Pre-Reading Week Joy

Ahh, it's here at last - reading break. I love reading break, mostly because of how little time is actually spent reading. Although I base that on a meagre one year's experience at it, I don't expect this year to be much different than the last.

I've finally turned to my Religion 202 term paper topics. I'm somewhat saddened by the 8-10 page range. I tend to write on, and on, and on. I guess these short papers are good for my writing, supposed to get me to write clearly and concisely...as if! I love to jabber on and on and on (as familiar readers undoubtedly know). So what topic? Well I'm thinking of this one: 'How, if at all, was Jesus different from other miracle workers of his age? Consider Josephus, Apollonius of Tyana, the Acts of the Apostles'. Looks pretty interesting to me. I've written on Paul (in RELG 100) and on the OT (1st Sem RELG 202), and so a Jesus paper seems in order. However, I'm also considering two other topics, one on the afterlife in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and the other on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Arg! I actually love all three. But the afterlife topic is just so massive in what I think I'd have to touch upon that 10 pages will never cut it. As for the DSS topic, the question asks for the significance of the DSS. I don't really care for this topic (their significance is plain to anyone who opens up a recent scholarly book on NT research), I'd much rather write about the literature/theology in the DSS. Unfortunately, the Prof said modifying the topic is a no-go. So, that ends with my first choice anyways: Jesus.

And to finish it off, a few snippets of why I love C.S. Lewis so much. All are from his short work A Grief Observed which he wrote as he was dealing with the death of his wife. It's an incredible piece of writing.

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be--or so it feels--welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no light in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is he so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble? (Ch.1)

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there's no God after all,' but 'So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer.' (Ch.1)

I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can't give it: you are like the drowning man who can't be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear. On the other hand, 'Knock and it shall be opened.' But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac? (Ch. 3)

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But rather a special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.' Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask--half our great theological and metaphysical problems--are like that. (Ch. 4)

Greetings and peace to all.