2008 turned out to be quite the year for me. All kinds of beginnings, without any real endings. This turn of the year is one of big transitions, pointing towards what appears to be a pretty nice 2009.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

~Philippians 3:12-16

Happy New Year!!

In case you haven’t realized it, my bride-to-be (3 weeks!) Amy Gustafson released a Christmas album. I’m not saying just because I’m marrying her, but because I truly believe it. It’s really good. Well worth a listen, and well worth buying and playing over this holiday season.

It’s available for $9.99 and can be purchased now through her website.

You can also hear samples of the songs, and read the lyrics & the stories behind them.

If you like what you see and hear, help her out by getting the word out; pass the link, and CD, on to friends & family that you think might also enjoy it!

That Holy Night

I finished my 25 page paper, that turned out to be about 30 pages.

The title was Experiences of Beauty: Theological Aesthetics in Jurgen Moltmann.

It’s a little long to post here, and I might someday want to do something more substantial with it. But, I think I can post a bit. Here’s the conclusion (and I’d be happy to send you the whole thing if you’re curious):

“We are here to be transformed,” Arthur Danto writes. Later on in his book he adds, “Beauty is a necessary condition for life as we would want to live it.” We are left with the questions of what it means to be transformed and what kind of life we want to live, indeed what kind of life we are called to live. This call is not a moral demand that represses our creative instinct and separates us from this present world in exchange for some heavenly, bodiless, absorption into a nameless “Other”. Rather, this call is given by the Triune God—Father and Son and Holy Spirit—who exist in eternal community, united and yet diverse. This call, this work of restoration encounters us in time and encounters us in particular moments. The nature of this work is among the most important questions in theology. So, it seems particularly helpful to see how Jürgen Moltmann, a major contributor to systematic theology, has worked out this question, and more specifically to see how this work can help us better understand the nature and experience of beauty in our lives.

God is the maker of heaven and earth, indeed the remaker of heaven and earth. We are called not as slaves, but as heirs, to be conformed to his likeness, and join with him in an eternal dance of shared mutuality. Because of this we take particular note of the characteristics of the God who calls all of humanity back into an enlivening relationship. Among these manifold attributes is that of beauty. God is beautiful and God creates beauty. Our participation with this God of Beauty is one of passionate love, eros, in which we are caught up with each other in both constant desire and constant freedom. This Eros with us is God’s own Spirit, who with the Son and the Father, have worked and continue to work for the fullness of life and beauty in the cosmos. Our experience of beauty is that moment in which the Spirit who is raising us up recognizes with us, and within us, the glory of God’s work, wherein we experience a moment of shared life, and hope, and liberation that not only excites us with the fullness but pulls us into its creativity and enlivens our lives with a profound peace and delight.

This experience of beauty is an experience we share with God, an experience that endears us to him even in moments of struggle or darkness or frustration. We are given insight into his being, even as it is not always directly him we are seeing. He created what is good and continues to create, inspiring us in creativity, to take joy in what is beautiful in him, in this world, in music, in art, in relationships, and in all kinds of expressions. It is this intersection of Spirit and eschatology that I experienced on the lawn in front of Blanchard Hall, and have experienced in so many different, not always as profound, ways before and since then. It was an experience of God, a sharing with God of a moment that reflects the eternal moment of his perichoretic invitation. He calls us to share with him beauty of all kinds in our present experiences and in our future participation. Beauty is a gift from God, shared with God. And it is very good.

I’ve a bit on my plate this month.

Major presentation last week on one of the most difficult books I’ve read.

Major paper due this week, twenty five pages, on Moltmann’s theology of beauty. Twenty one pages are now written.

I’m driving to Portland beginning on Tuesday evening (with an overnight in Pasadena, to make for a traffic free real start on Wednesday). Will get there Thursday afternoon.

I haven’t seen Amy, my fiancee, in over 6 weeks now. I get to see her next Thursday night.

I’m not only driving to Portland, when I leave my house, I will effectively also be moving out. So, I probably should pack, at least a little bit before I drive away.

Christmas is coming up in a couple of weeks. My parents are coming up to Portland a few days before Christmas. My parents will meet Amy’s family for the first time. On Christmas day, it will be me and Amy, my mom and dad, and her mom spending the day together. A nice, peaceful day.

