Are you having dessert?
Everything is good here, however, I do recommend the crème brûlée. It is especially good!
I had my eye on the carrot cake.
That's good, too. Go for it!
You asked if I have plans for the summer? Do you mean return to China? I don't know, yet. I haven't decided. If possible, I would like to lead a group this time. We have already talked about the cross-cultural encounter and how important it is. I would like to encourage it in my school and congregation. Although my college is small they are beginning to develop overseas programs. I have been talking to them about China, however the administration is wary about affiliations with a religious NGO. The school was founded as an independent, non-denominational educational institution and they want to keep it that way. Also they receive support from the state which stipulates a strict separation between church and state. But you find this fear of religion in the academy, in general, where religion is okay as an object of study, one kept at arm's length, but do not get too close to it!
It seems a futile quest to study something without getting too close, especially a subject such as religion. How does one really know what religion is without being religious? Otherwise the tendency is to objectify it and reduce it to epiphenomenon, a secondary effect like a flag fluttering in the wind. It is a violation of the integrity of the religious disposition. While science dissects the world to understand its interconnections, religion tries to hold it all together and preserve the whole.
It reminds me of my childhood. I was great at taking things apart, radios, toys, etc., but never putting them back together again. I would forgot how all the pieces fit together. I think now I am at that stage in my life when I want to put the pieces back together, to complete the task, and make things whole again. However, I realize that I cannot do it by myself!
No we can't! We have a model in Jesus Christ. He is the redeemed Adam, who had begun the process of unraveling the world and himself. It is not likely we can do it in a lifetime. However we can live the promise that such an outcome is possible and will happen one day.
How does one hang on to such a promise? Looking around the world today and its history, it is very discouraging and seems impossible.
For every horrible thing happening in the world, there is something beautiful happening. The promise is already happening. It is there in nature and in every kind and loving act. The kindom is in our midst. We just chose not to see it!
Yes, we are blind!
Would you like an espresso?
Just a regular coffee is good for me, thanks.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Second Course
So Nort, I am sorry China did not work out for you. However I am curious why you decided to go. You are not been a world traveller, am I right?
No, you're right. I am not a world traveller. Stick me in a small parish and I am content doing God's work in the world, at least I thought so. However, after many gratifying years of parish ministry, I began to feel a bit like the frog in the well, looking up and thinking maybe the world is more than the just a hole in the sky above. What was happening in the wider church began to impact me. Well, I guess it began with my divorce. That definitely shook things up. The world would never be the same after that. It seemed I lost a part of myself when Jenny left. I was more a "broken creature" than I thought.
I was very sorry to hear that. It must have been very difficult.
Thanks, Tad, and thank you for your email. Friends and congregants were there for me, too, for which I was truly grateful. I don't know how I could have gotten through it all without them. It did change the way I looked at the world! I began to see brokenness everywhere: in myself, my church, my country and the world. As you know the Episcopal church is in real turmoil over the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson. It threatens to split the Communion with African churches in an uproar. Also, our own country is no longer as dominant in the world as it was. This recent economic fiasco has wrecked havoc in the congregation with some members losing their jobs and just barely able to hold on.
Throw in global warming and you have a real witches brew of trouble.
In truth, the trouble is always there, always somewhere in the world. This may be a perfect storm, however. The world is really quite a fragile place. How it holds together at all amazes me. "But for the grace of God," I guess. I am sorry to sound so pessimistic.
No, I think we are getting a good dose of realism. It has been a real wake up call!
Unfortunately that call was made 2000 years ago and most of us are still asleep! However, the church is waking up in places here and abroad. I wanted to witness it somewhere and so I thought of a trip. The China opportunity made itself available to me.
But you never got there!
Well, I got as far as the airport in Shanghai. It was a first step. I am not discouraged. I would like to go back! What are your plans?
No, you're right. I am not a world traveller. Stick me in a small parish and I am content doing God's work in the world, at least I thought so. However, after many gratifying years of parish ministry, I began to feel a bit like the frog in the well, looking up and thinking maybe the world is more than the just a hole in the sky above. What was happening in the wider church began to impact me. Well, I guess it began with my divorce. That definitely shook things up. The world would never be the same after that. It seemed I lost a part of myself when Jenny left. I was more a "broken creature" than I thought.
