PoMo is nearly Pre-Modern in its vagueries. The prayer “everywhere present and filling all things” could have been written pre-Mo and Po-Mo. Only the Modernists got terribly hung up on “Where is” and “where not”. (I think the Roman debate over “when the change happens” may be one of the first marks of Modernism out there.)

PoMo finds a multiplicity of valued and valuable choices and sticks with many of them rather than devalue any of them.

Ken Wilbur’s idea of Integration moves beyond that - beyond either the black and white thinking of the Modern and the all-grey thinking of the PoMo. I’m not there yet. WOrking at it - integral.

I think that’s not very postmodern either… situations change, thus priorities change, thus, “they must upward still and onward who would keep abreast of truth”

Welcome to the club, Hew. We post-moderns have many choices to make. This is both a blessing and a curse. Ah, to be born in a medieval village where all of my choices were made for me and I had no way or means of getting out of them…on second thought, I’d rather be a spent post-modernist, but one who makes a choice carefully and sticks with it. God only knows where all of this will end up for all of us…

For me this all came to a head this afternoon (which was 12 hours or so after I wrote the post) with one phrase: only connect. Community.

I’m aware that most all of this is mental masturbation. That’s why I mentioned, above, a book reading group: community. I’m not there yet. I’ve not been there - apart from when I was a pagan - since I left St Gregory Nyssa in SF. On topics I greatly enjoy to Geek, I feel isolated - dumbed down at Trinity, silenced at work and in the boarding house. The only thing I can do is pester my readership.

You’re right about converts reading the fathers in the bathroom, although I think the *really* pious argued about how it was inappropriate to read such books in such a dirty place. But that’s not what I mean: in fact, I mean exactly the reverse. At least for a decade when I was a Pagan and for a few years at SGN I was in community where my interests were valued - and held in a healthy check by others.

In a sense, I need a few more people like you.

I’ve seen this with zealous Orthodox converts especially, the types who probably read the Pedalion while taking a crap, who I think have waaay to much interest in theology as lay people.

All of which hopefully doesn’t come across as anti-intellectual, or anti-any specific church/denomination/whatever. In fact, I’m pretty sure I muddled up the water a bit, not having much of a theological education or being an Official Internet Expert on Religion.

Please expand on that last sentence: “recharge your spiritual batteries with a bit of latitudinarism before trying to decide where to convert to next week.”

Oh, Michael… one LOL bit: Trinity is al the latest in postmodernism… just to be upfront about that.

I sympathise sooo much with you-like you, I converted to Orthodoxy, bounced around for a while, and dealt with some issues rather opposite to traditional Christian teaching on sex and gender.

But after a point, you have to stop trying to heal all of Christendom’s wounds in your head, and stop worrying about…I hate to say it, so much stuff that a layperson should not have to be dealing with. It reminds me of those zealous Orthodox converts who had theological libraries that would put most cradle Orthodox to shame…

I really don’t mean to come across as mean spirited, but I’ve been where you’re going through, and sometimes you just need to dial down the religious intensity, and recharge your spiritual batteries with a bit of latitudinarism before trying to decide where to convert to next week.