Religion
I have been reading a lot of existentialist literature lately, its nothing that i've set out purposely to do, its kind of just happened. It started with Night, the existentialism is not as pervailent, because Elie Wiesel is trying to get his story out. The second book was Blue Like Jazz. I read this on the recomendation of a friend, and i am very glad i did. The book was just fantastic. I believe the title is Blue Like Jazz: Non-christian thoughts on Christian Spirituality. The book's intro had me hooked, here is an excerpt from the book: My father left my home when I was young, so when I was introduced to the concept of God as Father I imagined Him as a stiff, oily man who wanted to move into our house and share a bed with my mother. I can only remember this as a frightful and threatening idea. We were a poor family who attended a wealthy church, so I imagined God as a man who had a lot of money and drove a big car. At church they told us we were children of God, but I knew God’s family was better than mine, that He had a daughter who was a cheerleader and a son who played football. I was born with a small bladder so I wet the bed till I was ten and later developed a crush on the homecoming queen who was kind to me in a political sort of way, which is something she probably learned from her father, who was the president of a bank. And so from the beginning, the chasm that separated me from God was as deep as wealth and as wide as fashion.”
How often is that the problem, i know many people that stuggle with this. They struggle with making God personal. Im not saying its easy, it can be very hard. Donald Miller, the authour, said that he never understood Jazz music growing up, it just seemed like this raqucet, and it didn't make sense, it wasn't consonant. He said though that he was leaving the Sydney Opera House one evening and there was a man playing jazz on a saxophone, the man had his eyes closed and was playing his heart out. Standing there watching this man, Miller finally understood Jazz. I think that's just absolutely beautiful.
I also have kind of been reading Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkagaard. This is a tough read, very tough in comparison to Blue Like Jazz. The book was written in the late 1800's, somewhere around 1880 i believe. Kierkagaard wrote the book in response to what he saw happening in the church. He was trying to have people look at having their own faith, and not to rely on the faith of others. It sounds silly now, but his book is what started this sort of modern protesteantism. Because before that people were often faithful because they saw that other people were faithful. Kierkegaard basically said that 'i can tell you how to swim, i can even show you, you might be albe to tell me how to move you arms and legs as if you were swiming...i could go as far as to put you in water and hold you there, but you are not swimming' That is how he described faith. 'i can tell you how to believe, i can show you, you can act like it, but you are not truly beliving unless you EXPERIENCE it for yourself'. I think that's all that i wanted to say.
I also have kind of been reading Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkagaard. This is a tough read, very tough in comparison to Blue Like Jazz. The book was written in the late 1800's, somewhere around 1880 i believe. Kierkagaard wrote the book in response to what he saw happening in the church. He was trying to have people look at having their own faith, and not to rely on the faith of others. It sounds silly now, but his book is what started this sort of modern protesteantism. Because before that people were often faithful because they saw that other people were faithful. Kierkegaard basically said that 'i can tell you how to swim, i can even show you, you might be albe to tell me how to move you arms and legs as if you were swiming...i could go as far as to put you in water and hold you there, but you are not swimming' That is how he described faith. 'i can tell you how to believe, i can show you, you can act like it, but you are not truly beliving unless you EXPERIENCE it for yourself'. I think that's all that i wanted to say.
posted by That Canadian Guy @ 1:46 p.m.
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