I was very sorry to hear that. It must have been very difficult.
Thanks, Tad, and thank you for your email. Friends and congregants were there for me, too, for which I was truly grateful. I don't know how I could have gotten through it all without them. It did change the way I looked at the world! I began to see brokenness everywhere: in myself, my church, my country and the world. As you know the Episcopal church is in real turmoil over the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson. It threatens to split the Communion with African churches in an uproar. Also, our own country is no longer as dominant in the world as it was. This recent economic fiasco has wrecked havoc in the congregation with some members losing their jobs and just barely able to hold on.
Throw in global warming and you have a real witches brew of trouble.
In truth, the trouble is always there, always somewhere in the world. This may be a perfect storm, however. The world is really quite a fragile place. How it holds together at all amazes me. "But for the grace of God," I guess. I am sorry to sound so pessimistic.
No, I think we are getting a good dose of realism. It has been a real wake up call!
Unfortunately that call was made 2000 years ago and most of us are still asleep! However, the church is waking up in places here and abroad. I wanted to witness it somewhere and so I thought of a trip. The China opportunity made itself available to me.
But you never got there!
Well, I got as far as the airport in Shanghai. It was a first step. I am not discouraged. I would like to go back! What are your plans?
Sunday, December 27, 2009
First Course
Tad and Nort order their dinner and a bottle of wine.
You implied in your Email last summer a career move. Is this true? It seems we are both at crossroads, which landed us in China working with a Christian Chinese NGO. I was looking for the cross-cultural encounter and you a religious one.
Whatever one means by "religious;" Is it an encounter with God? I suppose my venture into anthropology had been a step in that direction. An encounter with a cultural other is a first step towards the encounter with the absolute other, or God. The academy derailed that ultimate pursuit giving me only so many lens to work with and I was unable to fashion my own. I remember my first few weeks in Taiwan carrying out my fieldwork, how overwhelmed I was with the life I saw before me, thinking how impossible it was going to be to carve out of it some theoretical insight that would not detract from the meaning of the whole experience. Ethnographic fieldwork is a fascinating enterprise in a way, being so immersed in the object of study. You are not just seeing, but feeling as well, and yet those feelings become left on the editing room floor, so to speak, they are not part of the analytic scientific language we use. We consider feelings as primordial or derivative, in other words, secondary and therefore largely irrelevant. Yet it is our feelings as much as our reason that makes us human!
Maybe this is what has brought you back to the church, your need to acknowledge your feelings. Religion more than anything else is about feelings! I was stuck by what a colleague told me one day about Facebook. He said it was "managed empathy." How true, I thought. In fact, one could say the same about religion in general, it is "managed empathy."
Yes, and kinship, that great discovery of anthropology, is "managed empathy," as well. You are onto something!
The church talks about love. It is central to the Christian worldview and practice, albeit we are as poor at expressing, feeling, and acting on it as anyone else. Christianity is all about how to tap into and manage this flow of love, ultimately coming from God. There is an economy of love, which is entirely separate from that other economy of money and the marketplace, although the two economies are often confused. Love and our emotions are also a realm apart from the objective world of science. For me, there is no contest between science and religion, because they focus on two separate and distinct realms of reality.
Until "the rose and flame are one," that is! This wine is excellent. How are you enjoying the calamari?
Very good. Better than usual. I have never tried the goat cheese and arugula salad. Is it good?
You implied in your Email last summer a career move. Is this true? It seems we are both at crossroads, which landed us in China working with a Christian Chinese NGO. I was looking for the cross-cultural encounter and you a religious one.
