Hi David this has been the theme of my heart this morning - resting in what we don't know. Paul said "if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know". After 20+years I'm also re reading my underlings of Barth's book on Romans and love his term "coming to a shattering halt in the presence of God".
Also you have teased out the idea of the relational - I have also done that especially with the often aggrandised evangelical emphasis on experience - there is for me an experience of God which transcends the feeling being which I have termed *relational* experience.
Yeah, and again, "knowledge puffs up but love builds up..." This Barth quote sums up exactly what I'm reaching for here. I think sometimes, the messianic is viewed as a loophole, or a window into the cloud of unknowing, as it were (because this is where God is "revealed" etc.). I don't deny it exactly, but I would also want to speak of "coming to a shattering halt at the messianic event"
Yes there should be no ulterior motive in our dying. Like Paul says "dying *behold* we live" - not dying *in order* to live. It would make it a game. So the word 'shattering' indicates not just a pause like at a traffic light but a total absolute and final breakdown! Like in the OT repentance is symbolised by pouring water on the ground - it cannot be picked up again.
The violent enclosing of land, the "enclosing violence of language", the danger of possession… It is as if some of our basic forms of verbal communication have been hijacked. Does apophatic precision exist, and if so how do its wordings sound?
This makes me think of an essay I read by Robin Wall Kimmerer, about the challenges she had learning her native language Potowami. She was exasperated because everything seemed to be a verb: a bay was "being a bay"... Saturday was "being Saturday." Very jarring when English is so noun-heavy. But she came to love it, because things - as verbs - have their own life and autonomy and agency, while a noun-heavy language seems to objectify everything. So yeah, I think you're right. The violence of enclosure gets coded into language. It also makes me think of those memes that show some shambles and say "my brain isn't braining..." The dubious verb-form "braining" gives the brain its own life and says that it might refuse to follow the program.. it might do something I wasn't expecting: objects of knowledge becoming autonomous and obstinate...
I'm thinking of a van Morrison song "inarticulate speech of the heart" - perhaps the apophatic is not so much interested in words but the heart's expression of love in action. I don't know if I invented the term but "pure action" describes a perfect synchronisation of heart and act where the mind has minimum input.
Hi David this has been the theme of my heart this morning - resting in what we don't know. Paul said "if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know". After 20+years I'm also re reading my underlings of Barth's book on Romans and love his term "coming to a shattering halt in the presence of God".
Also you have teased out the idea of the relational - I have also done that especially with the often aggrandised evangelical emphasis on experience - there is for me an experience of God which transcends the feeling being which I have termed *relational* experience.
Yeah, and again, "knowledge puffs up but love builds up..." This Barth quote sums up exactly what I'm reaching for here. I think sometimes, the messianic is viewed as a loophole, or a window into the cloud of unknowing, as it were (because this is where God is "revealed" etc.). I don't deny it exactly, but I would also want to speak of "coming to a shattering halt at the messianic event"
Yes there should be no ulterior motive in our dying. Like Paul says "dying *behold* we live" - not dying *in order* to live. It would make it a game. So the word 'shattering' indicates not just a pause like at a traffic light but a total absolute and final breakdown! Like in the OT repentance is symbolised by pouring water on the ground - it cannot be picked up again.
The violent enclosing of land, the "enclosing violence of language", the danger of possession… It is as if some of our basic forms of verbal communication have been hijacked. Does apophatic precision exist, and if so how do its wordings sound?
This makes me think of an essay I read by Robin Wall Kimmerer, about the challenges she had learning her native language Potowami. She was exasperated because everything seemed to be a verb: a bay was "being a bay"... Saturday was "being Saturday." Very jarring when English is so noun-heavy. But she came to love it, because things - as verbs - have their own life and autonomy and agency, while a noun-heavy language seems to objectify everything. So yeah, I think you're right. The violence of enclosure gets coded into language. It also makes me think of those memes that show some shambles and say "my brain isn't braining..." The dubious verb-form "braining" gives the brain its own life and says that it might refuse to follow the program.. it might do something I wasn't expecting: objects of knowledge becoming autonomous and obstinate...
I'm thinking of a van Morrison song "inarticulate speech of the heart" - perhaps the apophatic is not so much interested in words but the heart's expression of love in action. I don't know if I invented the term but "pure action" describes a perfect synchronisation of heart and act where the mind has minimum input.
I've heard it said that the only real thinking we do is when we don't know what to think. No mention of good or bad. Rejecting nothing.