Senior 22: Pondering
SO THERE ARE TWO KINDS of 'pondering': (1) the kind that is conducted in the ivory towers and learned halls of academia and (2) the kind that is conducted every night in a certain mouse cage at the Acme Laboratories, especially concerning ingenious and intricate plans for taking over the world.
I was both surprised and pleased when my dad bought the first volume of Steven Spielberg's "Pinky and the Brain" on DVD. I am quite certain that nine of every ten popular, cultural, political, and historical references is lost on me, but it's still fun to watch. And after rewatching only three episodes, I can once again recall the entire theme song from memory perfectly. Perhaps some would call that a 'lesser' accomplishment, but I still got a kick out of it.
ON SUNDAY, I ATTENDED THE Duarte Church of Christ. That was an experience, quite different from that to which I am accustomed.
A COUPLE WEEKS AGO I took the GRE (Graduate Records Exam); it's like the SAT for graduate school. Like the SAT, it includes a Verbal and Quantitative section, but it also incorporates an Analytic Writing section (consisting of two essays to be written in 30 and 45 minutes, approximately). I received my final results this week with mixed feelings. My raw verbal score was not as high as I would have initially liked, but I found out that my performance actually placed me in the 94th Percentile for that section. (Huzzah!) My Analytic Writing score (4.5 on a 6.0 scale) was in the 54th Percentile. (Not-so-huzzah!) But I think I'll just live with that rather than paying $115 to retake the whole test with the possibility of going higher or lower. (It's hard to beat the 94th Percentile.) I'll just work really hard on my Application Writing Sample. Praise God!
Please be praying for me with regard to all things grad-school-related. I'm both excited and extremely anxious. But "God is good all the time."
AND TODAY--I VISITED THE Getty Museum. Five of us went and had a great time. I do look forward to seeing everyone again once school has started. Gradually close friends are returning from trips and travels and I am so excited to see them all.
FINALLY, FOR THIS ENTRY, MY time at the Getty spurred much interesting reflection. In my last blog I said I might write about 'choice'. On Monday, I thought I might write about 'oppression'. Then about 'fear'. And today, my mind is so full of thoughts and ideas and connections that there is virtually no hope of successfully and coherently articulating them.
My friend, Michael, helped me sift through many of the ideas. He also pointed out the problem of lack-of-appropriate-context in blogging. But I've decided to throw this all out there anyway. And it may not make sense; some of it may even be incorrect (that's part of drafting), so just remember that this is just me musing and batting around incomplete thoughts:
Most of the art at the Getty dates from before 1900. For the most part, I like art from that time, especially paintings from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. But the last exhibit we saw at the museum was from the early 20th Century, titled: "A Tumultuous Assembly: Visual Poems of the Italian Futurists." In the years preceding and during the first World War, these artists and poets were especially active. The following is an excerpt from the exhibit's description:
"In 1909 a handful of artists and poets under the age of 30, led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, published "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism". Meant to scandalize, incite, and amuse, the manifesto declares that scientific and technological inventions have altered concepts of time and psace, caused a deep change in the psyche, and in effect created a new humanbeing. The Futurists prescribe war as "hygiene" to rejuvenate society and argue that new kinds of art will arise to reflect the modern world. Italy, they proclaim, with its burdensome legacy of ancient and Renaissance art and its numerous museums that "cover her like so many cemeteries," has to destroy its cultural institutions and create new ones. / The Futurists eventually extended their polemic into all areas of politics and culture, issuing manifestos describing how to reinvent painting, music, cooking, clothing, architecture, design, warfare, education, courtship, and government. / In three manifestos written from 1912 to 1914, the Futurists set forth the technical features of the words-in-freedom [the Futurist literary style], arguing that syntax and punctuation would have to be destored so that words could be set free. On the one hand, they would strip down language; on the other, they would enrich it with devices from nonlinguistic domains." (JoAnne Paradise and Annette Leddy, Exhibition Curators, Getty Research Institute)
At first I found myself disturbed and perturbed by these statements and the 'visual poems'. They were disorienting and contrary and challenging. And I started to think about the different approaches to art. It has been said by some that the purpose of art is to challenge the way that we see the world. But how far should it go and where will it end? And no less disquieting is the question raised by so many alternative presentations of reality: "Am I certain that my way is the right way?"
