| This is my first attempt at entering into the wonderful world of blogging. What a curious thing a 'blog' is. I was just talking with my father yesterday about the trouble that print news media currently is in due to this recent phenomenon. People rarely look to the main sources anymore for their 'news' (or at least analysis thereof) because of the inherent and inevitable biased agenda found within them (though this is not a new thing to be sure), because it is not fast enough to keep up with high-speed internet services, and because people can become their own interpreters and experts. Following this last point, the blog becomes a person's own self-authorized 'collumn' in the world-wide ever-updated network of news breaks and bulletins. For better (the blog provides easier accessibility to dialogue for people who don't have the leisure of jumping through the often rediculous formalities of education and more 'official' norms of degree-granting institutions) or worse (the blog often gives permission to intellectual sloppiness) the blog is a contemporary way for people's voices to be heard amidst some current trends of media which generally drown them out. Perhaps for some, and this could be the most refreshing and truly intriguing aspect of the blog, entering into the world of ideas and debates is not at all their purpose, but the blog serves more as an online journal--a public diary. Hopefully my own can incorporate both elements. Having worked my way through a preliminary understanding of this most recent verb of the human language--'blogging'--I feel I might be more at ease in my own participation in this most unorthodox and extraordinary way of exchanging ideas, stories and questions. I've always felt a bit hesitant, in an adversive sort of way, toward the blog (though self-admittedly this could have been a masked intimidation of the whole event). We live in a world where talking heads can't get enough of themselves and here I am, forcing myself in on the action. And who am I? I am an expert on nothing in this world. What makes me think I can say anything intelligible on the topic of politics, world events, or the history of theology let's say? I turn to the first of these questions in hopes that it might enlighten the second. Who am I?--that great question that takes up much of our thought and writing energy. I first understood the weight of this fundamental question while listening to the great literary character Jean Val Jean sing it over and over in the Les Miserables Broadway score as a child growing up with this profound music. Strangely enough I learned the answer to this question in the particularity of my experience as a college volleyball player. The constant battle of 'PT' looming over my head and the annual meeting with Coach to find out if my performance that year warranted a increase, decrease, or maintainence in my scholarship award, made it very easy to think that my athletic status as a 'Pt. Loma Crusader-turned-Sea-Lion' granted me my identity. Halfway through this runaround, I spoke with some of the other sisters on my team about this dillemna and we came to the conclusion that in order to survive in the competitive world of sports (or any world for that matter) we must have the reassuring knowledge that our identity is first and completely in Christ. Paul uses this phrase over and over to drive in the message. Much more could be said on this matter--indeed it is a complex one that perhaps is one of the primary topics that theologians have wrestled with throughout the ages, and I'm sure one that throughout this blog I will comment more on (I am a psych-ology student as well and so naturally deal with things as they pertain to the 'soul')--but for simplicity's sake I move on to the second question. Now that I understand that my identity (the answer to the question 'who am I?') is in Christ, I can begin to understand how I am supposed to speak, write, and even blog, and what I can truly offer in my intellectual professions, penitent confessions, and aesthetic expressions. I am free not to make intellectual sense or even to speak eloquently on a subject, but to be confident that over and above any news stories covered by highly polished journalists, editors, and speakers, I have a piece of 'news' that is more lasting, more eternal, and more aesthetically beautiful than any that could be crafted by an article, collumn, sound-bite, or blog. This Good News--the Gospel of Christ's life, death, resurrection, and the promise of his return--is truly Good, first of all, for reasons that, again, could take up many theological treatises, but also, as I would like to submit and discuss more thoroughly here, is truly new as well. We live in an age where yesterday's news is today's forgotten memories--often in the form of a trash recepticle; physical, digital, or otherwise. People move on so very quickly from story to story hoping that the next will better impress its hearer. It seems that no longer does the news surprise anymore. Perhaps our own culture has very little left to shock its constituents with. The news 'powers that be' hold very little back any more (visions of recent war pictures, terrorist/suicide threat recordings, and cable--easily accessable--television sexual obscenities are flooding my mind as