Live Blogging From a Starbucks (Update)

I write this sitting next to a table of young women likely in their second year of university.  A few excerpts,

(regarding intro to philosophy)

– I mean I sat there the whole class listening to the professor ask whether or not a coffee cup was really there. I mean this is the most retarded thing. I haven’t learned a single fact. I don’t know what to study. I mean look at this textbook (pulls it out).  What the hell is that .  . . hieroglyphics (Of Grammtology?).  I mean I don’t need this I just wanted it as a GPA booster.  And its not going to be that.

– I don’t think I want to take the LSATS.  I mean there is so much hypocrisy in law. How could I feel good at the end of the day. But now I’m screwed. I don’t even know what I’m doing with myself. I’m thinking, like, social work. I’m even looking at occupational therapy. The work seems really interesting. It works with body and mind . . . and its helping people. I don’t know. I’m so lost. I mean I always wanted to be vet.

– Yah but you have to put animals down.

– Yah.

– I always wanted to be an actress or a teacher.

– There is nothing I feel passionate about except dogs.

– Maybe you could be a dog groomer?

– But I want to make lots of money.  Well I mean I don’t need to make a hundred thousand dollars.

– I saw X the other night and she looked so different.  She’s so skinny now.

– Does she look better?

– Yah, I think she got prettier.

(silence)

(extended exchange on Facebook and text activity)

I really don’t know what to do with myself.  Laugh, cry, scream.  And all of this intoned in a thoroughly unconscious valley girl accent (all four of them!).  They all want to be good and nice.  They want to help people.  They don’t want too much but they want enough.  And then, oh mercy, they cut people down.  I really loved the I haven’t learned any facts comment about philosophy.  Just give me something I can categorize, put my hands on, show to others!  Just don’t make me think through this!

Update! Two young men walk in and take their seats.  And in mid conversations,

– Reading Donald Miller, was revolutionary.  Reading it now, I’m like this is totally where I’ve been in the last two years.

(after losing the conversation for awhile I pick up on it again)

– So I’ve been working on my potato cannon . . .

I don’t even know.

Update #2

The young women are still here.  They continue to explore what the future holds for them.  Again there is this tepid middle road they desire.  I want to love what I do.  I want to make a decent income.  I don’t need to drive a Porsche.  And then finally the line comes.  I just want to be comfortable. Is this what will kill us in the end?

There is No Oedipal Triangle

I am slowly and awkwardly making my way through Anti-Oedipus.  The process reminds me a little of my first venture through The Brothers Karamazov.  At many points I had the Russian names all jumbled, I had put it down for weeks at a time and then picked up wherever it was that I left off not entirely sure of just what I was entering back into.  It was through that process I came to realize that some books simply needed to be read once so that a basic orientation could be laid for a second reading.  Perhaps this is a lousy and ineffective reading strategy but it has helped sustain my spirit while plodding through books I did not understand (only later to be greatly enlightened by them).  In any event Delueze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus is of a similar but also entirely different order.  I rarely know just what the hell is going on.  There have been, however, enough intersections of clarity that offer themselves as tiny beacons to start charting rough waters.  I recently read one such section.

There is no Oedipal Triangle:  Oedipus is always open in an open social field.  Oedipus opens to the four winds, to the four corners of the social field (not even 3+1, but 4+n).  A poorly closed triangle, a porous or seeping triangle, an exploded triangle from which the flows of desire escape in the direction of other territories.  It is strange that we had to wait for the dreams of colonized peoples in order to see that, on the vertices of the pseudo triangle, mommy was dancing with missionary, daddy was being fucked by the tax collector, while the self was being beaten by the white man.  It is precisely this pairing of the parental figures with agents of another nature, their locking embrace similar to that of wrestlers, that keeps the triangle from closing up again, from being valid in itself, and from claiming to express or represent this different nature of the agents that are in question in the unconscious itself. . . . It could always be said that these extreme situations of war trauma, of colonization, of dire poverty, and so on, are unfavorable to the construction of the Oedipal apparatus – and that it is precisely because of this that these situations favor a psychotic development or explosion – but we have a strong feeling that the problem lies elsewhere.  Apart from the fact that a certain degree of comfort found in the bourgeois family is admittedly necessary to turn out oedipalized subjects, the question of knowing what is actually invested in the comfortable conditions of a supposedly normal or normative Oedipus is pushed still further into the background.