The next day the larger family comes to celebrate. Nice, probably not nearly as peaceful.

My brother and sister in law are flying into Portland the weekend after Christmas.

My bachelor party will be immediately followed the next evening with a nice dinner with Amy at a nice restaurant, then all kinds of late night New Years Eve fun in Portland.

No plans on the 1st, so far.

Somewhere in the middle of all this there will be various meetings to finish up our wedding counseling.

Rehearsal and rehearsal dinner on January 2nd.

Bit of a wedding on the 3rd.

Driving back down to Pasadena beginning on the late afternoon of January 4th. Taking the 101, for a bit of scenery.

Maybe at some point during this time I’ll get my manuscript back from the various editors at Barclay Press, for a second major edit. Love to have it published before next summer.

Arrive in Pasadena on the 7th. Go to Fuller Seminary Housing office, pick up the keys to our apartment, effectively move into apartment, even though we will have no bed, no furniture, and pretty much hardly anything else at the time.

My second quarter of PhD studies starts at noon on January 8th. Theological Method.

Get couch, bed, desk, all kinds of stuff, from Lake Arrowhead and Alta Dena that weekend, while having to read a major theology book for class the next week, and hoping (praying!) Amy finds a job before our second month’s rent is due.

Lot going on this month. In case you’re wondering what I’ve been up to and why blogging hasn’t quite been keeping up. Prayers are welcomed.

I’m leading a discussion tomorrow on David Bentley Hart’s The Beauty of the Infinite in my Theology of Beauty class. Here’s the summary I wrote to help with the discussion:

In the tenth century, the story is told, Vladimir of Russia decided to choose a religion to help unite his country under a single faith. It is said he sent emissaries to gather information about three major religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Those responsible for Christianity traveled to Constantinople, where they observed the spiritual mysticism of devout monks and the magnificent architecture of the Hagia Sophia cathedral. The reports of grandeur, elegance, and beauty these emissaries brought back convinced Vladimir to adopt Orthodox Christianity as his nation’s religion. Such beauty was not, apparently only about honoring God, it was itself an expression to those who did not know Christ, able to bring others into the fold by the shear majesty of aesthetics. Beauty was a form of evangelism, a rhetoric speaking of a beautiful God.

Constantinople was sacked, and renamed Istanbul. The Hagia Sophia became a mosque, then later a museum, where public prayer is against the law. Yet, the appeal for this approach was not left to history. Indeed, recently there has been a movement that seeks a return to such a stance, using words rather than architecture. This movement is Radical Orthodoxy, and it is within this movement we can place David Bentley Hart. For Hart, unlike others pursuing the Radical Orthodoxy goals, we can add another connection to the grandeur of Constantinople. He is an Eastern Orthodox writer. And yet…

I have read a fair amount of Orthodox writers and Hart does not match their style or approach, or sources. Rather, he is an Eastern Orthodox writer almost entirely emphasizing a Western theological approach, so much so it became clear that Hart is not a lifelong member of the Orthodox church, but rather a convert, a fact later confirmed. I did not discover the date or background of his conversion, however, my suspicion is it came rather late–an intellectual and ecclesial pilgrimage to Constantinople. Hart may be Orthodox but his efforts probably should not be considered as reflecting the broader Orthodox approach or emphases.

His core influences are specified in The Beauty of the Infinite, and can be identified not only by perceptible adoption of arguments, but also because such men are the only ones Hart does not add some sort of dismissal or insult when noting their contributions. John Milbank must rank among the highest of these, as he is the scholar who started the Radical Orthodoxy movement and Hart’s mentor at the University of Virginia. Hans Urs von Balthasar is also a primary influence, who not only seems to have influenced Hart’s thoughts but also his style. Added to this we can suggest the featured influence, Gregory of Nyssa, as well as Bonaventure and Anselm. For the latter he offers a rather rousing defense against his fellow Orthodox writer, Vladimir Lossky. Protestants are almost entirely dismissed, except for Johann Hamann, who is characterized by his critical stance towards the burgeoning Enlightenment.

