These are some of the things I've written down in the past few months. As my hectic college schedules have not allowed me to really organize my thoughts into a coherent system, these bits and pieces are the best I could do.
These may seem very obscure and incoherent. They may very well be. Understand this to be the process of building a philosophical perspective on life and everything.
Take everything written here with a grain of salt. A lot of this may turn out to be untrue or incorrect in some respects. I'm merely letting my mind run wild here.
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December 3, 2015
In the modern world, time has become a tyrant, always pulling us forward away from the present, in essence dividing our souls from our bodies, our minds from the here and now.
I've always wondered whether man is meant to become more abstract or more concrete as he grows and learns. And now I know: the answer is yes (both). To pursue one without the other is to lose both, and to be filled with emptiness.
When a human being grows, he becomes more and more full, physically and spiritually. If growth is the continuation of creation, then in growth we must seek to be both dense and expansive, being fully grounded in the physical here and now while our minds and spirits reach for the heights and depths of unseen realms. How to do so is a mystery to me. But I suggest to myself a few places to start.
The first starting point is revelation from God, which comes down to earth from heaven, connecting the spiritual and the physical in an explosive connection of love that bursts outward with fruitfulness and glory. Revelation is found in creation (natural and artificial), providence, and especially Scripture. Fellow Christians contain all three aspects of revelation; cherish them.
The second starting point is worship, which goes up to heaven from earth, laying hold of revelation and filling the worshiper with spiritual and physical fullness. Worship is looking to God, reaching for His presence and glory, at once both committing to the world and abandoning it.
Think of the physical and the spiritual not as separate categories, but as the ends of a spectrum. Both comprise the mystery called life and being.
The physical is valuable for its uniqueness and ephemerality.
The spiritual is valuable for its commonality and immutability.
A prayer:
Father, teach me
To be myself and to be a member,
To be present and to be everywhere and every time,
To be at rest and to be at war,
To strive and to wait patiently,
To be self-conscious and self-forgetful,
To be on earth and in heaven,
To be full of sorrow and full of joy,
To give and to receive,
To hold on and to let go,
To seek knowledge and to honor mystery,
To love and to hate,
To die and to live.
Amen.
[Additional notes]:
Oh, the mysteries and paradoxes of life. Oh, the wonder of God.
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December 7, 2015
After English class, I started reading chapter 2 of Ronald Dworkin's Religion without God, which I don't really like but which intrigues me with some interesting ideas, especially when he delves into motivations for physicists to seek out a single, unified explanation of the universe.
Why would physicists do that, if not out of some religious instinct? They have some deep assumption that somehow, there is something out there, at least an invisible natural law that they do not yet comprehend, which unifies the universe under its power. Therefore, Dworkin calls them "religious atheists".
I'm also reminded (ironically) of the importance of mystery in religion. There is no religion without mystery, and that is something I have to remember in my walk with God.
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Modernism, the Loss of Wonder, and Being a Weirdo
(date written unknown)
The Kantian Divide made enormous waves in philosophical and cultural thinking when it divorced the natural from the supernatural. Science and technology began to rise in prominence, while things like religion and miracles were relegated to the realm of the mysterious. The mysterious eventually became the fictitious, and today these are but the stuff of movies and fantasy novels.
How does this affect everyday life? In societies that are "enlightened", God is almost completely shut out from the conversations of people. At least in pagan idol-worshiping societies, men could engage in discussions or even disputes that are based on the assumption of an existing god(s); they only need to figure out which is/are real and which are false. But the modernist naturalist mind dismisses any possibility of something that's otherworldly or supernatural. To such people, the mechanics of our world are all that exist, and if any irregularities are perceived, there has to be a scientific, natural explanation for it.
Thus, the craving for something that is beyond and transcendent has been suppressed, and we occasionally feed this desire by watching a Marvel superhero movie, for example. We have, in fact, lost a sense of belief and hope that there is a magical world that we could possibly come into contact with; such ideas are, for the most part, mocked today. (But of course, there is also the secular science version of mythology: aliens and UFOs.)
Certainly, we don't want to fall back into superstitious paganism, which diminishes and reduces God as much as modernism does. But we must not let the ideas of naturalism keep us from living with a bold strangeness, as Christians.
