The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #102

[September 2006 journal entry]

In light of the surprise affirmation of Job’s ‘scrapheap’ thoughts (42:7-9) near the end of the story/play, is the narrator encouraging the reader/audience to defy ‘God’? One trait of a ‘non-religious’ and ‘with the world face to face’ approach to ethics and spirituality (some variation of which would be an alternative for the ‘scrapheap’ Job should he choose to take the next steps away from the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm) is that individuals are encouraged to address ‘God’ bravely, in strength.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #101

[September 2006 journal entry]

Job’s three close friends bless ‘God’ by maintaining the ‘religious’ theologically orthodox (T/O) paradigm, by following protocol, by ‘sucking up’. The ‘scrapheap’ Job seems to defy ‘God’ in the sense of ‘blessing God out’. Does he disown or reject ‘God’ (and the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm)? I think the story leaves the ‘scrapheap’ Job (and the issue of his integrity) at this very fork in his spiritual road. To maintain his integrity, I think he only has one option – i.e., to reject ‘God’ as understood within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm to which he had long been loyal. Certainly from within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm (to which his three close friends remain unwaveringly loyal), the ‘scrapheap’ Job must be seen as having moved across the theological spectrum to the threatening position of disowning or rejecting ‘God’. Once relief comes from his tragedies at the story/play’s end, how will the ‘scrapheap’ Job maintain his integrity? Can he return to his place as a teacher within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm community without violating his integrity? How will he parent? How will he speak at the city gate? Will he sacrifice his aristocratic privileges in order to sustain a ‘scrapheap’ perspective? Will he add his ‘scrapheap’ voice to the caravan travelers’ stories?

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #100

[September 2006 journal entry]

Catching the word play that differentiates ‘defy’/‘curse’ from ‘bless’ requires an eye for irony. The idea of ‘defy’/‘curse’ then is to mutter “yeah, right” under one’s breath after saying “blessed”. Perhaps the play on the word for ‘bless’ (one of many subtle word plays that are developed through the heated exchanges between the ‘scrapheap’ Job and his three close friends that separate the prologue from the epilogue) is an illustration of the use of contrast to get the attention of the careful reader/audience. To explore the various and surprising nuances for key terms such as ‘defy’ in the prologue, the Accuser (and, I would propose, the narrator) presents a clever, ironic, even sarcastic perspective. Does Job ever represent/express a similar perspective?

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #99

[September 2006 journal entry]

Of his children, Job wonders anxiously, “Maybe one of them sinned by defying God inwardly” (1:5, Peterson’s Message of Job). Is Peterson’s ‘defy’ an appropriate rendering (‘curse’ in the RSV)? The Hebrew word translated ‘defy’/‘curse’ is an intensive form of the word for ‘bless’. Perhaps this choice is an example of a hesitation even to speak/write in any other way than to bless ‘God’. In a way, ‘curse’ is a stronger translation than ‘defy’ in that ‘curse’ more definitively connotes rejection. But in another way, ‘defy’ is a stronger translation than ‘curse’ in that ‘defy’ suggests the courage to stand up to and challenge ‘God’. Could/should the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s remarks in the heated exchanges with his three close friends be construed as a disclosure that he in fact does ‘defy God inwardly’? What would ‘defying God inwardly’ have entailed if Job’s children (in the prologue) had done so as they were partying? And is ‘merry-making’ being criticized in the story?

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #98

[July 2006 journal entry]

I had not listened closely to the words of the widely/frequently heard contemporary ‘Christian music’ song -- Blessed Be Your Name – until sitting (silently) in a Sunday morning gathering of the ‘house church’ we have been attending since moving to Memphis. Note how the song’s words affirm/celebrate the ‘God’ language and T/O paradigm represented in the prologue + epilogue fairy tale version of the story of Job. Note how the ‘scrapheap’ Job met in the extended middle section of the full text of the story is entirely absent. Note how the words are sung passionately, enthusiastically, without ambiguity, without angst.

Blessed be your name in the land that is plentiful, where your streams of abundance flow.

Blessed be your name when I’m found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness.

Blessed be your name when the sun shines down on me, when the world’s all as it should be.

Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering, though there’s pain in the offering.

Every blessing you pour out, I’ll turn back to praise.

When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say --

“Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be your glorious name.”

You give and take away.

My heart will choose to say –

“Lord, blessed be your name.”

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #231

[August 2006 journal entry]

“You do all things well . . . just look at our lives” – yet another example in a contemporary ‘Christian music’ song of the complete disconnection from and the discriminating/purged view of reality ‘under the sun’ characteristic of ‘religious’ T/O paradigm theologies. Such theologies lack, resist, and/or condemn ‘tragic’, ‘offensive’, ‘grievously wrong’, . . . language/reflection re the breadth/depth of human suffering/misery.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #230

[August 2006 journal entry]

A painful consequence of moving from the ‘religious’ path I inherited and traveled into my early 30s to the ‘non-religious’ and ‘with the world face to face’ path I have been describing and interpreting in my journal entries since 1992 is rooted in the shift in my primary/defining focus/concentration to seeing ‘from below’, to seeing from the perspective of the sufferer, to seeing from the perspective of the stranger/adversary. My closest/deepest relationships are with similarly focused/concentrating individuals. The pain stems from diminished closeness/intimacy with individuals – including family members and close friends – who have secondary/conditional focus/concentration on seeing ‘from below’, on seeing from the perspective of the sufferer, on seeing from the perspective of the stranger/adversary.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #229

[July 2006 journal entry]

Re The Matrix – to be ‘religious’ is to take the blue pill; to be ‘non-religious’ is to take the red pill.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #228

[April 2006 journal entry]

As my life continues to unfold in the search/pursuit of a ‘non-religious’ and ‘with the world face to face’ approach to spirituality/ethics/theology, I see/find myself in experiences beyond Dietrich, beyond the author of the Ecclesiastes essay, beyond the ‘scrapheap’ Job, in a sense beyond ‘Jesus’.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #227

[September 2005 journal entry]

Twice Dietrich Bonhoeffer said only the following in meetings of pastors during the Nazi years (cf., I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 71) --

One man asks: “What is to come?” The other: “What is right?” And that is the difference between the free man and the slave.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #226

[September 2005 journal entry]

Using the pivot foot metaphor – to be ‘religious’ is to have one’s pivot foot planted in the ‘religious’ sphere whereas to be ‘non-religious’ is to have one’s pivot foot planted ‘with the world face to face’.

