a pericope from my mind...
It seems my memory isn't what it used to be... Yesterday Chris asked us to blog about the cartoon in which god is talking to a man in heaven, and god says, "Theologians? You guys are always fun."
But I can't remember what aspect of this cartoon we were supposed to come from...
I do remember the wonderful poem that Chris read from Billy Collin's collection Poetry 180 about the poetry teacher whose student complains that his poems were "hard" and gave him a headache. The teacher replies that he tries to write about truth, and his poems are only hard if truth is hard.
I really like this.
And I think we can relate it to Genesis - it's complicated. It's complex. It's repetetive and recursive, in ways. It's contradictory, in ways. It's complex because, well, the truth is complex. Life/spirituality is complex, contradictory, paradoxical.
Perhaps that is why god, in this cartoon Chris showed us, is about to have some "fun" with the theologian, because the perhaps the theologian, who has derived his truth and might be set in it (I hesitate to say all or even most theologians are strict Will-to-Truth people; I'd like to think many of them accept contraries, but I don't know), is about to realize how he was "wrong" because heaven and god aren't as simple as he thought...
I really liked Stephanie's previous post, in which she discusses god as a character, as someone who doesn't have it all figured out, who has to change his mind and react to the world and people he's created, who are out of his control. Stephanie speculates that perhaps by admitting that god is complicated we admit that life is complicated and that we can't have it all figured out. I really like when she wrote, Maybe from this perspective complications, and difficulties in our lives and our characters aren’t necessarily flaws, but realities of being human. She asks if being in relationship with a complex god gives us a relationship with our complex selves/humanity.
I'd like to think so. What does it say if god can't figure out what is the right thing to do? Like when Abraham has to ask him to save Sodom if there are only 10 good people in the city?
Perhaps this is too theological and not enough literary... Perhaps the question should be, as Stephanie was asking, what do the stories say about the character of god? What can we infer about the type of world created by these narrators if god is so complex and interactive with people?
But I can't remember what aspect of this cartoon we were supposed to come from...
I do remember the wonderful poem that Chris read from Billy Collin's collection Poetry 180 about the poetry teacher whose student complains that his poems were "hard" and gave him a headache. The teacher replies that he tries to write about truth, and his poems are only hard if truth is hard.
I really like this.
And I think we can relate it to Genesis - it's complicated. It's complex. It's repetetive and recursive, in ways. It's contradictory, in ways. It's complex because, well, the truth is complex. Life/spirituality is complex, contradictory, paradoxical.
Perhaps that is why god, in this cartoon Chris showed us, is about to have some "fun" with the theologian, because the perhaps the theologian, who has derived his truth and might be set in it (I hesitate to say all or even most theologians are strict Will-to-Truth people; I'd like to think many of them accept contraries, but I don't know), is about to realize how he was "wrong" because heaven and god aren't as simple as he thought...
I really liked Stephanie's previous post, in which she discusses god as a character, as someone who doesn't have it all figured out, who has to change his mind and react to the world and people he's created, who are out of his control. Stephanie speculates that perhaps by admitting that god is complicated we admit that life is complicated and that we can't have it all figured out. I really like when she wrote, Maybe from this perspective complications, and difficulties in our lives and our characters aren’t necessarily flaws, but realities of being human. She asks if being in relationship with a complex god gives us a relationship with our complex selves/humanity.
I'd like to think so. What does it say if god can't figure out what is the right thing to do? Like when Abraham has to ask him to save Sodom if there are only 10 good people in the city?
Perhaps this is too theological and not enough literary... Perhaps the question should be, as Stephanie was asking, what do the stories say about the character of god? What can we infer about the type of world created by these narrators if god is so complex and interactive with people?
posted by Michael Faris @ 10:13 AM
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