"...a secret is something that is revealed to one person at a time." --John LeCarre
I have a secret. What do I do with it/ If I keep it to myself, it is a true secret? It is private part of who I am. It is not public. No one else knows about this part of me. It is a part of me that no one can own. It is part of what makes me a distinctive person.
If I tell someone else, anyone else, it is no longer a secret. "Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead." It is a rare person who can keep a secret. It is risky and potentially dangerous to share it with anyone. If they tell someone else, it is likely to spread, and that which was unique to me is now part of the public perception of me, and may become a subject of gossip.
On the other hand, if I tell my closest friend, a friend who I know can keep secrets, then my friend and I have something that we alone can share. It gives our friendship a deeper and richer element. It enhances intimacy.
If I tell several close friends, and if they are people who can be trusted to keep confidences, we become a close-knit group sharing something that distinguishes us from the rest of the world. We appreciate the trust and support.
On still another hand it is common for us to, as LeCarre says, to tell one person at a time, telling each of them to tell no one else. We ask them not to, but we continue telling several. At some point secrecy is likely to break down.
Telling secrets, our own or one entrusted to us by someone else, is risky and often dangerous. On one hand it is a way to enhance intimacy and bind people more closely together, on the other hand it is one of the most common ways of damaging the relationship we had with someone whose trust we have now betrayed.
So, what are we to do with our secrets? Be mighty careful about them.
On the other hand,
Monday, February 15, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
The Cost of Morality
In Susan Howatch’s novel, Sins of the Fathers, Teresa says to the banker, “I don’t believe in capitalism. I think it’s immoral.” He replies, “Morality is like mink, it’s great if you can afford it.”
In Twenty-first-Century society in the United states, morality is not on the “in” list of concepts. It definitely is “out.” The bottom line is in. The self is in. Success is in. The moral perspective on things is considered a nice but outdated concept. Nietzsche’s philosophy that morality is a sign of weakness, is for the loser, and needs to be revised in an upside-down manner is, perhaps unconsciously, the ruling philosophy.
“Morality is great if you can afford it”? That is true. If we are moral,that is, if we insist on doing the “right” thing, we are apt to lose out to those who insist on making a profit, winning first place, get promoted. Morality is okay to speak of if you already have all your bases covered, all your ducks in a row. Otherwise, morality is expendable.
Those of us who insist on being moral, acting ethically, doing the right thing, need to be aware that it often will cost us. True morality is aware of the price that must be paid, but knows that it will cost more in a different kind of coin if we choose to act unethically. If nothing else, our conscience will powerfully and painfully remind us of the cost of immorality.
Can we afford to do the right thing whatever the cost, or must we count the cost before we decide to live morally?
In Twenty-first-Century society in the United states, morality is not on the “in” list of concepts. It definitely is “out.” The bottom line is in. The self is in. Success is in. The moral perspective on things is considered a nice but outdated concept. Nietzsche’s philosophy that morality is a sign of weakness, is for the loser, and needs to be revised in an upside-down manner is, perhaps unconsciously, the ruling philosophy.
“Morality is great if you can afford it”? That is true. If we are moral,that is, if we insist on doing the “right” thing, we are apt to lose out to those who insist on making a profit, winning first place, get promoted. Morality is okay to speak of if you already have all your bases covered, all your ducks in a row. Otherwise, morality is expendable.
Those of us who insist on being moral, acting ethically, doing the right thing, need to be aware that it often will cost us. True morality is aware of the price that must be paid, but knows that it will cost more in a different kind of coin if we choose to act unethically. If nothing else, our conscience will powerfully and painfully remind us of the cost of immorality.
Can we afford to do the right thing whatever the cost, or must we count the cost before we decide to live morally?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Censoring the Bible
“In recent years, some Benedictine houses, particularly women’s communities, have begun censoring the harshest of the psalms, often called the ‘cursing psalms,’ from their public worship.” --Kathleen Norris, Cloister, p. 97.
The church, across most of the centuries of its history, has acquired quite a reputation for censoring literature. Most unchurched people would be quite surprised to learn that the church, in its actual practice, censors the Christian Bible rather thoroughly. Thomas Jefferson is reputed to have taken his pen knife and cut out of his Bible every reference to anything miraculous, anything supernatural. It is still possible to buy copies of The Jefferson Bible. Christians decry Jefferson’s truncation, but themselves routinely do much the same.