Fragment -- #316

[August 2006 journal entry

A physician acquaintance recalled in a recent conversation a meeting with a financial planner during the last year of residency. Several of his fellow residents responded in predictably materialistic ways when the financial planner asked the group, “What are your financial goals?” My friend stunned the financial planner when he responded, “Generosity”.

Fragment -- #315

[August 2006 journal entry]

I will say only what I can with integrity think and (aspire to) live.

Fragment -- #314

[July 2006 journal entry]

I am seeking a way through life that requires/demands imagination in order to see, to proceed, to be understood.

Fragment -- #313

[March 2006 journal entry]

The 4 March 2006 Commercial Appeal included an op-ed column by David Brooks -- ‘Headed to Harvard? All is not lost’ -- re becoming truly educated. His proposals –

1. read Reinhold Niebuhr,
   
2. read Plato’s Gorgias,
   
3. take a course on ancient Greece,
   
4. learn a foreign language,
   
5. spend a year abroad,
   
6. take a course in neuroscience,
   
7. take a statistics course,
   
8. forget about your career for once in your life.
   

I have been thinking about his question and his proposals. Here is part of what I think I might propose (not in any particular order) to undergraduate students re becoming educated –

1. a course on the decade of the 60s (United States and international),
   
2. a course on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (Reinhold Niebuhr would be a good United States theological point of reference because of his adapting his theological and ethical views to political realities, but I would prefer Dietrich Bonhoeffer),
   
3. A course on Middle East history since the late 19^th century,
   
4. A course on ancient Rome (ancient Greece would be in the background, but the United States today is much more evident in ancient Rome),
   
5. a course about the Human Genome Project,
   
6. a course on appreciating art, music, dance, poetry (international),
   
7. a course on history (any period) seen from the perspective of the powerless, the victims, the losers,
   
8. a course on the link between fundamentalism (not limited to Christianity, not limited to religion) and violence,
   
9. a course on the nature/limits of language,
   
10. a course on Camus’ The Plague,
    
11. create a discussion group in which each member reads the entire New York Times every day,
    
12. keep a journal of all substantive conversations. I will stop the list at this point.

Fragment -- #312

[November 2005 journal entry]

The death count has passed 86,000 from the recent earthquake that struck the mountainous region separating India and Pakistan. The difficult terrain insures thousands more will perish, especially with winter approaching. And then there are the severely injured. Such events are analogous to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Yet I do not detect existential, theological, or philosophical trauma being confessed/expressed as was the case among theologians and philosophers after the Lisbon earthquake. Why not? To look closely, widely, and without discrimination at ‘life under the sun’ is to be unavoidably on the edge of despair.

Fragment -- #311

[October 2005 journal entry]

I am determined to remain aware that my life experiences have had such abundance and privilege that I must consider myself in the less than 1% similarly ‘affluent’ (L., ad + fluere) among all those who have lived during my lifetime. The less than 1% ‘affluent’ classification is relative in that there is a less than 1% experience of ‘affluence’ at every point along the timeline of human history. Is there a less than 1% group at the opposite end of the spectrum? Or do the standard deviations only move away from the masses of people in the ‘affluent’ direction?

Fragment -- #310

[October 2005 journal entry]

For some time, I have made a habit of keeping a one-dollar bill in my pocket in order to have a dollar ready to give destitute (looking) individuals with whom I make eye contact while walking. The gesture may or may not be helpful to the individual. Making sure a dollar bill is in my pocket reminds me to seek eye contact with these individuals. Giving the dollar bill reinforces my desire to be the sort of person who is ready to participate generously/sacrificially in more coordinated efforts designed to make a difference for destitute individuals.

Fragment -- #309

[October 2005 journal entry]

With two seats on the Supreme Court being vacated in recent months, there has been considerable public discussion either about or based upon assumptions re the underpinnings of the United States Constitution (as amended, which point implies something substantive about the initial draft). I have been thinking specifically about such underlying assumptions as various approaches to epistemology, ontology, ethics, religion, science, political theory, international ‘community’, the environment, . . . . A spectrum re perceptions and methods for interpreting the United States Constitution can be constructed parallel to a spectrum for doing theology, with each spectrum having a threshold separating more fundamentalist/evangelical from more liberal perceptions and methods.

Fragment -- #308

[October 2005 journal entry]

I am reclining on our patio with a cup of coffee, breathing the morning air as therapy for a respiratory illness. I am watching the sunlight slowly spread across the leaves of the oak tree in the center of our backyard. First I heard the birds. Now I am tracking the birds and the squirrels as they begin their day. I hear cars, a few passing the front of our house and more traveling down nearby Poplar Avenue. I just spent several minutes eyeing the moon as it moved across an opening in the tree branches. I feel the gentle breeze. I follow leaf after leaf (including a green one) on its downward journey to the ground.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #225

[September 2005 journal entry]

It appears to me that -- from the perspective of ‘religion’ and the T/O paradigm -- a ‘natural disaster’ is a ‘Divine or Providence disaster’.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #224

[June 2005 journal entry]

I was reminded recently of the analysis offered by Bernard of Clairvaux in On Loving God. This little work has long intrigued me, both during and after my place/years in the ‘religious’ sphere. Bernard proposed four ‘stages’ -- i.e., “love of self for self’s sake, love of God for self’s sake, love of God for God’s sake, and love of self for God’s sake”. His ‘religious’ (and very traditionally Augustinian) interpretation saw no legitimacy in “love of self for self’s sake”. He argued instead that we must be saved/redeemed from such. Bernard’s ‘religious’ presupposition re humanity’s depravity led him quite logically to the still selfish “love of God for self’s sake” (i.e., for what I receive/get) stage. He argued that such salvation/redemption from “love of self for self’s sake” leads to “love of God for self’s sake”, a childish stage that must evolve into “love of God for God’s sake”. Beyond this more mature regard for ‘God as God’, Bernard pointed to “love of self for God’s sake”, which he judged to be the most mature but rarely experienced stage. As handled within ‘religious’ discourse (e.g., Augustine, Bernard, et al) and as implied in the title On Loving God -- a condition is placed on, a limitation is set around, a distraction is introduced into any human experience. The likely ‘religious’ rejoinder is – “By focusing on God, the experience is qualitatively better for all than it otherwise could/would be.”

