Compendium Absurdum (6/9/2016)

Compendium Absurdum (6/9/2016)

• Band/themed cruises: Everything is absurd and life is meaningless.

• Live music (in general): The tedium of convincing yourself that it's all worth it.

• Bank-sponsored concert presales

• Elderly metal

• Middle aged metal

• Weird Cirque du Soleil-esque (and probably publically funded?) satantic rituals to dedicate a bridge

• Old lady memes taped to the walls of secretaries and phlebotomists: This happens a lot.

• Theological myopia

• Two-party sorting: You are Slytherin because Slytherin exists. Even Hogwarts had more options than we do.

• Seasonal activism

• Election-related atavism

• The early history of man and what it would be like to be eye to eye with a Hobbit-like anthropoid: I can't comprehend what would it feel like to look at a prehistoric ancestor that would fill in the gaps between and ape and us, but I think it would make me light-headed.

An Emoji Bible and the Art of Biblical Interpretation

I wanted to dismiss this right out of the gate.

A Bible composed in Emojis is a little more than, say, a book of Bible stories for children or a comic book Bible. What might have seemed like a quaint Twitter project raises up very important considerations for biblical translation.

(Skip past the second line if you want to skip the historical and philosophical end of it)

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The Bible is the product of oral transmission. The first recitations of Biblical passages by and to a congregation happens in the books of Deuteronomy. The words of the prophets come in the form of oracles spoken in the name of the LORD. Before the exile, the Judahite king Josiah reads the newly-found book of the Law (likely the book of Deuteronomy) to the people of Jerusalem as a precursor to the re-establishment of their Covenant with God that was ratified in a similar manner some 800 years before on the plains of Moab before entering the Promised Land (2 Kings 23:1ff, Deuteronomy 29:1ff). The reading of the law out loud to the returnees from the Babylonian Exile by the priest Ezra once again re-established the Covenant with God around the time their Temple was rebuilt and rededicated and their fortunes restored (Nehemiah 8:1ff). 

The New Testament emerged from the oral proclamation of Jesus' saving action for mankind: "For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received; that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures..." (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). The letters of St. Paul largely predate the final form of the Gospels and are themselves written exhortations, written in light of the Apostle's inability to be present among the community, and were meant to be read aloud (Colossians 4:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:27). The Gospels first found their form in the stories told about Jesus after his death and resurrection with most scholars accepting that it was his the spoken words remembered among the early Christian communities that were first collected. Afterwards, attempts at a complete narrative were also attempted (Luke 1:1-4, John 21:24-25).

The connection between what is written and what is read aloud cannot be severed without damaging the integrity of what was intended by those who composed the different books of the Bible. In written Hebrew, manuscripts were preserved without any markings for vowels until around the 6th century. Before that, the vowel sounds of certain Hebrew words were preserved here and there in transliterated form in Greek and Latin translations of the Bible, both of which had a vowel system.

How did readers know how the words were supposed to sound? Memory and the regular use of the language within a community. What was spoken, what was read, and what was heard were weaved into one another.

So what's the big deal of an Emoji Bible?

Think of what occurs when you read a word. Language itself is a system of symbols. We use them to approximate and organize certain concepts and they allow us to communicate with each other in a shared social arrangement. A word like "apple" invokes approximately the same image to anyone who speaks English. We associate the word "apple" with shape, colors, texture, etc. It is such a powerful word that if we are hungry then its very utterance can stoke hunger pangs. The word "apple" by itself is arbitrary but emerged from a long evolution of associating things with sounds in order to organize our understanding of reality and to communicate it with others. All of this is possible through our capacity to remember. We remember that certain words arranged in certain ways can mean certain things. Furthermore we have the ability to recall certain arrangements of words spoken by another, or to recall actions that have already passed in a narrative that describes what has already happened. 

So what is spoken both relies on memory and can itself be remembered. 

