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Friday, December 21, 2012

everything is semiotics; semiotic=semi-erotic

In one current class, we've been enjoying the family tree of the word "sign" (see  this  and   this).
It's a reminder that everything is sign-ificant.
We can't not do signs/ semiotics.

It's a sign.

Read up on semiotic theology.

Enjoy the delightfully named Erotica: The Semey Side of Semiotics .
(Of course they'll be a connection between semiotics and sexuality...if everything is semiotic and "Our sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God.
Don't forget, as Sweet says in the interview below, " In nature, you don’t get to mate or even sometimes move without being able to read signs."


Definitely read theo-semiotician  Leonard Sweet (study with him in the Semiotics and Future Studies Doctor of Ministry program):


Explorefaith: Len, you are often described as a futurist. Can you tell me what that means, exactly? Do you foretell the future?
Leonard Sweet:  Don’t we all wish we had that crystal ball? What I do is called “semiotics,” which makes me a “semiotician,” a word derived from one of Jesus’ favorite sayings: “Red sky in morning/sailors take warning/Red sky at night/sailors delight. You know how to read the signs of the sky; Learn to read the signs of the times.” [See Matthew 16:2-3] The Greek word for “signs” is semeion, and semiotics is the study of signs and the art of making connections, seeing the relationships between apparently random signs and reading the meaning of those relationships.
Our brains are designed to detect patterns. So I only do what everyone else can do if we do what we’re designed to do.
The world is ruled by signs and signals. For example, cars are driven to be seen and to be read, not just to get you somewhere. Cars are signs of who we are or want to be. Signals are heavy laden with social and moral connotations. They even alter the behavior of those receiving the signals. In nature, you don’t get to mate or even sometimes move without being able to read signs, many of them blazing signals in code: the crow of a rooster, the tail of a peacock, the antlers of a buck, the scent of an otter, the song of a kakapo. In economics, the whole system of money is based on signs, and you can’t balance a checkbook without the ability to read a sign language called “mathematics.” You are tested in your sign-reading ability before you are given a license to drive a car.
Explorefaith:  What does reading signs have to do with faith?
Leonard Sweet:  Disciples of Jesus must learn to read the sign-language of the Spirit. Sometimes God gives us a hint; sometimes God drops a hammer on us. But the handwriting is on the wall. God’s finger is still writing. Can we read the signs of what God is doing? The ultimate in spiritual illiteracy is the inability to read the handwriting on the wall, especially when the essence of evangelism is announcing the good sign, the Jesus Sighting. For me, semiotics is another way of talking about the signs of the Spirit’s activity in the world. For we are sent into the world to join Jesus in his continuing mission.
Also—there are some people in the church preoccupied with reading signs, but they’re looking only for one thing: not signs of our times, but end times signs, signs of the coming of Christ, signs of the “latter days” and the “end of days.” I’m trying, instead, to read the signs which give us Jesus sightings.   link

See especially the "Semiotics 101" section,   pp 41-50 here below (Nudge, By Leonard Sweet -Chapter One):

learn semiotics. It’s a direct order

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