Smoke

It's funny how much smoking a pipe relates to life.

I put time and work into my pipe. I lovingly chose it at Campbell's. I met a tobacco I like. I pack it properly. I light it properly.

I work with the pipe. Sometimes it doesn't want to light. Sometimes I need to repack it. It often shapes my experience in ways I don't anticipate.

But what we make together is worth it. I draw the smoke in, feeling it on my tongue. The taste is strong, but the scent is stronger. I let the smoke drift out of my mouth, I feel it rise into my face. I smell it. I watch it curl, spiral...and drift away.

I knew that smoke intimately. For a short time we were together. We shared space and experience. And then we parted ways.

I miss you, Bob.

The Problem of Language

Language is the liquid that we're all dissolved in -
Great for solving problems after it creates a problem.
-Modest Mouse, 'Blame it on the Tetons'

Can an idea exist separate from the word we use to identify it? How do concepts arise in our minds?

Would I know that a tree is a tree if I had never learned a word for it? Or would I think of it as a collection of branches and leaves and bark? Is a tree those things, or is it something more?

These questions are so hard. At the heart really lies the problem of 'being' - what 'is'? What does it mean for something to 'be'? Does it mean that we can talk about it? I think so. It seems like there are two answers to these questions. 'Being' is there so much as we can understand that it is there. If we can't understand or comprehend something, we can't even talk about it's being. On the other hand, we obviously exist somewhere, and a 'where' can really only exist in relation to other 'wheres'.

In a way, both 'classical' answers to this question have to be true. Something can only be said to 'be' if it 'is' in relation to something else. There must be an observer. However, we can't say that the action of observing is what gives something its being - things must exist separate from our observation and comprehension. I think the only obvious answer to the question is to live in tension between the two answers. This makes so little sense I think I'll be done for now.

Congratulations! You're a Jerk!

I'm not sure what I want to say right now, but there's something I need to say. I'll try to work it out.

As I go through this journey of exiting the Evangelical church and then trying to re-enter it as a guest, that is as a temporary participant at any given time rather than a permanent resident, I am realizing more and more how self-congratulatory a lot of the Emergent conversation is. A lot of this is coming from the very little I have managed to read of Jacques Derrida. He says that if a future historian tries to treat structuralism (which is, as far as I can tell, the basis of Modern theology) as on object he will, so to speak, miss the point. Structuralism, Modernism, Evangelical-ism is a story that looses meaning if it is not lived inside of. Again, Derrida: "Form only fascinates when one no longer has the force to understand force from within. That is to create."

If we are really going to do this 'post-modern' thing, we have to stop trying to stick a pin in modernism and explain why they're wrong. That's not the point - in fact, as long as we are talking about 'wrong' and 'right' in terms of knowledge and truth we are really fooling ourselves. We are stuck dead in the middle of modernism. We don't need another denomination - and we don't REALLY need another Reformation - not in the terms of the old one. We need true re-formation. We need to be able to find our own place, and celebrate with others (including Evangelicals) that they have found their own place. Even when we don't like their place.

I think that this is the story Jesus lives inside of: he doesn't care about the tension. He cares about the healing. He doesn't care about the right and the wrong. He cares about making all the wrongs right.

So, I say to myself: congratulations! You're a jerk! You want to pick out the modern speck in the Evangelical church's eye - deal with your log. That image never looses its power.

Partying with the Mod-Squad

I think I'm going to write something. Something real. Who knows if, like most of my ventures, it will sputter out and die with my next crazy dream - we'll see. It's going to be 'Partying with the Mod-Squad or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Church.'

I think it's a catchy title. The basic idea is how I will have learned, hopefully, to find peace in my past in the Evangelical church and how I can celebrate their story. I think that it will be [one of] the final step[s] in my catharsis, that is moving out of the modern Evangelical church into whatever I'm moving into. The final step because I will finally (! hopefully) have purged this story (or, rather, the baggage I have that is tied up in this story) out, and I hope that I will be able to step back into it and enjoy it as much as I can enjoy stepping into Orthodox Christianity, Catholic Christianity, Buddhism, whatever. I will finally come to peace with this element of my past, and I will be able to 'party with the mod-squad'.