The inclusion and emphasis on Gregory of Nyssa, as well as the occasional reference to Maximus the Confessor, might seem to counter the suggestion of Hart’s primarily Western orientation. However, it should be noted that Hans Urs von Balthasar happened to pen a small set of books on three early writers. The first was Origen, followed by Maximus and then Gregory of Nyssa. The broad, and not always noted, influence of Balthasar should be considered in any assessment of Hart’s thought. Indeed, Hart does make a fairly clear statement of this, saying that his own efforts in The Beauty of the Infinite could be considered, in essence, as “a kind of extended marginalium on some page of Balthasar’s work” (29). This is not to say Hart is merely repeating what had already been so grandly written. Hart is a very learned and creative scholar whose efforts in The Beauty of the Infinite should be considered as using his influences as a springboard to greater heights in an attempted integration of East and West.

Just as, no doubt, those who tried to describe the Hagia Sophia felt at a loss for words, so too does anyone wishing to summarize Hart’s effort in a few pages. Indeed, a few pages could be spent on many of Hart’s single sentences. Indeed, a few of Hart’s sentences might just be three pages. The Beauty of the Infinite is made up of three main sections, with a substantive introduction that can be considered a main section in its own right. Here, Hart lays the groundwork for his ambitious project, listing the names of those he sees as primary intellectual opponents as well as offering extended definitions of how he is using key terms.

Hart suggests there are two narratives that have been offered in an attempt to describe our historical reality. The first is a rhetoric of violence, represented by a significant amount of thinkers throughout history and reaching a particularly destructive point in our era, leading us away from God and God’s fullness in this world. The second is a rhetoric of peace, the way of life and hope that propels us, continually, into an infinite discover of God’s beauty. The first is, by far, the most prevalent and accepted, not only in secular philosophies, but also, Hart claims, has influenced a great deal of Christian theology.

With this, then, Hart’s goal is first to explore and describe the rhetoric of violence, especially as seen in the writings of continental postmodern philosophers, suggesting that, in essence, this rhetoric is not as much a dismissal of metanarratives, but rather are continuations of what he sees as Nietzche’s counter-evangel. Although, he acknowledges their distinctions, Hart reduces their contributions to what he sees as their essence, a narrative of the sublime that expounds an ontology of violence. Everything is different, there are no inherent connections, leading to an unbridgeable existence within this world, undermining all analogy, and creating a ‘radical discontinuity’ with the world and with each other that allows only for opposition and isolation. Distance is the defining characteristic of this totality, a distance that repulses one from another within the confines of existence, not unlike the accelerating, expanding universe, the violence of the distancing leads to an inherent coldness and entropy. Think C.S. Lewis’s description of Hell in The Great Divorce. Beauty is lost, undermined by a supposed underlying sublimity that rhetorically justifies the entropic pursuits even as it opens the door for dominating counter-narratives that, in essence, hide the strife of domination beneath words of distinction. The rhetoric of violence is one of divide and conquer.

This distinction between sublime and beauty is at the heart of Hart’s understanding. The sublime, long the preferred aesthetic term as opposed to the perceived superficiality of the ‘merely’ beautiful, is considered a deeper reality that is inexpressible, impenetrable, unrepresentable, surpassing the power of comprehension, a disruption of imagination, emphasizing an insurmountable distinction between form and the infinite. The sublime has four contributing ‘narratives’ that are brought out by postmodern philosophers.

The first is the “differential sublime” (52). Difference itself is a sublime reality, with distinction, change and perpetual liberation perceived as perpetual states. Exploration of this sublime emphasizes disruption, a tearing apart of perceived connections in order to establish clear perception and supposed objectivity. Derrida is, for Hart, the key figure to be discussed. Rejecting the overarching denial of essential difference by traditional Western metaphysics as being violent and imperious, the entire emphasis upon difference becomes itself violent, allowing for nothing apart from difference.

The second is the “cosmological sublime” (56). Here Deleuze and Foucalt are put forth as representatives of this rhetorical violence. Here ‘inescapable chance’ and ‘uncontrollable results’ are said to dominate our existence, difference is dispersal and change. In other words, repetitious chaos, constant motion but not towards anything other than more disruption and shattering, that contains only temporary form before indecipherable reorganization. In such ambiguity and aimless existence there can only be amoral acceptance. The more accepting of this purposeless state, the more joy in present existence can be possible. The hope is that there is no hope, without the controlling burden of a defining past or eschatological expectation. This opens the door for the violence of domination, where one is either dominated or dominating in the experience of this chaotic state.

