Yeah, sure would be good have a nice long talk sometime. Trying to
think of how to respond so as to start a dialogue. But we're tracking
pretty close. I guess my main thing these days is the question of love
and mortality. I don't find much comfort in the observation that
kindness is better and more beautiful than selfishness and paranoia
unless Jesus was right when he said that subversive kindness really does
defeat cruelty in the end. The other thing I've been trying to
reconstruct is some reinterpretation of the idea of resurrection.
Because I can't accept that consciousness simply ceases when people I
love die.
Hey Nate,
I wanted to deal with your comment as a post. One to highlight it, and two maybe to get others to weigh in.
A couple gut responses I'll throw out there without too much thought. As to the defeat of cruelty in the end, is that end in this world, this lifetime? It's a little bit of a cop-out, but can some of that defeat happen at a different stage of life and death, or are you hoping that one day on earth we'll get a better handle on our own cruelty and keep things relatively under control? If something does carry on past death, I like to think it is that part of us which made the cut, so to speak. Such as kindness. Maybe that's just naive, and even the next stage is all about refining as well.
The other thought would be about needing a reason to choose kindness. Some things are more basic than reason. If you touch a burning hot pan while cooking, you are going to yank your hand away immediately and not wait till you mind says, "hey stupid, you keep your hand on that and your going to do some damage. Remove immediately!" Then you say, "oh, okay sounds reasonable." In other words, some things are wired into us before the circuitry of reason. Could kindness be one of those things? Certainly not as obvious and instantaneously perceived as pain, but something that is recognized pre-reason?
P.S. I remember you once referred to a metaphor of throwing sand at an invisible giant in order to make out it's outline. Am I remembering right, and where was that from?
I guess I don't think of death as being another "stage" but rather the fullness of the present. so in light of that, I want the sermon on the mount to be true such that there is power in weakness/vulnerability/generosity even now. So we can heal the world now, haiku moment by haiku moment. The invisible giant metaphor was an offhand remark Glen made about my stories. I've since tried to source it but I think it just came from Glen's brain. I don't even think he remembered saying it the next day.
ReplyDeleteYou might have to explain exactly what 'fullness of the present" means. Are we talking outside of time, or moving through time in a nonlinear fashion? In other words, in the same way that we aren't bound to the 2nd dimension, yet we are not completely outside of it. Time, considered by many to be the fourth dimension, may not bind whatever continues on after death, but to participate in the present is not to be outside of it. Stage is probably the wrong word, but only because it gives connotations of linear progression through time. Or am I way off what you're getting at?
DeleteAlso, I love the part in your last bit of theology prose where you highlight how Jesus does the unexpected right after triumphantly entering Jerusalem. But instead of occupying the square, "raising the fist of people power", he pulls his stunt in the temple and brings the hammer down on himself. Is the crucifixion Jesus' one great haiku rather than moment by moment? He also was convinced that he would be back before "this generation has passed away." How do all these things fit in with your "fullness of the present"?
DeleteYeah this: "in the same way that we aren't bound to the 2nd dimension, yet we are not completely outside of it." So the Now fills the universe the way a line intersects with a plane. I think that's what Jesus was getting at when he kept saying the Kingdom of God is "at hand" even now, before this generation has passed away, etc.
DeleteTest comment
ReplyDeleteSamuel,
ReplyDeleteFinally able to weigh in.
Will take some tome to catch up.
You and Nate fly high. But may have room for my simple thoughts from life and a rich, rich experience in the inner chambers of people's lives.
Esther
Yeah, Esther! I always value your thoughts.
ReplyDelete