
to share them. At least not on a blog :)
A Self-Rejoinder
In my last blog post, I mentioned that the ability to keep thoughts to oneself is a crucial part of a healthy mental state. I stand by that statement, and definitely think that in the context of me writing a blog, I needed to realize that it is good for me to be quiet. However, not because I need to be more quiet (though, as many of you would be quick to note, I could always be more quiet :), but because thinking in the context of a conversation makes my thoughts inauthentic and fake. This is what I wanted to get at.
A good friend, as good friends do, questioned and clarified her thoughts on the statement "Blogging, while increasing introspection, has a propensity to starve the unexpressed thought, a staple of having a healthy mental life." She noted that it is important to also have the communication and, if I may take some liberty, the communion, of expressing your thoughts among people that matter. And I agree, claiming that this is a much more foundational stake of a flourishing human life than keeping one's thoughts private.
Here's a better resolution of what I was going to say. The aspect of the human heart I was trying to point out is that we all deeply yearn for acceptance and belonging. We want people to think that we are good, worthy of their praise, and worthy of them. At times, this makes me feel like a little child, yelling "EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME I AM SUPER DUPER AWESOME." Sometimes I do that. And yet, at other times, this deep desire to belong is beautiful, is painful, is meaningful.
Here then is vulnerability- that we want to be accepted by others, for who we are, by those of whom we desire their esteem. The problem is that we are imperfect, and others do not accept us in our imperfection. And so we fake ourselves, putting on masks to please and placate others. It's stupid and I hate it.
This is partially why I hesitated to continue blogging- because it makes me think about how I can make my thoughts acceptable (or worse, praise-eliciting). And then I don't think what I think, I think what I think you (you vague, diffuse notion of my general audience) want me to think.
So, in agreeing with my friend, true vulnerability requires me to be honest and unreserved about who and where I am. And this requires the expression of my thoughts, the risk of being rejected, and the bravery of authenticity.
However, I think my previous point about the need for an internal privacy of thought still has hold here in vulnerability. Because just as true vulnerability requires us to be ourselves, it requires the people that we want to be considered worthy by are the people worthy of giving us their opinion. (As an aside, there is still a naive, childish element of me that just wants the whole world to love me, but a more mature side recognizes that there are certain people that I could care less what they think of me. In fact, I think the reason that I still want their acceptance is not to be accepted, but out of a fear that their criticisms or judgments would be true of me- not that they don't love me, but that there is something about me that is unloveable. Maybe.) There is something exclusive about true vulnerability- it means that we are judging somebody as being more worthy of knowing us. Perhaps this is true only in a broken, sinful, world, but it is very true (and deeply impacts how we experience love). Think about marital intimacy- as Christians love to (rightfully) proclaim, choosing to marry somebody means rejecting everybody else, and having an exclusive relationship with your spouse. Think about true worship- it means claiming that God is above all else, and that we will have no other gods- and not just "before" Him, but even with Him. Read Hosea. (I think there's a lot of interesting things to be said about this, but I shall retire).
In conclusion, retaining thoughts for yourself have a dual role- in a practical way, they mean that we don't share parts of ourselves that we think are unacceptable. And while vulnerability is important for us particularly in our brokenness and sinfulness, perhaps it is better to remain quiet about your faults than to mask them with falsehood. In the end, though, this is unhealthy and inhibits true vulnerability, which inhibits true friendship and connection. Secondly, though, retaining your thoughts is a way of suspending the need to be accepted by others and becoming authentic- thinking what you think not through the lens of others, but for yourself (which I don't endorse as always right- heaven knows that I need to be corrected as much as anybody, but I also need to be myself.)
And so I have more thoughts. And I'm not going to share them. At least not on a blog :)
A good friend, as good friends do, questioned and clarified her thoughts on the statement "Blogging, while increasing introspection, has a propensity to starve the unexpressed thought, a staple of having a healthy mental life." She noted that it is important to also have the communication and, if I may take some liberty, the communion, of expressing your thoughts among people that matter. And I agree, claiming that this is a much more foundational stake of a flourishing human life than keeping one's thoughts private.
Here's a better resolution of what I was going to say. The aspect of the human heart I was trying to point out is that we all deeply yearn for acceptance and belonging. We want people to think that we are good, worthy of their praise, and worthy of them. At times, this makes me feel like a little child, yelling "EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME I AM SUPER DUPER AWESOME." Sometimes I do that. And yet, at other times, this deep desire to belong is beautiful, is painful, is meaningful.
Here then is vulnerability- that we want to be accepted by others, for who we are, by those of whom we desire their esteem. The problem is that we are imperfect, and others do not accept us in our imperfection. And so we fake ourselves, putting on masks to please and placate others. It's stupid and I hate it.
This is partially why I hesitated to continue blogging- because it makes me think about how I can make my thoughts acceptable (or worse, praise-eliciting). And then I don't think what I think, I think what I think you (you vague, diffuse notion of my general audience) want me to think.
