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Life continues excessively hectic, but I've been doing really well at staying productive for most of the last week, so I'm feeling considerably more on top of things than I was. I'm not entirely sure how sustainable this level of productivity is though, and I really need it to last another couple of weeks.
I'm just starting a second read of Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation, which I'll be writing about in my next assignment for Encounter. I feel as though I have to make this a good one, as the assignment as given was to write about another book, "The Gift of Being Yourself" by David G Benner, and although I could see that there was some valuable insight in that book, I couldn't stand the authorial voice, so suggested either the Merton or Teilhard de Chardin's Divine Milieu as alternative texts which cover similar material. Since they were flexible enough to let me make this change, I want to really knock it out of the park.
Fortunately I'm finding it really engaging and fruitful, so I suspect the main difficulty is going to be getting all of the things I want to say into something vaguely approaching the word limit. There's something distinctive about the way Merton advocates humility, and wrestles visibly with the conflict between his own desire to be genuinely humble, and his clear awareness of the ways in which he is pretty awesome actually. And I suspect that many people would find that something to be just as obnoxious, if not more so, than I find Benner, but I find in it such a strong echo of my own struggle that it helps me feel very understood.
I'm just starting a second read of Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation, which I'll be writing about in my next assignment for Encounter. I feel as though I have to make this a good one, as the assignment as given was to write about another book, "The Gift of Being Yourself" by David G Benner, and although I could see that there was some valuable insight in that book, I couldn't stand the authorial voice, so suggested either the Merton or Teilhard de Chardin's Divine Milieu as alternative texts which cover similar material. Since they were flexible enough to let me make this change, I want to really knock it out of the park.
Fortunately I'm finding it really engaging and fruitful, so I suspect the main difficulty is going to be getting all of the things I want to say into something vaguely approaching the word limit. There's something distinctive about the way Merton advocates humility, and wrestles visibly with the conflict between his own desire to be genuinely humble, and his clear awareness of the ways in which he is pretty awesome actually. And I suspect that many people would find that something to be just as obnoxious, if not more so, than I find Benner, but I find in it such a strong echo of my own struggle that it helps me feel very understood.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-24 06:04 pm (UTC)From:Sebastian, I don't think I tell you this enough, but I love and consistently appreciate you. And your stubbornly historically-informed approached to theology.
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Date: 2021-10-28 07:12 am (UTC)From:I rather feel as though my approach to theology isn't nearly historically informed enough (so many books, how will I ever read them all?), but I guess it's that drive to know and understand more which means that I'm at least moving in the right direction.
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Date: 2021-10-28 08:21 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2021-10-27 10:27 pm (UTC)From: