Provocative

O how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day.-from the Psalms

I just got home from my theology class. Our professor's lecture culminated in some exegesis that he described as "wild, fun, and provocative."

Back in the halcyon days in my creative writing program, we were presented with Bukowski and Burrows and our own teacher's stuff as examples of work that could be described as "provocative." The poems were raucous and base and bestial. They put you in touch with our primitive urges, distinct moments of pleasure and euphoria. I definitely signed up for that sort of thing. That unflinching examination of our human needs. Need for company, need for being known, the need for contact. In my definitive ouvre of poems from that time, I wrote about "too many poems about rough sex and premature death." That's pretty much my definitive conclusion.

Now, in my studies at seminary, it is so different. Simply put, that writing program was, for me, a time of exploration in what it is to be human. And all of its ridiculous and beautiful implications. Seminary now is, for me, time to explore who God is. Maybe that sounds Shirley Maclaine-ish but if I am to be honest about who I am, I have to be honest and say that I am a person that needs God. And my journey toward God is huge.

So anyway, our professor was describing these certain psalms as theologically provocative because the writer refers to the Temple as God. This was controversial because the Israelite psalmist was hyperbolizing and describing the place of worship as "god." The theological implication is: Is the psalmist saying it's okay to worship a building? The professor was saying: No, remember the genre, it's a song of devotion to his God, he's lost in praise. What's essential is an understanding of the context, the genre.

Okay, maybe I'm rambling in a technical way. But the point is I love what I'm studying and this type of provocative is just my speed right now.