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In United States at least we use phrase like “I am a person of habit!” So for example at certain food establishments I always eat salmon. I always mow my lawn on Sunday. My habit is to read the Obits and the Comics. Habits are not seen as rituals albeit they are.
Rituals, are reserved for particular space or concepts– the Lord’s Prayer is a ritual and can be dry, where the fact that I always have sex on Tuesday at 9 pm is not a ritual but a habit. Ritual holds all the formative negative power whereas habit is just who and what I do.
In my work with student ritual and habit are seen as very different constructs– even though they are not in social or psychological concepts.
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Can you think of any stories from your nation’s history that are being told differently because the perspective of the victim is being included? What other stories might be awaiting revision? Perhaps you can think of stories now in the news that
Most Native peoples stories blame the victim. Slavery story! The way we related to Mexico and the drug trade etc. Interesting enough even the fair labor conversations end up blaming the victim.
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Why does James say that we are right to feel queasy about stories in the Bible such as the stoning of Achan?
They are built around a scapegoat model. We should feel uncomfortable with them at some level.
Did you feel queasy?
No!
Why or why not?
I have been working through the work of Girard, Williams and Alison for many many years. I suspect I simply do not read the stories with the same emphasis as many.
Imagine that the story you identified in Unit 2, “Reading Scripture through new eyes,” was one of the stories that Jesus interpreted on the road to Emmaus. Where might you listen for the unheard voice of the Forgiving Victim in that story?
I do not remember the story I used.
Somehow Joshua and the Israelites’ belief in their own goodness survived the stoning, preventing them from including Achan’s perspective in their account of the event. What stories do we tell about our own goodness that prevent us from including the unheard voice of the Achans among us?
I actually think the entire narrative of the United States is built on a scapegoating theoretical constructions.
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Because I have never read the stories as absolute history or thought of the stories as actual event/ historical happenings I am most often not disturbed by the stories of the Old Testament. However, if I were to be disturbed it would be by those that propose some form of phantasm or extravagance. For example, I find myself listening to the story of Job or Jonah.
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Do you wish that Luke had included everything that Jesus told the disciples on the Emmaus road?
Wishing on something that is not seems to me to be a futile question. I am not sure it matters what I wish in light of what is and is not.
What stories from the Old Testament would you like Jesus to explain?
I honestly have never thought about wanting Jesus to explain stories. I suspect it is because I see his life as an unfolding of those stories.
As the disciples heard Jesus interpret all the Scriptures, they knew they were hearing the truth about themselves and their history. James says they were being “re-narrated into being”.
What might it means to discover that perhaps our stories about ourselves are not completely truthful!
The disciples seemed to react positively – do you think that would be your reaction to being “re-narrated into being”?Again, I have never believe that all the stories I understand or believe about myself are anything more than interpretations. I am not sure I am getting this line of questioning.
James says that the structure of Eucharist is the memory of a third person, out there, coming in to disturb you. How might understanding Eucharist/Communion this way change our experience and practice of it?
This section on the Eucharist is very powerful. How the Eucharist comes into the presence reality is essential for the church today.
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When you are the host, what gift or experience do you hope to give to your guests?
The host is concerned with order, time, preparation, taste, quality and comfort. The gift that the host brings is one of ease of association. While the host may be hurried, it is the host requirement that the guest feel a sense of flow and ease.
What is the experience of being a guest like?
For guest the question is about accepting the condition of being guest. It is the guest condition to be comforted. To be fed without plan etc….
How is it different from that of a host?
Work
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I have spent most of today thinking about time and how my life is narrated via time and via timeliness. As a clergy person and University professor meetings, schedules etc.. . . make the essential essence of my life. I am time bound and time laden. As a time bound and time laden creature I begin to exist within the relational categories that also are submitted to my timing.
For example, students, colleagues, laity etc. who see themselves within my timeliness.
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What might it mean for us to be listening to the unheard voice in the midst of confusing and traumatic events in our own communities or society?
Working with young adults who are college students as well as their parents makes such a question very difficult. Unheard voice is a category that I often feel but know that their is a voice that is unheard that is different than myself. I will think about this awhile and come back to it if I can.
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James used the term “hermeneutic” at the opening of this module. Do you recall what that word means?
Hermeneutics in their formal definition is a means by which we either study or proceed through a set of information or evidence or text etc….
What hermeneutic have you used or been taught to use for reading Scripture?
I was taught the Historical Critical Method as well as some post-modernist methods of interpretation. In this methods the text lays somewhat dry and hollow.
What do you think is the difference between asking about the Bible “What does the text say?” and “How do you read it?”
I actually this the second question is the essential question. How one reads has everything to do with how one communications and how one is read.
Does it help or hinder your approach to reading the Bible to place importance on the hermeneutic, or method of interpretation?
I would not actually want to place importance on a specific reading or methodology of reading but I think what is being asked here, is precisely what I have been doing. Does the reading process and the being read process interact in your personhood.
How does the role of the one reading change when the emphasis is on the question, “How do you read it?”
How is different than what! Put simply the position changes.
Have you had experiences in which you felt you had received a communication from God? Did you trust it, doubt it, or seek help in understanding it from anyone?
NO! I have to be honest I am not convinced God at this time exist. I cannot say I have ever heard, seen or experienced God in a concrete physical way. That just is not something that seems to be in my card deck at this time.
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share your favorite news sources. Can you defend your news source as “objective”? How would you describe its editorial bias?
NPR is my primary news source— it is biased and I know it and as a general rule I agree with the bias it has. I also read internet stories but don’t actually think of them as news, I watch very little TV. On local issues I rely on the town gossip to be my source of information.
I do this the conversation between information and news could be very helpful
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share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your lives.
Who makes me who I am and how I came to have the particular way of looking at the world is a constant question. Likewise, as I have been living alone these past three years (post divorce) I have had to learn how to figure out who the other is— so often I am completely alone and the other is not as clear as it once was.
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James describes our memories as being constructed from our attempts to start to tell a story about ourselves.
What memories play an important role in your story?
Church in childhood, meeting my ex-wife, birth of children, growth of children, near death of a child, work with students at University, learning to be honest about my self, divorce, fatherhood as a single man,
What truth do those memories convey about you?
Aloneness– the truths about myself, which are often constructed truths are rooted in my aloneness.
James says that we are “revisionist historians” and that that’s a good thing. What did he mean by that?
Our narratives are evolutionary and interpreted. There is no such thing as pure history- all history has the lens of experience and emotion.
How does the account you give about yourself today differ from the one you gave 5, 10 or 20 years ago?
I talk of being single! I am far more creative than I have ever thought out myself in the past.
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: why might God want to gift us with some revisions to our current story of goodness?
I think the predominant story of the Latin West is a dangerous story. It is story wrapped up in the dualism of good and evil. I cannot image God is too awfully happy with how we have interpreted the creation narrative.
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Good people are good because they…”
I think that is a funny way to begin a statement. However, good people are good precisely because goodness is what they were created to be. It might be just as interesting to suggest that bad people are good because. . . .. That is, who determines the narrative, who tells the story. If the gift that we receive is a definition of ourselves does goodness come because of how we receive the gift— I think not— goodness is the essence of the gift—- our reception of it doesn’t define anything more than our character but not our essence.
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