The written word adds an entirely different layer to the process.The word "apple" is an arrangement of 5 symbols that have been given a meaning as to reflect certain sounds in a firm but still somewhat flexible way. The written word is an extension of the concept of communication and, in particular, communication through speaking. Because of the more permanent nature of the written word, a concept can then be objectified and reflected upon in way that does not require a sustained attention span. The duration of its permanence determines its enduring value. Because more concepts, words, and actions can be reflected upon beyond the capacity of ordinary memory, new and deeper meanings can emerge.

It's something we take for granted but it's a big deal. With the Bible, an entire series of books are collected in one book that was itself dependent on the spoken, written, and conceptual language of the culture its writers emerged from. Its enduring value has been demonstrated in its continual transmission from an oral culture to a literate culture. The preservation of written documents and their continued propagation reflected its spreading influence and ability to transcend a particular culture (Israelite/Jewish) and its varying historical developments. The Hebrew Bible itself was a major contributor to the conceptual matrix of first century Palestine at the time of Jesus, along with several other historical, sociological, and religious considerations.

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At the heart of an Emoji Bible is the relationship between the written and spoken word and how that corresponds to our reception, internalization and subsequent externalization of these forms. 

So check it out!

Psalm 19:14-20:3

Besides abbreviated words ("b" for "be", "&" for "and"), entire words (and concepts) are approximated in a symbol.

The shiny heart (💖) in 19:14 approximates the Hebrew word לֵב (leb). For a moment, let's ignore the surrounding English of the verse and see how well a 💖 approximates the Hebrew word and the corresponding concept standing behind it. 

The word leb is more than just the organ that pumps blood throughout the body and rarely is it used that way in the Hebrew Bible. It's an expression of our inner life and emotions. It reflects those unthematic and difficult to define aspects of our emotions and our deepest understandings. In fact, here it is clear that the word leb is very much something beyond words.

Here, what the Psalmist is presenting to God is their very self, that it is that self, in all of its undefinable dynamism, that is being submitted to God for acceptance. It would not be economical, never mind possible, to articulate the ever-constant nature of our deepest reflections: God here is my love, conflict, brokenness, awareness, understanding, convictions, righteous yearnings" - and so on. So much more would have to be left out than could ever be included.

Our shiny heart emoji is itself a curious translation of the Hebrew "leb". It is an interpretive choice, chosen above others: ❤️💛💚💙💜💔❣💕💞💓💗💘💝 . Would not one of these better encapsulate the meaning of leb here? I think that 💞 better expresses the dynamism of the human heart while 💗 captures the layers and depth of the human experience. In this regard, I would consider 💖 to be a weak translation. In emphasizing the inner depth of a person as sparkling, it seems strangely self-centered.

Yes if the twinkles of the 💖 are indicative of an impeccability, it would best express the desire of the Psalmist: to submit a righteous heart to God. The Psalmist may be saying that his heart is truly 💖 and that God will rightfully accept such a heart.

The verse itself is poetic and in Hebrew poetry a doublet within a verse is meant to support similar concepts: "the words of my mouth and the hegyon of my heart" (אִמְרֵי־פִ֡י וְהֶגְי֣וֹן לִבִּ֣י). The 💖 is expressed by the hegyon (וְהֶגְי֣וֹן), which in the above is translated as "meditation". הִגָּיוֹן/higgayon itself is a dynamic expression that perhaps could have been translated as 🙏, which denotes reflection or 😖 which can reflect difficult contemplation.👓 could denote clarity, which is how the acceptable heart perceives. But higgayon denotes the expression of an internal quality, and in some instances can be translated as "melody". An Emoji might better express the concept than the word "meditation".

In some ways, the image breaks down an otherwise unseen barrier created by our language, which can limit the possibility of the concept as it is expressed in its original language. Translation requires a great deal of consideration, one that is not unknown in choosing an Emoji in communication. Clearly, the "shiny heart" Emoji is not the simplest choice and, if chosen for reasons beyond the aesthetic appeal of a shiny heart, reflects how the translator internalized a profound concept.

So is Emoji a proper way of doing biblical translation? Our language is always changing, whether we like it or not. Every year, the Oxford Dictionary adds new words with recent additions being: manspreading, vacay, humblebrag, and tweetable...none of which register as correct within my web browser's spell check. It isn't absurd to think of Emoji not as an end to itself but as an indicator of a transition to a new symbol system. Languages with less words have to make do with ambiguity, where multivalence trumps a wide, nuanced vocabulary.

There's a great scene in the comic series "All-Star Superman" (written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Frank Quitely) that illustrates this in a stray communication from an imagined 24th century. A scientist from the future expresses his gratitude to Superman for something he did in his own time, using a version of the English language that is an evolution of the way many people communicate now in the use of symbol substitution, stylistic and alternate spellings, and invented onomatopoetics and slang that could be possible when the freedom to invent or modify language finds its way into spoken language (think of how words like "lulz" have found their way into everyday speech).

 It's good to remember that the King James Bible is a masterpiece of the English language because it walked the fine line between dynamic and formal equivalent translation methods: between being true to the perceived meaning of the text and being true to the more formal aspects of original word choice and syntax. The original languages let us work back to the original mode of expression in hope of finding the heart of what was being expressed. This hopefully leads to a participation of the original experience, one that is extended to us today and unites us not only to God but to every person who helped transmit that message to us as well, explaining and translating in ways they hoped would convey the heart of that message to us. When heart speaks to heart, it is hoped that lives are transformed and gladdened enough by that encounter that their heart can do no other than to sing.

CORPORATE MUSIC STORE: Dispatches 5/29/16

There aren't many music stores around and that hurts a bit.

I notice it by the very fact that I still buy CDs. I can get any album online in moments. I have a subscription account to binge-listen to almost whatever I can dream of.

But I went to a store hoping to get a CD.

I went to a Walmart because the only two that are within 20 minutes are in a mall and I was on a lunch break. One of the two was downsized from what felt like a quarter-acre of space and is now a boutique store, basically. They're both corporate, the same broken, clueless corporation that I used to work for. My store eroded and vacated its fading strip mall.




To make matters worse, I wanted a Bob Dylan album.

A new one.

A covers album of Frank Sinatra songs...

..that is a sequel to a similar one that came out last year.

If I wasn't already embarrassed enough to listen to such anemic music, I had to go into a Walmart to find it.

But it wasn't enough to simply go in and find it. I had to ask for it. And when that didn't work I almost had to beg for it.




What was once carefully curated sections, or even automated-yet-comprehensive Soundscan aggregates, are now a slop bucket and some barren wired shelving, begging for the rest of the recall to put the entire section of its misery.






Why do they even bother letting all of that music suffer? Are they hedging their bets that somehow that part of the music business that still supports the physical medium is going to come around? They are like a company that tries to restructure after declaring bankruptcy. Maybe they can survive, but not with whatever bit of tin starred prestige they had managed to hold on to.

I spent a few minutes flipping through a strange mix of edited recent hip hop releases and both budget and deluxe editions of classic albums. The older artists had multiple greatest hits albums with terrible covers, likely the victims of bad contracts and/or being too dead to protest. The albums themselves might still be profound but in this section, and in this thoughtless selection, they had all been reduced to banality. Everything was out of order. It was terribly neglected.








Still no luck. I have always hated asking for help in a music store. I know the alphabet and I know how to spell. I've done whatever research is necessary to act on the motivation that brought me into the store. Asking for help was a sign of weakness, like admitting that I couldn't read. Even if help was necessary, it came at a price.

I asked the woman at the grey monolith where she and a coworker were congregating. Their jobs were not specialized and none of us were under the illusion that this was a music store. I thought I understood the system enough to have hope that this sad album, this sign of loneliness and loss of a pioneering spirit, could maybe be someplace in this glorified electronics section.

