wasted wheat paste campaign

 post no bills on the wall

“I had a lengthy discussion about the power of myth with a postmodern author who didn’t exist. In this fictitious world all reality twists. I was a hopeless romantic, now I’m just turning tricks,” cries Conor Oberst in the brilliant track “Soul Singer in Session Band.”

The defining mark of post-modernism is the rejection of any “meta-narrative.” 

This description assumes that our age is one in which all grand narratives have been shown to be nothing more than a small man hiding behind a curtain. 

While this description of contemporary culture seems to be as on the mark as it is skeptical; something is missing.

The persistence of “make your own myth” mythos, draws the assumption that all narratives are rejected whole-sale into question. The grand narrative of “you are what you buy” is as stubbornly persistent of broad scientific narratives.

Like it or not, human culture is an enterprise of myth-making, meaning-making. 

Whether the grand narrative be “myth-busting” or “myth-trusting,” humans are doomed to find that the storyline of their life always ends up taking on the shape of the worldview they put their money; myth or not.

Perhaps then, this age is not a post-narrative apocalypse, so much as it is a twilight of insipid narrative, weak meaning, authority-serving narratives, etc.

The plan for Lent at Trinity is to understand the season through Paul’s writing. 

Whatever else Paul’s letters may be, Romans is a letter wrestling with a rich narrative. The narrative Paul wrestles with isn’t self-serving, so much as it is suspicious of the self. 

The narrative Paul takes up is one that resists easy rejection; and that at the end of the day one that may be worth our trust.