If the Bible were made into a Hollywood movie, and if the movie were faithful to the text, much of it could not receive a “G” rating. Rather much of it would have to be rated either “PG-13,” or “R,” both for sex and violence. See in particular much of Joshua and Judges or the entire story of the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34 or the story of Judah--from whom the Jews get their name--and his visit with a “prostitute.” Read the entire story of David. When we tell these stories in Sunday School classes, we edit out those parts that would not be “in good taste” to read in polite company.
In our Bible study groups and in Sunday sermons, we get uneasy with parts of the Bible not only for sex and violence, but also because it is also comfortable with bathroom language, and with strong language of rebuke, bitterness and hatred. We don’t talk that language, or about those things in church, although we do everywhere else.
Darkness and ugliness are part of human reality and therefore a part of biblical reality. But because we see ourselves as clean, respectable, and nice people, we find that there is much in the Bible that it just would not be right to read publicly in church.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The World's Tears
"All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right,
And emptiness above--
Know that you aren't alone.
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years."
--Vikram Seth
Whatever you think of Jesus of Nazareth, if you read his story in the four gospels, you know that he shares the world's tears. He understands, and cares, and some of us think he has done and is doing something redemptive about those tears.
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right,
And emptiness above--
Know that you aren't alone.
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years."
--Vikram Seth
Whatever you think of Jesus of Nazareth, if you read his story in the four gospels, you know that he shares the world's tears. He understands, and cares, and some of us think he has done and is doing something redemptive about those tears.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Secret Life of Germs
“The number of these animalcules in the scurf of a man’s teeth are so many, that I believe they exceed the number of men in a kingdom.”
–Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, 1684
Quoted in Philip Tierno, The Secret Life of Germs
Anyone in their right mind would know Leeuwenhoek had to have been wrong. How could he know? He was probably guessing.
Whereas Tierno, highly acclaimed and respected microbiologists, will update us with modern science, the humorous poet, Ogden Nash, has his own take on germs.
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than a pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep inside the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.
Tierno tells us:
There are more germs in our intestines than there are stars in the sky, some thousand billion germs per gram of matter. The number of germ cells in the human body actually exceeds the number of body cells by a factor of ten. And the combined weight of microscopic germs exceeds the combined weight of all living animals and plants.
He continues, saying: “Germs are so important in the ecology of the world that alien observers might conclude that they are the dominant life form on our planet.” And again, “In fact, there are more germs in the intestinal tract of a human being than the number of people who have ever lived.”
And yet, we are able to coexist with this unimaginable mass of microbes. You would think they would do us in, and, worldwide, they are the number-one killer ( In the U.S. they are number three). But, as most of us already know, there are good germs and bad germs and we could not survive without the good ones. But the bad ones are always at the gate, attempting to get in.
Ordinarily germs, good and bad, coexist in a system of checks and balances, with only a fine line between, and the bad guys cross that line every chance they get.
So what? Two suggestions, and maybe more. First, Mother was right. Wash your hands often, especially after using the bathroom. This may sound so commonplace that you dismiss me as if I were kind of kindergarten teacher speaking to mature adults in kindergarten platitudes. Maybe so, but research indicates that more than 60 percent of people fail to wash their hands after using public restrooms, and less than 10 percent wash them very well. At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, they have a slogan: “The ten worst sources of contagion are our fingers.”
I suggest, in the second place, that you either obtain a copy of the book, or check it out from your public library (if they don’t have it, they can get it for you on interlibrary loan). It is a very well-written, easy and enjoyable reading.
[I’ll come back and write a little more after lunch. I’ve just been told I have five minutes. I’ve got to wash my hands.]
______________
The eighth chapter of the biblical book of Psalms raises a question that goes something like this:
O Lord, when I look at the night sky and the work of your fingers–
the moon and stars you put in place–
what are people that you should think about them,
mere mortals that you should care for them?
The great philosopher, Immanuel Kant said there were two things that filled him with awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.
The old cowboy, at “home on the range,” sang his wonder:
How often at night, ‘neath the heavens so bright,
by the light of the glittering stars
have I stood there amazed, and asked as I gazed
if their glory exceeds that of ours.
The great philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, felt “engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me. I am terrified. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.”