So, in agreeing with my friend, true vulnerability requires me to be honest and unreserved about who and where I am. And this requires the expression of my thoughts, the risk of being rejected, and the bravery of authenticity.
However, I think my previous point about the need for an internal privacy of thought still has hold here in vulnerability. Because just as true vulnerability requires us to be ourselves, it requires the people that we want to be considered worthy by are the people worthy of giving us their opinion. (As an aside, there is still a naive, childish element of me that just wants the whole world to love me, but a more mature side recognizes that there are certain people that I could care less what they think of me. In fact, I think the reason that I still want their acceptance is not to be accepted, but out of a fear that their criticisms or judgments would be true of me- not that they don't love me, but that there is something about me that is unloveable. Maybe.) There is something exclusive about true vulnerability- it means that we are judging somebody as being more worthy of knowing us. Perhaps this is true only in a broken, sinful, world, but it is very true (and deeply impacts how we experience love). Think about marital intimacy- as Christians love to (rightfully) proclaim, choosing to marry somebody means rejecting everybody else, and having an exclusive relationship with your spouse. Think about true worship- it means claiming that God is above all else, and that we will have no other gods- and not just "before" Him, but even with Him. Read Hosea. (I think there's a lot of interesting things to be said about this, but I shall retire).
In conclusion, retaining thoughts for yourself have a dual role- in a practical way, they mean that we don't share parts of ourselves that we think are unacceptable. And while vulnerability is important for us particularly in our brokenness and sinfulness, perhaps it is better to remain quiet about your faults than to mask them with falsehood. In the end, though, this is unhealthy and inhibits true vulnerability, which inhibits true friendship and connection. Secondly, though, retaining your thoughts is a way of suspending the need to be accepted by others and becoming authentic- thinking what you think not through the lens of others, but for yourself (which I don't endorse as always right- heaven knows that I need to be corrected as much as anybody, but I also need to be myself.)
And so I have more thoughts. And I'm not going to share them. At least not on a blog :)
Thursday, May 30, 2013
A Brief Explanation
As some of you may have noticed, I stopped blogging for about a week and a half. Part of it was probably just me getting over the traditional Nathan Thompson giddiness and excitement and actually settling in to see if I'll do this for a whole summer. But here are two other reasons I stopped blogging (and will hopefully figure out whether it's good to continue).
The first reason is that I don't think I'm a natural blogger. First, I'm long-winded. This may be hard for you to believe, but I like to talk. A lot. And I don't know yet how to effectively convey what I think in a concise and interesting fashion, or at least to the degree that I want to. But I think this gets to the deeper issue, which is that I'm built to be a conversationalist. I can definitely talk, but I love to listen. Perhaps more to my fault, I love to please and I need to know what people think of what I think in order to feel comfortable or validated. As infantile as it may sound, there's a good portion of me that simply wants to be patted on my head and told that I wrote a good blog post every time I write something. Blogging offers none of these benefits, however, because the whole enterprise consists of finding yourself and throwing it out to the murky quagmire of the Internet, in which you can't really receive meaningful feedback or begin a deep conversation. Perhaps this is the nature of art, to be unsure of your effect...or perhaps it's just me being childish and needy, and not receiving feedback makes me more confident in my own thoughts. Or maybe it's a bit of both.
The second reason I haven't enjoyed blogging as much is because it is an inherently self-centered activity (not that all bloggers are selfish, but that the act of blogging is). I actually somewhat hope that nobody noticed that I stopped blogging, because it would give too much weight to what I'm pursuing here. It also has an air of pretense about it, that my musings are in some way worth mentioning. And not that I don't think that my thoughts have some value, but that I'm an individual who spends time coming up what he thinks about certain subjects so that he can pontificate about them and write them down so others can appreciate and admire them. I noticed a change in my thinking the first week I was blogging, in that every interesting thought I had was a potential subject to expound upon. And while I obviously didn't write on everything that I thought of that week, there was a lack of the sort of "internal theater of the mind," in which I alone (and, I suppose, God) can ponder and consider something. Blogging, while increasing introspection, has a propensity to starve the unexpressed thought, a staple of having a healthy mental life. For some reason, I think of Mary in Luke 2, when she "treasures all of these things in her heart;" that the tremendous joy, confusion, excitement, and uncertainty of her child being the Messiah was not a good subject for Instagram, a facebook status, or a blog. Instead, it's proper place was simply within her own heart, needing no further an acknowledgement than herself and God.
So, I'll see if I'll continue to blog. As with all things, there is a good way and a bad way to do it. Hopefully I can continue to learn to blog in a good way.
