Egregious Reader

It is not uncommon for skinny nerdy timid boys (speaking of myself in the middle school to early high school days) to identify as outsiders. They may be white and male and privileged, but the collection of other factors lead one to outsider feelings ... maybe even left-out-feelings. These things are somewhat universal when one finally finds a way to talk to others ... but sometimes that skill is hard learned. And one can go on identifying in isolation or one's own outsiderness. In college, I started over, grew long hair, hung out with the cool kids who liked punk music (hardcore at the time) and even had my first girlfriend. Nonetheless, I felt alien among the particular kind of Christian liberal arts college I went to. Alien may not be right, it always felt like God didn't grant me the same number of limbs as my fellow students, or even that I was missing one or two senses. Worse because it was God purposely withheld it from me. Practically it meant that even though I was ...

Wolterstorff dismissed the idea of writing a memoir because he said his life was boring. His life has been lived writing and teaching. "Most of my days as an adult have consisted of reading philosophical books and articles, taking notes on my reading, thinking hard, writing philosophical books and articles, preparing notes for classes and public lectures, listening to talks and lectures, leading discussions, participating in discussions, talking with students and colleagues, reading student papers, and so on--year after year ... Boring!" Of course, there are those of us, weirdos like me, who in some ways pine for exactly this kind of life. Ha! And of course, this is is a reduction of his actual life and its richness. It also misses the content of this reading and thinking hard. He also manages to hold on to his tradition while truly reaching out to people of other traditions. He says "my life-in-community has been an expansive opening-out from the community of the sm...

To my readers. There is a false dichotomy between conservative and liberal that unfortunately is not pointed out enough. The conservative points everything back to individual, personal responsibility. Structures are in place and, for the most part, not to be questioned. If you have a problem it is a personal problem resulting from your own lack of effort or responsibility. The liberal points the structure of society: questions healthcare, systematic racism, prison complex, capitalism. Of course these truths are in tension like so many other truths, they are both true. To the conservative who is so proud of his hard work, are you really going to show such ingratitude to your parents like that? What kind of conservative are you if you don't acknowledge the hard work of the generations that went before you? And then does it not take any thought to realize that it wasn't just hard work, but also luck or chance at this moment or that in your life or your parents life or your gran...