Moments
"Emily, a young woman in Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town"...dies in child birth, but is granted a unique experience: the Stage manager allows her to return from death and live one more day of her life with her family. Although Emily has high hopes for that one day, she is disappointed. Just before she returns to her place in the cemetary, she reveals her frustration to the Stage Manager.
Emily says: We don't have time to look at one another. (She breaks down, sobbing.) I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed...Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?
Stage Manager: No...The saints and poets, maybe--they do some.
(from Space for God, Don Postema, p14)
I would add Jazz Theologians to Wilder's list of those who live life for each moment. JT is all about about the convergence God in the now--Theomoments.
What about Jesus the master Jazz Theologian? Can you think of times when he lived life for the moment? In the moment? Can you think of times when Jesus took what was known about God, then improvised...producing a fresh experience of God?
posted by jazztheo at 9/07/2005 04:11:00 PM
9 Comments:
Oh my friend you ask the impossible! You seek the key to jazz (see thumbnail). As we will discover, defining jazz is like defining God. There comes a point that all one can say is what God is not. There is a default that one must retreat to and offer words of contrast.
What is jazz? It is a history, a style, a culture, a reaction, a subversion of the dominate paradigm while at the same time an inclusiong of the dominate paradigm, oh yeah, it's also a musical tradition!
I have been offering you a hook to han everything on. Moments--jazz is all about the moments and Jazz Theology is all about Theomoments.
But if you must find a first note, a word from which the rest of jazz flows..then I offer you the following:
Listening
Yes! Yes! Yes! Your are seeing it. Feeling it. I'm not against emergence but jazz emerges and converges. It is about community and about the whole being more than the sum of the parts. You have described it so well. Jazz is a convergence of history, sociology, pain, skills, the audience into a moments.
Jazz theology lives with the question, "What if?" What if different churches, traditions etc. converged what would exist that would not could not have existed before.
Listening...why do you think I said listening?
In time...all in due time.
jazztheo,
I saw your response to Adam Ellis' blog, and in seeing your profile, I saw that you'd mentioned Cone's Malcolm, Martin, and America. What a great book and a great conceit that Cone used to examine the two men in the context of their religious beliefs.
At any rate, through that I've found your blog and I'm looking forward to perusing it a lot more. Thanks for your thinking.
Good question Theo, and thanks for the ancedote. I would have died in childbirth had it not been for modern medicine.
I am a babe in the faith, but I think of the five loaves and the two fishes that Jesus spread among the masses. That seems like an improv to me...
Five loaves and the two fishes...nice choice Oly. Tell me more about what you seen that moment in the life or our Lord.
Hi Jazz Theo, I like you, are cool. You could teach theology, you know that.
Well in that moment I saw Jesus teaching his disciples to have faith. I mean after all He was the Son of God and He was with them, and they were doubting. I am sure I would too if I were there. That is what I see.
Wow! What a vivid post jazztheo.
Also, I love your answer/response in this chain of comments where your offer up..."Listening." Very Buechneresque.
Yes Constantine, listening I believe is one of the essential aspects of jazz and must be at the core of our theology. Why do you think this is?
Buechner, do you whisper secrets to? One must listen carefully to hear a whisper.
My favorite Buechner quote is, "Calling is when our deep gladnes and the worlds deep hunger meet." (paraphrase)
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