Word Arsenal

So, I regularly visit the folks over at Confessions of a Seminarian.  It’s a cool blog, and they are a very respectful, calm group of people who are interested in discussing Christianity evenly and with grace.  As a hardcore agnostic, I am happy to have this conversation with such a cool group of people.

But sometimes the writers over there get a little nuts with the vocabulary.  I admit that I will whip out some pretty bullshit modes of talking (I once told someone asking about the theatre company I run: “it’s sort of a neo-brechtian attempt at modifying the congealed paradigms of theatre as a living, breathing organism”), those guys can get downright crazy!  And sometimes I feel like I’m reading satire on scholarly elites, when they are, in fact, real people.

So there’s an article over there that approaches a god’s impact or relevance on what people generally view as bad things happening to them (getting beaten, raped, ignored, abused, etc.).  I made the comment that I think it is arrogant to claim to know any god’s will (it’s a GOD!), and one gentlemen responded in the following way.

CAVEAT!!  I’m not trying to start a blog war.  This is just too funny.

Said Chris:

Kyle,

To defend Mike, I don’t think it is arrogant to presuppose that God’s wisdom is beyond ours and thus all bets on a thoroughly convincing theodicy are, in turn, beyond us.  However, in affirming orthodox principles (the omnipotence, omniscience, divine foreknowledge, etc.) of God, often times people scoff at the lack of relevance/translation of such lofty claims to personal experience (such is the case with John’s story, for instance).  Let us take each other where we stand. [...]

However, according to process theology, you are on to something.  In fact, the problem of suffering through the lens of process is more accurately the problem of the lack of healing and comfort, the lack of compassion and awareness.  In short, the problem of evil is the problem of acedia, indifference, the tragedy of a world which refuses to pray.

Depending on how far you take this (and this is where process gets a bit far out for me) prayer includes willing the movement of each and every molecule, the shrinking of every cancerous cell, etc.  There is a spiritual and physiological response…

But faced with the enormity of what we’re discussing, I would echo the prudence of, “What the heck do we know, anyway?”

What the heck do we know, indeed!  SOMEONE went to college.

I’m really not trying to make a personal insult, here.  For real.  I talk in pretty dumb ways a lot (on the opposite of the academic, I sometimes direct actors to be “be like time, like, zhooo, not like a tiger, because that’s too many claws!”  WTF DOES THAT MEAN?!  I don’t even know…), but I’m asking myself: how do people who write/talk like this communicate with other people?

Or, taking it away from the personal (because this is not a personal attack), I find it interesting how people use words to gain power over others.  I’m pretty sure that most of humanity is locked in a dead-heat power struggle with one another, and I am definitely guilty of using words as weapons.  I was talking with a friend a year or two ago, and I was telling her why I value words so much.

ME: “I want to be able to say exactly what I want to say.  I don’t want to say, ‘like,’ ‘you know,’ ‘uhh,’ ’sort of,’ and so on.  I want to see what I’m thinking and say just that.”

HER: “Well, will words ever be that good?”

ME: “Will I ever be that good, you mean.”

HER: “No one is perfect.  So why do you want such perfect words?”

ME: “I want to have a perfect arsenal.”

And the moment I said that, I realized how idiotic it was.

I read this comment, and I think that this man is using this words to gain power and superiority over me.  He seems like a nice guy.  It’s probably subconscious.  Most people aren’t trying to hurt and maim one another.  Most people are just clumsy.  I know I am.

And Chris, if you are reading this: it’s not personal.