I live “deep in the heart of Texas” where “the stars at night are big and bright.” On dark nights, away from city lights, I’ve looked at the stars with wonder; I am a kinsman to the psalm writer, the cowboys, and the philosophers.
But when I learn from Tierno about the world of microorganisms, a world those in prior centuries did not know, I can be terrified, alarmed, filled with awe, and wonder about the place of us humans in this world of incredible biodiversity. I am certain that God loves diversity, that in his creation he has been extravagant, and that our appropriate response to it all is wonder, awe, humility, modesty, and grateful for having a place amid these riches. These risky, dangerous, adventurous, challenging, and exciting riches.
It is with great risk that we ever tamper with it. We put ourselves in peril every time we modify God’s creations for our real or supposed benefit. The good germs and the bad germs live within us always in tension, always facing the possibility that the bad will cross that fine line. Sometimes the good germs are unprepared for an attack. Sometimes the bad germs win and we go down in hopeless defeat.
The “balance” of nature is a dynamic, ever-changing balance. As the 21st Century begins, the balance of cultures, societies, and nations is tilting dangerously. To use Tierno’s term, the threat is pandemic. Some us, perhaps many of us will go down before the tensions can be balanced. We’ve known dark ages before. Sometimes centuries have to pass.
Wash your hands, be aware, and try to be good to a stranger.
–Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, 1684
Quoted in Philip Tierno, The Secret Life of Germs
Anyone in their right mind would know Leeuwenhoek had to have been wrong. How could he know? He was probably guessing.
Whereas Tierno, highly acclaimed and respected microbiologists, will update us with modern science, the humorous poet, Ogden Nash, has his own take on germs.
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than a pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep inside the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.
Tierno tells us:
There are more germs in our intestines than there are stars in the sky, some thousand billion germs per gram of matter. The number of germ cells in the human body actually exceeds the number of body cells by a factor of ten. And the combined weight of microscopic germs exceeds the combined weight of all living animals and plants.
He continues, saying: “Germs are so important in the ecology of the world that alien observers might conclude that they are the dominant life form on our planet.” And again, “In fact, there are more germs in the intestinal tract of a human being than the number of people who have ever lived.”
And yet, we are able to coexist with this unimaginable mass of microbes. You would think they would do us in, and, worldwide, they are the number-one killer ( In the U.S. they are number three). But, as most of us already know, there are good germs and bad germs and we could not survive without the good ones. But the bad ones are always at the gate, attempting to get in.
Ordinarily germs, good and bad, coexist in a system of checks and balances, with only a fine line between, and the bad guys cross that line every chance they get.
So what? Two suggestions, and maybe more. First, Mother was right. Wash your hands often, especially after using the bathroom. This may sound so commonplace that you dismiss me as if I were kind of kindergarten teacher speaking to mature adults in kindergarten platitudes. Maybe so, but research indicates that more than 60 percent of people fail to wash their hands after using public restrooms, and less than 10 percent wash them very well. At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, they have a slogan: “The ten worst sources of contagion are our fingers.”
I suggest, in the second place, that you either obtain a copy of the book, or check it out from your public library (if they don’t have it, they can get it for you on interlibrary loan). It is a very well-written, easy and enjoyable reading.
[I’ll come back and write a little more after lunch. I’ve just been told I have five minutes. I’ve got to wash my hands.]
______________
The eighth chapter of the biblical book of Psalms raises a question that goes something like this:
O Lord, when I look at the night sky and the work of your fingers–
the moon and stars you put in place–
what are people that you should think about them,
mere mortals that you should care for them?
The great philosopher, Immanuel Kant said there were two things that filled him with awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.
The old cowboy, at “home on the range,” sang his wonder:
How often at night, ‘neath the heavens so bright,
by the light of the glittering stars
have I stood there amazed, and asked as I gazed
if their glory exceeds that of ours.
The great philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, felt “engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me. I am terrified. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.”
I live “deep in the heart of Texas” where “the stars at night are big and bright.” On dark nights, away from city lights, I’ve looked at the stars with wonder; I am a kinsman to the psalm writer, the cowboys, and the philosophers.
