As a gift to new parents Justin & Trina, I offer the following recipe for a romantic dinner for two, courtesy Gen. J.C. Christian, Patriot. And at least you got it in before the inevitable if relative decline of the “Little General.” If you’re looking to have another, buy Raid.
Congrats to Justin and Trina
09.24.03 | Permalink | Comments Off on Congrats to Justin and Trina
Make it YourIrony
09.24.03 | Permalink | 5 Comments
Philosophy as selfcraft
Philosophy–not as an academic discipline–but as a spiritual discipline, and the West’s secular wisdom tradition. But what disciplines shall we practice now?
The gospel of supply side Jesus
09.19.03 | Permalink | Comments Off on The gospel of supply side Jesus
In the style of Jack Chick, a gospel cartoon tract by Al Franken.
The boy as pietist
09.19.03 | Permalink | 2 Comments
Imagine, if you will, that that the boy grew up raised by working class Pietists, not the middle class professionals you might imagine, and not by just one or two of them but by a whole village.
Imagine then, if you will, that he is surrounded by this cloud of witnesses and lifted to leadership among them, held up as a hoped for reviver of the land. Though he excels in his studies at school, knowledge comes not from experiment or reflection but from the still, small voice whispering in the dead of night and in the busyness of day. Should a conflict ever arise, he must be prepared to give up the one to pursue the other.
Above all, he must practice his listening; he must grow himself into constant conversation with the still, small voice. For when revival comes–and the persecution that will most surely follow–what else will he have? The boy must be trained to lead, and to lead from the spirit. He shows talent in this, and perhaps his strength will assuage our weakness. If our hearts are hardened, perhaps he will melt them.
And so his time shall be devoted to learning the workings of the spirit. Endless hours in study. Every verse in the book must be known, every line written upon his heart. His every thought and feeling and deed must be searched and known, known and measured. When the boy shrinks from it, his reticence must be doubly searched, double known. For the apocalypse draws close. Time will likely end before he sees graduation. And didn’t the prophet say that a child would lead them? Didn’t the apostle say that wisdom beyond years is free for the asking if asked without guile?
Let the boy carry three of the books: one for reference, one for study, one for devotion. Let him wear his faith as a sign upon his clothes. Let him assemble his peers, a remnant, and lead them in worship. And let him do it without guidance, so that he will of necessity learn to trust the workings of the spirit within him.
Surround him with the children of doctors and lawyers, of professionals of every stripe, but do not let him dream of following in their parents’ footsteps. For the end comes, and that right soon. Would that he is not caught unaware at the moment of crisis, distracted by dreams of law schools, business schools, PhDs. Let him think he’ll have to work for a living, or else that the spirit will provide. And if the end doesn’t come, send him to seminary to save the heathens there.
Tearing the soul
09.19.03 | Permalink | Comments Off on Tearing the soul
The notion of the self as the tear in the soul strikes me as a bit Foucauldian. I’ll explain.
Foucault concerned himself with three axes of inquiry: knowledge, power, and self-other. Knowledge was the focus of his early, “archeological” work, and looked a lot like the work of Thomas Kuhn. His work on power focused on how (especially) institutions like the clinic, the prison, and the asylum functioned to create their own forms of knowledge, which they would then enforce upon those in their care. Finally, the axis of self-other asked how spiritual disciplines could (or couldn’t) form the self in such ways as to break (and/or use) “knowledge” and “power” in the service of the self and its relationships. (He died while investigating axis three.) Together, the three axes give a three-dimensional description of social and individual dynamics as they compete and cooperate (that is, play) for the individual. Hackneyed summaries of Foucault tend to supply a dogmatic version of the power axis, with perhaps a nod to the knowledge axis.
Together, these three axes provide a way to map out the play that is the tear in the soul. Perhaps there are other axes worth considering, but the three together certainly would provide a thick description of any person’s self. Questions to ask would include:
- What are your dominant metaphors for knowing? (Reflection, discovery, similarity?) How do those metaphors channel your functioning?
- What are the dominant institutions in your life? What do they demand of your functioning? How thoroughly have you absorbed those demands?
- What disciplines and self-technologies, what forms of selfcraft do you practice? How have they formed you? How have they accentuated or countered the demands of “knowledge” and “power” in your life?
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