Thursday, March 12, 2009
coincidence
Recently I received an assignment for one of my classes to write about what makes a story satisfying. My answer is that what feels like real life is satisfying, and for me that means a high degree of coincidence: random meetings, chance encounters, chaotic events that often are not purposeful or guided but lead to a meaningful end. That's how real life feels to me. Sometimes I think of this as God, leading life to a meaningful end, but I don't always want to or feel the need to take it that far. Sometimes coincidence is providence, sometimes it's just coincidence. When I look back on my life, that's what I see, a string of coincidences without which I would not be where I am today.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
music
I'm insecure about my music. Not music that I've written (which doesn't exist, for the most part), but music that I like and listen to. I'm always very nervous about putting it on, no matter where I am. Mostly, my music isn't appropriate for any sort of social situation, except maybe travel. I listen to car music. For instance: Weezer. I couldn't put Weezer on during dinner time when I'm sitting down with housemates. Most of my friends listen to easy listening music that's appropriate in many situations. In other words, most people don't like the music that I like, and I feel nervous about putting it on. So, I usually just listen to music when I'm alone.
In other news, I've been wondering lately how much salvation is a universal process. As in, I am not fully saved until everyone else is also fully saved. Why? Because I don't think it's possible for any human to be fully "saved" while anyone else isn't. In fact, it seems that being fully redeemed, fully saved, fully human, would mean that it was impossible to feel that way. This is especially true if you believe in hell (which I don't). How can anyone be happy in paradise knowing that someone else is suffering eternally in hell? That seems to be the exact opposite of how humans are supposed to love and feel for each other. I also don't think it's a very satisfying solution to say that God will simply hide the knowledge from us...
In other news, I've been wondering lately how much salvation is a universal process. As in, I am not fully saved until everyone else is also fully saved. Why? Because I don't think it's possible for any human to be fully "saved" while anyone else isn't. In fact, it seems that being fully redeemed, fully saved, fully human, would mean that it was impossible to feel that way. This is especially true if you believe in hell (which I don't). How can anyone be happy in paradise knowing that someone else is suffering eternally in hell? That seems to be the exact opposite of how humans are supposed to love and feel for each other. I also don't think it's a very satisfying solution to say that God will simply hide the knowledge from us...
Sunday, March 1, 2009
domestics pt 2
Thinking back to how I grew up, I realize that I never lived in a messy house. There were certain rooms that were messy (my bedroom, offices), but the public areas were always kept very clean and tidy. Implication: do what you want with what's your own, but keep clean what belongs to everyone. Of course, there were times when I was forced to clean my room, but this was not robustly enforced by the time I had graduated. Not to mention I did a better job of it at that point. Similarly, my dad used to fine me and my roommate Toby if we hadn't taken a shower by 7pm. That also fell away. In any case, that's what I grew up with and what I prefer. Now, I don't like clutter and dirtiness in public areas, and don't like leaving my things in the public area of my house. And, I deal a lot better with clutter than I do with dirtiness. Clutter in my room doesn't usually stress me out, but when the sheets are dirty and the floor is covered in hair and my shelves are dusty (or my fan blades, in Thailand), then I like to clean.
Also, I think the ants in Thailand were a big part of growing up. Consider: if any food was left out, there would be ants on it within an hour or two, sometimes less. If food was left out, it would become stale immediately. Summarily, it's always very confusing to me when I see a bowl of food sitting somewhere in the house for days. That's a lot grosser to me than build up of hair in the drain, or the mold in the shower (until I think about it) or dirty toilets.
In general I don't like leaving my own things around the house. Usually when I go to bed, my things are either in my room or in the study room. This is more from paranoia than consideration for my housemates, though: if I leave books around, I worry that someone will spill on them or kick them and bend the pages. If I leave my computer downstairs, I worry about robbers coming in and finding it right away, or else that someone will step on it or drop something heavy. I assume that what's left in a public area is liable to be destroyed.
Living with seven other guys has also made me think about how much I hate doing things when people are around. I prefer cleaning and cooking when the house is empty. I don't like getting in peoples ways, and I hate feeling like I'm being observed. Also, when I lived by myself two summers ago, I was much more organized than I am living with seven other people. For example, I made my bed almost every day. In part, that's because it was a couch, not a bed, and I didn't want to have blankets on there when I came back and read in the evening. But, I think I just do well when I don't have to worry about getting in the way. Or, perhaps it's more that I hate being interrupted, and so I do things better when I'm alone because I don't have to worry about interruption.
In any case, I like living at my house.
Also, I think the ants in Thailand were a big part of growing up. Consider: if any food was left out, there would be ants on it within an hour or two, sometimes less. If food was left out, it would become stale immediately. Summarily, it's always very confusing to me when I see a bowl of food sitting somewhere in the house for days. That's a lot grosser to me than build up of hair in the drain, or the mold in the shower (until I think about it) or dirty toilets.
