To the left is a wide, slow river moving ponderously but faithfully down a grade of less than ten inches every mile. It is mostly muddy and slow, but it can be treacherous at times. Let it be the movement of philosophy and ideas down through the years. It is full of thoughts and discoveries, and it is calling people to a certain standard of living; a life of joy, or courage, or sacrifice. At times it contains such a high and lofty ideal for us that we could never hope to reach it. What’s more, we often can’t even see the idea, for the water is churned up and full of sediment. For centuries men and women have been able to float about on its surface, but going deeper is too troublesome. The water is not clear enough.
To the right is a roaring mountain stream. It is as wide as the other, yet deeper. It may momentarily collect in a pool, but for most of its journey it is racing through rapids, squeezed between daunting cliffs and pouring over the edges of waterfalls. It is vibrant and dangerous and moving unstoppably. This is history. It is the motion and movement of real people in real situations, making decisions and catastrophic choices which propel the whole monster forward. The undertow is deadly. Nothing can stop its flow. Everything is caught up in it as it tumbles along. It is not changeable – rather, it changes the landscape as it moves along.
One tells us the way things should be – the other tells us the way things really are. Somewhere up ahead, the two will meet.
Now consider that some moral philosopher may speak for hours on end to try to get people to behave in a more humane manner. Like the slow moving river, he can inspire, but not enough. He can whip people into a frenzy, but not forever. Most philosophies are impenetrable to the masses, and uninteresting as well. You may swim around in them for hours and never find one compelling reason to do anything noble. It is a cerebral exercise, a tedious mystery.
History however leaves us with the opposite: not what should be, or what could be, but rather what really is, and how short it falls. How few heroes of Right and Wrong have lived up to their potential? How many monsters have had a greater impact on their world and generation than a thousand martyrs? How frustrating it is to look at the merely human endeavors there and find in them some hope for mankind. We cannot force history into a high standard for our lives, for it is simply too broken, too human.
These two streams meet at a junction which has been an expression of humanity’s creativity for thousands of years. For where our ideals meet our experience, we tell stories.
Now these stories, as has been noted, come from two streams, and there can be two results. The first is that the water from each creates a reservoir, a deep, clear lake from which we can drink, a source of sustenance. This happens when we have worthy ideals, when we recognize the faulty ones, when we understand human nature rightly, and when we apply the two together to create worlds where reality is made tangible for people.
But the other possibility is not a store of nourishing water, but a swamp; a flat, sulfurous bog of stagnant water filled with bacteria and breeding insects. This is what happens when we create literature which embraces the basest ideals (or none at all) or when people go looking only to what is and try to extract some meaning or purpose out of it, rather than imposing on the world an ennobling element from the stream of conscience and morality.
What we see in our world is that, too often, the confluence of these two streams results in a malarial bog of hopeless tripe. Either the level of artistic achievement is high and the ideals are low, or else the ideals are high and the artistry is low. We need deep waters, and clear. We require so much more than we have been given. We’ve grown accustomed to settling, so much so that we can barely recognize any longer the potential which exists for real creativity.
It may be that a renewal of true art among believers will accompany, or precede, an increase in the quality of our religion, for the highest ideas in creation deserve the very best creations we can produce.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Frodo's Failure
Some of you have read the book, others have only seen the movie, perhaps some of you are familiar with neither the blockbuster nor the classic in which Frodo the hobbit must carry a ring, permeated with evil power, up to the summit of mount doom and drop it into a crack so that it might be destroyed by the fire below. By the time you reach that point in the story, the quest for mount doom has become almost as much of a burden for the reader as for the hero, and all you want is for him to let go of that ring and be free. If you care at all, if you're invested enough in the recognizability of the tale, then you're tired of reading about his struggle and his weariness, almost as if you yourself are helping to carry the ring just by sharing his story.
But if you persevere that far you will experience something like a shocking surprise. This hardy little hobbit has braved all the dangers of middle earth and all the deprivations one could reasonably expect only to reach the very end of his journey... and fail.
He failed, no question about it. His role was to take the ring to the mountain and destroy it. Instead, he tried to claim it and keep it. He'd carried it around his neck for too long; it had seeped into his flesh and bones, and it had become a part of him. As he slips it on his finger the reader realizes that even the strongest and the bravest cannot endure the mounting pressure of evil forever. Everyone crumbles beneath it at some point.
It is just then, when Frodo disappears into a world of shadow and darkness, and his good friend can no longer even see him, when the creature who has dogged his footsteps for nearly the entire trip reaches out to take the ring for himself. He finds Frodo's finger and bites it off, taking his prize with a cannibalistic violence. Then this creature, Gollum, falls, ring and all, into the fire - and Frodo is left staring into the abyss.
Here Frodo becomes free, but not for anything he himself did. He tried to get rid of his burden, but he could not. In the end he embraced it, and at that point, when it had become a part of himself, it could only be taken from him at the price of disfigurement. A small piece of himself fell into the flames as well. He may have been set free from the power of the ring, but he would never be completely whole again.
There is something deeply disturbing about the suggestion that the kindest, bravest, hardiest character in an epic is insufficiently strong to resist evil all alone - that even the best of us is ultimately corruptible. The idea that a vulnerability to darkness may linger inside of us, and can only be torn away in a violent act of mercy which hurts more deeply the more it is needed. The flesh is weak indeed. As Frodo runs from the scene of his own failure, dripping blood and exhausted, he may indeed have felt as though he were dying; yet he can hardly have regretted it. Can such a survivor ever regret what he's lost, or left behind, the pieces of his heart or his soul that have been destroyed in the course of things? So long as the curse is lifted, nothing else matters. It is enough.
But if you persevere that far you will experience something like a shocking surprise. This hardy little hobbit has braved all the dangers of middle earth and all the deprivations one could reasonably expect only to reach the very end of his journey... and fail.
He failed, no question about it. His role was to take the ring to the mountain and destroy it. Instead, he tried to claim it and keep it. He'd carried it around his neck for too long; it had seeped into his flesh and bones, and it had become a part of him. As he slips it on his finger the reader realizes that even the strongest and the bravest cannot endure the mounting pressure of evil forever. Everyone crumbles beneath it at some point.
It is just then, when Frodo disappears into a world of shadow and darkness, and his good friend can no longer even see him, when the creature who has dogged his footsteps for nearly the entire trip reaches out to take the ring for himself. He finds Frodo's finger and bites it off, taking his prize with a cannibalistic violence. Then this creature, Gollum, falls, ring and all, into the fire - and Frodo is left staring into the abyss.
Here Frodo becomes free, but not for anything he himself did. He tried to get rid of his burden, but he could not. In the end he embraced it, and at that point, when it had become a part of himself, it could only be taken from him at the price of disfigurement. A small piece of himself fell into the flames as well. He may have been set free from the power of the ring, but he would never be completely whole again.
There is something deeply disturbing about the suggestion that the kindest, bravest, hardiest character in an epic is insufficiently strong to resist evil all alone - that even the best of us is ultimately corruptible. The idea that a vulnerability to darkness may linger inside of us, and can only be torn away in a violent act of mercy which hurts more deeply the more it is needed. The flesh is weak indeed. As Frodo runs from the scene of his own failure, dripping blood and exhausted, he may indeed have felt as though he were dying; yet he can hardly have regretted it. Can such a survivor ever regret what he's lost, or left behind, the pieces of his heart or his soul that have been destroyed in the course of things? So long as the curse is lifted, nothing else matters. It is enough.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
"No one on earth has any other way left but upward." ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn
I first encountered Alexander Solzhenitsyn intentionally, as part of a personal effort to taste the Russian authors. I began with his book, One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, a novel of fact and personal experience which follows one prisoner through an ordinary day in a work camp in Communist Siberia.
I will be frank with you; I chose that book because it was much shorter than War and Peace. I figured that, since I didn’t know whether I would like they style of a Russian author, I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew. I would only allow myself to become emotionally invested in a smaller sample. Smaller it is, but glorious.
Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp, beginning in 1945. Eventually, as a result of his writings, he had his citizenship revoked by the USSR and was exiled, eventually ending up in the United States. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970.
In 1978 he was invited by Harvard university to address the student body. But that speech was marked by a grave disrespect shown by nearly everybody in attendance, including the faculty, as he began to unburden himself in a fearless and transparent critique of Western culture.
Who better to critique the west? Solzhenitsyn was no proponent of communism, having suffered so much under it. He hated the low estate which the atheistic government of his home land had produced among the Russian people. Adopted by the richest, most “successful” nation on earth, he enjoyed full freedom to commend his ideas and observations to people. He was free to write, and being a newcomer, he could view circumstances objectively, with the fresh perspective of someone who has not been desensitized by immersion. But he was apparently not free to confront those educators and their progeny with truths about the moral condition of our society, for they would not listen.
Consider what he said about that which our culture cannot satisfy: “[T]he human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor and by intolerable music.” Could it be that a man who had to learn to be by himself with God in a vicious, brutal gulag learned how to be satisfied without the gadgets and the distractions which we use as a substitute for contentment?
He was heckled and booed during his speech that day. He confronted young, power-hungry humanists with the idea that God was the only satisfactory answer for the problems of society and the yearnings of life, and in return he was mocked and ignored – the sound of Nero’s fiddle in the halls of higher learning.
He supposedly said later that the reception to his speech was the saddest moment of his life. It should be an occasion of sadness for all of us, as well. Look at this man who, by virtue of his honesty in the face of mass indifference, stands in the company of the prophets before him. He learned how to face the demands of truth while shuddering under a threadbare jacket, a thin rag wrapped around his face, toiling under the blast of arctic winds in a camp at the end of the world. His haunted legacy haunts us as well, if only we knew it.
I will be frank with you; I chose that book because it was much shorter than War and Peace. I figured that, since I didn’t know whether I would like they style of a Russian author, I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew. I would only allow myself to become emotionally invested in a smaller sample. Smaller it is, but glorious.
Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp, beginning in 1945. Eventually, as a result of his writings, he had his citizenship revoked by the USSR and was exiled, eventually ending up in the United States. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970.
In 1978 he was invited by Harvard university to address the student body. But that speech was marked by a grave disrespect shown by nearly everybody in attendance, including the faculty, as he began to unburden himself in a fearless and transparent critique of Western culture.
Who better to critique the west? Solzhenitsyn was no proponent of communism, having suffered so much under it. He hated the low estate which the atheistic government of his home land had produced among the Russian people. Adopted by the richest, most “successful” nation on earth, he enjoyed full freedom to commend his ideas and observations to people. He was free to write, and being a newcomer, he could view circumstances objectively, with the fresh perspective of someone who has not been desensitized by immersion. But he was apparently not free to confront those educators and their progeny with truths about the moral condition of our society, for they would not listen.
Consider what he said about that which our culture cannot satisfy: “[T]he human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor and by intolerable music.” Could it be that a man who had to learn to be by himself with God in a vicious, brutal gulag learned how to be satisfied without the gadgets and the distractions which we use as a substitute for contentment?
He was heckled and booed during his speech that day. He confronted young, power-hungry humanists with the idea that God was the only satisfactory answer for the problems of society and the yearnings of life, and in return he was mocked and ignored – the sound of Nero’s fiddle in the halls of higher learning.
He supposedly said later that the reception to his speech was the saddest moment of his life. It should be an occasion of sadness for all of us, as well. Look at this man who, by virtue of his honesty in the face of mass indifference, stands in the company of the prophets before him. He learned how to face the demands of truth while shuddering under a threadbare jacket, a thin rag wrapped around his face, toiling under the blast of arctic winds in a camp at the end of the world. His haunted legacy haunts us as well, if only we knew it.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
the other side of faith...
O Maker-Of-Dreams
In the darkness of night;
Show me which holy things
Will endure in the light.
For a longing you grant
And a dream that you make;
The seedling you plant
And the love that's at stake,
Your Faithfulness borrow
So always reside
Beyond my tomorrow
On Faith's other side.
And the resolute pilgrim
Who lets go of pride
Will awaken the dawn
On Faith's other side.
In the darkness of night;
Show me which holy things
Will endure in the light.
For a longing you grant
And a dream that you make;
The seedling you plant
And the love that's at stake,
Your Faithfulness borrow
So always reside
Beyond my tomorrow
On Faith's other side.
And the resolute pilgrim
Who lets go of pride
Will awaken the dawn
On Faith's other side.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The Good Work of Death
Artists are almost always improperly appreciated in their own time. I am quite sure that exceptions can be found, but they are bound to be rare, given the fact that it is almost always necessary to let history stretch out behind a life before passing objective judgment upon it. Artists are particularly prone to the fallacy of being given either too much credit, or not enough, while they live and work. How many painters worked in obscurity, unaware that their real influence would only come after death? How many new and interesting artists become all the rage for a season, only to sink into obscurity and oblivion after they are gone? It is a constant curse of the arts that critics are so blinded by the present. Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Vincent Van Gogh - all lauded from the grave. Examples are legion.
Therefore, ironically, death is the ultimate freedom for art, for it is only after death that the worth and effect of an artist's work become measurable. Where too much has been made of a small creator, the applause dies down and the works are forgotten. They are relegated to a footnote of our common story to collect dust. They could not rise above faddism. Death closes the door upon an empty room; the curtain is lowered over a play of no substance. This is liberating, for the art and the artist are revealed, and death is unforgivingly honest.
It also sets free the truly exceptional from the bondage of a merely earthly existence. The artist dies, but her poetry, his paintings, the book lives on! Here it is not a door shutting upon an empty room, but rather a cage being opened wide; the life of the creator no longer limits the value of their own work. It is like the unfolding of a chrysalis, unknown to the one who has gone. This too is necessry, and just.
So the artist (the poet, the writer, the painter, the sculptor, the composer) ought always to welcome death; nothing of substance can be determined until he has come. Behold the coming of the pale horse - will we learn to welcome him? His verdict is inevitable.
Therefore, ironically, death is the ultimate freedom for art, for it is only after death that the worth and effect of an artist's work become measurable. Where too much has been made of a small creator, the applause dies down and the works are forgotten. They are relegated to a footnote of our common story to collect dust. They could not rise above faddism. Death closes the door upon an empty room; the curtain is lowered over a play of no substance. This is liberating, for the art and the artist are revealed, and death is unforgivingly honest.
It also sets free the truly exceptional from the bondage of a merely earthly existence. The artist dies, but her poetry, his paintings, the book lives on! Here it is not a door shutting upon an empty room, but rather a cage being opened wide; the life of the creator no longer limits the value of their own work. It is like the unfolding of a chrysalis, unknown to the one who has gone. This too is necessry, and just.
So the artist (the poet, the writer, the painter, the sculptor, the composer) ought always to welcome death; nothing of substance can be determined until he has come. Behold the coming of the pale horse - will we learn to welcome him? His verdict is inevitable.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The Sack Of Rome - or - How To Make A Fine Young Barbarian
Smoke ascended in greedy gusts from the great city, now in its third day of pillage. The buildings have long since caught fire and continue to smolder in ruinous ash-heaps. Some of the sturdier buildings, those composed much of stone, still stand tremulously, more as though they were leaning than standing, waiting for just the right gust of wind to bring them, too, down.
A handful of scavengers have begun to brave the smoke and the heat, and circle down into the broiling mass of victims, savage stomping warriors and crumbling debris. Here and there some fortunate citizen creeps along from hole to hole, hiding as they go, trying to salvage some piece of their fortune in a fold of their tunic, or in a small sack on their back. Most of the houses have been emptied by the conquerors, piles of gold and silver have been thrown into carts and canvass bags and moved out of the city. The sounds now are muted and infrequent. Earlier, it was one massive, jumbled, horrifying shriek of savage greed and panicky resistance. Now the weapons are mostly quiet, and the losers are silenced by their desperate plight. The victors sing and chant their exuberance as they enslave and rape and abuse the few living remnants they happen to find. It is a gory episode, one which is winding down now. Much of the energy is used up; much of the fun has passed on.
One barbarian has found himself a fine horse in all of this babble. It is a good, solid warhorse, bred for speed and strength and treated well for several years now, showing the effects of better food than its new master has ever enjoyed. This horse will be his transportation back home, and once there, it will be hitched to a plow, only being ridden when it is necessary to travel, which is seldom. His name is not important; what is important is that he has his prizes, his small handful of baubles and jewelry which he will share with his mistresses and his wife. He has his horse, and has enjoyed his fill of the local beauties. He considers himself a lucky and satisfied man. The barbarian’s way of life is filled with a few simple needs, and even fewer, simpler concerns. In short, he was feeling happy and magnanimous when he ran across the youth hiding in the lee of a ruined temple wall, clutching a burnt and soiled chunk of bread to his chest. While the barbarian had been ignoring other survivors whom he had seen, this one made him stop for a moment. In fact, there was something about this youth and the time of day which made him positively conversant.
