Some Stuff I've Been Thinking About

Hello everyone!

So far I'm succeeding at getting to the library on a more regular basis. I rode a bike here, which I feel is pretty impressive. Not a ton happened this week; I mostly just hung out. Today I went to Concord and toured Louisa May Alcott's house (she wrote Little Women) and saw Emerson and Hawthorne's houses too. But most of what happened this week has been me thinking about stuff, so here's some of the stuff I've been thinking about.

First off, I've been listening to lectures on postmodernism and lit in general, and I talked to Dick (the L'Abri director) about it for a while. I've been thinking about how I disagree with postmodernism's general assertion that language can have so many individual interpretations that it's meaningless, because that's clearly not true. For one, obviously people communicate fairly successfully all the time. Second, I think that Christianity provides some absolutes that language is based on. For instance, the Bible divides humans both from God and from animals and thus gives a clear meaning for the word. However, language and lit particularly do have a lot of interpretations; obviously everything isn't an absolute, and we just have to be careful to remember that some interpretations are wrong and that we should have respect for what the author probably meant, even if we can't be sure.

One thing I'm still grappling with with the lit lectures I've listened to is their moral judgment of books. I guess I really have gotten used to the idea that you judge them aesthetically and not morally, but I'm not sure if that's really right.

I've also been thinking a lot about God's guidance. I felt even when deciding whether or not to come to L'Abri that I had to get really clear guidance from God and was really frustrated when that didn't happen. Now I'm thinking that although I should definitely pray and seek God's wisdom and give him time to act, he gave me the ability to make decisions on my own and that I don't just have to sit around waiting for some kind of sign.

Finally, I've been listening to some lectures on women in the Bible and the meaning of some passages that seem pretty misogynistic which have always bugged me. I've heard some pretty strong arguments based on Genesis 3:16 that man's authority over woman was a result of the Fall when things got messed up and was not God's original plan for mankind and that women can legitimately teach in the church. It's pretty new to me, so I'm still thinking about that too.

Well, I've got to head back before it gets dark, but I hope everyone is doing well!

Hope