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The Reach for Vocabulary

One of the things I’ve been reading is Analog Days, about the invention and impact of the synthesizer, primarily as driven by Bob Moog (pronounced to rhyme with “rogue,” as it’s a Dutch name). It’s a good read, even if you’re not really into synthesizers much. (I am, so there’s a lot of fascinating history in it.)

One of the things that has come up many, many times in the book is the recounting of early synthesists in the need for a vocabulary. For example, think about how R2-D2 sounds – that sounds like a ‘droid talking, right?

Well… if you couldn’t use the word “‘droid,” how would you describe the sound?

Or imagine a starship flying by; because of movies like Star Wars – by the way, this is an example straight from the book, thank you, even though I’m writing it in my own words and in my own way – because of movies like Star Wars, we know what a spaceship sounds like as it flies by.

Actually, we get it wrong; space has no sound. So the “sound of a spaceship” is actually no sound at all… but because of the convenience and pervasiveness of movies, when we say “what does a spaceship sound like?,” something comes to mind. That’s our vocabulary.

So now, we have a massive socially-driven library of sounds. When we want a sound, we can at least say “It’s sort of like the ‘whoop, whoosh’ in this song, where it goes ‘bee boo bob-o-beep.'” That may not be the sound that we want, but it’s a starting point.

What other vocabularies exist? One of the things I was thinking about – in context, of course, because this is a Christian blog and I’d really like to keep it focused on “Christian” and less on “blog” – was the Christian vocabulary. We use words like “sin” and “redemption” and “sacrifice” and “good” … and we mean specific things by those words, usually, and I wonder sometimes if our vocabulary doesn’t get in the way of our goal.

We get caught up in a message of redemptive grace through faith to rescue us from sin, but … I was trying to think what a nonbeliever would think of all of that.

“Message” might be clear enough, but many Christians might also use “gospel,” which nonbelievers might not understand the same way Christians do.

There’s my non-editing in motion; as I thought about it, “gospel” was far better an example than “message.”

“Redemption” might make no sense at all for a nonbeliever – what is redemption without the accompanying concept of condemnation?

“Grace” usually means something to a Christian, one hopes – what does it mean to a nonbeliever?

What about “through faith,” as in “grace through faith?”

I don’t really have good answers for the differences in vocabulary. After all, I’m a Christian and have been for decades. But reading the book on synthesis got me thinking about the vocabulary, and I wanted to record the thought.

savage
February 3, 2016
Bible Study
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The Anchor of the Past

It’s one of those days where I’m recognizing the value of writing as a habit, because I really, really don’t want to write, at all. It’s been a big day – great highs, and incredible lows. I’m still trying to process it all, and the thing that’s keeping me grounded is God.

I’m having to remind myself of the patterns we should follow through the day. They easily become rote and dry religion, but their true value is when they keep us afloat even when everything’s messed up around us.

Right now, everything’s messed up. Like I said, it’s been a triumphant day – and a difficult one, even in the height of victory.

It’s my own fault, too. The pain was lurking in the heart of success, and it was my own action that put it there; it was a random comment that set it loose. To the best I can tell, it wasn’t intentional, but it’s been severe, opening a wound that I thought had healed and scarred over.

So now I’m retreating, reminding myself that this is a storm that can and will pass, God willing, and that the routines I might otherwise despise for being empty ritual are also things that give us momentum and context.

I ask for forgiveness every day, which can easily become arrogance and ignorance… and when I need it, the beauty of the request shines through, breathing life into the dry bones.

Including my own dry bones. I don’t know how I’ll make it through this moment, but like I have done before, I will find a way, with God’s help and guidance, to healing. I know it won’t be easy; it’s redemption I seek, not simple forgiveness, and not an excuse.

That’s not to say that I don’t need to pray further about it. I try to be accountable in everything I do, because I don’t want an accusation to have legs; I want it to be obvious that the Accuser lies. And I resent the accusations, when the truth is told; “I am wronged,” I say to myself.

And I guess to some degree, I am wronged. The accusation is, in this case, not accurate. But that doesn’t mean that other accusations were also inaccurate – that’s why I know this is simply the long-buried fruit of sin from long ago. This is a burden I should bear, not one I should avoid, regardless of whether I wanted to avoid it or not.

In the end, it’ll be okay; I’ll endure, somehow, and with God’s help everything will be okay, and stronger than it was. Here’s hoping.

I realize that I haven’t actually written five hundred words, even though this is today’s “five hundred word” entry – I’m trying, but I’m really struggling right now.

savage
February 2, 2016
Lifestyle
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What does it mean?

A few days ago, I wrote a series of vignettes, in an attempt to try to represent my actual internal thought process/representational framework of thought – something I’d call a “paradigm,” but I don’t know if that’s the right word or not.

