processing: Summer 2010 Reading (I)

For The Beauty of the Church

Ed. David Taylor

Since meeting a popular songwriter we hosted in college and being told to check out Steve Turner's Imagine, I've maintained a detached interest in the merger of theology and the arts.  As my theological mind has expanded, so too has my appetite for this intersection.  Duke's (by way of Austin, TX) David Taylor writes and edits this wonderful volume replete with talented and interesting authors and a panoply of perspectives.  Besides Peterson, who can hardly do wrong by me, I was surprised, edified and provoked by John Witvliet Worship piece (I look forward to thinking about original songwriting & worship with some amazing songwriters in our community) and especially Jeremy Begbie's musing on Art and Eschatology.  I highly recommend this to anyone who's ever even considered the role of art in the life of the Church.

Practice Resurrection

Eugene Peterson

The capstone to his prolific Spiritual Theology series, Peterson embarks on a thorough and serious treatment of growing up, being the Church, and living in terms of the resurrection existence Christ inaugurated, as articulated by the letter to the Ephesians.  I really appreciated how constructive this work was.  While providing harsh and prophetic criticism towards the failed and unfaithful ways we North American Christians attempt to build, progress, and grow, the tone and timbre of the whole matches the exciting, creative, and counterintuitive character of the great biblical letter it explicates.

Resident Aliens

Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon

About halfway through this book I really began to resent whoever chose our entrance reading requirements a couple years ago for Duke.  While Dean Well's Power and Passion was somewhat helpful, I can't really think of something else that could provide such a succinct and challenging primer to how things are thought and done at Duke than Prof. Hauerwas' and Bishop Willimon's landmark book.  I might have spoken louder, earlier, and more often in some precepts had I tackled this one prior to the summer before my final two semesters.  Spanning ecclesial ethics, the dangers of no-holds-barred modernism, and introing a Yoderian, post-Constantinian vision, these two master communicators also realize the importance of both eschatology and worship for the life of the Church in the world.  This work begs to be engaged with and achieves the provocation the cover advertises.

The Prodigal God

Tim Keller

I was really excited to dig into this one.  The final parable in the Luke 15 series has always been one of my favorites to read, preach, and re-evaluate.  This fall at Gathering Church, we're looking to focus on Keller's take.  His dealing stuck me as a bit unique, devoting a lot of space to the consideration of the older brother in the story (and going on to portray Jesus as True Elder Brother), going as far as to interpret him as but one of a couple of Lost Sons in the story.  I liked the accessibility and intrigue created by this.  It seems it will be a great entry point for those without a ton of study and small group experience as well as those, who know the story well.  It also made me go back to last summer's read: Volf's Exclusion and Embrace, to re-visit his brilliant exegesis of the characters within this keystone parable.  One main gripe I have is the  over-villianization of the Pharisee character in the story.  While I don't deny the teeth the the story has towards that crowd, the NPP-reader and Mel Gibson critic in me cringes at the careless portrayal of Jews as the epitome of flagrant unfaith.  All this said, I'll return back to Prodigal God (no spoiler alert: prodigal means extravagant, excessive) quite a bit more as a resource.

Deep Church

Jim Belcher
Anyone looking for some sort of positive assessment of the messy tangle encountering evangelical(-ish) church-life to come, should pick this one up.  Belcher offers an accessible and erudite survey of the landscape and painstakingly critiques and offers a way forward (which he, following CS Lewis coins the deep church).  This "third way," for him, is rarely a synthesis of the other two poles, though Belcher possesses all the charity, skill, and machinery to form such syntheses.  Belcher instead looks and, more often than not, finds a true new way.  This way of Orthodoxy and Engagement, truth and warmth, set-apartness and engagement must be the way forward and the type of leaders needed for such a grand endeavor must be committed to ecumenism, creativity, and generosity.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It accurately mapped and widely conversed un order to generate a gravitational vision around the Triune God in community.  Well done.

screening: Spoken Word, Preaching Visuals, & Prophetic Jesterdom

Topics from today's preaching class:

Spoken word poetry as embodying and unleashing the Word.

Anis Mojgani performs Shake the Dust at HEAVY AND LIGHT. from To Write Love on Her Arms. on Vimeo.

Using visual media to deliver and enhance the message.

