Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Category: Society & Culture (page 5 of 13)

Modern Sickness, Disintegration and Nostalgia

While searching for articles and books on Giambattista Vico yesterday, I ran across a great 1997 interview with Lois Dupre from Christian Century on “Seeking Christian Interiority.” Dupre laments the loss of a metanarrative in this late modern world: “We experience culture as fragmented; we live on bits of meaning and lack the overall vision that holds them together in a whole.”

This “absence of a defining unity” cause us to feel “lost in a disconnected universe.” While some “postmodern” writers rejoice in the loss of an overall narrative, most of us struggle with the need for some meaning that brings coherence to our lives. Christendom offered such a coherence, but that integrated world died with the middle ages and the modern world has moved farther and farther from looking to Christianity as a source of integration.

Dupre suggests that as the awareness of what the modern project has realized, people struggle with a yearning for something from yesterday.

“They feel the fragments present to us must somehow be united in a manner that modern culture fails to accomplish. Hence they turn to models from the past. Some join ultraconservative religious or political movements, or they lose themselves in mystics of earlier times as if no cultural distance separated us from the past. Such complete reversals that attempt to abolish modern life are, I think, inauthentic ways for trying to achieve the integration our time needs.”

While we may have some nostalgia for the Christian past, Dupre warns against trying to “reinvent a Christian ‘tradition’ (mostly intended for the masses) for social or political purposes.” So how do we respond to the crying need for an integrated vision of the world?

In this world between worlds, Dupre finds inspiration from another time between times: the age of Augustine. The Classical world was ending and the Medieval world was beginning. Augustine finds personal integration through faith in Christ rooted in the Christian Community. This integration works outward and finds ways to synthesize the pieces of his fragmented world such as Roman civic morality and Neoplatonic philosophy.

Dupre sees this integration as working outward from personal to local to cultural. This is a slow process and in one sense comes to define the new world. I think we see a similar attempt in integration in the shift between the Medieval world and the Modern world in the Reformation and Renaissance.

As we find ourselves in a world between worlds again, Dupre offers humbled approach to transformation. Instead of triumphalist declarations of restoring Christendom, he suggests our best steps forward in for true personal integration based on faith rooted in the Christian community. We must begin with a deep and profound personal integration. This is simply an individualistic interpretation of Christian faith, but a an experiential Christian faith that springs from the Scripture and community of believers. It is deeply relational.

Working outward, we must learn and cultivate an inner integration of the pieces of the modern world. Instead of reaching backward, we trust the Providence of God and work from our current estate forward. Only then, can we begin to think about community and cultural transformation. More on that later.

Stories upon Stories upon Stories

The Bible is not simply one story but many stories. And these stories form patterns that are repeated again and again. For example, the creation story appears in Gen 1 and Gen, but then variations of the creation story reapper throughout the scripture in places like Job, Proverbs 8, John 1 and Romans 1. Each story reflects a different aspect of the pattern.

Some of the many stories appearing in the Scriptures include:

The story of the Law

The story of Sojourn

The story of Slavery and Exodus

The love story between a Groom and Bride

The story of Father’s and Sons

The story of rebellion and redemption.

These are just some of the many stories that appear, reappear and reappear again. All these stories might and probably would have seem disconnected. But Jesus comes and fulfills/embodies every story. All the stories are flowing in and out from Him.

These stories might also be thought of as bardic songs. The ancient Celtic bards would sing songs of adventure and love and nature and war to the people. Their songs not only entertained but also helped forge a common memory of the tribe.

As we read the story (and sometimes realize we are acting in some of the story patterns), we also discover that we are being forged into a common memory of a family that spans time from beginning to end.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar speaks of the complexity of interwoven stories. He calls this a “symphony,” ” a dance fo sound.” Here are few of his thoughts on symphony from the classic treasure, Truth is Symphonic – Aspects of Christian Pluralism.

In his revelation, God performs a symphony, and it is impossible to say which is richer: the seamless genius of his compositions or the polyphonous orchestra of Creation that he has prepared to play it. Before teh Word of God became man, the world orchestra was “fiddling” about without any plan: world views, religions, different concepts of the state, each one playin gto itself. Somehow there is the feeling that this cacophonous jumble is only a “tuning up”: the A can be heard through everything, like a kind of promise. “In and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets…” (Heb 1:1). Then came the Son, the “heir of all things,” for whose sake the whole orchestra had been put together. As it performs God’s symphony under the Son’s direction, the meaning of its variety becomes clear….Initially, (the musicians) stand or sit next to one another as strangers, in mutual contradiction, as it were. Suddenyl the music begins, they realize how there are integrated. Not in unison, but what is far more beautiful–in sym-phony.