I've noticed a pattern among my friends who are studying sociology and anthropology. They frequently comment on how their exposure to so many different cultures, lifestyles, and ways of living, has given them pause in thinking about their own lives and worldviews. To step outside of the American scene and see others living in radically different settings and following radically different patterns, often quite successfully, leads one to reevaluate one's own life-pattern. Similar reflections are made in religion and philosophy.
I've been reading about 'fear' and 'anxiety' in a book on Theological Anthropology by F. LeRon Shults. These seem to be an essential part of the human condition, of our finitude. The breadth of the Unknown is overwhelming, the size of the universe and its enormous diversity. We find ourselves in this place and are staggered by its immensity.
It seems to me that this 'anxiety' IS a part of the human condition, a natural outgrowth of our innate finitude. BUT, I am unwilling to accept agnosticism; everything within me cries out against being loosed, anchorless, to drift aimlessly across a sea of uncertainty. There must be Truth out there, the Answer, Bedrock, Foundation.
The tools of philosophy may be helpful on this point, by reminding us that Truth is not decided by the masses. And sociology/anthropology, while quite apt at collecting and describing all sorts of behavioral and phenomenal data, is NOT suited to EVALUATE that data; at least, not apart from some transcendent system of criteria.
That's why I'm a philosopher (*impish grin)--because it is one of the jobs of Philosophy to consider and evaluate just those sets of criteria. But before we can establish a set of criteria, we must identify what it is that we are evaluating. And looking at the Futurists or the great religions of the world, there appears to be this understanding that humanity has a problem and is in need of a solution.
...
*Sigh. I'm not yet half way through and the, so called, "Final" portion of this blog entry has already grown to over 400 words (and it's now well past my bed-time). If you've actually read this far, that is very encouraging to me. Perhaps I will continue this in a later entry. Perhaps you would like to speak with me directly on these topics. Perhaps someone who actually knows something about art and art history would like to step in and educate me because, the fact is, I am grossly ignorant. But these are just some of my thoughts and musings.
The end result is this: over the last several weeks and months, I have grown more and more convinced that the only hope for mankind is to be found in Jesus Christ, alone. I suppose I've known that for some time now. But as I grow and learn and walk and live, the fulness of that reality--that apart from Christ we can do nothing, but with Him all things are possible (paraphrase)--has become more and more real. The Good News of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who lived, died, was resurrected and offers New Life in His Name is the best and only solution to the problems of humanity, corporately and individually.
How's that for a thesis?
Good night,
Richest blessings,
I was both surprised and pleased when my dad bought the first volume of Steven Spielberg's "Pinky and the Brain" on DVD. I am quite certain that nine of every ten popular, cultural, political, and historical references is lost on me, but it's still fun to watch. And after rewatching only three episodes, I can once again recall the entire theme song from memory perfectly. Perhaps some would call that a 'lesser' accomplishment, but I still got a kick out of it.
ON SUNDAY, I ATTENDED THE Duarte Church of Christ. That was an experience, quite different from that to which I am accustomed.
A COUPLE WEEKS AGO I took the GRE (Graduate Records Exam); it's like the SAT for graduate school. Like the SAT, it includes a Verbal and Quantitative section, but it also incorporates an Analytic Writing section (consisting of two essays to be written in 30 and 45 minutes, approximately). I received my final results this week with mixed feelings. My raw verbal score was not as high as I would have initially liked, but I found out that my performance actually placed me in the 94th Percentile for that section. (Huzzah!) My Analytic Writing score (4.5 on a 6.0 scale) was in the 54th Percentile. (Not-so-huzzah!) But I think I'll just live with that rather than paying $115 to retake the whole test with the possibility of going higher or lower. (It's hard to beat the 94th Percentile.) I'll just work really hard on my Application Writing Sample. Praise God!
Please be praying for me with regard to all things grad-school-related. I'm both excited and extremely anxious. But "God is good all the time."
AND TODAY--I VISITED THE Getty Museum. Five of us went and had a great time. I do look forward to seeing everyone again once school has started. Gradually close friends are returning from trips and travels and I am so excited to see them all.
FINALLY, FOR THIS ENTRY, MY time at the Getty spurred much interesting reflection. In my last blog I said I might write about 'choice'. On Monday, I thought I might write about 'oppression'. Then about 'fear'. And today, my mind is so full of thoughts and ideas and connections that there is virtually no hope of successfully and coherently articulating them.
