Worth Saying Well ...

On occasion, I come across an academic author whose work does not merely display appropriate style and clean syntax, but who writes with a genuinely poetic touch without devolving into whimsicalism. One such author is Douglas J. Hall, professor emeritus at Canada's McGill University and author of 20-some books and countless articles. His reflections on the Christology of Shusaku Endo are framed between insightful reflections on North American Protestantism and what it might take to recover a meaningful imago Christi in its context. Some snippets from the 1979 article Rethinking Christ:

"To ask [Dietrich Bonhoeffer's question], "Who is Jesus Christ for us today?" means quite specifically to ask whether it is possible, without altogether departing from the christological tradition we have inherited, to discover anything like a genuine alternative to the triumphant Christ of Christendom. We can be more specific about this question now, three decades after Bonhoeffer first asked it; because in the interim it has become clearer to more of us that any form of the triumphant Christ of Christendom is inappropriate today. Not only has Christendom itself disintegrated significantly since the end of World War II, but -- more to the point -- so has the reputation of all forms of triumphalism, human and religious. A triumphant Christ no longer speaks to a species that has seen too many theoretical triumphs come and go."
---
"Rethinking Christ for us today, it seems to me, would have to entail something like [discovering that we can no longer sustain a religious faith that is out of kilter with our daily experience]. We shall be in a position to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd only when we have stopped using the Christian religion to shield us from the realities of our lostness and our night. Jesus will become alive to us only as we are denied access to a Christ who functions as sanctuary from the world. The Lord who lives and speaks can only be met in the real world, in the "swamp" of the fallen creation. This is where he came. This is where he is still to be found."

Multiple choices.

Asking a faculty member willing to go out of his/her way to speak on your behalf to a professor with whom you'd want to do your Ph.D. to not do so is ...

___ a. Stupid, with a side of idiotic.
___ b. Indifferent -- it wouldn't do any good in any case.
___ c. A smart move; there's life outside of academia.
_X_ d. Really hard, but probably the right choice.

Like an open blog ...

[The Pilgrim is almost back to having a normal, albeit busy, life.]

Generalists Anonymous

[The Pilgrim thinks that Meryl Streep ought to win an Academy Award for successfully conjuring up on-screen chemistry with carp-faced Minnesotan Garrison Keillor.]

Last week, I ran into a woman with whom -- or, in the ongoing quest for faithfulness in use of particles: for whom -- I technically work, but whom I practically never see: She isn't a recluse, but she's robustly self-sufficient in her work and thus requires administrative (read: secretarial) assistance barely half a dozen times per year.

She's a generous three decades older than myself and began to inquire about my future plans. In the process, I told her a little bit about my background -- a random assortment of tasks and degrees by anybody's standards -- and she remarked that hers was at least equally haphazard: Having received her B.A. from a prestigious undergraduate university, she took a Ph.D. in a discipline only tenuously related to the subject she presently teaches, both fields being a hop, skip and long-jump removed from the field in which she writes and publishes.

"The world needs more generalists," I told her.
"Well," she said, "the problem is that you just never feel like you're any real good to anyone."

Now, I do not need to tell you that this woman has been a lot of good in her life, both personally and professionally; in fact, I hardly needed to tell her so either. The conversation did, however, beg the question: What good are generalists?

Within academia, it seems, both their presence and benefits are sharply circumscribed: Most of my colleagues who have any kinds of Ph.D. aspirations have an understandably narrow range of academic backgrounds. There's "bible," "church history," and occasionally "religion," for the adventurous ones or those who happened to find themselves in non-Christian environments during their undergraduate days. There are exceptions, of course: The occasional philosophy major, the aspiring artist or filmmaker who is merely trying to bone up on his or her theological credentials, as well as, of course, the older crowd who at some point had to make an actual living (!) with their undergraduate education and thus features conspicuously few humanities majors.

The prevalence of folks with backgrounds close to their intended professional callings is as salutary for them as my lack thereof is challenging for me: Early on in my seminary career I got used to the knowing sighs of my classmates at the hint of topics entirely novel to me -- source criticism? The extra-Calvinisticum? The Hiphil? Been there, written a paper about that. By contrast, my repertoire of specialized knowledge -- an intimate familiarity with the niceties of the Greek pantheon, a profound grasp of the history of sodomy laws in the U.S., the occasional urge to wax poetic on the legal philosophy of John Rawls -- hardly even make for interesting potluck conversations.