"Hi, I know this might sound weird...", something I normally preface to a request that, in truth, sounds perfectly reasonable to me. "...but I was wondering if you could check to see if you have the most recent Bob Dylan album." The moment these words left my mouth I felt like I had truly vacated whatever marketable demographic I had hoped to still inhabit. I'm 35 but I might as well be 50. Balding, almost completely greyed hair and, now, asking for a Bob Dylan album. A Bob Dylan album of Frank Sinatra songs. I'm no different than a 75 year old baby boomer icon. A man born just a year after my own father. Except they were both brilliant and I'm just someone skating between ice ages.








The cashier looks at me weird and edges towards her computer/register to check before she too realizes something. It's clear that that she doesn't get people asking for CDs very often.

"We can't check stock on CDs. They don't come in through the normal stock. Someone comes in and does it from the outside. You'd have to ask him. He's actually here now. He has a green shirt on."

I then realize that Walmart gets music in precisely the same way that truck stops and supermarkets get their bargain DVDs in. It's a vender charged with bringing in...stuff.

I approach the man with the green shirt, who is pushing a shopping cart that contain 5 cardboard boxes.

"Hi...um...I was told that maybe you can help me. I'm looking for a new release. It definitely just came out. It's the new Bob Dylan album?"

I end on a question. I'm humbled. This is how low it gets. It's not like the day I confidently asked for the new Slayer album, knowing that it's there and that it's good and, at that point, not made by old men who are just prolonging a lifestyle in spite of their bad backs and desire to have more quality time with their families. Buying that album made you a part of something. Today is like getting the last ticket on the last day of a nearly-abandoned rail line.

He thinks for a second but comes back abrupt. "I haven't seen that."

Such an air of authority, not of taste but of a truly limited pool of stock on hand. He opens a box and rifles around while I peer in. It was the kind of box that would come in on a Monday from a label whose newest release was modest but had been the product of many months of writing, recording, mixing, mastering, art production, merchandise preparation, promotional preparation, and tour planning. It was often a catalyst of the next year of a band's life.

"It's not here. There's only one big release for this Friday, it's...yeah, it's the new Dierks Bently."

"Ok. Thanks."







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Dramaturgy and the Wolverine

Last night I watched 2013's "The Wolverine" again. I've watched it more times than probably any high profile movie to come out in the last decade. I've watched it more than any other so-called "superhero movie" and I've reviewed it more than any other short form artwork that isn't the Bible or Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns". I've watched it a lot.

"The Wolverine" got a skimpy score from movie review aggregates. Metacritic has it at 60% and Internet Movie Database has it at a 6.7 out of 10. Rotten Tomatoes, which in theory should be drawing from the same pool as Metacritic, had it at a respectable 70%, which is by no means bad but certainly not anything special. "Max Mad: Fury Road" was probably the best reviewed action movie and it set a new standard for things but it isn't really helpful to compare these kind of things. Apples and oranges, really.

It's too bad that the scores are so close to middling because it's an awesome movie. It's a sort-of adaptation of a run of comics written by Chris Claremont, one of the most important comic book writers spit out by this century-old modern art form. The most notable artist from this story line was the same Frank Miller who wrote and illustrated the aforementioned "Dark Knight Returns". It is by no means a true adaptation but it's a good reworking of the atmosphere created by that series. I'd be hard pressed to give a play-by-play of that series, but it felt awesome reading it.

The setting has the same mood as "Blade Runner" or "Lost in Translation" or even "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan". It feels a little like the Japanese sequence of the first "Kill Bill" installment. The mitigating factor is, of course, Japan. Much like Jean Renoir's "The River" or David Lean's "A Passage to India", it's hard to shake the fish-out-of-water trope typical to colonial and post-colonial story telling. The story isn't about integration but, rather, juxtaposition. Everyone in "the Wolverine" is compared with someone else, even if it's simply by association. It's a reminder that the world really isn't homogenized and that, despite the ubiquity of mainstream technologies and fashion, that there still exists a real difference between the cultures of the world. We're much further from turning culturally grey than we may realize.

