Paradox and Perspective

Last week, I got the chance to sit in on one of Harvey Cox's classes, which was an amazing opportunity. Two other schools I've visited only let you sit in on big lectures, and I assumed this one would be the same. I apparently didn't read the course description well enough to know that the class size limit was 12, so I was a tad intimidated when I realized I would just be sitting around the table, participating along with everyone else.

Anyway, the course takes a biographical approach to Religion and Society in the 20th century. Each week they read a biography of a different religious figure and have a discussion. They were discussing Aimee Semple McPherson, and then getting an overview of Reinhold Niebuhr, who they would be discussing the next week. I liked what Prof. Cox and the chosen biographer had to say about Niebuhr being a theologian whose central theme was paradox. I'm going to completely butcher what Cox said, but he mentioned that for Niebuhr, "It isn't either this or that. It's both. It's not "neither"; it's both."

I just really like that because much of religious thought is full of paradoxes, but it is still true for me. It's refreshing and non-fundamental to see that two opposing things can exist and still be true. I think it speaks to our Christian faith as a whole. I mean, Jesus was both man and God. Mary was both a virgin and with child. David was both a murderer and a man after God's own heart. With our ability to reason, it's hard to see two paradoxes as both being true. It makes me think of that elephant poem, which is attributed to a lot of different authors, but I'll go with the one by Rumi (who was Muslim, and also brings out the point that non-Christians can also live out truth). Anyway, the poem has to do with the limits of our individual perspective.

"Elephant in the Dark"

Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.

One by one, we go in the dark and come out
saying how we experience the animal.

One of us happens to touch the trunk.
"A water-pipe kind of creature."

Another, the ear. "A very strong, always moving
back and forth, fan-animal."

Another, the leg. "I find it still,
like a column on a temple."

Another touches the curved back.
"A leathery throne."

Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk.
"A rounded sword made of porcelain."
He's proud of his description.

Each of us touches one place
and understands the whole in that way.

The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are
how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.

If each of us held a candle there,
and if we went in together,
we could see it.

My anthropology professor at UGA, Sandra Whitney, used that poem as an example on the first day of class and I have never forgotten it. In closing, I guess I'll leave a few quotes by Niebuhr himself.

"I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth." Reinhold Niebuhr (so I guess if I become a preacher and a journalist, I'll just be one big paradox)

"Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it." Reinhold Niebuhr

"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." Reinhold Niebuhr

You Don't Say

"It's hard for me, you know, living in this beautiful White House, to give you a firsthand assessment."
President George W. Bush, when asked if he believed Iraq was in a state of civil war

Travels Thus Far

Beginning on 2/19/07 from Denver:

Car to Airport--Plane to Pittsburgh--Plane to Boston--Bus to Subway--Subway to Cambridge--Taxi to Inn--(next day) Walked All Over--Subway to Train Station--Subway back to Cambridge--(next day)Taxi to South Station(at 4:30 a.m.)--Amtrak Train to New Haven--Taxi to Campus--Taxi back to Train Station--Amtrak Train to Boston--Subway to Cambridge--(next day)Subway to South Station--Bus to Airport--Plane to Newark, NJ--Plane to Charlotte--Car to HOME in South Carolina...whew!

Four days and 4 Planes, 2 Buses, 5 Subway Trains, 4 Taxis, 2 Amtrak trains and 2 Cars...so far

My Reminder

A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
Exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
To thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

Seminary

So I'm thinking about going to seminary. In thinking this, it's gotten other people in my life thinking...thinking about how I should go about all this. That's a lot of thinking going on. While everything is still very open-ended, I will open up about one way that I envision my path. (Of course, there are a lot of forks in the road, and this is just one direction.) I'm quite intrigued by the ways religious journalism could combine my interest in faith with my interest in journalism. It's a nice way to combine my callings. And though it seems limited, I see it as widespread.

As Jeff Sharlet wrote, "Religion, in the true broad sense, underlies, controls, permeates at least half the stories in the news, probably a lot more. Iraq, Iran, Israel -- those are easy, we know those are religion stories. George W. Bush is a religion story. Stemcell research and gay marriage and school vouchers are religion stories, although not at all limited to the narrow pro and con set of beliefs with which they are typically framed. The question of race in America is infused with God, top to bottom, and anyone who covers immigration without thinking about conversion and apostasy and literalism might as well not be writing about it at all."

Sharlet edits Revealer.com, among many other things, and I like the premises the website puts out there: 1. Belief matters, whether or not you believe. Politics, pop culture, high art, NASCAR -- everything in this world is infused with concerns about the next. As journalists, as scholars, and as ordinary folks, we cannot afford to ignore the role of religious belief in shaping our lives. 2. The press all too frequently fails to acknowledge religion, categorizing it as either innocuous spirituality or dangerous fanaticism, when more often it's both and inbetween and just plain other. 3. We deserve and need better coverage of religion: sharper thinking; deeper history; thicker description; basic theology; real storytelling.

So, there's some more stuff to think about.