In my previous post, I mentioned that the teacher’s role was not to colonize the student’s brain in hopes of creating a perfect clone. This, in my view, is a dysfunctional student-teacher relationship.

Rather, I’d like to promote diversity and independent thinking.

A young mind is so malleable. As a teacher, I have the opportunity to leave a lasting impression on a student. These impressions can come in many shapes or forms: academic, professional, personal, etc. An impression is a two-way street made up both of what I am trying to convey (the message) and how the student receives or interprets that message. Therefore, I am not in complete control of the impression that I make on a given student. This is obvious enough when I walk into my classroom every day. Some students love me; others deplore me. Am I treating those students that love me any differently? Probably not.¹ As a teacher, I am putting signals out there; it is up to the student to receive and interpret. How they receive and interpret is completely out of my hands.

This brings me to today’s thought experiment:

Creating Diversity and Difference.

Excuse the following theoretical digression. It’s going somewhere, I promise.

Personally, I believe that an author is only in partial control over the meaning that is put into a text. The author can try and try and try to create an exact sense of meaning that expresses 100% of his/her thought, but at some point the conversation must be completed by the reader. The text reaches its full, but not complete,² meaning at the point in which reader and author connect via this shared experience.³ Both reader and author are working together to produce meaning.

The classroom is a text. Under traditional models of teaching, the teacher would be considered the author and the students are the readers. As the teacher attempts to convey monolithic meaning, the students receive and interpret the monolith in their own ways through their own viewpoints. Thus, if I have 15 students, then 16 of us are producing meaning: 1 author + 15 readers = 16 makers or meaning.

That’s quite a few viewpoints, and, no doubt, there will be diverse thoughts and opinions. However, in this model, who is able to benefit from those diverse viewpoints? Only one person: the teacher who is the only one hearing all viewpoints. So, from the student’s vantage, only one actual meaning has been produced: the conversation between a particular student and teacher. If we are student-focused in our educational modeling, then we must agree that this model does not afford the student the opportunity to hear from multiple viewpoints. In fact, depending on the student’s academic and mental acumen and leanings, this model in effect creates one monolithic teaching from the student’s vantage.

How then do we overcome this? How do we create an environment in which a student can take advantage of more than one production of meaning? The answer is obvious: open up the text to more authors. If we have 16 people coexisting in the classroom, then it is possible for the student to be participating as a reader/receiver in 15 different conversations at a time as the students publish thoughts through various means (discussion, blogs, message boards, etc.). In this model, an incredible amount of difference is being created. Because meaning is really the product of a handshake between reader and author, each student would be considering 15 different conversations, meaning that there is potential for 225 different interpretations of the classroom-text.⁴

OK. So, we can open up the text, allowing students to take part both as author and reader. Great. What’s the point? How does this serve the student? Is it constructive or chaotic? That’s the next topic…

Footnotes

1. Or, if I am, it is not an intentional, conscious decision to do so, and I apologize to all.
2. Meaning is never really “complete.” This business is always unfinished and imperfect.
3. Apologies to my friends out there who find me too postmodern.
4. In reality, there will be fewer as many students will produce meanings that are similar enough to be considered “same.” But, you get the idea, right?

During a report titled “Aid Begins to Work Its Way Into Haiti” last Thursday, January 14th, NPR’s Jason Beaubien lost composure while describing a little girl that he was watching as she awaited medical attention. Here’s the excerpt from the official transcript of Beaubien’s conversation with Melissa Block of All Things Considered:

BLOCK: NPR’s Jason Beaubien joins us from Port-au-Prince. Jason, describe where you are right now, please, and what you’re seeing.

JASON BEAUBIEN: Right now I’m outside the Villa Creole Hotel, which is in the Petionville neighborhood – an elite neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. And it’s really quite amazing, people have brought their injured children out front here because they know that there are medical – Western medical doctors staying inside. So, people have come here to try to get attention for – mainly for their children. There’s a girl – I’m sorry. There’s a girl right in front of me at the moment. She’s covered in bandages. She’s laying on just some – what are they – they’re from the deck chairs that would be by the pool. She’s naked except for what looks like a tablecloth on top of her. And she keeps lifting her head and her lips are shaking.

(Soundbite of crowd)

BEAUBIEN: Sorry, Melissa.

BLOCK: That’s okay.