It's hard to shake the concern that the movie is exploiting its setting. Pachinko machines, bonsai trees, dark decora, bullet trains, and samurai abound. It feels like an idealized travelogue, hopefully less like Marco Polo or even less like Louis Malle's "Phantom India". "The Wolverine" offers little editorial other than that which normally occur in the use of stereotypes. It's also hard to shake the sense that the Japan of this film is built on well-known and oft-used stereotypes.

But maybe it's me creating the stereotype. Stereotypes are the definition of a set of characteristics in a person or culture that are reduced in the process of being made absolutes. But describing something as a stereotype is also a form of stereotyping, a reductio ad absurdum that can be a perpetual definition of definitions, an unending interplay of "this" and "not this" where what is original and what is parody spiral in the fluidity of culture. Maybe not pointing out the existence of a bullet train as characteristic of an image of contemporary Japan is in as much danger of stereotyping as pointing one out. Traditionally, it all comes down to storytelling. "Does it serve the purpose of the story?" the critic asks, "or is it arbitrary? Is it it merely establishing the mise en scène? And who decides that a bullet train is characteristic of modern Japan?"

Perhaps that critic is a western critic, who can be quick to point out the collective guilt of cultural imperialism that has only homogenized a global society in the same way gentrification homogenizes neighborhood cultures or how logging eradicates the ecosystem of the rain forest. There is a sense that we ought not to inhibit cultures by reducing their diversity, to not propagate these stereotypes as a way of constricting the opinions of others who aren't in contact with these cultures, and to preserve the uniqueness of a culture by allowing it to "be".

Of course, this might be the same kind of control that is often typical of American culture, an appeal to the oldest form of domination: the power to name. The oldest argument in this phase of western modernity tends to begin with the words "who are we to...". "Who are we to decide what's best for a culture?" "Who are we to interfere or define?". The process of "naming" exhausts itself because the gaze into our own navels is endless. Identity collapses within itself.

Of course I am also stereotyping the western critic. The whole concept of "western" is part of the myth of Orientalism, that "east" and "west" are accidents of the Occident, those self-appointed authorities of western European origin. Perhaps a native critic would receive "The Wolverine" differently. I'd have to ask.

But what if they didn't like it? Where would that leave me? Could I appreciate it on its own terms? I don't understand the critics because I don't understand what has determined dramaturgical excellence. Where did it fall short and on what terms? I liked it. I think it's excellent. Great, moody storytelling that doesn't try to be realistic but also doesn't try to be fake either. There are hints beyond the fantastical aspects of the storytelling, Silver Samurais and prescient mutants. How about the redub of Svetlana Khodchenkova's voice, devoid of all ambiance and echo? Or Yashida's hospital bed? These are choices of style and atmosphere, not at all flashy or showy but manipulators of mood that bend what we think we should see and what we think we should here. We expect mythic figures articulated in a grounded idiom and we expect realistic settings. But the smaller choices that affect mood and convention change our expectations much like the score (which is excellent) does. The unsettling moment created by the lack on sound upon the impact of the hydrogen bomb on Nagasaki grounds me in natural unreality, those things that suspend normality but are quite explainable. Sound and set design are natural manipulations and so defines the mood.

"The Wolverine" is excellent. I think it's on purpose.

I and the City @ The Neue Galerie in New York

I'd be hard pressed to tell you why this is my favorite painting. I saw it back in January for a few moments when I was last here but ended up regretting that I didn't spend more time with it. I figured it got packed up and sent back home after the exhibition it was featured in. 

I came back for another exhibition and it's still here!

The past few months I've been thinking about it so much. I looked for a print but none are out there. I looked for a decently printed book to tear a page out and frame it. I found two but both were too good to mutilate. It's also the wallpaper on my phone's lock screen. 