“Hello there my lad. How did you manage to last three whole days through this madness?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t know! Well that’s a fine thing. Don’t you know that I ought to kill you?”
“Yes, but I don’t know why.”
“Why? Why! Why not, rather. That’s the question these days my lad. ‘Why not?’”
“I suppose because I don’t want to die.”
“Well there is that. I’m not sure it’s good enough, to tell you the truth, but I’ve given my sword enough work these last three days, and I don’t think you’ll be any great trouble if I let you go on your way.”
“Of course not sir. I’m leaving the city.”
“Wise. Where will you go?”
The young man made no reply. He looked down at his feet.
“Afraid to tell me? Ha! I won’t be looking up any more mischief tonight – or tomorrow for that matter. It’s back home for me, at least for now.”
“I’m going to my uncle’s estate. It’s far from here.”
“You tell them ‘No hard feelings’ will you? Just had to be done.”
“What had to be done, sir?”
“What? Why, this battle here. It had to be fought, don’t you see? Had to be. There was a right good reason, I recall, when we started, but I’m jiggered if I can tell you what it is now.” He paused to pick at his teeth with his little finger. “Must be all the ale I found in that basement over yonder,” and he waved with his hand in the general vicinity of a large, burned neighborhood.
“If you wouldn’t mind, sir, could you tell me what those reasons are?”
“Weren’t you listening, you cloth-eared urchin? I just said I can’t remember!”
“I’d really like to know. I need to know.” He looked as if he would cry, huddled there grasping his tiny loaf tighter.
“Oh, so that’s it, eh? Hm. Let me think on it a moment. It was... something to do with oppression. Yes, that’s it. We were oppressed. And hungry.” He slapped his sides with two hands, laughing heartily.
“Who was oppressing you?”
“Can’t you tell? You were! Well, not you personally, but the city. Everyone knows the city here was the cause of all our problems. Now we’ve given you all a few problems of your own.” He laughed.
“Was that it?” the boy asked, “because I noticed an awful lot of – what’s the word – looting going on.”
“Can’t be helped, my boy. You’ve got to pay for a major war somehow, and we’ve got no money you see. At least, we used to not have any money. I’ve got a full purse today, though.”
“So is that it? You came for our money and our food?”
“Well now it’s not as simple as all that. You see, this here city has been too almighty proud, too high and mighty for too long. Do you know how many slaves have been taken away from my country and brought here to work? Do you know how long soldiers from this city have lived in my home land? Have you any idea how long this blooming city has just been sitting here, bloody well telling everybody else how to live? No more. From now on, there’s no more orders from any stuck-up emperor, no more armies tramping back and forth, no more of the silly dresses you all wear. From now on things are going to be much more like they should be.”
“If you don’t mind, sir, may I ask you a few questions?”
“Certainly my boy.”
“If there are no more soldiers, who will keep the roads safe?”
“Safe? Who needs them safe? Not me, I can tell you that. Nobody would have the cheek to attack us as we go back home; there’s too many of us. Think for a minute, boy. Use that head of yours.”
“That’s fine, but what about next year when you want to travel by yourself. Who will protect you then?”
“I don’t plan on needing to travel alone boy. That’s a simple question to answer.”
“I was taught that it’s only because of our borders being patrolled that we have peace in our empire. It’s called Pax Romana.”
“It might have been called that, I don’t know. But I do know that it’s still safe enough for me today, and that’s all that matters. You’ve got to live in the present, child. You can’t go speculating off down the distant future. No good comes from that.”
“I always used to feel safe when I knew the armies were keeping a watch on things.”
“Well you can still feel safe, boy. Now that we’ve been through here, there’re not enough rascals left standing within one hundred miles to fill my hat with.”
“Won’t they come back?”
“There’s nothing to come back to! It’s all gone.”
“So instead of Pax Romana, it’s Nihilo Barbarica?”
“I’m not sure what that really means, but it has a nice ring to it.”
“Can I also ask why you are breaking down the gates and tearing chunks out of the walls?”
“Well that should be obvious. Can’t have you go putting up walls again, can we. You’ll learn to live like us, without a bunch of bothersome walls to hedge you in. A man needs space to move, to expand, to grow. No good comes from sticking stone walls up around and trying to keep business out that way. It’s not good – keeps new ideas, new truths from getting in. Keeps commerce out. These are the realities of the present boy!”
“So the walls offended you?”
“They did indeed. Yes they did. They had to go.”
“You destroyed our defenses, and you took all of our treasures.”
“That’s war!” he replied with a laugh. “War is all about those two things, I expect: the walls without and the treasure within.” He reached up with his hand and pulled a small book from a sack on his horse’s back. “Take this here curiosity I found. It’s lousy with writing and words. I can’t make out heads or tails of it, and I don’t suppose it would matter if I did. I’m taking it back to my home so my wife can set it up in our library. We’ll be the only house with a real book in our library. I’ll be able to show visitors this book and tell them about the war, and the great deeds I proliferated upon you and your fellow citizens. But do you know, it doesn’t matter what’s inside this book?”
“It doesn’t?”
“Of course not! It’s written in your language, that’s like a wall. It keeps folks like me who can’t read, out. So the wall has to come down – I take the book. But inside there’s thoughts, right? I anticipate that some fat Roman went and had some thoughts one morning and put them down on these pages. Now the secret of plundering, as you see all around you, is to know what to take. I found these trinkets here,” he produced a stunning golden necklace with a pearl pendant as an example, “and I determined that they were of value, so I took them. But,” he continued, “that broken chunk of bread you’re holding onto, well, you can have that! It’s all about figuring the value of a thing. I’m taking this here horse, but not the toga I saw laying on the ground behind me. The thoughts in this book are worthless, like your bread. I don’t need them.”
“I don’t understand. If you don’t think the book is valuable, why take it?”
“Goodness, don’t you use your head boy? Don’t you use your ears? They told me this was an educated city but I doubt it now! I just told you it was a curiosity. It’s not worth a thing, but it’s not an ugly thing to have laying around either. It’s not practical. You can’t buy a thing with it, and you can’t eat it. Furthermore,” he continued, “the man who wrote it’s dead, isn’t he? How clever can he be if he’s dead!?”
The young man had no response for this.
Then the barbarian continued, “Back in my home, a man is valued for what he can do with his hands, and what we can do is pull down your walls, take your things, and burn the lot of it once we’re done. That makes us better. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, and you can’t have nothing to say to us who live. You see that makes sense? It’s only what’s still living that counts.”
“So, you’re saying that you don’t care one bit what’s written in that book?”
“Course not. How could I? It’s nothing but some scribbling from a dead Roman. Don’t look back to the past, boy. You’ve got enough problems in the present! The present is where things happen. You could say it’s like a philosophy.”
“So now we are at your mercy.”
“Sure, for now. But you’re young, and despite the fact you’ve got more questions than a ten year old girl, and despite the fact you’re our natural enemy, I like you. Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, but I like you. Now here’s what I’d do in your sandals: I’d get me to a safe place, find a way to collect some folks together who are strong and who don’t worry too much about other people’s walls and such. I’d put those folks into a group which can go out and get what you need from other people. I’d stop worrying so much about whether they’re ‘our people’ or ‘their people,’ and I’d make everybody in a thousand miles afraid of me. Stop worrying about books and such. A book never stopped a sword. Don’t think so much about the good old days and what some old fraud wrote in a book. Don’t worry about the things that might happen tomorrow or you’ll be afraid to do anything constructive today. Don’t worry about walls and gates, and don’t forget that the only things worth taking are the things that are practical – food and money and such. You don’t forget that nobody really matters except yourself. You’ve got to look after yourself before you do anything else. That’s the secret to success. You remember that, and you’ll make it just fine.”
“I’ll think about that, all the way to my uncle’s estate.”
“I know you will; you’re a clever lad for a Roman.” He let out another tremendous laugh as he began to lead his horse through the ruined town, towards the large barbarian encampment on the edge of the city.
It would be fair to say that the boy did think about those things on his way to his uncle’s estate, including during the brief interlude when he was, in fact, robbed of his bread, for it seemed that the very destruction of the city had created brigands to replace the ones scared away by the invading army. And as he left the city of his birth, he was everlastingly impressed by two compelling arguments which seemed somehow to bolster the confident assertions of the barbarian: The devastation without, and the smoke within.
A handful of scavengers have begun to brave the smoke and the heat, and circle down into the broiling mass of victims, savage stomping warriors and crumbling debris. Here and there some fortunate citizen creeps along from hole to hole, hiding as they go, trying to salvage some piece of their fortune in a fold of their tunic, or in a small sack on their back. Most of the houses have been emptied by the conquerors, piles of gold and silver have been thrown into carts and canvass bags and moved out of the city. The sounds now are muted and infrequent. Earlier, it was one massive, jumbled, horrifying shriek of savage greed and panicky resistance. Now the weapons are mostly quiet, and the losers are silenced by their desperate plight. The victors sing and chant their exuberance as they enslave and rape and abuse the few living remnants they happen to find. It is a gory episode, one which is winding down now. Much of the energy is used up; much of the fun has passed on.
One barbarian has found himself a fine horse in all of this babble. It is a good, solid warhorse, bred for speed and strength and treated well for several years now, showing the effects of better food than its new master has ever enjoyed. This horse will be his transportation back home, and once there, it will be hitched to a plow, only being ridden when it is necessary to travel, which is seldom. His name is not important; what is important is that he has his prizes, his small handful of baubles and jewelry which he will share with his mistresses and his wife. He has his horse, and has enjoyed his fill of the local beauties. He considers himself a lucky and satisfied man. The barbarian’s way of life is filled with a few simple needs, and even fewer, simpler concerns. In short, he was feeling happy and magnanimous when he ran across the youth hiding in the lee of a ruined temple wall, clutching a burnt and soiled chunk of bread to his chest. While the barbarian had been ignoring other survivors whom he had seen, this one made him stop for a moment. In fact, there was something about this youth and the time of day which made him positively conversant.
“Hello there my lad. How did you manage to last three whole days through this madness?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t know! Well that’s a fine thing. Don’t you know that I ought to kill you?”
“Yes, but I don’t know why.”
“Why? Why! Why not, rather. That’s the question these days my lad. ‘Why not?’”
“I suppose because I don’t want to die.”
“Well there is that. I’m not sure it’s good enough, to tell you the truth, but I’ve given my sword enough work these last three days, and I don’t think you’ll be any great trouble if I let you go on your way.”
“Of course not sir. I’m leaving the city.”
“Wise. Where will you go?”
The young man made no reply. He looked down at his feet.
“Afraid to tell me? Ha! I won’t be looking up any more mischief tonight – or tomorrow for that matter. It’s back home for me, at least for now.”
“I’m going to my uncle’s estate. It’s far from here.”
“You tell them ‘No hard feelings’ will you? Just had to be done.”
“What had to be done, sir?”
“What? Why, this battle here. It had to be fought, don’t you see? Had to be. There was a right good reason, I recall, when we started, but I’m jiggered if I can tell you what it is now.” He paused to pick at his teeth with his little finger. “Must be all the ale I found in that basement over yonder,” and he waved with his hand in the general vicinity of a large, burned neighborhood.
“If you wouldn’t mind, sir, could you tell me what those reasons are?”
“Weren’t you listening, you cloth-eared urchin? I just said I can’t remember!”
“I’d really like to know. I need to know.” He looked as if he would cry, huddled there grasping his tiny loaf tighter.
“Oh, so that’s it, eh? Hm. Let me think on it a moment. It was... something to do with oppression. Yes, that’s it. We were oppressed. And hungry.” He slapped his sides with two hands, laughing heartily.
“Who was oppressing you?”
“Can’t you tell? You were! Well, not you personally, but the city. Everyone knows the city here was the cause of all our problems. Now we’ve given you all a few problems of your own.” He laughed.
“Was that it?” the boy asked, “because I noticed an awful lot of – what’s the word – looting going on.”
“Can’t be helped, my boy. You’ve got to pay for a major war somehow, and we’ve got no money you see. At least, we used to not have any money. I’ve got a full purse today, though.”
“So is that it? You came for our money and our food?”
“Well now it’s not as simple as all that. You see, this here city has been too almighty proud, too high and mighty for too long. Do you know how many slaves have been taken away from my country and brought here to work? Do you know how long soldiers from this city have lived in my home land? Have you any idea how long this blooming city has just been sitting here, bloody well telling everybody else how to live? No more. From now on, there’s no more orders from any stuck-up emperor, no more armies tramping back and forth, no more of the silly dresses you all wear. From now on things are going to be much more like they should be.”
“If you don’t mind, sir, may I ask you a few questions?”
“Certainly my boy.”
“If there are no more soldiers, who will keep the roads safe?”
“Safe? Who needs them safe? Not me, I can tell you that. Nobody would have the cheek to attack us as we go back home; there’s too many of us. Think for a minute, boy. Use that head of yours.”
“That’s fine, but what about next year when you want to travel by yourself. Who will protect you then?”
“I don’t plan on needing to travel alone boy. That’s a simple question to answer.”
“I was taught that it’s only because of our borders being patrolled that we have peace in our empire. It’s called Pax Romana.”
“It might have been called that, I don’t know. But I do know that it’s still safe enough for me today, and that’s all that matters. You’ve got to live in the present, child. You can’t go speculating off down the distant future. No good comes from that.”
“I always used to feel safe when I knew the armies were keeping a watch on things.”
“Well you can still feel safe, boy. Now that we’ve been through here, there’re not enough rascals left standing within one hundred miles to fill my hat with.”
“Won’t they come back?”
“There’s nothing to come back to! It’s all gone.”
“So instead of Pax Romana, it’s Nihilo Barbarica?”
“I’m not sure what that really means, but it has a nice ring to it.”
“Can I also ask why you are breaking down the gates and tearing chunks out of the walls?”
“Well that should be obvious. Can’t have you go putting up walls again, can we. You’ll learn to live like us, without a bunch of bothersome walls to hedge you in. A man needs space to move, to expand, to grow. No good comes from sticking stone walls up around and trying to keep business out that way. It’s not good – keeps new ideas, new truths from getting in. Keeps commerce out. These are the realities of the present boy!”
“So the walls offended you?”
“They did indeed. Yes they did. They had to go.”
“You destroyed our defenses, and you took all of our treasures.”
“That’s war!” he replied with a laugh. “War is all about those two things, I expect: the walls without and the treasure within.” He reached up with his hand and pulled a small book from a sack on his horse’s back. “Take this here curiosity I found. It’s lousy with writing and words. I can’t make out heads or tails of it, and I don’t suppose it would matter if I did. I’m taking it back to my home so my wife can set it up in our library. We’ll be the only house with a real book in our library. I’ll be able to show visitors this book and tell them about the war, and the great deeds I proliferated upon you and your fellow citizens. But do you know, it doesn’t matter what’s inside this book?”
“It doesn’t?”
“Of course not! It’s written in your language, that’s like a wall. It keeps folks like me who can’t read, out. So the wall has to come down – I take the book. But inside there’s thoughts, right? I anticipate that some fat Roman went and had some thoughts one morning and put them down on these pages. Now the secret of plundering, as you see all around you, is to know what to take. I found these trinkets here,” he produced a stunning golden necklace with a pearl pendant as an example, “and I determined that they were of value, so I took them. But,” he continued, “that broken chunk of bread you’re holding onto, well, you can have that! It’s all about figuring the value of a thing. I’m taking this here horse, but not the toga I saw laying on the ground behind me. The thoughts in this book are worthless, like your bread. I don’t need them.”
“I don’t understand. If you don’t think the book is valuable, why take it?”
“Goodness, don’t you use your head boy? Don’t you use your ears? They told me this was an educated city but I doubt it now! I just told you it was a curiosity. It’s not worth a thing, but it’s not an ugly thing to have laying around either. It’s not practical. You can’t buy a thing with it, and you can’t eat it. Furthermore,” he continued, “the man who wrote it’s dead, isn’t he? How clever can he be if he’s dead!?”
The young man had no response for this.
Then the barbarian continued, “Back in my home, a man is valued for what he can do with his hands, and what we can do is pull down your walls, take your things, and burn the lot of it once we’re done. That makes us better. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, and you can’t have nothing to say to us who live. You see that makes sense? It’s only what’s still living that counts.”
