Narrative, Dialogue and Theodicy OR God I love Quakers . . .

[nimonus]

So I've been waiting for satyadaimoku to post his thoughts on narrative so I could respond to them, but decided to go ahead and post some of my own here instead. I'm sure Dan's eventual post will have a markedly different emphasis (more on narrative, less on theodicy) and will likely be better articulated, but these thoughts are bouncing around in

Comments

Huh.

[moraulf]

So, David, one of the intersting things about this, to me, is that I've been thinking along those lines in terms of story being fundamental to humanity. Of course, I was thinking in terms of how narrative allows people to communicate (read "Don't Think of an Elephant"!!), but it has to do with our lives, as well. I think we sort of decide what sort of character we are and then feel discombobulated if we're not acting like that character. For example: there's a woman named Therese that works with my father. She used to work with Mother Theresa's order in Sri Lanka, but every time she did that for a year or so, she'd get hospitalized from working herself to hard. It's clearly crazy for her to go back to Sri Lanka now (as she's not the young thing she was), but she's doing it anyway because that's who she is - in her mind, God has called her back, absolutely

Re: Huh.

[nimonus]

Interesting. Heidigger is totally talking about the same thing that I was with the truth emerging from the silence, although I would add that it is not just what the question does to you (passive) but how you answer(active). Presented with two, apparently contradictory realities, how do you respond? Do you chose one over the other? Can you hold both, and if so, what do you chose to do which is faithful to each simultaneously?

One of the meetinghouses we stayed at on the walk had a fairly cheezy poster but one that I liked:

A man saw a child starving in the street, and became outraged at the injustice of it. He cursed God, saying "How can you do nothing to help this child?" to which God responded: "What do you mean? I sent you, didn't I?"

Be Warned That I Can Have This Conversation Forever

[moraulf]

Dropping all references to other thinkers because I am an arrogant bastard and I don't think they're necessary

Re: Be Warned That I Can Have This Conversation Forever

[nimonus]

"I don't think you need to answer the questions. In fact, I think the unanswerability is what makes it good. Somebody once wrote that philosophers are seekers of ignorance - they look for the places where it's really impossible to figure out what the !@#$ is going on. Religion, on the other hand, is all about explaining the unexplainable. For this reason, there's a tension between philosophy and religion

Narrative, Quakers, hmmmm....

[whosewoodsrthes]

I found your post while doing a Google blog search on "storytelling and peace." I happen to be Quaker, also. I'm wondering if you might visit a new web ring I've established, Storytellers and Listeners for Peace, at http://d.webring.com/hub?ring=storytellersandl to see if it might be something you'd like to join.

Best wishes,
Holly