But when I learn from Tierno about the world of microorganisms, a world those in prior centuries did not know, I can be terrified, alarmed, filled with awe, and wonder about the place of us humans in this world of incredible biodiversity. I am certain that God loves diversity, that in his creation he has been extravagant, and that our appropriate response to it all is wonder, awe, humility, modesty, and grateful for having a place amid these riches. These risky, dangerous, adventurous, challenging, and exciting riches.
It is with great risk that we ever tamper with it. We put ourselves in peril every time we modify God’s creations for our real or supposed benefit. The good germs and the bad germs live within us always in tension, always facing the possibility that the bad will cross that fine line. Sometimes the good germs are unprepared for an attack. Sometimes the bad germs win and we go down in hopeless defeat.
The “balance” of nature is a dynamic, ever-changing balance. As the 21st Century begins, the balance of cultures, societies, and nations is tilting dangerously. To use Tierno’s term, the threat is pandemic. Some us, perhaps many of us will go down before the tensions can be balanced. We’ve known dark ages before. Sometimes centuries have to pass.
Wash your hands, be aware, and try to be good to a stranger.
Monday, September 17, 2007
God Indescribable
Morning worship service, September, 16, 2007; new song: “Indescribable.” I learn it was written by Laura Story
From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation’s revealing Your majesty
From the colors of Fall the the fragrance of Spring
Ev’ry creature unique in the song that it sings
All Exclaiming
Indescribable uncontainable
You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name
You are an amazing God
All powerful untamable
Awestruck, we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing, God
Who has told ev’ry lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow?
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night?
None can fathom
________________
From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation’s revealing Your majesty
From the colors of Fall the the fragrance of Spring
Ev’ry creature unique in the song that it sings
All Exclaiming
This rings out from Genesis 1, Psalm 19, Psalm 150, and indeed the entirety of the biblical story.
________________
Indescribable uncontainable
You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name
You are an amazing God
All powerful untamable
Awestruck, we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing, God
“Indescribable.”
On one hand the via negativa. The way of speaking of God by speaking only of what he is not. This kind of theology, spoken of by theological sophisticates as apophatic theology, has a history almost as long as Christianity. How can human words, music, painting or any other medium describe the holy God? We have only to begin the attempt to be challenged by others or to give up the effort on our own.
The indescribable God.
On the other hand is the long history of describing God by analogy; the Bible does this: Father, Creator Judge, Almighty, King, Lord; jealous, angry, like a mother, hate, love, pleasure. God described by analogy, yet all analogy fails to comprehend the incomprehensible, undescribable God.
Yet. Yet John 1:18: “. . . the only son . . . has made him known.” Yet Colossians 1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God.” Yet, Hebrews 1:1-3: “In many and various ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a son . . . [who] reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature.”
God has revealed himself to us by his Word, Jesus, Son of God. Jesus is the description of the indescribable God.
But can Jesus be described?
“Indescribable.”
__________________
“Uncontainable.”
Solomon knew this. When he dedicated his temple to God, in public prayer Solomon acknowledged that eternal and holy God could not be contained by the entire created universe, yet he prays that, in some special way, God would be found in this temple by those who diligently seek and call upon him.
“Uncontainable”
__________________
“You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name”
Job 38 quickly comes to mind, and Isaiah 40.
__________________
“You are an amazing God
All powerful”
Yes, God is amazing, like a maze, we are overwhelmed by the sense that we can never find our way through the dimensions of the divine heart. We live in a world and among events that constantly cause me to be, and say, “I am amazed.” Ask my wife; she hears it all the time.
But I am bothered by what, all through the history of Christian song, has amazed song writers. Read/sing them all, all of them, and find as the dominant note this same emphasis: “All powerful.”
Consistently we sing of and worship the God who is omnipotent. There are exceptions to this emphasis on power. There are exceptions that properly catch the dominant biblical note: “Amazing Grace;” “I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean;” Twila Paris’ “Lamb of God.”
Songwriters, help us to sing our “hallelu” to “Yah” for his love, grace, mercy, loving-kindness toward wretches such as John Newton was and some of us are. “Amazing Love, How Sweet the Sound.”
Yes, God is the God of power, but his power is subordinate to his love, serves his love, and is exercised only in love.
__________________
“Untamable”
Yet, to an extent we are better off not knowing (or would we be better off knowing?), our theologians (both lay and professional), our culturally conditioned Bible study groups, and Sunday School classes present to us a God they seem to have tamed. God remains untamable.