So I'm looking at some cool stuff when I turn my head and my heart almost stopped. The last time that happened to me like that was when I went to see the Tel Dan inscription at the Met that is the only extra-biblical mention of King David. I turned around then and saw the Taanach cult stand and the Cyrus Cylinder (both big deals for understanding the history of the bible). It's better than running into a famous person or anything else that hasn't proven its ability to matter in the long term. 

The painting looks so cool in person! It's Ludwig Meidner's "I and the City" from 1913. For me, it's the greatest depiction of anxiety in a world that feels like it's spinning all the time, where technology, clamor, and frenzied activity leaves someone in populated isolation, confused and on glassy eyes wonder. It's the world when you go beyond just noticing things but REALLY noticing things and trying to make sense of it. We look for meaning by instinct and that's born of our ability to reason. Sometimes drawing simple correlations will do. Other times jagged juxtapositions force an obscure, esoteric interpretation beyond the sensible. And still other times we're confronted with things that, deep down, make no sense and are irreconcilable. 

If you hit that point you have to find a way to move beyond the bewilderment because there's no use in staying in a stupor about things either. Realizing the absurdity of things (LOTS of things) can be a way of zeroing in on the things that matter. I think too many things entice us to give them meaning but are ultimately a waste, taking energy and time but leaving us with nothing. It's not that there's no meaning at all, it's just that not everything deserves your attention to cohere and bond with it. People matter, relationships matter, family matters, God matters. These things, in a Christian worldview, will still exist when everything else passes away. Anything that makes your head spin too much is likely a selfish, dying thing. 

When Biblical Translation is Kinda Weird

Translation is an art. In the Catholic Church in America, we use the New American Bible (NAB) translation at Mass (other English speaking countries use different translations). I've never liked it because the language, phrasing, and flow is just weird. 

Today's reading (from the 11th chapter of Second Samuel) is a great example of why. The word מִשְׁכָּבוֹ֙ is translated as "his siesta". Perhaps it's a word that while making sense to an American audience, is still far more jarring from even the most literal translation of מִשְׁכָּבוֹ֙, which could be "his lying down". In the context of the rest of the sentence and episode it simply means that King David was lazily lying down while his generals fought his battles in his stead, something David would never had done up until this moment. This brief line sets up the rest of the episode: this simple shirking of his most most basic responsibilities as King will cascade into a series of events where laziness becomes a wandering eye that sees him as a voyeur to a married woman bathing from a rooftop, seducing her and committing adultery with her, getting her pregnant, trying to cover it up by trying to arrange for her husband (a most loyal soldier of his) to sleep with her, and then having him killed on the front line when that fails to happen. 

That little line is crucial to understanding the precondition to David's behavior. His whole identity up to this point has been about loyalty, responsibility, courage, and fidelity to God. He betrays his most basic principals and paves a path away from them in a series of choices where each is more catastrophic than the last. At the end of it he will repent but he will still pay dearly. We can never avoid our responsibilities for very long and we shouldn't expect that things will go back to the way things were. Still, David will pick up the pieces and try again and try to earn back his nobility, something he never completely achieves. 

But "siesta" is bizarre by making a lateral move to another language. Both Old and New Testaments will use loan words but not here. By conflating the concept of the rest, the approximate time of the arising from the rest (which in Hebrew is simply "evening"), and the context of the rest, I think it confuses clarity and simplicity for the sake of economical phrasing. If I were reading an American novel written in English, the presence of the word "siesta" would usually lead me to pay attention to the cultural situation in the scene (I remember reading a Barbara Kingsolver book that did that very well). In this translation of the passage from Second Samuel, instead of pointing ahead to the rest of the story it seems to me that it's pointing out of the text. That can be valid but that doesn't seem to be the aim of the NAB (and, interestingly enough the revised edition of the NAB - not currently used at Mass - translates this part as "rose from his bed", letting "one evening" suffice in providing the context of the time of rest). 

I really hate this translation and wish we had a different one for Mass. 

