Yarn Spinning
Dear Eugene,
Nobel surprised yet again, this time with a "safe" choice, not obscure enough, not political either. Come on, Nobel, get weird again!
(For the record I like Ishiguro...but don't you think our Atwood has done something similar and did it more and better? Just my humble opinion of course, and really no point to compare apple and orange; all great writers are strange fruit in their own rights.)
I wonder if we should all be our own Nobel committee, take a step back and consider the stories that we are being told and keep telling ourselves, keep living into them as if for real?
But they are real, aren't they? We are living them; how can they be anything but real?
Like, the invisible hand of the market, the endless prospect of ceaseless progress, the contradictory but equally real fatalism tried proven and true if by nothing else but the simple act of human dying tragically comically without-a-soundedly every hour every minute every second--aren't these all too real?
Doesn't matter how one frames the narrative or spins the yarn, the twisted threads all unravel at the mercy and dictate of these big patterns we call "mega-narrative," don't they? You could single out a thread, your own tiny little humdrum factory-manufactured Costco-discounted thread and make a big deal out of it, but it is still a thread tangled up in a big ball of collective yarn, just as yawn-worthy as your neighbor's.
The simple act of taking a step back to reconsider turns out to be a most human act. Anyone who does not give the time, space and thought for herself to reconsider is not worthy of her humanity.
"This is a new one on us. We’ve never heard anything quite like it. Where did you come up with this anyway? Explain it so we can understand." This is your translation of Acts 17:20.
When I was reading it last night, I just LOL. (My even more contemporary translation would be: "Bro, this one you are telling is David-Lynch weird! Fire away, we're all ears!") That's right, when the true Gospel is truly preached, it would always confront and confound a person, spin a new thread out of him and sorcerize the old ones.
How often the world looks at us Christians with disdain when we claim to hold in our hands a ball of The-Whole-Truth-and-Nothing-but-the-Truth but walk around in our torn threads and dirty laundry?
The good news is: We've heard the Good News and it still baffles us to no end. If there's a story to tell about ourselves, if there is a way to tell The Story that is God's, we are called to describe and not prescribe; we are called to live into it, not to merely preach information about it.
You've said before how good literature is one of a pastor's greatest allies "against the pastor-debilitating world conditions." Any serious disciple-maker should consider this great wisdom.
Yours, Alex
Nobel surprised yet again, this time with a "safe" choice, not obscure enough, not political either. Come on, Nobel, get weird again!
(For the record I like Ishiguro...but don't you think our Atwood has done something similar and did it more and better? Just my humble opinion of course, and really no point to compare apple and orange; all great writers are strange fruit in their own rights.)
I wonder if we should all be our own Nobel committee, take a step back and consider the stories that we are being told and keep telling ourselves, keep living into them as if for real?
But they are real, aren't they? We are living them; how can they be anything but real?
Like, the invisible hand of the market, the endless prospect of ceaseless progress, the contradictory but equally real fatalism tried proven and true if by nothing else but the simple act of human dying tragically comically without-a-soundedly every hour every minute every second--aren't these all too real?
Doesn't matter how one frames the narrative or spins the yarn, the twisted threads all unravel at the mercy and dictate of these big patterns we call "mega-narrative," don't they? You could single out a thread, your own tiny little humdrum factory-manufactured Costco-discounted thread and make a big deal out of it, but it is still a thread tangled up in a big ball of collective yarn, just as yawn-worthy as your neighbor's.
The simple act of taking a step back to reconsider turns out to be a most human act. Anyone who does not give the time, space and thought for herself to reconsider is not worthy of her humanity.
"This is a new one on us. We’ve never heard anything quite like it. Where did you come up with this anyway? Explain it so we can understand." This is your translation of Acts 17:20.
When I was reading it last night, I just LOL. (My even more contemporary translation would be: "Bro, this one you are telling is David-Lynch weird! Fire away, we're all ears!") That's right, when the true Gospel is truly preached, it would always confront and confound a person, spin a new thread out of him and sorcerize the old ones.
How often the world looks at us Christians with disdain when we claim to hold in our hands a ball of The-Whole-Truth-and-Nothing-but-the-Truth but walk around in our torn threads and dirty laundry?
The good news is: We've heard the Good News and it still baffles us to no end. If there's a story to tell about ourselves, if there is a way to tell The Story that is God's, we are called to describe and not prescribe; we are called to live into it, not to merely preach information about it.
You've said before how good literature is one of a pastor's greatest allies "against the pastor-debilitating world conditions." Any serious disciple-maker should consider this great wisdom.
Yours, Alex
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