Throw it and see what sticks.

When I was in high school, my english teacher illustrated the relationship between the brain and information using chicken wire and oatmeal. He threw the oatmeal at the chicken wire. Ta-daa! Knowledge. It's a surprisingly effective analogy.

In my preparation for teaching the summer course, I found myself motivated to learn more about sociobiology, the explanation of ethics from an evolutionary perspective. I think it is interesting stuff, and it provides an alternative explanation for the source of ethics - something I believe needs to be addressed in the ethics class. Anyway, it turns out that my initial reading (Michael Ruse's article, "Evolutionary Ethics" in The Blackwell Guide to Ethics) spurred more reading and research along these lines. I read David Quammen's The Reluctant Mr. Darwin - in the Norton Great Discoveries series - which presents the development of the concept of Natural Selection, both from an academic perspective and from the point of view of Darwin's personal life. I'm reading right now Bill Bryson's A Short History of Everything, which chronicles the development of major discoveries in the history and philosophy of science (this will also help me fill in some holes in my Jeopardy! preparation). Up next is E.O. Wilson's Concilience - the substantial tome on sociobiology.

The weird thing is that even when reading all of this, it still doesn't satisfy me as an adequate explanation for the things before me. Today I'm reading Bill Bryson on the porch, sitting with my husband, the Atlantic Ocean stretched out before me with hordes of people frolicking on it, and doggone it, it doesn't jive that this is all a happy accident. This piece of information actually made me just a little happy - recently I've been feeling a little (a lot?) unmoored. A little bit like I'm without convictions. This isn't true, of course, because I do have convictions ... it just happens that some of them have sunk to the lower layers in the last year.

This thinking and engaging reading incited a new ongoing project (I know, as if I need another) - I'd like uncover some of these sunken ideas from an opposite viewpoint and see what I can build. In short, throw it at the chicken wire and see what sticks. More to come.

LTP: February Progress

So it's the last day of the month, and I find myself needing to talk about my new year's resolutions long-term projects ... if only for consistency's sake.

Goal #1: Stop Buying Unnecessarily: so far, so good. I've mainly been buying groceries and gas, and spending most of my money on oranges. For some reason, I can't get enough of them. In particular, I'm fond of the cuties, the California mandarins that are easy to peel. The oranges have assisted in Goal #3 (taking better care of myself), because I've mostly stopped eating ice cream and other sweets before bed -- except for a run-in last week with some Chunky Monkey. My schedule has opened up so I can go to step aerobics and spinning classes, which I've been able to do about three times a week. These efforts are paying off in real, measurable dividends.

Strangely enough, I find that my purchasing and eating habits tend toward the extreme when I go to shop at King Soopers. Pre-packaged foods are so readily available that I find myself rationalizing certain purchases (ahem, Shells n' Cheese) because they're on sale or offered as a twofer or something like that. Limiting the visits to KS for coffee and seltzer is generally the way to go. It's strange how that happens. Anyway, these are reasonable developments. I've also managed to avoid Target for the most part, but I may need to go there to get a swimsuit. I don't swim and I don't actually "swimsuit" very often, so I can't quite rationalize paying tons for something I'll wear for a week.

Goal #4: Reintegrating Jesus is presenting itself with alarming urgency. I feel like in many ways my daily life and activities are disconnected from one another and from me. I've lost sight of the purpose for my projects. Will going to church and attempting regular devotional time solve my problems? Probably not. On reflection, though, the thing that was always "standing under" my school work, work, and teaching in the past five years was my attention to matters spiritual ... thanks mostly to being at the Seminary. I'm successful, I think, in my work and writing when it emerges as connected to something deeper than just the material at hand. On days like today, the absence of this commitment is keenly felt. Onwards, I guess.

Greatest Hits: Lent and Me are Friends

(from March 2005)

I've been using lenten meditation as a procrastination tool for the last few days. Not sure that is something I should confess, but there you have it. For my meditations, I have been using two things. First is the "Little Black Book" that Regis UM distributes every Lent. It contains six-minute meditations, this year coming from Mark's Gospel. Second is the Orbis collection called Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter. Both have been very helpful in thinking on the Passion and the Lenten season.

I went to Catholic College. Catholic traditions (especially Catholic Social Teaching) and the Catholic disposition toward meditation and quietude are hugely influential parts of my spiritual life. I know it is part of some protestant traditions to celebrate Lent, but it is not an advertised Baptist practice. I always feel a little sneaky during Lent, a little like I am doing something I am not "supposed" to do. However, I don't know of any Christian tradition that doesn't advocate meditation on Scripture, lamentation, supplication and repentance, so we're all in the same company here.

Lent is a quiet time . It isn't filled with the expectation that accompanies Advent: that is the beginning of the story. Right now we are waiting for the midpoint (and as the Lord tarries, we are not yet at the end), when we understand Passion, Crucifixion and examination of our own lives. Today, I read Henry Drummond's "Turning." Drummond says that when Peter is caught
the third time denying Christ, "...when a person is in the thick of his sin his last thought is to throw down his arms and repent. So Peter never thought of turning, but the Lord turned. And when Peter would rather have looked anywhere else than at the Lord, the Lord looked at Peter. This scarce-noticed fact is the only sermon needed to anyone who sins -- that the Lord turns first."

