we were asked to write a short statement on post-modernism for sunday school a few weeks ago.

***

My understanding of post-modernism. I don’t really understand it that well, at least well enough to articulate, even though I have a feeling it’s something that may have greatly influenced my attitudes and mindsets, as discussed last week. I think it has something to do with relativism and the denial of absolutes, and the questioning of the inherent value of things previously assumed to be inherently valuable. It diminishes the ability to accept simplicity and purity, usually playing the role of self-congratulatory and condescending critic…the post-modern mindset is arrogant in its tendency to see through things yet contributes nothing constructive in turn. It is a way of thinking that acknowledges the failures of modern and enlightenment schools of thought in their efforts to place ultimate meaning within the grasp of man’s rational capabilities but offers no substitute solution, unlike Kierkegaard’s transference of meaning from wholly rational reason to wholly irrational faith.

To my understanding, the ultimate effect of post-modern thinking is the apathy and groundlessness of the current generation of young people.

***

i think i may be out-dated. are we in the post-post-modern era now? what the hell does that look like? how can you advance past the stage of the denial of the existence of stages?

i've decided to stop beating around the bush and allow myself to be simple and happy. hopefully. this is my, um, november resolution. let's call it a thanksgiving resolution. let go of the unholy and masturbatory pseudo-satisfaction of wallowing in the bittersweetness of life and let God make me happy. that last bit wasn't just an excuse to use the word masturbatory in a sentence. hopefully.

wow, imagine if that actually happened. i'd have to find entirely new patterns of thought to occupy my brain. have to trust that not all depth and meaning comes from dissonance, i suppose. like the man said,

We are not here to verify,
Instruct ourselves, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. We are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.

I have a crumbly treasure to dispense

a piece to him, just for her, for you alone

a piece and a piece and a piece

from an unrecreatable shape

and in return, only this

a bit of secretivity

smiled on the way

through reserved melancholy

your han, expressing mine

your quiet promise to cleave

with darkened eyes and fuzzy dreams

to hear what my own eyes say

not so much for my treasure

that I wish would stop crumbling

this summer i'm going back to baojing for a month and a half. i'm going with a team of other grad students to do an agricultural needs assessment survey, and at night i'm going to try to do some bible studies and ministry. there are two other christians going, one of whom is going as a full-time short-term missionary. as should be expected, i feel really drawn back to the place, and i'm really looking forward to it, and...i don't know. i hope it's different. i hope i don't lapse into mere enjoyment of being back, an enjoyment of people and places. i hope things happen.

i wonder if moses ever thought about what his old friends and acquaintances in egypt would think when he returned to them to bring the message of God. would he have feared their attention, their puzzlement at his new mission? would he have welcomed it, to be able to share the transforming power of God? would he have said, this is my heritage of faith, to which i was previously and willfully blind? would he have felt guilty for his former life of immediate and undeserved privilege among them as an outsider?

no more unholy self-projections. a year in hawaii doesn't really equal 80 years in the desert.

april is the cruelest month,
breeding lilacs out of the dead land,
mixing memory and desire,
stirring dull roots with spring rain.

i don't have a firm grasp on cruelty at the moment. this year, the middle of spring isn't seeming to dredge up too many buried memories and stale desires. the roots feel watered and ready to blossom instead, as if lilacs have actually been bred out of the dead land. i suppose the presence of flowers could steal focus away from the surrounding deadness, or maybe if lilacs are coming to life, the land isn't dead anymore. it seems as if death and cruelty must come from a lifetime of unsatisifed desires and dead-ended adventures of the brain, leading to expanding iso-deso-lation. analysis...just don't think too much.


The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

- Deuteronomy 29:29


But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

- 1 Corinthians 2:7


The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.

- Exodus 15: 2

some quotes from sunday school students i came across on the internet while procrastinating reading for class:

Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Amendments.

The Fifth Commandment is 'Humor thy father and mother.'

The Seventh Commandment is 'Thou shall not admit adultery.'

Moses died before he ever reached Canada.

The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still, and he obeyed him.

Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

The epistles were the wives of the apostles.

Paul preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.

In some religions a man can have many wives, and this is called polygamy. In our religion a man can have one wife, and this is called monotony.