The third narrative is the “ontological sublime” (72). The sublime, viewed through a Heideggerian lens, and more specifically developed by Jean-Luc Nancy, is not what is beyond what appears and we experience, not a sense of infinity, but rather the result of difference that forms the world in its totality. The world is open as it arrives, but is without meaning. Sublime is an experience of “unlimitation” where one perceives the void and thus the shape of forms that are defined by this nothingness. The universe expands beyond its borders into nothing, not infinite, becoming more itself as it goes into nothing. I say that acknowledging that while analogy is apparently impossible, it is still helpful to struggling minds.

Hart finishes his list with the “ethical sublime”75). Here we find Emmanuel Levinas as Hart’s particular foil. The sublime, which is always that deep unrepresentable reality, is emphasized in the “Other”, never approachable, always transcendent demanding an response that can find no satiation. This other is outside the totality, commanding us but not, by definition, approachable, with this profound insatisfaction being itself an experience of the sublime. The quest itself is the goal, rather than comfort or accomplishment. We are driven onwards to do what is responsible without any return, and obligation without expectation. Distance is total, with no bridging or traversing, with no relationship whatsoever besides itself, a service to a good never possibly seen. Derrida, Hart suggests, attempts a more moderate versions of this, where the other is a mystical absence that is defining without relating, calling us towards justice by deconstruction, a violent separation, “war upon war”, a struggle for differentiated freedom.

The sublime is a totality closed within itself, the space between other and others, that cannot be bridged and which itself defines the knowable by its unknowability. This is not expanding to a prescribed direction or goal but is rather chaos, constantly in flux, a “pagan exuberance tempered by Gnostic detachment”(91).

It is here, then, that Hart turns to Nietzsche as the most direct proponent of a rhetoric of violence. In purposeful contrast to the supposed peace and spiritual virtues of Jesus, Nietzsche offers not only an alternative, but an opposition, a counter-Gospel. He is, according to Hart, establishing his own ‘critical vantage’ to overturn what he sees as Christian contradiction of Christ’s actual message and, added to this, dismiss the actual message itself as being ultimately weak and ineffective. Instead, he encourages a move back to noble virtues. Rather than meekness and humility there is pride and strength, the will to power. This is an aesthetic preference rather than a clearly reasoned position.
The modern and postmodern (which is “modernity fully realized”) perspectives on a closed totality are directly opposed to the Gospel of Christ, and are, in fact, inherently violent in their rhetoric as domination becomes inherent to their goals.

Theirs is a rhetoric of violence that cannot be simply dismissed or rationally opposed. Because this is a counter-narrative, an aesthetic choice, there must be a return to what is seen as the original response, a rhetoric offered by Jesus, a rhetoric of peace. The true Gospel must be re-asserted. Postmodern philosophy rejects the Christian message as being “totalizing”, a “metaphysical violence against difference” that hides beneath words of peace (150). The Christian vision is one of conquest for an “ephemeral dream”. Instead of following the lead of this perspective, Hart offers a different way, a way that abandons the pursuit of dialectical truth and, at the same time, rejects the totality that postmodernity offers. Persuasion here is not violent, but peaceful. Instead of strife and chaos being the “primordial” truth, there is beauty, a beauty that is infinite in scope as it reveals the “music of a triune God” (151). Christian theology, then, rather than being a dialectic is a rhetoric of peace that coherently expresses this beauty and light.

And so Hart turns to his second section, a minor dogmatics, touching on four key themes of Christian theology and places these within the field of battle that had been opened up in the first section. Although deeply theological this second section is not systematic. It is, rather, more like variations on themes. Each section offers Hart’s theological points at the beginning then what he sees as related musings on the theme, not fully exploring the particular theological point as much as being riffs as they occur to him. Nor does he see a consistent method of response as important (154). In developing his themes Hart makes a key point, then writes about what comes to his mind about that point, in whatever way he feels like doing in the moment. Although more specifically directed towards the positive development of a renewed theology, these sections contain a significant amount of critical study of assorted philosophers and theologians. Hart’s effort seems to be establishing a rhetoric of peace by demolishing those he sees as not fitting into this; the form of his argument coming in part from, we might say, their formlessness and chaos.

