Spiritual Formation

Just because the folks at the Ooze are good folks, here's the Spiritual Formation page at the Ooze that they asked me to link to. It's supposed to get the Ooze up higher on Google searches and such--kinda like "miserable failure" punched into Google yields either Dubya's bio page or Michael Moore's page or Jimmy Carter's page, depending on whether the crazy lib bloggers or the crazy Republican bloggers are winning that little game at the time. But anyway, here it is.

Strange Props

I never used to have dreams about plays, but in the last seven years, since I first read about existentialism, I've had them over and over. One of the existentialists (want to say Sartre, but I'm not sure) called life a play for which we know not the lines but in which we stand center stage. Since I learned that, I've had dreams about being in plays for which I don't know the lines quite frequently.

Last night, in the play, my stage directions (I did know them) said that I was to emerge in the last scene with "signs that represent my plight." I had no idea what they meant, so I began gathering props from backstage. If I remember correctly, I grabbed a couple books (no big surprise), a newspaper with a headline about somebody winning (I suppose that means that my dream-making faculty feels pretty good about my life right now), and a pink flamingo (no idea on that one). As I was about to step onto the stage, the alarm went off.

I finished Barth's Dogmatics in Outline, and although I didn't agree with every one of his points, it's undeniably one of the most powerful works of theology I've ever read. I'm already imagining things in Barthian categories, something that no theologian since Milbank has done to me. Now I'm trying to catch up on my Marva Dawn for Monday and to read a Robert MacAffee Brown book which, although it's very good, just can't measure up to Barth.

Another day of classroom moving and syllabus writing lies before me... bummer. Oh, well--it could be worse. I could still be cleaning toilets in Johnson City.

No Job, No Brakes

I had one of my anxiety dreams last night. Mary and I were sitting in our car overlooking some kind of parade when Cynthia from the library came walking along. Suddenly I realized that I was supposed to be at the library an hour and a half ago to sub for her. She told me that no patrons had come yet, as far as she knew, but that I was actually supposed to be at a much larger library, and there were seven people waiting for me to show up. With this prompting on the brain, I started the car and threw it in reverse. Lacking the power to move backwards, we began rolling forward towards a thirty-foot drop off into the parade route below. I stomped the brakes but got nothing. So I floored the gas in reverse, hoping to save the car. All that happened was a spinning of the front wheels and a plunge as the car began to fall. I woke up in a cold sweat at 3:30 this morning as the car hit the bottom. Not being one afraid to continue such dreams, I made a pit stop and came back to bed and dreamed about being a defensive end for the Indianapolis Colts.

Most of my free time has been wrapped up in planning for next semester's classes, so I still haven't finished Barth. I have, however, decided that the speech class is going to move in a workshop-speech-workshop-speech manner, each Monday being concerned with some teaching of theory and then some time for students to consult with me. Wednesday will begin with speeches and end with whatever teaching I have time left for. I'm not sure whether I have to give a final, but I'll try to avoid that if I can.

Micah has been as active as ever, and we've got less than three months' time until he's due. I've felt like a father for some time already, and I'm ready to try my hand at it in the trenches. March 11, here I come!

Get a Job

I dreamed last night that Richard Gilmore (from the show Gilmore Girls) was my father-in-law and that Mary and I were visiting for a weekend. He kept ranting about how I should get a real job, and I accidentally dropped about eight spoons down the garbage disposal. Details beyond that are fuzzy.

Barth is still coming along, though extensive trips to Mary's school and excessive Madden playing (and enervating Christmas shopping) have kept my reading time to a minimum. I don't know if I'm burnt out or what. Perhaps I can turn that around today and have a dazzling take on Barth's final chapters tomorrow morning. We'll see.

A Voice Crying

No dream recollections from last night; I believe I was just too tired.

Barth's Dogmatics in Outline is almost finished, and I know now why he's such a compelling figure in theology. I also wonder whether I could sustain reading through twenty volumes of his intense prose. On the other hand, he's given my little book a jump start; I started making notes on a chapter for the first time since October yesterday. I don't know whether I'll have the thing rolling by the time Micah arrives, but it'll at least be something that I can tool around with as the months and years pass.

I think I'll try out Robert Macafee Brown's book next--it's also a compact-sized, hundred-and-some-pager. And in the meantime, I've got chapters of Marva Dawn's book to read. Taking it on with a group has proved rewarding; since I've got the strongest cultural conservative/aesthetic elitist tendencies in the group, it's interesting to have to take Dawn's side in matters of church art, pop culture, and such. I think it'll be an interesting read down the road just for that reason, even if for no other.

Way too much Caffeine

In my dream last night (you thought I'd stopped this blogging thing, didn't you?), I was tired, so I found a can of cola to drink. Unfortunately, it was a can of high-octane Jolt Max (I'm not sure whether they actually make such a drink). The result of my ingesting the drink was that I became able to shift up to eight days forward or eight days backward due to the caffeine overdose. Being in a dream, I didn't think to do the obvious sports-betting thing; instead, I was just overcome with anxiety as my life became a sort of digital cable menu, each of seventeen days being just as much an option as any other. Spooky.

Barth is coming along nicely, but I fear that I'm soon going to be overwhelmed with work and nearly unable to finish. I might be teaching as many as four courses with three preps over there next semester, and I'm not sure what's happening as far as textbooks or syllabi go. So I might be in a dead scramble by the time I next enter something on the blog. Or maybe not.