Google buzz might make for an interesting new dynamic to my "blog's" readership. I hope that doesn't change how I write, but it would be a lie to say that I don't think about who reads this when I write it. I wish that weren't the case, I wish I could just create without thinking about the audience, but I'm not capable of such a feat. Indeed, it is a truly remarkable artistic achievement, no matter the content or result, if one can do so. I don't know that I believe anyone can, but there are those that claim it to be possible. Darren Arronfsky claims that...he directed Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler. If you've seen any of those, do you think he's creating without deference to his audience? I think it varies. To call Requiem for a Dream anything but a play to an audience though, is a lie to oneself.
I like google buzz though, even if it's kind of useless before it began thanks to facebook and twitter. It's just a social network aspect to google contacts, but most people don't have google contacts that aren't at least contacts on facebook and twitter as well.
Starting next Wednesday (can anyone guess why?) I'm going to engage in 40 days of 5 minute thought experiments on here. My lent will be interesting this year, because I'm focusing on hw I use my time...which is completely different from giving up food or drink. I've never gone through lent without coming out better with regard to the things upon which I focused (I eat a lot less meat now, for instance), so we'll see what happens....it could be a pretty radical life-altering lent...or not, we'll see. So these five minute things... I'm going to spend exactly five minutes every day (either early in the morning or right before bed) writing about whatever comes to mind, to see what happens and to see, after it all, where my thoughts tended to go.
Calling lent a favorite religious observance is probably a misnomer among misnomers, but it has always been a call to spiritual discipline in my practical life that God always honors in power, grace, and mercy.
Speaking of lent, we've got a remarkable weekend coming up...it's literally 4 holidays in a row and they're not all inter-related.... Sunday is Valentine's day, Monday is President's day, then Mardi Gras (fat tuesday for the German catholics that don't acknowledge other bits of European tradition in the church.) and Ash Wednesday. I'm sure that's probably happened before, the little Holiday marathon we're running into. Of course, Mardi Gras is only kind of a holiday and Ash Wednesday is less holiday and more holyday, but they're still 4 recognizable days. Of course, everyday is some kind of holiday if you get down to it (everything is commemorated in some culture on some day it seems), but as Americans (which I am one of), most of us can at least claim a bit of working knowledge about each day, especially Christians or post-Christians.
I have come close to a full post about this a lot lately, but I'm just going to say a few words right now...... If we, as a church trying to reach out to the culture in which we exist, keep thinking about post-modernity as a culture to which we must reach out, we're always going to miss the point. It's not a culture. It's an ideology that informs the young culture of westerners. If post-modern is a culture, so is modernity and the theory of gravity is just a cultural value. That sounds insane, but it's no less insane than calling a lack of grand narrative and an emphasis on personal story a "cultural value" among the post-modern, and we (actually, I say we because I associate with people who do it, but I never will so I don't actually include myself in that we) say that all of the time. A lack of grand narrative and emphasis on personal story is the outcome of a held assumption that we have made far too many assumptions in the past and are striving to get beyond them by giving agency to people who have not had it, but not just doing that...also allowing and acknowledging that everyone gets agency. That is not a cultural value that shifts person to person and culture to culture; it is a deeply held belief that informs and constructs cultural values which may or may not be rooted in post-modern theory and ideology.
It's not just a gripe on my part...it's an important distinction that, if we don't start making it, will ultimately neuter our witness in the post-modern world which is both coming and already here. The now and not yet. Sounds familiar....
-Zack
"All of my dreams and my passions are in your hands'
-Falling Up
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