Live by the Word
Dear Eugene,
This is going to be long; sorry. I worked it out in my head just now while fixing my backyard. Suffering helps.
This morning I looked out my kitchen window and found big patches of my lawn being opened up like crude drug-store novels, folded and curled. Raccoon(s). Skunk(s). It was artfully done, I must say. I dutifully spent an hour to remove and reinstall my stratagem of garden nets (which they outwitted), closing up all the scattered books, which, upon closer examination, looked more like failed open-heart surgeries. Mud splattered all over my legs. I tried not to swear (and failed). What a bloody mess.
And this was after being followed by a most pitiful looking coyote earlier and ran home holding Sumi in my arms. I think I've used up my weekly allotment of heartbeat in one morning; now I am going to talk about science after giving you this likely unscientific claim.
Doing science certainly cannot be about getting facts straight and then telling it like if not for this scientist's straight-telling the world will be all the worse for it, I thought.
I think I pay more attention to how a person speaks about science than what is being spoken, the same way one could see where a preacher's heart is by hearing how he speaks about God.
Maybe I should revise my first sentence. Of course a scientist can speak like that. The question is: What does this way of speaking speak about the scientist?
A preacher also can talk about God like he's dissecting a nuclear bomb, giving the world facts explosive, facts exploitable, facts reassuring, facts devastating. He can of course speak like we'll just need to take in the information once a week for our own good. The question is: What does this way of speaking speak about him, and more important, about God?
I wonder whether this is why my son hates science. I know for sure this is why for the longest time I hate going to church.
One time someone told me about her Bible seminary classes, "I love Professor X, he tells it like it is, straight to the point! The other one, Professor Y, I can't stand him, puts me to sleep. Every time I asked Y a question he gave me another three. I said to him, Just give me the facts!"
As if to know God is to take in a set of "correct" theological ideas formulated about him, and that this sort of knowing would somehow magically manufacture a good Christian, a robust faith.
It is not rare to hear Christian declaring, "I love listening to that preacher!" For all I know if a preacher is truly good I'd hate to meet whatever comes out of any hole on her face.
I'd hate to meet her eyes because the vulnerability, even tears, in them would beckon me to reciprocate with my own giving up of pride and prejudice. I'd hate to know from how her mouth speaks that her ears seem to have eavesdropped on words of no sense and low sensibility I've spoken about my neighbors, people I claimed to love, the God I purported to worship. I'd hate to feel the hot air coming out of her nostrils, alarming me of my personal space being invaded, a God-breathed soul too close for comfort, the honesty too much...
Eugene, would I be going too far to suggest: Is there ever a truly human discourse that is purely about "laying facts on the table," lining them up in a straight line, for the sake of the listener's "good," in the name of being "truthful," lest if things don't get spit out "like they are" the world will somehow get the wrong ideas at her own peril?
There's something deeply perverse in believing explaining is the only form--or at least the highest form--of truth-telling. The assumption is the "truth" is somehow given a validity by my particular telling, that my speaking of it not only adds to its truthfulness, but legitimates it, breathes it into existence, gives it a mandate, blesses it with a vocation.
Only God the Giver can do something like this, through the agency of the Word, his only begotten son, Jesus. A human being who acknowledges this givenness of everything would not and could never bring himself to speak like he himself is the truth-giver, truth-creator, truth-sustainer.
I hope I am not being needlessly (and hopelessly) philosophical here. I know better use of my time. The critters are going to up their game.
What I really want to say is I've found much of scientific discourse utterly unsatisfying the same way I've found much of theological discourse dishonest.
How do I trust a scientist who exclaims This is amazing! but with no tears of bewilderment and thankfulness running down her cheeks? Would this scientist's life be just as Amazing! if he were born 800 years ago with one eye blind and lasted only eight bitter winters, all through them with not a single scientifically-truthful thought crossing his mind? Isn't life just as amazing before we've discovered the many reasons why? Did I not first see my mommy without understanding how my eyes work? Eat without chewing on knowledge about my digestive system? Even now, what brings these words out of me, the mystery of them finding a new home in you, we shall never fully know.
So if I do know some truths--or should I say, if some truths were revealed to me--how should I speak about them?
Emily Dickinson convokes:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
I call this a convocation because she summons us to reclaim our vocation to speak like human. We speaks words but not as if we are the Word. Truth-speaking assumes humility in the speaker. We give but we are not the Giver.
One might think it too difficult for a scientist to do that, for, after all, they are telling the world "hardcore truths." Well, a theologian, a preacher, just the same, thinks she is speaking about the most unequivocal truths (and the point is not if you agree with her or not). So does a poet. So does a mother trying to warn her teenager about things little things big.
My son just said this very morning, "In school they just shove it down your throat..." He should try my schools back in my day. But I think his point is valid. Why should I care?
If there is no ultimate meaning we are all fools; scientists, theologians, poets, nagging fathers, the whole lot of us. And if there is, who are we to even think we can speak a meaningful word about...it? What gives us the permission, the ability, to take in another breath to speak another word about what is...true?
If my answer is I myself am my own reason or Life is meaningful because I/we make it so or I speak the truth on behalf of myself but for your good, then one day when I cease to speak, which will inevitably happen not just finally but any time, I shall find no recourse to have my life spoken for, like a helpless baby, deformed, motherless, unwanted, unloved, no surgeon can put me back together, no theologian can breath life into me to make me whole again...
Whole--again?
I just caught myself saying something presumptuous. I assumed we are meant to be--used to be?--whole.