From a ‘non-religious’ perspective, I would agree that “love of self for self’s sake” easily/frequently collapses into destructive experience. Those deep into such experience will find meaning in ‘saved’ or ‘rescued’ language if they recover/discover a healthy self-love. The means/catalysts for such recovery/discovery are very important and interesting aspects of their stories. However, attentive parents begin early to guide their child/ren away from being a ‘taker’ to being a ‘grateful receiver’ (e.g., learning to say “thank you”) and to being a ‘giver’. From a ‘non-religious’ perspective, the goal of such parenting is not “love others for self’s sake” (i.e., the sort of person who gives expecting as much or more in return) but “love self for other’s sake” (i.e., the sort of person who gives expecting nothing in return) and “love of others for other’s sake” (i.e., the sort of person who is truly and unconditionally respectful of others). This ‘non-religious’ approach to ‘love’ is in the spirit of Mt. 25:31-46 (which is, in my opinion, the most radical/startling text in the gospels) re being unconsciously near ‘God’, of loving the stranger/enemy (Mt. 5:38-48), and of the human-oriented way of being for which ‘blessing’ is announced (Mt. 5:3-16).

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #223

[June 2005 journal entry]

I read recently the proposition that “cherished beliefs about the divine” may have be “let go” in order to “stay loyal to the suffering human being”. I agree with the proposition. However, the author was disturbingly casual when making the comment. He left me with no indication he had experienced the complexity/difficulty/pain of the choice he affirmed. Letting go of any idea, thing, or person that/who is truly/deeply “cherished” is profound, disorienting, frightening, nauseating, . . . -- all consequences/dispositions the author of the above statement did not convey (at least to me). The chilling image of ‘letting go’ for me is in the 1979 film Sophie’s Choice (based on William Styron’s novel) when Sophie – a Polish survivor of Auschwitz – finally recounts to an aspiring writer friend her darkest secret. She and her two children – Eva age four and Jan age ten – had disembarked the cramped train car at Auschwitz. They faced a sadistic Nazi doctor who ordered her to choose between (i.e., literally and symbolically to let go of one of) her two children. The one she let go would be sent directly to death in the concentration camp. Pleading in vain and sinking in utter agony, she chose her son to live. My observation has been that most individuals, when forced to choose, hold on firmly to their ‘cherished beliefs’ about the divine and let suffering human beings go. A ‘non-religious’ and ‘with the world face to face’ approach to spirituality and ethics lets go ‘cherished beliefs’ about the divine in order to hold on to ‘suffering human beings’.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #222

[June 2005 journal entry]

Teilhard de Chardin (The Divine Milieu, p. 68) -- “The great objection brought against Christianity in our time, and the real source of the distrust which insulates entire blocks of humanity from the influence of the Church, has nothing to do with historical or theological difficulties. It is the suspicion that our religion makes its followers inhuman”.

Teilhard implicitly separates intellectual honesty – historical, theological, scientific, political, . . . – from being ‘human’. I would instead associate (not equate) intellectual honesty – which necessitates critical examination of ‘historical or theological difficulties’ -- with being ‘human’. I do agree with Teilhard’s proposition re a widespread suspicion that Christianity makes its followers ‘inhuman’. A ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics – with a view of ‘Jesus’ as essentially human – takes this suspicion seriously and measures itself by the damage or enrichment done to every person’s humanity.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #221

[May 2005 journal entry]

I sense that far fewer than I previously imagined are ready for, capable of, and/or interested in exploring a ‘non-religious’ and ‘with the world face to face’ approach to spirituality and ethics. Therefore, I am inclined to be quieter.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #220

[May 2005 journal entry]

Since 1992 I have been attempting to express sequels to the Ecclesiastes essay, to the story/play about the ‘scrapheap’ Job, to Bonhoeffer’s the beginnings in his prison correspondence of a ‘non-religious’ approach to ethics and spirituality.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #219

[April 2005 journal entry]

I recently noticed this observation from Dietrich in a 1941 letter (quoted in Kuhns, In Pursuit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 38) -- “I really believe that a great deal depends on what one experiences in his twenties, and above all on how he experiences it.” His observation was certainly true for me.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #218

[March 2005 journal entry]

A few months ago, I began to study music theory through personal research/reading and through tutorial discussions with a musician friend. In my youth, I learned to play several instruments (e.g., the piano, the trombone, the baritone, the trumpet, the guitar). I have continued to play the piano. However, I gained little understanding of music composition/theory. The impetus for beginning this study of music composition/theory has been my desire to see/hear Dietrich the musician (specifically, the pianist) in his actions/thoughts (particularly in the prison letters). I have long been aware of the places in the prison letters where he draws explicitly from music composition/theory. As photography has become increasingly grounding/centering/defining for me as a ‘non-religious’ exercise over the past several years, my desire to see/hear more clearly/insightfully Dietrich the musician has grown.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #217

[March 2005 journal entry]

To be ‘skeptical’ – L. scepticus from Gr. skeptikos – is to be thoughtful, inquiring, questioning. Being ‘skeptical’ may devolve into being ‘cynical’, but does not inevitably do so. Sustaining a healthy (rather than cynical) skeptical attitude is essential to a ‘non-religious’ spirituality and ethics.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #216

[February 2005 journal entry]

A ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics builds off of and reinforces inner independence. I agree with the association Dietrich -- in his December 1942 ‘After Ten Years’ essay -- proposed between foolishness and the surrender of self-reliance to displays of power and promises of security/control from political or religious figures/institutions. Churches toward the fundamentalist/evangelical end of the theological spectrum either demand the surrender (subjection) of one’s inner independence or accept such surrender (often with celebration). Churches toward the liberal end of the theological spectrum are less comfortable with and may resist such surrender.

Fragment -- #307

[September 2005 journal entry]

I appreciate the Quaker tradition’s setting the default on ‘silence’. I understand setting the default on ‘silence’ to mean that breaking the ‘silence’ must be justified, that what is said is more substantive than the ‘silence’.

Fragment -- #306

[August 2005 journal entry]

My default is set to be fully transparent in the numerous simultaneous gatherings/conversations in which I participate. When with those individuals with whom I conspire (i.e., ‘breath together’), being freely transparent is a gift, a joy. When in casual gatherings/conversations, I tend to be quiet or to ask questions. When in gatherings/conversations ripe for clashes, I tend to be quiet or to respond ambiguously (i.e., true but not full disclosure). Only in gatherings/conversations against which I am compelled to engage in subversive action (analogous to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s participation in covert resistance against Hitler and the Nazis) would I feel justified in covering my true thoughts with contradictory speech.

Fragment -- #305

[August 2005 journal entry]

Without the resolve to be consistent within numerous simultaneous gatherings/conversations, the concentration and energy required to keep the gatherings/conversations compartmentalized crushes creativity, spontaneity, adventure.

Fragment -- #304

[August 2005 journal entry]

I do not recall having someone – in person or in print – as a guide, as an example, as a conversation partner in thinking/working through the significance of who/how I am in relation to those individuals from whom I am inclined to recoil or turn away. I would trace my experience/formation in this regard as follows – e.g., (1) my mother telling me as a child that she always could tell when I was not telling the truth (i.e., “I can read you like a book”), (2) my older cousin Albert’s speech impediment and limp, our bond, the reaction of my friends when he visited (i.e., “Will I be the same when Albert is absent as when he is present?”), (3) being with my first wife during her battle with multiple sclerosis (i.e., “Will I be the same when apart from her as when I am with her?”), (4) the increasing number of gatherings/conversations as I became a history/spirituality/ethics resource/prompter (e.g., graduate students, fellow faculty, medical faculty, medical students, et al), (5) . . . .

Fragment -- #303

[August 2005 journal entry]

I find the thought that in any particular encounter all encounters are compressed a truly breathtaking thought.

Fragment -- #302

[August 2005 journal entry]

One can be consistently brutal or cynical or selfish or . . . . My intent is to be consistently present, not harmful, respectful, . . . in a comprehensive and non-discriminating way. Being comprehensive and non-discriminating is tested by who/how I am with/toward those I am inclined to shun/exclude. Those individuals I am not presently inclined to shun/exclude could at any time fall into circumstances characteristic of those individuals I am inclined to shun/exclude. I could at any time fall into circumstances characteristic of those individuals I am inclined to shun/exclude.

Fragment -- #301

[August 2005 journal entry]

“Most paintings are influenced more by other paintings than by the natural world, and most books are about other books” (A Center That Holds, p. 499). Which ones are not? Note how medicine can be similar. Medical ethics also. ‘Religion’ also.

Fragment -- #300

[August 2005 journal entry]

Add to the four ‘landmarks’ I recommended to my daughters – always be musically active.

Fragment -- #299

[August 2005 journal entry]

Metaphors – an anchor . . . centripetal force . . . balance . . . footing . . . focus . . . to calibrate . . . a map . . . orientation . . .

Fragment -- #298

[August 2005 journal entry]

At what amount should a person attempt to return found money – a coin? a dollar? several dollars?

Fragment -- #297

[July 2005 journal entry]

I have been thinking recently about creating a spectrum re the timing of severe experiences that expose one’s views/ideas to be nothing more than ‘a house of cards’. The spectrum would move from teenage years (e.g., Eli Wiesel’s Holocaust experience) to young adult years (e.g., my experience with my first wife as multiple sclerosis destroyed her) to mature adult years (e.g., Victor Frankl’s Holocaust experience) to late adult years (e.g., C. S. Lewis’ experience with his wife’s death due to cancer). The point of the spectrum has to do with distinguishing the significance of timing re responses to traumatic experiences that occur in one’s life.

Fragment -- #296

[July 2005 journal entry]

Aaron (the brother of Moses) – a study in being disillusioned with one’s self.

Fragment -- #295

[July 2005 journal entry]

I recently heard a comment about a late-40s pastor who relocated a few years ago from a more progressive church to a more safely conventional church. One comment about this pastor still echoes in my mind – “He is not thinking aggressively any longer”. I cannot imagine such a time.

Fragment -- #294

[June 2005 journal entry]

Imagine a dinner table long enough for at least three separate conversations simultaneously to occur. (1) At one end of the table, ‘faith’ is being discussed with a language that prohibits any serious questions. Unless the individuals sitting together at this end of the table happen to confess the same ‘faith’, the conversation inevitably breaks down. There is no motive or method for seeking common ground around a shared way of being ‘with the world face to face’. (2) In the middle of the table, ‘faith’ is being discussed with a language that encourages inquiry for the purpose of understanding the affirmed ‘faith’. The discussion will reveal the degree of difference/diversity re ‘faith’ among the participants. They value the resulting understanding of themselves and their theological neighbor. They need to find a non-theological common ground in order to sustain the conversation without degenerating into the competitiveness heard to their right. (3) Toward the other end of the table, ‘faith’ itself is subject to inquiry. They approach ‘faith’ as that which is intellectually and existentially trusted in life situations. They do not juxtapose ‘faith’ and radical/critical thinking. They have reason to welcome diverse points of view. They clarify early in the conversation what they share in common in their way of being, from which emerges the significance of their discussion.

Fragment -- #293

[September 2006 journal entry]

This past Monday marked five years since the 11 September 2001 plane hijackings that led to thousands of injuries and deaths when New York City’s ‘Twin Towers’ collapsed and the Pentagon was severely damaged. I grieve for that day’s victims. I also grieve for the thousands upon thousands of victims for whom the Bush administration and their champions are accountable. I still stand by the objection I voiced against the Bush administration’s immediately casting the 11 September 2001 tragedies in a language/imagery reminiscent of the medieval Crusades and calling for a misinformed Congress to declare war with imprecise wording easily manipulated by the Bush administration. I still stand with those who supported exhausting the potential of casting the 11 September 2001 tragedies in the language/imagery of criminal behavior. With the language/imagery of criminal behavior, might the perpetrators of the 11 September 2001 tragedies have been marginalized rather than galvanized/lionized? might Osama bin Laden et al have been captured? might the Taliban in Afghanistan have been completely eliminated? might the ‘cells’ of likeminded criminals in this country have been exposed? might Iran have been restrained? might an international unity have been sustained? might the New Orleans calamity have been admirably managed? might . . . ? We will never know. Instead, the Bush administration drank/pushed a poisonous mixture of foolish/careless ‘neoconservative’ political ideology and ‘fundamentalist’/‘evangelical’ Christian theocracy that necessitates a ‘Crusades’ language/imagery of war. Is there another ‘renaissance’ on the horizon?

Fragment -- #292

[April 2005 journal entry]

As I continue to observe individuals in the routines of living, I am again and again struck by the impression that most individuals look to be sufficiently satisfied with their world/life view to move forward.

Fragment -- #291

[April 2005 journal entry]

Voltaire appears also to have felt discomfort, even embarrassment, due to having a life advantaged to a degree that separated him from the vast majority of his contemporaries (cf. Neiman, The Problem of Evil: An Alternative History of Philosophy, p. 131). Reading Neiman’s history has enriched my reflections on the ‘1755 Lisbon earthquake’ experiences of life – i.e., seismic experiences that reduce to rubble poorly constructed houses/buildings of ideas, that reveal the (lack of) integrity of individuals far enough removed not to be harmed but near enough not to avoid seeing.

Fragment -- #290

[April 2005 journal entry]

‘Fideism’ cannot by definition be a choice or a result of the exercise of reason.

Fragment -- #289

[April 2005 journal entry]

The depth/breadth of beauty and of pain/suffering are such that I cannot ‘make sense’ of the world. I do attempt always to take the world seriously, to see the world ‘from below’ (in the scientific and existential nuances of ‘from below’). I reject ideas that ‘make nonsense’ of the world.

Fragment -- #288

[February 2005 journal entry]

‘Life’ represents a spectrum that encompasses all forms of ‘life’ – from no sense of ‘self’ and ‘community’ to the highest levels of sense of ‘self’ and ‘community’. Scientific inquiries over the past century or so have demonstrated that non-human ‘life’ forms have variations not previously known from the least sense of ‘self’ and ‘community’ across the spectrum to higher levels of sense of ‘self’ and ‘community’. Advances in medical interventions over the past century or so have made it possible to sustain the existence of human ‘life’ where there is no (longer any) sense of ‘self’ and ‘community’.

Fragment -- #287

[February 2005 journal entry]

To be compassionate is to be truly present with another.

Fragment -- #286

[January 2005 journal entry]

“It must be remembered that he was writing primarily for himself. . . . He communicated his work to a restricted circle, with no hope of having it published.” (A reflection on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin by his cousin Marguerite in her introductory essay to The Making of a Mind: Letters From a Soldier-Priest 1914-1919, letters he sent to her during his service as a stretcher-bearer during World War One.) The pensees (thoughts) recorded in my journal entries since 1992 have been written with no particular readers in mind and with no expectation of publication. None of what I have written has been restricted by what any particular reader/s would understand or find interesting. I fully realize that few (if any) readers may ever spend time with these thoughts. If I limited/restricted myself to writing that about which a particular readership will/can understand and care, I would/could not engage in a radical (i.e., to the root) examination of ideas.

Fragment -- #285

[January 2005 journal entry]

Two ways to treat others – (1) harshly, followed by intermittent expressions of regret and with excessive expressions of love/respect, or (2) consistently courteous, gentle, respectful. I try to be the latter. I too often fail.

Fragment -- #284

[January 2005 journal entry]

A few weeks ago, my youngest daughter and I had a dinner conversation about the Broadway drama Miss Saigon. As I reconstructed the Vietnam War/era for her, I found myself thinking “What if . . .” when I recalled that my lottery number re the draft was the number ‘365’ (i.e., the last birth date that would have been used for the draft into the military).

Fragment -- #283

[January 2005 journal entry]

An earthquake that measured 9.1 on the Richter scale occurred on the ocean floor off the north corner of Indonesia 26 December 2004, sending a devastating tidal wave throughout the Indian Ocean region. Victims and damage resulted as far away as 3000 miles to the African coast. As of 4 January 2005, the death toll had reached 155,000+, with several million others missing, injured, and/or dislocated. Such carnage and destruction are beyond measure. I feel helpless, stunned. We sent a $300 contribution to Doctors without Borders to support that organization’s relief efforts. I find the ‘God’ language I have heard/read within the ‘religious’ sphere re the earthquake – on the theological spectrum from fundamentalist/evangelical across to liberal – predictable and disturbing. How can a thinking/reflective person say what a college football player said about his game ending interception the night after the December 26 Indonesia disaster – “God put me in a position to make the interception”? The fundamentalist/evangelical insistence that “God has a reason for all things” has resulted in offensive attempts to extrapolate meaning from the earthquake tragedy. I was disappointed in an Episcopal priest’s homily I heard on January 2 in which the priest told the hearers they have “more solid theological footing” if/when they shift their attention from the earthquake itself to “Where is God now”, suggesting that ‘God’ is present in the humanitarian responses and avoiding the seemingly obvious point that the earthquake was an overwhelming ‘now’ when it erupted. I wanted to stand and ask firmly, “Where was your ‘God’ then?” The Episcopal priest also encouraged his hearers to ponder the beautiful moments/“miracles” in life, with the reassurance that these “experiences of grace” will offset or outweigh the disturbing experiences in life. The flaw is twofold – (1) in the instruction not to ponder ‘face to face’ the disturbing experiences in life and (2) in promoting this grossly inaccurate estimate re the proportion of ‘beautiful’ experiences to ‘tragic/grim’ experiences in reference to the incalculable suffering/misery from the December 26 earthquake and tsunami.

Fragment -- #282

[November 2004 journal entry]

On a local news broadcast, a segment was devoted to a child abuse/neglect case. I am chilled every time I think of the report that the child has permanent hearing loss due to roaches having embedded in her ears.

Fragment -- #281

[November 2004 journal entry]

The Ecclesiastes author and the composer of the story/play Job seem to take suffering very seriously, to see the profound depth/breadth of suffering. Who/where else in Jewish scripture or Christian scripture does so? Can it be deduced from any/all of the four Gospels that ‘Jesus’ did so to the same degree as the Ecclesiastes author and the composer of the story/play Job?

Fragment -- #280

[November 2004 journal entry]

One consequence of my ‘historian first, theologian second’ methodology has been that, with each new layer of ideas to examine radically (i.e., to the root), fellow searchers fall back. When do they fall back? When they reach limits beyond which they cannot and/or will not go – e.g., limited by intellectual gifts, training, time, relationships put at risk, work, energy, motivation, personality type, lack of insight into the questions, lack of information, the ‘play out the hand’ stage of life, a retirement mentality, inability to multi-task (simultaneously act and reflect), . . . . Most individuals settle for minimal (if any) radically critical examination of the ground on which they stand, the foundation on which they build their lives. They are willing to depend on and to follow others who appear to have looked more carefully, who reassure them that the ground and foundation upon which their lives are being built are sound. Some among these leaders can be prophetic in the sense of stirring those who listen to action. Others among these leaders make careers out of pastorates or faculty positions for schools supported by constituencies with settled/comfortable experience on the ground/foundation that the career pastors and faculty members confirm/protect. I have found the number of individuals who persist in radical/unrestricted questioning of the ground/foundation on which they stand to be few.

Fragment -- #279

[November2004 journal entry]

The small inner-city congregation I served part-time as minister (1976-79) while completing my doctoral course work and beginning my dissertation work -- became increasingly polarized. Most of the longtime members became more and more defensive as the number of new and untraditional members grew. Several friends were ready to lead the new and untraditional members in forming a separate congregation if I would make a long-term commitment to the experiment. My other two options – to finish my doctoral program with Dr. Hinson at Southern Seminary before going to Oxford University to do a second doctoral program with Maurice Wiles (a Patristics specialist with additional scholarly stature as an interpreter of the 1950s/60s ‘God is dead’ tumult within the ‘religious’ sphere) or to join the Harding Graduate School faculty in Memphis. I chose Memphis. What if I had chosen Louisville? What if I had chosen Oxford?

