Sunday, March 06, 2005

An Explanation


Currently listening to: CCR
Just watched: The Shawshank Redemption
Currently reading: "Performing the Word" by Jana Childers

"Knowledge puffs up; love builds up." 1st Corinthians 8:1

Everybody has catchy blog titles, and I figured I'd come up with one, too. So I thought I'd begin by offering an explanation for mine.

There's a joke that my friends Jeremy & Mary Anderson once told me. It goes like this:

Teller: "What do you get when you mix an elephant with a rhino?"
Hearer: "What?"
Teller: "Hell if I know!"
Hearer: [blank stare]
Teller: "Come on, don't you get it? Elephant ... rhino. Eleph ... ino. Hell if I know!"

Apparently, they had first heard this dialogue from an episode of the Muppets, which sounds sort of out of character.

Anyway, the title is sort of an expression of my understanding of reality.

Being a second semester student in Seminary, I can understand my friend Daniel Cherry's tidbit of wisdom a little better. He said to me that coming into college, we think we have a pretty good grasp on things. Once we advance through our undergraduate years, though, we begin to realize, "You know, I don't know much." But once you enter graduate school, he told me, it will hit you: "I know nothing."

Of course he was overstating, but the truth is there. I hope I know a few important things. I hope I know who loves me, and whom I love. I hope I know whom I can trust and lean on. I hope I know the answer to the Gospel-writer Mark's question, "Who is that man?" Above all, I hope I will have an answer for what I did with what I was given in this life. Of these questions, I hope I have a response.

But for the most part, I'm willing to admit my ignorance. I've noticed with a lot of blogs, people write to sound wise. I hope I don't do that, stroking my own ego by erecting my own "Babel." I'm skeptical of my intentions even now: by writing about not being wise, it makes me sound wise, right? And it doesn't help that as of late I've recognized a lot of my personal life issues centering around the sin of pride.

But I hope I can lay all of that aside. My hope is that this will be more of an exercise in authenticity, so that in the process, my pride is overshadowed by the reality of my insufficiency. I hope that I will come, not just to admit, but to believe deep down that I really don't know that much.

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