angles

The angle that I come at Christianity from is not unanimously considered legitimate. What results is that I am considered a) [best case scenario] a prayer request, or b) [worst case scenario] a threat. In my case I've sensed in spots that I am viewed as a bit of each.

Now I don't mind being prayed for. But the threat thing throws me off. I think that that has to do with the others' fear, not my scariness. Throughout history "new" ideas, unconventional ideas, ideas that vary from the norm have been regarded with suspicion and nervousness. I want to be sensitive to that, and I think I am. I bite my tongue a lot.

But my tongue is getting sore. And while I don't think that I have "it all together", I am confident that I have a valuable (not scary) perspective, that I'm not alone in my approach to Christianity or in my experience of Jesus, and that I am gifted with the capacity to communicate (and demonstrate) the things that I believe about life and God and faith.

So, ready or not...

capacity

Some things transcend reason. Others contradict it. Consider the difference.

I'm on it!

Have a look at this brief article from my homeland regarding religious understanding in Canada.
Raising the standard for what is considered a socially acceptable grasp of religion, whether one's own or one adhered to by your neighbors, is pretty much exactly what I want to do with my life.
That and spend a lot of time playing outdoors.
Peace. Shalom. Namaste. Etc.

open letter to a jazz lover

August 11, 2010

Professor Harvey Cox,

I’m a chapter away from being finished with reading your book: Fire From Heaven. I want to thank you for your insightful perspective. More than your perspective even I’m grateful to have witnessed your posture. It is one that I aim to emulate as I begin a new phase of training and dreaming toward my vocation and career. Thank you for having the courage to treat your subject with a sense of mutuality. Thank you for not assuming that you have the upper hand. Yet thank you also for believing in the validity and importance of your own voice. I find your approach to theology, scholarship, and commentary to be inspiring.

I will be beginning an MA in Religious Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary in approximately four weeks and I am positively alive with anticipation for what this horizon may amount to. Thank you for your part in preparing me for what is ahead.

Your reader,
Aram Mitchell

(Last year Cox published The Future of Faith. I haven't read it, but it might be worth a look.)

s04e10

I'm a little behind, I admit: just finished episode ten of West Wing's season four, the one where the Whiffenpoofs get snowed in at the White House, Danny Concannon shows up in a Santa suit, and Toby sort of reconnects with his father.

Also in this episode Will Bailey, up and coming Deputy Communications Director gets tested. The President, Chief of Staff, and Communications Director (three pretty powerful dudes) throw a curve ball issue at Bailey to see if he'll respond by "speaking truth to power".

Never mind the political particulars of the imaginary West Wing. Life on our side of the television's screen has a good supply of its own drama. And I wonder, that being considered, how truthful are we to the powers that be?

That's not to say that powerful guys are necessarily life's villains, but truth be told it can't hurt to keep even them accountable to the way of love. Go ahead. Use your voice.

keynote

Hyun Kyung Chung created quite the spectacle at the 1991 general assembly of the World Council of Churches. As one of the keynote speakers, a role filled by a scholar or cleric offering an academically rigorous and emotionally engaging homily, Dr. Chung danced to the podium accompanied by nineteen fellow Korean dancers, two Aboriginal Australian dancers, bells, candles, drums, and didgeridoos.

Her speech opened with an invocation of the spirits of those killed by oppression, the spirits of the forest, the earth, the air, the sea and all its creatures, and "the spirit of the Liberator, Jesus Christ".

When accused of practicing syncretism (as opposed to a "pure" or "orthodox" style of Christianity) her response is, "I know I am a syncretist... [and if] you don't know you are a syncretist [it's] because you have hegemonic power."

Which is a fancy and feisty way of saying that we all shade our beliefs with colorful displays of our personal and cultural dispositions. Only some of us have been in the limelight for quite some time now and we've forgotten about the others who have historically been ushered backstage.

When those others step on stage, out of the margins, into the light: a) we're disoriented, b) we're possessive, or c) we notice their contribution to the color scheme.

"I think in order to really heal the world we need the wisdom of darkness. This can be the third world, dark people, women, or 'our shadows' (all the things we do not want to confront in ourselves)... I think that we need 'endarkenment' for a while, not enlightenment, to heal the world."



(I read about Dr. Chung's '91 address in "Fire From Heaven" by Harvey Cox)