i'm getting there.
"taking the complicated and simplifying it since 1994" - that's my motto as a pastor.
OK, it isn't, really. I don't think I have a motto. I have a lot of possible mottos, depending on the day. Sometimes my motto is hysterical giggling. (Is it just me, or is "motto" starting to sound like an over-priced coffee?)
Sixteen years, and much of it spent simplifying. Life is complicated - but sometimes breaking it down into little pieces helps. Theological tomes could hold your house in place during a tornado - but they probably aren't comforting on a cruddy Tuesday. So I simplify (which is not easy to do, and which has fat nothing to do with offering patronizing platitudes or simperingly simplistic solutions).
Thoughtful moments aren't common on this blog, but allow me one - I think Jesus was more into simply loving people, than debating theories full of multi-syllabic words. That's why He got invited to parties.
However ... it should be respectfully noted that Jesus was not a sociologist.
And sixteen years of simplifying is not a skill that is helpful in the world of academia. Papers are supposed to have big words, and dense thoughts, and messy concepts, and above all, they must never, EVER offer an answer. Sociologists don't have answers, it turns out. They just raise more questions.
I can't think about that for very long. It makes me crazy. I like a good conversation with some research on the side, but good grief, let's DO something with it, shall we??!!!
But I'm back in university now. And I have a Lisa-Simpson-like craving for good marks. And being married to Spike gets me invited to parties, no matter what. So I have written, re-written, re-worded, re-formatted and re-gurgitated my latest paper until it has been pounded into a lifeless and vocabulous piece of work that doesn't look like me at all. I used the word "problematized". Which feels a little snooty. And at the end, I firmly opined that further research certainly must be done, because having a solution at this point (or ever) is entirely out of the question.
Ah well. At least I don't have to create a bristol-board poster.
(**title translation: thoughts of a running pastor)