Whatever one means by "religious;" Is it an encounter with God? I suppose my venture into anthropology had been a step in that direction. An encounter with a cultural other is a first step towards the encounter with the absolute other, or God. The academy derailed that ultimate pursuit giving me only so many lens to work with and I was unable to fashion my own. I remember my first few weeks in Taiwan carrying out my fieldwork, how overwhelmed I was with the life I saw before me, thinking how impossible it was going to be to carve out of it some theoretical insight that would not detract from the meaning of the whole experience. Ethnographic fieldwork is a fascinating enterprise in a way, being so immersed in the object of study. You are not just seeing, but feeling as well, and yet those feelings become left on the editing room floor, so to speak, they are not part of the analytic scientific language we use. We consider feelings as primordial or derivative, in other words, secondary and therefore largely irrelevant. Yet it is our feelings as much as our reason that makes us human!
Maybe this is what has brought you back to the church, your need to acknowledge your feelings. Religion more than anything else is about feelings! I was stuck by what a colleague told me one day about Facebook. He said it was "managed empathy." How true, I thought. In fact, one could say the same about religion in general, it is "managed empathy."
Yes, and kinship, that great discovery of anthropology, is "managed empathy," as well. You are onto something!
The church talks about love. It is central to the Christian worldview and practice, albeit we are as poor at expressing, feeling, and acting on it as anyone else. Christianity is all about how to tap into and manage this flow of love, ultimately coming from God. There is an economy of love, which is entirely separate from that other economy of money and the marketplace, although the two economies are often confused. Love and our emotions are also a realm apart from the objective world of science. For me, there is no contest between science and religion, because they focus on two separate and distinct realms of reality.
Until "the rose and flame are one," that is! This wine is excellent. How are you enjoying the calamari?
Very good. Better than usual. I have never tried the goat cheese and arugula salad. Is it good?
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Dinner
Tad and Nort meet for dinner after having coffee together earlier in the day. There is much to catch up with. Only casual friends at seminary thirty years ago, they have not seen each other since. An opportunity to teach together in a program in China the past summer reconnected them, although Nort contracted the flu and never made it. Today they have finally met and continue their conversation from the morning. Norton is an Episcopal priest. Tad was never ordained and instead became a professor of anthropology at a small college. Both are experiencing changes in their lives and wondering where exactly it might lead.
This is a charming place, Nort.
It's quiet and the food is always good. I am glad you could make it. How many more days are you in town?
Only two more days, then upstate to visit relatives.
The whirlwind tour?
Actually, I am looking forward to spending a few quiet days in the country with a brother and sister-in-law. We get along well and they make it pretty relaxing. He is a Buddhist who studies astrology and invests in gold. He always does my horoscope when I visit, which gives me something to reflect on. Looking at his life and mine, it seems we are both unfinished products, inconsistent and contradictory. As an anthropologist I am always the observer looking in from the outside and trying to make sense of other people's cultural behavior, yet fearful to cross the line and realize my own cultural embeddedness and limitations. It is a false posture and I am growing tired of it; That we can ever have the answer!
The Apostle Paul said, "The truth will set you free." Whatever that truth is, it is not something that can be dispassionately observed, or ever rationalized. Rather it is something that has to be embodied and believed in. It is a conviction. It forms us before setting us free. One has to be willing to be formed. The truth and ultimate answer is God.
Yes, I must confess I half suspect that. It is one reason I have returned to church. It offers a respite from having to know all the answers. I feel a little guilty about it. As an anthropologist I feel that I am "going native," which is heavily proscribed against in the discipline as it is considered a betrayal against science and modernity. I am becoming a believer!
God forbid! As far as I am concered, to be a believer is a natural state of being and the only honest way to be in the world, otherwise we remain disconnected from it and the consequences of our actions, if we can act at all! We need to believe in order to fill the gaps and there are always gaps to fill. God is in the gaps. That is one reason why I was excited to go to China last summer in the anticipation of feeling God in the gulf that lies between our cultures. Perhaps we should order. The day's special looks good to me.
Let me look. I only just glanced at the menu.
I thought a glass of wine would be nice, too.
That suits me.
This is a charming place, Nort.
It's quiet and the food is always good. I am glad you could make it. How many more days are you in town?
Only two more days, then upstate to visit relatives.
The whirlwind tour?
Actually, I am looking forward to spending a few quiet days in the country with a brother and sister-in-law. We get along well and they make it pretty relaxing. He is a Buddhist who studies astrology and invests in gold. He always does my horoscope when I visit, which gives me something to reflect on. Looking at his life and mine, it seems we are both unfinished products, inconsistent and contradictory. As an anthropologist I am always the observer looking in from the outside and trying to make sense of other people's cultural behavior, yet fearful to cross the line and realize my own cultural embeddedness and limitations. It is a false posture and I am growing tired of it; That we can ever have the answer!
The Apostle Paul said, "The truth will set you free." Whatever that truth is, it is not something that can be dispassionately observed, or ever rationalized. Rather it is something that has to be embodied and believed in. It is a conviction. It forms us before setting us free. One has to be willing to be formed. The truth and ultimate answer is God.
Yes, I must confess I half suspect that. It is one reason I have returned to church. It offers a respite from having to know all the answers. I feel a little guilty about it. As an anthropologist I feel that I am "going native," which is heavily proscribed against in the discipline as it is considered a betrayal against science and modernity. I am becoming a believer!
God forbid! As far as I am concered, to be a believer is a natural state of being and the only honest way to be in the world, otherwise we remain disconnected from it and the consequences of our actions, if we can act at all! We need to believe in order to fill the gaps and there are always gaps to fill. God is in the gaps. That is one reason why I was excited to go to China last summer in the anticipation of feeling God in the gulf that lies between our cultures. Perhaps we should order. The day's special looks good to me.
Let me look. I only just glanced at the menu.
I thought a glass of wine would be nice, too.
That suits me.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Time to Go
So, what can we learn from China?
To put it simply: How to feel again! We eschew sentimentality and yet the expression of sentiment is such an important part of human communication. It is what connects us. I was struck by what one of my students said the first summer I was teaching English in China. She said she was frustrated by English because she could not find the words to express her feelings. Of course this may be the frustration of someone who lacks some fluency, but it struck me nonetheless. It seems that we in the West put such emphasis on the expression of ideas and not emotions. There is a hierarchy that perhaps should not be there.
You raise an interesting point about the limits of language. A professor of mine once told our class that if there was a word for everything we would not have stories! Poetry is one attempt to express feelings. Perhaps we all need to be poets. My church is beginning to see that need. Poetry and the expression of feelings should be an important part of worship. I remember another professor of mine who talked about worship as "this love affair with God!" We put such emphasis on love in Christianity and yet who is feeling it? It seems that we are afraid of our feelings and repress them.
Yes, I agree. It is the legacy of both our modernity and patriarchy. There is the division between the rational and emotional, and male and female. Mao said, "Women hold up half the sky!" If all men truly believed in gender equality, we would be truly free and in love!
Yes, I see what you mean. The emphasis would not be on one or the other, but the relationship. What goes on between the two, that is the dialogue, or conversation. It puts a twist on the Christian idea of "logos," or the "word."
And in philosophical terms, "the dialogic." One can never truly know the other, however, what is important is the dialogue between two persons. That is all we have in a way. We build on that. It is what is truly real. Two countries can be in dialogue, too. It is impossible for a Westerner to know China completely and vice versa. What is important is that we have a dialogue and hopefully arrive at some common understanding, which would point to a common future.
It reminds me of a Lionel Trilling quote, "history is the long conversation." Tad, this might be a nice point to end our talk. I do have somewhere to go right now. However it was great to see you again in the person after all these years. I would very much like to continue our conversation.
Yes, I would too. Are you free for dinner, tonight or tomorrow night?
I might be able to do tonight. Let me get back to you. I have your cell. Bye for now, Tad!
So long, Nort!
To put it simply: How to feel again! We eschew sentimentality and yet the expression of sentiment is such an important part of human communication. It is what connects us. I was struck by what one of my students said the first summer I was teaching English in China. She said she was frustrated by English because she could not find the words to express her feelings. Of course this may be the frustration of someone who lacks some fluency, but it struck me nonetheless. It seems that we in the West put such emphasis on the expression of ideas and not emotions. There is a hierarchy that perhaps should not be there.
