There's this blonde out for a walk. She comes to a river and sees another blonde on the opposite bank. "Yoo-hoo!" she shouts, "How can I get to the other side?"
The second blonde looks up the river then down the river and shouts back, "You ARE on the other side."
Continuing my exploration of words and reality, it is time to consider how 'truth' comes into play. I was watching The Bourne Supremacy the other night, and came across a scene where an assassin who was thought to have killed Jason Bourne was summoned out of the nightclub he was lounging in to the door of the car of his boss. The window is wound down and the boss says 'your phone was turned off, what the hell is going on?'
'You told me I could have the month off." He replied.
"You told me Jason Bourne was dead." And he wound up the window and drove off.
A short and simple transaction of just a few words, but there was so much in them. Everything had been rested on the words the assassin had previously told him. He took his words as reality ("as gospel") and based a whole future path on that. But the assassin's words were not true, they did not reflect the reality, and thus the two characters integrated their lives and decisions into a fictional reality.
What struck me was the importance of being told the truth in order to make correct judgments. We need to be told words that we can depend on. We need words that are true, that we can make decisions on, that we can trust. We make decisions that can affect the rest of our lives, and those decisions are often based on the words we receive.
"We can only go on the information we have."
What the assassin said was actually true as far as he knew it, but he didn't know the whole story. If I go back to my previous example of the various news articles about the real estate market and interest rates, they are largely making claims based on limited information. They do not know the whole picture and therefore are incapable of making a truthful claim (truth-full). As far as they can report a trend, that trend may be true, but it is not the whole story. Any claim deduced from this cannot be considered truth.
And so, in a world of people with limited ability to grasp the 'whole story', it would seem the truth is inaccessible. If nobody can know the whole picture, if we each are given but a piece of the puzzle, we are left to guess how it fits into the larger puzzle. Perhaps indeed we ourselves are that piece of the puzzle, and we all wonder how we ourselves fit in. And yet, every single day we find ourselves trusting the claims and words of other people; people who are just as limited as us. When we face it, we are confronted with the fact that faith is necessary to do anything in this world.
I am sure we would all love to have a reliable truth that we can put our faith in. Words from someone who does not have the limitations we have, who knows the full picture, and who can therefore speak the truth. And I am sure that, logically, those words might sound very different to what we might have formulated from our own limited perspective, just as it would be quite strange for that assassin to have shot Jason Bourne and seen his car career over the bridge and into the water and then to say "I didn't kill him at all", and for that to be a true statement.
It is funny that when we think about it, we can accept that truth might even sound foolish to our ears, and yet still be true. The Bible claims that Jesus is the truth (John 14:6). It claims to be words from a God who knows the whole story and can thus speak words of truth, reliable words to put our trust in. And yet so many people find it foolish to consider those words as true. My heart longs for a true word to trust in. Such a word, by necessity, can only come from God.
Tell a man there 4 billion stars in the sky and he will believe you. Tell him a seat has wet paint and he will have to touch it.
I didn't get any bites on my questions about what our church is up to, so I thought I would continue to meander along in my exploration of words and the communication of reality. I have had to step back this week and reflect on how this is affecting me personally, as I have noticed just how much we are reliant on words for our understanding of reality. To tell the story:
Adrianna and I are looking to buy a house, and this is a big commitment as many would know. Houses are very overpriced and unaffordable at the moment and have been for some time now, but we really want to get out and have a place of our own.
As we are in this space, we find that we are particularly attentive to news articles about what is happening in the housing market and interest rates and the economy in general, because these things affect affordability. Do we jump in as soon as we can because prices are going up, or do we wait because prices are coming down and will continue to do so.