This second section is divided into four main considerations: trinity, creation, salvation, and eschatology. At the heart of Hart’s rhetoric of peace is his strong preference for beauty instead of the sublime, and the infinite instead of a totality. “Beauty is prior to sublimity and infinity surpasses totality” (413). God is himself beautiful and Christ is God’s supreme rhetoric of this beauty and peace. The beauty of the infinite is the Christian aesthetics, a holistic vision of being that leads to delight and peace.

Countering the perspective of chaos, and the search for power that chaos leaves us with, Hart offers a counter-narrative, one that rejects chaos as turmoil and anarchy, within which all is a struggle for dominance, power, and asserted identity. Instead, chaos is defined more according to the recent scientific use of the term, where apparent disorder and randomness contains, in fact, an infinite complexity and order. This is not a closed totality, but rather an open infinity.

Instead of the expanding, enervating universe that propels each form farther and more distant from each other, beginning in violence and ending in cold, isolation, the beauty of God places us in his orbit. We are constantly falling towards him, but instead of arriving we circle, in a perichoretic dance. Rather than distance being a form of alienation, distance becomes an expression of intimacy as we are continual drawn to God, who is not in constant retreat from us but rather in constant participation.

The final section of The Beauty of the Infinite offers Hart’s concluding thoughts on the war of persuasions. Here he explores more closely what it means for there to be competing rhetorics, examining more specifically the idea of pursuing a rhetoric of peace amidst violence and strife. This persuasion, as has been noted, is not about escapism away from prevailing philosophical influence and cultural seductions of power, but rather about offering a new perspective within the old, a way of peace that counteracts the violence through expressions of eternal values of beauty and light. This subversive expression of beauty of the infinite provokes the violence even as it disarms it by refusing to play the same game. Christian rhetoric, a rhetoric of profound peace, persuades by inducing rapture, reorienting vision towards infinite beauty, a quest that is always satisfying and never satiated.

Overall, I’m very mixed about the book. I agree with Hart on a great deal of what he says, and yet I’m almost entirely put off by the way in which he says it. He promotes, rhetorically, a rhetoric of peace but in almost every written way possible does not himself follow a rhetoric of peace. He uses alienating arguments, offputting (and rarely necessary) vocabulary, dismissive and insulting interaction, and baroque prose. Which suggests to me that while I, in part, agree with a lot of his efforts, he does not agree with his own conclusions. Had he agreed with himself we would see this in his approach to theology. Instead of a rhetoric of peace, however, we have rhetorical violence that seeks domination and acclamation. Hart is a very smart fellow, and he’s desperate, it seems, to be acknowledged as such, more desperate for such attention than getting his basic message across.

Curiously, when I think of a true rhetoric of peace in action I think of The Shack. Like it or not, agree with it or not, it seems to be significantly closer to Hart’s goal than Hart is.

And this likely dooms Hart to relative obscurity. Unless, of course, Hart really reads his own book and puts it into practice.

I’m asking for some audience participation here. I’m reading a book right now called The Beauty of the Infinite. It’s a pretty rigorous read, to be honest, although the author has some stimulating thoughts buried beneath his turgid prose. I’m going to post my thoughts on the book next week, but for now I’m curious about a certain sentence. This is, in essence, an aesthetic question directed at all those who feel sharp at grammar, writing, or English style. I’m looking at how style can itself be a form of rhetorical violence, and I think this sentence sort of gets at that.

So, what I’m asking is for you to unleash your inner editor. You know, the one that wants to point out every little grammar mistake or style distention, but have learned over the years that people get bent out of shape when corrected on what they see as minor points. But I want to hear it.

In other words, I want the part of you that reveled in Eats, Shoots, and Leaves to be let out on this following sentence. There are a lot of examples I could use, but I particularly liked this one because of the semicolon love that is shown. I tend to dismiss the semicolon altogether so maybe I’m a wee biased.