BEAUBIEN: It’s heartbreaking what’s happening here. And there are people just in the streets everywhere. When you drive through, there are tent cities that have been sort of set up just in little lots. People are clearly just living wherever they can.

BLOCK: Jason, the girl you just described, is she getting any medical attention there?

BEAUBIEN: She clearly has gotten some medical attention because there are fresh bandages on her. And there are other people who are getting medical attention. But the numbers are just so huge that there are people who are waiting for attention. There’s clearly the expectation that there are people who are still trapped in some of these buildings.

BLOCK: Does the girl have any family there with her, do you know?

BEAUBIEN: I assume that she has family here, but it’s really quite striking. She’s lying out in what would just normally be the driveway and there’s no one around her.

The following day on All Things Considered, the hosts read mail from listeners commenting on Beaubien’s report. Some wrote in to say how unprofessional Beaubien was. A reporter should never lose composure, but should remain objective and not get involved in the story. By losing composure, Beaubien had become an embarrassment to the field of journalism.

I suppose the people that wrote this are Vulcans or something. The censure reserved for Beaubien by these emotionless people surprised me. Go to the link above and listen to Beaubien as he describes the little girl’s quivering lip. How can you listen to that and then get upset with Beaubien’s inability to hold it together?

My reaction to his report was quite different than this Vulcan reaction. It came in two waves:

1. A Recognition of the Human Situation. Up to this point, the tragedy in Haiti had been little more than words to me. I have not really looked at images of the devastation, nor have I seen video. Instead, I’ve just heard radio reports. This was the first time that I really felt something, the first time that I was really touched. While Beaubien’s broken voice dripped with pathos, I began to understand exactly what was going on here. This was not Geraldo at the Superdome ripping children from the arms of their mothers in what looked like a horribly transparent attempt to gain viewers and publicity. No, this was an objective, professional reporter putting a human face on a situation for a national radio audience.
2. I Grew Angry. Here I am, driving home from work and listening to Beaubien’s report from the comfort of my vehicle. There’s nothing for me to do but cook dinner, read a little bit, and then head to bed. The only way that I can aid this situation might be to send money as I don’t possess any skills that would make me useful there. I’m no doctor, I’m no lawyer. Now I’m listening to Beaubien breaking up as he tells me about a girl that is sitting right in front of him. A girl in need of family, love, medicine, attention. I’m selfishly soaking it up and sympathizing for the child. What I want Beaubien to do is put down the microphone and take her to a doctor or just hold her so that that lip stops quivering. “Jason, put the mic down!” I yell at the radio, but Melissa Block keeps asking him question. Why? Because he’s a reporter and that’s what he’s supposed to do.

Don’t tell me Beaubien is not a professional.

So, where do we go from here? Estimated death tolls are now reaching into six figures, meaning that a large percentage of the Haitian capital’s inhabitants have perished, and that this disaster could go down as the second worst in history just behind the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. What can I do other than listen to reporters and pray? I’m helpless and powerless and that annoys me.

Now we come it: colonizing the student. What do I mean by that?

As I mentioned earlier, I think that the relationship between teacher and student could, in dysfunctional situations, be compared to the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized.

As the teacher, I represent the colonizer, an imposing powerful force who comes on the scene prepared to exercise my hegemonic privilege. I am the dictator who controls what happens in the classroom. Every word that they read has been vetted by my censors and every word they write comes under my careful and exacting scrutiny. With the stroke of my pen, I have the ability to enact legislation that can doom the poor, oppressed student to what seems like an eternity of academic servitude. This is the power I wield.

The student, on the other hand, has little autonomy once she enters the door of my classroom. She can do nothing but wilt under the pressures of my potency. I can subdue her will and force her to perform academic feats that meet my approval. My goal: To make her think exactly as I think.

This is the dysfunction. Why would I want a student to think like me?

I recall attending a church service back in high school when I was a “pagan”¹ The fellow leading the Bible study that morning, Lyle, was a middle-aged, red-haired gentleman who was nice enough. At one point during the study,² Lyle asks, “Wouldn’t the world be great if everyone thought exactly like you do?” I snickered, but he was serious. “How wonderful would it be if we all believed the same thing?” I answered by telling him that I thought it would be awful.

I don’t marvel at a snowflake because it is exactly like all the other snowflakes.

I don’t go to the Rocky Mountains and wish that every mountain looked the same.

I don’t look at a collection of clouds and hope that they all morph into the same shape.