examples right now) and we are left numb to, and undesturbed by, even the most revolting of situations. The news holds us captive only long enough to convince us that if we keep listening, another story will complete, and therefore top, the last one. This sheds a black light on the words of 'the Teacher' of Ecclesiastes who states that there is nothing new under the sun--words written and spoken millenia ago. Perhaps the most sorrowful thing about this is that (even if we are aware of this approach to/philosophy of news delivery), it is easy to become bored with the string of stories we get, even with the most horrific of them. The Good News, however, could never be boring. It is, unlike the world's news which fades away with time, transcendent from the world (not under, but infinitely over, the sun) and so always new. It is as new and surprising to someone who has just heard and accepted it, as it is to a believer of 50 years. It speaks of a grace which is, as it is always needed, always granted anew. To this last point, this News is also always shocking! We are even disturbed by it: a recent reading of Kierkegaard with a friend has reminded me that the Gospel News is even offensive to our ears, hearts, and human logic. We also cannot throw this Good News away with the trash that comes every Monday, but, as we can never fully comprehend it, seek to preach it every Sunday. And when we think that we might be boring to finite listeners we hide behind the actual News, letting it preach itself--in fact this is probably the better way to approach preaching. Christ, as the central figure of this News, not only is the 'print' version of it (in the Word), but cannot help but be re-membered (in the sacramental form of the Eucharist) and re-presented (in the ecclesial form of Christ's body in the Church). Christ's reality exists anew from Sunday to Sunday in the gathering of the people to make sure that this News is never divorced from the historical reality of Christ's work on the cross. This News is unique also in the fact that it is not, merely a passing flash of some random, unconnected occurrence in history. We cannot simply 'get over' the Christ-event. In this way, this news is intrinsically related to the past. It is both new and yet, grounded in a particular event that happened millenia ago. Christ has not been forgotten for 2000 years (and was in fact prefigured 1000s of years before his historical birth) and this makes each celebration of the Eucharist we have today and forever even more renewing and wonderful. This News is indeed new in every sense of the word, and the Christian tradition speaks to this in its constant talk of redemption (God's re-'deem'ing of the world), restoration, (God's re-storing, or re-building work) and, in a word, God's constant renewal of God's people. In this way the News of Christ disallows any news or world events from ever escaping our interest. We read the world through the renewing work of Jesus Christ on the cross and cannot help but engage in this work. To be Christian, afterall is to be like Christ, and therefore participate in renewing ourselves and the world. The tragedy of various news stories cannot be an occasion for us to naively and unaffectedly turn off the television, or switch windows on our computer screens in the name of comfort or 'ignorance-is-bliss' ideology. To be Christian is to know in advance (in fact this may be the only thing we rest in, epistemologically speaking, in advance) that God has, does, and will save. As such we look at stories from today in a new light--that of Christ--and realize the significance of their particularity and situation. We read world events through the lens of the Christ-event and comprehend that just as we cannot forget a poor man named Jesus of Nazareth, we cannot forget, for example, our sisters in sweatshops in the Phillipines working for much less than they should, farmers of South America being exploited for their work, North American angst-ridden teenagers, Israeli and Pakistani victims of terrorism, or even the world leaders who cannot save us from (and sometimes contribute to) the mess of such situations. We cannot help but be actively compassionate toward the people of such circumstances, and as we are, realize we are being compassionate to our Lord Jesus Christ in being so. So, as frivolous as it may seem, I devote this blog to this kind of 'press'. Knowing that I cannot ever say anything worth-while (it will only be a 'while' until it is forgotten) I look instead to a subject (yes, a particular subject, not an object) who is eternal and re-membered always, with or without my words. I do not have to approach blogging as if I were trying to 'solve' some problem with fancy rhetoric or never-before-heard novelty within my ideas (which really does not exist--remember Ecclesiastes). Talking heads cannot compare to the God-man. Jesus, as the Word become flesh has already said it all. Or rather, (as Marion treats in his God Without Being) he was and is the Said. As such--as the alpha and omega--Jesus Christ has already 'Said it all'. I am grateful for the opportunity to ponder, and, in always insufficient human language, speak and write about Jesus Christ who forever has the first and last Word, only because he is the first and last Word. |