Lump (Rob Bell - Nooma)

Using humor/satire/fable as a subversive, prophetic, surprising alternative.

mewithoutYou - The Fox, the Crow, and the Cookie from David Bell on Vimeo.

Easter!

Intro to Tom Wright's Easter sermon yesterday titled, "Resurrection & Rock'n'roll.":

The taxi driver looked back at me in his mirror. His face was a mixture of amusement and sympathy. We were stuck in traffic and he’d asked me, as they do, what I did for a living.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you Church of England people’ (having told me he was a Roman Catholic himself). ‘You’re still having all that trouble about women bishops, aren’t you?’

I had to admit that that was indeed the case.

‘The way I look at it,’ he said, ‘is this: if God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, all the rest is basically rock’n’roll.’

Rob Bell's (dynamic, as always) new work, "Resurrection":

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

processing: Ash Wednesday- T.S. Eliot

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know again

The infirm glory of the positive hour

Because I do not think

Because I know I shall not know

The one veritable transitory power

Because I cannot drink

There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time

And place is always and only place

And what is actual is actual only for one time

And only for one place

I rejoice that things are as they are and

I renounce the blessed face

And renounce the voice

Because I cannot hope to turn again

Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something

Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us

And pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again

Let these words answer

For what is done, not to be done again

May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

But merely vans to beat the air

The air which is now thoroughly small and dry

Smaller and dryer than the will

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death

Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

processing: Barth on Love (for Valentine's day)

This quotation from KB hangs on the bulletin board above our desk in the office:

"Love does not question; it gives an answer.

Love does not think; it knows.

Love does not hesitate; it acts.

Love does not fall into raptures; it is ready to undertake responsibilities.

Love puts behind it all the 'ifs' and 'buts,' all the conditions, reservations, obscurities and uncertainties that may arise between a man and a woman.

Love is not only affinity and attraction; it is union.

Love makes these two persons indispensable to each other.

Love compels them to be with each other."

(Karl Barth, CD III.4)

processing: Preaching, Praying & Paying Attention

The other day in preaching class we explored the link between preaching, praying, & paying attention. We heard from this beautiful poem by Mary Oliver (The Summer Day) which she manages to move from pondering the psalm-like wonder of created-ness to the child-like fascination with a particular bug and a particular fleck of sugar. I wish I had a more immediate link in my brain and worship between praying, paying minute attention, and falling on my face, "idle and blessed." Let this be the case with "this one wild and precious life." Amen.

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is is you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

processing: Preaching Class Day 1

We opened Chuck Campbell's preaching class with this John Coltrane footage and a discussion on how preaching and jazz share many attributes (tradition, inspiration, community, discipline, creativity, imagination, fundamentals, freedom, improvisation, practice, play...).

We closed with this charge from

William Stringfellow's Keepers of the Word:

In the middle of chaos, celebrate the Word.

Amidst babble, speak the Truth.

Confront the noise and verbiage and falsehood

Of death with the truth and potency

And efficacy of the Word of God.

Know the Word.

Teach the Word.

Nurture the Word.

Preach the Word.

Defend the Word.

Incarnate the Word.

Do the Word.

Live the Word.

And more than that, in the Word of God,

Expose death and all death’s works and wiles.

Rebuke lies.

Cast out demons.

Exorcise.

Cleanse the possessed.

Raise those who are dead, in mind and bodies.

It's going to be a good semester.

preaching: Epiphany wordle

I won't let the cat totally out of the bag, but here is a "wordle" for what I'm preaching Sunday, (Luke 2:22-32) in preparation for the New Year and celebrating Epiphany: tangled, wrapped, and wide-open. Always encouraging when the most frequent words are God, Jesus, and Spirit.

allgather.org
wordle.net

Advent Week 3: Here Comes the Sun Again

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter

Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

and I say it's alright

We managed our second George Harrison song for worship at church within the last month this past Sunday. It was fun singing "Here Comes the Sun" (and no we didn't opt to change the U to an O, to make it more holy), and the mood correlated well to both the atmosphere of Joy as we lit the pink Candle on the Advent wreath and the joy emanating from the children and families as we had our first Child Dedication.

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

and I say it's alright

While I'm not involved in any way with producing the music, which is great and done brilliantly by Jeff and his merry men (& occasionally women), I am involved with worship planning. Thus, I must apologize. Not for the song, I stand behind the song for this week and this season. I apologize instead for my failure to communicate how this song accurately depicts what is happening during Advent. It was not merely picked to satiate some sort of Abbey Road void or be that kitsch-factor for an upstart church without a lot of rules (though it probably accomplished both). So I apologized if it appeared novel for the sake of novelty or cool for the sake of coolness.

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,

and I say it's alright

It's alright

It's rare that we can sing a worship song using "little darling" with a straight face, but I think we can her. Far from being a merely sentimental bit of (as my high school history teacher used to put it) froth, this delicate affection comes to us from God in a time of cold, darkness, sadness, and despair. God, the 'Lifter-of-heads', then comes and whispers affectionately to us in our hoping and waiting, "Little darling...here comes the Sun...it's alright." This isn't something only the Beatles knew, but is actually the modus operandi of God throughout the history of his relationship to his people. Our job in during Advent (which can be woodenly translated: 'the arrival of a notable person, thing or event') is to not lose hope, and above all, to remember the cold, dark winter before Christ came initially as the Light of world & in preparation and expectation for His second coming in Glory.

To this expectation I share Matt Ward's brilliant addendum:

Kingdoms and queens they all bow down to you,

Branches and ranch hands are bowin' too

And I've taken off my straw hat for you, singing

Here comes the sun again

The leaves on the trees they all call out your name,

Chrome on the freight line shines the same

And the stars in their cars roll their tops down for you singing,

Here comes the sun again

Oh but if you're gonna stay show some mercy today

Blow a little breeze on my face

Snow banks drift down the hillside for you,

Slides inside sandy river before the day is through,

And before evenin' falls I may find myself there too, singing

Here comes the sun again

Isaiah 60:1-5, 19-21 (emphasis mine)

1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified.

Lord, give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Make us an expectant people, hopeful and comforted by you. Light us, warm us, grow us with your presence. Amen.

Here Comes The Sun - Nina Simo...

Here Comes the Sun Again - M. ...

Advent Week 2: "The Irreverent Doctrine of the Incarnation"

In the preface of the Phillips Bible paraphrase (kind of a precursor to the Message), CS Lewis offers a word relating the bible text to the incarnation. He likens the particularity and style of the Greek text as betraying its writers of not being necessarily in full command of the language of our sacred Text. Here is an unique and interesting thought and meditation for our Advent preparation and bible-reading.

"Does this shock us? It ought not to, except as the Incarnation itself ought to shock us. The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby in a peasant-woman's breast, and later an arrested field-preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that He should be preached in a vulgar, prosaic and unliterary language. If you can stomach the one, you can stomach the other. The Incarnation is in that sense an irreverent doctrine: Christianity, in that sense, an incurably irreverent religion. When we expect that it should have come before the World in all the beauty that we now feel in the Authorized Version we are as wide of the mark as the Jews were in expecting that the Messiah would come as an earthly King. The real sanctity, the real beauty and sublimity of the New Testament (as of Christ's life) are of a different sort: miles deeper and further in."

O God,

you wonderfully created

and yet more wonderfully restored

the dignity of human nature;

grant that we may share the divine life

of your Son Jesus Christ,

who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God now and for ever.

Amen.

praying: For/With Astonishment

“A quite specific astonishment stands at the beginning of every theological perception, inquiry, and thought, in fact at the root of every theological word. This astonishment is indispensable if theology is to exist and be perceptually renewed as a modest, free, and happy science. If such astonishment is lacking, the whole enterprise of even the best theologian would canker at the roots. On the other hand, as long as even a poor theologian is capable of astonishment, he is not lost to the fulfillment of his task. He remains serviceable as long as the possibility is left open that astonishment may seize him like an armed man.”

Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, p. 64.

What I'm saying is I think like is staggering and we're just used to it. We are all like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given- it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral.

Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, p.58.