“So, you’re saying that you don’t care one bit what’s written in that book?”
“Course not. How could I? It’s nothing but some scribbling from a dead Roman. Don’t look back to the past, boy. You’ve got enough problems in the present! The present is where things happen. You could say it’s like a philosophy.”
“So now we are at your mercy.”
“Sure, for now. But you’re young, and despite the fact you’ve got more questions than a ten year old girl, and despite the fact you’re our natural enemy, I like you. Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, but I like you. Now here’s what I’d do in your sandals: I’d get me to a safe place, find a way to collect some folks together who are strong and who don’t worry too much about other people’s walls and such. I’d put those folks into a group which can go out and get what you need from other people. I’d stop worrying so much about whether they’re ‘our people’ or ‘their people,’ and I’d make everybody in a thousand miles afraid of me. Stop worrying about books and such. A book never stopped a sword. Don’t think so much about the good old days and what some old fraud wrote in a book. Don’t worry about the things that might happen tomorrow or you’ll be afraid to do anything constructive today. Don’t worry about walls and gates, and don’t forget that the only things worth taking are the things that are practical – food and money and such. You don’t forget that nobody really matters except yourself. You’ve got to look after yourself before you do anything else. That’s the secret to success. You remember that, and you’ll make it just fine.”
“I’ll think about that, all the way to my uncle’s estate.”
“I know you will; you’re a clever lad for a Roman.” He let out another tremendous laugh as he began to lead his horse through the ruined town, towards the large barbarian encampment on the edge of the city.
It would be fair to say that the boy did think about those things on his way to his uncle’s estate, including during the brief interlude when he was, in fact, robbed of his bread, for it seemed that the very destruction of the city had created brigands to replace the ones scared away by the invading army. And as he left the city of his birth, he was everlastingly impressed by two compelling arguments which seemed somehow to bolster the confident assertions of the barbarian: The devastation without, and the smoke within.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Considering what poetry is, and what it means to enjoy poetry, I find myself in the wrong century. At some point - I'm not sure when - poetry stopped including banal concepts like rhyme and meter. This is another way of saying that poetry has, for decades now, been struggling along without integrity. Let me explain. Integrity means wholeness. When a building is well built according to a plan, we say it has integrity. When a person's actions match their beliefs and values, we say they have integrity (especially if their values are high and admirable.) Both instances require conformity to a pattern for the sake of structure and consistency. At some point (I'm not sure exactly when, but I suspect it may involve Walt Whitman somehow) poets began to utterly disregard structure. There was no pattern to make their words conform to. This was and is seen, I believe, as progress. Why? Because it allows ideas and words to be completely unrestrained. And this lack of restraint is a very modern romance. We are in love with the idea of living without boundaries. More precisely, we think we love the idea of living without boundaries, but as a philosophy that ideal is so impossible that we cannot conceive of it on any level. Every cell in your body will die unless it maintains its boundaries. Your skin provides a safe haven for your organs. Every law exists to keep people out of someone else's boundaries. You lock the doors of your home at night because you cannot live without the protection of boundaries. All of life and all of creation displays the absurdity of unrestrained impulses and the impossibility of living without borders.
Only in the realms of ethics and the imagination do we crudely believe we have eradicated the need for fences and walls. This is reflected in modern poems which disdain order so that the mind may roam free, and the result is like watching a drunken giraffe try to run hurdles. It may seem deep and intellectual to try and plumb the depths of such poems, but it is rarely worth the effort. Allow me to site one example. The following poem is one which won a national award for student poetry while I was in high school. See if you can relate to the subject, or fathom the deeper meaning here:
As we were laying in bed
us was murdered.
I cannot remember who wrote this poem, but if I could speak to that person I would tell them that the only thing murdered in this verse is the English language. I obviously cannot comment on every single modern poem, but every time I read one which follows this sort of thinking I am struck by the same inevitable thought: modern poetry has exchanged integrity for lack of content.
One of the advantages of writing in a disciplined manner is that it forces us to think in a disciplined way. Anybody who has achieved anything substantial can testify that discipline is mandatory for success, and no discipline is possible until our thoughts are disciplined. My great fear is that we no longer write poetry in an orderly way because we no longer think in an orderly way.
The lynch-pin for getting moderns to understand the necessity of integrity in this arena may actually be music. Music is a field which requires stringent discipline, and the form of the words must match requirements created by the order of the composition. Every student who groans under the weight of a long poem is ecstatic over the release of a new song by their favorite artist. The only difference is that the proximity of music makes the comprehension of the lyrics either easier, or non-essential. It is amazing how many people today don't stop to think about what the lyrics of a song actually mean!
One of my favorite songs illustrates how music may help to lead modern minds into an affinity for real poetry. One of the verses goes like this:
I heard there was a secret chord
David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It went like this; the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall - the major lift
The baffled king composing 'hallelujah'
Unless I am mistaken, there is an obvious and easily identified structure to these words. The fact that they can work apart from any accompaniment is testified by the fact that when this song was recorded, it was really recited more than sung, and the instruments were limited to the chorus with nothing more than soft percussion behind the artist's voice on each verse.
As one very worthy professor recently noted, one reason that modern poetry seems to blather on and on is that there is no structure to force them to stop! Nothing within the poem itself creates a necessity for actually communicating the idea adequately, or in a timely manner. Sure, it takes a little effort to understand well-written poetry, but that is the worst reason of all for avoiding it. As soon as we can't be troubled to think about things which have been written well, we might as well swing wide the gates, for the barbarians have already won. They are no longer approaching the city, they are disappearing over the hill with their plunder, amazed at how easy the sacking of our culture really was.
I am finding that the alarm was sounded in various places and at various times, but nobody was there to hear it.
Only in the realms of ethics and the imagination do we crudely believe we have eradicated the need for fences and walls. This is reflected in modern poems which disdain order so that the mind may roam free, and the result is like watching a drunken giraffe try to run hurdles. It may seem deep and intellectual to try and plumb the depths of such poems, but it is rarely worth the effort. Allow me to site one example. The following poem is one which won a national award for student poetry while I was in high school. See if you can relate to the subject, or fathom the deeper meaning here:
As we were laying in bed
us was murdered.
I cannot remember who wrote this poem, but if I could speak to that person I would tell them that the only thing murdered in this verse is the English language. I obviously cannot comment on every single modern poem, but every time I read one which follows this sort of thinking I am struck by the same inevitable thought: modern poetry has exchanged integrity for lack of content.
One of the advantages of writing in a disciplined manner is that it forces us to think in a disciplined way. Anybody who has achieved anything substantial can testify that discipline is mandatory for success, and no discipline is possible until our thoughts are disciplined. My great fear is that we no longer write poetry in an orderly way because we no longer think in an orderly way.
The lynch-pin for getting moderns to understand the necessity of integrity in this arena may actually be music. Music is a field which requires stringent discipline, and the form of the words must match requirements created by the order of the composition. Every student who groans under the weight of a long poem is ecstatic over the release of a new song by their favorite artist. The only difference is that the proximity of music makes the comprehension of the lyrics either easier, or non-essential. It is amazing how many people today don't stop to think about what the lyrics of a song actually mean!
One of my favorite songs illustrates how music may help to lead modern minds into an affinity for real poetry. One of the verses goes like this:
I heard there was a secret chord
David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It went like this; the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall - the major lift
The baffled king composing 'hallelujah'
Unless I am mistaken, there is an obvious and easily identified structure to these words. The fact that they can work apart from any accompaniment is testified by the fact that when this song was recorded, it was really recited more than sung, and the instruments were limited to the chorus with nothing more than soft percussion behind the artist's voice on each verse.
As one very worthy professor recently noted, one reason that modern poetry seems to blather on and on is that there is no structure to force them to stop! Nothing within the poem itself creates a necessity for actually communicating the idea adequately, or in a timely manner. Sure, it takes a little effort to understand well-written poetry, but that is the worst reason of all for avoiding it. As soon as we can't be troubled to think about things which have been written well, we might as well swing wide the gates, for the barbarians have already won. They are no longer approaching the city, they are disappearing over the hill with their plunder, amazed at how easy the sacking of our culture really was.
I am finding that the alarm was sounded in various places and at various times, but nobody was there to hear it.
Monday, April 21, 2008
the Sound of Weeping and Laughter
Ezra lived in exile. Ezra was a son of the defeated, humiliated Hebrew nation. He lived under the control of a pagan emperor who inherited the territory of Judah when it was a smoldering, ruined wasteland. The destruction that Nebuchadnezzar had brought down on that tiny nation before Ezra's birth was so very complete that today it has been called the Babylonian gap; a blank, uninhabited void in the history of the Jews, a desolate empty parenthesis when nobody lived there, and nobody settled there. The houses were burned, the gardens and farms were razed, the walls were thrown down, the palaces were obliterated and the temple was annihilated.
Worship - the link that was not so much missing as torn away from them. They could, of course, express themselves to God anywhere, and they strove to do so; yet at the same time, they could not. At least, not right away. Once the survivors and the exiles had straggled into the precincts of Babylon and settled down, they were asked for music. Their conquerors demanded a song. Can't these Jews, so famous for their singing, manage to whip up one quaint old hymn of theirs to perform for us? But the Jews knew, as all oppressed people know, that tragedy can overwhelm the impulse to sing. They'd had the music torn out of their souls. The symbol of their close relationship with God, the temple, was destroyed. While they lived through that impoverished waiting time, they learned what it is they had undervalued for too long. Life has a way of taking the things you hold too lightly, and it is still true that you don't really know what you have until you lose it.
So when they were permitted to return, naturally many of their children and grandchildren jumped at the chance. Imagine, finding that corner of the old city which grandfather told us about so many times when we were growing up! We'll build a fine home there; we'll be the first to return, we will be settlers in the land God promised to Abraham! It must have felt like the conquest of Canaan all over again. They left in groups and in caravans, disregarding the safety of the pagan empire for the adventure of re-taking their promised land.
Ezra made it there with them. He followed along at some point, confronting them with the failures of their forefathers and the primacy of worship. While he was there, under his constant encouragement, plans were made for rebuilding the heart of their nation and their religion: the temple.
A crowd was there the day they dedicated the ground anew to the Lord. Many of them had never been to Judah. They had been born as subjects. But there were others in the crowd who had spent their childhood in the days before the fall of Jerusalem. Old now, they were perhaps the few hardy elders who could not countenance one more day apart from the land of promise. They had been torn away, and the tear had never fully healed for them. So they took the perilous, unlikely gamble of travelling along with the youth, the young families, the adventurers and the discontent. And they were all together when the outline of the temple foundation was identified, and the rubble and grass and the brush were all cleared away. They reinforced the stones and inspected the joints and corners, perhaps even replacing beams which would form portions of the walls. And when the foundation was ready to hold the walls, when construction was about to begin, they came together to celebrate.
They were celebrating a new beginning, of course. They were wiping away the memory of God's judgment by building again on the basis of his promise. The very project was a living picture of grace (already finished in their imagination).
Here I see an attitude I recognize, for there are so many young people coming into the kingdom in this day and age. As they come, many of them are gravitating towards the newest expressions of worship, the most recent books, the most popular speakers - we Americans believe in the future! We look forward, not back! Perhaps there is something of the ruined, ineffective exile period in our recent Christian heritage. Didn't uncle Tozer say that the church in America was in a modern Babylonian captivity? We haven't lost our promise or our relationship with God, he observed, but we have surrendered the power of our independent subservience to the King of the Universe. We are waiting for a deliverance from apathy, fear and self-interest, he said. Many young people left the church because of what they witnessed in the adults they knew who professed Christ. I have spoken with teenagers who want to believe in God, but simply don't believe most of the Christians they've met! As many of those youth come back, they want to build something new for God. They want to create an edifice which faces the future - a new century and a new hope.
But we have to realize that the foundation is already there, and has been there for centuries. You can't build on nothing. The Jews who returned could build because they were not the first; the young believers of today are not the first either. I see ages and ages of holy men and women whose examples must continue to illuminate and model true faith down through the centuries. They have crafted our creeds and fueled our evangelistic endeavors. Their stories are more nourishing than a stadium full of newspapers and magazines filled with current events. Their lives and their sacrifices will (if we let them) enrich the very soil on which we build our little hamlets for God's glory. But those saints are gone, their lives and stories are finished.
In that great celebration, Ezra tells us that the sound of rejoicing rose up over the crowd because of the newcomers who saw only the future. Mingled with it, and indistinguishable from it, was the sound of weeping as the elders remembered the former glory. Perhaps no other verse so perfectly embodies the current state of the church in America, for we see every reason to hope as we go through transitions and metamorphoses - yet we have every reason to weep for the effectiveness we abandoned during a crucial and dark period in our nation's history. We can remember the giants who stood out from the crowd once upon a time, who are now merely history; we can remember the institutions they built out of nothing but faith and sweat; we can still read the books with which they shook the world; we can remember the songs that have lasted for centuries; the devotions thoughts they were considerate enough to record for our benefit; the impetus given to evangelism and the force of their work for the Lord...
Some of us think that the world has yet to see, in this generation, anything equal to the greatest saints who went before us. And maybe we can be forgiven for the tears we shed when we look at the potential of the present, and remember the glory that used to be. It could be that God will raise up something even more glorious, but for the moment the sound of laughter mingles with the sound of weeping, and nobody can tell the two apart, for both of them are equally true.
Worship - the link that was not so much missing as torn away from them. They could, of course, express themselves to God anywhere, and they strove to do so; yet at the same time, they could not. At least, not right away. Once the survivors and the exiles had straggled into the precincts of Babylon and settled down, they were asked for music. Their conquerors demanded a song. Can't these Jews, so famous for their singing, manage to whip up one quaint old hymn of theirs to perform for us? But the Jews knew, as all oppressed people know, that tragedy can overwhelm the impulse to sing. They'd had the music torn out of their souls. The symbol of their close relationship with God, the temple, was destroyed. While they lived through that impoverished waiting time, they learned what it is they had undervalued for too long. Life has a way of taking the things you hold too lightly, and it is still true that you don't really know what you have until you lose it.
So when they were permitted to return, naturally many of their children and grandchildren jumped at the chance. Imagine, finding that corner of the old city which grandfather told us about so many times when we were growing up! We'll build a fine home there; we'll be the first to return, we will be settlers in the land God promised to Abraham! It must have felt like the conquest of Canaan all over again. They left in groups and in caravans, disregarding the safety of the pagan empire for the adventure of re-taking their promised land.
Ezra made it there with them. He followed along at some point, confronting them with the failures of their forefathers and the primacy of worship. While he was there, under his constant encouragement, plans were made for rebuilding the heart of their nation and their religion: the temple.
A crowd was there the day they dedicated the ground anew to the Lord. Many of them had never been to Judah. They had been born as subjects. But there were others in the crowd who had spent their childhood in the days before the fall of Jerusalem. Old now, they were perhaps the few hardy elders who could not countenance one more day apart from the land of promise. They had been torn away, and the tear had never fully healed for them. So they took the perilous, unlikely gamble of travelling along with the youth, the young families, the adventurers and the discontent. And they were all together when the outline of the temple foundation was identified, and the rubble and grass and the brush were all cleared away. They reinforced the stones and inspected the joints and corners, perhaps even replacing beams which would form portions of the walls. And when the foundation was ready to hold the walls, when construction was about to begin, they came together to celebrate.
They were celebrating a new beginning, of course. They were wiping away the memory of God's judgment by building again on the basis of his promise. The very project was a living picture of grace (already finished in their imagination).
Here I see an attitude I recognize, for there are so many young people coming into the kingdom in this day and age. As they come, many of them are gravitating towards the newest expressions of worship, the most recent books, the most popular speakers - we Americans believe in the future! We look forward, not back! Perhaps there is something of the ruined, ineffective exile period in our recent Christian heritage. Didn't uncle Tozer say that the church in America was in a modern Babylonian captivity? We haven't lost our promise or our relationship with God, he observed, but we have surrendered the power of our independent subservience to the King of the Universe. We are waiting for a deliverance from apathy, fear and self-interest, he said. Many young people left the church because of what they witnessed in the adults they knew who professed Christ. I have spoken with teenagers who want to believe in God, but simply don't believe most of the Christians they've met! As many of those youth come back, they want to build something new for God. They want to create an edifice which faces the future - a new century and a new hope.