I also hope that I can be a force of unity and re-unity within this stream of thought that I'm stepping into. To that end, I might look at getting it published, or somehow disseminating it. Maybe I'll just post about it here.

It's alive!! IT'S ALIVE!!

Seriously, though. I don't have any excuse to not have a blog anymore. What am I, old or something? I have a reliable internet connection, and something to say darnit! Maybe. We'll see.

A Church for The Church

I have been wrestling, another thing I aparently do a lot of, with the purpose of 'a church' in 'the church'.

NOTE: I use the indefinite pronoun (a) to refer to nay given building, organization and/or group of people; the definite pronoun (the) to refer to the 'spiritual Israel' that makes up all people who have listened to Jesus and are trying to follow him. This is a traditional and, in some ways, inadequate way of talking about things; yet, in dealing with a practical issue, we need practical definitions.

So what is the purpose of a church? I wonder if some of the anti-church bias we're starting to see (everyone is interested in small groups and house churches) has to do with putting unrealistic expectations on a church as an organization. We want it to be our social outlet, or center for teaching, our center for worship, our center for formation, the regional headquarters for evangelism and, for some people, for the 'culture war'. We want it to do so much, and when it doesn't provide these things, we get frustrated. We feel let down.

But are these expectations reasonable? How much can we expect one or two dedicated people to do? And how much of what we depend on a church, a pastor, a ministry team to do ought we to do for ourselves?

I have started looking at a church more like the hub of a network. It provides access to services that I need; it isn't the service, it doesn't control the service, but I may come there looking for it. Along these lines, I have started to consider attending a local Catholic church. I went to a Lutheran church for a while, and I enjoyed the worship very much; the liturgy is powerful to me. However, this 'a' church was not the center for spiritual growth and social interaction that I hoped it would be. I have now found these services elsewhere (Enoch's Path, a local 'Jesus Community'). However, I am now missing what I found at the Lutheran church - an embodyment of our Christian life in worship, the liturgy.

I can envision a church that functions as a network; this church would connect me with people who think like I do, who wrestle with the questions I wrestle with; this church would lead worship in many different ways, perhaps in many different places - in as many ways as there are people who wish to express themselves differently (including the liturgy, I hope!); this church would form social networks, connect people who wanted to serve in similar ways, even if the people were outside the church. Why doesn't this church exist? Why is every church so convinced that they have every right answer, that they already meet every need?

Father, help me to see you everywhere I look. It's so easy to complain; it's so easy to find little things to complain abut; maybe I'm being too picky. I still think I'll contact the local Catholic church.

There are people out there?!

O my - people read my blog! I feel somewhat obligated to post to it now...

Hopefully I won't get boring, and I'll actually have the time.

News & Names

All sorts of news. No sexless nickname is needed for the baby now - she's Anna Leigh Mogle. I'll admit I was kind of pulling for a boy, but I've totally changed my mind now. A girl will be so much fun! I'll get to show her love, treat her like a woman, threaten her potential boyfriends straight, etc. It'll be exciting!

Also on the news front...it looks like we'll be moving to Kalamazoo. I need to get my teaching certificate, and I want to get it as quickly as possible through a curriculum that I can actually stomach. That rules out MSU with their year-long student teaching and the seriously awful curriculum. So Western it is. If there's any good news in this, it's that we do know a few people in Kalamazoo, some friends from high school. We actually don't see them as often as we ought, so it will be nice living near them for a change.

Anyways, this isn't my spot for personal news alone, so here's something I've been chewing on lately. I wonder why it is that in the Emergent conversation people tend to use first names? It sounds so strange to me, coming from Academia. Brian McLaren is 'Brian'. Doug Pagitt is 'Doug'. When people talk like this, I start to think they're talking about someone they know. And they don't know these people, not really anyways (at least, I don't see how so many people could truly be on a first name basis with Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt). Anyways, I wonder if it's #1 - an anti-academia type of thing. #2 - a 'personal' type of thing. #3 - a communal type of thing. Personal and communal? Sort of weird, but it works. Referencing someone by their first name is obviously more personal than using their last and, at the same time, less so; it both fills them with personality, but throws them in with all the other 'Brian's and 'Doug's that are out there.