Basically, I wanted to take the way I think – a lattice – and try to write from that point of view, without translating it into a linear progression. I wanted to write the thought down, as I thought of it, more or less.

I can’t actually write it how I think it – it’s a flash of concepts, not vignettes. A boy, a raccoon; the vignette grows out of the correlation of the thoughts, and doesn’t serve as the thoughts themselves. If I were to write it, it would be a series of just words, largely unrelated.

They’re not actually unrelated, though.

That’s the thing about truth – it’s actually one vignette, one lattice of thought. It’s presented as a series of unrelated concepts: a boy and the raccoons that don’t know that the boy has claimed them; the girl with poor tools; the dog that feared airplanes; the grass that saw them all and did not care; the title of the post.

All contribute to the overall wave that the piece creates, and they’re all part of the piece. I wanted to write something true about truth, as I see it internally.

It’s not everything about truth; truth as a concept is greater than what I’d written (both to me and to the world, hopefully). Truth was presented as an absolute concept, in a set of subjective (and faintly maudlin) vignettes that tried to draw a shadow of what truth might be for a moment.

As such, I’m quite proud of it. I don’t think it’s great, per se – I can’t see it taking over the Internet – but it’s closer than I’ve gotten in a while. Even when I journal, I try to keep it somewhat linear, because I want to be able to go back and use what I’ve written. The way “Truth” is written, it’s a one-way trip; if I record the heartstone memories in my head in a journal, I’d be able to recall the framework of that moment, how I felt, but not necessarily why.

Plus, I’m used to trying to translate my thoughts into linear “this, then that” form, because I used to write for a daily audience. I have kids; I have to teach them, too. Everything around me is linear; abandoning that construction mode violates my own habit of trying to translate things so the people around me can use them.

But I’m still quite proud of it; I think I learned something through the writing.

First, that I could do it – on two levels. One level was the simple fact of writing, because I was tired and not feeling very well; I didn’t want to write, so writing was a “win.” The other level was that I was able to write in something approximating my internal mode of thought, which I don’t do very often (as I’ve described.)

The other was that I think I saw something of how I see truth in what I wrote. Hopefully it’s there for someone else, too.

savage
February 1, 2016
Lifestyle
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Responsibility

I haven’t been feeling well lately – nothing serious enough to keep me from working, but enough to make a lot of things very challenging. Thought to come back to: “Truth,” posted yesterday, which was not part of a reaction to not feeling well, for the most part…

The reason my slight not-wellness is significant is staring at me in the kitchen sink. I’ve been trying to make sure the dishes are (and stay) done as as part of my reprioritization for the new year (along with some other common household chores that really aren’t difficult to do, but have a tendency to stay undone when there are three young men in the house.)

My oldest decided to make a vegan mac-and-cheese – a choice I don’t quite understand, as I don’t know how cheese can be vegan. It was horrible, he said. (I wouldn’t eat it; my wife makes some of the best mac-and-cheese I’ve ever had, and I’m not going to waste time on imitations and perversions of it.)

Part of his task of making this vegan mac and cheese was to clean up afterwards. Let’s just say he … didn’t. He put water in some of the pots he used, and moved them towards the sink. Then he moved on to other things, perhaps intending to come back and finish the dishes later.

I think it’s since slipped his mind.

So here I am, looking at the dishes, feeling poorly. I’m a little resentful that my son hasn’t followed through in cleaning up after himself – and the other young men in the house haven’t done their part to clean up, either. I want coffee, you see – note how I’m avoiding changing tenses to keep you in the moment with me – and I don’t know if I have any clean coffee cups, because nobody – including me – has been doing the dishes.

It’s been a bit of a rough week.

As it turns out, I’ve done the dishes now (some of them; a load is running in the washer, and I’ll get the rest soon, including the things I need to wash by hand) and I did have a coffee cup.

But it got me thinking about responsibility, and thankfulness. I felt bad about the dishes, really, because it has been a priority for me, and I’ve been letting myself down a little (as you might see from some other things I’ve written lately.)

But it’s a responsibility I chose. To some degree, it’s definitely mine, but I choose to own it and how to own it, and that’s a grace shown to me by the love of God: I can see my responsibilities in the same pattern I see my sin.

I am responsible, and I am forgiven, and my acknowledgement and thankfulness is the motive power for my part. (The Grace of God doesn’t need me.)

I mentioned coming back to what I’d written (“Truth“) — and I will. But I’m still trying to analyze it – maybe I’ll get to it on a different day. It’s funny – it’s around five hundred words, and I think I could write another thousand about it.

I’m starting to see the real value of the five hundred words challenge – I find myself actually exploring themes and challenging myself through it.

savage
January 31, 2016
Lifestyle
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