I fumble, stumble, think of Emily Dickinson, don't even know how to spell her name. I have so many questions, but I haven't learned yet how to research, how to find answers. I'm thirty-five years old. Spent a year in graduate school. Was that not enough time to learn the secret of how to find answers to questions?
I am intrigued by this line from the chorus of one of Levi Weaver's songs:
"The answer looks an awful lot like another question."
My Dad is a scientist and a professor. He does a lot of research, and one of the things he says over and over again is that every question a scientist asks brings forth more questions than it does answers. Our idea is that the universe gets smaller in our estimation as we come to understand more and more of it, but reality doesn't conform to that expectation. The more we know, the more we realize we do not know. I've spoken of using media medicinally on Facebook. I feel like Levi sort of got into my head with this one.
There are a lot of questions and very few certainties, and I first noticed the words of the song on my way home from Walmart one day, which is an event which often requires a bit of psychical reorientation.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Kicking the Air Around My House
I am kicking (literally) the air around the house this morning, trying to avoid doing anything (not literally), but it's such a yucky day outside that, even though I've been up and out of bed since around 4:40 this morning, I have the chorus of this song running through my head.
By the way, most of the lyrics don't apply. But I like the song anyway.
Now that I think about it, today might be a good day to pile up in the bed with the children and read the entire text of The Hobbit aloud. Not that my children would stand for it. Or that my vocal cords could live up to it.
I myself have never read more than a few pages of The Hobbit.
Parker tells me that even though it is Spring Break, and everyone else in town is out of school, that he cannot go the the library because he has to go to school today. At the church. And when I asked him who his teacher would be, he said, "No teacher." He is the one who is going to teach.
See what my cutting back on Facebook will give you? A Morning Song and an adorable Parker anecdote.
By the way, most of the lyrics don't apply. But I like the song anyway.
Now that I think about it, today might be a good day to pile up in the bed with the children and read the entire text of The Hobbit aloud. Not that my children would stand for it. Or that my vocal cords could live up to it.
I myself have never read more than a few pages of The Hobbit.
Parker tells me that even though it is Spring Break, and everyone else in town is out of school, that he cannot go the the library because he has to go to school today. At the church. And when I asked him who his teacher would be, he said, "No teacher." He is the one who is going to teach.
See what my cutting back on Facebook will give you? A Morning Song and an adorable Parker anecdote.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Response in the form of bulleted lists: a flash of light in the dark?
My parents are in Sweden for the semester. You can follow their adventures at http://bishopssweden.blogspot.com/ You'll notice a certain similarity between their blog and mine.
My Dad has said that the key to blogging seems to be short posts with lots of bullet points and photos. Using this strategy he has been able to plan out many blog posts in advance, which of course is enabling him to blog very consistently.
And I'm so very, very text-based, you see.
But I'm intrigued by this idea about bullet points. I wouldn't use them in the same way that he is, though he uses them to good effect in terms of what he is doing. What I think I've realized is that bullet points might be a strategy I can use to organize my thought. Surely they are a useful tool for study.
For example, I read an article last week in a collection of essays written by Ursula K. LeGuin. The article was called "Indian Uncles," published in The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Reader, the Writer, and the Imagination. I think it's a really great book, by the way. Anyway, there were a couple of paragraphs in the essay that I really responded to, and I wanted desperately to say something about those to paragraphs, share them with you on a Saturday morning. I started writing, typed up the selection in question, and then was stymied, not knowing what to do next, how to proceed, how to make this brief commentary of mine into a complete and readable text. It does not good to quote someone at length without doing something with what they have said. This is a practice that has driven me away from reading certain other blogs.
That post remains in my drafts file. It may never be finished now. But what if I went back and looked at what it was I responded to? What if I made bullet pointed notes about what LeGuin was saying, and why it mattered to the context from which I was reading? What if I then responded myself, for myself in the form of bulleted notes? It's what I have been trying to do all along in my studies, but never have quite managed to. It is in essence what I do when I approach my current study of Leviticus every morning.
Responses to texts can be hard to come by. I value them. I desire them. I have a horrendous time trying to produce them.
Perhaps bulleted points could take place of the outline, because there is something in the idea of a formal outline that holds no practical appeal for me.
My blog isn't going to look like my Dad's blog. Not in its content. Not in its approach. Why? Because we aren't the same person, and we aren't trying to accomplish the same thing. That is okay.
Do you know this? Do you believe it?
I think that I am slowly and gropingly, haltingly making my way into those modes and approaches that will work specifically for me. Slowly, certainly slowly, progress is being made. And that is a good thing.
I haven't made a bulleted list yet, not in the way that I have envisioned for myself, but it is coming. I just have to let the idea germinate a little longer.
My Dad has said that the key to blogging seems to be short posts with lots of bullet points and photos. Using this strategy he has been able to plan out many blog posts in advance, which of course is enabling him to blog very consistently.
