Scarred Reading
Topic: Reflections
Life cannot be read apart from its scars.

It tends to take very little for me to be annoyed with people and riding the bus to school everyday, as I have been recently, only aggravates the condition. In any event, I remember a person years ago who simply annoyed me. It is long enough ago and insignificant enough of an experience for me to not remember many details. However, I certainly remember being annoyed. I probably perceived him to be arrogant and impatient or perhaps rude in some way.
At one point in watching him I remember noticing a scar on the back of his head. Now this may well have come from his attempts show-off in front of people, but it made me pause. This is an important moment in reading, or in interpretation in general. A scar demands that we pause, that we withdraw our imposed judgment (interpretation) and remember that whosever voice we are trying to hear has already been imposed upon. A scar rages against our stereotypes and abstractions. This person, this text, is singular not manufactured. Recognizing our distance and our difference may remove those insulating readings which only fortify our beliefs.

Christ’s resurrection was complete with scars. His scars rage against any attempts to smooth or simplify his message. Sensitivity to scars allows our reading to respect the voice of our texts. It testifies to that elusive “third” discourse which allows boundaries to be crossed and understanding to occur.

Cyber-History?
Topic: Reflections
Following on the previous entry. What are the historical implications of our progressively deeper investment in cyberspace? Does the internet have history? Does that little button on the top of your browser represent what history is?
The sun never sets on the internet. The internet bears no scars. The internet allows access to no one who does conform to its code, though it in turn offers a vision of freedom (a western liberal notion again). You may click here one day to find nothing. The digital dissolves fully. Memory will remain only for you and not for the internet. What does this tell us about our priorities? Cyber-space will only challenge me to the extent that I let it.
This medium is not substantially different than most modern forms of communication. However, in its greater extension it appears to offer an alternative space (cyber) and an alternative home (page). I am sure that thoughtful geeks have been wrestling with this for years, sorry for getting in on it so late.

A small fish in a big sea
Topic: Reflections
This is a quote on the inside cover of Hans Urs von Balthasar's The Glory of the LORD vol.4.

Whoever cannot give account
Of three thousand years,
Let him remain in darkness, unlearned,
And live from day to day
- Goethe

Christians, in particular, are invested in the project of history. Our generation has witnessed the near 'collapse of history' given the exposed prejudices of those who write it. My own dip into the pool has proved overwhelming as the sources and the sources of sources prove unmanageably large and often conflicting. We remain situated within history and so cannot evaluate it objectively. However, we also cannot abandon giving accounts, 'lest we forget'. And perhaps this is part of the issue. Is 'history' an modernist invention? Do we really only have 'memory'? Is there a difference?

A Sad Song
Topic: Reflections
A few recent conversations have led me to reflect on music in general (see Blade's Blog on the links to the left) and sad songs in particular.
It seems to me that the notion of a 'sad song' has either to be oxymoronic or incarnational. There is a world of difference between a sad event and a sad song. The song may be of the same event but there is something in rhythm and movement of the song that keeps its images from collapsing into total despair. Given the advent season this may be something to reflect on as we continue to wrestle with the presence of Christ in a fallen world.
The incarnation as a taking up of our tragedy promising not to resolve and eliminate tragedy's presence but to offer a moving rhythm which defies the world's pressures of despair and nihilism.