I have found that the media is just as unreliable in reporting on housing as they are on any other topic. On the same day, one article will say house prices have come down 2% in the last month, another will say they are likely to come down 10% in the next year, another will say 'but wait, the reserve bank is going to cut interest rates so that will change', and then another will say, 'but maybe they aren't going to cut interest rates because employment figures show a growth in employment. All of these articles paint pictures of reality, but are not necessarily accurate or true, even though they are based on facts. They have the power to influence decisions, perhaps we should wait and see if prices settle and/or come down, and in the meanwhile build our capital so as to pay off less interest when we do buy. And perhaps this will lead to more houses coming onto the market, and thus more choice, as it starts to become a buyers market. But then, there are the reports that housing prices will continue to rise because of population growth and immigration which keeps the demand high.
And so, day by day, the facts we are given to make our decisions on are fed to us electronically with words and statistics, which paint pictures, which limit the options and set our focus and bias.
Alternatively, we could monitor the prices ourselves and look at trends, but we don't have access to what houses are actually selling for (just what they are listed for) unless we pay money for reports. So reality is mediated to us by various conflicting sources, and we have to make significant decisions from that information. This shows the power of the media to shape reality as they influence decisions of many people and shape the market. This is even more pronounced int he share markets, where people use mediated information to buy and sell, and rash decisions can be made, and crowd mentalities can be witnessed. The person who can 'mediate' reality and shape decisions has a lot of power indeed.
How do we assess what is 'true', how can we determine which article is 'reliable'? We have established that words have power to shape and influence our understanding of reality, and thus our decisions to interact with and change reality. We also know that if words conflict with other words about what that reality is then we need to decide what is true and reliable over what is false and misleading.
This problem brings us back to the garden of Eden once more, where Adam and Eve made a significant decision based on the words of a talking snake (yeh, nothing suspect there), which interpreted the reality before their eyes and 'deceived' them. As opposed to the true and trustworthy words of the God who created them, they chose to believe the creature instead.
On what basis can we trust the claims of one person over another? Or should we treat all such words with caution and seek to learn everything the hard way, through experience? In the case of the real estate issue, I do acknowledge that it is largely an area of speculation and trends, nothing is certain and it is all dependent on market forces, which are highly unpredictable. If this is the case, then is the speculations no better than the fortune tellers? Is it like the Oracle in the the film The Matrix, who asked Neo if he still would have knocked over the vase if she hadn't warned him about it?
I think we should wait until we find something we like for a price we are willing to pay, and just keep an eye on if prices are starting to come up again.
Our church congregation is trying to become more outward looking and not so much focussed on ourselves. We are adopting a metaphor of 'the front line of ministry' where we are to understand the Sunday morning services as a time of equipping us for mission on the 'front line'. The front line is defined as the place where the kingdom of God meets the kingdom of the world, i.e. our neighbours, workplaces, schools, kinder, shops, friends. In these places we are ambassadors for the kingdom of God. The place is described as the front line because it is taken to be hostile: people generally do not want to know or hear about Jesus Christ.
And so, if the front line is not the Sunday service, just as the church is not the building but the people, then what is the purpose of the Sunday service, and how is this reflected in what transpires during that time?
Historically, the Sunday service was a place where Christ is proclaimed, sinners are called to repentance, the gospel is preached, and Christians rejoice in song and commune with each other over the Lord's supper. The gospel is the most appropriate sermon and is to be drawn from or pointed to from any scripture passage that is being expounded, for this is God's call to the nations.
But if the Sunday service is not the front line, then is the gospel the most appropriate message to be shared there? While it is true that it is always edifying for a Christian to be taken back to the cross and its transformational power for their lives, in many ways if the congregation is made up of Christians behind the front line, then this message is literally preaching to the converted, and to what extent does it equip them for life beyond the cross (many Christians will wonder if there even is such a thing?).
In my understanding preaching (that is, proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ) is something to be done to people who do not know Christ, and its purpose is to reveal him and his love to them, requiring a response in their part. Teaching, on the other hand, is something done to Christians and is about discipleship and development of the Christian life. If our understanding of the Sunday service is that it is about equipping the Christian for the Christian life and ministry and mission, then teaching is perhaps more appropriate at the pulpit than preaching.