The first reason is that I don't think I'm a natural blogger. First, I'm long-winded. This may be hard for you to believe, but I like to talk. A lot. And I don't know yet how to effectively convey what I think in a concise and interesting fashion, or at least to the degree that I want to. But I think this gets to the deeper issue, which is that I'm built to be a conversationalist. I can definitely talk, but I love to listen. Perhaps more to my fault, I love to please and I need to know what people think of what I think in order to feel comfortable or validated. As infantile as it may sound, there's a good portion of me that simply wants to be patted on my head and told that I wrote a good blog post every time I write something. Blogging offers none of these benefits, however, because the whole enterprise consists of finding yourself and throwing it out to the murky quagmire of the Internet, in which you can't really receive meaningful feedback or begin a deep conversation. Perhaps this is the nature of art, to be unsure of your effect...or perhaps it's just me being childish and needy, and not receiving feedback makes me more confident in my own thoughts. Or maybe it's a bit of both.
The second reason I haven't enjoyed blogging as much is because it is an inherently self-centered activity (not that all bloggers are selfish, but that the act of blogging is). I actually somewhat hope that nobody noticed that I stopped blogging, because it would give too much weight to what I'm pursuing here. It also has an air of pretense about it, that my musings are in some way worth mentioning. And not that I don't think that my thoughts have some value, but that I'm an individual who spends time coming up what he thinks about certain subjects so that he can pontificate about them and write them down so others can appreciate and admire them. I noticed a change in my thinking the first week I was blogging, in that every interesting thought I had was a potential subject to expound upon. And while I obviously didn't write on everything that I thought of that week, there was a lack of the sort of "internal theater of the mind," in which I alone (and, I suppose, God) can ponder and consider something. Blogging, while increasing introspection, has a propensity to starve the unexpressed thought, a staple of having a healthy mental life. For some reason, I think of Mary in Luke 2, when she "treasures all of these things in her heart;" that the tremendous joy, confusion, excitement, and uncertainty of her child being the Messiah was not a good subject for Instagram, a facebook status, or a blog. Instead, it's proper place was simply within her own heart, needing no further an acknowledgement than herself and God.
So, I'll see if I'll continue to blog. As with all things, there is a good way and a bad way to do it. Hopefully I can continue to learn to blog in a good way.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Work, Rest, and Manatees
It's incredible how quickly one reverts to a child when you come home.
Today, when my mother woke me up at 10:00 am to do yard work and clean the house before our relatives arrived for my graduation, I was mildly peeved. When I was a child, I would usually respond internally with a "you can't make me!" And as an adult, I responded internally with, "I am autonomous adult with the freedom to decide what ends I will pursue!" More or less the same thing, with just a few more big words thrown in.
And while I was working, I put on a podcast from Door of Hope, which happened to be on work. I hate how conviction works that way. The podcast reminded and rebuked me of two things.
First, I am not the center of the universe, and life is not about me. If I am a Christ-follower, my life is not my own and I should not be asking what should I do so that I am fulfilled, but rather what would Christ have me do that I might bring him glory. It's humbling, but what I needed to hear.
Secondly, a quote from the podcast really caught my attention: "What if Christ does not fill the empty cup we bring to him, but rather smashes it pieces, bringing freedom not from our darkness and dissatisfaction, but freedom from our felt need to escape it?"
Ouch.
I think this problem stems from a problematic understanding of what if means to be a Christian, and what it means to enter into rest, as the author of Hebrews considers in chapter 4. When I hear the phrase , "enter into my rest," I think of Jesus' call "Come to me all you who are heavy-burdened and I will give you rest." Most of the time, that's associated with our pain, struggles, and frustrations in life. And Christ, as the Good Shepherd and Prince of Peace, does bring freedom from that sin in our lives that causes such pain. But he does not do it because it makes us happy; he does it because it is good (I want to go on a tangent here, but I think it'll be better as another blog post later).
Sometimes, I think we view the Christian life like a medieval painting of a saint or an Orthodox icon- where they're super thin, have an expressionless face, doing that weird, two-finger "peace thing," and literally glowing with golden holiness. They're completely clean, untroubled, and static. And, if we did the Christian life well enough, we would transcend all the suffering, pain, and misery of human existence. We would go into some sort of zen-state that distances us from the evils of the world and "just be."
That's the spiritual equivalent of a manatee. Jesus did not make us to be manatees.
Life is difficult and hard, but that is good. And until we recognize that our work and striving is supposed to be challenging, sometimes painful, and often confusing, we can't enter into true rest and true peace. Paradoxically, you can't be a "zen-saint" by trying to be a zen-saint; you can't achieve happiness and fulfillment by seeking it. You see, when I'm at home, I just want to play video games, sleep, and eat good food that I don't have to pay for. Yet relaxing only satisfies in the context of work. There's a good satisfaction after you've just gone on a good run, or put in a good day's work, or accomplished a major assignment. Work, and rough, unpleasant work at that, is a necessary part of the fulfilled Christian life- the Sabbath only makes sense in context of a week of work.
