{"id":32911,"date":"2015-03-04T16:00:21","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T21:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=32911"},"modified":"2015-03-04T16:00:21","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T21:00:21","slug":"a-mormon-minimalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/03\/a-mormon-minimalism\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mormon Minimalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kazimir<\/a>
Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve been practicing a kind of theological minimalism for a long time now.<\/p>\n

This impulse toward minimalism is itself religious. And it’s\u00a0aesthetic.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t have to do with\u00a0whether particular things are\u00a0true or false (though, rest assured, such judgments must also be made), it has to do with the feel<\/em> (literally, the aesthesis<\/em>) of Mormonism as it\u2019s lived.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What shape does Mormonism take when I live it?\u00a0What shape does it take when it\u2019s lived in the body of a married, well-fed, middle-aged, over-educated, white, American, twenty-first century male? A community college philosophy professor? An avid reader of high-brow fiction? A lover of college basketball? A student of contemplative practices? A father of three? A runner? A suburban mortgage holder?<\/p>\n

Can the shape it takes be beautiful? Can it, at least, not be ugly? Can it be Mormon?<\/p>\n

These are aesthetic questions. And, as I said, for a long time now my impulse has been toward a kind of practiced\u00a0minimalism.<\/p>\n

(Such minimalism\u00a0isn\u2019t for everyone. This is not the one true aesthetic. That\u2019s fine. Why pretend it would be? We don\u2019t need a church stocked with white, middle-aged, hyper-literate, under-skilled men with shaved heads! Angels and ministers of grace defend us! I’d run screaming from the building!)<\/p>\n

Still (and maybe I’m kidding myself), it feels quite explicitly\u00a0like our Mormon God has himself urged me toward this kind of theological asceticism, toward dispossession, toward parsimony, toward modesty, toward the faithful adoption of a theological poverty.<\/p>\n

How much can I do without? How many ideas can I give back to God? How far can things be pared down? How bare of belief?<\/p>\n

How sharply honed can thinking get\u00a0before it becomes thoughtless?<\/p>\n

How naked can a religious life be and still be religious? Still Mormon?<\/p>\n

Like a desert father, I’ve been fasting (and praying and fasting) for years\u2014but I haven’t been fasting with\u00a0food.<\/p>\n

My thin ribs attest\u00a0a\u00a0Mormon minimalism.<\/p>\n

Some elements are\u00a0occluded by such experiments in minimalism. This is true. But some rush to the fore with stark concretion.<\/p>\n

A black square is all that’s left?!<\/p>\n

But so black! So square!<\/p>\n

What can you see?\u00a0You’ll never see everything at once.<\/p>\n

Just keep coming back.<\/p>\n

And trust what others say they also see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been practicing a kind of theological minimalism for a long time now. This impulse toward minimalism is itself religious. And it’s\u00a0aesthetic. It doesn’t have to do with\u00a0whether particular things are\u00a0true or false (though, rest assured, such judgments must also be made), it has to do with the feel (literally, the aesthesis) of Mormonism as it\u2019s lived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":32912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy-and-theology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Black-Square.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32911"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32935,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32911\/revisions\/32935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}