Talkin’ to Grandpa

When we’re kids, we often don’t appreciate the wisdom of our parents and consider our grandparents simply wrinkly versions of our parents. When we’re kids we’d be hard pressed to listen to their wisdom. Perhaps, tradition is like talkin’ to Grandpa. But he’s a dialogue partner we don’t appreciate until we’ve grown out of adolescence. It’s no surprise that we treat tradition like a tyrannical parent or wrinkly grandparent. “Tradition is how we got here, but it’s not where we’re going.”

When we begin to grow out of our youth, we begin see ourselves for what we are: shortsighted children. It’s then that we begin to appreciate the words of our parents and grandparents. It’s then that we might relinquish rashness and learn courage by retaining boldness but with admonition from those who have lived on the front line. Perhaps, we’ll even develop enough patient courage to sit down on that rocking chair next to Grandpa on the front porch and listen to his storied wisdom. It’s then that we might put our ears to the floor and listen to the wisdom of tradition, of things past in order to see where it is we are headed. It’s when we sit down and begin to listen, to question, and to speak carefully that we learn to converse with the past. And it’s when we learn to converse with the past that we learn to live in the present while crafting a future. It’s those years after adolescence that we begin to have a Copernican revolution. It’s then that we realize we are not the center and we might even need someone else. It’s then that we begin to realize the words of our parents and grandparents might just turn out to be wisdom. And it’s then that we begin to realize newer isn’t always better.

When we are children and are given a crayon, we scribble. But one day Grandpa comes along and teaches us to write the letters A, B, C. It may be a nuisance at first, but eventually, we learn to write A-Z. It’s exhilarating, so we write it again and again. Some time later, after we feel we’ve mastered A-Z, Mom comes along and tries to teach us C-A-T. She tells us that we can use C-A-T instead of drawing a fluffy animal every time, though fluffy animals are still fun to draw. Writing C-A-T is annoying at first, but we get the hang of it and it becomes fun. We learn D-O-G and S-T-O-P too. Then one day a steel nosed lady teaches us something called “grammar,” a terribly and exhaustibly superfluous practice. But after a while, we begin using it with ease, and the steel nosed lady even tells us that it’s okay to break the rules of grammar with sufficient reason. And her steel nose begins to seem less like steel. We learn to write sentences, paragraphs, essays, and speeches. The steel nose of grammar becomes more fluid, like the strokes of a paintbrush. Then one day we notice a grey hair popped up on our head. It’s then that we walk into a room, and there’s a little person scribbling on a piece of scrap paper. We walk up to the youngster and ask, “Would you like to learn to write your A, B, C’s?”

Our acquaintance with language may be similar to our acquaintance with Grandpa’s storied wisdom. At first, it seems tedious and annoying. We say we don’t need it; we feel that it's little more than rubbish. But after a while we learn its wealth and even pass it on. Perhaps, tradition is like Grandpa, a dialogue partner who teaches us a language. But it’s a language we don’t begin to appreciate until we’ve begun to learn it.

Squiggles on a Page

Historical events are similar to jots on a page. We can look at them. But if we do not know their meaning or significance, then it’s pointless to spend hours looking at them. Historical events are similar to untranslated letters on a page. When a historian writes a history, she translates those events, and with every translation interpretation is implicit. Actually, this seems to happen when any of us experience life. We translate experiences into languages we can understand, and in the process we do a large degree of interpretation. It goes without saying that there can be poor translations, poor interpretations of life. How then might we discern between an excellent and a weak translation? Continual scrutiny, dialogue, and argument within a community: tradition.

It’s often the case regarding history that we want to know what “actually happened.” We say we want snapshots or perhaps videos of particular historical events. However, that’s likely not what we always really need. It’s sometimes contested that the gospels, for example, are filtered events of some conjurers. The chronology is mashed and inconsistent, events are conflicting, and discourses involve an array of variability etc. Thus, we wish to know what “actually happened” regarding Jesus. However, I doubt we would be satisfied if we saw the pictures from what “actually happened,” just as I would be dissatisfied with my confusion if I looked down at some pages of Arabic not knowing what to make of it, not knowing the significance of the seemingly haphazard squiggles. I need more than those seemingly haphazard squiggles. I need to know their significance.

