Monday, July 14, 2008

I like reading blogs better than writing one...

yeah, that's what I've figured out. I've recently been spending more time on my laptop because I've been reading blogs, but I definitely haven't been doing a good job posting on mine. :-l In particular, I've been reading the leader of my church, Derek's (www.desertfather.com), and Brian McLaren's (www.brainmclaren.net), in addition to checking up on the Jesus For President tour (www.jesusforpresident.org/blog) and Sojourners (www.sojo.net).

I'm not quite sure what to publish in a post on my blog right now because I have a lot running around in my head. I could chronicle my daily life this summer and all my babysitting experiences, but that would be boring to read for most people...or I could write about my rather difficult, but somewhat enjoyable weekend up in Pennsylvania for my great-grandfather's funeral...or I could try to summarize all that I've been learning and how I've been growing and changing this summer, but that would take forever, plus, I would never be satisfied with what I could write about it. I can never distill those kinds of things to writing...there's too much mystery...things I'm still wondering about. And I know that I should be able to articulate my basic, foundational beliefs (and I can), but I'm not sure that it's a good thing to be able to write down or express with words everything you hold dear and are passionate about, because most of that passion just can't be expressed with mere words, and it gets cheapened when you try, or at least when I do. So I'll probably just finish this post with one of my current favorite quotes...it's from G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, but I read it in Brian McLaren's book A Generous Orthodoxy when he quotes it in the chapter "Why I am Mystical/Poetic":

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do...

Poetry is sane because it floats easily on an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion...

The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits...

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who had lost everything except his reason...

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have the mystery, you have health; when you destroy the mystery you create morbidity.


And by Gregory of Nyssa:
Only wonder understands,
Concepts create idols.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I like your inclusion about the comparison between poet's and logicians. Being a freelance poet myself and a computer science/philosophy major I find the fine line between both areas of my mental musings to be abrasive at times and complementary at best.

I tend to read blogs more than I write to my own also. I've got like 4 blogs, with hardly any consistent updates, but I read blogs 24/7.