Beauty in nature is not found in similarity but difference. Most people would hold this to be true. It’s incredible to us that there are millions of species of insects. Just insects! Not to mention all of the other types of animals. Everyone has different fingerprints, different smells, different different different.

So, why in the world would I want my students to think exactly as I do? Why would I want to impose my own thought patterns on them? If the beauty of the world is expressed in variety rather than similarity, shouldn’t the beauty of my classroom mirror that?

Unfortunately, I think that this is exactly what many teachers do. They come on strong, their brains invading the minds of their students with a powerful case of “shock and awe.” Once their borders have crumbled, the teacher begins to setup an infrastructure in the students’ minds. The teacher then fosters little gray matter clones with synapses that fire in exactly the same fashion so as to reproduce patterns.

These are the machinations not of a teacher but an ideologue, a diviner and desirer and devotee of dogma.

This is what I mean by colonizing the student: placing the student in the position of the “other” and then seeking to conquer her mind by whatever means necessary. I think there is another way, a better way. There is a reason that universities consider diversity a key initiative. While some may think that this is simply a marketing ploy because “diversity” is the academic buzz word du jour, I do not. I think there is something to very different minds from very different molds getting together and communicating.

Diversity. That’s part 4. Stay tuned, please.

Footnotes

1. NB: Not my term. I hate that word. I hate the us vs. them paradigm that it imposes on my thoughts. But, that’s what they called me! Now that I think of it, maybe my hatred for this term has something to do with my hatred of that experience.
2. By the way, I have no idea what the study was actually about.

The previous post ended with this question:

“What is my job as an educator in a pluralistic community? What is the teacher to do?”

What I should do is create opportunities for the student to learn.

The student’s brain is traveling down a dark road, and the teacher’s hope is to entice it to make a stop at some intersection and buy some goods, some snacks for the road. Occasionally, it will stop in for a full meal or maybe stay the night in one of the roadside motels. We put the student in front of our favorite authors, our favorite thinkers, our favorite teachers, the people and ideas that challenged and stretched us, and ask them to tell us what they think about it. This is the bait. If we get a nibble, we’re usually pleased. If we get a real bite and then we’re able to reel them in, then we’re really jazzed.

Mixed metaphors aside, education in my view is providing opportunities for students to gain enlightenment. My hope is always that students will find some different take on a piece that makes me re-examine it in a new light. This happened recently when my junior English class examined the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” as we studied McCarthyism and The Crucible. Here are the lyrics to the performance of the song that is found on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3:

Well, I was feelin’ sad and kind’a blue,
I didn’t know what I was a-gonna do,
Them Communists wus a-comin’ around,
They wus in the air,
They wus on the ground.
They wus all over.

So I run down most hurriedly
And joined the John Birch Society,
got me a secret membership card
And went back home to the yard,
Started lookin’ on the sidewalk,
under the hedges.

Well, I got up in the mornin’ ‘n’ looked under my bed,
I wus lookin’ every place for them gol-darned Reds.
Looked behind the sink, and under the floor,
Looked in the glove compartment of my car.
Couldn’t find any . . .

Looked behind the clothes, behind my chair
lookin’ for them reds everywhere
looked up my chimney hole,
even deep down inside my toilet bowl,
They got away . . .

I heard some foot-steps by the front porch door,
so I grabbed my shot-gun from the floor.
Snuck around the house with a huff and a hiss,
saying “Hands up, you communist!”
It was the mailman.
He punched me out.

Well, I wus sittin’ home alone an’ started to sweat,
Figured they wus in my T.V. set.
I peeked behind the picture frame,
Got a shock from my feet that hit my brain.
Them Reds did it!
Hootenanny Television . . .

Well, I quit my job so I could work alone,
got a magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes.
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered: red stripes on the American flag!
Betsy Ross . . .

Now Eisenhower, he’s a Russian spy,
Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy.
To my knowledge there’s just one man
That’s really and truly American:
That’s George Lincoln Rockwell.
I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movieExodus.

Well, I fin’ly started thinkin’ straight
When I run outa things to investigate.
Couldn’t imagine nothing else,
So now I’m home investigatin’ myself!
Hope I don’t find out too much . . . Good God!

For many years I’d viewed these lyrics in a rather straightforward fashion. Here was Dylan lampooning the idiocy and paranoia created by the John Birch Society’s search for communists, especially among members of the Civil Rights movement.

