Category: Uncategorized

Lent 1 – Taking positions

An abbreviated version of my Lent 1 sermon this Sunday.  (For some other great reflections see here and here)

I can, quite clearly, remember a handful of times having an upset stomach when I was a child.  I don’t think this was any sort of chronic issue that I suffered.  The memory embedded itself because of its strangeness.  It was not like a cut or a bruise or even a headache where the source of pain or discomfort was readily and clearly identifiable.  An upset stomach was something a little more buried.  It was something that shifted and churned.  At one point it could be a pain and at the next moment a nauseous feeling would wash over me.  Something at the centre of me was out of place and it affected my entire orientation.  And so I remember trying to sit or lie down in certain positions.  I tried to find some way of being that would ease these subterranean flows.

Continue reading “Lent 1 – Taking positions” →

Did you wish . . . could you wish

Either / Or concludes with Judge William offering the transcript of sermon he received from a friend who is a minister.  William is convinced that this sermon reflects what he had been straining towards in his letter (which is what all of vol 2 is considered).  The minister has yet to preach this sermon but believes in time that he will be able to have his entire congregation understand it “for the beauty of the universal consists precisely in the fact that all can understand it.”

Continue reading “Did you wish . . . could you wish” →

The self as choice . . . the choice to impregnate yourself that is

This weekend I finished Kierkegaard’s Either / Or. A major theme in the ethical ‘Or’ of Either / Or is the role of choice.

But what is it I choose?  Is it this thing or that?  No, for I choose absolutely, and the absoluteness of my choice is expressed precisely by the fact that I have not chosen to choose this or that.  I choose the absolute.  And what is the absolute?  It is I myself in my eternal validity.  Anything else but myself I never can choose as the absolute, for if I choose something else, I choose it as a finite thing and so do not choose it absolutely.  Even the Jew who chose God did not choose it absolutely, for he chose, indeed, the absolute, but did not choose it absolutely, and thereby it ceased to be the absolute and became a finite thing.

. . .

This self which he then chooses is infinitely concrete, for it is in fact himself, and yet it is absolutely distinct form his former self, for he has chosen it absolutely.  This self did not exist previously, for it came into existence by means of the choice, and yet it did exist, for it was in fact ‘himself.’

In this case choice performs at one and the same time the two dialectical movements: that which is chosen does not exist and comes into existence with the choice; that which is chosen exists , otherwise there would not be a choice.

This strikes me as a tremendously pivotal move in Kierkegaard’s work.  The notion of ‘self’ will be picked up again with greater rigour in The Sickness Unto Death but here we must also remember that Kierkegaard is still trying to awaken, to disturb, to move.  These are not his ‘direct’ religious writings.  It is easy to see that as Kierkegaard’s work was slowly translated into German and English that these sort of passages were developed into the type of ‘individualism’ that existentialism became known for.  However, even in this section Kierkegaard has no interest in the unique individual instead Kierkegaard demands the dialectic of the individual which is both absolutely singular and universal.  In following page he writes,

Therefore it requires courage for a man to choose himself; for at the very time when it seems that isolates himself most thoroughly he is most thoroughly absorbed in the root by which he is connected with the whole.

This then culminates not in the maxim of ‘knowing yourself’ but in the admonishment to ‘choose yourself’.  Though he admits if he wanted to be clever he would say that we must ‘know’ ourselves as Adam knew Eve.

By the individual’s intercourse with himself he impregnates himself and brings himself to birth.

I’ll let my distinguished readers unpack that one.

I’ve Lost My Drum . . .

One of the highlights of Netflix Canada is that they host the complete series of The Kids in the Hall.  While I thought I watched vast swaths of it growing up I find that even in the first season there are many episodes I missed.  One opening sketch has crystallized a certain conception of comedy.  Comedy creates a terrain of invigorating instability.  If you go too far the terrain becomes uninhabitably absurd and not far enough it is, well, not funny.  The following video is one of their short opening sketches.  Somehow it has come to represent a close limit to the possibilities of comedy.  Within its one-minute length the scene is filled with physical, metaphorical, spatial, cultural and linguistic clashes.  Prepare to watch the historical high-water mark of comedy.

Organic theology . . . no, wait, don’t click to another site!

