listening to: this (just cause it makes me happy!)

i have this strange thing about airplane safety guides. i pore through them thoroughly, pay attention to every video, note all the exits nearest to me (which, as they always say, could be behind you), learn how to blow the whistle on the lifejacket.

and then there is this section where you have to put your arms on the chair in front of you and brace for impact. and apparently some dude will scream BRACEBRACEBRACE and thats what you’re supposed to go into this posture which looks like you fell asleep in a boring lecture.

i brace myself for bad news tomorrow. i expect new lows in the market.  it was quite funny when mummy prayed ‘please help debbie to be deaf (at said point in time)’ and daddy prayed ‘please help debbie to be numb’. they know me too well. epic faileth.

i needs to fly to el salvador.

hai.

HAI.

HAIHAIHAI.

listening to: this (which is actually related to the first pt in the post. awesome)

sometimes research can just be plain self-obsession. but today i read two things that set the masters in perspective. and am particularly grateful for the first.

1) on religion/culture/(post)modernity. from a SociOfReligion book.

The impact on religion of this change is to create an opening in the culture that allows religious faith to re-enter public discourse and display – not an overarching unity of belief, but instead as ‘a possible symbolic resouce’ out of which new (if more limited) ’subcultural’ identities may be formed and new (though more modest and less sweeping) values may arise (spiffyauthor, 2005). together, these new creations can humanise human soieties. spiffyauthor argues; they ‘could help to prevent politics from being transformed into the mere management of individual aspirations and to prevent modernity from dissolving into widespread relativism’ (spiffyauthor, 2005).

being in a department which has strong postmod/post-struc (more of the latter, thankfully) tendencies has always been somewhat of a bugbear for me. esp cuz in Christian circles some tend to write off everything as ‘oh this postmodern relativistic pluarlistic generation’. which is condescending and completely ignores the potential benefits of pomo/poststruc.

seriously, i don’t think modernity did Christianity (or religions actually) much good. and what spiffy author said has been something that was lurking inside me for a while, but i just didnt know how to articulate it. yes, pomos have their (in)famous incredulity towards metanarratives. but even if religion is not an overarching framework in society (which is not possible now, and even if it were, may not be helpful), it can be a subculture. if you think about it, quite a few people in Christian circles talk about being counter-cultural. countercultural and subculture are one of those samesamebutdifferent things. being countercultural is usually valorised as going against the prevailing mindset (which usually is pomo). BUT as spiffy author has pointed out, pomo, with its insistence on multiple perspectives, provides an entry point for religion to enter modern society, to allow for collective action, and to prevent relativism. so maybe those who pontificate off the moral highhorse of being countercultural to pomo should assess the arguments from which the term ‘countercultural’ emerged.

there are definitely problems with the pomo stand – and some with very lasting  epistemological and ontological consequences for Christianity. but that does not mean we should write it off immediately as entirely bad. even in the song above by famousperson, the lyrics go ‘God is God and i am not/i can only see a part of the picture He’s painting/God is God and i am man/so i’ll never understand it all for only God is God’. it captures the pomo position excellently without being heretical.

2) on being a university student. from a book on Transnat*onalCivilSoc.

In universities throughout the world, students are discovering new forms of community, collective action, identity and solidarity. These not only shape careers but the values that animate them, and the networks through which they are pursued.

This could have been taken out of a book on campus ministry, like *that* salt book. but it isnt. it is taken out of a book that doesn’t even speak about religion. yet the central tenet still remains. universities are important. they shape the way people think/act/value things. and as charlesmalik said (somewhere! i can’t find the quote sadly!), the minds of the universities need to be evanglised. that a non-religious book tells us the potential importance of universities on its students should just make us heed malik’s call even more.

after reading all these, i am so excited. not just nerdy excited. but excited that in the most arbitrary of readings, God showed new ways of thinking about old things. *sparkly*