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Portrait of an Intellectually Obese Pride Addict (The Medialle House Journals – 5)

Jan 13th, 2010
by Michael Krahn.
***This is a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5|Part 6|Part 7***

Michael Krahn - Recovering Intellectually Obese Pride Addict

I often flirt with a kind of spiritual and intellectual obesity. As the physically obese consume food, I consume information. Like food, the consumption of information is good and necessary. But consumed constantly, or as an escape from something else, it can become a rather obsessive activity.

Just as overindulgence in food immobilizes the body, so the over-consumption of information immobilizes the mind. I am sometimes a specimen of informational gluttony.

But here’s the rub: unlike physical obesity, intellectual obesity is sometimes encouraged, lauded, and praised as a good quality. It can even be a cause for envy. This is the quickest way to the pride that leads to a fall for the possessor of informational girth.

And so, I am an intellectually obese pride addict. There, I said it. Some of you already knew.

So what keeps me from simplifying, from consuming less? Why is it that I consume beyond my appetite to the place where I approach immobility?

1) I have a fear of losing touch with current theological/ecclesiological/missiological developments. This is a point of pride for me that I think is subsiding.

2) I have a need to uphold my reputation as “in-the-know” and “well-connected.” In reality, I need this reputation to leverage good opportunities for my future (you know, because God isn’t capable of getting me where he wants me… so I have to help).

So I’m looking into what would need to be sacrificed (or at least curtailed) in order to reverse this. It seems that my life is filled with good things, but too many or too much of them.

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  • hellen

    Hmmm, yes! And I'm sitting right beside you in the 'recovery' group! A very key verse for me for a number of years now has been, "Trust in the LORD with all of your HEART and lean NOT on your UNDERSTANDING…." It's about the heart and not the head, not that knowledge is wrong but if it precludes trust and relationship building then it is! I've come to understand that my need to be knowledgeable in so many areas has more to do with the need for control than anything. Trust on the other hand necessitates the loss of said control ie. surrender…letting go!

    A definite process, and as Oswald Chambers says, "We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end.

    What is my dream of God's purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process – that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God. ..: http://www.myutmost.org/07/0728.html

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelkrahn michaelkrahn

    I like this sentence:

    What we call the process, God calls the end.

  • http://www.rootedradical.wordpress.com Jason Postma

    You may be interested in following the blog of Jamie Smith at "Fors Clavierga" – he's blogging through Thomas Merton

    http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2010/01/bloggin…

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelkrahn michaelkrahn

    Ooooo, that looks good. Thanks!

    Was he a prof of yours?

  • http://michaelkrahn.com/blog/2010/06/22/read-until-your-brain-creaks/ Read Until Your Brain Creaks – Michael Krahn : The Ascent to Truth

    [...] For example, here are 7 tips he recently offered other writers about reading. I’m sure that he would agree with me though that there is a danger of “Intellectual Obesity.” [...]