Entering into rest is not about seeking stasis and the things we want, it's about seeking the things that are good (again, to be expounded upon in a later post) and finding, nay, being surprised by the happiness and peace. If I ever hear the Father say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant," it will not be on the basis of me having believed the Gospel, having grandiose theological reflections, or praising him with beautiful worship. It will be on the basis of me working, not earning anything, but responding in my life when I do not want to obey Christ by obeying him nonetheless. It will be on the basis of serving, not when I think it's fulfilling, but when it is seemingly to my detriment. It will be on the basis of my surrendered life expressing the Gospel proclamation that Christ is King of all.
The Kingdom of God is advancing forcefully, and violent men attack it (Matthew 11:12). There are no manatees in the Kingdom of God. Our peace and rest comes not from stasis or distance from the world, but from Christ working in us and through us.
Today, when my mother woke me up at 10:00 am to do yard work and clean the house before our relatives arrived for my graduation, I was mildly peeved. When I was a child, I would usually respond internally with a "you can't make me!" And as an adult, I responded internally with, "I am autonomous adult with the freedom to decide what ends I will pursue!" More or less the same thing, with just a few more big words thrown in.
And while I was working, I put on a podcast from Door of Hope, which happened to be on work. I hate how conviction works that way. The podcast reminded and rebuked me of two things.
First, I am not the center of the universe, and life is not about me. If I am a Christ-follower, my life is not my own and I should not be asking what should I do so that I am fulfilled, but rather what would Christ have me do that I might bring him glory. It's humbling, but what I needed to hear.
Secondly, a quote from the podcast really caught my attention: "What if Christ does not fill the empty cup we bring to him, but rather smashes it pieces, bringing freedom not from our darkness and dissatisfaction, but freedom from our felt need to escape it?"
Ouch.
I think this problem stems from a problematic understanding of what if means to be a Christian, and what it means to enter into rest, as the author of Hebrews considers in chapter 4. When I hear the phrase , "enter into my rest," I think of Jesus' call "Come to me all you who are heavy-burdened and I will give you rest." Most of the time, that's associated with our pain, struggles, and frustrations in life. And Christ, as the Good Shepherd and Prince of Peace, does bring freedom from that sin in our lives that causes such pain. But he does not do it because it makes us happy; he does it because it is good (I want to go on a tangent here, but I think it'll be better as another blog post later).
Sometimes, I think we view the Christian life like a medieval painting of a saint or an Orthodox icon- where they're super thin, have an expressionless face, doing that weird, two-finger "peace thing," and literally glowing with golden holiness. They're completely clean, untroubled, and static. And, if we did the Christian life well enough, we would transcend all the suffering, pain, and misery of human existence. We would go into some sort of zen-state that distances us from the evils of the world and "just be."
That's the spiritual equivalent of a manatee. Jesus did not make us to be manatees.
Life is difficult and hard, but that is good. And until we recognize that our work and striving is supposed to be challenging, sometimes painful, and often confusing, we can't enter into true rest and true peace. Paradoxically, you can't be a "zen-saint" by trying to be a zen-saint; you can't achieve happiness and fulfillment by seeking it. You see, when I'm at home, I just want to play video games, sleep, and eat good food that I don't have to pay for. Yet relaxing only satisfies in the context of work. There's a good satisfaction after you've just gone on a good run, or put in a good day's work, or accomplished a major assignment. Work, and rough, unpleasant work at that, is a necessary part of the fulfilled Christian life- the Sabbath only makes sense in context of a week of work.
Entering into rest is not about seeking stasis and the things we want, it's about seeking the things that are good (again, to be expounded upon in a later post) and finding, nay, being surprised by the happiness and peace. If I ever hear the Father say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant," it will not be on the basis of me having believed the Gospel, having grandiose theological reflections, or praising him with beautiful worship. It will be on the basis of me working, not earning anything, but responding in my life when I do not want to obey Christ by obeying him nonetheless. It will be on the basis of serving, not when I think it's fulfilling, but when it is seemingly to my detriment. It will be on the basis of my surrendered life expressing the Gospel proclamation that Christ is King of all.
The Kingdom of God is advancing forcefully, and violent men attack it (Matthew 11:12). There are no manatees in the Kingdom of God. Our peace and rest comes not from stasis or distance from the world, but from Christ working in us and through us.
Friday, May 17, 2013
An Update!
Salutations!
I just wanted to let you know that as part of my studies and reading, I've decided to do a brief book review of every book that I read. It's useful to help me process my general reflections on it, as well as to summarize a bit of the big picture. Most of them will consist of an introductory overview, a collection of my own thoughts and the author's thoughts I considered interesting (whether right or wrong), and then two rankings- one for the book's accessibility, the other for the book's worthiness to be read. Obviously all just my opinion :)
Also, feel free to comment on what I've written- there's this bizarre rift in electronic communication that distances you from reaction and response. For blogging, there's not even the useful facebook "like" or "seen by ..." features, so I lack the ability to converse about these things with others. Since you all know me to be a conversationalist, feel free (but not obligated) to comment or ask me more about what I've been thinking about!
