The first draft of 'The Consequences of Volition' was finished in the hostel of a Benedictine monastery, in the Rhineland. I knew immediately that it would require revision, but decided to put that aside for then. One cannot be the critical reader to a text so freshly written. I'm not sure when I'll start to work on the second draft. What I am sure of is that the book has been paradoxical in its imprint on my internal life.
The entire endeavour started as a way for me to systematise my current position on a number of theological issues. Apart from the fact that I've emerged on the other end far more Armenian than I was when I entered, completing the draft left me with a strange sense of intellectual sterility. For the longest time, my drive to understand God, to make sense of all His apparent contradictions and reconcile His character with this reality had been an engine of my relationship with Him. With the last word of my draft, swiftly and disorientingly, that dynamic evaporated. There was nothing in my personal experience that I could not find rationale for, albeit with some situations more finely resolved than others.
A new struggle began, one against which I was unprepared and had heard no clear advice for. An intellectual pride bubbled up within me. I felt that in understanding the purposes and intentions of God, I had somehow arrived at a vantage point from which I could criticise His ways. There was anger, undeniable, and resentment against elements of the design that I deemed, in my small mind, to be unsuited toward the end goal. This conundrum put me out for weeks. Eventually, through prayer, through reflection and by scripture, it was overcome. The questions of Job 38 to 41 were called to mind, as well as my theories about the subtleties of the original sin. The Lord and the tempter vied for my allegiance in the tumult, each promising a satisfaction of their own. I understood just a little more of what the Son must have experienced at the end of Matthew 4.
One movement has come to a close. Another one is opening. With this transition, I sense that it is time for this blog to go quiet. It will remain here, a record of the past, the journey that I have taken for the last few years. Yet, there has been a change, one which I describe to myself as moving away from cathartic creativity to convicted creativity. A fundamental drive has been replaced, and with that, the investigative purpose of this blog is met. Lexical Mindscapes has been a vent, a sounding board, an empty sheet for my hypotheses to mature as I studied the scriptures and renewed my mind. It was an outgrowth of Eldawn, took on a purpose of its own, and itself gave rise to the Consequences of Volition. Now it yields, not with drained lethargy, but with peaceful repose, contented to have served in what capacity that it has.
I may begin another blog in future, but that remains to be seen. In years to come I expect I will look back on the content here, then cringe sheepishly or reminisce nostalgically. Yet, I am glad for the records, however superficial or postured they are for public view, of my inner life.
One movement has come to a close. Another one is opening. With this transition, I sense that it is time for this blog to go quiet. It will remain here, a record of the past, the journey that I have taken for the last few years. Yet, there has been a change, one which I describe to myself as moving away from cathartic creativity to convicted creativity. A fundamental drive has been replaced, and with that, the investigative purpose of this blog is met. Lexical Mindscapes has been a vent, a sounding board, an empty sheet for my hypotheses to mature as I studied the scriptures and renewed my mind. It was an outgrowth of Eldawn, took on a purpose of its own, and itself gave rise to the Consequences of Volition. Now it yields, not with drained lethargy, but with peaceful repose, contented to have served in what capacity that it has.
I may begin another blog in future, but that remains to be seen. In years to come I expect I will look back on the content here, then cringe sheepishly or reminisce nostalgically. Yet, I am glad for the records, however superficial or postured they are for public view, of my inner life.