Pushing the vastness of my ignorance does, of course, make life more interesting: Reading Cur Deus Homo? is on the whole more enjoyable -- if not more insight-inspiring -- the first rather than the fourth time around. By the same token, I may dread the math portions of the GRE a little less than my colleagues, thanks not only to the wisdom of European ministries of education that would not allow us to escape until we had mastered Calculus, but also to personal inclination: Being reasonably good at many things without excelling in one particular field was a mixed blessing even during my high school days. Then, of course, there are the languages -- tools of research, ultimately, but attractive and interesting ones, even though arguably I would have been far better off throwing myself into theological study fresh out of high school, when my Greek was not as badly in need of CPR and my Latin still well-nourished upon the milk of Ovid's Ars Amatoria and Tacitus' Annals.)

None of this, however, answers the question of -- cui bono? Monster.com provides a helpful list of viable professions for generalists, a term they apparently and unjustly equate with "philosophy major" (... why exclude the wide swaths of other concentrations who a couple of years after graduation, as the joke goes, will be telling their engineering classmates "Do you want fries with that?") These "generalist-friendly professions" are -- wait for it -- real estate, management, business and finance, and sales. (Shelf your Descartes, friends.)

Slightly less lucrative but nevertheless potentially viable professions might involve becoming a librarian (... a good choice, since generalists tend to have no little love for books ...) or teaching at community colleges -- the last province of academia (?) where versatility may still be a virtue. People with anal-retentive tendencies with regard to language may also, I am told, profitably flourish as editors, proof-readers and tutors, although that would probably at some point entail my developing a level of unprecedented comfort with charging money for any of the above. (Given that I've edited countless papers and a few dissertations for free and have yet to see -- or ask for! -- money for any of the translations or language instructions I've provided, this may be a growth area. Stop laughing.)

As for you lucky, lucky specialists: There's a ministry here for you! Generalists -- invite . W to parties, pay them to watch your children, water your plants or tell you about Enlightenment poetry. We'll be eternally grateful and tell you as much in a variety of dead or dying languages.

No room for Introverts.

[The Pilgrim wonders whether being able to say of a church service that it "wasn't awful" is ever good enough.]

I seem to have -- in a fit of cranial softening, no doubt -- signed up for a schedule that during the coming two weeks will look something like this: Mondays through Thursdays, class from 8am-noon, work from 1-5pm, class from 5-9pm. Fridays are the "light" days -- class from 8am-noon, work from 1-5pm, with the evening free for grading or paper-writing.

In the meantime, consider this proposal for increased diversity of Psychological Type in Organizations -- one I fully support, if only because it might make finding a job as a female INTJ easier. (... incidentally, are ESTJs and ESFJs really the "typical" types for men and women? It's a scary, scary world we live in.)

Orthodoxy.

[At 1:30a.m. the Pilgrim woke up to the smell of smoke and word of the church across the street being on fire -- the church across the street, separated from the Pilgrim's place by only a major gas-station. Yeah. Fortunately, as it turned out, the fire was brought under control and the Pilgrim lived to write this entry.]

Two things happened this week. The first was that I unexpectedly ran into my friend Gail. Gail is an irresistibly bright, bubbly woman barely a decade my senior, although her thick, solid-gray curls tend to add to her perceived age.

I first met Gail because both of us were part of the teams representing our respective academic institutions on the planning committees of an interfaith event: I came as a student, Gail as a professor of rabbinical studies at a prestigious local Conservative Jewish university; we hit it off because Gail, after years of experience in dealing with Christians, still somehow manifests a joyful exuberance in bringing the little flock up to speed on our family history, because of our shared political commitments, and because Gail, aside from being brilliant, is also quite funny ... and because I like to laugh. Most importantly, however, is the fact that as people who endeavor to live lives of faith both from the neck up and from the neck down to at least our chest-cavity and on good days even beyond our bowels we represent a rather narrow slice of American religious life. Accordingly, we first met at interfaith planning sessions but kept running into one another at professional conferences. Both of us really believe -- although this is undoubtedly not the best way to characterize Gail's faith and is probably far from ideal for characterizing my own -- but we also really want to learn, to discover, to think about things and to ask the hard questions.

