AUTHORITY!

For the last four months or so, as you can see, I have been engaged in the leisurely labor of crafting a thesis. I expect this tranquil toil to continue for a while, before I’m done with the gratifying grind. Oh, the delight of this drudgery!

Prof. Watson and I are getting along quite well together, I might add. We’ve been meeting almost weekly. I tell him what I’m thinking. We discuss what I’ve submitted. He gives me his input.

Looking back on those meetings with my supervisor, I detect an interesting (and edifying) pattern. At least half a dozen times, if not more, Watson suggested scholars whose work, he felt, would be helpful for me to examine. And every single time, all of those half a dozen times, I thought he was barking up the wrong tree! I didn’t care much for what, I concluded, were tangential trajectories of exploration. I distinctly remember coming away from those meetings in despair!

Wittgenstein? Ricoeur? Explore their notions of “language games”? “genre”? What have those dead philosophers and their dry prescriptions got to do with what I want to do? Thus I thought, but, open my mouth, I did not. Like Mary of old, I pondered them in my heart.

Actually, I did better: I went to the library to make my case. You can guess what happened next, can’t you?

Three cheers for that good ole’ deutscher thinker, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), and that homme français, Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005), who have since become my best buddies. I’ve practically devoured everything they’ve written. And “language games” and “genre” feature preeminently in my work, needless to say.

There is a lesson in this, I think.

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
And do not forsake your mother’s teaching;
Indeed, they are a graceful wreath
to your head,
And ornaments about your neck.
Proverbs 1:8

Simply put, I must listen to those in authority over me. No, not to give them carte blanche, of course, but the proverb does convey a truth that is more often right than wrong. Exceptions? Sure. But for the most part the wisdom of this text holds good.

And what if those in authority are wrong?

Remember that French dude, Ricoeur, that I mentioned? Prof. Watson originally wanted me to pursue him for one particular reason. That reason unraveled to become nothing but a totally false lead. But, quite gratuitously, while investigating Ricoeur’s prodigious and near-encyclopedic output, I hit upon a vein of pure gold that turned out to be extremely useful; it might well end up being the linchpin of my thesis.

Lesson? God can use even false leads to bless me. He can even use mistakes by authorities to pour it on. Abundantly. Beyond measure. If … I am willing to submit. I hate to think of what I’d have missed, had I not taken Prof. W seriously.

And we know that God causes
all things to work together
for good to those who love God ….
Romans 8:28

That’s it. I’m done. Henceforth, I quit rebelling. (At least, that’s my resolution for 2006!) And I begin trusting. In Watson, sure, but that’s because I’m trusting—even more—my God! Sovereign. Loving. Gracious. Merciful. And good!