Even heretical trinitarian theology can remind of us that God is untamable:
“God the Father is the transcendent Judge who is going to get us if we don’t watch out. God the Son is our friend in court and will get us off the hook of God’s condemnation. Jesus is the “good guy.” And God the Spirit? The Spirit is the one responsible for all the weird and wild stuff.”
This seriously flawed attempt to describe the indescribable trinitarian God at least recognizes that the Holy Spirit is untamable. The Spirit blows wherever he wants to.
“Untamable” I like that new and needed note.
__________________
“Awestruck, we fall to our knees” Job, finally; Simon Peter in the boat.
__________________
“Amazing God”
Good. Not, “an amazing God,” not a comparison among the gods. Merely, truly anarthrous.
“Amazing God.”
__________________
“Who has told ev’ry lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow?
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night?”
Job 38
__________________
“None can fathom”
Fathom . . . verb 1) understand after much thought: I can't fathom him out. 2) measure the depth of.
-ORIGIN Old English, 'something which embraces' (the original measurement was based on the span of a person's outstretched arms).
Not even “after much thought,” (and many of us have given much thought across many years) can we “measure the depth of” the amazing, awe-inspiring holy and loving God. Our arms aren’t long enough to completely reach around, to completely embrace the One who graciously wraps his arms of love around us.
__________________
This was my immediate response as, yesterday morning, we sang our “Laura’s song,” about God: “Indescribable.”
Far too much of the music I hear Christians sing these days is, if not fluff (which a lot of it is), at least light weight. “Indescribable” joins “Lamb of God” at the head of the heavyweights.
From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation’s revealing Your majesty
From the colors of Fall the the fragrance of Spring
Ev’ry creature unique in the song that it sings
All Exclaiming
Indescribable uncontainable
You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name
You are an amazing God
All powerful untamable
Awestruck, we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing, God
Who has told ev’ry lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow?
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night?
None can fathom
________________
From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation’s revealing Your majesty
From the colors of Fall the the fragrance of Spring
Ev’ry creature unique in the song that it sings
All Exclaiming
This rings out from Genesis 1, Psalm 19, Psalm 150, and indeed the entirety of the biblical story.
________________
Indescribable uncontainable
You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name
You are an amazing God
All powerful untamable
Awestruck, we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing, God
“Indescribable.”
On one hand the via negativa. The way of speaking of God by speaking only of what he is not. This kind of theology, spoken of by theological sophisticates as apophatic theology, has a history almost as long as Christianity. How can human words, music, painting or any other medium describe the holy God? We have only to begin the attempt to be challenged by others or to give up the effort on our own.
The indescribable God.
On the other hand is the long history of describing God by analogy; the Bible does this: Father, Creator Judge, Almighty, King, Lord; jealous, angry, like a mother, hate, love, pleasure. God described by analogy, yet all analogy fails to comprehend the incomprehensible, undescribable God.
Yet. Yet John 1:18: “. . . the only son . . . has made him known.” Yet Colossians 1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God.” Yet, Hebrews 1:1-3: “In many and various ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a son . . . [who] reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature.”
God has revealed himself to us by his Word, Jesus, Son of God. Jesus is the description of the indescribable God.
But can Jesus be described?
“Indescribable.”
__________________
“Uncontainable.”
Solomon knew this. When he dedicated his temple to God, in public prayer Solomon acknowledged that eternal and holy God could not be contained by the entire created universe, yet he prays that, in some special way, God would be found in this temple by those who diligently seek and call upon him.
“Uncontainable”
__________________
“You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name”
Job 38 quickly comes to mind, and Isaiah 40.
__________________
“You are an amazing God
All powerful”
Yes, God is amazing, like a maze, we are overwhelmed by the sense that we can never find our way through the dimensions of the divine heart. We live in a world and among events that constantly cause me to be, and say, “I am amazed.” Ask my wife; she hears it all the time.
But I am bothered by what, all through the history of Christian song, has amazed song writers. Read/sing them all, all of them, and find as the dominant note this same emphasis: “All powerful.”
Consistently we sing of and worship the God who is omnipotent. There are exceptions to this emphasis on power. There are exceptions that properly catch the dominant biblical note: “Amazing Grace;” “I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean;” Twila Paris’ “Lamb of God.”