One of my students, however, focused on the last verse, which I had never thought about that much. Specifically, the student focused in on these two lines:

“So now I’m home investigatin’ myself!
Hope I don’t find out too much . . . Good God!”

The student went on to explain how the John Birch member was truly opposed to a critical self-examination. He’s investigating himself, but his real hope is that he won’t find out too much. Aren’t we all like that? Don’t we all look into ourselves and think what the John Birch member thought: “Good God!”? The need for introspection and self-examination is sometimes outweighed by the fear that we have regarding what we might find.

I thought this was a really excellent point that augmented my appreciation and understanding of the piece.

That was a success story. Often, however, things are less successful, and that is where this series of thoughts is headed. My biggest fear is that the relationship between student and teacher will turn into the relationship between colonizer and colonized, that I will force my views upon them and not give them an opportunity to think things through for themselves and share their own views.

I really don’t want to impose my worldview upon a student and cause them to fear thinking differently.

In the next couple of posts, I’ll be exploring that idea a little more in-depth.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about educational theory. As I’ve been doing this, I’ve been reading a variety of essays about race and class struggles as well as some texts dealing with genocide and imperialism in Africa. Perhaps an odd combination when it comes to thinking about students…

What really got me going was the idea of cultural imperialism and cultural hegemony that came to mind while reading Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me” in which he discusses some difficulties he had growing up on a reservation where being book smart wasn’t prized by his peers. Specifically, I became interested in the way that Superman serves as an important symbol for Alexie. This thoroughly patriotic, thoroughly American, thoroughly white, yet thoroughly alien savior would bust down the doors and help Alexie free himself from the chains of the reservation. How strange that a man who seems quite proud of his Spokane Indian heritage would seek to liberate his fellow tribesmen by asking them to assent to the cultural norms and expectations of whites.

Like it or not, we are living in a postcolonial¹ situation here in the United States. reading Alexie’s essay made this very real to me. As I am not a postcolonial theorist, I can’t begin to relate the history of scholarship on this topic, but I hope to just roll through this as a thought experiment. How has the Euro-American, colonial attitude infected the classroom? How has it infected my classroom?

To think about this, I feel that we must begin at the beginning, and consider some very basic questions. As I read Alexie’s words on the joys of reading and his desire to help the Spokane learn to feel that same joy, I began to think, “What is my job as an educator in a pluralistic community? What is the teacher to do?”

Part 2 of this series will look at that question a little more in-depth.

Footnotes

1. I realize that this particular word is a minefield. At this moment, I don’t wish to unpack it. However, I do hope to spend some time parsing out Alexie’s educational history as presented in this essay. At that point, I’ll hit the postcolonial thing a bit more. For now, check out wikipedia: “Poscolonialism.”

As mentioned previously, I am working through some hermeneutical issues, and, thanks to Merold Westphal, I am particularly interested in the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer. In reading Westphal, I came across this quote from Gadamer’s Truth And Method:

To reach an understanding in a dialogue is not merely a matter of putting oneself forward and successfully asserting one’s own point of view, but being transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were.¹

This quote comes from a section in which Gadamer is likening the art of interpretation to conversation. As such, I find it appropriate to think about in the light of Harkness.

Because Harkness, at its core, is about self-discovery and conversation, students interpreting a text on their own and sharing their ideas with each other, I found Gadamer’s idea of conversation to be enlightening. Sitting at the Harkness table, our goal should not be to lord our superior opinions over those of our neighbors. Rather, we should seek understanding.

The first step in this process is to be assertive and put forward our thoughts. The process toward understanding does not end here, however, nor does it end with a successful defense of our own thoughts. Instead, the next step is to enter into communion with our interlocutors in hopes of understanding all points of view. The end result is not necessarily a consensus, though sometimes it may be. Instead, the result is that we are changed by this communion. We have successfully listened, heard, and understood those around the table, and we have come away changed by the experience.

Footnotes

1. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth And Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, 2nd ed. (New York: Crossroad, 2004), 371. Thanks to Merold Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation?: Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009) for pointing me in that direction.

Yesterday, Jack Wisdom preached a challenging sermon at Ecclesia. With his usual comedic bravado and bluster, Jack laid out Paul’s situation and the situation of Thessaloniki at the time of the writing of 1 Thessalonians. He then looked at 1 Thessalonians 1:2–10, focusing on three action verbs found in vv. 9 and 10: ἐπιστρέφω, δουλεύω, ἀναμένω — turn, serve, wait.