You raise an interesting point about the limits of language. A professor of mine once told our class that if there was a word for everything we would not have stories! Poetry is one attempt to express feelings. Perhaps we all need to be poets. My church is beginning to see that need. Poetry and the expression of feelings should be an important part of worship. I remember another professor of mine who talked about worship as "this love affair with God!" We put such emphasis on love in Christianity and yet who is feeling it? It seems that we are afraid of our feelings and repress them.
Yes, I agree. It is the legacy of both our modernity and patriarchy. There is the division between the rational and emotional, and male and female. Mao said, "Women hold up half the sky!" If all men truly believed in gender equality, we would be truly free and in love!
Yes, I see what you mean. The emphasis would not be on one or the other, but the relationship. What goes on between the two, that is the dialogue, or conversation. It puts a twist on the Christian idea of "logos," or the "word."
And in philosophical terms, "the dialogic." One can never truly know the other, however, what is important is the dialogue between two persons. That is all we have in a way. We build on that. It is what is truly real. Two countries can be in dialogue, too. It is impossible for a Westerner to know China completely and vice versa. What is important is that we have a dialogue and hopefully arrive at some common understanding, which would point to a common future.
It reminds me of a Lionel Trilling quote, "history is the long conversation." Tad, this might be a nice point to end our talk. I do have somewhere to go right now. However it was great to see you again in the person after all these years. I would very much like to continue our conversation.
Yes, I would too. Are you free for dinner, tonight or tomorrow night?
I might be able to do tonight. Let me get back to you. I have your cell. Bye for now, Tad!
So long, Nort!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
A Second Cup
Tad and Nort continue their conversation at Starbucks.
I found it interesting that you said you felt freer in China. That is not what we hear over here. In fact we hear the opposite: How tightly controlled and regulated, and top-down, everything is. The emphasis there is unity and not freedom, at least individual freedom!
Yes, well in part I am speaking as the foreign traveller. Whenever I travel abroad, I find it liberating. You leave your baggage at home. You only take what you need; What you want to take. Also, in China, as in many countries and cultures, people are favorably disposed towards the stranger, the traveller from afar. The culture prescribes hospitality. You feel welcomed. However the freedom I speak of is more than that. It struck me the first time I visited China thirty years ago, travelling there with my family. It was the freedom of "individuality" and by that I mean the individual personality. That unity you mentioned is a shared sense of a common humanity which tolerates a great range of personality types. It seems to me that all types are accepted there, even the most eccentric. Whereas here in our "free society" there is in fact such pressure to conform to one type or another. I find it ironic!
Well, I did find a definite graciousness in the hospitality of the Chinese people, in spite of the circumstances I was in. They made the quarantine all very tolerable. I guess that is ironic, too, even metaphorical!
Ha! You have this preconceived prejudice of China as this monolithic entity. That image no doubt is what the government wishes to project to the world, however the people are truly diverse and it is the people with whom we need to keep faith. There is much we can learn from China! Do you have time? I need a second cup of coffee!
I found it interesting that you said you felt freer in China. That is not what we hear over here. In fact we hear the opposite: How tightly controlled and regulated, and top-down, everything is. The emphasis there is unity and not freedom, at least individual freedom!
Yes, well in part I am speaking as the foreign traveller. Whenever I travel abroad, I find it liberating. You leave your baggage at home. You only take what you need; What you want to take. Also, in China, as in many countries and cultures, people are favorably disposed towards the stranger, the traveller from afar. The culture prescribes hospitality. You feel welcomed. However the freedom I speak of is more than that. It struck me the first time I visited China thirty years ago, travelling there with my family. It was the freedom of "individuality" and by that I mean the individual personality. That unity you mentioned is a shared sense of a common humanity which tolerates a great range of personality types. It seems to me that all types are accepted there, even the most eccentric. Whereas here in our "free society" there is in fact such pressure to conform to one type or another. I find it ironic!
Well, I did find a definite graciousness in the hospitality of the Chinese people, in spite of the circumstances I was in. They made the quarantine all very tolerable. I guess that is ironic, too, even metaphorical!