The revolutionary is the first to have the right to say: “Oedipus? Never heard of it.”

Anti-Oedipus, 96.

A Theology of Home Owning

My wife and I are, for the first time, looking seriously at buying a house.  My first impression is that I did not expect it to be as ‘spiritual’ of a process as I am realizing.  First there is the question of ownership.  My recent theological trajectory arcs towards the need to identify where I try and control questions of God, truth, morality, etc.  To what extent do I remain open even vulnerable to changes that I did foresee or create?  How does this relate to home owning?  My impression is that the saying a man’s home is his castle remains powerfully relevant (to what extent the gender ascription is relevant I don’t know).  The modern house is designed to be a space of dominance; a space where control and predictability are attainable.  We essentially colonize a small space for benevolent or destructive ends.  Is there a way of approaching home ownership that does not fall prey to this tendency?

What I am beginning to see is that the process and act of home buying must be integrated into a person and family’s larger theological and spiritual orientation.  For instance my wife is interested in a space that can be renovated so that it can be a type of canvas to explore new environments of living that can facilitate and nurture relationships.  I am interested in examining my motivation for location so that our purchase does not entrench further social, racial, economic boundaries that are based on fear.  From my brief conversations I find fear to be probably the most influential emotion in how people have gone about decision making.  It is certainly not the only influence and it is not always the strongest but it is almost always present.  I have had little fear in my life so I need to be careful in recognizing the roots and realities of other people’s fears.  Theologically, however, these fears must be discerned and sorted so that they do not create decisions that only enforce a continually fearful world for other people.

And of course tied in with all this are questions like the proximity to work, family, friends, and schools as well as the issue of transportation (what is walking and biking distance). What this means is that there is no one right house or approach to home buying.

Then there is the whole question of trust.  So we begin with a trusted friend who refers an agent.  We meet the agent and the agent refers a mortgage broker., etc. And suddenly a web spins out that would have looked entirely different had we cast an alternative first strand.  I cannot become an expert in all these fields while starting a new job, caring for a new child, all the while living under my in-laws roof!  So we trust.  Lord help us.

What I must shed regardless of our decision is the notion, the illusion, that a home can be a refuge or escape from the world.  The world will always reside within our homes in one form or another.  Our purchase then cannot be about possession and control because there remains too many variables (internal and external) that will continue to effect my family’s life no matter how well I reinforce the castle walls.  Our actions, spaces, and objects emerge as spiritual realities (whether residual or ontological).  They are not neutral.  They are engaged with God’s work of creation and redemption.  The image becomes almost levitical thinking of how priests concerned themselves with the mold on walls and binding of diverse threads.  Spaces and objects can be holy or profane, clean or unclean and they are never in these states permanently because these states are bound up in our ongoing engagement with God.  This gives me hope.  Perhaps the holiness of God can even be encountered as far away as the suburbs . . . perhaps.

Why Environmentalism Will Fail

At the corner of St. James St and Portage Ave in Winnipeg is a building which has provided the canvas for some massive murals for Winnipeg Hydro. As I passed by the mural today I saw two kids laying back on the grass at the edge of a lake. They were looking up into a blue sky made lighter with the presence of distinct white clouds. It was the classic scenario of seeing ‘something’ within the unique and random shapes that pass by. The clouds, however, betrayed the clear and unmistakable shapes of an energy-efficient light bulb and washing machine.  There are many critiques out there of how capitalism continues to entrench itself within environmentalism providing the therapeutic opportunity to buy and consume your way to a cleaner world and therefore feel good about yourself without having to change anything.  This mural, however, struck me as even more sinister.  Instead of offering a simple sedative to the problem of whatever our environmental crisis may be this mural actually attempts to co-opt the very possibility of imaginative alternatives.  Go ahead and dream of what is possible but the game is fixed, we now the posses the material of your imagination and can mould it out gain.  Am I wrong?  There is a cult growing around environmentalism that I am having little faith in.  It seems disinterested in and detached from the larger issues of equality and social restoration.