My friend, Michael, helped me sift through many of the ideas. He also pointed out the problem of lack-of-appropriate-context in blogging. But I've decided to throw this all out there anyway. And it may not make sense; some of it may even be incorrect (that's part of drafting), so just remember that this is just me musing and batting around incomplete thoughts:
Most of the art at the Getty dates from before 1900. For the most part, I like art from that time, especially paintings from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. But the last exhibit we saw at the museum was from the early 20th Century, titled: "A Tumultuous Assembly: Visual Poems of the Italian Futurists." In the years preceding and during the first World War, these artists and poets were especially active. The following is an excerpt from the exhibit's description:
"In 1909 a handful of artists and poets under the age of 30, led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, published "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism". Meant to scandalize, incite, and amuse, the manifesto declares that scientific and technological inventions have altered concepts of time and psace, caused a deep change in the psyche, and in effect created a new humanbeing. The Futurists prescribe war as "hygiene" to rejuvenate society and argue that new kinds of art will arise to reflect the modern world. Italy, they proclaim, with its burdensome legacy of ancient and Renaissance art and its numerous museums that "cover her like so many cemeteries," has to destroy its cultural institutions and create new ones. / The Futurists eventually extended their polemic into all areas of politics and culture, issuing manifestos describing how to reinvent painting, music, cooking, clothing, architecture, design, warfare, education, courtship, and government. / In three manifestos written from 1912 to 1914, the Futurists set forth the technical features of the words-in-freedom [the Futurist literary style], arguing that syntax and punctuation would have to be destored so that words could be set free. On the one hand, they would strip down language; on the other, they would enrich it with devices from nonlinguistic domains." (JoAnne Paradise and Annette Leddy, Exhibition Curators, Getty Research Institute)
At first I found myself disturbed and perturbed by these statements and the 'visual poems'. They were disorienting and contrary and challenging. And I started to think about the different approaches to art. It has been said by some that the purpose of art is to challenge the way that we see the world. But how far should it go and where will it end? And no less disquieting is the question raised by so many alternative presentations of reality: "Am I certain that my way is the right way?"
I've noticed a pattern among my friends who are studying sociology and anthropology. They frequently comment on how their exposure to so many different cultures, lifestyles, and ways of living, has given them pause in thinking about their own lives and worldviews. To step outside of the American scene and see others living in radically different settings and following radically different patterns, often quite successfully, leads one to reevaluate one's own life-pattern. Similar reflections are made in religion and philosophy.
I've been reading about 'fear' and 'anxiety' in a book on Theological Anthropology by F. LeRon Shults. These seem to be an essential part of the human condition, of our finitude. The breadth of the Unknown is overwhelming, the size of the universe and its enormous diversity. We find ourselves in this place and are staggered by its immensity.
It seems to me that this 'anxiety' IS a part of the human condition, a natural outgrowth of our innate finitude. BUT, I am unwilling to accept agnosticism; everything within me cries out against being loosed, anchorless, to drift aimlessly across a sea of uncertainty. There must be Truth out there, the Answer, Bedrock, Foundation.
The tools of philosophy may be helpful on this point, by reminding us that Truth is not decided by the masses. And sociology/anthropology, while quite apt at collecting and describing all sorts of behavioral and phenomenal data, is NOT suited to EVALUATE that data; at least, not apart from some transcendent system of criteria.
That's why I'm a philosopher (*impish grin)--because it is one of the jobs of Philosophy to consider and evaluate just those sets of criteria. But before we can establish a set of criteria, we must identify what it is that we are evaluating. And looking at the Futurists or the great religions of the world, there appears to be this understanding that humanity has a problem and is in need of a solution.
...
*Sigh. I'm not yet half way through and the, so called, "Final" portion of this blog entry has already grown to over 400 words (and it's now well past my bed-time). If you've actually read this far, that is very encouraging to me. Perhaps I will continue this in a later entry. Perhaps you would like to speak with me directly on these topics. Perhaps someone who actually knows something about art and art history would like to step in and educate me because, the fact is, I am grossly ignorant. But these are just some of my thoughts and musings.
The end result is this: over the last several weeks and months, I have grown more and more convinced that the only hope for mankind is to be found in Jesus Christ, alone. I suppose I've known that for some time now. But as I grow and learn and walk and live, the fulness of that reality--that apart from Christ we can do nothing, but with Him all things are possible (paraphrase)--has become more and more real. The Good News of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who lived, died, was resurrected and offers New Life in His Name is the best and only solution to the problems of humanity, corporately and individually.
How's that for a thesis?
Good night,
Richest blessings,
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 10:51 PM
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