Rumination – What’s the Point? Is thinking worthwhile, or not? It depends on whether or not you have a point!

In the movie, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”, Steve Martin says to John Candy: “You know when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea: have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!”

Sometimes people deride thinkers as muddled and impractical, and I understand this because many are. To me the worst thing is thought without a point. There is a difference between ruminating to obtain clarity and thinking just to think.

Ruminate. dictionary.com says:

v 1: chew the cuds; "cows ruminate" 2: reflect deeply on a subject; "I mulled over the events of the afternoon"; "philosophers have speculated on the question of God for thousands of years"; "The scientist must stop to observe and start to excogitate" [syn: chew over, think over, meditate, ponder, excogitate, contemplate, muse, reflect, mull, mull over, speculate]

It’s a great word, and I believe, an important quality to develop. I heard a pastor once say that “ruminate” was the word that the psalmist had in mind in Psalm 1:2, when he wrote, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates (or ruminates) day and night.”

The example that dictionary.com used, “philosophers have speculated on the question of God for thousands of years” is evidence that perhaps even the dictionary doesn’t get it. I may be moving from definition to connotation here, but there is a huge difference between rumination and speculation.

The purpose of bovine rumination (to echo Dave Barry, ‘Bovine Rumination’ would be a great name for a band) is to get the food to the point where it is energy, where it provides life to old Bossie. Speculation can go on forever with no result; rumination ends with digestion. Rumination should beget clarity (and maybe some gas…); speculation may beget nothing but more speculation, or it may result only in the speculator feeling pretty darned good about what a thinker he thinks he is…

Speculation becomes a mental treadmill if it leads to nothing but more speculation, or worse, it becomes mental masturbation if it just leads to the speculator feeling good about his thoughts. In neither is clarity gained.

Speculative thinking is widespread today because relativism (all points are equal) and cognitive dissidence (the ability to believe two opposing views at the same time and not seeing the contradiction—e.g., being a moral relativist and also believing in something as “wrong” or “right”) are the order of the day and inconclusive thinking is the natural result.

Rumination leads to clarity because it has an object (a point) and a process. The process is the refinement of the object until it breaks down into useful components (e.g., as food into energy). It is gradual, but purposeful. Even the gas has a purpose.

The ruminator needs to start with: “I know there is a point, and I trust I will find it.” That makes all the difference.

No more pontifications...

The end is here for the days of spoofing the news coverage of the Pope’s health. Anything written at this point would be tasteless, although some might say, “And how would that be different?”

I’ve had several questions on these items. Some just didn’t get it; others didn’t understand “the fascination with the Pope”. And for some, pope jokes just aren’t funny, no matter what.

To close out this chapter, it might help to tell what this has drove all this. It wa about him as celebrity, and as pop icon. The pope was the object, but the media was the subject.

It all started one slow news weekend in February when Fox News began running almost continuous coverage of his condition.
“The Pope is at the window. “Ooh, look. Now he’s waving.”
“Well, Frank, what do you think of that wave? Is that the wave of a healthy Pope, or a sick one?”
On and on and on and on for days!

It was weirdly reminiscent of the coverage of Princess Diana, and oddly juxtaposed against the coverage of the Michael Jackson trial. And it was the irony of so many people who disagree with the pope on so many things, behaving as though they actually cared. The pontiff is a man whose detractors quote for their own advantage; he’s prolife and anti-war, so many can find one sound byte they can use to legitimize their position, even though most couldn’t stand up to the totality of his beliefs.

This all made it clear that the pope is more than just a modern modern religious leader (in the mold, say of the Archbishop of Canterbury or Billy Graham), he's actually a celebrity! Hence the stories mixing the pope with MJ, American Idol, and the Ocars.

The coverage reached total absurdity yesterday when the Fox camera was trained on the two lights of the papal residence for hours, with the caption on the screen reading “Pope still alive”! The reports were speaking in hushed tones, as if reporting on a golf tournament, grasping for fresh words to say.

Today Matt and Katy are in Rome wearing tasteful black wardrobes and asking somber, serious questions. (Have you ever seen buzzards circling?)

Soon after he’s gone, they’ll be back to Michael Jackson, and The Next Big Thing.

Mercifully, now that his death is near, the coverage is turning. They have moved beyond his wavering wave, and whether or not he’ll speak at the window, and are addressing what his life has meant to the church and to the world. Only good can come of that.

(No one has found the hidden joke yet. It's pretty subtle, and sort of gauche, and maybe not that funny. You'd probably have to know too much about the Pope to find it. No more clues.)