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Deer and LPDL
I was in Madison last night, enjoying time with friends and celebrating a friend's recent engagement. We were at a bar, but I decided not to drink because I had to drive the hour home. I headed out about 11:00pm. While I was driving, I began to contemplate the difference between pain and shame (I might write on that later). And while I was musing off in my head, a deer ran out in front of me, I slammed on my brakes, my car fishtailed for a while over my lane, and I ended up on the shoulder of the road. If the deer hit my car, it must have only grazed the side of it because it left no mark.
The most baffling part of the whole experience was probably how detached I was from the whole experience. There was no tension of anxiety or fear, no panic tightening of the wheel, no urgent prayers as I lost control of my car. Just me thinking abstractly that it would probably be wise to steer my car into a straight direction as best as possible and slow down in the process.
This made me wonder- if we put a legal limit on the amount of alcohol one has in your system because it impairs your ability to see, react, and make proper judgments, should we restrict the level of abstract thought when driving because it seemingly impairs my natural reaction to danger? (I don't think I saw the deer any later or reacted any slower necessarily, but I definitely was not engaged with how to control my car after I started to swerve. My friend and fellow philosophy major Abby experienced a similar thing as she was considering Berkeley and metaphysical realism (she's smart, in case you couldn't tell).
So here's my modest proposal for a rough equivalency for alcohol levels and the legal philosophical depth level (LPDL):
Alcohol-Level Philosophical Equivalent
Completely Sober Sports Center, iCarly
Buzzed, Light-headed Philosophy for Dummies, a really good fortune cookie
Tipsy, Really Giddy Good political/religious conversation with friends
Drunk Descartes, G. E. Moore,
Wasted Drunk Most existentialists, most Russian authors/playwrights
Blacking-out Questioning your existence, Thinking about what causes you to think
Alcohol Poisoning Hegel
Anybody at the Tipsy-level would be subject to a warning, and anything more would be subject to citation for negligent driving. Let me know if you think the system's fair :)
The most baffling part of the whole experience was probably how detached I was from the whole experience. There was no tension of anxiety or fear, no panic tightening of the wheel, no urgent prayers as I lost control of my car. Just me thinking abstractly that it would probably be wise to steer my car into a straight direction as best as possible and slow down in the process.
This made me wonder- if we put a legal limit on the amount of alcohol one has in your system because it impairs your ability to see, react, and make proper judgments, should we restrict the level of abstract thought when driving because it seemingly impairs my natural reaction to danger? (I don't think I saw the deer any later or reacted any slower necessarily, but I definitely was not engaged with how to control my car after I started to swerve. My friend and fellow philosophy major Abby experienced a similar thing as she was considering Berkeley and metaphysical realism (she's smart, in case you couldn't tell).
So here's my modest proposal for a rough equivalency for alcohol levels and the legal philosophical depth level (LPDL):
Alcohol-Level Philosophical Equivalent
Completely Sober Sports Center, iCarly
Buzzed, Light-headed Philosophy for Dummies, a really good fortune cookie
Tipsy, Really Giddy Good political/religious conversation with friends
Drunk Descartes, G. E. Moore,
Wasted Drunk Most existentialists, most Russian authors/playwrights
Blacking-out Questioning your existence, Thinking about what causes you to think
Alcohol Poisoning Hegel
Anybody at the Tipsy-level would be subject to a warning, and anything more would be subject to citation for negligent driving. Let me know if you think the system's fair :)
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
The "Meta" : Marx, Magic Tricks, and Santa Claus
I remember going to my public library when I was in early elementary school and watching a magic show that they put on for free. The magician, of average skill, performed tricks like transporting a handkerchief, having a floating ball, or the perennial deflating wand. While most normal children were probably enjoying the show, I was obsessed with understanding how the tricks worked. The following day, I returned to the library to check out more books for the summer reading program and to inform the librarian (ironically, my future co-worker) that I had figured out all of his tricks. I was a bit pompous growing up.
But I did the same thing with any musical or theater production- whenever there was a costume change, some flash powder, or some cables in play, I inevitably left the context of the play and fixated on how the actors got that to work. I was also the kid who figured out in first grade that Santa Claus didn't exist because there was no possible way that he could travel to every single house (the majority of which, coincidentally, did not have chimneys) in the span of a single night given the bounds of time. There was no explanation of how it was done, and so it was absurd in my young mind.
We have an innate desire to know what something really is, an explanation on the "meta-level" of why something is. I think this is the root of philosophy, of science, and of curiosity in general. But one of the fundamental errors we make is to conflate an explanation of "how" with an explanation of "why." Instead of envisioning the broader context, we find the explanation in reducing things to the simplest possible terms. Look at Freud- he argued (per se) that every aspect of human decision was determined by sexual desires. Look at Marx- mankind can be defined by their work, their resources, and the relations that people form with them. Look at any modern psychological or physiological theory- everything can described and defined in terms of microbiology, which is described in terms of chemistry, which is described in terms of physics. The evolutionist (or reductionist, more broadly) thinks that the answer to why is the answer to how.