It’s an ironic thing that with the gospels we have what we need – i.e. an explanation of the significance of Jesus, yet we are dissatisfied because we say we actually don’t want the translated letters; we have grown accustom to saying that we want the untranslated letters that we can’t read. Personally, I would prefer to read those Arabic letters translated into a language I can understand; similarly, I would prefer for historical events to be translated by people who are aware of the significance of those events. But again, even if I were to have walked around with Jesus all those many years ago, I likely would not have understood what on earth I was witnessing (perhaps, see Philosophical Fragments).

Interpretation and the proper lenses to interpret historical events are needed. This, at least in part, seems to be the job of tradition, for it is within tradition that we consider those lenses with scrutiny, dialogue, and even argument. It is thereby within tradition that significance is discerned, and it was the traditions that gave shape to the gospels we have today that provide us with the significance of Jesus. Without those traditions, we would be staring cluelessly at squiggles on a page.

Burgers and Faith

Watch commercials on television for ten minutes: we in America are addicted to immediacy (I’m reminded of the aesthete in Either/Or vol. 1). And we want faith the same way we want our burgers and fries: now! Fast food is cheap, and you usually get what you pay for. We want a spiritual experience or conversion or sign from God right this instant. It seems then we easily forget or perhaps ignore that faith is learned. To learn the faith, we are to walk in the footsteps of those who have walked before us; we are to listen to their words and begin to see their conceptual world of language. Faith is a habituation, and fluency takes time. Being addicted to immediacy, do we Americans have the patience and perseverance required for faith?

On Story: our world

No matter your trade, station, vocation, or hobby, at one point or another you will likely come across the opportunity to tell a tale or two, be it about the size of the fish you didn’t catch or the distance of the marathon you didn’t run. We all tell a tale or two given the occasion.

Our lives are storied lives; we live stories, and we live within stories. Stories make for us a symbolic world within which we may reside. Given this, I think not of stories to read “before I die” but of stories to read in order that I might live richly. Some stories are like an entire house, while other stories are like the furniture inside a house. I tend to think of my own life as a story similar to the latter and the biblical story as a story similar to the former. My story resides within the biblical story. The biblical story then creates a symbolic world within which I may reside. Sitting in a single room of the house will not, of course, divulge all the happenings in the rest of the house. Discovering other rooms then is half the fun, and discovering other rooms in the house provides more symbols with which I might engage life.

Needless to say, the bible is not the only story. There are myriads of other stories. Whether we realize it or not, we are furnishing our houses with the stories we watch, hear, and read. If this is the case, then we will surely be careful what sort of stories we involve in our furnishings. I doubt if anyone desperately desires to put a mud puddle in the middle of the living room. However, some stories are not pleasant, but they are important. Therefore, I do not suggest that anyone should furnish the house with only pillows. We need more than pillows, lest we make for ourselves a padded room – and those are for crazy people. Also, it might be said that it is quite easy to decorate your house without spending so much as a bead of sweat and a dollar. But those who are unwilling to do the work may find themselves in a house without windows, a house resembling a coffin.

Regarding stories in such a manner, it is then less about reading particular stories “before you die” and more about reading particular stories in order that you might live with them. Whether we like it or not, we live storied lives, and the stories we invite into the house will most certainly set the trajectory for the sorts of lives we will live and the sorts of stories we tell.

Science and Religion

I won’t mince words. Scientists often practice the inscrutable luxury of critiquing religion, and religious folks often naively critique science. The two have been considered predominantly at odds with one another. On occasion a theologian will attempt to prove the bible scientifically, and a scientist will attempt to disprove the bible scientifically. A lot goes into this screaming match, and I will not seek to sort all this out in a blog mostly because I’m not qualified. But I will say a word or two.