I pray that at the very most, I remain serviceable and open to being astonished. Let me not forget the preciousness and glory in this theological work. I rejoice in not being underwhelmed in this endeavor! I am no great anything, but let me continue to understand You, myself, and this made world better. Let me not bemoan my lack, but rather define myself and my work by means of awe and astonishment.

jamming: The Avett Brothers- I and Love and You

This has got to be my favorite album of the year so far. You had to see this toure-de-force coming: Rick Rubin + American Recordings + the Avetts! What you get is something of high quality, accessibility, and authenticity. On most albums I can pick certain standout tracks, this one is no different except in the fact that nearly every track would be a highlight on another album. All that said, the Avetts wind up crafting an album of more than merely the sum of its tracks. The thread of Love in all its permutations is woven throughout the disc, the result is a vulnerable, genuine, poignant and fun album...

1. I and Love and You

Highlights the the sound Rubin made famous on tracks like Cash's "Hurt." An apt piano-driven scene-setter.




2. January Wedding

Ventures into the familiar recent territory of Second Gleam record. "She's talkin' to me with her voice/Down so low I barely hear her/But I know what she's sayin'/I understand because my heart and hers are the same
."

3. Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise


Again with the piano: "When nothing is owed, deserved or expected/And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected."

4. And it Spread


A vulnerable love song using drug metaphors. Works for Tweedy, Cash, et al. "Then you came back from space/With a brand new laugh and a different face/You took my hand and held it up/And shot my arm full of love."

5. The Perfect Space


Personality trait wish list interrupted by a Skynard-esque break. "I wanna have pride like my mother has/And not like the kind in the bible that turns you bad."

6. Ten Thousand Words


Singing on top of a James Taylor song: "Ain't it like most people? I'm no different/We love to talk on things we don't know about." Probably true from my experience.

7. Kick Drum Heart


Pop-tune, about fluttering hearts. Cutesy, but highly enjoyable- especially when some of those long-contained screams start seeping out.

8. Laundry Room


Perhaps my favorite over-all track, reminiscent of some of their best moments on "Four Thieves Gone." "Break this tired old routine/and this time dont make me leave/I am a breathing time machine,/I'll take you on for a ride," followed by an extended bluegrass rollick.

9. Ill with Want


Sort of their Romans 7 track don't you think?

10. Tin Man


Honestly, don't love this one yet. "I miss that, I miss that, oh, I miss that feeling of feeling."

11. Slight Figure of Speech


Every first major album has to have that track or at least that moment where the band acknowledges, winks at, or answers to their recent success. This is their answer to Reel Big Fish's "Sell Out" (didn't see that ska reference coming did you?). "They said 'I hope that you will never change'/I went and cut my hair./They say 'Don't take your business to the big time'/I bought us tickets there." Tune into Jimmy Fallon next week (Wed 11/18) to see this one performed.

12. It Goes On and On


"Baby would you leave me if you knew that I was making it up/and underneath the love you gotta wonder am I giving you up/No way am I."

13. Incomplete and Insecure

I'm convinced that the power of this last track comes from the looking for revelation and calling from elsewhere. We've all had those times when we either think we have it all figured or wallow in the seeming permanence of unhappiness before, surprisingly we can say, "but watching you makes me think that that is wrong." When that happens, nothing can stay the same.

Two more items bear consideration with this album...

Exhibit A: Album Mission Statement written by Seth Avett (from the liner notes).

This bespeaks the band's long ability to put together reflective, intelligent, accessible, and introspective work:

The words "I" and "Love" and "You" are the watermark of humanity. Strung together, they convey our deepest sense of humility, of power, of truth. It is our most common sentiment, even as the feeling of it is so infinitely uncommon : each to proclaim these three words with his or her very own heart and mindset of reason (or lack thereof); a proclamation completely and perfectly new each time it is offered. Uttered daily and nightly by millions, the words are said in an unending array of circumstances : whispered to a newborn in a mothers arms; shared between best friends on the playground; in the form of sympathy -said by a girl to a boy, as the respect continues but the relationship does not. It is said too loudly by parents to embarassed children in the company of their friends, and by grown children - to their fading parents in hospital beds. The words are thought in the company of the photograph and said in the company of the gravestone. It is how we end our phone calls and our letters... the words at the bottom of the page that trump all those above it, a way to gracefully finish a message, however important or trivial, with the most meaningful gift of all : the communication of love. And yet the words themselves have been the victims of triviality, a ready replacement for lesser salutations among near strangers, burst forth casually as "love ya." Truly? To what degree? Why, how much, and for how long? These are questions befitting of the stature of love, though not the everyday banter of vague acquaintance. The words have also been twisted by the dark nature of deceit : To say "I love you" with a dramatic measure of synthetic emotion; a snare set by those who prey uponn fellow humanity, driven to whatever selfish end, to gain access to another's body, or their money, or their opportunity. In this realm, the proclamation is disgraced by one seeking to gain rather than to give. In any case, and by whatever inspiration, these words are woven deeply in to the fibers of our existence. Our longing to hear them from the right place is maddeningly and simultaneously our finest strength and our most gentle weakness.