But we have to realize that the foundation is already there, and has been there for centuries. You can't build on nothing. The Jews who returned could build because they were not the first; the young believers of today are not the first either. I see ages and ages of holy men and women whose examples must continue to illuminate and model true faith down through the centuries. They have crafted our creeds and fueled our evangelistic endeavors. Their stories are more nourishing than a stadium full of newspapers and magazines filled with current events. Their lives and their sacrifices will (if we let them) enrich the very soil on which we build our little hamlets for God's glory. But those saints are gone, their lives and stories are finished.
In that great celebration, Ezra tells us that the sound of rejoicing rose up over the crowd because of the newcomers who saw only the future. Mingled with it, and indistinguishable from it, was the sound of weeping as the elders remembered the former glory. Perhaps no other verse so perfectly embodies the current state of the church in America, for we see every reason to hope as we go through transitions and metamorphoses - yet we have every reason to weep for the effectiveness we abandoned during a crucial and dark period in our nation's history. We can remember the giants who stood out from the crowd once upon a time, who are now merely history; we can remember the institutions they built out of nothing but faith and sweat; we can still read the books with which they shook the world; we can remember the songs that have lasted for centuries; the devotions thoughts they were considerate enough to record for our benefit; the impetus given to evangelism and the force of their work for the Lord...
Some of us think that the world has yet to see, in this generation, anything equal to the greatest saints who went before us. And maybe we can be forgiven for the tears we shed when we look at the potential of the present, and remember the glory that used to be. It could be that God will raise up something even more glorious, but for the moment the sound of laughter mingles with the sound of weeping, and nobody can tell the two apart, for both of them are equally true.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Naked Prophet
I know why Isaiah preached naked. In Isaiah chapter 20 it says that God told him to take off his clothes and preach to the people – which is a little odd. After all, public nudity is (mostly) illegal, and for good reasons. The Bible associates it with shame and humiliation. It is not a spectator sport or a healthy pastime. So why would the greatest prophet of the Old Testament preach that way? If I were to do that on a Sunday morning, I’d be presumed insane and replaced by a pastor who was less inclined to exhibitionism. So why Isaiah?
I think I know. The preacher’s lot is a hard one, and it gets harder all the time. Imagine with me now… it falls to you to find ways to tell people what God’s word means and what God is saying to your generation. A very few of the people you know actually want to hear it. A few others want to hear it, but they believe you have gotten it wrong and they want to tweak things until they are comfortable. A small number of people actually hate what you are trying to do; they regard the precious and magnificent promises which are your breath and blood as nothing more than indulgent, mythological self-delusion, effectively undermined by every branch of science and every intellectual since at least 1703. These folks are actually attacking your efforts, drawing people away from the glory that God has shown you.
But by far the largest segment of people you deal with simply don’t care; and this is the cruelest reality of all. What if you were a doctor (you wonder) and victims of malaria didn’t care about the medication you offered them to prevent the disease? What if you could plant in some young heart a love for the greatest classical music ever written, but they are simply uninterested? To be hated is one thing; to strongly disagree is another; but to be disregarded – to be simply ignored as if the Creator and His message are so terribly dull – this cuts deep. Too deeply, sometimes.
One of the most successful preachers of all times was Charles Spurgeon. In the midst of a ministry which spanned decades and drew thousands of listeners, he once said: “In this world, is it not a weary business to be a minister of Christ today? If I might have my choice I would sooner follow any avocation, so far as the comfort of it is concerned, than this of ministering to the sons of men, for we beat the air. This deaf generation will not hear us. What is this perverse generation the better for years and years of preaching?… The world is not worth preaching to.”
No wonder Isaiah was willing to strip, if only it would cause people to SIT UP AND TAKE NOTICE! How far will I go to get people’s attention, to get them to care? Well, not as far as Isaiah (for now, at least… but I’ve only been at it for five years.) But I know why Isaiah was willing to do what God asked. The message is everything. The messenger is nothing. He threw his pride and dignity aside and walked among the laughing, pointing crowds shouting his warning upon the winds, his voice carried far away. Did they hear his cry?
I think I know. The preacher’s lot is a hard one, and it gets harder all the time. Imagine with me now… it falls to you to find ways to tell people what God’s word means and what God is saying to your generation. A very few of the people you know actually want to hear it. A few others want to hear it, but they believe you have gotten it wrong and they want to tweak things until they are comfortable. A small number of people actually hate what you are trying to do; they regard the precious and magnificent promises which are your breath and blood as nothing more than indulgent, mythological self-delusion, effectively undermined by every branch of science and every intellectual since at least 1703. These folks are actually attacking your efforts, drawing people away from the glory that God has shown you.
But by far the largest segment of people you deal with simply don’t care; and this is the cruelest reality of all. What if you were a doctor (you wonder) and victims of malaria didn’t care about the medication you offered them to prevent the disease? What if you could plant in some young heart a love for the greatest classical music ever written, but they are simply uninterested? To be hated is one thing; to strongly disagree is another; but to be disregarded – to be simply ignored as if the Creator and His message are so terribly dull – this cuts deep. Too deeply, sometimes.
One of the most successful preachers of all times was Charles Spurgeon. In the midst of a ministry which spanned decades and drew thousands of listeners, he once said: “In this world, is it not a weary business to be a minister of Christ today? If I might have my choice I would sooner follow any avocation, so far as the comfort of it is concerned, than this of ministering to the sons of men, for we beat the air. This deaf generation will not hear us. What is this perverse generation the better for years and years of preaching?… The world is not worth preaching to.”
No wonder Isaiah was willing to strip, if only it would cause people to SIT UP AND TAKE NOTICE! How far will I go to get people’s attention, to get them to care? Well, not as far as Isaiah (for now, at least… but I’ve only been at it for five years.) But I know why Isaiah was willing to do what God asked. The message is everything. The messenger is nothing. He threw his pride and dignity aside and walked among the laughing, pointing crowds shouting his warning upon the winds, his voice carried far away. Did they hear his cry?
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
TaxTime
In honor of Uncle Sam and his indecipherable tax code, we offer this gem from Robert Frost:
Never Ask of Money spent
Where the spender thinks it went
Mortal man was never meant
To remember or Invent
What he did with every cent
Thank You.
Never Ask of Money spent
Where the spender thinks it went
Mortal man was never meant
To remember or Invent
What he did with every cent
Thank You.
Friday, March 21, 2008
mot juste
Mot juste, we are told by the inimitable Hemingway, is more than just a French phrase thrown into our language to impress and influence. It is a standard, a lifestyle - it means exactly the right word; the one word in the entire language which is exactly suited to a particular desire; the one and only perfect word to describe whatever it is you happen to be describing. I am a big believer in mot juste, and I continue to be dedicated to hunting down the perfect word for every situation, which is not only a personal burden I am willing to carry, but a privilege as well.
Five years ago I began working with youth in our church. After a few months a young man began to attend who made fun of the way I speak (something which did not seem laughable to me.) He accused me of using "fancy words" to "impress" people. I took this rather hard, because it was nothing like what was happening. What was in actual fact occurring was that I was simply speaking the way I always do... I was speaking the way I read. Unfortunately, the young man had no idea what I was saying.
Let me digress for a moment and mention texting (the connection will become clear later.) A typical text message between two teenagers does not look like English. It barely looks like Swahili. It is full of unnecessary punctuation resembling sideways-facing faces, numbers substituting for letters, and invented slang which, as someone who grew up during the eighties, I can testify that we NEVER used.
I always thought this was merely an unfortunate trend, until I read a book about punctuation. Really. In this book the author made the cogent point that such behavior is not merely a matter of personal preference, it is actually rude. What it communicates is the following: "I know that words have proper spelling in our language, but that is a lot of work for my thumbs, and I'm quite busy, and so I'm going to invent characters which have no real meaning and let you work it out for yourself. You may have to say it out loud a few times before you get it. It's like a little puzzle I made just for you."
You see what this does? It takes the whole burden of comprehension and lays it upon the poor wretch who is wondering why he just received a message which looks as though it were accidentally typed out by someone's buttock while the phone was in their back pocket. The responsibility to communicate is not assumed by the person speaking, (which is where it belongs) rather it is foisted upon the person receiving the information. If somebody has something to say, it has historically been believed that he or she has a responsibility to make themselves clearly understood. Apparently, that's too much of a bother these days.
Back to my dilemma. I found the same thing happening in reverse when I was speaking intelligible English to my youth group. One reason they were so quiet while I spoke was they were trying to figure out what some of those funny words meant, or which language I'd borrowed them from. Once I realized what was happening, I faced a very serious problem.
Do I continue to work hard to craft my vocabulary in order to maintain high personal standards, and to impart those standards to others? Or do I continuously lower my style of communication down to the level of monosyllabic grunts and hand gestures which would be fundamentally comprehensible to Bobo the trained gibbon? What is a fellow to do in such a quandary? Should I say "twisty, flexible stick thing" when I really mean "withe?" Or should I say "a sort of name that gets stuck to someone like a title" when I am thinking of "appellation?"
According to the above theory, I should take responsibility to make my meaning clear for the listener; but here I run into a philosophical dilemma. In the first scenario, someone who can speak coherently refuses to match up to their own ability, preferring instead to take the quick and painless route, (for themselves) thus contributing to the already-appalling decline of grammar in our society. In the second case, a brave and lonesome, handsome speaker strives to raise the awareness and linguistic prowess of those within his sphere of influence. So who is right?
We can answer the question by remembering the entirely fictional history of a people who should have existed many thousands of years ago, whom we shall call the Nozirev. The Nozirev can easily be imagined as living somewhere between two countries you've never heard of north of the subcontinent. They had a beautiful, sophisticated, sparkling language called Nozi which was capable of both great subtlety and great specificity. It was rife with poetry to melt the heart and rhetoric to stir the soul. This people produced great orators and musicians and writers, and trade unions, subjugating nearby cultures using nothing more than their wit and their semi-annual pilgrimages to the Shrine of Perpetual Verbiage. All was well, until one enterprising man invented a way of capturing pigeons and training them to return to a previously appointed locale.
Before long, these pigeons were all the rage with the teenagers and young adults living in that land. They took to tying little parchment messages on the pigeons' feet and sending them to their friends. But because of the dear price of ink, and the smallness of the parchment, they had to contrive smaller words, abbreviated phrases, and slang. It is possible that this is where the # sign originated, although we will never know for certain.
Soon, all the teen Nozirev were speaking in Pigeon-Nozi, talking to one another in adumbrated phrases which were neither comprehensible to their elders, nor conducive to their rich literary heritage. Within one generation, the adults and the youth could not communicate, which was a great joy to the young people, but a great sorrow to the adults whose job was to preserve literature, teach children, and hire people to work in fast-food booths. Because of this dichotomy, their entire culture soon fell apart. Every trace of their existence disappeared so completely that today all information about them has to be completely invented.
You may not be able to comprehend what I'm saying here, but it sure makes me feel better to say it.
Five years ago I began working with youth in our church. After a few months a young man began to attend who made fun of the way I speak (something which did not seem laughable to me.) He accused me of using "fancy words" to "impress" people. I took this rather hard, because it was nothing like what was happening. What was in actual fact occurring was that I was simply speaking the way I always do... I was speaking the way I read. Unfortunately, the young man had no idea what I was saying.
Let me digress for a moment and mention texting (the connection will become clear later.) A typical text message between two teenagers does not look like English. It barely looks like Swahili. It is full of unnecessary punctuation resembling sideways-facing faces, numbers substituting for letters, and invented slang which, as someone who grew up during the eighties, I can testify that we NEVER used.
I always thought this was merely an unfortunate trend, until I read a book about punctuation. Really. In this book the author made the cogent point that such behavior is not merely a matter of personal preference, it is actually rude. What it communicates is the following: "I know that words have proper spelling in our language, but that is a lot of work for my thumbs, and I'm quite busy, and so I'm going to invent characters which have no real meaning and let you work it out for yourself. You may have to say it out loud a few times before you get it. It's like a little puzzle I made just for you."
You see what this does? It takes the whole burden of comprehension and lays it upon the poor wretch who is wondering why he just received a message which looks as though it were accidentally typed out by someone's buttock while the phone was in their back pocket. The responsibility to communicate is not assumed by the person speaking, (which is where it belongs) rather it is foisted upon the person receiving the information. If somebody has something to say, it has historically been believed that he or she has a responsibility to make themselves clearly understood. Apparently, that's too much of a bother these days.
Back to my dilemma. I found the same thing happening in reverse when I was speaking intelligible English to my youth group. One reason they were so quiet while I spoke was they were trying to figure out what some of those funny words meant, or which language I'd borrowed them from. Once I realized what was happening, I faced a very serious problem.
Do I continue to work hard to craft my vocabulary in order to maintain high personal standards, and to impart those standards to others? Or do I continuously lower my style of communication down to the level of monosyllabic grunts and hand gestures which would be fundamentally comprehensible to Bobo the trained gibbon? What is a fellow to do in such a quandary? Should I say "twisty, flexible stick thing" when I really mean "withe?" Or should I say "a sort of name that gets stuck to someone like a title" when I am thinking of "appellation?"
According to the above theory, I should take responsibility to make my meaning clear for the listener; but here I run into a philosophical dilemma. In the first scenario, someone who can speak coherently refuses to match up to their own ability, preferring instead to take the quick and painless route, (for themselves) thus contributing to the already-appalling decline of grammar in our society. In the second case, a brave and lonesome, handsome speaker strives to raise the awareness and linguistic prowess of those within his sphere of influence. So who is right?
We can answer the question by remembering the entirely fictional history of a people who should have existed many thousands of years ago, whom we shall call the Nozirev. The Nozirev can easily be imagined as living somewhere between two countries you've never heard of north of the subcontinent. They had a beautiful, sophisticated, sparkling language called Nozi which was capable of both great subtlety and great specificity. It was rife with poetry to melt the heart and rhetoric to stir the soul. This people produced great orators and musicians and writers, and trade unions, subjugating nearby cultures using nothing more than their wit and their semi-annual pilgrimages to the Shrine of Perpetual Verbiage. All was well, until one enterprising man invented a way of capturing pigeons and training them to return to a previously appointed locale.
Before long, these pigeons were all the rage with the teenagers and young adults living in that land. They took to tying little parchment messages on the pigeons' feet and sending them to their friends. But because of the dear price of ink, and the smallness of the parchment, they had to contrive smaller words, abbreviated phrases, and slang. It is possible that this is where the # sign originated, although we will never know for certain.
Soon, all the teen Nozirev were speaking in Pigeon-Nozi, talking to one another in adumbrated phrases which were neither comprehensible to their elders, nor conducive to their rich literary heritage. Within one generation, the adults and the youth could not communicate, which was a great joy to the young people, but a great sorrow to the adults whose job was to preserve literature, teach children, and hire people to work in fast-food booths. Because of this dichotomy, their entire culture soon fell apart. Every trace of their existence disappeared so completely that today all information about them has to be completely invented.
You may not be able to comprehend what I'm saying here, but it sure makes me feel better to say it.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Cause and Consequence
Perhaps the greatest (or primary) tragedy in the drama of the abortion debate is not that millions of lives have been destroyed, but that we have apathetically allowed conditions in our nation to atrophy to such a point that abortion has become an issue at all; that many see it as a practical necessity in light of circumstances is a consequence of placing freedom of choice above God's standard of moral purity.
Let us remember that immoral sexual attitudes came first. When we strike out against abortion we are aiming at a symptom (albeit a tragic and horrifying one) of our nation's growing idolatrous fascination with the view that humanity's great compensation for the woes of this life is sexual gratification.
This view was legitimized by Freud, defanged by Kinsey, popularized by the media and canonized by that generation which is so proud of the accomplishments of the 1960's.
Struggling to make abortion illegal may not be harmful, but it may not be effective either; it is a symptomatic treatment at best, and unless something is done to eliminate sex-worship among all levels of society, our struggle will only be the stamping out of fires which will continue to arise straight out of human nature. History gives us no consolation as we consider the odds against us. Abstinence movements which depend on logical persuasion, trinkets or fear tactics may serve some good, but statistics are not encouraging. What is needed is not incentive to avoid wrong behavior, but a passion for godliness, and genuine morality for its own sake.
One thinks of the fame of pop-icon Brittney Spears. Her once-justifiable popularity is now destroying her like slow acting poison, while the eroticism she and countless others peddle as art eats away at our ability to comprehend purity. Our culture and the tragic heroes of excess we have created are like the new-age image of a snake with its tail in its mouth. What feels like a satisfying meal turns out to be our own annihilation. First the tail, then the body, then the head all vanish in the vulgarity of our appetites.
