Tuesday Morning…again
A reflection on academic writing, burnout, and how Jesus plays a part
I am getting ready for work. I have walked my son to school with the generous assistance of Duke. He’s a squirrel hunter. I don’t think my arm is dislocated, but when a big dog wants to dash after a tree rodent, one cannot help but be pulled. He’s not a very reactive animal. He’s actually quite chill…unless you are a squirrel. Apparently, there are squirrels and not-squirrels. Those are the two categories of Other Creatures.
I am on my second vat of coffee. I have eaten the banana and granola with yogurt. I have taken the meds. And I am contemplating burnout, academic writing, and how to recoup. I miss academic writing.
I know. So many decry the apparent exclusivity of academic writing. “Stop using jargon!” I have never understood this. I like the jargon. I love specialized language whether it be religious, academic, or other. And there’s so much of it out there! There are many specialties with their jargons. I will never know it all. So, I enjoy what I have been privy to. Acoustemology is a favorite of mine, for example. So is narthex. Such fun words.
So, yeah, I miss it.
Anyway, burnout is real and lasts a long time, apparently. I am a couple of years removed from my PhD and I’m still not able to do more than string a few sentences together. The neurons are just tired. I don’t think that this is a permanent state, but it is an actual state. It is exacerbated by situational realities such as the need to make a living, raise a kid, and be a good husband. Beyond that, everything else is extracurricular, enriching but not essential.
Burnout is also a reflection of self-image, self-care, and general imposters syndrome. “I am not worthy of the academy” is a refrain that plays in my head. The Mean Therapist and I are still puzzling that one out. I have much shame where my intellect is concerned. I have always been a little stupid or so I tell myself. And not even Jesus can convince me otherwise. It’s a problem. I know.
Jesus is a problem. I have (at least) two in my imagination.
One is the carpenter who wandered the land preaching the present Kingdom of God and it’s implications. He was executed by state authorities - with the encouragement of religious authorities - for telling the truth about the world and its bullshittery. I like him. He challenges me. He encourages me. He calls me on my own bullshittery. I read Luke chapter four a lot. Love changes everything. He is alive and well and still kicking ass. He’s so busy doing the actual work of feeding the hungry and such, however, that he’s just hard to locate.
The second Jesus is aloof and judgy. He’s the one who likes to remind me that I will never be enough. He reminds me that I have nothing to offer the world. He tells me that I’m stupid on the regular and that my salvation is incumbent upon my ability to not be stupid. Shame is his love language. And I’m a sucker for it. This is the Zombie Jesus, the nightmare of so many. And though I was not raised on this Jesus, he’s in the ether in the South. One cannot wander through Richmond, VA without meeting this guy. He is most convincing.
I have struggled with these two for decades. Letting go of toxicity is the real work of salvation for me these days. Choosing love over toxicity posing as love is the work of salvation. So much bullshit passes itself off as love. I need rescuing.
You can imagine which Jesus accompanies burnout. You can imagine which one leans in when I tell myself I’m stupid, who congratulates me for such honesty and insight. He won’t let me write.
I’ll be talking about him with The Mean Therapist today.
The other? He wants me to write if I want to write. He’s not big on the specificities of vocation. Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God. The rest will sort itself out if you are open to possibility.
What does your day look like? How is it shaping up? Can you describe your Jesus to me? I would love to meet him.
Y’all be excellent to each other.
“Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God. The rest will sort itself out if you are open to possibility.”
Amen.
I've been preparing a screen share of evening prayer for the next formation class, which is on Pentecost. I was encouraged to see that the Psalm, 145, spoke of the Lord I believe in. From the Old Testament:
9The Lord is loving to everyone *
and his compassion is over all his works.
I don't mind that I read the Bible selectively. THose I disagree with, read it selectively, too. It is just a matter of what we select and how we interpret the rest.
Three jargon words speak to the time we live in: Holocene, Anthropocene, and Pyrocene. Scientific American had an article about the Anthropocene. The Geologic epoch we are officially in is the Holocene, from the Greek whole and new, to describe human influence around the whole earth, and that influence is new, no other epoch has had such worldwide sedimentary deposits. The transition coincides with the late stone age of humans. A new word for the epoch was called for in 1833 by Charles Lyell to cover the time “the earth has been tenanted by man.” There is jargon, "tenanted." Holocene was suggested in 1867, and was officially accepted in 1969. Change may be fast, but the officials moved at a geologically slow pace.
But things are speeding up. More and more people are referring to the Anthropocene, because humans influence the world so significantly around the globe, and sometimes we are responsible for the planet losing its viability to support life in all its variety. This new epoch was proposed in 2000 describes human influence on the stratigraphy around the wolrd. SOme suggest the industrial revolution as the start, others suggest it began once humans tested atomic bombs, layering the earth with radioactive particles. Stephen Pyne began using Pyrocene in 2015 to refer to the influence of fire on humans and our development as a species, and the influence of humans and fire on the world. Pyrocene is on the cover of Scientific American this month. Holocene, Anthropocene, and Pyrocene all have been suggested as geologic jargon that describes the influence of humans.
This jargon isn't as cool as the word Tripp offered, but I think it is interesting to notice the shift indicating in more and more emphatic ways our active role in affecting our earth, and not for good but for ill. Things are happening so fast now that new -cenes are emerging at an increasingly fast pace. Perhaps Changofscene would be appropriate to describe the changing nature of our input into the world we live in, or Chaoticene to point to our contribution to the chaos. Politically, I might suggest Obscene. One cannot say that politics doesn't play a role in the stratigraphy of the world. We are covering the world in micro-plastics, and a decreasing variety of species are offered for the fossil record, not to mention radioactive particles, and trash, and lots and lots of shit. deposited around the globe. That suggests a Shitcene. (BTW, that might not qualify for a -cene, because cene means new. I have a coprolite; mine is fossilized dinosaur poop. One wonders if it came out already rock hard. That would suggest really bad constipation contributing to the fossilization process.)
But my search for new jargon is becoming a vulgar scene, and that isn't funny the way I want it to be a comedycene.