An interesting perspective of God. I grew up in a household and religious community in which everything was black or white -- either one extreme, or another. No in-between. No middle ground. No compromising. Compromise was the dirty c-word. My way or the highway.
The rhetoric of exclusion, rather than the message of truth, it seems.
But I also think that sometimes things would be simpler if they were indeed black or white -- if right and wrong were really two distinct polarities. How much more peaceful life would be if everything didn't merge into a murky gray film. But such is life, and it's the grayness of life that keeps us alive, I think -- that ensures that we remain in dialogue, and that we have differences.
Who can blame people for trying to simplify their lives? I can't. I could use a little dose of black and white sometimes myself.
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There is no stop, there is no interval between dreaming and waking. In this sense, it is possible to say: never, dreamer, can you awake . . . -- Maurice Blanchot
About Me
- Monica
- Studio City, California, United States
- I am a writer, storyteller, and former professor (UCLA, Pepperdine, LMU, Purdue) with expertise in representations of trauma, multi-ethnic literatures, Christianity and Judaism, immigrant narratives, and Critical Theory (I'm a graduate of the Cornell School of Criticism and Theory). I love to create stories. I adore books, wine, traveling, and shoes. I wrote a book called THE MIDRASHIC IMPULSE AND THE CONTEMPORARY LITERARY RESPONSE TO TRAUMA and have published pieces in Newsweek, The New Republic, The Jewish Journal, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Forward, and other places.
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3 comments:
Monica -- do you think there's a link between a "message of truth" and a "rhetoric of exlusion?" I'm interested in hearing a little more about this. Seems like nobody can agree about the definition of "truth" anymore, but I'm allowed to ask!
(In other words: isn't exclusion a function of truth?)
I think you're right, Casey, about there being a link between truth and a rhetoric of exclusion. I guess I should have put "truth" or "message of truth" in quotation marks. Anyone who claims to have absolute truth is automatically exclusionary -- that's the irony of it all. But that's also somewhat terrifying -- the idea that there is nothing that we can call absolute truth.
And, I agree, Nedric -- murky weather isn't so gloomy. I think I could live in Seattle, for instance. It's kind of nice. A perpetual summertime would not be so nice; even though I'm from southern California, I get this.
I think that the grayness that is spoken of here speaks to the relationship side of who God is. I view God as one who desires us to be in relationship with Him. For me, its not about a rule book way of living. For example, when I think of all the relationships in my life, there are things that are acceptable for some people to do that are not for others. This depends on my relationship with them, the better they know me the more room they have to lend constructive criticism, but less room for hurtful humor. We were created in God's image, so I think we can relate to God in this way... Above all, He desires meaningful relationships.
Living life under a bunch of rules is stressful, but being free to have a relationship with God is so amazing!
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