What Mystery Is This?

I've little time to write, but when the inspiration is perceived I cannot refuse composition.

I am agnostic. That designation, of course, fails to fully describe me. But it is a sufficient signifier to act as a referent for my metaphysical assent. Why is it then that, despite my inability to believe fully, I have of late felt an overwhelming presence of grace, of gratitude, of compassion, of love? I find myself weeping, sometimes uncontrollably, at even a hint of beauty or humility that happens upon me.

Beyond that, there is a deep, dark cloud of righteousness that hovers over me, obscuring even, at times, my eyes. I cannot escape it. (I know this sentence makes little sense. I am describing the affective, not the cognitive.)

Who will deliver me from God? I am terrified. In fact, I am so overcome by it even now that I cannot write more. It's too much.

Weeping

I am so very foolish- For ever thinking that I knew something. For thinking that I was righteous. For thinking that I was above reproach. For thinking that I understood people, friends and family alike and my relationship to them. For thinking that being correct comes before humility and compassion. For thinking that success would come to me by virtue of my genetic qualities and not diligent work. For not honoring the love given to me. For turning my nose up at what I saw as weaknesses in others. For not sensing my own blindness. For speaking about that which I had little to no knowledge of. For feeling entitled to attention from my community. For so much more that I will not even be aware of until I have suffered its consequences.

Have mercy on me, God of mercy.

Thoughts anterior to Hellenic language training

I still have an hour before my Wednesday/Friday Readings in Biblical Greek course begins this morning. 8am courses are just the worse. No philosophical explication necessary. Next semester, I have no courses beginning before 9:30am and only 3 courses during the traditional semester (thanks to a J-term course in Romans with the popular NT scholar, Michael Raymond Brown). Thank Gaia and Sophia!
Other than that, I'll be taking Matthew with the magnificent and world-famous Luke Timothy Johnson, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians Greek Exegesis with Steven Kraftchick (who also happens to be the MTS program director), and Womanist Theology and Narrative Identity with the Ricoeurian and poststructuralist scholar, Andrea White. If you know me . . . or have ever spoken to me for that matter . . . then you must know how these classes are absolutely perfect for me. I could not be more enthused.
I don't suppose I have much more to say. My life has been so voraciously consumed by the insatiable beast of academe for the past couple months that I've had little time to do or meditate on anything extraneous to it. Tomorrow I'm flying home to be in a good friend's wedding. Perhaps events at the bachelor party will resuscitate my floundering social life. [laughs to himself because he is in a public place]

Euphoria and assuagement

I am now a research assistant for Dr. Carl Holladay, Charles Howard Candler Professor of New Testament; Co-Director of the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University.

Woot!

the Apocalypse of May

After I exsanguinated you,
Your shell rose up and crushed my soul,
My infidelity was your cue,
To turn an embrace into a suffocating squeeze,
Leaving my bones to suffer in the merciless summer sun.

And my palms and fingers are now rotting off,
Not a game to play since the apocalypse of May,
Had I my feet to bring me to the keys,
Yet I would refrain,
Your mad rant dancing in my ears,
"I'll always be above you, I'll always be above you."

Landlocked Blues

If you walk away I'll walk away
first tell me which road you will take
I don't want to risk our paths crossing someday
so you walk that way I'll walk this way

and the future hangs over our heads
and it moves with each current event
until it falls all around like a cold steady rain
just stay in when it's lookin' this way

and the moon's laying low in the sky
forcing everything metal to shine
and the sidewalk holds diamonds like a jewelry store case
they argue "walk this way," "no walk this way"

and Laura's asleep in my bed
as I'm leaving she wakes up and says
"I dreamed you were carried away on the crest of a wave
baby don't go away, come here"

and there's kids playing guns in the street
and one's pointing his tree branch at me
So I put my hands up I say:
"Enough is enough,
If you walk away I'll walk away."
(and he shot me dead)

I found a liquid cure
for my landlocked blues
it will pass away
like a slow parade
it's leaving but I don't know how soon

and the world's got me dizzy again
you'd think after 22 years I'd be used to the spin
and it only feels worse when I stay in one place
so I'm always pacing around or walking away
I keep drinking the ink from my pen
and I'm balancing history books up on my head
but it all boils down to one quotable phrase
"If you love something give it away"
A good woman will pick you apart
a box full of suggestions for your possible heart
But you may be offended, and you may be afraid
but don't walk away, don't walk away

We made love on the living room floor
with the noise in the background from a televised war
And in the deafening pleasure I thought I heard someone say
"If we walk away, they’ll walk away"
But greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke we're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start runnin' away
'cause we're comin' for ya!

I've grown tired of holding this pose
I feel more like a stranger each time I come home
So I'm making a deal with the devils of fame
Sayin' let me walk away, please
You'll be free child once you have died
from the shackles of language and measurable time
And then we can trade places, play musical graves
till then walk away walk away walk away walk away
So I'm up at dawn, putting on my shoes
I just want to make a clean escape
I'm leaving but I don't know where to
I know I'm leaving but I don't know where to

-Bright Eyes

A day in the Galilee

One thing is for sure, and that is that Capernaum is a small and inconspicuous place, especially for the origins of an entirely new faith. Visiting the ancient village and then discussing Jesus’ teachings helped me to make what I think is an important connection. Jesus’ teachings represented and were intentionally a reversal of traditional social values in his day. He emphasized this reversal in his avoidance of the larger towns and cities in the Galilee. A significant religious movement would be expected to begin in a politically significant place, like Tiberias or Sepphoris. Of course, Jesus may have been conducting his ministry in a subtle way so as to avoid disproportionate imperial attention. However, it is just as likely that he meant to “say something” through his attention to the small villages and hamlets of northern Israel.

I think it's also important that I say this. I spent much of the day prior to our time at the Jordan River wondering how I might feel as I abstained from being baptized, or more accurately, from re-enacting my baptism. My reason for abstaining in the first place is multi-faceted, but is ultimately theological in scope. I have no problem with commemorating an important religious event. Memory is, of course, integral to the life of a community. And although the Bible seems to mandate one baptism, I’m sure the ontological legitimacy of the event (whatever that might be) is not hampered by re-enactment. No, my reason has to do with what is an emerging and simultaneously strong element of my identity. I am, insofar as cosmological conviction is concerned, a non-theist. I do not, at present, believe in the existence of a supernatural being or beings. Neither do I imagine the divine to be some sort of “ground of all Being” or “No-thing” as Paul Tillich suggested. I simply do not hold to the conviction that such forces or entities are foundational to reality. Therefore, by abstaining from baptism I felt, in a way, spiritually strong. Despite a waning desire to participate in the life of the church, I conducted myself in a manner faithful to what I feel that I know. And for this, I have no apology.