It seems that science and religion are both telling stories about the world, but they seem to be telling their stories differently. If I were to read Crime and Punishment and then I became furious because it broke the rules of sonnet writing, would I be justified in my fury? Crime and Punishment doesn’t have fourteen lines, among others things. Similarly, if a batter in a baseball game hit the ball and on his way to first base he failed to dribble the ball, would he be guilty of breaking the rules of baseball? Novels and sonnets operate according to different rules. Baseball and basketball operate according to different rules. Perhaps, even science and religion operate according to different rules. It won’t do then for science to regard religion as illegitimate, just as it won’t do for Michael Jordan to critique Barry Bonds for not dribbling the baseball after he hit it out of the park. We might call these various practices “games,” and then we might say that these different games each have their own set of rules according to which these games operate. We might call these different games "language games," and with these language games we enact practices and tell stories.

I am not saying science and religion are incompatible. Are baseball and basketball incompatible? That question doesn’t make sense. Incompatibility isn't the issue. I know lots of sports fans who are fans of both baseball and basketball – though I might add Michael Jordan likely should’ve stayed away from playing baseball. However, what I am saying is that science and religion are telling different stories, and they are doing so with different languages, which require particular rules. Does it make sense to say that sonnets are incompatible with plays, if they are referring to the same events? We have grown accustom to speaking of religion and science as if it is proper to say they are incompatible with each other, but I suggest otherwise. I think this is an erroneous assumption. Shakespeare did not contradict himself by writing both sonnets and plays, nor did Dostoevsky contradict himself by writing essays and novels. It might be said, “But the bible says one thing about this event and science/historiography says another.” To that I must say, “Yes, and they are doing so according to different rules of story telling, just as a poem differs from a novel.” Let each continue to operate according to their rules, though it might not hurt for them to rub off on each other. After all, novelists would do well to learn a thing or two from poets, and the converse is true also. Incompatibility is not the issue, and we would do well to recondition ourselves regarding this assumption.

If I heard some seemingly bazaar utterances made by a member of a Luba tribe, it would be a misapprehension on my part to tell him, “No, that’s not how you say pickles and cheese!” If I were to do such a silly thing, I would be ignoring the rules according to which he is making those particular utterances; I would be ignoring the rules of his language game. So we may wish to translate his utterances into utterances according to rules with which I am familiar, but it must be noted that something will likely be lost in the translation process. We will not acquire a word for word translation. What then is to be done?

Just as a professor of literature needs to be acquainted with multiple languages, so too a systematic theologian needs to be acquainted with multiple languages, including the “language” of science. This should be the case not merely for a systematic theologian to travel the earth seeking to “prove the bible” but that with a richer understanding of the many languages of the world, which are imbedded in their respective cultures, a systematic theologian might practice a more robust theology, one which acknowledges the multiplicity of stories that are told according to varying language games. Scientists might also do the same, lest scientists and theologians continue to squawk at each other in completely different languages expecting the other to stop breaking all the rules of story telling. However, I should add that I am not suggesting that theologians pretend to learn the “language” of science and then practice it poorly, just as Michael Jordan likely should've stayed away from playing baseball. That would only exacerbate the dialogue. Theologians need to develop a fluency in other "languages." But if nothing else, dialogue partners need to make room for the other’s language and way of telling their stories without immediately considering it to be an illegitimate practice.

A Puff of Smoke in the Imagination

In what I consider to be Camus’ greatest novel, the Plague, the doctor reflects, “And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination.” If this is in any way true, then it should come as little surprise that news anchors speak of death and suffering without so much as a tear. They speak of tragedy without apparent remorse – it seems that this runs in accord with a long-standing tradition of reporting a neutral history (but that is another matter). For the moment, I would like to draw attention to the fact that we are a society saturated with simulated corpses, and we are blurring the boundaries of fiction and reality. There seems to be little difference between reality TV and the recent “high profile” court case. Though there is a large degree of difference between war in the Middle East and war in our local cinema, the two seem contiguous in American consciousness. We see corpses. We see lots of them, piles of them, and yet we do not cry out for a stop. We race to the cinemas for more. When we get home from the cinemas, we turn on our TVs and hear of more disaster. The transition from cinema to the evening news on TV, from fiction to reality seems slight. We have made life a stage and blurred the difference between fiction and reality, and consequently we have thickened our skin toward the wrong things, namely people. Our hearts seemed to have grown callous to the sight of corpses and familial deterioration. It is, after all, for our entertainment.