Doing both may in fact be easier in Gail's tradition where life is infused with smaller and greater extremely concrete reminders of her faith: Gail speaks casually about her daughter's upcoming bat mitzvah, about the need to properly purify the firepit at her family's recently purchased home. Much of Protestantism, especially the evangelical bits, has been so concerned with spreading holiness across all the realms of believers' lives that nothing concrete remains. As a result, holiness tends to dissolve in the day-to-day like a teaspoon of ascorbic acid in the Pacific Ocean: Many of us might eventually be able to figure out how to kesher a grill; how to sanctify one's professional existence is another level of challenge entirely.

The other thing that happened this week is that I finished a book by Barbara Brown Taylor, perhaps one of America's most recognized preachers. The book, titled Leaving Church, details her journey towards Episcopalian priesthood, her 20 years of service in pastoral ministry, and her eventual relinquishment thereof in order to save her life and her faith. The book is full of lovely quotes like the following, many of them reminiscent of Anne Lamott, although Baptist readers are perhaps less likely to get a stern talking-to from their pastors for reading Taylor's works:

"Although we might use different words to describe it, most of us know what is killing us. For some it is the deadly rush of our lives; for others it is the inability to move. For some it is the prison of our possessions; for others the crushing poverty that dooms our children to more of the same. Few of us can choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we respond to them. To be saved is not only to recognize an alternative to the deadliness pressing down upon us but also to be able to act upon it. Those who have no choice but to be carried toward safety on stretchers will eventually be given the chance to take up their mats and walk, and even those whose legs still will not work can discover how agile a healed spirit can be."

Late in her memoir, Taylor mentions her husband's affinity for Native American religious practices -- his participation in Sundances, week-long prayers and ascetic practices, and her initial discomfort with it all. Let me point out at this point that I am largely unfamiliar with Native American spirituality, that I am barely at "remedial" level when it comes to prayer, and that I am about as anti-experiential as a relatively young, relatively healthy person can be -- if revelation cannot be dropped directly into my cranium, why bother? The tiny squirmy voice of distance and disconcertedness upon reading Taylor's reflections and sharing a meal with Gail has, however, less to do with the one's positive experiences with Native American tradition, or the other's vibrant Jewish faith, and more with the titular question of orthodoxy.

In my current surroundings as, indeed, in most religious academic institutions, the casual mention of this little word is the equivalent of filling a paper bag with dog turds, setting it on fire, and leaving it on someone's doorstep. To the extent that it isn't dangerous, it's bound to be messy and won't win you any friends. Some of my colleagues have pointedly distanced themselves from the word and all that it entails, which most frequently includes their personal background, upbringings and familial confessions. Others, without ever attempting to, have left their own notions of orthodoxy by the wayside in their own spiritual practice. A gifted young man recently told me that his personal theology did not match his blue-books -- in the course of his studies, he said, he had discovered finally what he was, off paper, off the record: A manifesting. Another colleague, a promising preacher, spent the better part of a year in pangs of agony because he had, quite by accident, developed an adoptionist Christology that he couldn't seem to rid himself of. Heresy, after all, means "choice," and an environment so conscious of the Church's variegated history and the full rainbow of theological perspectives offers an entire smorgasbord of choices -- the kinds that the wise people in the pews may well wish to do without.