Fragment -- #278

[November 2004 journal entry]

“The village took pride in his decline” (re ‘old Mephistopheles’ in T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats).

Fragment -- #277

[November 2004 journal entry]

I wrote this poem in response to well-meaning individuals who have asked if I am depressed --

If I seem despondent, I am thinking about . . .

the loneliness associated with persisting in weeding out weak ideas

or

how hard existence is for the vast majority of people

or

the haunting faces of severely damaged sufferers

or

the shift toward and momentum for the United States to be a theocracy and a ‘religious’ state

or

how institutionalized uncritical thinking and injustices are

or

how my affluence implicates me in the inequities and injustices that victimize the powerless

or

how doubtful it seems that I am making any sort of lasting difference

or

. . . .

To have your eyes open indiscriminately to ‘life under the sun’ is to be near despondence.

To learn to ‘see from below’ is to be near despondence.

To be ‘with the word face to face’ is to be near despondence.

To be near despondence is not to be without hope or humor.

Listen with me to ‘the blues’.

Fragment -- #276

[November 2004 journal entry]

After a recent conversation with a high school teacher/friend, he wrote – “ . . . A subject was brought up that I would like to ask your help in probing further. I think I heard you say once that we should be present in a way that honors our past and at the same time respects our neighbor. Will you help me develop that idea? I am thinking that it just might be where I am most static at this point.” I responded by e-mail as follows --

“ . . . Three texts came to mind as I read your note – i.e., the Good Samaritan story (Lk. 10:25-37), the ‘love your enemy’ text (Mt. 5:43-48), and the ‘sheep/goats’ parable (Mt. 25:31-46). The Good Samaritan story raises a crucial question about what might be called the life situation for which I consider myself accountable. The ‘love your enemy’ text exerts significant pressure against the tendency to restrict my life situations to individuals most like me, to individuals friendly to me, to individuals who will not threaten me (philosophically as well as physically). The ‘sheep’/‘goats’ parable proposes what to me is the most radical approach to how/who to be in ‘the world’ in that the parable detaches a life of caring from any ulterior, self-serving, or deity-driven motive. I try to remain true to the resolve to keep my ‘aim eye’ on and in search for individuals for whom life is hard, tragic, broken, deprived. A corollary to this resolve is that I must be ready/able respectfully to put at risk (including losing) any association or idea – past or present – that would distract from or in other ways discourage the resolve.

Fragment -- #275

[October 2004 journal entry]

‘Epileptic’ or ‘demon possessed’? – this either/or choice illustrates/clarifies the divide separating ‘pre-modern’ and ‘modern’ mindsets re science, medicine, and ‘religion’.

Fragment -- #274

[October 2004 journal entry]

This past Tuesday evening, I learned my friend Charles had died that afternoon of a heart attack. Later in the evening, I spoke with Charles’ middle daughter who conveyed the family’s request that I give one of the eulogies during the funeral. Charles’ death has led me to think back across the nearly three decades since our friendship took such special form during my years in Louisville when I was a searching doctoral student. Charles – a highly respected lawyer who had remained in a small practice with his father to protect his professional freedom -- took me on as a project, I think. He was the first adult I knew well who had a wide-angle view of ‘the world’, who respected the complex textures of ‘the world’, who relished being in ‘the world’. On the eve of my departure in 1979 from Louisville to fill a graduate faculty position, Charles and I had a ‘David and Jonathan’ moment together. We looked back. We speculated about the future. We exchanged symbols of our friendship. I gave him a paperweight he kept on his desk all these years. The paperweight (which I now have) has the inscription – “The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David. And Jonathan loved David as his own soul”. He gave me the replica of a turtle that has been on my desk now for twenty-five years. That turtle was his parting counsel to survive, to persevere, to know when to take shelter, and “to never let them see your hands sweating”. During the days since Charles’ death, I have again placed our friendship alongside the David and Jonathan story in Jewish scripture. The paperweight inscription comes in the story just after David defeats Goliath. King Saul prohibits David’s return to his home and instead virtually adopts him into the royal court. These are heady years for the young shepherd boy turned military legend. David and Jonathan – the king’s son -- share a vision of their ruling together, with Jonathan at David’s side. For this and other reasons (including symptoms hinting at psychiatric disorder), Saul turns against David. Jonathan finds himself in the dilemma of attempting to remain true to his friend and to his father. David eventually flees into the wilderness as a hunted/marked fugitive charged by Saul with treason. He lives among the Philistines. The story includes one brief meeting between David and Jonathan. Jonathan repeats their vision of ruling together, with Jonathan at David’s side. Otherwise, they live on in very different settings. Jonathan dies with his father in battle at the hands of the Philistines. David had offered to fight with the Philistines, but had been turned away by military commanders who questioned his trustworthiness in fighting against the Israelites. Among the speculations set up by the story – What if David had fought with the Philistines in the battle and faced Jonathan? What if Jonathan had survived the battle and come to David with the vision of ruling together?

Fragment -- #273

[September 2004 journal entry]

Imagine: A teacher singles out for preferential treatment two students of the thirty-three students in his/her class. The reasons could be any combination of factors – e.g., ethnicity, intellectual gifts, familiarity with parents, gender, appearance, . . . . Or there may be no reason/s. The preferential treatment occurs unambiguously in front of the entire class (e.g., tutoring, seating, extra credit, field trips, . . .). The teacher simultaneously and intentionally discourages/deprives the other students of assistance/resources that would be beneficial to their education. The ignored/harmed students and their parents object to this blatantly unfair behavior. Ethics question: What should the two students singled out for preferential treatment think? do? Theological question: How can individuals who would object to such behavior on the teacher’s part use/approve/advocate ‘God’ language that is strongly similar to the imagined teacher’s preferential treatment of the students?

Fragment -- #272

[September 2004 journal entry]

As a teacher/friend commented on what his year away from high school teaching had meant for him, he introduced the idea of ‘calling’ and asked what I think about the concept. Based on our previous discussions, he anticipated that I would have reservations due to the implied anthropomorphic image of a ‘God’ who ‘calls’. I introduced ‘accountable’ as the operative term for me. I explained that, as a starting premise, I consider myself accountable for all experiences however large or small. In reality, many experiences pass without much notice or reflection. I try hard not to miss potentially pivotal experiences. To illustrate, I reflected on several pivotal experiences for which I continue to feel accountable – e.g., the discovery of historiographical questions and source criticism, exposure to chronic illness through my first wife’s illness/death, ‘friendship in the singular’ with a small circle of physicians, openings into the medical education/practice settings, . . . . The point -- accepting accountability for such experiences alters/shapes the course my life takes.