In general I don't like leaving my own things around the house. Usually when I go to bed, my things are either in my room or in the study room. This is more from paranoia than consideration for my housemates, though: if I leave books around, I worry that someone will spill on them or kick them and bend the pages. If I leave my computer downstairs, I worry about robbers coming in and finding it right away, or else that someone will step on it or drop something heavy. I assume that what's left in a public area is liable to be destroyed.
Living with seven other guys has also made me think about how much I hate doing things when people are around. I prefer cleaning and cooking when the house is empty. I don't like getting in peoples ways, and I hate feeling like I'm being observed. Also, when I lived by myself two summers ago, I was much more organized than I am living with seven other people. For example, I made my bed almost every day. In part, that's because it was a couch, not a bed, and I didn't want to have blankets on there when I came back and read in the evening. But, I think I just do well when I don't have to worry about getting in the way. Or, perhaps it's more that I hate being interrupted, and so I do things better when I'm alone because I don't have to worry about interruption.
In any case, I like living at my house.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
souls
I no longer believe that I have a soul. Or at least one that is separate from my body and that will live on after my body is ead. I suppose this is the natural result of discarding dualism, but it's come as sort of a surprise to me. Part of it is probably thanks to one of the professors: "Christianity does not teach the immortality of the soul but the resurrection of the body." And, that is what I see when I look at the creeds and at the bible. I'm not really interested in the mechanism of resurrection (how will God resurrect those whose bodies have been vaporized?) and I don't know how useful it is to ask questions about those bodies (what age will my body be? etc, etc,) but that's where I've come to and I feel pretty good about it. Souls are a useful concept, but they have outlived their usefulness to me. And what reason do I have to believe in them in the first place?
Recently I have been wondering how well a person holds together. I'm in a fiction workshop this quarter, and people keep bringing up certain actions as contradictory, and therefore the character doesn't make sense or hold together. And yet...the contradictions they are criticizing are contradictions that are real and present in peoples lives, and probably actually aren't contradictions to begin with ("he thinks about serious things but also likes to have a good time"). Anyway, it just makes me think of how making sense of someone necessarily simplifies them, cuts out the anomalies to create a solid concept. Except this solid concept doesn't actually have basis in reality. I don't think that a person holds together as a stable form that can be known. People are gooey. And they don't have souls. Maybe these two concepts go hand in hand, that without the soul there is no unchanging aspect (specter?!) to a person that can be known, just a changing aspect. Perhaps belief in the soul as a stable component to identity that can be removed from the body hinders us from properly knowing each other.
In other words, everything begins to make sense once you believe in evolution. Thank God for Charles Darwin. I'm also beginning to approach Christianity and the bible much more as mythology. I prefer the term mythology to allegory or figure or metaphor ("Genesis should be read as figurative rather than literal"), because I don't think that figurative actually captures what is going on or how it was written. Mythology suggests that there is no difference between reality and metaphor, reality is metaphor and metaphor is reality. I'm becoming more and more frustrated with hearing people talking about Genesis as figurative, because they're still trying to apply a modernist framework of understanding to it, that it's okay to read it as truth if we read it as figurative with the understanding that it wasn't written to be scientific or historical. I think that reading is going most of the way, but not far enough, into mythology. People don't like mythology, though, because it makes them think of something primal, unsystematic, and arbitrary. And those are probably fair elements to pick out, but I do think that is missing the point (there is nothing more satisfying than to say that someone else is missing the point.)
Anyway, I don't want to come across as a bully ("you have no soul, you have no solid state, believe in evolution, stop reading Genesis literally or figuratively"). I don't think that you're intellectually lazy, or an academic invalid if you believe the things I'm whining about. Just consider...
Recently I have been wondering how well a person holds together. I'm in a fiction workshop this quarter, and people keep bringing up certain actions as contradictory, and therefore the character doesn't make sense or hold together. And yet...the contradictions they are criticizing are contradictions that are real and present in peoples lives, and probably actually aren't contradictions to begin with ("he thinks about serious things but also likes to have a good time"). Anyway, it just makes me think of how making sense of someone necessarily simplifies them, cuts out the anomalies to create a solid concept. Except this solid concept doesn't actually have basis in reality. I don't think that a person holds together as a stable form that can be known. People are gooey. And they don't have souls. Maybe these two concepts go hand in hand, that without the soul there is no unchanging aspect (specter?!) to a person that can be known, just a changing aspect. Perhaps belief in the soul as a stable component to identity that can be removed from the body hinders us from properly knowing each other.
