While Shakespeare and Donne would inevitably have had in mind the political and religious upheavals of the age, it is surely something far greater than that, a different sort of power game, that they have intuited. They lament the loss of the relation of part to whole, of individual to community, of the context, the cosmos, to which each single soul belongs – each now standing alone. There is a loss of harmony (‘each thing meets in mere oppugnancy’, in Ulysses’ phrase), the whole has become a heap of bits and pieces (‘crumbled out again to its atoms’). And, as Ulysses reminds us, this can have only one ending:
Then every thing include itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite,
And appetite, an universal wolf
(So doubly seconded with will and power),
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself.
Iain McGilchrist in his book on the brain, The Master and HIs Emissary
As we traverse this life in the context of the Information Age, we have an inherent tendency to reduce what we experience into facts and figures that can be analyzed. This quality of attention is second nature. To reduce everything into its smallest component parts seems normal to us. After all, our end goal is to understand. And our understanding of understanding is that gathering more and more information is the best method of pursuit.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, our end goal is deeper than mere understanding. Our end goal is to understand in order to take advantage. Information is currency, and with it we may purchase that which benefits us.
And yet, as McGilchrist and Shakespeare and Ulysses and the core of our own souls would observe, such a pursuit cannot help but see everything and everyone as utilitarian. Nature becomes a heap of resources to exploit. People become a grid of traits and resources with which to judge as useful, irrelevant, or in need of cancellation.
This reductionist mindset, this reduced quality of attention, has infiltrated not just society at large, but, in a bit of irony, all of its component parts – including the church. The Church, as we will see in today’s episode, is called to a much higher quality of attention. One that sees Nature as the glory of God and people as his image-bearers, even the least of all people as Jesus himself.
Today we will review the last six episodes of Awestruck and how each of their individual themes collectively make the whole message we marvel at today more than just the sum of its parts.
The time has come for the Church – for all followers of Jesus – to lay down our weapons of mass reduction and return to living lives of wonder, reverence, and love for all.
Source Scripture
Through the Roof: Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26
Party Time: Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32
I Have a Proposal Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39
Everyone Out of the Pool: John 5:1-16
Good Work! John 5:17-18
You Look Marvelous: John 5:19-30
All That is Required: Micah 6:8
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras