When I make promise to my wife, my child, my friends and family, is it something that transcends the course of time, something static? I don't think so. That isn't the natural order of things. When I made my wedding vows I didn't know what I was getting myself into. How was I to know how our corporate and individual experiences would change us? A promise is not a rock that is set in one place in the middle of a time stream. The rock shifts and moves and tumbles, adjusting to its environment, its experiences...
But a promise is something sealed by words...no I'm not going to discuss a sort of pre-linguistic form of communication and understanding...I seek to stand the test of time in my words and promises and yet the opening and closing of possibilities broadens and limits my perspective on what my promises really mean and how they might stand the test of time. Promises are always dynamic, like faith -- you never know what you're getting yourself in to for sure. You can hope...
The Word was with God and Word was God...The Word is a dynamic promise...to suggest that God is static, seems contrary to the natural world and to the God characterized in Scripture. When the Word became flesh, the promise became flesh, became something spatiotemporally anthropomorphic and thus limited under the same umbrella of historicity. But the Word stood the test of time, remaining even after the temporal passed. And Christians are left with a narrative of this incident to go on. To what extent is the word of Scripture more limited than the Word that became flesh? Scripture is a document, perhaps divinely inspired, but written by those locked within the spatiotemporal system...does Scripture stand the test of time...so far...but dynamically under constant scrutiny and interpretation...but it is not the only text...what about Gilgamesh, the Enuma Elish?...some analogical language, poetry, metaphors, myths seem to stand the test of time. What makes my view, the one at times it seems I was born into, more right than another? The teachings of Christ are ethical, the societal foundations are attractive in the kingdom Christ brings, etc...but this is not explicitly unique to Christianity.
It seems a futile attempt to search out and better understand the Sacred at times, when the sacred is always limiting and broadening what the Sacred is. What do we teach our children? We want to broaden their horizons showing them that sky is the limit...but we ultimately limit them? What do I tell my children when they ask me why I am a pastor when being a part of anything institutionalized automatically limits possibilities? How do I explain my religion as being the only one to broaden and expand the Sacred when there are perfectly wonderful religions who claim the same thing? What do I teach my children about sexuality -- what is sacralizing and what is demeaning? Same sex marriage, couples living together unmarried are issues seminaries and society have traditionally rejected but are now starting to accept and make accommodations for. With a world in constant flux, what stands the test of time? What is transcendent stands the test of time -- is it the movies we watch, escaping the temporal and societal structure for a time to reincorporate vitality with outward motivations for conquest (taking on different forms)? Is it our institutionalized religion that makes truth claims about the Sacred, limiting it profoundly? Does Scripture inhibit our perception on who God truly is? And to what extent? Whose interpretation of any given Scriptural passage is more sacred than another?
What is a promise? How do I teach that to my children, when temporal promises are always made somewhat in the dark? To make a promise is to limit possibilities, good and bad, to limit perception of the sacred...
In temporal limitating there is a sense of transcendent broadening...whether or not that perception of the transcendent is in fact broadening is a matter of faith...though I could be wrong...my sacred is someone else's profane...someone else's idol. How can I raise my child to have an open-mind to think for him/herself when I am involved in a subculture, which by its very nature is exclusive as to the possibilities of what the Sacred is? Children learn the language their parents speak, they are enculturated into their environment and respond to external moral teachings at a younger age...how do I teach my children to internalize what is 'good.'
As I grow I realize more and more that what is significant as a being of the biological world is that what is necessary for growth is an acknowledgment of my own dependence upon others. To be rationally independent is to acknowledge my own dependence as a social being. Perhaps this is what I can teach my children...
There is much that humans can learn from the relations of the rest of the biological world: humans are not necessarily as unique as they perceive themselves to be. We have the capacity for language, to conceptualize, though it is hard to say that rationality is a distinction. (Some) Animals rationalize, believe, are goal-oriented (good-oriented as Aristotle might suggest), utilize strategy to achieve goals, possess prelinguistic language, they play, live in communities...this biological link is significant. I'm not suggesting that animals have a common set of virtues with humanity...After watching March of the Penguins I was converted...and reading a book entitled Rational Dependent Animals.
With biological foundations, where then does the sacred come into play when our cells will ultimately quit dividing and die off? How do I cope with this position? Is that why I am going into ministry? How do I teach my children to confront this reality? Death and mortality is largely ignored in the west, never advertised...it seems to sneak up on us unexpectedly if it isn't supposed to happen, if it's a disease plaguing that which should stand the test of time. But this 'speciality' complex has plagued humanity from its very origins. Christians might refer to it as a tension between being created Imago Dei and then trying to be God...
What do I teach my children about education? pre-K through high school is largely a warm-up to the initiation ritual in college. College freshman are violently ripped away from everything familiar and (believe it or not) enculturated into society to think like a responsible member of the society would, whether a student attends a private institution or public. Knowledge is the transcendent that a student graduates with. Students are again thrust out violently into a completely new environ after graduation where they reincorporate vitality of life, but carry with them the transcendent (knowledge) that motivates them to act outwardly, perhaps pridefully or violently (again taking various forms). Knowledge can become a replacement for any other view of the transcendent, and perhaps does in many cases. However, knowledge as a means to expanding possibilities rather than replacing them in a pluralistic society also expands the definition of the sacred...
Must sleep