And in the meantime, we legislate...
Let us remember that immoral sexual attitudes came first. When we strike out against abortion we are aiming at a symptom (albeit a tragic and horrifying one) of our nation's growing idolatrous fascination with the view that humanity's great compensation for the woes of this life is sexual gratification.
This view was legitimized by Freud, defanged by Kinsey, popularized by the media and canonized by that generation which is so proud of the accomplishments of the 1960's.
Struggling to make abortion illegal may not be harmful, but it may not be effective either; it is a symptomatic treatment at best, and unless something is done to eliminate sex-worship among all levels of society, our struggle will only be the stamping out of fires which will continue to arise straight out of human nature. History gives us no consolation as we consider the odds against us. Abstinence movements which depend on logical persuasion, trinkets or fear tactics may serve some good, but statistics are not encouraging. What is needed is not incentive to avoid wrong behavior, but a passion for godliness, and genuine morality for its own sake.
One thinks of the fame of pop-icon Brittney Spears. Her once-justifiable popularity is now destroying her like slow acting poison, while the eroticism she and countless others peddle as art eats away at our ability to comprehend purity. Our culture and the tragic heroes of excess we have created are like the new-age image of a snake with its tail in its mouth. What feels like a satisfying meal turns out to be our own annihilation. First the tail, then the body, then the head all vanish in the vulgarity of our appetites.
And in the meantime, we legislate...
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Number Two All Time Favorite
In 1972 author Richard Adams gave the world something it didn't even realize it needed: a novel about rabbits. This story is a combination of quaint and epic which is so rarely achieved that it is no wonder that this book remains such a well-known/unknown book. It is well-known because many folks have heard of it, or seen the cartoon (I never have) and unknown because everyone I've ever met who has wanted to read it has never actually bothered. I understand that we, as a culture, are enthralled by the immediate, and the more recent something is the more we value it. But if you can go back in time long enough to lose yourself in these characters, you'll be more than rewarded.
It starts in a meadow, where a large warren of rabbits is about to be destroyed by the machine of progress. The problem is that none of them know it except for a frail, intuitive bunny who somehow glimpses a shadow of tragedy about to come - blood splashed across the shrubs and soil of their hillside. That premonition sets a tiny handful of rabbits on a quest for a home of their own.
The way the author brings these animals to life, forcing you to care deeply about their combined fate, is astonishing considering most people leave their fondness for domesticated rodents (if they ever had one) far behind them once they grow up.
If you find yourself opening this book, watch the transformation of Hazel, one reluctant, average rabbit, as he goes from being a frightened refugee to a leader, a hero and a revolutionary. The journey he takes is every bit as delicious as the actual path which brings these characters through seemingly insurmountable dangers and pitfalls. It is equal to any adventure story in any age.
The charm and strength of this allegory lies in the way it uses such unabashed simplicity to craft a tangible world so very, very like our own. It has the power to make you feel ancient and brand-new, child-like and wise with age. Take a chance on something older than this summer's reading list, and find a copy of this book. You'll thank me.
Watership Down, by Richard Adams - 1972
It starts in a meadow, where a large warren of rabbits is about to be destroyed by the machine of progress. The problem is that none of them know it except for a frail, intuitive bunny who somehow glimpses a shadow of tragedy about to come - blood splashed across the shrubs and soil of their hillside. That premonition sets a tiny handful of rabbits on a quest for a home of their own.
The way the author brings these animals to life, forcing you to care deeply about their combined fate, is astonishing considering most people leave their fondness for domesticated rodents (if they ever had one) far behind them once they grow up.
If you find yourself opening this book, watch the transformation of Hazel, one reluctant, average rabbit, as he goes from being a frightened refugee to a leader, a hero and a revolutionary. The journey he takes is every bit as delicious as the actual path which brings these characters through seemingly insurmountable dangers and pitfalls. It is equal to any adventure story in any age.
The charm and strength of this allegory lies in the way it uses such unabashed simplicity to craft a tangible world so very, very like our own. It has the power to make you feel ancient and brand-new, child-like and wise with age. Take a chance on something older than this summer's reading list, and find a copy of this book. You'll thank me.
Watership Down, by Richard Adams - 1972
Thursday, February 28, 2008
WHO wants to inhabit a universe
where every riddle is already solved
where every mystery's made common-place
and the power of paradox slowly dissolves?
What will be left to reach out to,
or to wonder and ask ourselves 'why'
when the unanswered questions we
argue and fight for are neglected until they each die?
WHEN we each eat our fill from the apples that fall
from the tree of the knowledge of life which we shook -
and the wonder of ages and space and of love are all
made merely entries in some scholarly book -
WHEN the last lingering question is finally rendered
a point obselete and dated and moot
and we wholesale abandon the longing to know
and discover, which brings us up out of our youth -
THEN why measure time? For the moments which pass
will be nothing but space for the boredom to fill,
unlikely suggestions of godhood will surface; and
the madman's desire to rise up and kill
will be met in our ego...we haven't begun
to be all we will be when eternity's run
finally grinds to a halt and we all disembark
and we pat our own backs as we grope in the dark.
FOR a mystery solved is a victory won and
a lost childhood dream and
a bright morning sun
urging minds, fresh awake, to embrace a new day;
hold your ignorance close, drive it far, far away.
NEVER give up on knowing nor the wonder which keeps
what we don't know before us and fills up our sleep,
For the things we can see and the things just beyond
are both captured and lost as our race stumbles on.
where every riddle is already solved
where every mystery's made common-place
and the power of paradox slowly dissolves?
What will be left to reach out to,
or to wonder and ask ourselves 'why'
when the unanswered questions we
argue and fight for are neglected until they each die?
WHEN we each eat our fill from the apples that fall
from the tree of the knowledge of life which we shook -
and the wonder of ages and space and of love are all
made merely entries in some scholarly book -
WHEN the last lingering question is finally rendered
a point obselete and dated and moot
and we wholesale abandon the longing to know
and discover, which brings us up out of our youth -
THEN why measure time? For the moments which pass
will be nothing but space for the boredom to fill,
unlikely suggestions of godhood will surface; and
the madman's desire to rise up and kill
will be met in our ego...we haven't begun
to be all we will be when eternity's run
finally grinds to a halt and we all disembark
and we pat our own backs as we grope in the dark.
FOR a mystery solved is a victory won and
a lost childhood dream and
a bright morning sun
urging minds, fresh awake, to embrace a new day;
hold your ignorance close, drive it far, far away.
NEVER give up on knowing nor the wonder which keeps
what we don't know before us and fills up our sleep,
For the things we can see and the things just beyond
are both captured and lost as our race stumbles on.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
the Breastplate of St. Patrick
I rise today
with a mighty power, calling on the Trinity
with a belief in the threeness,
with a faith in the oneness
of the creator of creation
I rise today
with the power of Christ's birth and baptism,
with the power of his crucifixion and burial,
with the power of his resurrection and ascension,
with the power of his return for the final judgment.
I rise today
with the power of the love of the cherubim,
in obedience of angels,
in service of archangels,
in hope of the resurrection and reward,
in the prayers of the patriarchs,
in the foretelling of the prophets,
in the preaching of the apostles,
in the faith of the confessors,
in the innocence of the holy virgins,
in the deeds of righteous men.
I rise today
with the strength of the sky,
with the light of the sun,
with the splendor of the moon,
with the brilliance of fire,
with the blaze of lightning,
with the swiftness of wind,
with the depth of the ocean,
with the firmness of earth,
with the strength of rock.
I rise today
with the power of God to guide me,
with the strength of God to raise me,
with the wisdom of God to lead me,
with the vision of God to see for me,
with the ears of God to hear for me,
with the words of God to speak for me,
with the hand of God to protect me,
with the path of God before me,
with the shield of God to guard me,
with the friendship of God to keep me safe from
the contriving of demons, the temptations of sin,
the inclinations of my nature, and everyone who wishes me harm...
Christ protect me today...
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ below me, Christ above me,
Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me,
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I stand,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye which sees me,
Christ in every ear which hears me.
I rise today
with a might power, calling on the Trinity,
with a belief in the threeness,
with a faith in the oneness
of the creator of creation.
[This translation of Faeth fiada is taken from Philip Freeman's excellent biography of St. Patrick. It is a beautiful read; you would enjoy every minute of it.]
St. Patrick of Ireland, by Philip Freeman
with a mighty power, calling on the Trinity
with a belief in the threeness,
with a faith in the oneness
of the creator of creation
I rise today
with the power of Christ's birth and baptism,
with the power of his crucifixion and burial,
with the power of his resurrection and ascension,
with the power of his return for the final judgment.
I rise today
with the power of the love of the cherubim,
in obedience of angels,
in service of archangels,
in hope of the resurrection and reward,
in the prayers of the patriarchs,
in the foretelling of the prophets,
in the preaching of the apostles,
in the faith of the confessors,
in the innocence of the holy virgins,
in the deeds of righteous men.
I rise today
with the strength of the sky,
with the light of the sun,
with the splendor of the moon,
with the brilliance of fire,
with the blaze of lightning,
with the swiftness of wind,
with the depth of the ocean,
with the firmness of earth,
with the strength of rock.
I rise today
with the power of God to guide me,
with the strength of God to raise me,
with the wisdom of God to lead me,
with the vision of God to see for me,
with the ears of God to hear for me,
with the words of God to speak for me,
with the hand of God to protect me,
with the path of God before me,
with the shield of God to guard me,
with the friendship of God to keep me safe from
the contriving of demons, the temptations of sin,
the inclinations of my nature, and everyone who wishes me harm...
Christ protect me today...
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ below me, Christ above me,
Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me,
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I stand,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye which sees me,
Christ in every ear which hears me.
I rise today
with a might power, calling on the Trinity,
with a belief in the threeness,
with a faith in the oneness
of the creator of creation.
[This translation of Faeth fiada is taken from Philip Freeman's excellent biography of St. Patrick. It is a beautiful read; you would enjoy every minute of it.]
St. Patrick of Ireland, by Philip Freeman
Monday, February 25, 2008
The Greatest Faith Christ Saw
When Christ was approached by a Roman officer and asked for a miracle, the officer specifically said that he was "unworthy" or "not deserving." I would like you to try to imagine the way many modern evangelicals would respond to that statement. Frankly, they would attack such a pronouncement as being "negative" and "untrue", possibly a "lie from satan". Instead, the centurion would be told that he "should acknowledge his worth and the glory he was created for as a person of dignity..." etc. etc. etc. This is such a frequent picture lately that the idea of our great worth is regarded as an inviolate truth from On High.
Please notice however, that Christ did not tell the centurion to think better of himself, or stop thinking worthless thoughts, or to "love himself" or to "forgive himself" or whatever it might be. He said that this soldier had faith. Not just any faith, but greater faith than he'd found anywhere in Israel. You see, significance and worth doesn't come from fomenting feelings of power and majesty in people. All that creates is a diversion towards the self. Lots of people are making lots of waves by preaching a gospel of human potential and glory, but this is not how God has chosen to save us. In fact, this is a short-cut and a regression.
Watch: Adam and Eve sinned and fell from grace. That's why it's called The Fall. Christ came with all the majesty and glory of the Godhead as one of us - he brought the human race a glory and majesty and righteousness which had nothing to do with Adam. Our original created state was the highest pinnacle of creation, and it failed. Redemption is the hand of God reaching down from eternity and it cannot fail. When we focus on the glory we were originally created with we are looking backwards, not forwards. We are forgetting the fact that we are fallen and sinful and miserable. Redemption requires that we go through the temporary darkness of realizing our worthlessness (just like the centurion) and only when we do, can we leave it behind. It doesn't matter how we were once created; that potential was spoiled and lost in the garden of Eden. Christ offers us something new and something more, namely, the righteousness and the glory of God.
Redemption requires that our ego be defeated and abandoned, not refurbished and defended. Christ accepted the worthlessness of the centurion, and by accepting it, by naming it Faith, he raised that anonymous Roman to a higher level than all the others around him. Do you remember that right up to the night of Christ's death, his followers were still arguing about who was best? They had a very firm grasp on human glory. They knew how magnificent they'd been created to be. They knew they were made in God's image, children of Abraham, worthy and worthwhile, deserving and well-chosen. Christ's spirit never worked through their faith until all the greatness of their humanity had failed and left them as writhing, yellow cowards, hating their actions and acknowledging their weakness.
The church in our country is weak today because we are increasingly focusing on our strength and our worthiness. Christian leaders are so busy telling us not to feel bad about ourselves that we've forgotten how much we have to feel bad about. This is called repentance. It requires us to hate one thing in order to leave it behind and accept something else. That "something else" is Christ and he is looking for faith. He found it once in a pagan foreigner who compared himself not to Adam, but to Jesus Christ, and found himself worthless. Do you want great faith? Get your focus off yourself, get rid of the advice telling you to pump yourself up with inspirational back-pats, and memorize Philippians 3:7-16. At least read it. It would do all of us a world of good.
Please notice however, that Christ did not tell the centurion to think better of himself, or stop thinking worthless thoughts, or to "love himself" or to "forgive himself" or whatever it might be. He said that this soldier had faith. Not just any faith, but greater faith than he'd found anywhere in Israel. You see, significance and worth doesn't come from fomenting feelings of power and majesty in people. All that creates is a diversion towards the self. Lots of people are making lots of waves by preaching a gospel of human potential and glory, but this is not how God has chosen to save us. In fact, this is a short-cut and a regression.
Watch: Adam and Eve sinned and fell from grace. That's why it's called The Fall. Christ came with all the majesty and glory of the Godhead as one of us - he brought the human race a glory and majesty and righteousness which had nothing to do with Adam. Our original created state was the highest pinnacle of creation, and it failed. Redemption is the hand of God reaching down from eternity and it cannot fail. When we focus on the glory we were originally created with we are looking backwards, not forwards. We are forgetting the fact that we are fallen and sinful and miserable. Redemption requires that we go through the temporary darkness of realizing our worthlessness (just like the centurion) and only when we do, can we leave it behind. It doesn't matter how we were once created; that potential was spoiled and lost in the garden of Eden. Christ offers us something new and something more, namely, the righteousness and the glory of God.
Redemption requires that our ego be defeated and abandoned, not refurbished and defended. Christ accepted the worthlessness of the centurion, and by accepting it, by naming it Faith, he raised that anonymous Roman to a higher level than all the others around him. Do you remember that right up to the night of Christ's death, his followers were still arguing about who was best? They had a very firm grasp on human glory. They knew how magnificent they'd been created to be. They knew they were made in God's image, children of Abraham, worthy and worthwhile, deserving and well-chosen. Christ's spirit never worked through their faith until all the greatness of their humanity had failed and left them as writhing, yellow cowards, hating their actions and acknowledging their weakness.
The church in our country is weak today because we are increasingly focusing on our strength and our worthiness. Christian leaders are so busy telling us not to feel bad about ourselves that we've forgotten how much we have to feel bad about. This is called repentance. It requires us to hate one thing in order to leave it behind and accept something else. That "something else" is Christ and he is looking for faith. He found it once in a pagan foreigner who compared himself not to Adam, but to Jesus Christ, and found himself worthless. Do you want great faith? Get your focus off yourself, get rid of the advice telling you to pump yourself up with inspirational back-pats, and memorize Philippians 3:7-16. At least read it. It would do all of us a world of good.
Friday, February 22, 2008
What's on Your Bookshelf?
"People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are. Life may sometimes legitimately appear as a book of science. Life may sometimes appear, and with a much greater legitimacy, as a book of metaphysics. But life is always a novel. Our existence may cease to be a song; it may cease even to be a beautiful lament. Our existence may not be an intelligible justice, or even a recognizable wrong. But our existence is still a story. In the fiery alphabet of every sunset is written, 'to be continued...'"
- GK Chesterton, Heretics
“...while most of us realize how dangerous it is to expose ourselves to immoral content, we often fail to realize that the form of popular culture affects us just as much – not only what is said but also how it is said… The best way to grasp this is by a comparison to high culture. A sonnet or a symphony has a complex structure that takes some effort to understand. It challenges us; we have to work to appreciate it. That’s why we study Shakespeare in English classes and Mozart in music-appreciation courses. But who takes courses to understand Madonna? Who needs to? Who takes Soap Opera 101? Who needs Cliff’s Notes to understand a Harlequin romance?”
- Chuck Colson, How Now Shall We Live?
