I want to challenge you to think. I want you to ruminate on the word truth.
Complete the sentence "Truth is...."
I have a hard time completing this sentence too. I want you to think.
This past weekend I got to write another paper for a history class. This paper addressed the formation of the American Holocaust Museum, and the challenges it brought to academic historians like yours truly. Part of me wants to just post the paper, but to be honest I don't think it would communicate effectively to you my internet audience. So I will attempt to distill the core of my insights, and if you have questions I give you permission to ask away!
In my mind the goal of the historian is to engage past events and people while being aware of this engagement's ability to change the historian and her audience. Fellow historians will argue for a different goals. Some might say that objectivity in recording events is the goal and criticize my goal for attempting to teach my audience anything more than the facts. I will respond to this criticism too.
Let's consider objectivity for a moment. To be objective is to operate without personal feelings or opinions. Objectivity is mode of operation by which the operators has no prejudice. Most agree in saying that it is impossible to be perfectly objective. If objectivity is the goal though the historian simply attempts to be as non-prejudicial as possible when he engages past events and people. The most objective historians might say that the purpose of history is to record events or people "as they were." If you read their work you will get very well researched accounts, and will come to many new facts. You may in the end ask yourself why they wrote the history, and more importantly why you read it. If the historian's goal is to simply present events and people "as they were" then the only benefit you as a reader gain is encyclopedic fact of that event or person. In my opinion this sort of history only accomplishes half of the task given to historians.
Imagine you and some friends are planning to go backpacking some woods for over a week. None of you have ever been to these woods. You had the forethought to buy a map though, and a couple of you are proficient with a compass. Your group has the skills to navigate the woods on its own. Your group is autonomous in the woods, but let's say there is a local guide who is on the trail. He and your group stop and trade trail stories. He knows these trails like a post man knows his route. This guide picks up on your group's interests and points out a few places in the trail he knows (not guesses but knows) you all would like. He adds some directions and details on your map to these places and you all have a few more great stories to tell thanks to the destinations he led you to.
I see historians as the trails guides in the woods that is the past. This is not to say they know all there is to know. It would be better to say that historians stay in the past more often than most folks. They are familiar with past events and people, and have a habit of telling other people about them. Everyone is able to engage the past. Historians are just the crazies that stay in the woods maybe a little too long for the average person.
Facts are accessible to anyone diligent enough to research for them. It is truth that is difficult to get at. Facts establish a context in which truth can take place. To borrow from Hans-Georg Gadamer we all approach the world with a cocktail of prejudices. This cocktail of prejudices according to Gadamer ought to be labeled our horizon. When two people interact with one another there is a fusion of horizons. In this fusion individuals can begin to see the world in different ways based off of what they pick up from other people. This process is implicitly reflective. Before, during, and after every human interaction each of us thinks and acts on the basis of our own horizons. These horizons are informed by many different sources faith, school, family, friends, research, culture, and the like. Truth is when two individuals work at fusing their horizons in a prudent fashion. In other words truth occurs when two people, who are willing to change, interact truth can take place.
The historian's task is to present the past and dead in a way by which non-historians can interact with those past horizons. There are many facts to the past, and there is even more truth.
Blessings!
February 29, 2012
February 16, 2012
Rolling Along
Have you ever felt like life was suddenly jolted into you with more volts than you thought you could handle? There are certain seasons in life where it comes at you like this and I am currently in one of these seasons.
I am nearing the end of my undergraduate life and can say it has been a great experience. I do not want to go into details or long lists of things accomplished. Instead, I want to explain how it is that this excellent time in my life will not be missed as if it were only a dream, but built upon. This is not my building by the way.
I came to college with the idea that I would major in buisiness or engineering and actually made my decision as to which school I would attend based off of these two programs. After enrolling I changed this aim and began to talk about seminary as a possibility. My whole Freshman year I was just a pre-seminary student which at this college is about as defined as undecided. I only tell you this short story so that you might understand that what I am about to tell you has been building up in my life and not an abrupt change in direction.
I have been accepted at a seminary. Actually not just a seminary, but my first choice. My housemates can tell you how I reacted to this news. This news is affirmation to a purpose I have learned to make central in my life. When I learn that this purpose I have made central is actually supposed to be central this affirmation sparks a level of joy I only hint at in my usual celebrations.
College has molded me in ways I did not anticipate. That is to say any plans I thought I had were altered, never happened, but always superseded. I did not bring myself to where I am today on my own accord. My ideas of the future will not be the last word in what is to be this life I live. I think this kind of uncertainty can leave a person fearfully paralyzed if God's mercy is forgotten.
I am coming to a point in life where I will reach another summit and get a chance to take my bearings and rest for a short while. I will stay on the path laid ahead of me though and follow my guide and protector into the vallies that lie ahead. He gave me a brief look at where we are heading together to encourage me. Joy is my one response.
Blessings!
I am nearing the end of my undergraduate life and can say it has been a great experience. I do not want to go into details or long lists of things accomplished. Instead, I want to explain how it is that this excellent time in my life will not be missed as if it were only a dream, but built upon. This is not my building by the way.
I came to college with the idea that I would major in buisiness or engineering and actually made my decision as to which school I would attend based off of these two programs. After enrolling I changed this aim and began to talk about seminary as a possibility. My whole Freshman year I was just a pre-seminary student which at this college is about as defined as undecided. I only tell you this short story so that you might understand that what I am about to tell you has been building up in my life and not an abrupt change in direction.
I have been accepted at a seminary. Actually not just a seminary, but my first choice. My housemates can tell you how I reacted to this news. This news is affirmation to a purpose I have learned to make central in my life. When I learn that this purpose I have made central is actually supposed to be central this affirmation sparks a level of joy I only hint at in my usual celebrations.
