Lost, Found
I haven't posted in a few days because I've been very, very busy alternating between a good pace at work and completely slothful self-indulgence at home. I've decided to get up at 6:00 for the discipline, as well as the novelty of seeing that early part of the morning every day for a month (you know, the part of the day when Mr. Frank is getting 'round to his lunch).
My summer school class is going well--I have an exceedingly good-natured bunch. This morning they suffered through 90 minutes of sentence repair and were still snickering at the errors in the textbook's exercises by the end. These days have a nice rhythm (in theory at least): teaching in the mornings, and research time in the afternoons.
In my spare time--as well as some un-spare--I've been watching the TV show Lost. Because I'm one of the last two people in America who watches TV but hasn't seen Lost, I have the delight of two seasons worth of shows to catch up on and have been consuming the episodes at a rate I probably shouldn't even confess to in public.
The premise of the show involves 14 major characters and a crowd of extras who have been stranded on a tropical island following a plane crash. Because their plane had gone off its flight plan, no one came to rescue them. The characters' backstories are told through flashback, and many of them have questioned whether their suffering on the island is punishment for their past, or whether they have something they need to learn. It strikes me as interesting that even in a world where there is virtually no theological acknowledgement of God, the question of fate, free will, and punishment still surfaces.
These questions seem to come from within us, not from the Bible or from any particular theological framework, and yet when the questions emerge in a religious context, they're often met with a terrified defensiveness. When I teach the writings of the Puritans, I often find that students are put off by the Puritans' explicit discussions of their own guilt or original sin or depravity; for the students, this burden seems simply too heavy for the psyche to bear. But it seems to me that theology teaches us not that we are guilty--don't we know that ourselves, in the deep recesses of our hearts, in the backs of the closets of our minds?--but that there is an answer for our guilt. It's troubling that we've learned that to be told we are sinful is such a terrible insult, or such a damaging claim, that we can't bear to hear it, for we then can't be relieved of the hold it retains in its secret place.
My summer school class is going well--I have an exceedingly good-natured bunch. This morning they suffered through 90 minutes of sentence repair and were still snickering at the errors in the textbook's exercises by the end. These days have a nice rhythm (in theory at least): teaching in the mornings, and research time in the afternoons.
In my spare time--as well as some un-spare--I've been watching the TV show Lost. Because I'm one of the last two people in America who watches TV but hasn't seen Lost, I have the delight of two seasons worth of shows to catch up on and have been consuming the episodes at a rate I probably shouldn't even confess to in public.
The premise of the show involves 14 major characters and a crowd of extras who have been stranded on a tropical island following a plane crash. Because their plane had gone off its flight plan, no one came to rescue them. The characters' backstories are told through flashback, and many of them have questioned whether their suffering on the island is punishment for their past, or whether they have something they need to learn. It strikes me as interesting that even in a world where there is virtually no theological acknowledgement of God, the question of fate, free will, and punishment still surfaces.
These questions seem to come from within us, not from the Bible or from any particular theological framework, and yet when the questions emerge in a religious context, they're often met with a terrified defensiveness. When I teach the writings of the Puritans, I often find that students are put off by the Puritans' explicit discussions of their own guilt or original sin or depravity; for the students, this burden seems simply too heavy for the psyche to bear. But it seems to me that theology teaches us not that we are guilty--don't we know that ourselves, in the deep recesses of our hearts, in the backs of the closets of our minds?--but that there is an answer for our guilt. It's troubling that we've learned that to be told we are sinful is such a terrible insult, or such a damaging claim, that we can't bear to hear it, for we then can't be relieved of the hold it retains in its secret place.
posted by Tara | 4:23 PM
6 Comments:
OJ ("Other J"), it's right up your alley. There's a heroic doctor and a pregnant woman.
Wow, that's 4! We could call ourselves the Lost Fan Club. Get it? ;)
Good question, Lee. If not a punishment, it is certainly an invitation to do things that warrant punishment . . . as well as an opportunity to do things that warrant His praise. Hmm . . .
Wow--I can't believe you guys could stop watching . . . I watched the first few and then watched the rest in practically one sitting! Of course, I don't have the same compassion for the mechanical . . . ;)
I watched the season finale of season 1, but that's all I've seen so far. I can't do regular TV, where you have to remember a schedule and sit down at a certain time each week to watch. I put it on the Netflix queue, though.
No Lost for me, either. It looks like something I might add to the lineup if I had more tot-less time.
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