In other words, everything begins to make sense once you believe in evolution. Thank God for Charles Darwin. I'm also beginning to approach Christianity and the bible much more as mythology. I prefer the term mythology to allegory or figure or metaphor ("Genesis should be read as figurative rather than literal"), because I don't think that figurative actually captures what is going on or how it was written. Mythology suggests that there is no difference between reality and metaphor, reality is metaphor and metaphor is reality. I'm becoming more and more frustrated with hearing people talking about Genesis as figurative, because they're still trying to apply a modernist framework of understanding to it, that it's okay to read it as truth if we read it as figurative with the understanding that it wasn't written to be scientific or historical. I think that reading is going most of the way, but not far enough, into mythology. People don't like mythology, though, because it makes them think of something primal, unsystematic, and arbitrary. And those are probably fair elements to pick out, but I do think that is missing the point (there is nothing more satisfying than to say that someone else is missing the point.)
Anyway, I don't want to come across as a bully ("you have no soul, you have no solid state, believe in evolution, stop reading Genesis literally or figuratively"). I don't think that you're intellectually lazy, or an academic invalid if you believe the things I'm whining about. Just consider...
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
matthew
I've been reading through the gospel of Matthew with group lately, and here are some of my thoughts and comments on little parts of it.
"So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (5:23-24).
Most of the time when I hear people talking about these verses, it's in the context of worship services. In that scenario, it means that if you come to worship and are mad at someone, you should talk to them before you worship. I don't think that's what it's getting at though. For one thing, I think it has to be read in light of the verses that come before it, which talk about words used that will drag you before the council and words that will put you in danger of hell. The point here is that there are words that you use that offend people, but there are things you communicate to other people that put you in danger of hell. This is the difference between me telling someone as a joke to fuck off, which might offend people around me, and me telling a person that I think they are a wreck and failure at life, where what I'm communicating is much worse even though I'm using tamer language. In this sense, I think we have to see the altar thing as what pleases humans and what pleases God (and really, a lot of the sermon on the mount is about that). So, I think what's going on here is that placing gifts on the altar is an act of piety that is impressive to people, but what God cares about is redemption and reconciliation with other people. I don't think that this is a hard and fast rule for whether or not you need to confront someone before a worship service, since I don't think that's always wise or loving, but is really done out of guilt and a desire to be pious before people (which is what this is against).
"So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops" (10:26-27).
The first part of this verse, I've usually taken to be referring to sin and God's judgment: everything bad you have done will eventually be revealed. I don't think it's actually this particular verse that I'm thinking of, but almost identical passages either elsewhere in Matthew or in another gospel. In any case, that isn't what it's about. This passage is surrounded on both sides by talk about the two kingdoms (thanks, Bob) and about God being on the side of the disciples who are being sent out. Immediately before that verse it talks about how the "servants" will be maligned even worse than the "master" has been. So, what Jesus is saying is that what is covered (that they really do follow God, not Beelzebul) will eventually be known to everyone. In other words, it's a statement about identity and which kingdom they belong to rather than anything to do with sin or judgment, or a reason to fear. People say that these servants serve evil, but in the end God will say that they were part of his kingdom. The following verses talk about how important it is to not be afraid, which fits in just right with it.
Also, I've been noticing how physical Matthew is, and struck but how critical this physical side was to Jesus' mission. When John asked if he was the messiah, Jesus says that the sick are being healed and that good news is being given to the poor. He doesn't mention anything about forgiving sins (even though he's been doing that,) or about changes in peoples behavior and morals. Which isn't to say that those things are not important to Jesus, only that their importance has been exaggerated in contemporary interpretations (and thanks to Augstine!) Similarly, when Jesus sends out his disciples they are to heal the sick, cast out demons, and talk about the kingdom. The physical world is critical to Jesus' mission and the mission of his followers, and cannot simply be discarded as something that will pass away.
"So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (5:23-24).
Most of the time when I hear people talking about these verses, it's in the context of worship services. In that scenario, it means that if you come to worship and are mad at someone, you should talk to them before you worship. I don't think that's what it's getting at though. For one thing, I think it has to be read in light of the verses that come before it, which talk about words used that will drag you before the council and words that will put you in danger of hell. The point here is that there are words that you use that offend people, but there are things you communicate to other people that put you in danger of hell. This is the difference between me telling someone as a joke to fuck off, which might offend people around me, and me telling a person that I think they are a wreck and failure at life, where what I'm communicating is much worse even though I'm using tamer language. In this sense, I think we have to see the altar thing as what pleases humans and what pleases God (and really, a lot of the sermon on the mount is about that). So, I think what's going on here is that placing gifts on the altar is an act of piety that is impressive to people, but what God cares about is redemption and reconciliation with other people. I don't think that this is a hard and fast rule for whether or not you need to confront someone before a worship service, since I don't think that's always wise or loving, but is really done out of guilt and a desire to be pious before people (which is what this is against).
"So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops" (10:26-27).