Here it is. Have at it, on anything that comes to mind. Don’t worry about understanding it, just get at the style and the grammar and all around English language usage (though, communicating in an understandable way is a part of that, so maybe you could add those thoughts too). It might also be that this is perfectly fine and acceptable, and my mind just doesn’t want to deal with the complexity of such a supposed master. Here is the, yes just one, sentence:

For all his solicitude for noble values, Nietzsche may prove, in retrospect, to have been the greatest of bourgeois philosophers: the active and creative force of will he praised may be really a mythic aggrandizement of entrepreneurial ingenuity and initiative; talk of the will to power, however abstracted and universalized, may reflect only a metaphysical inflation of that concept of voluntaristic punctiliarity that defines the “subject” to which the market is hospitable; the notion of a contentless and spontaneous activity that must create values describes, in a somewhat impressionistic vein, the monadic consumer of the free market and the venture capitalist; to speak of the innocence of all becoming, the absence of good and evil from being, and a general preference for the distinction between god and bad as a purely evaluative judgment is perhaps to speak of the guiltless desire of the consumer, the relativity of want, and that perpetual transvaluation that is so elegantly and poignantly expressed on every price tag, every declaration of a commodity’s abstract value; a force that goes always to the limit of what it can do is perhaps at one with modern capitalism’s myth of limitless growth and unbounded trade.

Happy Holidays, friends!!

I’m happy to announce the release of That Holy Night (A Christmas EP)!!!

It’s available for $9.99 and can be purchased now through my new website, with a special offer through midnight on November 30) of free shipping on all domestic orders!

GET YOUR COPY NOW! You can also hear samples of the songs, and read the lyrics & the stories behind them.

If you like what you see and hear, help me out by getting the word out; pass the link on to friends & family that you think might also enjoy it!

Thanks for your continued support! I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving & a blessed Christmas season to come!

Amy

That Holy Night, a new Christmas CD by Amy Gustafson (soon to be Oden!)

I think it is the effect of reading early monastics. Or maybe it is why I found the early monastics so engaging. Maybe a mix of both.

I’m talking about my tendency to engage my inner emotions, complications, desires, and all that other ‘mushy’ sort of stuff that a more astute theologian or pastor might leave off to the side. It’s not becoming.

Yet, I see it as essential. I don’t know anyone else’s inner wrestling with God as much as my own. And in my own I have a lifetime of study, past-present-future, giving me a workbook of a life lived with God in this world.

Sometimes the process gets clogged. I lose my center, or I step in an uninformed direction, or I don’t sit enough staring at trees, letting the tangles of this life clutter my being. Or sometimes, more recently, I get caught up in happiness, and distraction, and surprising blessings.

I’ve said on occasion that I’m naturally a very shallow person. It’s true. Only God did not let me remain shallow. Or, rather, shallowness may have been my start but it is not his end. A big part of this deepening has been the divine No, that could be explained away by a longlasting series of unfortunate decisions and circumstances, or seen as a way God has driven me into self-examination and outward discovery of his work in this world.

I can go so fast, without paying attention, that those traffic lights and yield signs begin to blur. All the more when the lights aren’t red and I feel a go, go, go in my soul.

But there is a crumbling in that. And it becomes a different kind of weakening, a positive enervation, that instills worry, and doubt, and on-edge frustration.

My years in the mountain haven’t gone to waste, however, and I recognize this off-center place more readily, and begin the process of response even as the this-time is still always seems bigger than the already addressed issues of being’s past.

The this-time includes the almost perpetual refrain of not enough money (and the concerns of future school funds, rent, and all the other aspects of life) coupled with a newer reality of how to be a PhD student.

The former part, the bit about money, is the refrain that demands faith. I don’t really have faith. I mean I do, for the religious stuff, but when it comes to actual life? I am still wracked by doubt. I can say with some hope that I’ve not let this doubt interfere, thus my occasional ludicrous decisions, but it’s still there, undermining the moment as I press on towards the future. Makes for constant dissonance if I’m not careful.

The latter, the PhD part, is more tricky. Not least because it is couple with that first one. I need a scholarship to stay in school. I feel I need to perform to the level to get the scholarship renewed each year. This worry puts a strain on my openness and creativity. But it’s also more than that. I am more like an engineer than a theoretical physicist when it comes to theology. I want to see how ‘this fact’ relates to ‘that context’. I like to understand by application not theoretical analysis.