The term ‘organic’ seems to be moving quickly into disfavor among many philosophers and theologians.  The impression I get is that the term is most often evoked with a sense of nostalgia and naivete with respect to how we can best understand and respond to situations (and the co-option of the term for less than desirable purposes cannot help).  Whether this reaction comes from the pushback against ‘localism’ over at AUFS or the apocalyptic theology of Doerge, Kerr, Siggelkow et. al. it seems that ‘organic’ is not the right mode of engagement.  This is a reductionistic preface but a preface that should indicate our ongoing desire to find the next and better mode of inquiry.  That is fine and I am not looking to go back.  I am just setting this up for one simple observation.

I was given a plant.  It is in my office.  This plant seems at once to be both dying and regenerating itself.  At times it has beamed with robust health and at other times it teetered and I have not known what will come of it (though I know what should come of a plant).  More often than not I do not know what to do.  At one point branches were snapping.  The giant leaves seemed too heavy or was it that the branch was too weak or was it that they had simply grown to completion.  I would grow anxious.  Too much or not enough of any number of things can spell the end.  I rushed to the Sunday School supply room and came back with pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks trying to create splints to see if they could heal.  But I had to let them go.  Out of the three only one sprouted a new leaf.

This all reminded me of my childhood on the farm.  I could not farm.  In my bones I despised farming because I would work an already too wet field and see dark clouds roll in from the West miles away on the prairies bringing more rain.  It made me ill.  So I left the farm unconsciously thinking there were places where I could have more control.

And I found these places in regular paychecks and relatively clear job expectations.  But now several times a day I look over at that plant and I do not know its fate.  Again, I am trying to be very conscious of nostalgia or paternalistic tendencies in my thinking.  I suppose the only point I am trying to make is that if someone wishes to move beyond the organic metaphor they should have made sure they sat long enough with it in all its precariousness and anxiety . . . and beauty.

But its a dry cold . . .

I lived in southern Ontario for a short five years.  In that time I came to believe in something called a wet cold.  As you can suspect this is the inverse of the saying about heat, in that a wet temperature is always a worse experience than a dry one.  In any event, I came to believe it.  Yes the the temperature was not nearly so low as it was back home in Manitoba but the dampness got into your bones.  Well we are in the last weekend of February here in Winnipeg and the next two nights are slated for overnight lows of around -30 C (I will not get into windchill factor).  So to all you in Ontario with your poor wet snow . . . I call bullshit.

Oh yes and happy Festival du Voyageur!

2011

1976

Debating whether or not I care

I recently crossed paths with someone heavily involved in an atheists group at the local university.  This person was not of the ‘sort’ I expected.  In any event the encounter spurred me to do a little snooping around on the internet for local atheist blogs and see what was happening.  In the process I ran into The Winnipeg Skeptics.  One of the contributors has his own blog Startled Disbelief.  I started reading various posts and before long I chimed in with a few comments.  Now I have to say I appreciate Gem Newman’s tone at Startled Disbelief and so was quite open to hearing his positions.  After my initial comment Gem directed me to an earlier post which outlined in broader terms his position as a skeptic.  We had a decent little exchange going before I realized that the arc of the conversation was quickly moving into territory I simply had no interest in pursuing.

If you are interested in the full conversation see the last link (I did quite appreciate his overall presentation).  In any event there was one aspect to the conversation that continued to trouble me.  Gem constantly pushed the notion that skepticism was somehow non-political.  Skepticism is simply a method of critically examining claims (as he puts it).  I didn’t think anyone believed in a neutral mode of scientific inquiry anymore.  Gem went on to say that skepticism does not “provide a personal moral framework” and also that “atheism says nothing about politics, economics, or even belief in the supernatural.”  He claimed I was confusing the politics of particular atheists with the politics of atheism (I had earlier proposed that atheism was actually a much more robust approach than skepticism . . . for him atheism is a one-off subject).  Gem claims that he is “a skeptical, liberal, humanistic atheist.”  I suppose it is this combination that clarifies his politics.  However, he continues to maintain a broader skeptical orientation in saying, “I think that everything should be open to question. All conclusions are provisional.”  How is this not political?  How will that not continue to deny participation to decisive and potentially life-threatening postures that need to be taken in response to abusive powers?

