{"id":45166,"date":"2018-04-29T05:38:11","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T09:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=45166"},"modified":"2018-04-24T14:31:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T18:31:28","slug":"pen-seeking-understanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/04\/pen-seeking-understanding.html","title":{"rendered":"Pen Seeking Understanding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Scot McKnight<\/a> wrote eloquently about the place of writing in the life of an academic:<\/p>\n

[W]riting can\u2019t be done on the side because, as James Vanoosting says it, \u201cWriting is not pedagogy but an epistemology\u201d (160).<\/p>\n

In other words, writing is a lifestyle, a way of life, a way of being, a modus operandi, a way of breathing and eating and drinking. Better yet, writing is a way of learning, a way of coming to know what someone wants to know, a way of discovering.<\/p>\n

Writing is not something to do when everything else is cleared off the desk; no, it is something that makes order of the desk. I don\u2019t get up wondering what I will write about, but I write about what I\u2019m wondering. (That\u2019s almost Chestertonian.) In other words, as Augustine spoke of \u201cfaith seeking understanding,\u201d so writing is a pen seeking understanding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more on his blog Jesus Creed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I can definitely relate to this sentiment. You probably knew that already, not just from the fact that I shared the quotation on my blog, but more than that, from the very activity of blogging that I engage in. This is where I process, and how I process.<\/p>\n

And of course, for some of the deepest aspects of my beliefs, convictions, and worldview, the big question is not whether I can speak it but whether I can sing it<\/a>. Nevertheless, even there, the challenge is the\u00a0lyrics<\/em>, and those are things that I\u2019ve shared here on this blog as well.<\/p>\n

It has been said that writing transformed human minds and human culture in much the fundamental way that interactive portable screens now promise to. And yet for those of us who write in order to process, this new technology has made it possible to write \u2013 and read \u2013 on the go in a manner beyond what the small notebook, pen, and\/or paperback of yesteryear facilitated.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m interested to see where technology takes us. But for now, I remain one of those people for whom putting words in writing \u2013 via pen, keyboard, or touchscreen \u2013 remains fundamentally important. For how many of you is the same true?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scot McKnight wrote eloquently about the place of writing in the life of an academic: [W]riting can\u2019t be done on the side because, as James Vanoosting says it, \u201cWriting is not pedagogy but an epistemology\u201d (160). In other words, writing is a lifestyle, a way of life, a way of being, a modus operandi, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":45611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[9854,10911,13918],"class_list":["post-45166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academia","tag-quote","tag-scot-mcknight","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nPen Seeking Understanding<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scot McKnight wrote eloquently about the place of writing in the life of an academic: riting can\u2019t be done on the side because, as James Vanoosting says\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/04\/pen-seeking-understanding.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pen Seeking Understanding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scot McKnight wrote eloquently about the place of writing in the life of an academic: riting can\u2019t be done on the side because, as James Vanoosting says\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/04\/pen-seeking-understanding.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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