So, I’m realizing strong this morning that after most of a quarter as a PhD student I’ve not yet found how to be a PhD student, how I am best a PhD student. And in this refrain I see I’ve fairly responded with restraint. Caught between here and there I became silent both for here and there. There is a way, I feel it, to be both here and there at the same time.

And once again, the constant lesson, I have to let go in order to finally understand. I have to let go expectations and let go the future and let go trying to make sense and let go the weight that I put on myself to be an influential voice. I have to let go the pride–the pride that wants to sound impressive and the pride that makes me want to not sound impressive so I can better impress more people. I have to put aside the jealousy and I have to let go the yearning to be noticed, and applauded. I have to let go the deep tendency to hide and seclude and treasure my horded perceptions like a young dragon upon his gold.

I have to learn to speak and to be silent, to be truly still rather than merely stifled.

I have to learn to put my hope in the God who leads towards his future even as I live in this present.

I have been quiet because I have been worried, bothered by unresolved potentials, hopes shown but not settled.

I have to learn how to be free again, now among people.

I have to dance.

I see that, I feel that, now the question is how to be that not only in rhetoric but in real response.

My mind and soul have become knotted and I’ve justified that with all the excuses of my present dislocation. But it is precisely in the dislocation that we as Spirited people really can learn and trust and become.

I’m reminded of that this morning and pushed to renew the pursuit of God’s wholly Spirit in this life. This is my confession, of sorts, and my hope that if people are still roundabout this raven’s nest they’ll be free as well in what might become attempts at sketches, finding my center once more through tracing and practicing and exploring in ways that might not always be immediately accessible. I don’t know. I need to see what is now there and find that freedom to dance in the midst of the public square. And, honestly, I’m not really that confident that I’m a good or elegant dancer.

But I want to be. I need to stop worrying about making sense or pleasing particular aesthetics. The music is playing. Now is the time to step.

An added thought. In a letter to me, congratulating me on my entrance into advanced theological studies, Jurgen Moltmann ended with, “Have courage.”

That has become more weighty as time has passed, and I see that as being not only a kind word from a theologian at the pinnacle to one at the base, but also a divine call, the call to have courage to be wholly God’s in the place where he has put me, dissuaded neither by the common pursuits nor the expected fears. That is the word for me now, and onwards. Have courage. I do that, explore that, live that, I think I will see God more every day, culminating in that new beginning when I see him face to face.

Writing to me follows a cadence. Not one of sound or feel. A lived cadence, in which my life begins to find a rhythm of being. As I find the feel for it, my creativity soars, my mind wanders towards varying depths, and there’s a curious interplay of intellectual and emotional liveliness.

I’ve not felt that rhythm for a while now. And I’ve not written for a while now. Neither here on my blog nor anywhere else. My thoughts have dissipated, sometimes outwards in low measure, sometimes reabsorbed within my being.

Unlike past seasons the cause of this disturbed rhythm is almost all good. Good, but presently thrusting me into a prolonged transition, where I don’t feel either here or there or anywhere in particular, a commuter to school, in relationship, in thought, in all kinds of ways.

My class on beauty, which I had hoped to write more about, is done in a few weeks. My musings from this entry into academia have fallen way below my expectations, even as I realize I look back and don’t see missed moments of sharable insight. Just that dissipation that never quite settles into coherent thoughts.

While there are still massive changes ahead, I see these changes as not being yet more prolonged transition but rather new beginning, a profoundly changed settledness in which I can rediscover a new rhythm as I begin life with another, in my own established place.

And, honestly, I miss writing. It’s a boon to my soul, thought and emotions. Leaving it aside is impoverishing for me, in ways that only become apparent when I begin to exhibit the signs of a scurvy of being, a quiet wasting away that increases my sensitivity to the negative and lowers my perseverance towards light and hope.

I don’t see anything changing for a little while, as I try to hold onto what little rhythm I have I put my energy into two major projects.

But, I see it as a goal.

I’ve been away. I’m going to be back. Maybe with a little more theologizing than might be preferred. Probably again with an assortment of pictures of birds and beasts.