Fly the Weight Loss Skies

In light of the increasing costs of fuel, I may have to starve myself to save money for my next out-of-town trip.

Emusic Wants Your Poor, Your Tired, Your Huddled Cell Phones

Don’t throw out your discarded Cell Phones and MP3 players. EMusic is offering cash, paypal and even charitable donation options. That charitable idea is great, and I’m glad they’re offering it!

Anybody who offers Larry Norman downloads is already rocking in my book!

Cut Your Gas Bill with Gas Buddy

Some guy at work sent out a link to Gas Buddy today. Pretty cool. Insert your zip code and find the cheapest gas in town.

Then spend $10 bucks traveling across town to save money. ๐Ÿ™‚

I'm So Generation Joneser and I Didn't Even Know It

Every so often I find myself in the middle of a group of people discussing Gen X and Baby Boomers. Then the inevtiable question: “What are you?”

“Well, as it turns out I’m sort of an in-between. Depending on what I read, I either am grouped with the boomers or the X-ers.”

As the chatter continues, my middle child syndrome exerts itself and I think, “Yeah no pictures of me in the “boomer or x-er photo albums!”

Today at work the “x vs boom” convo started up, and before I knew it, Don had sent word from the all-knowing authority on everything knowable: wikipedia. Turns out, I’m a Generation Joneser!

Or so says Jonathan Pontell. Jonathan has identified a whole group of us born between 54 and 64 as Jonesers. I guess those “in the know” already knew this, but alas it’s news to me. Nice to be part of a new group!

How Does the World Come to An End?

Well, it can blow up. Poof. Bang. Boom. All gone.

Some worlds ends suddenly. Our church caught fire in February, and suddenly that world was over. Permanently. The things we salvaged now sit in storage, awaiting the new world. Then again a sudden lay-off may bring a sudden end to the world. In 1992, I was in graduate school and working full time to pay for it.

One morning I went in to work, and suddenly I didn’t have a job. I dropped out school for the next seesion, and when I did return, everything had changed. I was no longer studying film. My focus had changed, and I was planning to return to ministry. When the world ends, those who survive go about starting a new world.

Another way the world might end is through decay. Stand amid the ruins of ancient Greece, and you can see a world that is gone. The Parthenon may impress but it is just a shell. A reminder of a world that once was. Oddly enough, the structures of a world remain long after the world has died. Some organizations survive from generation to generation but the world is dead. There is nothing there but the machinery that causes people to keep the skeleton cleaned.

A series of disasters can bring the world to an end. The medieval world suffered one devastating blow after another. The crusades, the great famine, the black plague and other disasters brought this world to an end. The survivors who remained built a new world that laid the foundation for the modern world.

Then again, a new world can be planted in the middle of the old world. Like yeast it can work its way out through every fiber of the old world, creating a new world in the midst of the old. When Jesus goes to the cross, he talks about a seed falling into the ground so that it can die, and yield a great harvest. A harvest that overtakes the old world and makes all things new.

Whether it’s a business, a dream, a project, a community, a country, or a civilization worlds end and new world are created. Who creates the new world? Created in the image of God, we create new worlds through our words and actions. Even as He works in and through His people to create a new world in the midst of a fallen one (but more on that later).

A Messy Epistemology

Today I spent an extra free thought time to consider knowing as I prepared to lead a discussion on ideas tonight. I was thinking through some ideas from NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope where he lightly introduces an epistemology of faith, an epistemology of hope, and an epistemology of love. (I say lightly because NT drops several thought-provoking bombshells and then continues.)

At lunch I tried to immerse myself in an overview of Bernard Lonergan’s ideas on insight (via Tad Dunne). Then after I skimmed a wiki article on Michael Polanyi’s ideas on tacit knowledge.

And oddly enough (and completely unplanned), I drove to and from work listening to a couple Mars Hill interviews that focused on knowing. One interview featured Norman Klassen andย  Jens Zimmerman discussing their book The Passionate Intellect. One of them used the phrase a “messy knowing.”

