Going Through the Motions!

Do you ever hit one of those stages where you wonder what the point is to everything? I hit one of those stages this past week. Starting on Friday night and going through until Wednesday my sleep schedule was insane. I’d hit bursts of energy at 2am and keep going. I’d set my alarm, wake up, fall back to sleep; or, worse yet, I’d sleep through two alarms that I set. My days seemed full of work and were incredibly tedious. I wasn’t enjoying much that I was doing and it seemed like I should have had a passion, or at least been enthused, for what I was doing.

I did face an issue when I let my attitude infect my reading of the Senior Seminar text for this week. I really didn’t appreciate the author or his style. W.C. Smith’s What is Scripture? is a very long and boring reading. Too often I kept asking myself, “What’s his point?!?” Not only could I not figure out at first what he was trying to say, but I also couldn’t figure out who he was trying to say it to. It didn’t seem like he had an audience in mind. Dr. Camp did a great job of explaining his argument to us in class and different ways that the argument could address many of the extremes in Religion. She explained the trilateral relationship he defined scripture as: a connection between people, texts (material) and transcendence. The way I let my attitude cloud my judgment was that I still challenged WHY he wrote it. I guess I implicitly asked why we had to read it too. I think it’s possible to be able to study Religion and to understand scripture without having to be able to articulate the tri-partite relationship that Smith explored. One can understand the meaning of the scripture, the value that the community, which regards it as scripture, gives it, and the way it affects the community without having to articulate this relationship. This may be my downfall. I’ve let my attitude rule my judgment and I’ve decided that I think Smith was going the motions and getting it printed. I don’t see a purpose for this work. Who’s he trying to change or convince or even impact? Is he trying to affect historians? Possibly, but probably not. Is he trying to affect ministers? If so, he would have to have done it in SUCH a different way. Is he trying to affect religious zealots? They’re probably not going to read it. Some of my peers tried to convince me that this will have the trickle-down effect with the educational system and will greatly affect the people Smith was trying to reach. I’m not convinced. If a class of 18 people, who read it once, didn’t understand his meaning without the professor explaining it step-by-step, then we probably aren’t going to read it again and we probably won’t be suggesting this as good reading to others. I don’t think it’ll trickle down. Given the meaning that Dr. Camp explained to us, I kind of hope it does. The message seems to be valid and needed. I don’t think Smith’s writing will do it.

Besides just feeling like Smith is going through the motions, I feel like I am too. In Buddhism this week, I had to write a paper. I did it at the last minute, and wrote a good one. I’d been thinking on it for a week, but it still wasn’t something that I invested in as much as I should have. I was just going through an academic exercise and not worrying that much about the implications or even the process. I was kind of on auto-pilot. While I guess it’s good that I can succeed while going through life with little personal commitment, shouldn’t there be more? Shouldn’t I be living for something else? Obviously, the answer of God comes up, and my dry retort is that this entire process is helping me grow to serve God better. But still, am I getting as much out of this as I should be? Am I reaching my full potential? Why do I keep asking with myself as the focus? That may be the key. The nice thing is that when I get into these static periods of life that keep cruising along at the same velocity, something usually changes the pace without my noticing it. I’ll keep my eyes open!