The Burdens of The Giver

One of my favorite books to read is The Giver by Lois Lowry. Not to get all reader-response or anything but I love it because it means something specifically to me and reminds me of my role as a pastor/theologian. Let me explain:

In The Giver the protagonist is a young boy named Jonas who lives in a utopian society where there are no skinned knees and there is no experience of pain. In this society the time came, at the age of 12, when children became adults and were given what was to be there destiny, their place in the community, the role they were to perform for the good of the community. There were all kinds of jobs but only every great once in a while was there a replacement chosen for the most revered role of all, the role of the Giver. This lot befell Jonas.

The Giver was responsible for bearing all of the painful experiences and painful memories of the community so that the community didn't have to (Christ figure?). At the end of the day, Jonas decides that the joys that come with pain are worth the pain and so he releases the pain back into the community.

So where do I see the pastor/theologian? S/he is the Giver in the community. The weight of theological and biblical "pains" must be borne by them, they are the gatekeepers of the faith. Not everyone who claims Christ needs to master or even be aware of the myriad questions and theological problems the pastor/theologian is constantly confronted with. But the questions and problems must be dealt with by someone. 

With this position is the utmost responsibility - deciding in what scenarios and relationships it is best for the community to be exposed to a little "pain." Do you keep bearing all of the burden to shield those in your care? Or do you let them in on a little of your experience? But when will it do good instead of doing harm? This is increasingly the role I find myself in as a pastor and as a student of the Scriptures. 

As I tell most people who aspire to know more about the Bible...be very careful that you don't have false expectations about what this knowledge will bring. This knowledge is not primarily a gift but a burden. If we are interested in having our egos boosted by our knowledge then pick another field because the ethical weight of Scriptural knowledge can be a weight under which our pride and self-sufficiency are crushed.

Alice's Language Games

I have really wanted to read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (which is a pseudonym for famous mathematician Charles Dodgson I just learned) for quite a while now. A few weeks ago I stumbled across a used book sale at my community library and stumbled across a 50 cent copy of Alice in Wonderland, o what fate. I finished it about a week ago and I absolutely loved it. Now, Alice is no Derrida or Wittgenstein, but for a children's book, the language games are everywhere, a fun read if nothing else for odd people who love language. A few examples:

"There's glory for you!"

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't - till I tell you. I mean 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "

"But 'glory' doesn't mean a 'nice knock-down argument,' " Alice objected.

"When I use a word, " Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all...They've a temper, some of them - particularly verbs: they're the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs - however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenatrability! That's what I say...I meant by 'impenatrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppse you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life."

"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Or try this one:

"Aren't you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobod to take care of you?" Alice asked.

"There's the tree in the middle," said the Rose. "What else is it good for?"

"But what could it do, if any danger came?" Alice asked.

"It could bark," said the Rose.

"It says 'Bough-wough!' " cried a Daisy. "That's why it's branches are called boughs!"

In the first excerpt above, I quoted so much of it because of the way everything plays out. It starts out with a very meaningful conversation about language but ends up unraveling into a mere deconstruction of language, playing with language. Which is typically what you'll find throughout the book. You won't find profound statements about language but the way the characters interact with language says something, if nothing else, the oddity of languages.

But if I could read into the two excerpts a bit, there may be something more to be had. This entire book could be a critique on a realist theory of language or correspondence theory, that words have real referents or referents in reality, a thought Derrida spent much time dismantling (in most cases rightly in my opinion). I found it to be a critique in that it presents what an absurd world we'd live in if a correspondence theory of langauge really obtained. The book then is, in a sense, hyper-literal, almost satirically so. At many places in the book, the characters in 'Wonderland' assume that the signifier has intrinsic connection (by way of form - spelling, sound, etymology) to the thing signified, which ends up with Alice scratching her head at such absurdities. The thing that makes it so funny is that you follow right along, you understand the logic, faulty as it is: they aren't just arbitrary incoherent strands of words. So whether you want to have a good book to read to your kid, love to play with language, or want to blow past any notion of authorial intent (maybe?) and have yourself a full blown satire of language, Alice in Wonderland is the book for you!