Because the truth is that there are, indeed, two worlds: heaven and earth. These two worlds that had been separated by sin are now reconciled because of the blood of Jesus Christ. The supernatural power of heaven has entered into our natural world, and the evidence of that is the Church, who still stands and proclaims the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We must not let our sense of awe be diminished. We must not be afraid of the people who would scorn us for believing in the resurrection of the soul and body, and in Christ coming down to earth again from the sky. We can be bold in our testimony because we have also come into that supernatural world, those of us who have experienced the regenerating power of the Spirit. We understand in our hearts that we belong to another world, and therefore it's only normal to be thought strange when we speak of God's gospel and act in selfless love towards men.
The cost of being Christian is to be a weirdo in the world. We must expect that, and not let modern standards of "normality" cause us to doubt ourselves. We must stand fully with Christ. We are right in doing so.
Let us speak boldly of the magical world of heaven, for we are not normal. We are the messengers of the divine.
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December 19, 2015
Visited Dr. Miller Thursday afternoon for a chat to end my semester. He introduced me to an environmental vision of the world and of life. Perhaps "agrarian" would be a fitting term to use.
"Honor the land as a start," said Dr. Miller. Very interesting. But what is the concept of land? That's something I have to ask him next time.
When I was going to leave, he prayed for me and gave me "an American hug". Thank God for providing me with a professor who loves so deeply.
[Additional notes]:
It actually makes a lot of sense for Christians to have an environmentally-friendly perspective. Sometimes we focus too much on the sanctity and honor of human life that we forget the value of the rest of creation. I think as sinners we are more prone to devalue non-human life as a way to pretend that we are raising our respect for human life.
However, a correct vision of the world sees everything as connected. We are connected biologically and even spiritually. As Wendell Berry remarked, it is idiotic to say that a person can be "healthy" when he is standing in the midst of polluted air. At which point the air and his person coincide, the air is him and becomes him.
Do animals have souls? I used to adamantly say NO, but now my perspective has changed. I believe that animals do have souls, in a sense; not souls that have eternal individuality like humans do, to be sure. That should be uniquely human, I believe. But I think that even plants and rocks have a spiritual element to them. This is only consistent with my belief that it is by the Spirit of God that all things hold together. Nothing is purely physical. In fact, who is to say that the physical is not simply an aspect or a dimension of the spiritual? God is Spirit, and thus His creation cannot be void or independent of His Spirit. To say so would be idolatry.
Even with the preeminence of the human race, the way God structured the world shows us how much we are connected with the world and rely on the world. What could we do without the sun? What could we do without the soil? These things were set in place so we remember we are not gods.
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December 20, 2015
Service today morning. As I walked into the hall, I immediately felt a strong contrast. There was definitely something different. I did not understand this until after the service.
I told Chi Xin that I felt something different between Chinese and white congregations. I hypothesized that the Chinese have more of a sense of fatalism, while Americans tend to believe more strongly that their choices can defy the impossible; such mindsets carry into relationships, I presume. Thus, Americans see friendship as a gradual process wrought by effort, while the Chinese have more of an all-or-nothing approach based upon the circumstances; if the circumstances are right, it seems more likely that Chinese people would "submit to fate" and accept whoever is before him as a friend, and even be candid about what they dislike about each other.
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December 21, 2015
I read half of Francis Schaeffer's Mark of the Christian today. Pretty much reinforced my thoughts on love and apologetics. If I could combine the concepts with Wendell Berry's "Health is Membership", I would have an interesting theory for Christian apologetics.
A few important concepts I have at this point that I want to jot down:
1) Love as the most central quality of God; a supernatural thing;
2) Love is thus the ultimate apologetic, because it displays something that makes no sense (exceeds the natural) in a selfish, fallen world;
3) Love as the greatest health, bring together people who need each other and therefore making all things complete and whole;
4) Therefore, the need for love to pass through suffering (alienation & disintegration).
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January 5, 2016
Something remarkable and full of grace happened today. I was praying, telling God, "I failed you, I failed you, I need your help..."
Somehow my thoughts led to the philosophy of the self, and in an instant, I was given the understanding of who I am. I am created in the spiritual image of God. We all are. That's why it is so hard to define a person by one thing or even multiple things. The soul of a man is infinitely multifaceted, because God's soul is.
Thus, as we dishonor God by reducing His person to one thing (idolatry), like the sun, or the trees, or the earth, or an abstract law, we also dishonor man when we seek to simplify human personalities into external appearances or mannerisms. We are more than that.
What a breathtaking duty: I reflect God's spiritual existence, in all my various intellectual perspectives and affections and volition and characteristics of soul, all too deep to comprehend at once.
