Abraham, Isaac, and Jens Lekman

Results of the 2nd annual acronym contest will be posted soon. If any non-contestants would like to be a judge, please contact me.

I saw the Jens Lekman show last night. Jens's band consists of 4 or 5 beautiful Swedish women and 1 other dude. I don't really know if they're Swedish, but I kind of like to think they are. For 10 bucks, it was a damn fine show.

I must submit a complaint, though. Why do rock shows always start an hour later than they say they're gonna start? It's fucking obnoxious! So, due to the show's late start, I'm a bit hungover and sleep-deprived today.

Nothing more fascinating for others than a synopsis of my present physical condition.

I might expand a little on something from the last post regarding my faith. I want to make it clear that I wasn't then, nor am I now, an atheist, (though in between those times, I probably was for a while). But my faith is a pretty delicate and hard-to-articulate thing. It's sort of like a perpetual state of pre-sneeze, or like that gremlin on the Twilight Zone that the guy on the plane could see but nobody else could. It's a ghost who will disappear as soon as I say his name.

In college, I had an advisor and Religion professor named John, who was pretty much universally recognized to occupy a higher plane of existence than the rest of us mere mortals. He was a very wise fucking guy. I think it was my senior year, after I'd known him for a while, I finally just asked him straight up, "John, are you a theist? Do you believe in God?" He pondered for a moment, and replied "You know, Joe, I guess the answer is yes. But mostly...," he leaned back and spread his arms, "mostly I look around me and just find, Mystery."

Kierkegaard wrote a book called Fear and Trembling, but he used the pseudonym of Johannes de Silentio...John of Silence. Why is he Silent? Kierkegaard argued that life can be regarded in one of three radically different but equally self-coherent ways. These three "spheres of existence" are the Aesthetic, the Ethical, and the Religious. John of Silence begins one of chapters by saying "the ethical is the universal." In Fear and Trembling, we hear the story of Abraham as he prepares to obey God's command to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham's only son. John of Silence tells us that Abraham would have done it, and if he had, it would have been murder, which is unethical. This world, the world of human reason, is the world of the ethical, which is the world of the universal. No rational being could justify Abraham's murderousness. It's universally immoral.

Why is he John of Silence? Because Abraham cannot articulate his reasons...human language is a tool that exists in the Ethical sphere...Abraham cannot possibly defend himself before society's accusations that he is a child murderer. His faith cannot be defended or explained, precisely because the "rational" of faith is entirely removed from the universal principles that guide our ethics and our language. Instead, he can only stand silent, an outcast, but for God's mercy, sparing him the sacrifice at the last minute.

Traditionally, Jews would not write God's name (Yahweh). Their scriptures left that word blank. They would not take God's name in vain (remember the commandment?) Why? Maybe they understood that the tools of human reason and language can only profane the concept of God.

Whatever God is...whatever I mean when I use that word...it cannot possibly be captured in human concepts. Theo-logos is an oxymoron. The moment I try to explain what I mean when I say "God," is the moment I begin to profane and distort and, ultimately, devolve into logical contradiction.

So, on the days when I choose to deem that word useful, I must be John of Silence...I can only say that I believe in the great Mystery. One of the reasons I left the Ministry is because of this hopeless ineffability. I never wanted the most profound Hope and reverent place in my soul to devolve into having the same emotional currency as the weather.