The first part of this verse, I've usually taken to be referring to sin and God's judgment: everything bad you have done will eventually be revealed. I don't think it's actually this particular verse that I'm thinking of, but almost identical passages either elsewhere in Matthew or in another gospel. In any case, that isn't what it's about. This passage is surrounded on both sides by talk about the two kingdoms (thanks, Bob) and about God being on the side of the disciples who are being sent out. Immediately before that verse it talks about how the "servants" will be maligned even worse than the "master" has been. So, what Jesus is saying is that what is covered (that they really do follow God, not Beelzebul) will eventually be known to everyone. In other words, it's a statement about identity and which kingdom they belong to rather than anything to do with sin or judgment, or a reason to fear. People say that these servants serve evil, but in the end God will say that they were part of his kingdom. The following verses talk about how important it is to not be afraid, which fits in just right with it.
Also, I've been noticing how physical Matthew is, and struck but how critical this physical side was to Jesus' mission. When John asked if he was the messiah, Jesus says that the sick are being healed and that good news is being given to the poor. He doesn't mention anything about forgiving sins (even though he's been doing that,) or about changes in peoples behavior and morals. Which isn't to say that those things are not important to Jesus, only that their importance has been exaggerated in contemporary interpretations (and thanks to Augstine!) Similarly, when Jesus sends out his disciples they are to heal the sick, cast out demons, and talk about the kingdom. The physical world is critical to Jesus' mission and the mission of his followers, and cannot simply be discarded as something that will pass away.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
innocence
I've been thinking about innocence lately, and about people talk about it as a virtue, but what they mean by innocence is mostly ignorance. I don't think that ignorance is a virtue, and I have been thinking about what it means to be innocent, or why it is that I think some people are more innocent now than at other times that I've known them. People talk about children as being innocent, but I don't think that children really are innocent. I don't mean this in the original sin, depravity, born into sin sort of way, that children are born sinful and are therefore not innocent. Not to mention I've learned over the past year about how this image of innocent children has really only developed in the last two hundred years, and seeing its origins makes me much more skeptical and disgusted when people talk about childhood as the seat of innocence and virtue and imagination and nostalgia. I don't want to be a child, and I don't think that I was more innocent as a child. I want to imagine innocence being something that can continue even once people know, and that in fact requires them to be able to see reality clearly, rather than shying away from it. I don't know why I'm interested in redefining this word, but I am. I suppose I'm thinking of innocence as the capacity to see reality and still believe, to have hope, to have hope as an epistemology (thanks, Lindsey,) rather than a state of perfection or sinlessness or ignorance. I don't think that children know enough to really be innocent.
Who knows, maybe being an innocent is really just being dumb.
And...unrelated: rereading the story of "the fall" recently, it struck me that this story never mentions sin, and that the author of Genesis is interested in this story as an explanation of how death entered the world rather than how sin or evil entered the world (though sin is mentioned soon afterwards in the story of C + A). It's about the problem of death rather than the problem of evil. This is interesting to me, especially because I'm not really against death, or afraid of death, and because I don't think there has been a time in the universe when things lived and never died.
Who knows, maybe being an innocent is really just being dumb.
And...unrelated: rereading the story of "the fall" recently, it struck me that this story never mentions sin, and that the author of Genesis is interested in this story as an explanation of how death entered the world rather than how sin or evil entered the world (though sin is mentioned soon afterwards in the story of C + A). It's about the problem of death rather than the problem of evil. This is interesting to me, especially because I'm not really against death, or afraid of death, and because I don't think there has been a time in the universe when things lived and never died.
Monday, January 5, 2009
prayer
I haven't prayed, really, for about a year. Last fall quarter I prayed quite a bit, and it was such a traumatic experience that I really haven't taken it up again. By prayer, I mean setting aside a chunk of time to speak to God and to listen to him, which I think is actually a quite limited understanding of prayer. But I haven't prayed like that for some time, and I think that soon I might be able to again.
But what am I praying? Prayer lately has been thinking about those around me who are suffering. Most of the time I don't know what to pray. Everything seems arrogant or insufficient. I feel arrogant when I pray towards a certain solution or end, and I feel arrogant assuming that I know what would be a good or appropriate result for a situation in a person's life. So mostly what I pray is for God to have mercy on them, and on me*. This is really the only way I have been able to pray for months, praying for both the living and the dead.
This isn't mercy as in "they really effed up, now please don't destroy them," because that's rarely what I'm praying.
But what am I praying? Prayer lately has been thinking about those around me who are suffering. Most of the time I don't know what to pray. Everything seems arrogant or insufficient. I feel arrogant when I pray towards a certain solution or end, and I feel arrogant assuming that I know what would be a good or appropriate result for a situation in a person's life. So mostly what I pray is for God to have mercy on them, and on me*. This is really the only way I have been able to pray for months, praying for both the living and the dead.
This isn't mercy as in "they really effed up, now please don't destroy them," because that's rarely what I'm praying.
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