Turn = Faith

1 Thess 1:9 commends the Thessalonian believers for turning from idols toward God. In its original context, the “idols” that Paul refers to are probably the various Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc., gods that were commonly worshipped. The Thessalonian believers had eschewed the like of Isis and company in favor of the “living God.” They had completed a U-turn and begun to follow Jesus.

Jack equated this idea of the turn with faith.

The Thessalonians had put their faith in Jesus in a radical way. They were not willing to simply put Jesus into their religious cart alongside a host of other gods, but had acknowledged that he was the God.

In 21st century America, we don’t very often  deal with idols in the overt sense that the early followers of Jesus did. Sure, old school idols still exist, but, for the most part, these idols have been exchanged for new ones: sex, money, power. Jack pointed out that these three things aren’t really bad in and of themselves. Instead, it’s our slavish devotion to them, our bondage to them, that gives them a bad rap. We are so easily seduced.

For many of us (and I don’t mind putting myself into this category), the day-to-day of Christian life is lived out in devotion to multiple gods: Jesus/Yahweh and some combination of the these modern American idols. Living in this way is not to be commended, and it’s not what Paul is describing in his Thessalonian friends.

Instead, these people had a true faith that had consumed their whole being. They had turned their entire selves away from idols and had begun to follow the living and loving God.

Turn = Faith

Serve = Love

Next Jack looked at this portion of 1 Thess 1:9 that says that these believers, after they turned from idols, served the living God.

Service meant to do for others. Service meant slavish devotion. Service meant love.

It’s cliché now, but it fits: love is a verb. For Jack, this notion of serving the living God meant loving others, making the Kingdom a reality amongst the least.

For me, I look at the root of the verb “to serve” in Greek, δουλ-, and I see “slave.” At various times, I have talked about bondage and slavery as it relates to Paul. I do believe that this is the way we should probably translate the word δοῦλος in Romans 1:1 — slave. At the end of the day, you’re going to have to serve somebody (thanks Mr. Dylan); you’re going to have to submit yourself to a king, to a god, to an idol, to something. As a non-god, I am subservient and beholden to someone or something.

The Christian life requires that I turn from those somethings and sell myself to the someone.

When I do that, I’ll be in service to what God requires. What God requires above all is love.

Serve = Love

Wait = Hope

Finally, we move into 1 Thess 1:10, and we see that these Thessalonian believers not only turned and served, but they also waited.

This is where the waters get murky for me. This is where this sermon becomes truly challenging. This is where I am derailed.

Wait.

Why wait?

I am not by nature a very patient person. I like things here and now. If I know that something good is on the horizon, I want to experience it now. If I know that something ugly is on the horizon, I want to experience it now. It doesn’t matter. I want it now.

Okay, okay, okay…patience is a virtue, so I’m told.

Wait for what?

Here’s the thing: what is it that I’m waiting for? The Thessalonians, according to Paul, were waiting for the Song of God to come from Heaven and deliver them from the wrath to come.

Honestly, I don’t really know what I think about the parousia or the second coming. I haven’t done enough thinking on it to decide how I feel about it. But, I do know that this idea sounds extremely nice: Jesus who delivers us from wrath. That certainly applies. And that deliverance from wrath is certainly something to hope for.

Wait = Hope

And that’s the rub for me! When I do a little self-examination, I realize that I am unacquainted with the idea of hope. I can look at little portions of my life and find some hopefulness here and there, but overall, I don’t think I really know what hope means.

Why not?

Let’s look at what Paul has to say elsewhere:

…[W]e rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3–5, ESV)

Perhaps I haven’t experienced profound hope because I haven’t experienced true suffering. Without suffering, I haven’t developed character, and without character, I have not produced hope.

This is my fervent prayer for 2010:

Lord, show me the meaning of hope. Pour out your spirit, the greatest of gifts, on me and help me to experience hope, not in the plain, overused sense that we Americans use the term, but in its full and rich meaning.

God, if this means that I must come to understand suffering, then let it be. I know that I am suffering even now in separation from you, but I have found ways to medicate myself, ways to stop the pain. I have allowed the numbing effects of this world (e.g., media addiction) to stand between me and suffering and hope and joy and you.

Jesus, strip me of my pretensions, found in me your Kingdom, and help me to understand what it means to turn, serve, and wait.