No Christian I know admits to being Paul -- we all admit to being Peter first (and I often exhibit shades of Thomas): we recognize and discuss, since these admissions are typically public, our everyday denials of God in sin and admit the imperfections of our characters. I wonder how many of us remember that single gesture Luke (my favorite Gospel writer) captures in 22:61: "The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter." How many times each day does God look straight at us and we DON'T see? Peter saw, and (22:62) "wept bitterly." We see in Peter what we desperately wish for ourselves -- we wish to recognize our sin as it is happening. The remarkable thing about Peter's denials is that he is caught in a way that no one else is or, frankly, wishes to be...with the Lord physically standing right there. We are forced to imagine Jesus's heartbreak at that moment (because he is, for all our forgetfulness, human) and Peter's disappointment, for lack of a better term. Drummond reminds us of this moment and all that is encompassed in it.

Lord, give me awareness to know that you see my sin. Give me the presence of heart to know when you are looking at me.

Greatest Hits (for Lent): On Fragment 110

Pascal on Listening: Fragment 110

There’s some debate about what is going on in Pascal’s fragment #110 (i.e., we recently started a debate about whether or not Pascal is a reliablist/externalist w/r/t belief in God), but Pascal does make some valuable comments on the role of the heart in hearing and understanding. Pascal’s epistemology is centered on the three orders: heart, mind and body. The order of the body covers knowledge we can gain through sensory experience, observation and experience of external data. The order of the mind covers reason and rational priniciples. Pascal believes that we can have success and knowledge via the mind, but as Groothuis points out,”those gifted in the use of reason may miss out on the realities of faith, which, while not opposed to reason, emanate froma realm beyond the ken of unaided human rationality…In his reflections on the infinitely large and small, Pascal highlights the limitations of the finite knower in relation to the universe (199/72)” (Douglas Groothuis, On Pascal (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-Thomson, 2003) p42).

According to Pascal, the source of first principles of metaphysics–including numbers, space, time and religious experience–come from the order of the heart. Pascal seeks to energize the so-called “intuitive mind,” which uses all three orders to understand various things about the world. Pascal’s approach is abductive, interested in using a variety of data (from a variety of sources) to find the explanation that suits the available data. What is important for the purposes of spiritual formation and listening is the idea that Pascal presents in fragment 110. Pascal proposes that there are in fact some things that we don’t know and can’t know using reason. This “inability,” as he calls it, demands heart response. “Our inability must therefore serve only to humble reason, which would like to be the judge of everything, but not to confute our certainty. As if reason were the only way we could learn!” (110/282). This insight is of importance since Pascal says that to have knowledge of first things, we must use something other than our minds. In fact, knowledge of first things is unavailable to us via our minds. In terms of spiritual formation, it is a strong (philosophical) reminder that perhaps in order to really hear and understand others, all of us must be engaged: senses, mind and heart.

Learning to “humble reason” is a tough lesson for philosophy students. We are required to think and demand so much of our minds that we tend to isolate that capacity as the primary (and, for rationalists the only) source of knowledge. When it comes to other people, is it such a stretch that we have to use more? and that those occasionally disparate faculties of mind/sense/heart have to *gasp!* work together to truly hear others? Easier said than done, but certainly a good goal for us all to strive toward.

Another LTP

In an earlier post below, I listed three "long-term projects" for 2007. Four days in, I've not yet been to the gym and purchased some gummi worms and pringles out of a vending machine at work yesterday. That's got to be a double whammy somewhere. Anyway, I'm not being too hard on myself. It's why they're goals and not, say, mandates.

It's been well over six months since graduation from the Seminary and roughly five months since I stopped teaching Sunday School. So I haven't been to church in five months. The tension is something like this: I've attended the same church my whole life, and I'm afraid to go anywhere else. It's actually not quite fear, but imagined comfort. Never mind I don't know half the people in the congregation anymore, but it is still somehow comfortable to go in there.

Susan is always writing these excellent posts about ministry and church, and she's written another one here. Her challenge:

I wondered today in class what would happen to our level of “community” if beginning this Sunday, all Christians were only allowed to travel walking-distance to Church, and bound to attend that single, walking-distance church for an entire year. And what if during that year, the primary purpose of attendance was to know and love everyone in the congregation (I’m assuming these churches will be smallish)~ love them like Jesus does. Forget whether the preaching is good (just go home and read your bible after church, or start a bible study group with 9 other people in your home, to make up for it) or whether the music is not your ’style’ (listen to what you like on your iPod as you walk home) or whether there isn’t a youth group for your kids (start one!) or whether you disagree with the doctrine (who believed everything exactly the same anyway, even in that church you used to attend that was 30 miles from home).

Funny about convergences. Susan's ideas here really meet up with some of the other goals and projects I have in front of me right now about moving away from convenience. Sure, walking to church might be convenient in terms of transportation, but it's not so convenient in terms of having to meet new people, participate in an unfamiliar community, or let the Word wash over you from a new perspective. Cognitive inconvenience is much more jarring than physical inconvenience.

The evidence of soul-poverty is clear in my life. My posts here have reflected this--all the posts before Christmas were complaints, and I think that is evidence of a lack of holy exposure (however, I do think it would take a miracle for me to enjoy and drink in the Christmas season). This is not all church's fault. In fact, it is mostly my fault, failing to take responsibility for my own spiritual work, waiting for it (whatever it is) to happen to me and complaining about what I don't like--ultimately letting those become excuses for avoiding church. What happened to "Knock, and the Door Shall Be Opened to You?" I'm waiting for someone to sense my presence and let me in.

Maybe I should stop hanging around outside.