Similarly, what function does our singing have, and the communion, and the congregational prayer? I believe these all do/can work into the service of equipping, but is it clear in what way this is so? And in this same line, how interactive should the Sunday service be? Should it even be called a service? We have come so far as to refrain from saying ‘we are going to church’, which can evoke unhelpful images. What does saying ‘welcome to our service’ evoke? To me it suggests that people sit (or stand) in their pews and attend a service put on by a ‘ministry team’. If the Sunday meeting is a place of equipping, is this a service at all, or is it a ‘meeting’, or ‘gathering’, or ‘assembling’ (all verbs), or perhaps it is a ‘workshop’ or a ‘school’ (to use some nouns) or could we describe it as a ‘re-centering’, ‘re-focussing’, ‘re-membering’ (putting it in terms of desired effect). As I am exploring the power of words in shaping people’s encounter with reality, I wonder how much our words at church end up leading to confusion and mixed messages.
So what should we call Sunday mornings?
Should we move more to teaching than preaching?
Are we restricted to passage exposition (and a one-way message for that matter [no pun intended])?
How interactive should the equipping be?
Are there more useful methods of equipping than singing reading and hearing?
Three qualifications: (1) I am not trying to explore a general ecclesiology here, but to reflect specifically on what our congregation is up to and how we are going about it, and (2) I am also aware that the Sunday meeting is not the only place/venue/format of equipping that our congregation employs, and (3) that to some extent, as long as the Sunday meeting is open to anyone, there will be non-Christians participating and new Christians also, in which case it is not strictly a ‘behind the lines’ meeting.I have been thinking more about words and reality; both the objective reality that we accept by faith is concretely outside of ourselves, and also the subjective reality that appears to be located inside our awareness and 'occurs' as we subjects interface to and interact with that objective reality. And I have been thinking about how the objective reality seems so often to be mediated to us via words, and some would say even when we 'experience' that reality first hand, we still interpret and remember the experience through words. If this is true, then words constitute our interpreted reality.
The extent to which or words are accurate symbols of a common or shared experience of reality is the extent to which they can be used to communicate (and to 'share') that same reality to others. But let a Protestant try to talk to a Jehovah's Witness about the idea of the 'soul' for instance, and the meaning of the word is so different between the two that communication cannot happen, and the two cannot meaningfully share their experience and understanding of reality. I would say there are a lot of words, phrases and concepts that have entirely different meanings to many people, making communication of the deeper things quite difficult. And, thinking back to Nowen's epilogue, if someone has not encountered/experienced the reality behind our words then they will not have any meaning to them at all.
I am trying to think of the implications of this. Here are a few I can think of (just throwing thoughts out there, rather than stating categorically as a mature view):
If you have read my post does biofuel kill people?, then you might be interested to read this article in today's The Age newspaper online. Seems the UK has wisened up, hopefully others will follow suit.
Read more...As I continue to reflect on the concept of 'words' and of 'presence' I have read an interesting post on Open Source Theology that asks an interesting question: do our words reflect or point to that which exists outside and beyond them, or do they, by being spoken, evoke a reality? I suppose from a Biblical perspective this question goes back to Genesis and Adam's naming of the animals. The question is whether Adam studied the behaviour of the animals and named them in accordance with their behaviour and function, or whether he actually prescribed their function and purpose in the act of naming them.
I understand this is actually a topic of debate in the philosophy of language, and it fascinates me. Our words communicate the shared reality in which we live, but to some extent they shape that reality. Our words 'create' and 'evoke' images in people's minds, and thus guide their focus. Qui-Gon Jinn speaks these words to the young Anakin Skywalker: "Your focus determines your reality." To what extent is our reality determined by the external world around us, and to what extent is it determined by our mind's reflections on that external world, and its foci?
As we communicate a picture of reality to others, and as they accept that picture, it becomes reality in all actuality for them. The extent to which that picture is an accurate portrayal of the external world can sometimes be irrelevant - the words alone are powerful enough to influence important decisions, to bring to tears, to bring joy, and sometimes even to kill. In fact, people have killed themselves over mere electrons on a computer screen because those electrons represented words, which in turn painted a picture in the mind of the reader, which in turn manufactured a 'reality' that was unbearable to them, that in turn tipped them over the edge.