Having been raised in the "big tent" of Roman Catholicism -- in thought, if not in liturgy of the post-Vatican-II variety -- I am happily willing to go quite a way's with the anti-orthodox and the unself-consciously heretical: I have, for instance, an abiding fondness for the theology of Jürgen Moltmann -- the poet amongst theologians, although I suspect that a more sophisticated mind than mine would be able to identify an equal artistic touch in the writings of Pannenberg, just like the skilled chemist can access the hidden beauty inherent in the periodical table. In other words, there are versions of orthodoxy that do not at all sit well with me. Yet perhaps because I am a hopeless contrarian, or perhaps because I, in the words of a much smarter woman, discovered at some point that "how quaint -- I believe in something!", I am entirely uncomfortable with the dismissal, flippant, serendipitous or otherwise, of orthodoxy itself: I suspect that it is both possible and necessary to formulate orthodoxy in ways that do not make it the isolating, suffocating exosceleton upon one's spirituality, but rather the bones that build up the fragile, squiggly bits of one's faith. Put it to you this way: Below my bathroom window, all one would notice right now is a pussle of Morning Glories. They rise up high into the air, by-passing the second-floor windows and stretching their blue trumpets and dangly creepers almost up to my windowsill. They do so under their own power, but not without the support of the iron netting of the fence upon which they grow. When they will fade, late, late in the fall, the fence will remain, and in another year's time, a new crop of Morning Glories will grow.

Thus -- orthodoxy. Salutary orthodoxy, even! It strikes me that such a phenomenon ought to have at least three characteristics: First, I imagine that saltutary orthodoxy ought to take its own verbiage very seriously. Thus, ortho-doxy, straight-teaching, first and foremost requires straight talk, preferably the kind that includes a generous smattering of "I don't know," "I do not fully understand," and "I may be wrong." Every time an aching person quizzes me about the usefulness of prayer in the face of a God, whom both she and I, on our good days, confess to be omniscient, my theological training brings to mind at least five possible answers. All of them may be orthodox in their own way, but straight talk would require me to surrender the veneer of erudition and certainty in favor of confessing that the primary reason we pray is that Jesus seems to have in no uncertain terms told us to do so -- and that beyond that, wiser minds than mine vigorously disagree.

A second kind of straightness ought also to be part of orthodoxy -- our own. Luther's dictum of humanity as incurvatus in se -- turned in on itself -- or C.S. Lewis' assessment of men and women as "bent" lives on because these strike us as not merely pithy but true. Personally, the other alternative -- a kind of bent-ness away from oneself, outward towards the world seems like a desirable antidote. I have, however, the suspicion that neither variety of bent-ness may be ideal for human beings: Rather, a straightness, giving due -- and no more than due -- attention to oneself and to the other,lovingg one's neighbor and loving oneself, remaining keenly aware that the world was created for me and that I am but dust and ashes -- that may be a kind of straightness that could sustain orthodoxy.

Last but not least, we ought to never forget that the orthodoxy we seek to defend is none but God's own. Before we shed another's blood and tears, we ought to be mindful that the God that orthodoxy confesses is amply able to defend His own Truth and Honor -- and that He does so by way of self-emptying andcondescensionn.

Bad Investments.

[The Pilgrim really had the best intentions for blogging more this week; instead, she's been sleeping a lot, grading final exams, reading theologically unsound books and spending time with friends. Shame, shame.]

"Why do you work for so little money?" a friend of mine asked me, goodnaturedly, during a conversation about her own state of employment this week. I've grown quite familiar with this question over the past years; frequently, individuals who for whatever reason suspect that my earning potential exceeds $10 (+/- $1)/hour raise it with a genial sort of bafflement. These kinds of inquiries come from former colleagues, many of whom don't even get out of bed in the mornings without the reassurance of ten times my hourly salary. They come from friends who sat next to me in Econ 101 during our freshman year and, like myself, remember the first words of the professor to the auditorium: "Unless you try really hard, all of you will be very wealthy." (On the bright side -- I'm apparently trying very hard.)

At other times, the question comes at me angrily, from people who clearly have the sense that the money I earn isn't really mine and that choices about how much or how little to earn aren't mine alone to make: These are people who have a keen sense of the good that money can do, most frequently of the good that money could do in their own lives. They are members of my faith community, who have -- rightly -- internalized that the lives we live are no longer our own and that the resources that come to benefit one member ought to benefit the entire body. Perhaps more generally acceptable is the frustration of those who have invested in me, emotionally, intellectually, financially over the years; it appears that for friends and family I have been a rather poor investment.