Ha! You have this preconceived prejudice of China as this monolithic entity. That image no doubt is what the government wishes to project to the world, however the people are truly diverse and it is the people with whom we need to keep faith. There is much we can learn from China! Do you have time? I need a second cup of coffee!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Home Again
Tad and Nort never did meet in China as planned. Nort never made it out of the Pudong airport. The H1N1 flu intervened and sent Nort home after one week spent in quarantine in an airport hotel. However six months later, their paths cross again during the Christmas holidays. They meet at a local Starbucks. Nort is already seated with his latte and netbook. As usual Tad is a few minutes late. But what is a few minutes in over thirty years?
Norton!
Tad. It has been awhile! Good to see you!
It's good to see you! Let me get a cup of coffee...
How, long has it been?
Too long! We have talked on the phone and emailed, but never quite hooked up. China was a fiasco for you! Sorry that happened to you!
Yes, that was ridiculous! But I might have a chance to go back next summer. How did it go for you?
It was a good time as before. I love China. I cannot get enough of it. If I could I'd go back tomorrow. I'd even consider living there.
Really! Never had that strong a feeling about it beyond a curiosity. Of course it is an important place in the world today and we need to know more about it. You speak some Chinese, right?
A little. I took it in college and have tried to keep it up. It helps. I was surprised how much of it came back when I was there. How many characters I was able to recognize. But I have a long way to go to achieve any kind of fluency.
I imagine with any language there are different degrees of fluency. Learning a foreign language is a lifetime pursuit.
You're absolutely right. The subtleties and nuances of meaning you have to learn in a language are enormous. I don't ever expect to be truly fluent. Of course, you have to live there to achieve a real competency. At least that would be true for me. So you have plans to try again and return there?
Norton!
Tad. It has been awhile! Good to see you!
It's good to see you! Let me get a cup of coffee...
How, long has it been?
Too long! We have talked on the phone and emailed, but never quite hooked up. China was a fiasco for you! Sorry that happened to you!
Yes, that was ridiculous! But I might have a chance to go back next summer. How did it go for you?
It was a good time as before. I love China. I cannot get enough of it. If I could I'd go back tomorrow. I'd even consider living there.
Really! Never had that strong a feeling about it beyond a curiosity. Of course it is an important place in the world today and we need to know more about it. You speak some Chinese, right?
A little. I took it in college and have tried to keep it up. It helps. I was surprised how much of it came back when I was there. How many characters I was able to recognize. But I have a long way to go to achieve any kind of fluency.
I imagine with any language there are different degrees of fluency. Learning a foreign language is a lifetime pursuit.
You're absolutely right. The subtleties and nuances of meaning you have to learn in a language are enormous. I don't ever expect to be truly fluent. Of course, you have to live there to achieve a real competency. At least that would be true for me. So you have plans to try again and return there?
Yes, I hope to. I am curious as I said, very curious! I am curious about Christ in China. What the faith looks like there on the ground. To what extent has it become indigenized? What can we learn from it? Christianity is a universal faith. It gains from all quarters, allowing for reflection. What is happening in China is siginificant for the faith as a whole. It's exciting!
Yes, from my experience teaching with this Chinese Christian NGO, there is a great emphasis on service, which is certainly a Christian practice, but also dovetails with a strong Confucian social ethic. This emphasis of a social gospel is in response to the social need and political upheavels that occured there this past century. I found this service orientation quite freeing. Here it seems all motives are suspect. Anything not done for money and personal gain is suspect. Even in the church it seems that the empahsis is on your own personal salvation, period! The culture and the church have us bound up and immobilized. You have to constantly explain yourself and your actions. You cannot act unless you have been saved! I find it tiring!
Hmm. You've said a lot there. Let me get another cup of coffee...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Prelude
Tad and Norton meet in China after thirty years separation, having followed different paths. Now their paths cross again at crossroads in their own lives. Fortune or coincidence, you say? Follow them on their journeys in China, strangers in a strange land, taking stock of where they’ve been, where they want to go, and what China and their faith means to them. Tad leaves for Shanghai tomorrow, Norton this Friday. They will meet in Nanjing on Monday, July 6th.
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