Fragment -- #271

[September 2004 journal entry]

Hurricane Ivan destroyed a Pensacola woman’s business she had maintained for fifty years. She said to a news reporter – “This is God’s way of telling me it’s time to retire.” Did she not see or care about the implications of this assertion for others?

Fragment -- #270

[September 2004 journal entry]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- with his decision to return to Germany in July 1939, his subsequent participation in covert/violent resistance against the Nazis, and his courage to begin radically rethinking his core ideas -- stood out for me in a singular way among the seminal thinkers in the Western tradition as I made the move into being ‘with the world face to face’. Going beyond either the ‘scrapheap’ Job or the Ecclesiastes author, Dietrich assigned “unparalleled value” to the experience of learning to see “from below” (i.e., from the perspective of the sufferer). His experience from the time of his doctoral studies through 1938 (by which time the Nazis had crushed the Confessing Church as a form of civil disobedience) and my experience from the time of my doctoral studies to the ‘imprisoning’ last three years of my first wife’s battle with multiple sclerosis (1984-87) differed in one foundational way – i.e., Dietrich during his university studies stepped back/away from Harnack et al and their participation in modern critical scholarship as he began to study closely and eventually came to collaborate with Barth (who, in the 1920s and in intentional contrast to Harnack et al, was attempting to recover as much as possible of the classic Protestant/Reformed ‘from above’ methodology/theology). I studied Barth carefully in a doctoral seminar and presented him (as I did all seminal thinkers) as forcefully as possible in the ‘Current (20^th century) Religious Thinking’ graduate course I taught (1979-92). But in my personal spiritual and ethical journey, I had no ‘Barth phase’. To the degree that Dietrich drew from and aligned with Barth, he (1) neither would nor could consider himself to be a historian first, then a theologian, and (2) would not have felt pressure to engage radically (i.e., into the root) the implications of the ‘world come of age’ realization. His immediate conversation partners during his time as assistant pastor with a German-speaking Church in Barcelona (1928) and his time with New York City’s Union Seminary (1930-31) put no such pressure on him as far as I have been able to determine. The cultural/moral deterioration in Germany that resulted from Hitler’s coming to power seemed to reinforce Barth’s bleak perspective on ‘the world’. I suspect Dietrich’s valued place within his largely ‘non-religious’ extended family contributed directly and deeply to his having a wider, more complex, and more penetrating insight than Barth (who was in Basel after 1934) into the German situation during the Confessing Church pre-war years of resistance. Dietrich could have retained some variation on Barthian methodology/theology if he had remained in New York City in 1939. Instead, he returned to Germany after only a few weeks. His decision to return to Germany minus an intent to ride out the war huddled with the contained Confessing Church put before him in a new/radical way the methodological challenges associated with taking a ‘non-religious’ approach to being ‘with the world – come of age -- face to face’. I am not surprised to find him explaining his disappointment with and his distance from Barth in his prison letters to Eberhard and Renate. Nor am I surprised to find in his prison correspondence frequent requests for and reactions to books about science, philosophy, history, physics, . . . . I think Dietrich felt an urgency to deepen his understanding of ‘the world come of age’ free of a Barthian perspective on ‘the world’. The list I have kept re my reading since 1992 demonstrates that gaining the necessary orientation to be ‘with the world face to face’, to remain ‘non-religious’, and to keep seeing ‘from below’ requires an ever-deepening inquiry, self-examination, and re-thinking. This reading followed naturally for me from my years as a student and teacher of the history of ideas.

Fragment -- #269

[September 2004 journal entry]

Across the years since 1992, I have tried to handle carefully and thoroughly the question re what image (if any) of ‘Jesus’ is possible/legitimate outside the ‘religious’ sphere. (My prior years of rigorous consideration of the ‘historical Jesus’ question were useful but not sufficient as I engaged this question even more earnestly outside the ‘religious’ sphere. The same limitation was true of the attempts I had made prior to 1992 to critically test ‘God’ language.) By the end of my doctoral studies (1981), I was determined to be first a historian, then a theologian. Among the many implications, this methodological commitment meant that my theological efforts would be based on the results of an unrestrained and critical assessment of the resources – principally the ‘gospels’ of Christian scripture – for constructing an image of ‘Jesus’. During my graduate study years, my center of gravity re Jewish scripture and Christian scripture shifted to the story/play Job and to the Ecclesiastes essay because (1) neither depended on resolution of historiographical questions similar to the ‘quest for the historical Jesus’ and (2) both focused on the core life-questions re suffering and integrity I was facing. This shift gave me (1) a position both in life and within Jewish scripture and Christian scripture from which to engage the historiographical questions prerequisite to imaging ‘Jesus’ and (2) an existential grid by which to sift through the sources re ‘Jesus’. These methodological decisions have remained matters of intense inquiry for me to the present. Not surprisingly, ‘Christology’ steadily diminished for me as ‘Jesus’ the human being became increasingly real to me. And as ‘Jesus’ the human being came into focus for me, his being a man of his time/setting (as Schweitzer argued, convincingly in my judgment, a century ago against the 19^th-century ‘lives of Jesus’) became increasingly evident – e.g., his pre-modern/pre-scientific view of the world, his limited education, his lack of family responsibilities, his anticipation of a near end to history, his use of ‘God’ language minus reservations about the morphic (e.g., anthropo-, socio-, cosmo-) limitations of such language, . . . . I lost sight of ‘Jesus’ as a ‘lord’ or a ‘king’ with a final or authoritative word/path to follow. I gained sight of ‘Jesus’ as a possible example for the missing character in the story/play Job and as a potential conversation partner for the Ecclesiastes author. This ‘Jesus’ would have to set aside any ‘religious’ T/O paradigm ideas that would undermine his ability to be such. The ‘scrapheap’ Job and the Ecclesiastes author would have insights to offer him. I find the fact that ‘Jesus’ was seen/treated as dangerous and heretical by the guardians of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm of his day a compelling reason to think (1) he would be seen/treated similarly by the guardians of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm today and (2) he might be a candidate for the missing character in the story/play Job and a conversation partner for the Ecclesiastes author. This surviving image of ‘Jesus’ remains in my vision as I journey further and further away from the familiar (to me) shoreline of the ‘religious’ sphere and into the open seas of being ‘with the world face to face’.

