I’ve been invited to write a magazine article on artistic interpretations of biblical texts. I enthusiastically accepted the invitation from the editor. Given my lifelong interest in art in general, and religious art in particular, and the fact that I’ve never written (as well as I can recall) anything along these lines made the novelty attractive.
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I received this comment via an e-mail from a workshop participant some time ago:
Toward the end of the day you said something like, “certitude is the greatest obstacle to faith.” Since you saved it for last, I am thinking it is one of our take-home points, but I am having trouble getting my arms around this concept. I looked up certitude (it is not a word I am very familiar with) and Websters defines it as “Freedom from doubt, especially in matters of faith.” syn-certainty.
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A previous blog entry listed several types of thinking, including the common analytical and intuitive. Reflection on ones’ thinking, and learning about learning are important and useful activities. They can lead to a valuable kind of self-understanding with pragmatic applications (like what jobs you should avoid and what hobbies or pastimes may be more gratifying).
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Every once is a while someone asks how I manage to post a blog entry every day. My canned response is, “I try to have a thought every day, then, I write it down.” Blogging is a good exercise for aspiring writers who strive to live into the axioms, “A writer writes,” and, “the only way to learn to write is to write.” For those of us not born with the gift for words, writing is a learned craft, and, like any craft, you just have to observe the discipline of daily practice if you want to get good at it.
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Even though I have become dependent on the personal computer for both work and play I retain a fondness for typewriters (at this point one of my kids would say, “Typewriter? What’s that?”). Much of that has to do with the physicality of them as objects. Typewriters were a part of my growing up. My father was, for a good portion of his life, what was then refered to as an office machine repairman (before the terms “technician” or “engineer” were tagged onto just about any job description). His business spread between shop and home, and at times we had dozens of typewriters and office calculators (the huge metal hand-crank-levered pre-digital kinds) around the house.
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Last week I had two interesting conversations with familiar strangers. These were those people that we have become comfortable around because of propinquity yet don’t really know. You know them, people at work we see every day but only say “Hi” and “See your tomorrow.” Or, those people at church we greet every week because they sit near our pew to whom we’ve passed the peace but could not tell the names of their children or what they do for a living if asked.
As often happens, those familiar strangers can turn out to be very interesting people with life stories that verge on the adventuresome. Such was the case with my two conversations. Both left me saying to myself, “Wow. You never know.”
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I was a hospice chaplain for about five years. It was a great job, despite the obvious need to redefine professional competence and success that comes with the territory. Nothing I was able to do would help the patient “get better.” And every one of our patients died. Over six hundred patients died under my ministry. That’s not something I put on the resume.
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The “new middle age” is said to now start at 65. That’s good news for those of us this side of 50. It can portend that the best is yet to be. S. M. Hutchins, in Touchstone (June 2008) writes:
I have a hard time not laughing at 25-year-olds who are under the impression that they know enough to have become disillusioned and cynical—who mope around quoting Sartisms to whomever is unfortunate enough to be in listening range. This sort of person has been the butt of a good amount of humor over the years, and rightly so.
It doesn’t take much reflection, however, to see that the 80-year-old who thinks age gives him the right to the same attitude is in exactlyi the same boat.
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Learning to take responsibility for our own feelings can be hard work. Our culture certainly doesn’t help given its propensity for encouraging a “victim” mentality. People seem to “take offense” readily at just about anything. And too many encourage that by acquiescing to that weak stance rather than challenge it. I remember a pastoral counseling session with a young lady who would respond to my observational and interpretive comments by saying, “You hurt my feelings when you say that.” When she said it the third time I responded, “I’m not responsible for your feelings.” She stopped using that phrase (one she’d learned to use in her family) and started listening differently after that.
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