Thus, even if words are merely representative of reality, and even if they are completely false representations of 'reality' they can have the power of life and death. Even in this way words actually create reality inside the one who receives them. And along this line of thinking it seems that the locus of reality is actually inside the mind rather than in the world outside us.
Could this very post alter someone's perception of reality? And in doing so could it alter their attitude and behaviour? And if it changed their behaviour would it have, in fact, altered reality?
If people were aware of the power of their words would they choose them more carefully? Would they use them for good? Would they use them to assist people to focus on what is good for them and good for others? Would they use their words to build people up, to transport them out of their depression, to take them to a place of beauty?
What is the limit of the power of words?
Following on from my last post, I read an article in The Age newspaper today which alarmed me:
"The biofuel boom is diverting grain, sugar and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks. Indeed, biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%, far more than previously expected."
and goes on to state that as a result:
"The World Bank estimates that rising food prices have pushed 100 million people worldwide below the poverty line."
So, while Fuel companies may be promoting biofuel as a clean, green, 'feel good' alternative to petrol, it may actually be far worse for the world than straight petrol! I suppose this is one of the things I had in mind in my last post. Changes to our living as simple as the things we buy can potentially have a far greater impact than if we sell our houses and give the money to the poor.
I also confirmed that the world's poor are likely poor due to exploitation. I found two good sites on this topic through the world vision newsletter called Don't trade lives!, and Ethical consumerism,which may be worth checking out. The second site goes down to the level of rating different brands on their ethical production.
Just a few thoughts on some practical choices we can make for the better of our race and environment.
"Whoever has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" (1 John 3:17).
Tonight we watched a movie called Beyond Borders with Clive Owen and Angelina Jolie. It is a 'love story' set amidst aid work in war-torn countries that has some interesting and thought-provoking aspects. The wealthy Sarah Beauford is inspired by publicity stunt at a several-hundred-dollar per head charity function she attended. The passionate Dr. Nick Callahan parades in an Ethiopian refugee and asks why the organisation hosting the event has cut funding to the project supporting the child's village/camp. Sarah goes off with about $50K to deliver food and medical supplies to the camp and we the audience are confronted with the realities of life that about 50 million members of earth's human population face.
While the film, in true Hollywood fashion, then goes on to marginalise the refugee aspect to make the love interest the main focus, we the audience are left with the images of the plight of so many people and, if we have any heart, cannot help but to be moved to some extent. Perhaps the director used the images of Sarah's extravagant wealth back home as a contrast mechanism to the situation of the refugees, but it seemed that she was actually a selfish person, more concerned with her love for the doctor than anything else, including her own kids. She did not alter her way of life or her consumption after being confronted with what she saw, and I think in the end we are much the same.
After seeing movies such as this one, and others like Hotel Rwanda, Water, Blood Diamond, etc. what actually changes in the way we live? Why is it that the image and knowledge of human beings suffering does not move us to love them, and to act? I am very challenged and disturbed by this thought. As a Christian especially I hear the words of my God:
"Whoever has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" (1 John 3:17).
It was only today that Adrianna was asking me if God has a will for us buying a place to live, and which property would be a more godly one to buy? It was also today that my pastor was talking to me about Christian worldview and integrating it into our lives (so it is not just something partially formed in our minds). I think this is a big issue. After all, are our Christian worldviews Christian at all? If a worldview is an underpinning understanding of life that informs and directs our attitudes and decisions then our life would reflect that worldview. Yet what I see is not lives that reflect the teachings of Christ, but lives which are not much different from anyone else in the western world. Sure, it is less likely for a Christian to get 'plastered/smashed/hammered', but apparently it is just as likely as any other person for a Christian to get divorced or commit adultery, or lie, cheat, steal. And even if we were able to live without any of these sins the world would be a better place, but in reality this is just a diversion from a more serious issue.
