4.22.2004

been caught stealin'

somehow i stumbled across this post from MBurkett (scroll down to the 3/14/04 entry). that's about the best 500 word-or-less synopsis of one of Schaeffer's best and most overlooked books. check it check it. in an effort to be less "heady" or "esoteric", i stopped doing the "quote of the day" for a little while and instead tried to be more journalistic. but i get tired of reading my own thoughts and opinions all the time. i figure, like neil postman, that the most meaningful things--the most authentic experiences, deepest thoughts, loftiest emotions, etc.--have already been traversed by other humans and, most likely, written about in a much more eloquent fashion than anything currently floating around a medium as ephemeral as the internet. not so say that there is no value in the present--simply that we are all victims and perpetrators of what Lewis called "chronological snobbery". we believe our own time, our own geographic location, our own perspective to be the best thing on the block. Lewis and countless others have believed and continue to believe that the past--given the number of people who have participated in it--has the monopoly on wisdom. the present, which is where God continues to operate, is in the midst of formation and upheaval. in other words, if hindsight is 20/20, we should make a practice of looking backwards. not to idealize that past--it was a tumultuous present once too--but to calm or regulate any irrational, foundation-less surging toward the future. paradoxically, i suppose, this blog is an emaciated attempt to bring those words from before to the now to help us see the now with more clarity. in the immortal words of Bono, "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief. All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief." [here's the dang quote already! ...must...stop...pontificating...] "God's answer to the problem of suffering not only really happened two thousand years ago, but it is still happening in our own lives. The solution to our suffering is our suffering! All our suffering can become part of his work, the greatest work ever done, the work of salvation, of helping to win for those we love eternal joy." --Peter Kreeft, "The Clues Converge: Jesus, the Tears of God."

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