Let us remember that our brains are capable of far more than we demand from them; our minds will stretch as far as we ask them to. We will never see or reach or rise above our highest effort, and we live in an age which is viscerally opposed to effort in any exercise which does not involve money or physical fitness, and that is because we have to earn money so as not to starve to death, and we tend to be too obsessed with our looks. Every other part of our lives is a constant, uncomprehending race away from effort, discomfort, or inconvenience. We either expect things to be made automatic by technology, or avoidable by some hireling. But while we admit that the discipline to excel at our jobs in unavoidable, and physical fitness cannot be proxied, we frequently have no such understanding or concern about our spirits, in spite of the fact that scripture assumes everywhere that we will pour out our lives as a 'living sacrifice'. Small investment always yields small benefits, especially within the threshold of eternity.
- GK Chesterton, Heretics
“...while most of us realize how dangerous it is to expose ourselves to immoral content, we often fail to realize that the form of popular culture affects us just as much – not only what is said but also how it is said… The best way to grasp this is by a comparison to high culture. A sonnet or a symphony has a complex structure that takes some effort to understand. It challenges us; we have to work to appreciate it. That’s why we study Shakespeare in English classes and Mozart in music-appreciation courses. But who takes courses to understand Madonna? Who needs to? Who takes Soap Opera 101? Who needs Cliff’s Notes to understand a Harlequin romance?”
- Chuck Colson, How Now Shall We Live?
Let us remember that our brains are capable of far more than we demand from them; our minds will stretch as far as we ask them to. We will never see or reach or rise above our highest effort, and we live in an age which is viscerally opposed to effort in any exercise which does not involve money or physical fitness, and that is because we have to earn money so as not to starve to death, and we tend to be too obsessed with our looks. Every other part of our lives is a constant, uncomprehending race away from effort, discomfort, or inconvenience. We either expect things to be made automatic by technology, or avoidable by some hireling. But while we admit that the discipline to excel at our jobs in unavoidable, and physical fitness cannot be proxied, we frequently have no such understanding or concern about our spirits, in spite of the fact that scripture assumes everywhere that we will pour out our lives as a 'living sacrifice'. Small investment always yields small benefits, especially within the threshold of eternity.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Blind by Choice...
[Albert Speer directed the production of arms and ammunition for the Third Reich during the last days of world war two. When the war was over and he stood accused with other prisoners of war at the famous Nuremburg trial, he had months during which to contemplate the role he played during those critical years. This excerpt comes from his book, Inside The Third Reich.]
"[B]eing in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibilty for the consequences - from the very start... One day, some time in the summer of 1944, my friend Karl Hanke, the Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, came to see me. In earlier years he had told me a great deal about the Polish and French campaigns, had spoken of the dead and wounded, the pain and agonies, and in talking about these things had shown himself a man of sympathy and directness. This time, sitting in the green leather easy chair in my office, he seemed confused and spoke falteringly, with many breaks. He advised me never to accept an invitation to inspect a concentration camp in Upper Silesia. Never, under any circumstances. He had seen something there which he was not permitted to describe and moreover could not describe...
"I did not investigate, for I did not want to know what was happening there. Hanke must have been speaking of Auschwitz. During those seconds, while Hanke was warning me, the whole responsibility had become a reality... Those seconds were uppermost in my mind when I stated to the international court at the Nuremburg trial that as an important member of the leadership of the Reich, I had to share the total responsibility for all that had happened. For from that moment on, I was inescapably contaminated morally; from fear of discovering something which might have made me turn from my course, I had closed my eyes."
[Is it not the greatest condemnation of humanity that we love darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil? May God have mercy on us all.]
"[B]eing in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibilty for the consequences - from the very start... One day, some time in the summer of 1944, my friend Karl Hanke, the Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, came to see me. In earlier years he had told me a great deal about the Polish and French campaigns, had spoken of the dead and wounded, the pain and agonies, and in talking about these things had shown himself a man of sympathy and directness. This time, sitting in the green leather easy chair in my office, he seemed confused and spoke falteringly, with many breaks. He advised me never to accept an invitation to inspect a concentration camp in Upper Silesia. Never, under any circumstances. He had seen something there which he was not permitted to describe and moreover could not describe...
"I did not investigate, for I did not want to know what was happening there. Hanke must have been speaking of Auschwitz. During those seconds, while Hanke was warning me, the whole responsibility had become a reality... Those seconds were uppermost in my mind when I stated to the international court at the Nuremburg trial that as an important member of the leadership of the Reich, I had to share the total responsibility for all that had happened. For from that moment on, I was inescapably contaminated morally; from fear of discovering something which might have made me turn from my course, I had closed my eyes."
[Is it not the greatest condemnation of humanity that we love darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil? May God have mercy on us all.]
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
A Prophecy by Soren Kierkegaard - with commentary
[In the following entry, my commentary is italicized while the words of Kierkegaard appear in regular font.]
Suppose someone invented an instrument, a convenient little talking tube which, say, could be heard over the whole land... I wonder if the police would not forbid it, fearing that the whole country would become mentally deranged if it were used.
[Kill your television now before you and your whole family become pod-people!]
On the whole the evil in the daily press consists in its being calculated to make, if possible, the passing moment a thousand or ten thousand times more inflated and important than it really is. But all moral elevation consists first and foremost in being weaned from the momentary.
[Wake up and smell the fact that this present moment only matters in light of eternity.]
If Christianity is really to be proclaimed, it will become apparent that it is the daily press which will, if possible, make it impossible. There has never been a power more diametrically opposed to Christianity as the daily press. Day in and day out the daily press does nothing but delude men with the supreme axiom of this lie, that numbers are decisive. Christianity, on the other hand, is based on the thought that the truth lies in the single individual.
[Television makes us slaves to popular fashion! You will not be free unless you stop caring about the things they want you to care about, like American Idol and superbowl ads, and simply cherish what Christ plants within your soul!]
If someone adopts the opinion of the public today and tomorrow is hissed and booed, he is hissed and booed by the public. A nation, an assembly, a human being can change in such a way that they are seen to be no longer the same; but the public can become the very opposite and is still the same, the public.
[God can change an individual, or even ten thousand individuals, but nobody can transform a mob or a crowd.]
It is very doubtful, then, that the age will be saved through the notion of social organization, of association. In our age the principle of association (which may at best have validity with respect only to material interests) is an evasion, a dissipation, an illusion, whose dialectic is that as it strengthens the individuals, so it weakens them. It strengthens by numbers, by solidarity, but from the ethical point of view this is a weakening. Not until the single individual has established an ethical stance in spite of the whole world, not until then can there be any question of genuinely uniting. Otherwise it gets to be a union of people who separately are weak; a union as unbeautiful and depraved as a child marriage.
[The only way to make a group of people strong and effective is if it is made up of individuals who have stong ethics, good morals, and God's values; and they must have embraced these on their own.]
Suppose someone invented an instrument, a convenient little talking tube which, say, could be heard over the whole land... I wonder if the police would not forbid it, fearing that the whole country would become mentally deranged if it were used.
[Kill your television now before you and your whole family become pod-people!]
On the whole the evil in the daily press consists in its being calculated to make, if possible, the passing moment a thousand or ten thousand times more inflated and important than it really is. But all moral elevation consists first and foremost in being weaned from the momentary.
[Wake up and smell the fact that this present moment only matters in light of eternity.]
If Christianity is really to be proclaimed, it will become apparent that it is the daily press which will, if possible, make it impossible. There has never been a power more diametrically opposed to Christianity as the daily press. Day in and day out the daily press does nothing but delude men with the supreme axiom of this lie, that numbers are decisive. Christianity, on the other hand, is based on the thought that the truth lies in the single individual.
[Television makes us slaves to popular fashion! You will not be free unless you stop caring about the things they want you to care about, like American Idol and superbowl ads, and simply cherish what Christ plants within your soul!]
If someone adopts the opinion of the public today and tomorrow is hissed and booed, he is hissed and booed by the public. A nation, an assembly, a human being can change in such a way that they are seen to be no longer the same; but the public can become the very opposite and is still the same, the public.
[God can change an individual, or even ten thousand individuals, but nobody can transform a mob or a crowd.]
It is very doubtful, then, that the age will be saved through the notion of social organization, of association. In our age the principle of association (which may at best have validity with respect only to material interests) is an evasion, a dissipation, an illusion, whose dialectic is that as it strengthens the individuals, so it weakens them. It strengthens by numbers, by solidarity, but from the ethical point of view this is a weakening. Not until the single individual has established an ethical stance in spite of the whole world, not until then can there be any question of genuinely uniting. Otherwise it gets to be a union of people who separately are weak; a union as unbeautiful and depraved as a child marriage.
[The only way to make a group of people strong and effective is if it is made up of individuals who have stong ethics, good morals, and God's values; and they must have embraced these on their own.]
Monday, February 18, 2008
a tribute to Psalm 32
All the sin I try to hide,
All the secrets locked inside
Make me too ashamed to try to seek Your face
But You're everywhere I've been
Stronger than my sin
Let me open up my life before Your grace
Show my heart the way to go
Let my faithless spirit know
That Your mercy gives me strength to face the day
Your unfailing love
Surrounds me with sounds of
My deliverance & this is why I pray
Take the past away from me
Nail it to the cross of Christ and let it be
Thrown with all my guilt into the deepest sea
Set me free to live tomorrow in Your Name
All the secrets locked inside
Make me too ashamed to try to seek Your face
But You're everywhere I've been
Stronger than my sin
Let me open up my life before Your grace
Show my heart the way to go
Let my faithless spirit know
That Your mercy gives me strength to face the day
Your unfailing love
Surrounds me with sounds of
My deliverance & this is why I pray
Take the past away from me
Nail it to the cross of Christ and let it be
Thrown with all my guilt into the deepest sea
Set me free to live tomorrow in Your Name
Thursday, February 14, 2008
the most honest atheist of all
“Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, ‘I seek God! I seek God!’ As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Why, did he get lost? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
“‘Whither is God’ he cried. ‘I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever will be born after us – for the sake of this deed he will be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.’
“Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. ‘I come too early’ he said then; ‘my time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering – it has not yet reached the ears of man. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is more distant from them than the most distant stars – and yet they have done it themselves.’
“It has been related further than on the same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said to have replied each time, ‘What are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?’”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
“Now it is our preference that decides against Christianity, not arguments.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
“‘Whither is God’ he cried. ‘I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever will be born after us – for the sake of this deed he will be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.’
“Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. ‘I come too early’ he said then; ‘my time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering – it has not yet reached the ears of man. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is more distant from them than the most distant stars – and yet they have done it themselves.’
“It has been related further than on the same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said to have replied each time, ‘What are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?’”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
“Now it is our preference that decides against Christianity, not arguments.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Exceptions which prove the rule - pt. 2
A SACRED SORROW, by Michael Card
Card, like Richard Foster, is still alive and kicking, still ministering in a variety of ways. Music is his primary medium, but he has also handled some tough subjects from scripture in some vibrant and very unique ways. One subject which (apparently) few authors or theologians believe worthy of our sustained attention is what we call lament. This word is unfashionable; it reminds us that sometimes we don't feel like More Than Conquerors. Sometimes we find ourselves in the rubble of a life which has crumbled.
Awhile ago I had a conversation with a gal during which I made a passing reference to feelings of inadequacy and coldness towards God. I was talking about my own experiences; admitting that there are times (I assumed in the life of every believer) when reading God's word is difficult, when praying feels useless, when obedience comes hard - or not at all - and we are limping along. Her response to me was "We used to call that 'Backsliding.'"
Not to question her choice of words, her attitude nonetheless caused me some genuine concern. After all, if there is a time in my life when I need support and encouragement to meet the minimum standards of discipline and love, and if I turn to another believer for help, will I be told that I am merely backsliding?
Fortunately that mindset is not always pervasive among Christians. I know many believers (some of them are pastors) whose welcoming acceptance makes confession and transparency possible. This openness is a reflection of the biblical habit of taking fears and doubts, hatred and panic, confusion and longing and bitterness to God and expressing them all without having to be terrified of some divine backlash. God was consistently patient and kind with those who were at the mercy of their own emotions.
The point of Card's book is not just that such moments exist, but that in such cases lamenting... the act of wringing our souls out like a dishrag... is actually a necessity. These poems of grief and betrayal (even sometimes directed at God) can be, Michael says, a bridge across our suffering to the wholeness beyond.
I am concerned that too often our goal is to convince ourselves that the suffering does not really exist, or that it doesn't matter, or that it shouldn't affect us, or that it won't last so we should just concentrate on the future. It is an unavoidable fact of our existence that there will be days when the sufferings of this present time will be so loud, so brash, so painfully there, that we will be unable to see the future glory. That consolation is real, but it doesn't help if we can't move to a place where we can see and lay hold of our great hope.
In this regard our music sometimes helps us more than our theologians. Christian songs often speak frankly and un-selfconsciously about the agony which we encounter in life and the difficulty of walking with God. Perhaps it is simply unavoidable that the arts are going to express these truths more comprehensively and more tangibly than doctrine will. Maybe that's why these realities are expressed in the Bible, not as epistles of faith, but as poems and music. But the amazing thing is that they are expressed at all. God is not afraid of the sensation of abandonment or the appearance of defeat; if he were, we would not have the cross.
Card, like Richard Foster, is still alive and kicking, still ministering in a variety of ways. Music is his primary medium, but he has also handled some tough subjects from scripture in some vibrant and very unique ways. One subject which (apparently) few authors or theologians believe worthy of our sustained attention is what we call lament. This word is unfashionable; it reminds us that sometimes we don't feel like More Than Conquerors. Sometimes we find ourselves in the rubble of a life which has crumbled.
Awhile ago I had a conversation with a gal during which I made a passing reference to feelings of inadequacy and coldness towards God. I was talking about my own experiences; admitting that there are times (I assumed in the life of every believer) when reading God's word is difficult, when praying feels useless, when obedience comes hard - or not at all - and we are limping along. Her response to me was "We used to call that 'Backsliding.'"
Not to question her choice of words, her attitude nonetheless caused me some genuine concern. After all, if there is a time in my life when I need support and encouragement to meet the minimum standards of discipline and love, and if I turn to another believer for help, will I be told that I am merely backsliding?
Fortunately that mindset is not always pervasive among Christians. I know many believers (some of them are pastors) whose welcoming acceptance makes confession and transparency possible. This openness is a reflection of the biblical habit of taking fears and doubts, hatred and panic, confusion and longing and bitterness to God and expressing them all without having to be terrified of some divine backlash. God was consistently patient and kind with those who were at the mercy of their own emotions.
The point of Card's book is not just that such moments exist, but that in such cases lamenting... the act of wringing our souls out like a dishrag... is actually a necessity. These poems of grief and betrayal (even sometimes directed at God) can be, Michael says, a bridge across our suffering to the wholeness beyond.
I am concerned that too often our goal is to convince ourselves that the suffering does not really exist, or that it doesn't matter, or that it shouldn't affect us, or that it won't last so we should just concentrate on the future. It is an unavoidable fact of our existence that there will be days when the sufferings of this present time will be so loud, so brash, so painfully there, that we will be unable to see the future glory. That consolation is real, but it doesn't help if we can't move to a place where we can see and lay hold of our great hope.
In this regard our music sometimes helps us more than our theologians. Christian songs often speak frankly and un-selfconsciously about the agony which we encounter in life and the difficulty of walking with God. Perhaps it is simply unavoidable that the arts are going to express these truths more comprehensively and more tangibly than doctrine will. Maybe that's why these realities are expressed in the Bible, not as epistles of faith, but as poems and music. But the amazing thing is that they are expressed at all. God is not afraid of the sensation of abandonment or the appearance of defeat; if he were, we would not have the cross.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Cosmos Conscious
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained – What is man that You are mindful of him?”
David wrote that question roughly three thousand years ago. I don’t know if you live in a place where the city lights screech for attention at night, or whether you’ve ever been miles from home on a moonless night when the stars are at their most brilliant, but in David’s day it would have been a short trip away from the fire to find a dark shadow, a spot where all the visible stars in the cosmos seem to sparkle down like an orchestra of light. That sight prodded an obvious question in him, namely, given the size of the universe, and our inconspicuous placement within it, why does humanity merit God’s attention?
David wrote that question roughly three thousand years ago. I don’t know if you live in a place where the city lights screech for attention at night, or whether you’ve ever been miles from home on a moonless night when the stars are at their most brilliant, but in David’s day it would have been a short trip away from the fire to find a dark shadow, a spot where all the visible stars in the cosmos seem to sparkle down like an orchestra of light. That sight prodded an obvious question in him, namely, given the size of the universe, and our inconspicuous placement within it, why does humanity merit God’s attention?