- Bullet points
- Lots of pictures
And I'm so very, very text-based, you see.
But I'm intrigued by this idea about bullet points. I wouldn't use them in the same way that he is, though he uses them to good effect in terms of what he is doing. What I think I've realized is that bullet points might be a strategy I can use to organize my thought. Surely they are a useful tool for study.
For example, I read an article last week in a collection of essays written by Ursula K. LeGuin. The article was called "Indian Uncles," published in The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Reader, the Writer, and the Imagination. I think it's a really great book, by the way. Anyway, there were a couple of paragraphs in the essay that I really responded to, and I wanted desperately to say something about those to paragraphs, share them with you on a Saturday morning. I started writing, typed up the selection in question, and then was stymied, not knowing what to do next, how to proceed, how to make this brief commentary of mine into a complete and readable text. It does not good to quote someone at length without doing something with what they have said. This is a practice that has driven me away from reading certain other blogs.
That post remains in my drafts file. It may never be finished now. But what if I went back and looked at what it was I responded to? What if I made bullet pointed notes about what LeGuin was saying, and why it mattered to the context from which I was reading? What if I then responded myself, for myself in the form of bulleted notes? It's what I have been trying to do all along in my studies, but never have quite managed to. It is in essence what I do when I approach my current study of Leviticus every morning.
Responses to texts can be hard to come by. I value them. I desire them. I have a horrendous time trying to produce them.
Perhaps bulleted points could take place of the outline, because there is something in the idea of a formal outline that holds no practical appeal for me.
My blog isn't going to look like my Dad's blog. Not in its content. Not in its approach. Why? Because we aren't the same person, and we aren't trying to accomplish the same thing. That is okay.
Do you know this? Do you believe it?
I think that I am slowly and gropingly, haltingly making my way into those modes and approaches that will work specifically for me. Slowly, certainly slowly, progress is being made. And that is a good thing.
I haven't made a bulleted list yet, not in the way that I have envisioned for myself, but it is coming. I just have to let the idea germinate a little longer.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Peterson's Annotated Bibliography: Take & Read
I've published a quick review of Eugene Peterson's book, Take & Read: Spiritual Reading: An Annotated List, on Goodreads.com. I also publish it here, below. I'm very anxious to read another book of his, Eat this Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, but to do that it looks like I'm going to have to request another Interlibrary Loan from our public library. My review of Take & Read:
First of all, I love a book like this. What better way to learn about books that it might not otherwise occur to me to read than to get recommendation from a wide and careful reader, who also makes notes about the things he reads? I'm also developing an appreciation for Eugene Peterson, whose paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, while an excellent interpretation of scripture, hasn't always appealed to me as a reader because of its heavily personal style. It made me happy to see Peterson recommending some works that have meant a lot to me already, from authors you might not expect. I love that he sees certain non-Christian writings as worthy recipients of spiritually inflected reading. I also appreciate and approve his emphasis on theology that is lived, not merely thought.
I have some questions for Mr. Peterson, particularly concerning the intersections between scholarship and imagination, as he briefly describes his encounters with each extreme. I'd like to know more about the ways in which he has reconciled the two, since I have recently become very suspicious of imaginative interpretations that seem to exploit rather than carefully handle biblical texts. I expect he has written about this in some of his other books, which sets me on a quest to find out what he has had to say in his many writings.
Oh the thrill of finding more and more books to read and explore. Peterson even recommends certain mystery novels, which is exciting. He urges his readers to start compiling their own lists of books that have contributed to their own spiritual formation, a grand task that I look forward to embarking on, if only I could develop the discipline necessary to read and make notes with better intentionality.
First of all, I love a book like this. What better way to learn about books that it might not otherwise occur to me to read than to get recommendation from a wide and careful reader, who also makes notes about the things he reads? I'm also developing an appreciation for Eugene Peterson, whose paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, while an excellent interpretation of scripture, hasn't always appealed to me as a reader because of its heavily personal style. It made me happy to see Peterson recommending some works that have meant a lot to me already, from authors you might not expect. I love that he sees certain non-Christian writings as worthy recipients of spiritually inflected reading. I also appreciate and approve his emphasis on theology that is lived, not merely thought.
I have some questions for Mr. Peterson, particularly concerning the intersections between scholarship and imagination, as he briefly describes his encounters with each extreme. I'd like to know more about the ways in which he has reconciled the two, since I have recently become very suspicious of imaginative interpretations that seem to exploit rather than carefully handle biblical texts. I expect he has written about this in some of his other books, which sets me on a quest to find out what he has had to say in his many writings.
Oh the thrill of finding more and more books to read and explore. Peterson even recommends certain mystery novels, which is exciting. He urges his readers to start compiling their own lists of books that have contributed to their own spiritual formation, a grand task that I look forward to embarking on, if only I could develop the discipline necessary to read and make notes with better intentionality.
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