Christmas 2009 has come and gone. I’ll admit that I was a bit of a Scrooge this year. The Christmas Spirit never really captured me; instead, I focused on the consumerism of the season and lamented the fact that many of us (and I include myself here) can become so fixated on the Me.

Now that it’s over, I must say that I am very thankful to have received some Amazon gift cards. A while ago, I was given a Kindle by some good friends at Friendswood Community Church in appreciation for the Bible Study that I’d taught there for several years. So, these gift cards were especially welcome.

Last evening I surfed around the Kindle Store, and I found a book that I am very happy to be reading: Whose Community? Which Interpretation?: Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church by Merold Westphal (his latest, I believe).

At the moment, I have read only the first chapter, “Hermeneutics 101,” which asks this crucial question: “Can interpretation be avoided?”

What is particularly interesting about Westphal’s project here is audience. He casts a very wide net, intentionally, by targeting anyone who reads the Bible: scholar, pastor, lay person. Consequently, the style of the book is somewhere in between. He regularly brings up other philosophers (Kant, Plato, Wittgenstein, etc.), but always explains what he means when he uses them. Therefore, the book is challenging but accessible (so far).

During his exposition of the topic, Westphal brings up an interesting poem as one of three examples of ambiguity and multiplicity:

There were six men of Hindustan,
to learning much inclined,
Who went to see an elephant,
though all of them were blind,
That each by observation
might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant,
and happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
at once began to bawl,
“This mystery of an elephant
is very like a wall.”

The second, feeling of the tusk,
cried, “Ho, what have we here,
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an elephant
is very like a spear.”

The third approached the elephant,
and happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
thus boldly up and spake,
“I see,” quoth he,
“the elephant is very like a snake.”

The fourth reached out an eager hand,
and felt above the knee,
“What this most wondrous beast
is like is very plain” said he,
“‘Tis clear enough the elephant
is very like a tree.”

The fifth who chanced to touch the ear
said, “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
deny the fact who can;
This marvel of an elephant
is very like a fan.”

The sixth no sooner had begun
about the beast to grope,
Than seizing on the swinging tail
that fell within his scope;
“I see,” said he, “the elephant
is very like a rope.”

So six blind men of Hindustan
disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
exceeding stiff and strong;
Though each was partly in the right,
they all were in the wrong!¹

For Westphal, this poem represents the way in which we humans attack a text like the Bible. Many communities believe that they can approach the text and “just see” what it means — the meaning is expressly encoded and is easily accessible to anyone who simply looks at it. These communities, however, are akin to one of the blind men approaching the elephant. The community is blinded by the socialization that has created the prejudices that allow them to “just see” their particular meaning. What they are really doing is interpreting, whether they like to admit it or not, just as the blind men feel one aspect of the elephant and build their interpretation from it.

I have started to explore these notions in a previous post called “Multiplex God.” There I looked at the idea of multiplicity, specifically the transmission of several messages along one single line of communication.² Isn’t this really what we’re talking about here with the blind men and the elephant? The elephant is transmitting several messages about itself (size, shape, etc.) along one single line of communication (its body), but the blind men are each honing in on a single message.

Don’t we do this all the time? Don’t we hone in on our understanding of a given topic without considering all of the other possibilities?

In a previous post, I talked about the virtues of ambiguity.³ There I discussed our attraction to the unknown and how that unknown or unknowability causes us to continue to explore. As I read Westphal, I realize, however, that when it comes to interpreting the Word of God, many of us become scared of the unknown. We feel that the Bible should have a plain-sense, cut-and-dry interpretation and we should be able to know what it all means.

Isn’t this nonsense? If we even begin to make that claim, aren’t we one of the blind hindustani?

Why must we embrace the ambiguous? Because it is multiplex. God is many and one — this is the Christian mystery, three-in-one. God, from a limited human perspective, is ambiguous in many ways, and so is His Word. God is multiplex, and so is His Word.

Consequently, different people, different communities, are going to see God and the Bible differently. What’s wrong with that?

Allow me to make two more items very clear:

1. I am not at all saying that any and all interpretations or understandings of God are true/good/correct. No, some are going to be crap.
2. I am not at all saying that God is changeable or changing. No, I firmly believe that He was, is, and ever shall be just the same.⁴

Okay. I’ve written enough for now. Back to playing with my Christmas toys.