I found the image online and as I looked at it again it keeps getting worse.  The lightbulb and washing machine are actually placed as the exclusive variables for a mathematical equation the sum of which equals a green tree.  This is a blatant lie.  The variables in this equation are no different then the variables of an old bulb and washing machine (perhaps with a slightly lower numerical value).  This ad is trying to tell you that these new products are of a fundamentally different order and composition.  They no longer add to disaster but now add to salvation.  This really is bullshit.

The Torah’s Vision of Worship – Part II.2 – The Liturgy of the Covenant; Covenant as Sanctuary Building and World Building

(Table of Contents for  NOTCP series)

Exodus 25-40 deals primarily with the construction of the tabernacle which has been a hobby horse for many arm-chair architects over the years.  Though if one approaches this section in such a pragmatic fashion you will be “faced with a unique combination of long-winded description on the one hand and total omission of various particulars on the other” (citing M. Haran, 137).  Balentine, instead, explores the theological construction that is occurring in and around this section.

Continue reading “The Torah’s Vision of Worship – Part II.2 – The Liturgy of the Covenant; Covenant as Sanctuary Building and World Building” →

Notes from the Road and Homecoming

Well I have survived three days of twists and turns, rock and water that is northern Ontario.  A few thoughts emerged along the way.

1. The slow lane is great.

I left on a Uhaul truck pulling my car on a trailer.  I knew I could not be an aggressive driver and so I left with an entirely different pace and mentality.  While I am usually trying to jockey for position I was now unconcerned about passing or being passed.  In three days driving I passed maybe five people.  This was far and away a more enjoyable ride.  I also felt free to be gracious to those trying to merge and forgiving to those cutting me off.  I simply did not care.  I was driving by an internal orientation not a reactive one.  It was wonderful.

2. Think ahead when it comes to coffee.

My greatest nemesis on the road was bad coffee.  For a solid day and a half I endured weak, lukewarm coffee that for some reason always has a hint of cinnamon or something to it.  Finally in Thunder Bay I ran into a Starbucks where I stocked up on their instant VIA packages which brought me the rest of the way home.

3. The Greasy Spoon is a romantic illusion (no that is not true . . . the food is all too Real).

I thought that for at least one of my breakfasts I would stop at the smallest little town and pick up a some local flavour.  Well the ambience of the little cafe in Iron Bridge was great.  Locals discussing the accuracy of long-range rifles.  The owner describing the perils of my journey ahead . . . had I been driving in winter.  A framed hand drawn picture on the wall of the family’s trip to Vegas.  But the breakfast . . . or the ‘special’ it was called (I did not know bacon and eggs could constitute a special anywhere) . . . was horrible.  I am trying to forget the chewy potatoes.  Well, it was just something I needed to do.

4. You will always stop at the wrong place.

You need to make decision.  If you want to eat or you want to stop for the night you need to make a decision.  You could wander forever.  And no matter how selective you have been you will always pass something that looks better after the decision was made.

And so finally I arrived in Winnipeg and with that, on the first day, two things happened.  One event was singularly encouraging while the other a cruel reminder of my new reality.

The first was simple.  In five years in southern Ontario I suffered perhaps five mosquito bites.  In the first five minutes of my walk in Winnipeg I suffered the same.

Second, I was hoping to drop my books directly off at the church so that I would not have to move them twice but unfortunately no one was available.  There was, however, a 7-11 across the street from the church.  Now Winnipeg is the Slurpee capital of North America in its per capita consumption.  Slurpees I must remind you is not a generic term but a product of 7-11 in distinction from the Slush Puppy, Thirst Burster, etc..  Now I have been known to be a little bit of a Slurpee connoisseur in my day, often breaking off in 15 minute tangents on what constitutes the perfect Slurpee (including both internal and external factors as well as subjective orientations).  Needless to say I was excited to have my first Winnipeg Slurpee upon arriving.  When I was selecting my blend (I am no purist, and have little patience for a purist as such) another woman was about to get one.  I told her to go ahead as I was deliberating.  She leaned over and told me, “I think they have been messing with the Pepsi.  It used to be the best at this location.  It was the, the . . . ”  “The consistency,” I said.  “Yes,” she replied.  She understood.  I was home.

