Many things come to mind (in the realm of art) as I watch and listen to this from Walter Brueggemann. He has helped me so much in imagining something beyond the cultural mindset that we have been shaped by. I ran into him in the airport a couple years ago by chance and he was gracious enough to stand there in the airport and talk with me for a bit which allowed me to thank him for pulling some rugs out from under me that needed to removed from under me....which created much disorientation that opened up into some much needed reorientation.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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7 comments:
"Space to ponder the stuff that doesn't fit the formulae ..."
Yeah, that's what we need. More organ music-type situations that are flung out into the world, not in a building :)
I didn't realise this guy was American. He sort of looks how I imagined he would look. He looks like a Walter :)
He is American and he does look like a Walter :)
I love Walter and he has helped me much but like all of us...(and NT Wright says it best) "A third of what I will say to you will be wrong. I just don't know what third it is. And I am probably being generous with the percentage."
I love his comment that you quoted about our need for there being something that creates the space so that we can ponder the things that don't fit the formulae. For me it's not organ music and it's not liturgy at least in the sense most people and more than likely Walter define liturgy.
No, not me either as far as organ music and liturgy goes. *Yawn* But still, I guess something woven into the fabric of the society that created the space that was rather dull was better than none at all.
I am still wondering after months and years what that could look like for this society. I don't know ... ponder some more :)
What do you mean? What it might be that creates that space?
I get the sense that it's personal tragedy....the train in an individual's life really coming off the tracks. The collective moments seem to never last and the collective tragedies normally lead to collective anger...and humans doing crazing things in those situations...they usually go and hurt someone.
But individuals having such moments can set in motion very important reflection and the exposing of illusions. An individual beginning to see something Wholly Other on their own usually are no longer in need of others as far as agreement in order to walk in faith having seen the that which doesn't fit the formulae....if that makes sense?
Yes, that makes perfect sense. I was talking not so much from the point of view of the person for who receptivity to that sort of space is ready. I agree fulsomely it's our shack experiences that do that :)
I was thinking more about what there is out there, collectively, that gives us the opportunity as a people to share in those sorts of experiences. Where once it was organ music and liturgy, now I don't really see anything much out there that is a chance for a collective sort of experience of that sort of thing - and I do believe that most cultures of the past had these things interwoven into their comings and goings with each other.
I guess the closest thing I can think of is music, again. Live music.
I also think this is why people get together and take drugs :)
How collective do you want it?
Blogger seems to have ate my comment.
Well, collective as in something optional for people to enter into, not coercive. Not in a "c" word type of sense (that "c" word is communism, by the way :)
But things out there, things our culture engages in, in the real space not the etherspace. Things like shared spaces where we are able to come together and think and discourse and share and have transformational experiences.
Sheesh, I should like a weird hippy twit, don't I :)
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