Now so far as theology goes I would agree that a skeptical atheism comes much closer to biblical faith than many other contemporary theologies do in its rigor for idol-smashing.  However, biblical faith is a decidedly declared position.  That is, biblical faith will always ultimately undermine earthly authorities which abuse power.  This is Christology (as well as good Old Testament theology).  So I put it to Gem saying that I am much more interested in the proposition ‘love everything’ as opposed to his tagline ‘question everything’.  Love maintains a critical posture (because of its love for others) but always orientates the person towards a constructive and engaged posture.  This is where things started coming off the rails in my mind.  Here Gem began ‘applying’ his method.  His defense of and basis for skepticism was simply the apparently self-evident role of the Enlightenment as “proven to have held up.”  This is exactly my criticism he does not address.  The Enlightenment does not hold up because it offered nothing socially or politically substantive to engage the West.  I am then accused of a ‘false dichotomy’ in my opposition of love-or-question everything.  Though, I should add that love under Gem’s definition is some sort of fond cuddling.  When I advanced my view of love (as something restorative) I was accused of having a definition that “seems vague, misleading, needlessly complex, and in some cases probably guilty of equivocation.”  Oh man, I guess Gem has the definition down for love.

It is at this point at the end of the conversation that Gem offers the strange example of giving lectures to teachers on how to teach mathematics.  In this example it would not interest him to consider how to integrate the possibility that some children are unable to learn due to unstable life circumstances.  That sort of clinched it.  I suspect he would say that indeed would care about it but he also says that he has “neither the skills nor the inclination to be a counsellor, and the fact that some of them may need counselling does not make teaching mathematics any less important.”  Who the hell would argue from that example that mathematics are not important?  Yes, fine we are all able and limited in various capacities but to consider one aspect of education as ‘pedagogically pure’ regardless of circumstance seems unhelpful.

Why am I recounting this?  I guess I wanted to process it for myself.  Christian and skeptical/atheistic apologetics are pretty big these days.  I thought it might be a good exercise to understand why I don’t care.  What this has clarified for me is the reality that by and large these expressions (on both sides of the fences, as I have encountered them) have a drastically insufficient or at least dis-integrated view of politics as though they can go about their business because they are a-political.  Its not my responsibility for what others do with the sacred truth I discover.  In any event it seems more like bullshit than before.

Updates

Well I finally came to the conclusion that my (almost) daily translations are a bit cluttering for this space.  Given that consideration in addition to some ideas of other translations I decided to start a second blog writing in tongues which will house those projects.

In addition to the post on Kafka and Proust as well as some coming posts on Louis Riel I also hope to post some Hebrew recipes and eventually dabble in Arabic . . . eventually.  Google translate is a great aid to get some momentum.

In any event in case you missed it here are a few post that may have got buried.

Original boredom and solving our financial crisis

The mockery of careful planning

I am a feel good story; Or, What would Zizek do?

Du Côté de Chez Swann – Day 29

Mais il suffisait que, dans mon lit même, mon sommeil fût profond et détendît entièrement mon esprit; alors celui-ci lâchait le plan du lieu où je m’étais endormi, et quand je m’éveillais au milieu de la nuit, comme j’ignorais où je me trouvais, je ne savais même pas au premier instant qui j’étais; j’avais seulement dans sa simplicité première, le sentiment de l’existence comme il peut frémir au fond d’un animal: j’étais plus dénué que l’homme des cavernes; mais alors le souvenir–non encore du lieu où j’étais, mais de quelques-uns de ceux que j’avais habités et où j’aurais pu être–venait à moi comme un secours d’en haut pour me tirer du néant d’où je n’aurais pu sortir tout seul; je passais en une seconde par-dessus des siècles de civilisation, et l’image confusément entrevue de lampes à pétrole, puis de chemises à col rabattu, recomposaient peu à peu les traits originaux de mon moi.

But it was enough that, in my own bed, my sleep was deep and completely relaxing to my spirit; that it lost sense of place where I fell asleep, and when I woke up in the middle of the night, I did not know where I was, I did not even know at first who I was; I had only my first simplicity, the sense of existence as it might quiver in the substance of an animal: I was more lacking than the cave man; but then the memory  (not of where I was, but of some of those places where I had been or where I could be) came to me as a relief from the height of nothingness where I could not have got it alone; I passed in one second over-top centuries of civilizations, and the image dimly met with kerosene lamps, then a collared shirt folded, recomposing little by little the original traits of myself.