College has molded me in ways I did not anticipate. That is to say any plans I thought I had were altered, never happened, but always superseded. I did not bring myself to where I am today on my own accord. My ideas of the future will not be the last word in what is to be this life I live. I think this kind of uncertainty can leave a person fearfully paralyzed if God's mercy is forgotten.
I am coming to a point in life where I will reach another summit and get a chance to take my bearings and rest for a short while. I will stay on the path laid ahead of me though and follow my guide and protector into the vallies that lie ahead. He gave me a brief look at where we are heading together to encourage me. Joy is my one response.
Blessings!
February 4, 2012
Self-effacement or Humbleness
I want to confess something. I do not fully live out humbleness, but instead usually replace it with self-effacement. I do not think I am the only one to struggle with the difference here. I want to explore the difference of these two words by explaining how they operate and their impact on a life.
First, "efface" is only a verb. This means it can only be used as an action. The implication then being that for something to be self-effacement it must be an action. Actions can be both actively pursued and inadvertently done. What I want you to understand here is that efface is not abstract, but rather a tangible and observable action.
What is it to efface? Effacement is to make yourself seem insignificant. It is when your actions lead you and possibly others to believe that you do not matter to yourself. Effacement is the gradual erasure of who you are in yours and others' minds. Effacement is destructive in a gradual sense. As you tell yourself you do not matter here and there you begin to not only believe this lie, but then you live it. Effacement can and will, if given the chance, build a personal prison for its practitioners. You must not believe this lie. You matter. You have a purpose not to be erased, but to live. Maybe I am not being personal enough.
My physical stature, introverted disposition, and the like have led me to many different avenues as to how to cope. I stand at 5'4" and well that is not exactly success in this country (I am very aware of many short men who went on to do great things, I am a historian). I am easily overlooked, in the most literal way, unintentionally and have had to help people who meant no harm in it understand that there was no harm taken. It happens and I hold no grudges for it anymore. When I was young I remember praying for another 2-5 inches. I celebrated reaching 5 foot in my Freshman year of high school. It really mattered to me because it seemed to matter to everyone else. There were many off handed jokes and comments made at the expense of my stature. Oddly, I felt inadequate at times for something I had no control over. I did not wake up in the morning and choose my height for the day. I was and am just short. A similar story though less pronounced has revolved around my introverted disposition. Close friends have always known me as wanting conversation, but not large social functions. This is not say I do not do well addressing large groups of peers formally. Introversion does not prevent individuals from public speaking. Introversion makes social mingling among a large group tolling on an individual. I am very tired after two hours of what I might call "party socializing". Sometimes I will ridicule myself for my avoiding what I know is beneficial social function. There are huge benefits to being an introvert in this extroverted culture though. This blog is one consequence of my time alone. I guess it is up to you if it worth the oddity for me it is.
I have been challenged to cease self-effacement. As a result I have taken up the challenge and added to it. In replacement of self-effacement I want to live out humbleness. I won't erase myself with my actions. Instead I will better understand who I am and for what purpose I am here. Humbleness will open up avenues to understand other people in their respective places and purposes. It is not an erasure, but a promotion of others above self. In other words humbleness allows an individual to hold up another as a promotion of that person. If I erased myself I would never be able to do this.
We all have a purpose.
Blessings
First, "efface" is only a verb. This means it can only be used as an action. The implication then being that for something to be self-effacement it must be an action. Actions can be both actively pursued and inadvertently done. What I want you to understand here is that efface is not abstract, but rather a tangible and observable action.
What is it to efface? Effacement is to make yourself seem insignificant. It is when your actions lead you and possibly others to believe that you do not matter to yourself. Effacement is the gradual erasure of who you are in yours and others' minds. Effacement is destructive in a gradual sense. As you tell yourself you do not matter here and there you begin to not only believe this lie, but then you live it. Effacement can and will, if given the chance, build a personal prison for its practitioners. You must not believe this lie. You matter. You have a purpose not to be erased, but to live. Maybe I am not being personal enough.
My physical stature, introverted disposition, and the like have led me to many different avenues as to how to cope. I stand at 5'4" and well that is not exactly success in this country (I am very aware of many short men who went on to do great things, I am a historian). I am easily overlooked, in the most literal way, unintentionally and have had to help people who meant no harm in it understand that there was no harm taken. It happens and I hold no grudges for it anymore. When I was young I remember praying for another 2-5 inches. I celebrated reaching 5 foot in my Freshman year of high school. It really mattered to me because it seemed to matter to everyone else. There were many off handed jokes and comments made at the expense of my stature. Oddly, I felt inadequate at times for something I had no control over. I did not wake up in the morning and choose my height for the day. I was and am just short. A similar story though less pronounced has revolved around my introverted disposition. Close friends have always known me as wanting conversation, but not large social functions. This is not say I do not do well addressing large groups of peers formally. Introversion does not prevent individuals from public speaking. Introversion makes social mingling among a large group tolling on an individual. I am very tired after two hours of what I might call "party socializing". Sometimes I will ridicule myself for my avoiding what I know is beneficial social function. There are huge benefits to being an introvert in this extroverted culture though. This blog is one consequence of my time alone. I guess it is up to you if it worth the oddity for me it is.
I have been challenged to cease self-effacement. As a result I have taken up the challenge and added to it. In replacement of self-effacement I want to live out humbleness. I won't erase myself with my actions. Instead I will better understand who I am and for what purpose I am here. Humbleness will open up avenues to understand other people in their respective places and purposes. It is not an erasure, but a promotion of others above self. In other words humbleness allows an individual to hold up another as a promotion of that person. If I erased myself I would never be able to do this.
We all have a purpose.
Blessings
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