Wednesday, April 4

natural synthetics



I have been thinking about my personal exegetical process and realise that to even discuss such a thing is kind of silly because it assumes a number of things which I don't believe are true.

The first question comes as to the purpose of exegesis/hermeneutics, not in the 'big picture' of why do we do this but rather in the personal of why do YOU do this.  If the purpose is an attempt to understand the ineffable will of God, best of luck with that, tell me how that works out for you.  For me, it is to better understand myself, my place in creation and my relationship with all of that....which includes (but is not exclusive to) the Divine.

I guess another way of putting it is 'Why?'.

Secondly, it is my experience that reason and revelation do not come solely through Scripture nor from commentary/Tradition.  I find it a bit laughable to say that the Divine would only reveal Herself in one place at one time to one group of people.  It is much more reasonable that He would be constantly showing Herself here and there to all sorts of different people in different ways and my personal experience bears this out.  Indeed, whether it is by the observation of the Creation or from other sources, I find that one can see the hand of the Divine and hear the voice of Holy Wisdom in so many diverse sources that it is often hard to see how it is possible that anyone could fail to notice it.

I would use the word 'eclectic', except that it has a certain negative connotation in my mind.  "Found art" is an eclectic style.  College dorm interior design is 'eclectic'.  The word carries with it an implication that there is no unifying aesthetic or hermeneutic.  Thus, I run with the word synthesis, a process by which disparate elements are united to form a new whole.  In most cases, this process is synergistic, but it always produces an authentic result that is reflective of the time, place and space of the person.

The answer I have found to my question has been 'why not?' 

'What makes it so difficult to conceive that you can't be the right person in the right place at the right time?
Of course that makes you special, just like everyone else.'

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