The album "I and Love and You" is inashamedly defined by such a dynamic of duality. As living people, we are bound by this unavoidable parallel. We are powerful yet weak, capable yet temporary. Inevitably, an attempt to place honesty within an artistic avenue will follow suit. This is a piece which shows us as we are : products of love surrounded by struggle. The music herein is, in many ways, readable as both a milestone and an arrival. A chapter in the story of young men, it bridges the space between the uncertainty of youth and the reality of it's release. The record is full with the quality of the question and response. As far as questions go, there are plenty-normally residing within the tone and delivery of the lyrics themselves, which, ironically, are sung with so much confidence. Among songs and thoughts so driven and purposeful, the most basic relatable doubt comes through with a resounding clarity. Outside of the eternal theme of romantic love, the album speaks thankfully upon a landscape of light-filled rooms, word-filled pages, time machines, forgiveness, singing birds, ocean waves, art ,change, confessions of shortcomings, and reasons to continue on. Hope and a cause for smiling follow naturally. In the midst of all this, there are allusions to the less-than-ideal conditions of life : the loss of memory, the inability to control temper, insecurity, indecision, jaded indifference, and the general plague of former and current weakness. "I and Love and You" is an album of obvious human creation, chracterized by it's best and it's worst. Emotional imperfection is a reality for those who recorded the piece, just as it is for those who will hear it. The conclusion of the song from which the title is taken admits that the words "I love you" have become "hard to say". And perhaps that difficulty is as common as it's counterpart. Perhaps the inability to say these heaviest of words is as much a part of life as the lighthearted candor of those who say them without any difficulty at all. And so it ends with the phrase whispered to and by those of us most defeated and most elated... I and love and you...

Exhibit B: This first music video offers a glimpse at the personality of the band. Skilled at touching and adept at drawing upon the energy and enthusiasm of their fans:

American Christianity Notebook Reflection

I pledged not to post, but already completed this assignment. We were asked to prayerfully consider our notes from the first part of this course over reading week and write a 500 word reflection of what God is saying through the course material:

As an American and a Christian, I am woefully predisposed to personally identify with the material we have encountered this semester in this American Christianity course. After prayerfully browsing the motley gamut of characters in my notes: Puritans, Anglicans, Mormons, Clerical Economists, New Lights, Abolitionists, Domestic types, and Missionaries, I see me. I see my shortfalls and my poor readings and dealings. I see my victories and where I was both a right hearer and right doer. I see where I have distortingly merged my piety with the surrounding culture. I also see where the Gospel has redeemed that culture and proven wiser and more pure than my piety. I see cautionary tales of triumphalism, fundamentalism, racism, classism (insert –ism here: ____). I have also seen the growth of a national “experiment” to such a point that it has forgotten that experiments typically thrive on their awareness of their past failures. It is with all this in mind that I humbly reflect on this semester’s exploration of my own heritage as both an American and a Christian.

Throughout my notes, the Bible repeatedly availed itself as perhaps the most controversial and duplicitously used document in the history of our country. By recounting the showdown between staunch slaveholders and ardent abolitionists, based heartily on opposing interpretations of the Bible, that I become aware of my own blind spots for the Gospel’s implications for race and justice here and now. In viewing images of exalted printing presses, I become aware of my confusion between media and message, and my tendency to elevate what I read on a page above the active work of a living God. Far from suggesting that Scripture lacks authority or importance, it has instead become all the more pressing for that crucial authority and utmost significance to be rightly received. God has certainly revealed my own myopic tendencies in the American Church’s (in all its varieties) historical array of ungainly biblical interpretation.

