Sunday, October 24, 2010

Tatters and Tears

After an irruption of great magnitude and proportions, I have decided to commit to a blog.

I fear the FB note route that I have previously utilized never really fit the bill, and then there is something in the quality of the change in my life that itself demands a forum of its own.

This, and the additional inspiration that comes from witnessing other past associates extending themselves into this medium - these are enough to get me to make the move.

I imagine that this blog will deal will those things that I have previously been interested in: Lutheranism in crisis, orthodox Christian theology generally, aesthetics, cultural criticism, regional culture, wayward essays of various sorts, and perhaps also personal reflections upon my new status... but more on this later.

Some initial background: I was a seminarian at a mainline seminary who had made his way through to the near end of that fitful process until, in 2008, my wife left me and the process became derailed, causing no small amount of distress.  After the hope of returning and finishing my degree at that institution faded, for numerous reasons, I find myself attempting to finish my M. Div. in vastly different circumstances and with no clear way to ordination.  This, mostly due to severing my ties with my previous church body and not finding another to take its place.  In dire financial straights, I have taken a job unrelated to my training and education.  I am also attending a "virtual" start-up seminary in an effort to satisfy the remaining requirements for the degree.

As for the title of the blog, I suppose it alludes to the late-modern condition that I seem not to be able to escape or transcend... placelessness.  Or, not feeling rooted anywhere particular as I make this earthly pilgrimage; along with a frank admission that I feel little sense of a unitary direction or progressive movement at present.  I pray that this will change, and I can intend this exercise as a gathering of fragments - and an effort at living, coherent, purpose.  I suspect that much of this feeling will disipate with the advent of a very special person, or with the coming parousia... either way, I am here for the moment.

I had hoped that an aphorism or maxim would present itself to mind by the time I had gotten this far into the first posting.  Something charged.  Something potent.  Some gnomic device whereby the mast of this venture would be set adroitly, cutting into the proper horizon. 

Nothing like that.  In fact, the usual wisdoms seem to have lost their strength and savor, for me, right now.

I'll end with this from Hamann:


This anxiety in the world is the only proof of our heterogeneity. If we
lacked nothing, we should do no better than the pagans and the transcendental
philosophers, who know nothing of God and like fools fall in love
with lovely nature, and no homesickness would come over us. This impertinent
disquiet, this holy hypochondria is perhaps the fire with which
we season sacrificial animals in order to preserve us from the putrefaction
of the current Seculi.
stay heterogenous...

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