Live by the Word, Alex
This is going to be long; sorry. I worked it out in my head just now while fixing my backyard. Suffering helps.
This morning I looked out my kitchen window and found big patches of my lawn being opened up like crude drug-store novels, folded and curled. Raccoon(s). Skunk(s). It was artfully done, I must say. I dutifully spent an hour to remove and reinstall my stratagem of garden nets (which they outwitted), closing up all the scattered books, which, upon closer examination, looked more like failed open-heart surgeries. Mud splattered all over my legs. I tried not to swear (and failed). What a bloody mess.
And this was after being followed by a most pitiful looking coyote earlier and ran home holding Sumi in my arms. I think I've used up my weekly allotment of heartbeat in one morning; now I am going to talk about science after giving you this likely unscientific claim.
Doing science certainly cannot be about getting facts straight and then telling it like if not for this scientist's straight-telling the world will be all the worse for it, I thought.
I think I pay more attention to how a person speaks about science than what is being spoken, the same way one could see where a preacher's heart is by hearing how he speaks about God.
Maybe I should revise my first sentence. Of course a scientist can speak like that. The question is: What does this way of speaking speak about the scientist?
A preacher also can talk about God like he's dissecting a nuclear bomb, giving the world facts explosive, facts exploitable, facts reassuring, facts devastating. He can of course speak like we'll just need to take in the information once a week for our own good. The question is: What does this way of speaking speak about him, and more important, about God?
I wonder whether this is why my son hates science. I know for sure this is why for the longest time I hate going to church.
One time someone told me about her Bible seminary classes, "I love Professor X, he tells it like it is, straight to the point! The other one, Professor Y, I can't stand him, puts me to sleep. Every time I asked Y a question he gave me another three. I said to him, Just give me the facts!"
As if to know God is to take in a set of "correct" theological ideas formulated about him, and that this sort of knowing would somehow magically manufacture a good Christian, a robust faith.
It is not rare to hear Christian declaring, "I love listening to that preacher!" For all I know if a preacher is truly good I'd hate to meet whatever comes out of any hole on her face.
I'd hate to meet her eyes because the vulnerability, even tears, in them would beckon me to reciprocate with my own giving up of pride and prejudice. I'd hate to know from how her mouth speaks that her ears seem to have eavesdropped on words of no sense and low sensibility I've spoken about my neighbors, people I claimed to love, the God I purported to worship. I'd hate to feel the hot air coming out of her nostrils, alarming me of my personal space being invaded, a God-breathed soul too close for comfort, the honesty too much...
Eugene, would I be going too far to suggest: Is there ever a truly human discourse that is purely about "laying facts on the table," lining them up in a straight line, for the sake of the listener's "good," in the name of being "truthful," lest if things don't get spit out "like they are" the world will somehow get the wrong ideas at her own peril?
There's something deeply perverse in believing explaining is the only form--or at least the highest form--of truth-telling. The assumption is the "truth" is somehow given a validity by my particular telling, that my speaking of it not only adds to its truthfulness, but legitimates it, breathes it into existence, gives it a mandate, blesses it with a vocation.
Only God the Giver can do something like this, through the agency of the Word, his only begotten son, Jesus. A human being who acknowledges this givenness of everything would not and could never bring himself to speak like he himself is the truth-giver, truth-creator, truth-sustainer.
I hope I am not being needlessly (and hopelessly) philosophical here. I know better use of my time. The critters are going to up their game.
What I really want to say is I've found much of scientific discourse utterly unsatisfying the same way I've found much of theological discourse dishonest.
How do I trust a scientist who exclaims This is amazing! but with no tears of bewilderment and thankfulness running down her cheeks? Would this scientist's life be just as Amazing! if he were born 800 years ago with one eye blind and lasted only eight bitter winters, all through them with not a single scientifically-truthful thought crossing his mind? Isn't life just as amazing before we've discovered the many reasons why? Did I not first see my mommy without understanding how my eyes work? Eat without chewing on knowledge about my digestive system? Even now, what brings these words out of me, the mystery of them finding a new home in you, we shall never fully know.
So if I do know some truths--or should I say, if some truths were revealed to me--how should I speak about them?
Emily Dickinson convokes:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
I call this a convocation because she summons us to reclaim our vocation to speak like human. We speaks words but not as if we are the Word. Truth-speaking assumes humility in the speaker. We give but we are not the Giver.
One might think it too difficult for a scientist to do that, for, after all, they are telling the world "hardcore truths." Well, a theologian, a preacher, just the same, thinks she is speaking about the most unequivocal truths (and the point is not if you agree with her or not). So does a poet. So does a mother trying to warn her teenager about things little things big.
My son just said this very morning, "In school they just shove it down your throat..." He should try my schools back in my day. But I think his point is valid. Why should I care?
If there is no ultimate meaning we are all fools; scientists, theologians, poets, nagging fathers, the whole lot of us. And if there is, who are we to even think we can speak a meaningful word about...it? What gives us the permission, the ability, to take in another breath to speak another word about what is...true?
If my answer is I myself am my own reason or Life is meaningful because I/we make it so or I speak the truth on behalf of myself but for your good, then one day when I cease to speak, which will inevitably happen not just finally but any time, I shall find no recourse to have my life spoken for, like a helpless baby, deformed, motherless, unwanted, unloved, no surgeon can put me back together, no theologian can breath life into me to make me whole again...
Whole--again?
I just caught myself saying something presumptuous. I assumed we are meant to be--used to be?--whole.
Live by the Word, Alex
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