The Event and The Moment

Note: At this busy time at the end of the school year and transitioning to summer I've been a little distracted from blogging, and honestly I've had some writers block so I've been trying to see if an experience will spark my writing. Well, one has, but that will come at a later entry. Today I want to talk about what it means to experience an event and how to find the central message or meaning in such an event.

To speak of an event, first one must think of a moment. In memory, certain moments in being stand out greater than others. How and what people remember is greatly affected by "factical life experience" (Heidegger, Phenomenology of Religious Life) because this experience builds patterns of memory and gaining knowledge. (Note: this is also a useful skill if one is attempting to think about how people gain more knowledge in their studies as well, by relating experiences to things which are familiar.) Every event is a moment of some sort, and the events which come to mind the easiest are going to be familiar moments which shape our lives. These can be good or bad events/moments and have good or bad effects, not necessarily in synchronization with each other. From bad events and come good results and good results can create bad events. (If this were not true any theory which tries to make good come from suffering would make no sense.)

One must distinguish the difference between event and moment before proceeding further. An event is an objective phenomenon which has more than one actor. A good example of this would be a conference, a first kiss, or a class (all of which, except for the kiss are more than one event even in itself.) These objective things point to reality and have a central message and meaning behind them, which is greater than the sum of their subjective parts. This is true because these events all cause moments to occur in one's memory. A moment is distinct from an event because it focuses more on the subjective interpretation of an event. In culture this is a popular sentiment when one hears, "I/we had a moment". There may be an objective thing which happened (the event) but the importance in the discussion is the subjective interpretation the person is giving in the phrase "we had a moment". (Note: I've found this is particularly popular in dating interpretation, stereotypically on the feminine side.) Also, event and moment must be parsed from "the occasion" (Kirkegaard (Johannes Climacus his pen name), Philosophical Fragments). Kirkegaard uses the occasion to refer to a specific opportunity to witness to a particular message (in the text namely about the teaching of the God.) This is distinct from the event because it focuses on the subjective person teaching, but it is not the same as a moment because it is not open-ended in its interpretation. The occasion always has a specific end goal in mind. (For Kirkegaard, namely the witness of God as the end goal.)

Parsing these words helps the observer to understand phenomena which exists in front of her. The objective event is something which has a central message which it wishes to convey to all people. A first kiss is a sign of future affection, not only is it a risky endeavor (because person a is trusting another person with an intimate side of himself, but also because it involves trust that the other person will not use person a.) but also a sign of great joy, a shared experience with another. To an objective onlooker, this kiss is just a kiss, a sign of affection, and probably something one would rather not see others doing in public, or walk in on accidentally. However, for the participants in the kiss, there is something much different going on in this event. The two people share a story, a series of moments together, which others cannot see unless their story is told (and even then I'd argue most people still would not understand the significance of the story because that requires time to understand the "factical life experience" of both persons (Heidegger, Phenomenology of Religious Life). The passion in the kiss comes from the shared life together, and this may or may not be known even to both participants at the time, especially because a first kiss tends to be an initial sign of affection, an invitation of sorts. This is where the growth for the future comes, because that event for the two people involved becomes a moment which grows and continues to get interpreted through time.

There are two good contemporary examples of which this mentality becomes extremely important in understanding interpretation. The first is when someone uses the phrase, "I'm preaching the Truth in love." The second is any ritual conference setting. These are two events which have objective happenings and subjective interpretations (even what people tend to call objective in these events is at least somewhat subjective, or group subjective, meaning a group of people are working toward a common interpretation (which the group wants to pose as objective.)

"Preaching the truth in love" is a phrase I've heard many times, from various people, in different walks of life. The general intent of this message is to say I want to preach the message of Jesus Christ but I'm not willing one's face off to do it. So in other words, there is no desire for a forced conversion. However, underneath the surface, this is still a subversive statement which is problematic in how one views the Gospel. To be clear, I believe the Resurrection is an objective happening, and as an event in history it has many interpretations from many people necessarily. (This is clear when one sees how many Christian denominations there are and the factions in each Christian denomination, and even seen in the lack of belief for most.) However, my own interpretation of the Resurrection is one which observes the objective happening (the event) and seeks to mold my life around the example of the Resurrected One. (And we are talking about Jesus Christ to be clear.) (Hilariously enough, this is similar to Kirkegaard's idea of the teaching of the God and how it is given to the rest of humanity through the God-man. (For more see Johannes Climacus). This critique is not in viewing a problem with the event, even so, "preaching the truth in love" is ambivalent at best, and at worst an ignorance of the witness of Jesus.
The reason the phrase "Preaching the truth in love" is so problematic is because it sets certain people apart from others because a supposedly objective interpretation of an event, in this case, the Resurrection event. However, this does two things, a) it assumes that the person saying this statement has the truth, and b) it assumes the person listening to whatever the person in a is saying has no truth in them at all because it needs to be given to them. This is more than a little Gnostic in its interpretation because people assume they have a secret knowledge which is given to them in making this statement, the only real difference is the belief that this knowledge is accessible to everyone. The only problem is that the interpretation given in "preaching the truth with love" is not accessible to everyone because the group subjective is given to people who have some form of similar experience. (particularly notable in the ritual conference or seminary setting) This language is used as a tool of empowerment because it gives people belief that they have the objective interpretation of the Resurrection event that they have to share with others.
What this does, however, is in effect negate real conversation. When one is told, or believes to "preach the truth in love" there is no need to listen to the other, because that person "has" the objective truth and interpretation of the Resurrection event, everything else can be seen as a lie, or demonic, or "of the world" (FOCUS, (Matthew Kelly, On the Single Life; Dr. Edward Sri, Don't Impose Your Morality on Me?, etc).

