9, 10

9. My friend Hannah: Hannah and are I neighborhood walking buddies. She's such a great friend, and I really love that we can get into a discussion about any topic.

10. A new book I found today while reading religiondispatches.org: On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process by Catherine Keller: Keller writes about thinking of theology as a 3rd way in between absolute approaches to faith and religious relativism. Some insightful gems from the introductory chapter, which I devoured during office hours today:

"Relation does not entail relativism, which dissolves difference. Relationality implies the practice of discernment, which means to distinguish, to attend to difference, and to exercise good judgment. Despite binary either/ors that back us into corners, there are always more than two differences."

"Secular thought...supports its claims not by appeal to the revelation of a timeless Truth but to a critical reassessment of shifting empirical and historical evidence. These claims are necessarily relative to--not therefore reducible to--the perspective of the observer who makes them. Relativity, which we must distinguish from relativism, just describes the reality of a relational universe. The human observer belongs to that universe. Therefore all human truth-claims are relative to context and perspective. But why would it follow that truth, or value, is nothing but that perspective?"

Her thinking about binaries, and finding a way out of binaries, inspires me. In another life, I could imagine myself as a kind of theologian, if being a theologian means being like this lady.

Anyway, I'm just past a recent bout of application reading and grading with a lighter weekend ahead of only fellowship proposals to tweak. So, I'm in a good mood! Maybe I'll get to take a whole day off this weekend??