Friday, September 03, 2004

On the road with Bosch #2

Bosch finishes with a chapter called "the courage to be weak" in which he challenges us to live on the borderline of the "already" and the "not-yet". He doesn't quite nail down (crucifixion pun intended there) what that looks like but he does say it will be "the very antithesis of neutral aloofness, contentment, and passivity...shallow enthusiasm and hyperactivity."
I was most challenged by his discussion of "vocational certainty" and the struggle to know "this is where I belong." Bosch claims that, "Paul lived in this creative tension..he never doubted that he was where he belonged and was doing what he should be doing. The knawing uncertainty about whether or not we should continue more than anything else hollows out our ministry and destroys our joy."
While trying to embody what Bernard Adeney calls "epistemological humility and ontological conviction" (in "Strange Virtues" ISBN 0830818553), perhaps I have over-played doubt and compromised a healthy passion, conviction, and quiet-urgency about Jesus and the Kingdom. I need to work more on making sure my 'knawing uncertainty" is limited to doubt about myself instead of bleeding over into the lived-out/spoken-about message of Luke 4:18ff.
Perhaps I have been biting my tongue when I should be speaking the truth (as I see it) in love (as I live it).
Perhaps biting my tongue in this way is as problematic as the religious lip service that offends me so.
Perhaps, by trying really hard not to appear too sure about what I know out of sincere concerns about the cultural sensitivities of post/late/anti/not/modernity, I have missed the chance to be a fool (in the best sense).

1 comment:

Aaron said...

good stuff. came here via geoff's comment on alan's blog. i'm a Bosch fan and am in that "creative tension" of vocation presently.... i'll revist "spirituality of the road" and check that out.