Another Post on Home

I am gradually becoming more accustomed to calling California home. I think it is partly because of my growing awareness the history in this state - my history. Although I still tend to think of life in categorical stages, I know now that life bleeds from one stage to another, and only rarely is there ever an absolute cut in between. Inevitably, wherever we go, I am drawn back to some history in an attempt to begin what I left off years ago - entering again into that running autobiography is both my river and my anchor. For me, California is the land of my conscious childhood, its inception and its death.

Already, when I think of Princeton now, though it has only been a few weeks, it seems as if it was an eon past. My sister commented that over the years I had become more pretentious - apparently I have inherited the blue-blooded pretentiousness without my knowing. I think what she meant to say, or at least this is the way I feel about myself, is that I have become more secure in my intellectual capabilities... and its shows. Unfortunately for me, I have not yet mastered the art of trying to sound smart and being (not acting) humble at the same time. On top of that, Isaac said that after graduating from Princeton, elitism is too ingrained to overcome simply by sheer force of will. He also noted, quite correctly I think, a deep misanthropic timbre to my actions and thinking. How ironic! - the speck in your eye, and the plank in mine.

I admit it's true, though, although in my defense, I hardly conceal it. When attending my sister' department gathering, I was struck at how "human" everyone seemed to be. Definitely not everyone, but the progression of this more-or-less formal gathering still revealed a very human, low-key, unpretentiousness that I found at once heartening but also intellectually stale (they recycled the same platitudious lies that often show up in "gung-ho" speeches given by yuppie valedictorians and school administrators who want to cover their ass on their own failings, that is, the students under their care). Regardless, the very fact that it was ill timed or not perfectly coordinated made it that much more endearing - and instead of trying to cover up the mistakes with an embarrassed but witty comment (like Princeton?), this group was much more insistent in just living in that mistake. Although the administrators had to those requisite things (We are so proud of you, you should be proud too. gag!), as a whole, this group seemed much more capable of living life in a deep way rather that skating on that thin veneer of success that so drives us. I hope I'm not giving the wrong impression, though. I love Princeton and am deeply grateful that God let me attend it, but in all things, sin is through and through.

Is it the fate of all things "intellectual" to come off as pretentious? Of course, there is a difference between moral and intellectual: Jesus was never the intellectual (nor was he moral exemplar either: the uniqueness of Christ does not lie in the categories devised by man. Everything about him was human... that is, except his divinity which was both absent and present). Probably not.

Tomorrow also happens to be Sunday, and I begin again the struggle of finding and going to Church. I am very privileged to have been able to talk to Isaac before returning to California. There were many things that I wanted to talk about - as he defined it philosophically - particularly the great epistemic virtue of Tradition in the high Church to separate the theological wheat from the chaff, and, more importantly, that great virtue now being more of a myth than a reality. (Man, I just realized how pretentious that last sentence sounded. Sorry.) Basically, in many churches, tradition dictates what is to be believed or not based on interpretation. Other churches, like many Protestant churches, believe in Sola Scriptura that Scripture operates only with the Spirit. Embedded here, I think, is the evangelical Protestants mindset opposed to intellectual faith: Sola Scriptura divests the power of tradition in favor of a more individualistic interpretation. However, I follow Weil in saying that all truth - both intellectual and "faith" truth - must be reflections of the one who called himself Truth. We cannot privilege our own subjective, though Spirit-led, hunches over rigorous, intellectual grasping of the Scripture, which itself is often a catalyst for a passionate struggle between what is known and what is believed.

I have been thinking also of faith. Is it a substance? I am moving away from "I have faith", as if I hold it in my hands and can toy around with it. Perhaps this is the error of our thinking and the source of many questions, such as, "Am I saved or not?", "What are the marks of being saved?" and so on. It is not our faith which saves us, let us be reminded, but the faithfulness of God. Not our faith, but His.

As I begin this leg of my journey, I wonder and realize that pride is still very deep in my heart. It is, I fear and know, the one thing that God has put in me as, perhaps ironically, a way to keep me humble. (the dialectic resolves!) My pride reminds me of my inadequacy, bringing me to humility. In different stages of my life, it tends to veer to one or another.

In the words of Janet, "Ah... life."

Currently Reading:
Count of Monte Cristo (for the third time!) - Dumas
Waiting for God - Weil
From Hegel to Existentialism - Solomon
The Portable Nietzsche - organized by Kaufmann
Shofetim (The book of Judges)