Back to the Garden

The wild ass is a recurring theme throughout the Old Testament. It is impossible to know for sure, but it is likely that this refers to the now-extinct Wild Syrian Ass. This specimen was once ubiquitous across the Arabian peninsula and, while being the smallest member of the equidae family, was compared to the thoroughbred in strength and beauty - though it was impossible to domesticate. In Genesis 16, the angel of the Lord proclaims in an oracle that Ishmael will be a 'wild ass of a man' after Sarah had forced Hagar and the child into the wilderness. Job frequently cites the wild ass in his lamentations and is pointed to the wild ass by God as an example of one of the many creatures that God has established and sustained even in the harsh conditions of the wilderness (cf. Job 39). The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Hosea also reference the wild ass - predominately in the context of other judgment, wilderness, and desolation oracles and metaphors. (cf. Hosea 8:9, Dani

( Readers may be aware that I began this blog to help me think through my graduate thesis on the work of Stanley Hauerwas. I handed it in tonight, here is the conclusion which may serve as a brief overview for anybody who is interested in what I've been writing about these past months. ) Stanley Hauerwas always claims that he neither has a position to defend nor is he intelligent enough to come up with a position to defend. [1] Yet, there are characteristic ways in which Hauerwas does theology and it is my hope that I have at least been able to describe the particular imagination that Hauerwas displays in trying to show the difference that Jesus makes to how the church is to live and think. That Jesus matters for Christian theology and ethics should be part of the definition of these practices, yet so often this has failed to be the case. In attempts to be ‘relevant’ or ‘rational’ in modernity, theology, especially in North America, has often abandoned the particular claims of

"But this  is how it is - " I say to myself over and over again. I feel as though, if only I could fix my gaze absolutely sharply on this fact, get it in focus, I must grasp the essence of the matter. ( Philosophical Investigations, I, 113)  This is truly the madness of writing. Deadlines loom, "w ords strain, crack and sometimes break, under the burden, under the tension, slip, slide, perish, decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, will not stay still," and I am unmade.