I had a renewed sense of this just now as I read Scripture and prayed. I realized that I have been faking before God, and He is not pleased with that. I have become so used to trying to be cool and charming and witty in front of people that this has affected how I pray. A lot of the time I feel like I'm trying to touch God's heart. And I always feel like I fail.
Today I was given the understanding that God is God, and I should stop visualizing His responses in my head. That's idolatry. God is spirit, and His thoughts and feelings in response to my prayers isn't as simple as happy or angry. He is God. I will revere the mystery, and I will revere the truth that He takes the initiative in the covenant. I don't charm Him through prayer to do so. We are both not so simple. We are more. We are spirit.
From a physical perspective on the world, things are what they are. From a spiritual perspective on the world, things are more than what they seem. God is one and three, fire and water, meekness and majesty. God is Spirit.
Thank God. Now I can be myself, more and more.
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January 26, 2016
Attended a memorial service for Nate Ferraco, who died in a car crash over the weekend. Sitting in the balcony of John White Chapel, seeing the soccer jersey that used to belong to him displayed on stage, watching his teammates huddle and sing and his girlfriend sob... reflecting on death and how vulnerable every single person is before its great power... it all really sobered me up.
For all the things we hate about life, it still seems a devastating thing when someone passes into the darkness.
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February 2, 2016
Spent about 6 hours in total talking to friends and family over Skype this weekend. Really put a strain on my homework, but I feel like it's worth it.
The most important thing I got out of talking with my dad in particular is the idea of awesome holiness, and a renewed sense of the importance of reverence. I've been so soft. I need to hold fast to God's standards while remembering the mercy that has been shown me.
Whenever I feel like I have been wronged, rather than deny it in my "forgiving niceness", I must confess that I really have been wronged, and that I have wronged God in ways worse than that. Then I must remember that He has forgiven me for doing so; He paid the awful price for my hate towards Him. Then I will know how to treat others. I must demand perfection from all, and suffer the pain of their falling short. That's what Christ did.
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February 4, 2016
The highlights of today was learning about society and economic systems, with an emphasis on the vices of capitalism. In society class today, Dr. Suhr led us in a discussion of the article about Marx that we read yesterday. Very insightful. I'm beginning to see more and more clearly how much capitalism has shaped us, and how much we as a society set it up as a god.
Also talked to Kara quite a bit tonight, which contributed significantly to my understanding of urban society versus rural society and to my envisioning of the agrarian life.
Agrarianism prizes freedom from reliance on others, self-sufficiency of local communities, commitment to a certain place and people, and historical existence.
Capitalism prizes individual self-sufficiency and liberty by (paradoxically) making every person in the system deeply interdependent. The city man is not tied to a place or community (only to the capitalist system), and his sense of identity is disconnected from his past, for it is his future successes that will establish who he is. He is the self-made man.
Interesting. Worth reflecting on more.
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February 6, 2016
In times past, God called Israel to live out her faith in the arena of warfare. A nation of freed slaves, with no heritage of warfare, actually managed to conquer the Promised Land.
You too shall prevail. God has called you, a fool, into the arena of academia. Do not fear, but trust Him, and turn your heart not to idols lest He give you over to defeat.
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February 10, 2016
I had an interesting thought when reading for society class:
The books we read, the perspectives and systems of thought we absorb, etc. are meant to prepare us to learn people, no less the One Person from whom all peoples came. Study of inanimate objects or impersonal laws are not an end in itself. Love is the goal, to see people and to unite with them, seeing through their eyes.
The direction of eternal joy is from impersonal to personal, from death to life, from nothingness to fullness.
A complaint of the heart:
How far am I from You. The fire in my heart is not there. I've been entangled in many concerns of the world.
But know also, Father, that I do these things because You call me to.
I pay attention to people because they belong to You and need You.
I overload myself with work so that other people may be relieved of theirs.
I do it for You.
I am not running away like I used to. I'm in the fray.
Guard my mind and heart. Make me sensitive to my thoughts and attitudes. Fill me with the compassion and the righteous passion of Christ.
Please, Father, remember my faith.
When I resolve to forget myself, please remember me.
Now, let us fight sin. Onward! I fear no evil and no death.
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I've joined the school choir, and this is one of the awesome songs that we sing, called the Pilgrim's Hymn:
Even before we call on Your name
To ask You O God—
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer.
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know;
Glory to the Father and to the Son
And to the Holy Spirit.
Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name;
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You.
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.
Both now and forever, and unto ages
And ages. Amen.