Neither Here Nor There

This is my last day in the office at Hillcrest Mennonite Church.  This Sunday I will be preaching my last sermon here.  On Monday I will pick of the Uhaul and Tuesday set out on the serpentine Ontario leg of the Trans-Canada.  This is a place where it is still possible to run out of gas before reaching a 24 hour gas megaplex (been there done that and moved on from the kindness of a stranger).  A place where if you drive into the night you are more likely than not to be accompanied by a moose running alongside your headlights for a time.  I plan to take the pace slow spreading out the 24hr plus driving time over three days.  There is no rush.  Once I hit the homeland of Manitoba and settle in Winnipeg I will shortly begin my time at First Mennonite.

Chantal and Salem will fly out ahead of me on Sunday.  And so for about four days I will be neither here nor there but in motion, in transit.  Perhaps we cannot live in liminal space, perhaps it is impossible to hover between the cherubs wings, perhaps we will always be in motion towards on or the other, touching, so that we feel grounded though less holy.  But for a few days I will travel from one wing to the other releasing my grasp in the left hand while taking a tentative step on my own before reaching out again with my right hand to steady my feet.

I have always loved traveling roads where you can turn off at any intersection and not have to wait for an exit that directs you to a pre-fab community of consumption.  Perhaps I will offer some posts from the not-here and the not-there but hopefully not.  If anything I hope to sit alone and sit in silence and then perhaps scrawl by hand on machined wood that has been thinned to sheets that allow for the possibility of enscription and collection.  These sheets then could be burned or stored but both participate in the breaking down of the material order.  They are under no illusion of being part of the digital that claims more permanence or at least presence but is infinitely more fragile.

It is interesting that this transitional space is where my mind is attracted to.  I have not thought too much about ending my time here or beginning my time there.  And perhaps the notion of liminality and transition is just an illusion.  The problem though may be that our sense of permanence, of endings and beginnings, is the illusion.  It is the endings and beginnings that mark our attachment and submission to structures of order, preservation, and stability.  I long to live as though I was traveling between one wing and the other touching neither.  Perhaps I will be able to enter into something which I will not leave even upon arriving.

Well, if you could not tell I am trying to romanticize a period of time that will be filled with poor hygiene and way to much coffee and pastries.  But those spaces have also, in the past, been filled with sounds both harmonious and cacophonous as only the refrain holy, holy, holy can be uttered.

The Torah’s Vision of Worship – Part II.1 – The Liturgy of the Covenant; Covenant Vocation

(part of an ongoing series)

The Sinai account in Exodus 19-24 blend (whatever their textual histories) the themes of covenant and holiness. This is embedded in the call to create a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Here we find both the concept of sovereignty and service. A people of the highest lineage (God’s own) that offer service to the world. Balentine expands,

These terms anticipate that covenant-keeping, while consonant with God’s creational designs, nevertheless engages Israel in a vocation that is dramatically discontinuous with the world’s politics. In partnership with God, Israel is empowered to become a kingdom of priests, not of kings, a kingdom of servants, not of rulers. Their capacity for dominion in God’s world resides in their empowerment to serve others, not in any self-assertion of mundane sovereignty. On the one hand, this imagery looks forward to Israel’s subsequent transition into statehood and provides a word of warning and caution: do not abuse power; do not equate the prerogatives of statehood with God’s covenantal commission for dominion through servanthood. On the other hand, this commission looks backwards from the vantage point of Israel’s lost sovereignty under Babylonian and Persian hegemony and offers a word of abiding hope: the people of God are empowered for a dominion that ultimately cannot be negated by the mandates of regnant forces (124).

Continue reading “The Torah’s Vision of Worship – Part II.1 – The Liturgy of the Covenant; Covenant Vocation” →