"His goal had been to show readers how to live a fulfilled, meaningful life. Wallace’s desire [was] to write 'morally passionate, passionately moral fiction.' The default for Wallace would have been irony - the prevailing tone of his generation. But, as Wallace saw it, irony could critique but it couldn’t nourish or redeem."The reason I post this is because I had a weird thing happen at summer conference this year that to me proves that irony is the "prevailing tone" of generation Y as well. Several of my students asked me if we could all get together and talk about the out of control irony and sarcasm that goes on among students in our group. A couple quotes that came out of our discussion: "We never really get to know each other because there are walls of irony separating us from each other"....and... "people coming into our group probably think 'these people love being together and know how to have fun but don't really know each other AT ALL.'" Of course it made my stomach turn because I feel like I have spoon fed sarcasm to our students, mostly because I'm scared to know them or be known by them.
We read 1 Thessalonians 5:11 and had a wonderful time of particular repentance among our students, especially our seniors, and I was left thinking: this should have happened a long time ago and I'm a moron for not picking up on it sooner. It felt nourishing and redemptive. I mentioned to one of our students: doesn't it make your soul come alive to imagine actually letting someone know you?
If only I had the courage to believe the gospel myself!
-JEP
2 comments:
As an aside Jay Bennett passed in his sleep. He was 45 (my age), yikes! I stop from this moment making pissy comments about Wilco, since it's now pointless to bemoan their removal of said JB.
The Youth Minister at First Presbyetrian Church Starkville is considering heading to Seminary, Cameron Beaty son of Big Jim of Backstage Music fame. I've given him some links to your sermons to RUF there in CT as he wroks on preaching an occasional sermon. Wish me luck as I tackle 4th-6th grades in VBS with some ridiculous Outback Adventure theme More like package RePackage Reissue extra track with a tacky badge. But I hold my thought and become a team player excuse moi Outback Guide!
Hope your life is really all you want and hope for it to be.
Best, GEL
Thanks for the post. Praise God that you guys had a chance to talk and pray about this problem in our group.
Post a Comment