As I leaf through, I hold fast to what these questionable biblical hermeneutics of yore have to bear on my life, but I still catch myself throwing stones from my glass house of piety. I consistently question the purity of these Christians’ motives. As Separatists themselves, how could the Puritans be so quick to alienate opposing Christians in New England? Why did democratization of the State and Church mirror each other so closely during the Great Awakening, despite their functional separation? How does the Church forget its own lessons of caution so fast? Sitting in this class and paging through the notes, echoes, to some extent, my study and devotional reading of Israel’s salvation history in the Old Testament. No matter how many times I read and recognize my ancestors’ failings, and marvel at their enduring ability to veer toward unfaith and perversion, at some level I too own that tendency. As Cotton Mather defined it, “History is a story of events, with praise and blame.” Instead of seeing these as merely unforgivable gaffs or disembodied events, I am learning to critically (and self-critically) engage American Christianity’s history as a narrative of my own triumphs and collapses, writ large.

On the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

St Francis once was living at the Convent of the Portiuncula, with Brother Masseo of Marignano, a man of great sanctity and great discernment, who held frequent converse with God; for which reason St Francis loved him much. One day, as St Francis was returning from the forest, where he had been in prayer, the said Brother Masseo, wishing to test the humility of the saint, went forth to meet him exclaiming: “Why after thee? Why after thee?” To which St Francis made answer: “What is this? What meanest thou?” Brother Masseo answered: “I mean, why is it that all the world goeth after thee; why do all men wish to see thee, to hear thee, and to obey thy word? For thou art neither comely nor learned, nor art thou of noble birth. How is it, then, that all the world goeth after thee?” St Francis, hearing these words, rejoiced greatly in spirit, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, remained for a long space with his mind rapt in God; then, coming to himself, he knelt down, returning thanks to God with great fervour of spirit, and addressing Brother Messeo, said to him: “Wouldst thou know why all men come after me? Know that it is because the Lord, who is in heaven, who sees the evil and the good in all places - because, I say, his holy eyes have found among men no one more wicked, more imperfect, or a greater sinner than I am; and to accomplish the wonderful work which he intends to do, he has found no creature more vile than I am on earth; for which reason he has chosen me, to confound all strength, beauty, greatness, noble birth, and all the science of the world, that men may learn that every virtue and every good gift cometh from him, and not from any creature, that none may glory before him; but if any one glory, let him glory in the Lord, to whom belongeth all glory in eternity.” Then Brother Masseo, at such a humble answer, given with so much fervour, was greatly impressed, and learned of a certainty that St Francis was well grounded in humility.

-Chapter X from the Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi

screening: JJ Alvaro's Confession

Confession from John Jay Alvaro on Vimeo.

The text is from a Mennonite worship service for the Iraq War. The images are edited from originals online. The music is Feist.

praying: George Herbert's The Elixer

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see,
And what I do in any thing,
To do it as for thee:

Not rudely, as a beast,
To runne into an action;
But still to make thee prepossest,
And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glasse,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,
And then the heav’n espie.

All may of thee partake:
Nothing can be so mean,
Which with his tincture (for thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgerie divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and th’ action fine.

This is the famous stone<
That turneth all to gold:
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for lesse be told.

praying: St. Thomas Aquinas' Student's Prayer

Creator of all things,
true source of light and wisdom,
origin of all being,
graciously let a ray of your light penetrate
the darkness of my understanding.

Take from me the double darkness
in which I have been born,
an obscurity of sin and ignorance.

Give me a keen understanding,
a retentive memory, and
the ability to grasp things
correctly and fundamentally.

Grant me the talent
of being exact in my explanations
and the ability to express myself
with thoroughness and charm.

Point out the beginning,
direct the progress,
and help in the completion.

I ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

*These are the 3/4 of the books for this fall.

processing: Summer Reading: Part II

No Country For Old Men- Cormac McCarthy

If you can believe it, McCarthy's writing is more haunting than the on-screen portrayal by Javier Bardem. Per usual, his writing is grim, violent, graphic. We are left to ponder the futility of our 'good fight'. Is there even such a thing? The protagonist drifts into the territory of moral ambiguity and we are left feeling disoriented when we realize that the serial killing bounty hunter possesses a singularity and ethic not found in the so-called 'good guy'. Through all this, the narrator, Sheriff Bell seems to be the only one willing to acknowledge the worlds (and his own) decline. Along with, The Road, this book should be on everyone's required reading.