Without a doubt, social media has revolutionized cultures and societies. This is scary and exhilarating. There is such a great potential! However, “With social media we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same social media comes praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be” (James 3:9-10). There are living bodies on the receiving side of our messages. There are living bodies on the receiving side of our comments, pictures, and video posts. How long ago was it that a person was encouraged to commit suicide while on the Internet? And I’ll wager a guess that there are many other stories like it. “My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” Social media has a seemingly infinite capacity for good and evil. If never before has the human tongue been tamed, how might we tame the ever evolving world of social media?

I have never given Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath much credit. I often consider it an average novel, written for a few high schoolers who will hate reading it. However, it records the methodical deterioration of a Midwest family’s dignity as they seek merely to survive. With each step, they stoop lower; they are forced to stoop lower and lower. By the end, a reader must ask, “Is there any dignity left? And if there is not, when was the line crossed, when was dignity relinquished?” These are important questions, and I might add, “At what point do we murder other people’s dignity through social media?”

With the proliferation of technology, with the fast paced evolution of technological capability, the church needs to consider its profound situation. For now the value of both dead and living bodies seems to be losing their worth in the American consciousness, whether or not this is consciously realized. This is vitally important. The church must not miss the train on this issue; the church must not let this go unchallenged, unqualified. To this, to the rise of social media, the church must recover its prophetic voice more than ever, for even the sight of corpses and the knowledge of other living bodies are merely puffs of smoke in our imaginations.

Perhaps, a proactive start might be to hesitate and weigh carefully each word, picture, and video before posting. Perhaps, a proactive start would be to counteract the brutality with a few kind words and simple gestures of grace. This is surely possible. Just as the tongue may be used for good and evil, social media may be used for both good and evil. Let it be for good, and let us remember the value of other human persons.

Community: Plumbing the Depths of a Mud Puddle

It would seem that we are each individuals each responsible for our own peccadilloes and other perhaps more severe though private sins. It would seem that we are each unrelated atoms floating about casting dice for our own destinies. I am responsible for me and for no other, and no other is responsible for me.

Since the so-called foundations of “modernism” have begun to crumble or have crumbled (whichever flavor of vague description you prefer), a few things have come to light, namely: I am not an unrelated individual; I am not a manufacturer of my own destiny. The sad though potentially exciting twist is that I share complicity with society’s sins, and society shares complicity with my sins. I do not mean to suggest that each person may evade responsibility by contending that it is the society’s fault for personal sins, but it seems that we do need a more robust understanding of the larger society’s role in relation to particular persons. It would seem then that we need to reevaluate a person’s place in community and the community’s relation to persons. For too long we have treated persons as individual islands, yet no person is an island, no person is an atom unrelated to fellow atoms.

If respective communities share a responsibility for persons in the community and persons in the community share responsibility for the community, then the community needs to make its priority the building of character, lest the community crumble and with it any hope of recourse. The community is indeed responsible for the building of character within the community – a novel thought!

The church then cannot say, “oh look at that terrible sinner!” The church must say instead, “we have failed this person, and now we must come to the aid of this person!” There is no room for the church to evade responsibility for sins, and there is no room for particular persons to evade responsibility for sins. Responsibility goes both ways, and the responsibility to build character then goes both ways – it might be said as a side note, though no less important, that character is both public and “private,” and it is not limited to behaviors in the prayer closet or other "private" spheres of existence.

The Gospel calls people together and in so doing binds them together by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel does not give room for persons to be unrelated to one another, for the Gospel creates community, a community that is not to let its eyelids grow heavy at the crucial moment, a community that is not to deny its partnership with persons from the community. The Gospel creates community that is to be of integrity and cohesion. In the narrative world of the Gospel there is neither space nor time to let individuals be individuals unrelated.

Muddle puddles often seem shallow, but every now and then you might come across a mud puddle that keeps getting deeper and deeper. To plumb the depths of the church’s responsibility to particular persons is similar to plumbing the depths of a mud puddle that at first seemed only a few inches deep but keeps getting deeper and deeper. The church’s responsibility to particular persons runs deep, and the sooner churches acknowledge their responsibility and invest in particular persons the sooner they will be on the road to a Gospel community. The sooner churches make the building of character a priority, the sooner churches will begin clearing the murkiness of the muddle puddle.