Footnotes

1. Neither I nor Westphal could find any attribution for this poem. Call its author anonymous.
2. Thank you, Oxford American Dictionary.
3. See “Embracing Ambiguity.”
4. I must admit that my brain wants to backpedal on this some: Doesn’t the incarnation change things? At the moment, however, I am not prepared to abandon this doctrine.

Recently I was watching an Art 21 episode that featured American photographer Sally Mann. Mann is probably best known for her 8×10 glass plate portraits of her children as they grew up (my personal favorite being “Candy Cigarette” pictured at right). During the episode, as Mann worked on photographs of rawhide dog bones, she attempted to describe what it was that she loved about the project (which to my art-dumb eyes seemed rather odd). During this interview, Mann said something that really struck me:

“If it doesn’t have ambiguity, don’t bother…”

She goes on to talk about the mendacity of photography, but honestly I stopped listening for two reasons:

1. First, I felt like it was an incredibly pretentious thing to say.
2. Then, as I rolled it around a little more, I realized that I loved it.

What keeps me coming back to the things that I love? It’s almost always the unknown. I love God and the Bible precisely because there is so much I don’t know. I love my favorite writers because they leave me asking questions or wanting more (I’m thinking Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for example).

Ambiguity is a tool for creating the unknown. Look again at “Candy Cigarette” above. What is really going on here. Sure, there’s the obvious focus of the photograph: the girl with the candy cigarette. We can ask what’s going on with her, and wonder about her attitudes. Is she a pre-pubescent rebel? How is it that she seems to be able to hold that candy cigarette in such an adult fashion? Moving beyond her, however, we have even more questions. E.g., what’s with the kid on the stilts? We could interpret this photograph in so many ways. Is Mann trying to say that children grow up too fast? Or is she saying the opposite? It’s ambiguous; it’s unknown.

As a writer and a historian, I’ve found that I always want to know things completely. If I’m working on a historical project, I want to be able to give that “thick description”¹ that will leave my audience thinking two things:

1. Hebert is thorough.
2. Hebert is right.

But, in the art of history, as well as in the art of Biblical interpretation and theology, isn’t there something to be said for the old Broadway adage: “Leave ‘em wanting more”?

The truth, if we’re intellectually honest, is that we don’t know it all. Our access to the past is mediated. There’s a thousand layers of dust between us and the people, places, and events that fascinate us.²

Why pretend to know them completely and fully? Isn’t it the unknown that has attracted us? Why do we think that our readers and students will be fascinated without that same sense of the unknown? Aren’t we insulting their intelligence when we attempt to pull the wool over their eyes and claim that we’ve got the answer?

Always leave ‘em wanting more…

Footnotes

1. Thank you, Mr. Geertz.
2. I’m sure I’ve made this point on this blog before. I also recently made it in the comments on a post about Harkness teaching over at Eddie Carson’s blog.

A recent interview in DIVINITY Magazine with Duke NT scholar Joel Marcus reminded me of this quote from George Orwell:

My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, “I am going to produce a work of art.” I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.¹

How true these words are!

I have many times sat down to write a fantastic short story or the great American novel with the “work of art” mentality that kills. Every stroke of the pen, every clack of the keyboard is met with ultimate frustration as you begin to measure yourself by the standards of Hemingway, Faulkner, O’Connor, et al. You realize that your genius is insignificant compared to the literary giants that inspire you. As the light of their blazing suns engulfs you, you realize that you are but a candle being jostled by the winds of self-consciousness: “Give up now, Stephen,” the wind says.

Orwell’s point is well taken. At the end of the day, writing, like any work of art, can’t come from a desire to be great, but a need to create. If there is no need deep within your soul, then you’re just wasting everybody’s time — especially your own.

A friend of mine teaches Math at a high school here in the Houston area. He embodies this “need” mentality. Currently, he is working on a book about the beauty of mathematics, the poetry. His hopes lie not in trying to create a stunning piece of art, but in his need to communicate the rage that burns inside him — he is fed up with students who think that math is only useful if you are going into engineering or some other mathematics intensive field. He must communicate to people what it means to think mathematically; he must help them to see the value in simply learning it. He is writing out of need.

So, fickle Muse, in this dearth of inspiration, amidst the doldrums of imagination I know you lurk burning with a desire and a need to communicate and expose. Will you find your way into my head and on to my page?

Footnotes

1. Read Orwell’s full essay: “Why I Write.”