Fragment -- #268

[September 2004 journal entry]

My experience as the spouse of a multiple sclerosis victim put me in a position analogous to Job’s wife as I have studied closely the story/play Job since the early-1970s. My affluence (in the etymological sense of ‘flowing to’) – e.g., privileges and resources associated with being male, white-skinned, American, healthy, athletic, intelligent, with having opportunities to travel abroad, with never being uncertain about employment or my next meal, with . . . – has put me in a position analogous to the Ecclesiastes author’s deep existential turmoil once he had seen how exceptional his privileged life was when compared with what he saw of the severe want and suffering the vast majority of individuals were experiencing just beyond the edge (and perhaps due to) his affluence. When I began (1979) teaching graduate courses in history and theology, my lived connections with the characters in the drama around the ‘scrapheap’ Job and with the Ecclesiastes author (1) led to my introducing a human suffering course that was framed by and tied to a ‘scrapheap’ Job perspective and (2) led to the attempt to construct an imagined dialogue between the Ecclesiastes author and ‘Jesus’ as the format, essence, challenge of my systematic theology course (with whom in Jewish scripture or Christian scripture could the Ecclesiastes author have a dialogue?). The ideas tested in those two courses contributed directly and significantly to my loss of confidence that the ‘religious’ sphere can either produce the missing character in the story/play Job (i.e., a character representing a way to be with the ‘scrapheap’ Job without harming him further) or sustain a dialogue with the Ecclesiastes author that takes seriously and embraces his scrutiny of the depth/breadth of human tragedy/misery in ‘life under the sun’ (with the last paragraph in the Ecclesiastes text – which I view as tacked on by a ‘religious’ editor -- illustrating the ‘religious’ withdrawal from the dialogue on methodological grounds). My intent to seek a way of being that is a variation on the missing character in the story/play Job and my intent to test the credibility/integrity of ideas from the perspective of and against the reality of the depth/breadth of human tragedy/misery in ‘life under the sun’ meant I had passed the point of considering further or seeking to return to the ‘religious’ sphere as my spiritual and ethical ‘home’. By the 1991 resignation from the institution where I had been on faculty, my move outside the ‘religious’ sphere in order to be(come) ‘with the world face to face’ was complete. I did not seek another place (‘home’) within the ‘religious’ sphere. Instead, opportunities to live/work within the medical education and practice settings created ways for me to relocate where the depth/breadth of human tragedy/misery is seen ‘face to face’ and where there is no more crucial ethical challenge than to be near suffering patients without harming them further.

Fragment -- #267

[September 2004 journal entry]

“Many more Americans die each year from poverty, hunger, pollution, dangerous jobs, or poor access to high-quality health care than from terrorism. Who weeps for these people?” – Ralph Nader (speaking at a Philadelphia church on 11 September 2004).

Fragment -- #266

[September 2004 journal entry]

The attempt within a theological or philosophical paradigm to make sense of an existentially threatening incident of human suffering is analogous to the attempt a physician makes in going through his/her differential diagnosis reasoning to make sense of a patient’s symptoms.

Fragment -- #265

[September 2004 journal entry]

The ontological question shifted in subject/focus from ‘God’ to the ‘self’.

Fragment -- #264

[September 2004 journal entry]

Is certainty ignorance? Yes. Does certainty lead others into ignorance? Yes.

Fragment -- #263

[September 2004 journal entry]

Can justification/rationale for a modern/liberal approach to education be traced back into early Christian scripture/tradition? into Jewish scripture/tradition? into the life/teachings of ‘Jesus’ (seen independent from and antecedent to the guardians of the early Christian tradition)?

Fragment -- #262

[September 2004 journal entry]

When the poor are assisted, the sick medically attended, and sufferers encouraged -- can such actions be understood within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm other than as implied indictments of ‘God’ and as implied corrections of the actions of ‘God’?

Fragment -- #261

[August 2004 journal entry]

Eli Wiesel has asked, “What can he (i.e., the person who has seen into the darkness of human suffering and cruelty) achieve by making you (i.e., the reader/listener) sad?” (See After the Darkness: Reflections on the Holocaust, p. 9.) I would reword this question to say – “ . . . by possibly making you sad?” Not everyone who reads/listens will pause to reflect. Not everyone who reads/listens will be made sad. I think Wiesel’s question is especially serious when the witness to the darkness of human suffering and cruelty takes the initiative (in conversations, in presentations, in publications) to expose readers/listeners.

Fragment -- #260

[August 2004 journal entry]

Have I later rejected an idea I had tested carefully/radically?

Fragment -- #259

[August 2004 journal entry]

I was born into and raised within a way of seeing ‘the world’ that had a radius of 200 miles at most from/around my small hometown and that retained/assumed an essentially pre-modern paradigm. My first years of college came at a junior college within that radius that insisted on a fervent loyalty to an essentially pre-modern paradigm. My decision to complete college at a regional state university began a long and arduous educational journey that eventually repositioned me within a much larger ‘world’ and that challenged/dissolved my confidence in the essentially pre-modern paradigm from my upbringing. I became more and more aware that I was living within a modern paradigm.

Fragment -- #258

[July 2004 journal entry]

References such as ‘the remains’ and ‘the body’ regarding a deceased person imply something ‘more’ about the person that is no longer present.

Fragment -- #257

[May 2004 journal entry]

A congregation that takes seriously the rich variety of ways to use language for reflecting on human experience and the limits of language when ‘God’ language is attempted will intentionally guide children across the threshold from a simplistic/literal use of language to an appreciation for ‘story’ and for the morphic nature of ‘God’ language. Congregations toward the evangelical/fundamentalist end of the spectrum intentionally stand against this approach. I do not yet know of a congregation within the ‘religious’ sphere that incorporates this language growth/task in confirmation discussions (an ideal and symbolic time to do so). As children cross from elementary school to middle school, they are being introduced directly (as in literature studies) and indirectly (as in science, history, math studies) to the potential and the limitations of human language. Public schools and private schools not religiously affiliated/restricted do so more uniformly and consistently; religiously affiliated private schools do so less uniformly and consistently, depending on their position on the theological spectrum. A few home school curricula – e.g., the Calvert curriculum – do so in an exemplary manner, in sharp contrast to most home school curricula that are designed to protect a fundamentalist/pre-modern use of language.

Fragment -- #256

[May 2004 journal entry]

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield – Tennyson.