Most frequently, however, the question -- "Why do you work for so little money?" -- is really just a statement in disguise: "I wouldn't work for so little money." A number of the folks who've commented in this fashion have clearly put their lack of money where their mouths are: They wouldn't work for so little money -- and accordingly they don't work at all. In a similar vein, I'm frequently informed that unless I get paid for my work, I will not be valued. Just last week, an older colleague beginning his first round as teaching assistant said as much when discussing the detailed agreement he developed with his faculty supervisor. In his case, "I don't work for free" means "I won't give the lectures I've been invited to give" and "I won't spend more than 5 minutes on a student's paper." At the risk of being valued at my networth, neither of these strikes me as a viable or even desirable option.

And there you go -- why do I work for so little money? Because I can. Because I get to do things that, in most cases, help rather than harm, because I get to do them alongside people I like and respect, and because these things might make me, in the long run, better able to do slightly more generously remunerated, slightly more helpful things. I seriously doubt that I will ever be a particularly good financial investment -- but if you feel an unaccountable tug at your heart- or purse-strings, you might as well get in cheap now.

Must love books.

[The Pilgrim would like to thank the anonymous donor whose generosity is all the more startling in light of his anonymity: You know who you are -- thank you.]

The Pilgrim has spent the better part of the day lounging in sunny spots and enjoying the latest Murakami novel to traverse the language barrier. (At the best of times, the Pilgrim's Japanese was barely good enough to have a go at an ordinary newspaper -- to say nothing of more literary exploits. Half a decade later, the Pilgrim is lucky to make her way through a graphic novel.)

The Pilgrim enjoys Murakami: His novels are astoundingly sensual, by which I do not mean to suggest that they are -- to borrow an endearingly old-fashioned descriptor from Vonnegut -- "sexy." They simply manage to engage the reader's senses in unexpected ways. For example, the Pilgrim read the bulk of Norwegian Wood in a little Japanese dive in Monterey, over a bowl of the tenderest tekka-donburi in the Pilgrim's limited history of culinary exploration. Looking back, however, it's entirely impossible to discern if the delicious tuna bowl was simply a feature of the novel, part of the novel-reading experience, or both. (For Kafka on the Shore, the dish in question will be a steaming bowl of udon. But then, with a novel set largely in the Shikoku region, that's to be expected.)

Unfortunately, a 500-page novel does not last as long as it used to; in another day or two, it'll be done, and all that will be left is a copy of A Long Way Down, bought in a moment of weakness and general amnesia concerning the fact that Nick Hornby's work always strikes me as a slightly less interesting Douglas Coupland knock-off (... a problem exacerbated by the Pilgrim's decreased interest in Coupland's own recent publications.)

The Pilgrim, like many children, fell in love with books -- or, more accurately, with stories -- before she was ever able to read. I vividly remember the light-blue-with-woodcut cover of a book of Ancient Roman tales from which my father used to read to me after all the child-appropriate versions of Greek and Norse mythology ran out. Since I learned to read on my own some time just before my fourth birthday, the light-blue-with-woodcut cover features amongst my earliest memories, together with being bed-bound and visiting my brother in the large, sanitary-smelling building on whose roof young men played ping-pong. (I eventually got better; my brother didn't.)

The love of stories, however, has stuck with the now almost-30-year-old Pilgrim the way it did with the 3-year-old, stuck with me through the traumatic realization that there would never be enough life to read all the excellent, nor even all the enjoyable books, through the (highly theorized, but nevertheless impassioned) late-night dorm-room deliberations whether we would rather give up ever reading another book or surrender any hope of ever having sex (... the books always won out ...), through the entirely regrettable misunderstanding that loving books makes one a writer (... Mr. Eugenides, sir, I am still truly sorry ...), even through the dispiriting encounters with what passes as "popular Christian fiction."

So, with a week of relative leisure on her hands, the Pilgrim is enjoying quality time with a good book or five. Given that one (younger) colleague recently commented on the Pilgrim's "aging well," it might be high time to invest in forestalling Alzheimer's. ;)

The Graduate

[After removing all library books, patches of floor have begun to appear; removing a delicate layer of feathers, courtesy of two birds set to "turbo-mold" revealed brown carpeting; there's no telling what gathering up all loose copies, articles and assorted paperwork from the past quarter might do.]

"My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labors is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another. Nor are my failures my own. They may spring from the failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another's achievement. Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum of my own achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with my own generation, and society, and time. It is seen, above all, in my integration in the mystery of Christ."

- Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island