This is backwards, and intuitively so. If I were to ask why we have acid in our stomachs, it would be a bizarre answer to tell me that it's there because the stomach lining pumps out HCl with other enzymes on a regular basis. Instead, the answer ought to be because the acid breaks down our food so that we can digest it and be nourished from it. An answer of "how," which inherently looks down, can never really answer "why," which always looks up. The description of how something functions is of great epistemological use, but only because it has a function, and a function is inherently a question of why something exists. Think about erotic love- B. F. Skinner would have you think about it in terms of sexual drives, positive and negative reinforcement, and socialization. C. S. Lewis (read: the right answer :) would have you think of it in terms of marriage, family, and society.
Consider a more interesting case: fiction, and literature at large. When you read fairy tales or Santa Claus, there's something implausible at the surface, and further explanation is needed. Because we don't see elves running around snatching up babies or Santa dropping off toys, we can either see that they're the product of German housewives trying to instill moral lessons to their children so that they behave, or that they convey a more general truth about the way the world is, that righteous living is rewarded, courage and friendship are valuable assets, and that justice will ultimately be served. Even though I have weird intuitions about truth and beauty (I'll have to do a blog post on that sometime), I think the latter explanation is truer to what we want.
The same is true of the Bible. We can either treat it as a religious text that came about hodge-podge through the centuries and reflected cultural values and basic human fears, or we can treat it as a divinely inspired text that changed and influenced people's cultural values, fears, and very lives. We can opt for the "how" explanation, and reduce it to the product of human society, or the "why" explanation, and see its function for conveying divine revelation.
In the end, the "why" explanation takes us deeper into the realm of reality than the how explanation, even though this is counter-intuitive. We want to think that the physicist is connected to nature in a way that the philosopher cannot. Yet when we consider life, consider our place and thinking in it, I believe that the physicist says many things that are not obvious or forseeable. The "how" explanation, at the end of the day, is very strange, very foreign, and not really the basis of our experience of reality. Yet the philosopher explains things in a way that we simultaneously never thought of and yet instantly recognize as being the way the world is- he reveals something we already knew, where the physicist reveals something we could have never known intuitively. This intuition, this "Platonic remembering," is the root of how we understand reality (whether you think so or not-I'd love to hear your thoughts though). And, though I would love to delve deeper into this and dissect it, I can merely say that this is why (not how) we intuitively look for and consider the upward question of "why" and not the downward question of "how" to be meaningful.
But I did the same thing with any musical or theater production- whenever there was a costume change, some flash powder, or some cables in play, I inevitably left the context of the play and fixated on how the actors got that to work. I was also the kid who figured out in first grade that Santa Claus didn't exist because there was no possible way that he could travel to every single house (the majority of which, coincidentally, did not have chimneys) in the span of a single night given the bounds of time. There was no explanation of how it was done, and so it was absurd in my young mind.
We have an innate desire to know what something really is, an explanation on the "meta-level" of why something is. I think this is the root of philosophy, of science, and of curiosity in general. But one of the fundamental errors we make is to conflate an explanation of "how" with an explanation of "why." Instead of envisioning the broader context, we find the explanation in reducing things to the simplest possible terms. Look at Freud- he argued (per se) that every aspect of human decision was determined by sexual desires. Look at Marx- mankind can be defined by their work, their resources, and the relations that people form with them. Look at any modern psychological or physiological theory- everything can described and defined in terms of microbiology, which is described in terms of chemistry, which is described in terms of physics. The evolutionist (or reductionist, more broadly) thinks that the answer to why is the answer to how.
This is backwards, and intuitively so. If I were to ask why we have acid in our stomachs, it would be a bizarre answer to tell me that it's there because the stomach lining pumps out HCl with other enzymes on a regular basis. Instead, the answer ought to be because the acid breaks down our food so that we can digest it and be nourished from it. An answer of "how," which inherently looks down, can never really answer "why," which always looks up. The description of how something functions is of great epistemological use, but only because it has a function, and a function is inherently a question of why something exists. Think about erotic love- B. F. Skinner would have you think about it in terms of sexual drives, positive and negative reinforcement, and socialization. C. S. Lewis (read: the right answer :) would have you think of it in terms of marriage, family, and society.
Consider a more interesting case: fiction, and literature at large. When you read fairy tales or Santa Claus, there's something implausible at the surface, and further explanation is needed. Because we don't see elves running around snatching up babies or Santa dropping off toys, we can either see that they're the product of German housewives trying to instill moral lessons to their children so that they behave, or that they convey a more general truth about the way the world is, that righteous living is rewarded, courage and friendship are valuable assets, and that justice will ultimately be served. Even though I have weird intuitions about truth and beauty (I'll have to do a blog post on that sometime), I think the latter explanation is truer to what we want.
