tm dot μ dot ν

Map your soul -- what the heck?

So last night in Modern Philosophy, Mr. Strauss told us to draw a map of our soul.

He takes great pleasure, methinks, in giving us vague in-class assignments and watching us scream on the inside as we try to figure out what the question means so that we can take a stab at answering it. I ended up just drawing a bunch of squiggly lines and writing under them "this is a map of my soul. if you don't understand it you are just not as smart as me." Then I drew a picture of what I want my life to look like -- what I want to be in the centre, what I want to be important.

Today, I think a map of my soul would just be a bunch of words strewn across the page: "school Christ liberalism faith blogging friends Redeemer Michigan Ontario city family community introspection love faith justice music culture media knowledge wisdom postmodern frustration Calvin Reformed conservative politics Internet questions doubt...", and this would show that my life has seemed to lack coherence for the last two years or so. I think that everyone needs something to be at the centre of his life, something that brings his life meaning and coherence, something that is his primary identity and the thing through which he sees the rest of himself and his world.

We are called to make Christ that entity, that thing around which we build our lives. St. Paul writes in the book of Colossians:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.... For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Christ is the One who holds reality together -- in that he has created and maintains the universe, but also in that He is the way we can understand ourselves and our purpose. We need something to fit into, a Story to take a part in (all the world's a stage...), and if we do not make that Story the Biblical narrative of a God who created and uses us to proclaim his redemption to a fallen world, we will fit ourselves into another Story -- whether it be the humanist, modern Story of people working together to build utopia (by capitalist, socialist or whatever other means) or a neopagan Story or we will reject, as postmodernists do, that there is even a Story. And if there is no Story, then there is no need for characters to populate it, and if we are not needed why do we continue to live?

--
Um, OK. On a lighter final note:
Q. Why is homework the devil?
A. Because Satan himself invented it, it is his spawn and its sole product is to distract, waste the time of and frustrate university students during their midterm exams.

Q. What is the best thing ever?
A. Spring break, next week.

Posted by Tim at February 10, 2004 04:24 PM