In the Middle of Things- Hyphenating Life with Philosophy and Theology

Life happens to us in the middle of things. The middle is chaosmosic. It is an uneasy calm that is creative and awaiting a storm. It draws us into the impossible, where we have to face the truth of ourselves in our full nakedness. It is in the zone of the impossible where we have to open ourselves to an absolute horizon that remains open on all sides, Closed horizons take us into the possible zones where we can anticipate what is coming and thus offer a strategic response. Life in the open horizon does not have the luxury of knowing what is coming. One has no other defence then to fall on one's original sacred nakedness that was lost by the sin of Adam and Eve. Coming into the impossible and unforeseeable zone, we stand along/hyphenate by Jesus Christ on the cross who hung naked for us and brought us into His life, transforming us into a new creation. It is only by faith and not by sight that we can live as pilgrims with uncertainties and insecurities of the world.

Rev. (Dr) Victor Ferrao holds a Doctorate in Philosophy of Science with a specialisation in Science- Religion Dialogue from the Faculty of Philosophy Jnana Deepa, Pune. He was Professor and Dean at Rachol Seminary and served with distinction for twenty years. He has served as the coordinator of the Special Study Centre of IGNOU at Rachol Seminary. He is the visiting professor at Rachol Seminary, Goa; Jnana Deepa, Pune; and St. Pius X College, Goregaon, Mumbai. He has authored six books and has edited the proceedings of annual conference of Association of Christian Philosophers of India (ACPI). He is the Founder Director of Science Religion Sangam, Goa and is actively involved in Science and Religion Dialogue. Organiser of National and International conferences, he is a regular columnist in Newspapers and Magazines in Goa.

We often find ourselves in the middle of things: of tasks, of relationships, of plans, of multiple projects simultaneously being lived out and of course, of spaces. Furthermore, we also find ourselves living multiple, split, hyphenated, hybrid lives. Living the life of a lower class-Dalit-rural-woman is quite different from that of an upper caste-rich-urban-male. Both may be Indians, but it is as if they occupy radically different spaces from which to engage with the worlds that confront them.

Hyphenated lives are not static median positions of human experience; they are dynamic, fluid existential situations which embrace multiple narratives in a cohesive union. The project of successfully sustaining identity politics eventually collapses under the weight of such necessarily hyphenated ways of life.

Victor Ferrao's life is multiply hyphenated: he is a philosopher, but also a theologian; an intellectual, attempting the sayable, yet also a priest, fundamentally open to the unsayable; a post-modern, abstract thinker but pragmatic and involved in several grassroot issues. He is equally comfortable in the private spaces of a confessional as well as the space of a public intellectual and spokesperson for those who may not have a voice.

Victor's Goan culture is the fruit of an Indic-Portuguese confluence: a rare and heady blend which makes Goa a hospitable and enchanting space for all and sundry people of all places feel comfortable in Goa and Goans feel comfortable anywhere and everywhere! Victor manifests both the grace and warmth of Goan culture as well as its frankness and transparency. He is equally capable of gentle hospitality and critical honesty. Many of the articles in this selection feature this heady combination of all of the aspects of a creative writer mentioned above.

Life happens in the middle of things. It is the intermezzo that thickens and creates conditions of transformations for good or bad. The middle is not balanced tranquillity. It is a kind of uncomfortable balance that is awaiting a storm. We can describe this uneasy calm as Chaosmos, the term used by James Joyce for a creative and disruptive calm (Lowe-Evans, 1990). It is not a safe harbour. It is a calm that has a promise to keep. It is also a promise that may not be kept. It can go in any direction. It can keep the promise or break it too. We can understand its power through thinking that moves beyond our habitual either/or mode of thinking. We have the challenge to think-together the two binary polarities and snuff out its impulsive dialectical power. To destabilize its binary logic, we have to keep the two poles in a juxtaposed condition while denegating the negative pole. This means thinking-together both the polarities. we open the thought to something that we cannot see coming. Either/or thinking thinks only the possible, while opening the binaries of thinking leads us to a no man's land, to unforeseeable impossible consequences. Such thinking thinks in the coming. It does not reach the safe shore of closure. It is always on the way. It is always in the middle of things. It is an intermezzo.

We feel called/interpellated/addressed into being. We are addressed in the middle of life. This call is an intermezzo. It makes us ex-static. We dance to its tune. It is like receiving a postcard. But we do not always know from where it has come. It interrupts and disrupts our life. It calls us to keep the promises that we have not made. It opens the gaps in our life and solicits our response. There is also a time when we receive a call that turns our life all together. We can only say 'here I am'/Amen to this call. It says come. Its call stays in the coming. This is why the call that is addressed to us, the call that haunts us, can be said to have come from God who is 'I am who I am'. Such a God is present in his coming.

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