The same is true of the Bible. We can either treat it as a religious text that came about hodge-podge through the centuries and reflected cultural values and basic human fears, or we can treat it as a divinely inspired text that changed and influenced people's cultural values, fears, and very lives. We can opt for the "how" explanation, and reduce it to the product of human society, or the "why" explanation, and see its function for conveying divine revelation.
In the end, the "why" explanation takes us deeper into the realm of reality than the how explanation, even though this is counter-intuitive. We want to think that the physicist is connected to nature in a way that the philosopher cannot. Yet when we consider life, consider our place and thinking in it, I believe that the physicist says many things that are not obvious or forseeable. The "how" explanation, at the end of the day, is very strange, very foreign, and not really the basis of our experience of reality. Yet the philosopher explains things in a way that we simultaneously never thought of and yet instantly recognize as being the way the world is- he reveals something we already knew, where the physicist reveals something we could have never known intuitively. This intuition, this "Platonic remembering," is the root of how we understand reality (whether you think so or not-I'd love to hear your thoughts though). And, though I would love to delve deeper into this and dissect it, I can merely say that this is why (not how) we intuitively look for and consider the upward question of "why" and not the downward question of "how" to be meaningful.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Hugo
Today, I was working in my garden and dug up the stumps of two small trees in the back yard. When my sisters and I grew up, we called the one on the right Hugo (his brother was Hector, I want to say? Hector was the neglected tree). Hugo often served as the home base for tag, the hiding spot for ghosts in the graveyard, and even the "ghost runner" for our perennial whiffle ball games. Hugo was badly damaged in a storm, and had to be cut down. As an arbor vitae tree, his name literally means "Tree of Life." And all while I was working, disassembling a part of my childhood, the only thing I could think was:
There has got to be some metaphor I can use this for on my blog.
But I couldn't find it.
But now that I shared a fun story, here's something else I've thought about recently. This is a somewhat shameful confession, but sometimes when I hear sermons in evangelical churches that always bring the whatever passage they're preaching back to the cross, and I'm a little incredulous. (I'm steeling myself for the metaphorical rocks all of you are about to stone me with). But seriously, when preaching through a genealogy in the book of Numbers, can you really read the crucifixion into it? When David was composing Psalm 23, was he really thinking about how Jesus would die for his sins? It seems to stretch the texts more than just a bit. And yet, I love to look at Old Testament typology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typology_(theology) ) and see how the institution of sacrifice models Christ's later saving work, how Joshua leads the Hebrews into the promised land where Moses, representing human attempt to follow the law, fails (and, that Joshua and Jesus actually have the same name? I'm geeking out over here). What's the difference?
While some sermons seem ad hoc to bring in the cross where it really doesn't appear (think about the dimensions of the Temple, for instance) I think the issue I have with sermons always coming back to the cross is that they mistake the cross as the entire story, rather than just the climax of the story. It would be akin to saying that Harry Potter killing Voldemort is a good summary of the Harry Potter series, or that the only important thing in Lord of the Rings is that the Ring was destroyed in Mount Doom (not tracking those series? You must have such a sad life). Likewise, what Christ accomplished on the cross is of central importance and without it, Christianity makes no sense. Yet it alone is not enough to make sense of our world or our God.
Without the Fall, the cross is unnecessary. Without the Law, the cross is confusing. Without Isaiah and the Babylonian Exile, the cross lacks anticipation. Without Hosea, Judges, or much of the OT, the cross is unmotivated. Without the resurrection, the cross is meaningless. As we look at the whole of Scripture, we see a grand overarching story that tells of a good creation, a human rebellion and a breach of faith, and a God who acts to redeem and restore a broken humanity. The whole history of the Bible, the bizarre institutions of the Old Testament, the craziness that is the book of Revelation all have a part in telling this story. The cross has a central part- but remember, it is only a part. It is the capstone of God's rescue plan, but not its entirety; the power of salvation, but not its completion (As Paul commands- work out your salvation, then in fear and trembling? Not that we work for our salvation, but that its effects and truth in our lives have not yet been completed).
At the end of the day, I really don't have an issue with sermons coming back to the cross. It puts the message in a familiar context and gives it relevance to the bigger picture. When done correctly, putting the message in terms of the cross puts it also in terms of God's grand scheme of redemption, of which the cross is the culmination. And that, I believe, is the first half of good preaching.
There has got to be some metaphor I can use this for on my blog.
But I couldn't find it.
But now that I shared a fun story, here's something else I've thought about recently. This is a somewhat shameful confession, but sometimes when I hear sermons in evangelical churches that always bring the whatever passage they're preaching back to the cross, and I'm a little incredulous. (I'm steeling myself for the metaphorical rocks all of you are about to stone me with). But seriously, when preaching through a genealogy in the book of Numbers, can you really read the crucifixion into it? When David was composing Psalm 23, was he really thinking about how Jesus would die for his sins? It seems to stretch the texts more than just a bit. And yet, I love to look at Old Testament typology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typology_(theology) ) and see how the institution of sacrifice models Christ's later saving work, how Joshua leads the Hebrews into the promised land where Moses, representing human attempt to follow the law, fails (and, that Joshua and Jesus actually have the same name? I'm geeking out over here). What's the difference?