If our God is the God of love who commands us also to love one another (1 John 4:7-21), and if love is expressed in concrete acts such as the apostle John as described above, then why are we unaffected when we see our brother in need, and why does nothing change? How can we preach God's love in Jesus on one hand and ignore this injustice on the other?
Getting to the heart of the immediate problem, what is the godly thing and the right thing to do now in light of being confronted with the knowledge that there are millions of people suffering and starving? Would it be more godly not to buy a good house but to get the cheapest thing we could find and give the rest of the money away? Or would this be just a bandaid solution? Or again, even if it was a bandaid solution and would not make any lasting difference, would it still make a difference to one person (like the parable of the starfish)?
Is it best to give continuous, sustained small gestures in the hope that the collective result of these will make a difference (e.g. sponsor children, or regular donations)? Or is it more about getting to the heart of the problem: Why are these people starving and suffering in the first place? It seems to be a combination of local and global politics, exploitation of the third world by first world countries, third world debt, drought and natural disaster, war and corruption. At the heart of all these also is human greed and dehumanisation of our fellow human beings, i.e. people becoming reduced to a means to an end.
Is it a matter of putting more pressure on our own government to act and, for our part, being willing to make sacrifices at a national/state level in the way that our taxes are used? Would we be doing our part for global warming if we spent our disposable cash on foreign aid rather than the latest gadgets and passing thrills, and if we cut back our consumption so that others could also eat and have shelter and medicine?
Can organisations such as Tear Australia provide solid options to help, or are all our small gestures only actions to appease our consciences? Should we be appeasing our consciences at all, or should our motivation be pure compassion, real solidarity with our fellow human beings?
This is such a difficult problem, and I think a lot of people struggle with how to respond. Doing something is better than doing nothing, but is there more that we can do than something?
I would appreciate some honest feedback here!
We have finished Henri Nouwen's Life of the beloved and it had a kind of sad ending (not that I want to ruin it for anyone but... moohoohaha). The book was written as a personal book for his secular Jewish friend to explain clearly the things of the spiritual life, which he explains in his prologue. The epilpogue reflects on how, after the book was finished and he sent it to his friend, Henri went to visit him and received his feedback, and found that it hadn't hit the mark.
As I read the book I myself had wondered if the words he used were too alien, even though they were not strictly 'Christianese' (for his main words were 'beloved, taken, blessed, broken, given', and he spent about a chapter explaining each word), at the end of the day his friend could not move beyond the words to the reality behind them. They were indeed alien to him.
Henri lamented that after years of sharing together he still could not find the right words to convey life in Christ. I suppose if words are mere symbols that represent a reality (and I am aware that this is something much debated in current philosophy of language), and if that reality is at the most basic level an 'experienced' reality, then those who have not yet experienced it will not be able to fully appreciate the meaning behind the words. I think this is the thesis that Hans Urs Von Bathasaar was presenting in his Love alone is credible (a very hard read!), and perhaps also what Karl Barth was getting at in his theology of revelation. Only as we personally encounter God as he reveals himself to us can we grasp the reality to fill the words with true meaning. Outside of God's self-revelation words are empty symbols. Revelation is thus not so much a cognitive process as a whole-of-person experience. It is an encounter with the true 'presence' of God (there's that word again). Ironic, then, that God reveals himself in his 'word' (John 1). But perhaps it is not so ironic if that 'word' is actually a person that we encounter personally.
If this is true, then perhaps presence is more important than words. But, by the same logic, the comments of anonymous against my previous post may suggest that as the words of the Gospel are presented, the listener encounters the real presence of God himself, coming to fill the words with meaning, since the words are 'true' and thus have a reality 'underwritten' by God's own presence, so to speak. It is as if the words of the gospel are the locus where his presence dwells and is manifest to people.
But at the same time, the Bible stresses that Christians are the special locus of God's presence on earth, his 'temple' so to speak. It is this idea that I would like to explore much further.
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