Songwriters, help us to sing our “hallelu” to “Yah” for his love, grace, mercy, loving-kindness toward wretches such as John Newton was and some of us are. “Amazing Love, How Sweet the Sound.”
Yes, God is the God of power, but his power is subordinate to his love, serves his love, and is exercised only in love.
__________________
“Untamable”
Yet, to an extent we are better off not knowing (or would we be better off knowing?), our theologians (both lay and professional), our culturally conditioned Bible study groups, and Sunday School classes present to us a God they seem to have tamed. God remains untamable.
Even heretical trinitarian theology can remind of us that God is untamable:
“God the Father is the transcendent Judge who is going to get us if we don’t watch out. God the Son is our friend in court and will get us off the hook of God’s condemnation. Jesus is the “good guy.” And God the Spirit? The Spirit is the one responsible for all the weird and wild stuff.”
This seriously flawed attempt to describe the indescribable trinitarian God at least recognizes that the Holy Spirit is untamable. The Spirit blows wherever he wants to.
“Untamable” I like that new and needed note.
__________________
“Awestruck, we fall to our knees” Job, finally; Simon Peter in the boat.
__________________
“Amazing God”
Good. Not, “an amazing God,” not a comparison among the gods. Merely, truly anarthrous.
“Amazing God.”
__________________
“Who has told ev’ry lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow?
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night?”
Job 38
__________________
“None can fathom”
Fathom . . . verb 1) understand after much thought: I can't fathom him out. 2) measure the depth of.
-ORIGIN Old English, 'something which embraces' (the original measurement was based on the span of a person's outstretched arms).
Not even “after much thought,” (and many of us have given much thought across many years) can we “measure the depth of” the amazing, awe-inspiring holy and loving God. Our arms aren’t long enough to completely reach around, to completely embrace the One who graciously wraps his arms of love around us.
__________________
This was my immediate response as, yesterday morning, we sang our “Laura’s song,” about God: “Indescribable.”
Far too much of the music I hear Christians sing these days is, if not fluff (which a lot of it is), at least light weight. “Indescribable” joins “Lamb of God” at the head of the heavyweights.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Limited Knowledge
Jan Zwicky, elliptical and provocative Canadian philosopher, is one of my favorite thinkers. The following quotations are from her book, Wisdom & Metaphor.
“Coming to experience the fit of human thought to the world is a way of finding ourselves at home.”
A major reason most of us find ourselves somewhat less than comfortable, less than “at home” in the world is that we mistake our ideas of things as the sum total of what they are. We get married, having in our mind a clear idea of who this other person is and what they are like.
Disappointment, frustration, disillusionment, and anger follow when our spouse insists on, at some points, being quite different from our idea of who they are. Much of the friction in marriage comes from our efforts to remake the other into who we have thought them to be. “Coming to experience the fit of [our] thought to [the actuality of our mate] is a way of finding ourselves [and making themselves] at home.”
The cook bakes an apple pie, but it does not come out as she thought it should. Yet all who taste it smile broadly and say, “Now that is what an apple pie is all about. That is the real thing.” The cook, however is disappointed and modifies the recipe, the oven temperature, and the cooking time. Never, however, is it quite what she had in her mind, yet always she is praised as the best at baking apple pies. “Coming to experience the fit of [her apple pie] thought to [the actual pies and guests] is a way of finding [herself] at home.”
Zwicky quotes Rudolf Arnheim: “The function of language is essentially conservative and stabilizing, and therefore it also tends, negatively, to make cognition static and immobile.” Coming to a recognition of the limits of language is a way of finding ourselves at home. Our words, sentences, and paragraphs are always somewhat inadequate in what they seek to communicate. We are never wrong when we say, “I don’t know how to put it into words.”
She quotes Konrad Lorenz who, on the one hand says: “I am unshakeably convinced that all the information conveyed to us by our cognitive apparatus corresponds to actual realities,” then, later modifies and clarifies what he means. “What we experience is indeed a real image of reality–albeit an extremely simple one, only just sufficing for our own practical purposes; we have developed ‘organs’ only for those aspects of reality of which, in the interest of survival, it was imperative for our species to take account.”