I liked that and in some ways that gave me a highlight for the evening. Knowledge is messy (thus requires humility). While we may still use words like “objectivity,” we must let go of notions of disinterested observation and accept that we bring a personal context to knowing. We still can apply a form of critique to our knowing, but we acknowledge our weakness.

NT’s ideas on knowing in relation to faith, hope and love got me to thinking abut the Hebrew understanding and wisdom rooted in meditation and observance of the 10 Commandments. But more on that later. I need some sleep.

Chesterton on the Danger of Being Too Serious

I do not like seriousness. I think it is irreligious. …The man who takes himself too seriously is the man who makes an idol of everything. – G.K. Chesterton

Lifetime of a Nation

Our “lifetime” is intimately bound up with the “lifetime” of our people. We have a particular lifetime that moves between our own personal memory and vision, but this movement between memory and vision does not happen in isolation from other individuals. Our memory and vision is bound in with the memory and vision of our family, and our family memory and vision is bound in some way with specific communities.

And this multi-layered movement between memory and vision helps to shape our understanding of the world and our expectations of the world. Thus it shapes our language and what we mean by using specific words. For example, the word “justice” can mean one thing to a people living on the edge of survival and something entirely different to a people living in comfort.

But there’s a problem with our sense of meaning that grows out from memory and vision. We cannot remember very well. So the movement between memory and vision is skewed in one sense, and this skews our language, our expectations, our lifetime. In my own personal life, I easily forget events and moments that may play a significant role in shaping me.

A photograph of past experiences may remind me of events and experiences that I only vaguely remember. Additionally, my experience in a particular event is limited to one point of view. This experience may cause me to remember certain things in an exaggerated manner. In turn, I may form expectations that are incorrect. I may have one bad memory of a visiting the dentist as a child, and continue to hold fearful expectations of future visits. This skew in memory multiplies through my own life and in the life of my family and community.

I remember some things of my parents’ life and even few things of their parents’ lives. But my memory rarely reaches back farther than two generations. And even in those two generations it can be skewed. This problem only multiples and expands outward as I think about my culture. As a result, I may develop a family memory or cultural that is incorrect.

What I think are long held attitudes or traditions may only stretch back 30 or 40 years. As I look farther back, I may tend to misunderstand or misread the events prior. If I am part of a people and a culture, how can I remember the story of the people farther back into time?

This is the power of words. Words carry the symbolic weight of memory and vision. But like a photograph, words must be captured in a way that spans across generations. Oral cultures carry the words through storytellers. The stories are acted out in celebration through feasting, dancing and other rituals that carry the words into actions to help reinforce the memory.

Unfortunately, without the storyteller the memories can still be lost. And the rituals can become actions with no referent. The people may forget why they do what they do. The rituals may take on meanings that were never part of the story. Soon the span between memory and vision is deeply skewed and the lifetime of the people is askew.

This is the gift of ancient Israel. Their festivals, their laws, their rituals are rooted in Torah: in a written law. The word is recorded and passed down. (I realize that some people reject the written word in ancient Israel and suppose it is all oral, but if I accept the text at face value, they wrote down the words. See Jim Jordan for more on this.) The written word becomes a standard the perpetuates the enacted word.

Every year the people re-enact ancient memories according to prescription (written instructions/law). Using prescribed actions, they rehearse the past. They rehearse the Passover. This communal re-enactment of the deliverance from Egypt helps to forge common memory. Using the written word as guide and interpreter, their actions work memory into their bodies: their eyes, hands and feet.

These festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and so forth do not simply re-enact the past. Gradually, as more revelation unfolds, they begin to realize the festivals are also re-enacting the future. The Passover does not simply point back to the time when God delivered Israel from the hand of Egyptian oppressors, it helps to explain future deliverance as well.

In fact, the Christians will revision the memory as pointing also the Jesus Christ. The full deliverance of God’s people from slavery. For the Christian, these memories become markers of historical events that anticipate an even greater future unfolding. This use of memory and rehearse to interpret or project vision helps to forge a common memory and vision across space and time.

In one sense, we are learning to remember the past together. We are learning to anticipate the future together. We are bound by one hope of calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Father. This continual reconnecting through the Word and Sacrament binds the people of God afresh into one memory and vision, which in turn helps to interpret and correct our personal and familial memory and vision.

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