of apple cider and authority

Have I posted for a while? No. Have I felt like it? No. Has there been anything interesting and worthy of blogging, if only I could find the time? Yes. Now that that's out of the way....

I've been out in the burbs of Chicago today, and between the cool, wet Fall air, the sumptuous Fall colours, and the rich Fall flavours in the food, I was reminded again just how American America is. One thing I love about the States is Fall. It brings with it things like hot apple cider, and pumpkin things, and chocolate chip cookies that are perilously dense (actually, those are around all the time, but this season seems to be the right one to eat them in). Plus I got to ride the elevated train around about again today, which I absolutely love for some reason. It's clackety and elevated and old and winds through the city buildings a storey above street level, and full of weird people going to odd places. What's not to love?

On to the reason I actually felt like actually posting, finally. I've always been fascinated by how things work. It's one of my favourite things, to sit and noodle through how things work, and there has been quite a lot of such noodling in the past few months. One thing in particular I am beginning to think more about is authority – what it is and how it works. Some things which have contributed to this ongoing musing have been the ideas of prayer, truth, speaking, spiritual warfare, words and hermeneutics.

I do not understand authority; it is not something that comes at all instinctively to me, so this musing is starting out slow. There's a lot of information gathering that is happening and needs to happen before I can start forming theories and drawing conclusions. Already, though, there are some things where I'm responding with, "Oh – that's how that works."

It helps that authority and power are closely linked, and I understand power somewhat better. Authority seems to have a lot to do with using power aptly, bringing about the results the power was intended for. Power can be misappropriated, at which point authority is abused – but does it thereby stop being authority? Not sure about that one yet.

Which gives me some kind of shape for the definition of authority, which I realise might be helpful at this point. This is in very early stages, and hopefully will be refined as I grapple with it more and trawl for other opinions. I once heard a fairly helpfully broad definition of "power" as "the ability to make something happen." "Authority", I think, is the licence to exercise power. Authority has limits and boundaries, but that doesn't mean it can't be taken outside of them; that would be when authority is abused. And of course "licence" implies that authority is given, and logically can only be given by a higher authority*. In fact, consider the root word of "authority"!

These are the generalities which I have been quietly constructing; one specific issue of authority which has come up numerous times of late is that of speaking truth. (The whole question of how authority and words interact is complex and vast, and I'm still feeling out the shape of it.) I think I first began to contemplate this because of a discussion on preaching (a common one around here), but I think it applies pretty broadly to all of us who are inclined to instruct or inform others about things.

My solidifying conviction is this: we have the authority to speak truth only to the extent that we have submitted to its authority in our own lives. No matter how marvellous an insight we think of – or how right we think we are – if it has not messed with our lives and brought us into line with it in practice as well as intellectual assent, we have no right to speak it. We should stay silent, or better yet examine why we haven't given truth the weight it deserves in our own life. It is the only way to respect and serve the reality of the person or people we speak to; it is how we handle truth with humility, by acknowledging its authority over us.

Don't take what I'm saying too far; for example, I'm not claiming this is the only boundary for speaking truth, nor am I saying we should never voice insights which owe far more to the perspective we are able to have than to our experiences. But again, if that is what we are doing, we ought to have the humility to acknowledge it – to say "I have no real experience on this, and I am sure I don't understand some things, but from the perspective I have it seems that such-and-such..." And of course these things will be expressed in different ways when addressing a congregation, or a friend, or a workmate or whatever.

I say this because, generally, I'm pretty good at working out what the right answer is – or at least, a good part of the right answer – even if I don't have much experience in the issue at all. I can confidently assert some stuff that sounds pretty good, even wise. In doing so, I am claiming more authority for my words than I have any right to, and I am also in danger of becoming arrogant about it.

Now, does that mean God can't use what truth I have spoken, what insights I gave? Of course not! He does it quite often, I imagine, and not just with me. But that's his mercy, both on me and those I speak to, and has little to do with me. All truth is his truth, and so he can give it authority to exercise power in the hearer, but in a way that's the whole point! His truth is powerful and we need to be very humble and careful in the way we handle it. The more I ponder it, and see my impulse to speak in action, the more I am convinced that very few of us treat truth with the reverence it we should; we are far too cavalier with it, and frequently misuse it badly.

And in case you're wondering, yes: I have been choosing to stay silent a lot more often in the last year or so, and occasionally chosen to word things very differently. I am still seeking what boundaries my authority to speak has, and it's an interesting and unfinished journey.

* The word "higher" needs qualifying, because while it's a comfortable use when we're talking about God, or a battalion commander or whatever, it starts getting sticky when we talk about interpersonal relationships. If we assume that giving authority denotes a higher authority (which it must, logically), we little egalitarians start squirming because we think one person is being labelled as better than the other. On the other hand, if we recognize that we have higher authority in some areas of our life, and that this is common to all people and ought to be acknowledged as such, the squawking will likely die down. In fact, if these areas of higher authority didn't exist, human relationships would be unrecognizably different, and when those areas of higher authority are either abused or disregarded, we are looking at a manifestation of sin.

yeah....

And this just gives me the willies.

*jawdrop*

Seriously. God had a ridiculous amount of fun with making his universe.

If I ever needed some kind of object lesson in the scale difference between me and God, comparing my dinky little sculptures with his entire universe, micro to macro, might be a place to begin. Of course, the way it begins is by breaking my brain... O.o

Authors, Texts and Readers: 9 sentences

In the past two hundred years, movements in philosophy has led to hermeneutical theory taking, in turn, the author, the text itself, and the individual reader to be the key element in interpretation. The role of each, while in vogue, was isolated and taken to extreme: first the empirical person and setting of the author became the reason for studying the text; then the text became a free-floating entity with no mooring in time or space; and finally the reader became the ultimate arbiter of a text’s meaning, even to the point of saying that no meaning existed beside that which each individual brought to it.