Citing FOCUS above moves to the second example where this interpretation of event and moment becomes important, and that is in the ritual conference setting. This setting is one which there is an objective event, and many objective events in that event, such as speeches and particular rituals. The important part of this examination is to think about when event becomes moment, when the objective moves to something more personal. In ritual studies, one attempts to determine how this happens in the ritual participants and what themes are coming across. However, in noting the difference between event and moment, there is a folly in my research, in that my interpretation of events comes from subjective experience, my opinions and thoughts, to come to a conclusion about a ritual event, and how it can possibly be interpreted by those who participate in the ritual. This possible interpretation is also the one which the leaders of the conference want to give to people, however, as I've argued above, there is nothing objective about what I say, or even what the leaders of the conference say, it is all based on our own interpretations of faith.

A step back will reveal the validity of this research and why it is necessary to examine event and moment so carefully. Any ritual conference setting has a mentality which is the group subjective. This is the consensus agreement given by the majority of the leaders as the message which is preached. When a message becomes the consensus agreement, it gains the appearance of the objective (especially when it is placed in the substratum of Tradition in Catholic circles.) In reality, however, this is simply the group subjective being placed as such. This makes interpretation difficult because one has to figure out how exactly one gets to an objective message which a ritual wants to proclaim (through verbal and non-verbal language.) Repetition becomes important to study in the ritual setting for this reason. What is repeated becomes objective to the subject who participates in the ritual (namely the repetition leads to a process of a certain idea becoming a objective given (such as something in logic puzzles), rather than something which must be examined throughout life, and maybe being a subjective given (which is fine because all people have values which are important, but when this interpretation is used to justify berading other people and "preaching the truth in love" then it becomes an issue). However, until one examines the group subjective and what is truly going on in that dynamic, one will never be able to ascertain the "objective" message they are trying to get across. (What exactly the ritual setting is trying to get across is up to individual discussion based on observance of each conference.)

One last point: it is important in the Catholic ritual conference setting (e.g. FOCUS) to determine whether the repetition given at conference is the same as the repetition given by Jesus. In "preaching the truth with love" it is also important to examine what is repeated because that tells an observer what is important to the subjective preacher about the Resurrection event. How one interprets this event, and the life of Jesus as a whole, is important in showing the validity of any ritual as authentically in the name of Jesus. Some of this gets down to imagery, and some of this gets down to textual analysis (which complicates things far more than my expertise can ascertain in this piece, or even in general.) but in the end, there are points which are repeated and this repetition is a source of critique for everyone's lives. However, the repeated points are different for many observers, and different observers emphasize different things. The objective message of Jesus then gets many subjective interpretations, so instead of seeing an event, one often sees a series of moments which are someone else's supposedly "objective" interpretation of an event.

The challenge in all this is to find an objective message which Jesus was trying to preach, which many historical-critical biblical scholars have attempted to do for hundreds of years. However, this is an impossible endeavor, because any information necessarily has an interpretive lens, because not all see an objective event the same way. And even looking at the group subjective does not help because the Bible presents the stories of many different groups and their strengths and difficulties in encountering Jesus and his mission. So in this case, there is no objective interpretation; however, this does not negate the message of Jesus. With any social commentator, there is always subjective influence, both on the part of the speaker, and of the interpreters. If one finds truth in the Resurrection event, one must always deal with the social commentary on Jesus, from both influences whom one likes, and whom one dislikes. To find what is important in the event of Jesus life, one must look at which moments come up consistently, and what themes are drawn from those moments. Then we must ask two questions, first, do the rituals in which we partake and observe match the repetitions and themes which Jesus does in his ministry? Finally, and most importantly, are our own lives in consistency with the repetitions and themes of Jesus and the entire Bible? These two questions really get to the importance of event and moment. Do our personal moments reflect the Resurrection event, if we claim to be Christian? Where do we as individuals, and as a people, fall short of our ritual repetitions matching the life of Jesus? Finally, what do we resolve to do about it if we do see the need for change? This can only be done if one understands objective events through the lens of subjective moments and by really listening to the lives of others. (Which in some respect is also an important repetition, Jesus as meeting people where they are at, accepting their good, and motivating them to do better.)