For David, the answer was that man’s exaltation was a favor granted by God because of His own excellence. Today we call that grace, or the undeserved attention and blessings of our Maker. After Copernicus helped us to see the sun and earth in proper relation secular scientists used that information to make a dangerous leap of blind faith. They said that in the same way our planet is not the center of the solar system, humanity is not the point of creation.. Hopefully we can see that making broad, sweeping philosophical generalities on the basis of observations by physicists is a fool’s game. Physics can tell us what, but not why. Sometimes how, but never who.
In David’s time the stars were abundant and brilliant. But once men started to make telescopes the universe seemed to explode into an infinitely more complex and daring place. The wildest imaginings of humanity were dwarfed and made obsolete by nothing more poetic than simple reality. Scientists do have plenty to wonder about in this age of amazing discoveries. One galaxy recently discovered has two sets of spiral arms spinning in opposite directions “like a double pinwheel.” Old stars and young planets, dust clouds and violent explosions and violence which produces beauty... space is like a fireworks display which has been spread out over eons, across thought-defying stretches of emptiness. After all these millennia, human beings are finally starting to enjoy the spectacle. Now that we’ve used our creativity and our curiosity to look beyond our shallow sphere, we can see that the moon and stars, the heavens – the work of God’s fingers – inspire even more awe than they did when the shepherd boy from Bethlehem gazed up at the night sky. If what he felt can be described as awe, then what words are left to us today?
Our language has many words, but none of them are adequate. The human race (and believers especially) are standing within a great threshold of the imagination where words like infinite and unimaginable and vast are taking on something like their real power. We are looking into an abyss of beauty so enormous that it must thrill and terrify us. The galaxies we now see swirl and spin in spite of us, and for us; a Davidic dance of worship in the night skies. The universe grows in the act of discovery, and we find as much in the minute as in the galactic to marvel at. Consciousness cannot drink it in, and intellect cannot fathom it. Pure, random joy sparks and explodes at the molecular level in a free association of unpredictability.
Our order and beauty and sense ride like raft on the surface of chaotic mystery so that the very stuff of life is a new enigma that we can describe but not explain. It is left not to our cognitive senses but to our imagination to revel in this new reality, and if you haven’t experienced a spontaneous gush of worshipful reverence, then you haven’t been paying attention. Let the brilliance of the universe lift your sights from what is, to what can be. If our sanctified fancy can ride this wave of incoming luminosity, then we will soar to heights our ancestors never envisioned; and our words and ideas will travel further beyond, farther above, carried forever on a beam of light from a newly discovered star. Gloria.
Friday, February 1, 2008
What is Christian Literature?
What is Christian literature?
Christians are story tellers because Christianity is a true story born out of a true story. We tell stories because we must, because our God-given imaginations burst with ideas and images which beg to be told, and to tell them we must have some way to get them out of our minds and into someone else's mind. Christ used stories because he was one of us. The Old Testament before him used stories, both history and parables, to get ideas into our hearts through our imagination. Human beings need to tell stories, and the more Christian we are the more we will probably feel this compulsion. It is a part of our heritage.
Christian stories should follow the example of Christ, because Christ remains for all time the penultimate story-teller. There are several components to his stories which can be easily drawn from the examples we have in scripture.
First, it is important to note that Christ's stories were not always uplifting; frequently they end on a sad note. The tale of the rich man and Lazarus mentions the eternal joy of Lazarus only as a counterpoint to contrast the real purpose of the story - the rich man writhing in agoney, eaten by flames yet never consumed, begging for mercy and finding none. There are many examples of this deferment to real life. Christ was a realist, for more than anyone else in this world he could see the truth behind people's facades. That's why his parables seek primarily to illuminate us rather than uplift us artificially. They sometimes leave us with a sense of fulfillment (the widow finds her missing coin; the lost lamb is brought back to the fold) but just as often we are left with longing, as when the five foolish virgins are shut outside the wedding feast forever because of their own shortsightedness, or the oldest son's bitterness overshadows the joy of his prodigal brother's return. Why do we not have more stories in which the whole moral is a warning, a counterpoint to victory? Something reminiscent of the book of Judges would be refreshing less for its content than for its rarity.
Christ's stories were also subtle. His disciples asked him why he spoke in parables, and his answer is almost as enigmatic as the stories themselves. "You will be ever hearing but never understanding." These days we paint the main point in bright primary colors so that it cannot possibly be misunderstood or lost. Christ was bolder. He used shades of meaning, subtlety and innuendo. He made oblique references and brazen analogies which could be misunderstood and misinterpreted. He took that risk just like he walked on the water, and those who follow him rarely stay afloat after his example. Occasionally someone will take a few tentative steps in his direction before sinking, but mostly we stay in the boat. How much better to take the risks he took, to allow ourselves to be vulnerable to mystery and misinterpretation! How wonderful it would be to have a masterpiece to puzzle over rather than a book, a study guide, a journal and a seminar all based around the same momentary bubble.
Christ's stories were deeply spiritual, but this was often quite impossible to see at first. On the surface they mostly dealt with earthy things which were ordinary and tangible. The spirituality of the implications combined with the humility of the devices he chose should endow our own ordinary lives with grace. I am sure Christ did not tell parables of plowshares and sheep and grapevines and mustard seeds just so his followers could clog their stories with demons and psychotic villains and wealthy-handsome love-interests.
Tragedy as well as mercy; mystery as well as illumination; grace found in the simple and plain things in life. Christ was the most fearless story teller who ever lived. That is why our stories should be fearless, crackling with subtlety and insinuation, eternal and realistic. That, rather than a simple recitation of gospel truths, makes for Christian literature. The more deeply devoted we become to the stark fluency of scripture, the more we will long for the same standards in our books. If we demand more, we will receive more.
Christians are story tellers because Christianity is a true story born out of a true story. We tell stories because we must, because our God-given imaginations burst with ideas and images which beg to be told, and to tell them we must have some way to get them out of our minds and into someone else's mind. Christ used stories because he was one of us. The Old Testament before him used stories, both history and parables, to get ideas into our hearts through our imagination. Human beings need to tell stories, and the more Christian we are the more we will probably feel this compulsion. It is a part of our heritage.
Christian stories should follow the example of Christ, because Christ remains for all time the penultimate story-teller. There are several components to his stories which can be easily drawn from the examples we have in scripture.
First, it is important to note that Christ's stories were not always uplifting; frequently they end on a sad note. The tale of the rich man and Lazarus mentions the eternal joy of Lazarus only as a counterpoint to contrast the real purpose of the story - the rich man writhing in agoney, eaten by flames yet never consumed, begging for mercy and finding none. There are many examples of this deferment to real life. Christ was a realist, for more than anyone else in this world he could see the truth behind people's facades. That's why his parables seek primarily to illuminate us rather than uplift us artificially. They sometimes leave us with a sense of fulfillment (the widow finds her missing coin; the lost lamb is brought back to the fold) but just as often we are left with longing, as when the five foolish virgins are shut outside the wedding feast forever because of their own shortsightedness, or the oldest son's bitterness overshadows the joy of his prodigal brother's return. Why do we not have more stories in which the whole moral is a warning, a counterpoint to victory? Something reminiscent of the book of Judges would be refreshing less for its content than for its rarity.
Christ's stories were also subtle. His disciples asked him why he spoke in parables, and his answer is almost as enigmatic as the stories themselves. "You will be ever hearing but never understanding." These days we paint the main point in bright primary colors so that it cannot possibly be misunderstood or lost. Christ was bolder. He used shades of meaning, subtlety and innuendo. He made oblique references and brazen analogies which could be misunderstood and misinterpreted. He took that risk just like he walked on the water, and those who follow him rarely stay afloat after his example. Occasionally someone will take a few tentative steps in his direction before sinking, but mostly we stay in the boat. How much better to take the risks he took, to allow ourselves to be vulnerable to mystery and misinterpretation! How wonderful it would be to have a masterpiece to puzzle over rather than a book, a study guide, a journal and a seminar all based around the same momentary bubble.
Christ's stories were deeply spiritual, but this was often quite impossible to see at first. On the surface they mostly dealt with earthy things which were ordinary and tangible. The spirituality of the implications combined with the humility of the devices he chose should endow our own ordinary lives with grace. I am sure Christ did not tell parables of plowshares and sheep and grapevines and mustard seeds just so his followers could clog their stories with demons and psychotic villains and wealthy-handsome love-interests.
Tragedy as well as mercy; mystery as well as illumination; grace found in the simple and plain things in life. Christ was the most fearless story teller who ever lived. That is why our stories should be fearless, crackling with subtlety and insinuation, eternal and realistic. That, rather than a simple recitation of gospel truths, makes for Christian literature. The more deeply devoted we become to the stark fluency of scripture, the more we will long for the same standards in our books. If we demand more, we will receive more.
the letter of Aristides to Hadrian Caesar, explaining the Christian religion
“But Christians… show kindness to those near them; and whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly… they do good to their enemies… if one of them have bondsmen and bondswomen or children, through love towards them they persuade them to become Christians, and when they have done so, they call them brethren without distinction. They do not worship strange gods, and they go their way in all modesty and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another… And he who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their own homes and rejoice over him as a very brother… And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minister to his necessity… And if there is any among them that is poor and needy, and they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food… Such, O King… is their manner of life… And verily, this is a new people, and there is something divine in the midst of them.”
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Ranting for the Right Reasons
Thus far this blog has sought to persuade. Persuasion is allright, as far as it goes - it may get a vote or convince your friends to go see a certain movie. Persuasion has a long and illustrious history, I suppose going all the way back to some ancient Roman who invented a system for it so people could study how to win friends and influence pagans.
But true love for the written word is not something which ought to be "convincing." It shouldn't make us say "Oh, yes, I agree with that." It should put a fire in our bones. It should clash like blood on snow. It should make us boil and weep and shout and even dance. We should get so worked up about the flow of ideas and beauty in our books that we're ready to pick up torches and pitchforks and surround the publishing house responsible for "Left Behind". For almost ten years, I would guess, I've been trying to get people off of that treadmill, with no effect. Why is it that most Christians really don't see the tremendous lack... the impoverishment of our books and our stories? Why are we so satisfied with twinkies when one honest, gripping, cathartic story can cleanse the soul like a revelation from God? If money determines what gets printed, and popularity decides what makes money, then we Christians are producing popularity; we are adjusting our standards by the weight of the almighty dollar.
And why do we have to try to adjust reality for ourselves? We can't just absorb the story of Hosea, we have to modernize it and stick in a happy ending. We can't just read the story of Joseph, we do the same thing with that. Why re-write the Bible as a novel, or as a contemporary story? Is that necessary? Obviously not, but is it even remotely helpful?! Why will people testify that such a novel "helped them through" some dark time, when the original from the scriptures never did? This is a sorry condition in which we find ourselves. Go to the word, unless you think it is insufficient by itself and it requires being made into a romance novel! Is reading it too hard? You need things put into dialogue you recognize from modern fiction? From Stephen King? This is sad.
There should be such a demand for originality in thought and expression (among Christians of all people!!) that second- rate offerings just have nowhere to go. Yet they have lots of places to go, and lots of wallets get filled, and lots of things get covered over and lost. Maybe some future generation of Christians will dig through the accumulated detritus and dust of our current trinket-mentality and find some stone foundations, some solid unmovable rocks. Maybe they'll say that somebody built here, but what they've built is gone and only the foundations remain. Maybe that's our only hope. My guess is they won't even know who we were, or where we went, or why we disappeared.
But true love for the written word is not something which ought to be "convincing." It shouldn't make us say "Oh, yes, I agree with that." It should put a fire in our bones. It should clash like blood on snow. It should make us boil and weep and shout and even dance. We should get so worked up about the flow of ideas and beauty in our books that we're ready to pick up torches and pitchforks and surround the publishing house responsible for "Left Behind". For almost ten years, I would guess, I've been trying to get people off of that treadmill, with no effect. Why is it that most Christians really don't see the tremendous lack... the impoverishment of our books and our stories? Why are we so satisfied with twinkies when one honest, gripping, cathartic story can cleanse the soul like a revelation from God? If money determines what gets printed, and popularity decides what makes money, then we Christians are producing popularity; we are adjusting our standards by the weight of the almighty dollar.
And why do we have to try to adjust reality for ourselves? We can't just absorb the story of Hosea, we have to modernize it and stick in a happy ending. We can't just read the story of Joseph, we do the same thing with that. Why re-write the Bible as a novel, or as a contemporary story? Is that necessary? Obviously not, but is it even remotely helpful?! Why will people testify that such a novel "helped them through" some dark time, when the original from the scriptures never did? This is a sorry condition in which we find ourselves. Go to the word, unless you think it is insufficient by itself and it requires being made into a romance novel! Is reading it too hard? You need things put into dialogue you recognize from modern fiction? From Stephen King? This is sad.
There should be such a demand for originality in thought and expression (among Christians of all people!!) that second- rate offerings just have nowhere to go. Yet they have lots of places to go, and lots of wallets get filled, and lots of things get covered over and lost. Maybe some future generation of Christians will dig through the accumulated detritus and dust of our current trinket-mentality and find some stone foundations, some solid unmovable rocks. Maybe they'll say that somebody built here, but what they've built is gone and only the foundations remain. Maybe that's our only hope. My guess is they won't even know who we were, or where we went, or why we disappeared.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Exceptions which prove the rule - pt. 1
CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE by Richard Foster
This book qualifies as "modern" because unless something drastic has happened in the last year which I don't know about, the author is still alive. This book was published in the seventies, and as the name states, it is an exploration of disciplines which have guided and strengthened believers' growth and maturity from the very beginning of the church. It is separated into three divisions; those disciplines which are internal, those which are external, and those which are corporate. Foster has produced a classic by virtue of the fact that his work brings originality to the subject without being isolated from the giants. He leans heavily on George Fox, Theresa of Avila, and a host of other acknowledged masters of the inner life, but it is plain to infer that he has engaged the disciplines himself, and worked through them with reverence.
There are helpful illustrations which make this book especially worthwhile. For instance, his heavy reliance upon grace as the force and means of growth. Look for his explanation of how the disciplines don't change us, but rather place us within the stream of God's grace. One of the concepts I particularly benefited from was this thought - "every discipline comes along with a corresponding freedom." This is illustrated by Demosthenes who gave his voice a workout by making speeches with pebbles in his mouth, standing on the shore, speaking above the sound of the waves. Because of that extravagant exercise he had perfect freedom to speak to people whenever he was asked or required to do so. The eccentric image of a man with rocks in his mouth on the beach may seem like some (disturbed) people to be the point - something esoteric which "makes you better." But the exercise, or discipline, is not the point! It is only a means to an end. This crucial component is too often missing from authors who seek to exhort others to lead more disciplined lives. Or, if it is not missing, it is not sufficiently emphasized.
You ought to absorb this one. It is in reprint and can be found in many different bookstores, mercifully missing from department stores' "inspirational" sections, but easy enough to locate if you are determined. One chapter at a time, ponder slowly, meditate lovingly. You will take exception with a few things in here if you read it thoughtfully (for nobody agrees with every single thought someone else articulates) but for thoughtful readers, those little points of contention don't matter. This book is an oasis in a desert.
This book qualifies as "modern" because unless something drastic has happened in the last year which I don't know about, the author is still alive. This book was published in the seventies, and as the name states, it is an exploration of disciplines which have guided and strengthened believers' growth and maturity from the very beginning of the church. It is separated into three divisions; those disciplines which are internal, those which are external, and those which are corporate. Foster has produced a classic by virtue of the fact that his work brings originality to the subject without being isolated from the giants. He leans heavily on George Fox, Theresa of Avila, and a host of other acknowledged masters of the inner life, but it is plain to infer that he has engaged the disciplines himself, and worked through them with reverence.
There are helpful illustrations which make this book especially worthwhile. For instance, his heavy reliance upon grace as the force and means of growth. Look for his explanation of how the disciplines don't change us, but rather place us within the stream of God's grace. One of the concepts I particularly benefited from was this thought - "every discipline comes along with a corresponding freedom." This is illustrated by Demosthenes who gave his voice a workout by making speeches with pebbles in his mouth, standing on the shore, speaking above the sound of the waves. Because of that extravagant exercise he had perfect freedom to speak to people whenever he was asked or required to do so. The eccentric image of a man with rocks in his mouth on the beach may seem like some (disturbed) people to be the point - something esoteric which "makes you better." But the exercise, or discipline, is not the point! It is only a means to an end. This crucial component is too often missing from authors who seek to exhort others to lead more disciplined lives. Or, if it is not missing, it is not sufficiently emphasized.