While some sermons seem ad hoc to bring in the cross where it really doesn't appear (think about the dimensions of the Temple, for instance) I think the issue I have with sermons always coming back to the cross is that they mistake the cross as the entire story, rather than just the climax of the story. It would be akin to saying that Harry Potter killing Voldemort is a good summary of the Harry Potter series, or that the only important thing in Lord of the Rings is that the Ring was destroyed in Mount Doom (not tracking those series? You must have such a sad life). Likewise, what Christ accomplished on the cross is of central importance and without it, Christianity makes no sense. Yet it alone is not enough to make sense of our world or our God.
Without the Fall, the cross is unnecessary. Without the Law, the cross is confusing. Without Isaiah and the Babylonian Exile, the cross lacks anticipation. Without Hosea, Judges, or much of the OT, the cross is unmotivated. Without the resurrection, the cross is meaningless. As we look at the whole of Scripture, we see a grand overarching story that tells of a good creation, a human rebellion and a breach of faith, and a God who acts to redeem and restore a broken humanity. The whole history of the Bible, the bizarre institutions of the Old Testament, the craziness that is the book of Revelation all have a part in telling this story. The cross has a central part- but remember, it is only a part. It is the capstone of God's rescue plan, but not its entirety; the power of salvation, but not its completion (As Paul commands- work out your salvation, then in fear and trembling? Not that we work for our salvation, but that its effects and truth in our lives have not yet been completed).
At the end of the day, I really don't have an issue with sermons coming back to the cross. It puts the message in a familiar context and gives it relevance to the bigger picture. When done correctly, putting the message in terms of the cross puts it also in terms of God's grand scheme of redemption, of which the cross is the culmination. And that, I believe, is the first half of good preaching.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
A Modest Introduction
I have no idea how to start my first blog post.
I think that's about the fifth introduction I've tried so far, and for lack of a better one, it's what we're going with.
The reason I wanted to start a blog was to have a creative outlet for my first summer in which I don't have to do... well, anything. I'll be heading out in the fall to Yale Divinity School and I'm spending a good amount of my time reading theology books to help prepare me. Ideally, this blog can serve as a place for me to process some of what I'm reading as well as a place to not entirely lose my writing abilities over the summer. I'll probably end up posting my thoughts on theology, life, and everything else about once or twice a week.
But more importantly, I hope this blog is an opportunity to let you, my friends, into my mind and life more than I was necessarily able to for the past few years, as well as a new way to stay connected. I anticipate I'll spend less time on facebook over the next few months, and so this will probably be the best way to hear what's going on with me.
As I start blogging by admitting I don't really know what I'm going to write, I think that's how it ought to be (in my case, at least). I know that there will be plenty of brilliant people who have better ideas that are better articulated and better supported, but my writings don't aim to give you the absolute answer to everything; they're really just what I think about the way things are, and I might not even agree with myself at the end of my post. But that's the privilege of being in process- I might be confused, I might be wrong, and I know that I will ramble to no end, but maybe we'll get somewhere. And if nothing else, I'm sure I'll learn a lot even if it wasn't what I aimed to understand in the first place.
And so, I invite you to join me- stumbling through an attempt to understand our bizarre but beautiful world, and the God who made it such.
I think that's about the fifth introduction I've tried so far, and for lack of a better one, it's what we're going with.
The reason I wanted to start a blog was to have a creative outlet for my first summer in which I don't have to do... well, anything. I'll be heading out in the fall to Yale Divinity School and I'm spending a good amount of my time reading theology books to help prepare me. Ideally, this blog can serve as a place for me to process some of what I'm reading as well as a place to not entirely lose my writing abilities over the summer. I'll probably end up posting my thoughts on theology, life, and everything else about once or twice a week.
But more importantly, I hope this blog is an opportunity to let you, my friends, into my mind and life more than I was necessarily able to for the past few years, as well as a new way to stay connected. I anticipate I'll spend less time on facebook over the next few months, and so this will probably be the best way to hear what's going on with me.
As I start blogging by admitting I don't really know what I'm going to write, I think that's how it ought to be (in my case, at least). I know that there will be plenty of brilliant people who have better ideas that are better articulated and better supported, but my writings don't aim to give you the absolute answer to everything; they're really just what I think about the way things are, and I might not even agree with myself at the end of my post. But that's the privilege of being in process- I might be confused, I might be wrong, and I know that I will ramble to no end, but maybe we'll get somewhere. And if nothing else, I'm sure I'll learn a lot even if it wasn't what I aimed to understand in the first place.
And so, I invite you to join me- stumbling through an attempt to understand our bizarre but beautiful world, and the God who made it such.
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