Praying in a Pretzel: The Difference Perspective Makes

Today is my youngest daughter's birthday and I was hit by an image of my wife during her delivery. The delivery process greatly hastened towards the end, past the point of an epidural, and I watched horrified as my wife's agony. My wife never really brings it up or over-dramatizes it: it happened and it was hard but parenting is nonstop and the pace of life only quickens from there.

As I walked towards my office at work, I also realized that parents never cease bringing their children into the world. The delivery is a moment but it's as much a symbol as it is an action. In this way it's even sacramental. But it's not like we ever stop bringing them into world. She came into the world four years ago in a very big way, but we also bring her into the world everyday. We bring her to school, back home, to get groceries, and to parks. We also bring her to encounters with her sister, to other family, to friends, and new encounters. Hopefully, we also bring her to a right way to live. The only thing that will change is that she increasingly participates in this process more and more throughout her life until she one day carries most of the responsibility herself. By that point, she may even accompany a life that she brings into this world.

Life might move along a linear path and we do experience time as a successive sequence of events but memory can allow us to weave in and out of past experiences in and out of order (even though, of course, that happens within the regular flow of time). My memory of the day she was born is strong enough to feel at least somewhat present to those moments even now. The significance of those days leading in and out of it was something I couldn't grasp at the time but time and perspective have shown us that what once felt like a lot of chaos is now ordered. Beautiful. Providential. Intentional.

The multi-dimensionality of life can't be discounted. I think we tend towards myopia and seeing things in terms of perspective or breadth or depth is a matter of contemplation. It's hard enough sometimes to describe "what" is happening, never mind "why". But seeing our experiences as multi-layered can betray a sense of Providence and the interconnectedness of things. To realize that I am who I am because of key moments in my life is really a bit much to take in. To further realize that those moments were composed of factors beyond simple measurement or control all the more overwhelming. The truth is that each of us our profound mysteries in all of our parts, in each moment of our biographies, in each decision that we make and in each impulse that passes through our brains. That there is any order at all is mysterious but compounded with the tension that exists between what is ordered in me with what is disordered with me, what is a matter of will and what is a matter of what exists beyond my control, and to even understand these things as facts of the matter in no way diminishes the mystery.

I can be impatient with the idea that the question of God or faith can be reduced simplistically but only because I do not find the concept of mystery at all diminished by a better understanding of mechanisms. We understand the world around us and we will one day understand so much more, but the simple question of it's existence ("why is there something rather than nothing?") remains a profound mystery. Knowledge of the mechanism cannot erase the mystery if appreciation abounds. 

God is the greatest of mysteries. There aren't consciousness exercises that can put into a box the mystery of Being in its fullness, of pure act, of reality much realer than I will ever comprehend. That God would say something to to His Creation, to make Himself known, to use human concepts and language to arrive at a mystery is still a far greater mystery. That I engage the ground of my own being in prayer requires an infinitely greater gulf in understanding. 

I'm regularly in touch with Mystery and that Mystery manifests in the multiple dimensions, in layers of understanding, of practiced and spontaneous contemplation. It's also an art and it also takes practice. To weave in and out of the many, many moments that led to the presence of my daughter in this world through memory lets me see things that I miss in the regular unfolding of time. It's even more so with God. In Catholic theology, the concept of "revelation" is God's initiative. God makes Himself known to His creation and accommodates Himself to their understanding. He makes Himself known and He makes Himself knowable. For us, revelation happens exclusively within the realm of time. History is the medium God uses, be it world history or personal history. 

To see His work (especially in your own life) for what it is, walk around it a few times. See it from a few different angles. Understand that there are things that you bring into that viewing, coloring your perspective. Examine the contours and the lines, the depth and dimension. Comment, criticize, appreciate, and engage. See His fingerprints mingle with yours, where you chose to take things and where He responded. Let your fingers retrace old lines and pathways or imagine new points of departure. The work, it seems, isn't rigid but living and always renewing but you can't appreciate it for what it is unless you take the time to do it properly.