In the “communication model” of hermeneutics, Brown suggests that meaning is to be found by holding each of these elements in relationship, while limiting each to its reasonable authority. The author has meaning they intend to communicate (“communicative intent”), constructing a text that reflects their setting, intention, and anticipated audience, and which will be understood according to the reader’s own circumstances, attention, and knowledge. These elements are inherent in any attempt at communication.

Which raises the question: given only the text of this single blog post, written as part of my homework to summarize chapter three of Jeannine K. Brown’s Scripture as Communication, what just happened? Did communication take place? What of my setting and communicative intent can be discerned from this text alone? And ultimately, what is the meaning of this post?

sweet home, Chicago

I've been all the way home – for a couple or so months, no less – and then back again for a whole week, and typed nary a word on the subject. Mind you, things have been busy, and I've never particularly taken to the Twitter-type posts. Too busy for noodling and nattering, at least to a coherent standard, but it was a good holiday. – If by "holiday" we mean "crazy running-around time of craziness".

So it's been high mental intake, low output, that sort of thing. Hopefully that will shift gears now that classes have started. For some reason they seem to think the output is kind of important; go figure. Probably the deadlines will help.

Anyway. Back to living mostly within a few blocks of land (as opposed to roaming constantly all over Sydney – which is a stunningly beautiful city with gorgeous weather, so there must really be something wrong with me to leave again), and having no mobile phone, and just running randomly into most of my acquaintance, and slipping back into the odd rhythm of community here. I like not having a mobile, not being constantly contactable; it's a very freeing thing, if only practicable in highly specific circumstances. And you have to be willing for your compulsively contactable community to keep nagging you on the subject, or trying to make you get on Facebook by threatening to just make up an account for you. Not that that would work; I can be hard enough to follow, let alone imitate, and y'all know how I feel about Facebook et al.

I love not texting, not worrying whether my phone is on, not always being distracted from the here-and-now by things that can wait. And when it's important, like this afternoon when a friend in need phoned my apartment, God had me walk in the door at the precise moment to field the call. Unsurprisingly perfect. I may not yet be able to trust him in absolutely everything, because I am unreasonable in ways I haven't even begun to understand, but I do trust him to put me exactly where he wants me, exactly when he wants me, so that I am able to serve him the way he wants me to. He loves the people I'm serving far more than I ever could, so all I have to do is be ready and willing to do it, and trust him for the rest.

Time to do some reading and go to bed like a good little bible student.

your typical Monday night

I really quite like my toes.

Feet are interesting.

(I am completely sober.)

That is all.

making my way home

So in Arizona, they really like country music. Like, really. I guess that makes sense. Never much thought about it before.

I've bounced around friends just a little bit before flying out of the country - the only thing Nikki had to say was "Grand Canyon", and I was in. I just wished we'd had more time to explore everything; Arizona is an incredibly beautiful state. Already there are embryonic plans for a road trip down Route 66 for next summer break. Have I mentioned that I'm coming back to the states to keep studying?

Right now I'm sitting next to Carrie in her family's home in Porterville, CA. That's Central Valley to you, the largest something-or-other in the state. Geographical thingie. Yup, I'm S-M-R-T. It's all small-town agricultural land around here, and it's delightful - undulating golden hills, rows of citrus trees, hazy distant mountain ranges (that's from the smog, though), hot bright days. This is my wind-down time, no pressure, no schedule, just "so what are we gonna do today?" In the last couple of days we've volunteered in Carrie's mum's first grade class in the afternoon; yesterday we took them to "Australia". I wore my hat. Very exciting.

Okay, so I was about to launch into a hat-related anecdote, but I realized that there is absolutely no context for it, so: each semester at Moody they do a week-long conference thing of talks and whatnot. The opening night always has what's called the "Parade of Nations", in which various international students and missionary kids represent their countries by walking down the aisles of the auditorium carrying the flag, preferably dressed in their national costume. Now, I am the only Australian on campus, and although it feels unAustralian to go about waving our flag (without yelling "Aussie Aussie Aussie!"), I duly submitted both times to the flag ceremony.

Of course, lacking a Wallabies jersey, I had very little that would posit as "national costume", so I wore my Redbacks work boots and my black Drizabone hat. (Those boots have been set on fire, cracked all over, tramped in Congo dust and Grand Canyon dirt, and propped up on desks during bible college lectures, and remained sturdy and faithful; I'ma gonna be buried in them boots.)

So when I got the hat out to shelter my poor little white face from the southwest sun, Nikki said, "It's the parade of nations hat!" And I'm all, "Huh?"

Then she explained that in the last flag ceremony (only the second I'd ever participated in, remember), some kid sitting near her in the auditorium that she doesn't even know spotted me coming in and exclaimed exactly that: "It's the parade of nations hat!"

My hat is famous, y'all. (That's an American term. Why they can't pronounce "g'day" right I'll never know.) I might have to be buried in that, too.

In related news, Carrie and I sat with her family and watched the season finale of American Idol, attempting to keep snark to a minimum in the commentary. An excellent exercise in self-control, by the way; I highly recommend it. It was the first time I'd ever seen more than five seconds of the show together, and it was a fascinating study in marketing cycnicism. Not one I'd want to repeat any time soon, though.

I keep having an achy memory of Chicagoan winter, its snow and bite and brooding dormancy. Some people thrive in the adventure of the elements, and others wilt away from sunshine. I think I got a little of both. One of the sweetest moments I can recall from my whole year there was standing on the eleventh floor of my building, at around ten-thirty at night, watching about fifteen boys from the next-door dorm playing football in the dim golden-lit snow.

I'm looking forward to coming back.