He continues with, “. . . what little our sense organs and nervous system have permitted us to learn has proved its value over endless years of experience, and we may trust it–as far as it goes [italics mine]. Much of the time our mental, rational understanding of things is adequate for immediate and practical purposes, but if we are to be wise, we will realize that, always, our “image of reality [whatever ‘reality’ we may be dealing with’] is “an extremely simple one.”
Always there is much more, and if we realize this, our thought will have a much closer fit to the complexities and mystery of actuality, and we are more likely to find “ourselves at home” [in the world, in our lives].
I turn finally, to Tom Lilburn, whom she quotes: “Everything exceeds its name.” As Paul of Tarsus wrote, “Now we know in part.” Everything we know, everything we name, every idea and all our use of language (or painting or any other re-presentation of reality) is a limited realization of that which always exceeds our representation.
Lilburn calls all this human thought, “reason’s caricatures.” Always a degree of distortion, a degree of overemphasis on certain aspects, and, inescapably, the neglect of much that is beyond the reach of thought and language.
We are to be grateful that [Roark says, ‘God has created us such that’] we can somehow, to some degree, “participate in what is beyond us, enjoy a brief contiguity with that uncontainability.” Lilburn concludes: “There is praise and then there is sorrow.”
We are graced.
“Coming to experience the fit of human thought to the world is a way of finding ourselves at home.”
A major reason most of us find ourselves somewhat less than comfortable, less than “at home” in the world is that we mistake our ideas of things as the sum total of what they are. We get married, having in our mind a clear idea of who this other person is and what they are like.
Disappointment, frustration, disillusionment, and anger follow when our spouse insists on, at some points, being quite different from our idea of who they are. Much of the friction in marriage comes from our efforts to remake the other into who we have thought them to be. “Coming to experience the fit of [our] thought to [the actuality of our mate] is a way of finding ourselves [and making themselves] at home.”
The cook bakes an apple pie, but it does not come out as she thought it should. Yet all who taste it smile broadly and say, “Now that is what an apple pie is all about. That is the real thing.” The cook, however is disappointed and modifies the recipe, the oven temperature, and the cooking time. Never, however, is it quite what she had in her mind, yet always she is praised as the best at baking apple pies. “Coming to experience the fit of [her apple pie] thought to [the actual pies and guests] is a way of finding [herself] at home.”
Zwicky quotes Rudolf Arnheim: “The function of language is essentially conservative and stabilizing, and therefore it also tends, negatively, to make cognition static and immobile.” Coming to a recognition of the limits of language is a way of finding ourselves at home. Our words, sentences, and paragraphs are always somewhat inadequate in what they seek to communicate. We are never wrong when we say, “I don’t know how to put it into words.”
She quotes Konrad Lorenz who, on the one hand says: “I am unshakeably convinced that all the information conveyed to us by our cognitive apparatus corresponds to actual realities,” then, later modifies and clarifies what he means. “What we experience is indeed a real image of reality–albeit an extremely simple one, only just sufficing for our own practical purposes; we have developed ‘organs’ only for those aspects of reality of which, in the interest of survival, it was imperative for our species to take account.”
He continues with, “. . . what little our sense organs and nervous system have permitted us to learn has proved its value over endless years of experience, and we may trust it–as far as it goes [italics mine]. Much of the time our mental, rational understanding of things is adequate for immediate and practical purposes, but if we are to be wise, we will realize that, always, our “image of reality [whatever ‘reality’ we may be dealing with’] is “an extremely simple one.”
Always there is much more, and if we realize this, our thought will have a much closer fit to the complexities and mystery of actuality, and we are more likely to find “ourselves at home” [in the world, in our lives].
I turn finally, to Tom Lilburn, whom she quotes: “Everything exceeds its name.” As Paul of Tarsus wrote, “Now we know in part.” Everything we know, everything we name, every idea and all our use of language (or painting or any other re-presentation of reality) is a limited realization of that which always exceeds our representation.
Lilburn calls all this human thought, “reason’s caricatures.” Always a degree of distortion, a degree of overemphasis on certain aspects, and, inescapably, the neglect of much that is beyond the reach of thought and language.
We are to be grateful that [Roark says, ‘God has created us such that’] we can somehow, to some degree, “participate in what is beyond us, enjoy a brief contiguity with that uncontainability.” Lilburn concludes: “There is praise and then there is sorrow.”
We are graced.
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