You ought to absorb this one. It is in reprint and can be found in many different bookstores, mercifully missing from department stores' "inspirational" sections, but easy enough to locate if you are determined. One chapter at a time, ponder slowly, meditate lovingly. You will take exception with a few things in here if you read it thoughtfully (for nobody agrees with every single thought someone else articulates) but for thoughtful readers, those little points of contention don't matter. This book is an oasis in a desert.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Why the Test of Time?
If you are curious enough, and if you go to any trouble about the list of books on the left, then you'll notice that all of them are old, by which I mean all the authors of those books are dead. They belong to another era, another time. They lived and wrote and wept and rejoiced in a generation removed from our own. The most recent book was written by Francis Schaeffer, who passed away in the '80's. But he wrote most of his works in the sixties and seventies, including some of the most influential and imminent approaches to apologetics of any author at any time. The book mentioned here was actually not "written" by him, but was recorded on a tape recorder as he went through a systematic Bible study with some students. Later, someone else put it on paper. Over the last four decades of the twentieth century, the self-destructing culture in America was minutely analyzed and embraced by this man of God, and several of his later books have become modern classics; notably The God Who Is There and How Shall We Then Live?
Missing from this list are any books written in the last ten years - or the last forty years. I want to share why. Elie Wiesel recently wrote that books no longer have the influence they once did, and he is right. When printed books were a new innovation, an author could write one small work and change the world. Today we have such an outpouring of books that they have become much less valuable. There are so many that we take them all for granted. There are so many which are bad, and so many which are worthless, that they invariably undo the good being achieved by the rare ones. In the twenty-first century in America we Christians tend to put too much emphasis on what is new. The most recent is automatically the best. The more modern it is the more we swamp bookstores to snap them up. We have made our standard for excellence the New York Times Bestsellers' list.
I don't want to sound like a killjoy, but we could stand to be a little more discerning. After all, popularity has never been a good gauge of what is worthwhile. One Christian writer observed years ago that if you see all the Christians around you running after a new development, you should run as fast as possible the other direction. What he meant was that trends (monuments to the momentary) pop up among the church just as frequently, if not more, than among non-believers. The more we can recognize them and avoid them, the better. After all, if a movement is truly God-inspired, then it will have staying power in its effects and usefulness. Truth endures because truth does not change. The more true and worthy a book is, the longer it will generally last. Christian classics speak to succeeding generations because they speak to something in the spirit which does not alter with technology or church-growth strategies or psychological breakthroughs. They get in under the surface to the deep part of the soul, to a place where cell-phones and i-pods can't reach. They have weathered the changing of the tide as one generation shuffles off and another takes the stage.
Most books written in any one year are reduced to garbage bins and used-book shelves shortly before they disintegrate. Only a very precious few have staying power, and they demand our attention. We ignore them at a very great risk to ourselves, because they have the lingering aroma of eternity upon them. They never attain to the level of their more popular, less substantial cousins, but somehow after decades have gone by we continue to see them sitting on bookshelves, one or two at a time, while the bestsellers have disappeared. They insinute their way into the world: here a young student, there a lawyer, in another state a middle-aged pastor and on the other side of the country a truck driver each are thinking fresh, deep thoughts brought to the surface by a writer they will not meet in this life. They are connected to an earlier generation by a reality which spans all ages and all races.
This reality has bypassed most of the recent stars of popular Christianity, but it is preserved in the stalwarts. There is magic there, and depth, and familiar surprises which astound and comfort us. By no means should you stop buying and reading new books, but under no circumstances should we ignore the giants of our heritage, the men and women who wrote without much reward or recognition. Their greatness has been proven; their success does not depend on advertising or mass appeal. That is why the test of time matters. It isn't everything, but it's more than what we've become used to.
Missing from this list are any books written in the last ten years - or the last forty years. I want to share why. Elie Wiesel recently wrote that books no longer have the influence they once did, and he is right. When printed books were a new innovation, an author could write one small work and change the world. Today we have such an outpouring of books that they have become much less valuable. There are so many that we take them all for granted. There are so many which are bad, and so many which are worthless, that they invariably undo the good being achieved by the rare ones. In the twenty-first century in America we Christians tend to put too much emphasis on what is new. The most recent is automatically the best. The more modern it is the more we swamp bookstores to snap them up. We have made our standard for excellence the New York Times Bestsellers' list.
I don't want to sound like a killjoy, but we could stand to be a little more discerning. After all, popularity has never been a good gauge of what is worthwhile. One Christian writer observed years ago that if you see all the Christians around you running after a new development, you should run as fast as possible the other direction. What he meant was that trends (monuments to the momentary) pop up among the church just as frequently, if not more, than among non-believers. The more we can recognize them and avoid them, the better. After all, if a movement is truly God-inspired, then it will have staying power in its effects and usefulness. Truth endures because truth does not change. The more true and worthy a book is, the longer it will generally last. Christian classics speak to succeeding generations because they speak to something in the spirit which does not alter with technology or church-growth strategies or psychological breakthroughs. They get in under the surface to the deep part of the soul, to a place where cell-phones and i-pods can't reach. They have weathered the changing of the tide as one generation shuffles off and another takes the stage.
Most books written in any one year are reduced to garbage bins and used-book shelves shortly before they disintegrate. Only a very precious few have staying power, and they demand our attention. We ignore them at a very great risk to ourselves, because they have the lingering aroma of eternity upon them. They never attain to the level of their more popular, less substantial cousins, but somehow after decades have gone by we continue to see them sitting on bookshelves, one or two at a time, while the bestsellers have disappeared. They insinute their way into the world: here a young student, there a lawyer, in another state a middle-aged pastor and on the other side of the country a truck driver each are thinking fresh, deep thoughts brought to the surface by a writer they will not meet in this life. They are connected to an earlier generation by a reality which spans all ages and all races.
This reality has bypassed most of the recent stars of popular Christianity, but it is preserved in the stalwarts. There is magic there, and depth, and familiar surprises which astound and comfort us. By no means should you stop buying and reading new books, but under no circumstances should we ignore the giants of our heritage, the men and women who wrote without much reward or recognition. Their greatness has been proven; their success does not depend on advertising or mass appeal. That is why the test of time matters. It isn't everything, but it's more than what we've become used to.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Imagination and the Spirit: an appeal to Christians who care about the written word
The Bible is the most eclectic group of writings on the planet. Even if you have not sampled every other collection of literature available, it is still safe to say that the writings contained within the Bible are more variegated, more broad in tone, more satisfying in their uniqueness and appealing in their diversity than anything else that exists. The reasons for this are many, and so obvious that we don't need to be reminded of them. But what we do need to remember, or perhaps to hear for the first time, is that to truly enjoy and benefit from the Bible we are required to approach it with an eclectic spirit.
What I mean by that is that we must engage the passage we are encountering as a unique and singular presentation of some truth. I was once told about a pastor who was so carried away by his particularly narrow theology that he only preached - week after week after week - from the book of Ephesians. For that reason both he and his congregation were robbed of the heroism of first Samuel, the beauty of the Psalms, the enigma of Ecclesiastes, the exotic drama of Genesis, the mystery of Daniel and Isaiah and the catharsis of Judges and Jeremiah. It's as if God had prepared a feast with 66 fresh, exciting courses, and this miserly servant was only passing around the potatoes.
Now, given the diversity of style and figures of speech, and the ancient substance of our primary book, one would expect Christians to be the most liberal and free-ranging readers on the planet. You might expect Christians to enjoy the freedom of poetry, the allure of allegory and the drama of truly unique fiction. If you were to judge by our first preference in literature, then Christians ought to be dipping their minds into scholarly efforts written by historians, essays in philosophy, biographies and true stories... even those without happy endings! But there are two different trends which make it clear that this is not the majority experience for believers today.
The first is the avalanche of Christian fiction which is continuously poured into Christian bookstores. Not that it is wrong to use fiction to explore or communicate Christian values, but this is hardly a good staple. Since fiction is the easiest thing to read, the least likely to change a life and the most likely to be transitory in its effects, Christians should limit what they take in of that genre at the very least. But it isn't just quantity that should bother us: it is also quality. Most of the Christian novels I have read over the last thirty years are very little different in tone or style or plot or device from the more massive and less worthy universe of secular novels which are equally easy to read. Granted, some very fresh and innovative writing is being done in fiction, but it doesn't tend to sell well, and so far it hasn't particularly popped up in Christian venues. This doesn't mean that no Christian fiction is worthy and unique and original, but it does mean that the average and ordinary, the predictable and the pragmatic are so abundant and overwhelming that any originality we may have to offer has likely become subsumed.
I recently ran across this observation from Douglas Gresham, and I think that it deserves our attention. He said, "One of the problems with reading Christian books is that because they are all telling the same Truth from the same source, their authors (with some notable exceptions) fall too easily in the trap of comfortably saying the same things, often in much the same ways." If we have properly ingested the writings of Jeremiah and Hosea and Ezekiel, of John and Paul and Mark, we should be avoiding this trap automatically. Sadly, I believe we have (in too many instances) grasped the point, or one of the points, the ancient authors are trying to make without being equally effected by the ebb and flow of the whole context. Most 'modernizations' of biblical allegories or stories are likely to be little more than a second run at the original story dressed up like a popular novel with the names changed so people can pronounce them. One of the great crimes against Christian literature is an inexplicable lack of soaring imagination.
The other trend, aside from a huge outpouring of mediocre stories, is this unbelievable variety of Bibles. Here the other side of the coin is seen - instead of too little variety, too much. We market a different Bible for teen boys, teen girls, Calvinists, people who are struggling with depression, people who want more money, men, women, men under thirty, women over forty, skaters, children, senior citizens, and college students. What difference can their possibly be between these Bibles? Translations aside, not much. The only difference is in the margins.
As a teaching pastor, I have listened in dismay as many Christians, when confronted with a question about a Bible passage, simply respond by reading what their footnotes tell them. Now before I am burned in effigy, let me say that I have no doubt that footnotes and cross-references in the margins of a Bible can help someone who is studying their Bible. Very good. But this trend is clearly getting out of hand. I first noticed this when I picked up a Bible intended for people who are sick or suffering. The Psalms in this Bible were just like my old Bible. The Proverbs weren't any different. Jesus was still telling the same stories in the gospels. The only difference was the profusion of anecdotes, devotional thoughts and encouraging quotations which filled every page, competing with the original text and clearly more attractive in design and layout.
Now that we are floating so far out to sea, it is probably too late to ask: is this really necessary? Have we reached a point where ordinary Christians cannot read a passage and work it out for themselves? Is it too much for us to linger, thinking over a verse or a chapter, chewing on it mentally until we have gotten something beneficial out of it? It is a mark of our unwillingness to work, or think hard, or labour over scripture that our first instinct is to say "hold on, let me see what my footnotes say." The most valuable book for the Christian's mind is a plain Bible with wide margins and no commentary. Such a tool forces us to think for ourselves or do without, and there are too few of them in circulation!
So this is my plea to the dozen or so people who may see this post. Let's raise our standards when it comes to literature. Let's demand more. Let's prepare ourselves for the very best, most imaginative, original, creative writing in the world by working over the plain, unadorned text of scripture, and then demand that authors who want to say something meet those high standards. Put your ultra-thick, super-commentary-filled, stuffed and plucked Bible on the shelves for a little while, sequester yourself with a copy of the Bible which is liberated and plain, and give your imagination and your comprehension a good workout. You may even find that your understand and your subsequent reading become a little more eclectic.
What I mean by that is that we must engage the passage we are encountering as a unique and singular presentation of some truth. I was once told about a pastor who was so carried away by his particularly narrow theology that he only preached - week after week after week - from the book of Ephesians. For that reason both he and his congregation were robbed of the heroism of first Samuel, the beauty of the Psalms, the enigma of Ecclesiastes, the exotic drama of Genesis, the mystery of Daniel and Isaiah and the catharsis of Judges and Jeremiah. It's as if God had prepared a feast with 66 fresh, exciting courses, and this miserly servant was only passing around the potatoes.
Now, given the diversity of style and figures of speech, and the ancient substance of our primary book, one would expect Christians to be the most liberal and free-ranging readers on the planet. You might expect Christians to enjoy the freedom of poetry, the allure of allegory and the drama of truly unique fiction. If you were to judge by our first preference in literature, then Christians ought to be dipping their minds into scholarly efforts written by historians, essays in philosophy, biographies and true stories... even those without happy endings! But there are two different trends which make it clear that this is not the majority experience for believers today.
The first is the avalanche of Christian fiction which is continuously poured into Christian bookstores. Not that it is wrong to use fiction to explore or communicate Christian values, but this is hardly a good staple. Since fiction is the easiest thing to read, the least likely to change a life and the most likely to be transitory in its effects, Christians should limit what they take in of that genre at the very least. But it isn't just quantity that should bother us: it is also quality. Most of the Christian novels I have read over the last thirty years are very little different in tone or style or plot or device from the more massive and less worthy universe of secular novels which are equally easy to read. Granted, some very fresh and innovative writing is being done in fiction, but it doesn't tend to sell well, and so far it hasn't particularly popped up in Christian venues. This doesn't mean that no Christian fiction is worthy and unique and original, but it does mean that the average and ordinary, the predictable and the pragmatic are so abundant and overwhelming that any originality we may have to offer has likely become subsumed.
I recently ran across this observation from Douglas Gresham, and I think that it deserves our attention. He said, "One of the problems with reading Christian books is that because they are all telling the same Truth from the same source, their authors (with some notable exceptions) fall too easily in the trap of comfortably saying the same things, often in much the same ways." If we have properly ingested the writings of Jeremiah and Hosea and Ezekiel, of John and Paul and Mark, we should be avoiding this trap automatically. Sadly, I believe we have (in too many instances) grasped the point, or one of the points, the ancient authors are trying to make without being equally effected by the ebb and flow of the whole context. Most 'modernizations' of biblical allegories or stories are likely to be little more than a second run at the original story dressed up like a popular novel with the names changed so people can pronounce them. One of the great crimes against Christian literature is an inexplicable lack of soaring imagination.
The other trend, aside from a huge outpouring of mediocre stories, is this unbelievable variety of Bibles. Here the other side of the coin is seen - instead of too little variety, too much. We market a different Bible for teen boys, teen girls, Calvinists, people who are struggling with depression, people who want more money, men, women, men under thirty, women over forty, skaters, children, senior citizens, and college students. What difference can their possibly be between these Bibles? Translations aside, not much. The only difference is in the margins.
As a teaching pastor, I have listened in dismay as many Christians, when confronted with a question about a Bible passage, simply respond by reading what their footnotes tell them. Now before I am burned in effigy, let me say that I have no doubt that footnotes and cross-references in the margins of a Bible can help someone who is studying their Bible. Very good. But this trend is clearly getting out of hand. I first noticed this when I picked up a Bible intended for people who are sick or suffering. The Psalms in this Bible were just like my old Bible. The Proverbs weren't any different. Jesus was still telling the same stories in the gospels. The only difference was the profusion of anecdotes, devotional thoughts and encouraging quotations which filled every page, competing with the original text and clearly more attractive in design and layout.
Now that we are floating so far out to sea, it is probably too late to ask: is this really necessary? Have we reached a point where ordinary Christians cannot read a passage and work it out for themselves? Is it too much for us to linger, thinking over a verse or a chapter, chewing on it mentally until we have gotten something beneficial out of it? It is a mark of our unwillingness to work, or think hard, or labour over scripture that our first instinct is to say "hold on, let me see what my footnotes say." The most valuable book for the Christian's mind is a plain Bible with wide margins and no commentary. Such a tool forces us to think for ourselves or do without, and there are too few of them in circulation!
So this is my plea to the dozen or so people who may see this post. Let's raise our standards when it comes to literature. Let's demand more. Let's prepare ourselves for the very best, most imaginative, original, creative writing in the world by working over the plain, unadorned text of scripture, and then demand that authors who want to say something meet those high standards. Put your ultra-thick, super-commentary-filled, stuffed and plucked Bible on the shelves for a little while, sequester yourself with a copy of the Bible which is liberated and plain, and give your imagination and your comprehension a good workout. You may even find that your understand and your subsequent reading become a little more eclectic.
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