• About me
  • Bible Translations

Exploring the Well

Wandering the savage garden...

What does it mean?

Posted on February 1, 2016 Written by savage Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: 500words, truth, writing

Confession: Faith, Truth, Action

Posted on April 26, 2015 Written by savage Leave a Comment

Faith. Truth. Action.

Emunah. Emet. Mitzvot, or Tseduka.

Here’s a truth, uttered in faith: I struggle with all of these. My faith wavers, I act selfishly and have coveted the truth for myself, and I have more faith in action than I should.

I don’t really know how to handle this, either. Romans 3:28 says that we are justified by faith (although Josh McDowell dislikes that phrase, because it sounds like faith in anything is what saves, but I’m using it as Paul does, so it’s faith in Christ, thank you very much) but I don’t think I act like that’s the truth, even though I think it is.

I’m not helped by James 2:14, which says that faith without works is dead.

It’s meant to be balanced, I think. Works without faith are worthless, sacrifices made out of rote obedience at best. Faith with no action is a faith that changes nothing in the world around it, for good or for ill.

But where’s the balance?

I don’t know.

With respect to God, I do my best, knowing that my offering is not likely to be met with an immediate visceral response: I don’t do what I do for God, expecting a sort of cosmic “ka-ching!” I want to have a long-range vision of what it means to do something in faith for Him. I do it for His glory, not mine, and not in the hopes of a reward; that’s something I try to do in love for Him.

With respect to people? It’s a little harder, honestly. I act toward the people around me like action is what matters, because I don’t have the faith in them that I have in God. I don’t expect immediate reward, and honestly, I’m okay with no reward for most situations, but the truth is that after a while I get tired. I think to myself that I have done my part, I have fed the hungry, I have clothed the unclothed… when do my needs get met?

I don’t expect God to act in such a way that justifies my faith in Him, you see. His default position for me is totally justified (as if I have a right to demand justification of Him!)

But people… people I expect to justify themselves in relation to me. It’s not that I expect a personal reward, so much as I think I expect people to try to show me, somehow, that things are better than they were.

If I help someone, or if I do what they say they wanted me to do, then I find myself expecting them to pay it somewhere – if not paying me back, I expect them to pay it forward. If nothing changes, then I feel like I’ve been cheated, and that’s where my faith in action lies – meaning that it’s where my faith is, as well as where that faith is dishonest.


I find myself thinking of the Trinity. It, too, is like the three legs on a tripod; maybe God is represented by truth, Jesus is represented by action, and the Holy Spirit is represented by faith. Or maybe God is represented by action, and the Holy Spirit is represented by truth, and… you get the idea. I don’t think the symbols are more than symbols – attaching too great a value demeans what the symbols are supposed to represent.

But it’s a useful thought, nonetheless – maybe I need to focus more on the interrelation between faith, truth, and action, such that I can find a greater balance inside.

Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: action, faith, truth

Tags

500words abimelech about action apologetics art assyria behavior church cnn covenant esv ethics exegesis faith forgiveness grind history homosexuality homosexuals inspiration jesus jonah law love music nehemiah paul persistence philippians power prayer pride proverbs reason redemption romans samuel self-control selfishness shema sin trump truth writing

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2023 · Focus Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in