Our Endangered Values- Jimmy Carter

Former President Carter seems to have uniquely improved his legacy more with his post-White House career and tireless advocacy than by anything he did as president. This account is an interesting combination of what else- politics and religion- the two things not to bring up. Knowing both President Carter's devotion to peacemaking and justice (through Atlanta's Carter Center) and his ongoing mediation in Baptist life (New Baptist Covenant & CBF), it is nice to get a firsthand account of his motivations and presuppositions. While I don't agree with him on everything, I admire his courage, incredible endurance, and unwavering posture of engagement and dialogue.

Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World- A.J. Jacobs

I came across this one because I had read his A Year of Living Biblically and curiously enough picked it up at the same time as my friend Nick from church (and disc golf) was getting through it. Jacobs essentially chronicles his quest by picking out and occasionally revisiting the oddest, most profound, and down-right wackiest entries in the EB. What makes it interesting is his wit, candor, and occasional vulnerability when discussing insights from material as varied as Ecclesiastes and aquatic mating rituals. With Esquire-esque humour and agility, Jacobs manages to deftly weave his threads of familial relations, his wife and his struggle for fertility (and subsequent fatherhood), epistemology into a funny and reflective yearlong tapestry.

Jesus and Community- Gerhard Lohfink

Here are a couple insightful excerpts:
“If we ask Paul what significance the existence of the church has for pagan society in his writings...He says that God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself and that the church is now the place where reconciliation, which has already occurred in principle, is to be realized concretely. God has therefore charged the church with the service of reconciliation. The church is the place where, in a new creation, God has inaugurated reconciled society (pg 141).”

“Only in this gift of reconciliation, in the miracle of life newly won against all expectation, does what is here termed a contrast-society flourish. What is meant is not a church without guilt, but a church in which infinite hope emerges from forgiven guilt. What is meant is not a church in which there are no divisions, but a church which finds reconciliation despite all gulfs. What is meant is not a church without conflicts, but a church in which conflicts are settled in ways different from the rest of society. What is meant, finally, is not a church without the cross and without passion narratives, but a church always able to celebrate Easter because it both dies and rises with Christ (pg 147).”

unChristian:What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity...and Why it Matters- David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons

I must say my favorite parts of this book were some of the first-hand insights from contributors at the end of each chapter. These contributors were as diverse as Jim Wallis, Rick Warren, John Stott, Rick McKinley, Churck Colson, Andy Stanley, Andy Crouch, & Shane Claiborne. A wide variety of evangelical voices and a great representation of the polyphony and variance under the umbrella of evangelicism. I remember, however, while reading, being both thankful and disheartened. Thankful that this research was done and that this book was written and pushed through a channel whereby it gets received by the largest possible needed audience. Disheartened that money and time was spent researching and writing to let us, evangelicals, those supposedly most concerned with and incarnate in the "outside, secular world," understand that we have a bad reputation and that reputation is built more on "our" hypocrisy, imperialism, prejudice, sheltered disconnect, & politics rather than "Christ and Him crucified."

Perhaps the most telling statistic was the results from a poll that revealed the disconnect between how the church's hospitality is received by pastors, regular born-again attenders, sporadic attenders, and the un-churched outsider:

Christian churches accept and love people unconditionally, regardless of how people look or what they do. (% who strongly agree)
pastors: 76%
born-again Christians: 47%
Christian churchgoers: 41%
outsiders (all ages): 20%
(pg185)

Blessed Are the Peacemakers- Wendell Berry

This short work pulls out key peacemaking passages (most prominently Matthew's Sermon on the Mount) dealing with living peaceably. Finally there is an essay, previously published in the Christian Century, titled, "The Burden of the Gospels," that seeks to synthesize these passages.

Here are a couple excerpts:
"When Jesus speaks of having life more abundantly, this, I think, is the life he means: a life that is not reducible by division, category or degree, but is one thing, heavenly and earthly, spiritual and material, divided only insofar as it is embodied in distinct creatures. He is talking about a finite world that is infinitely holy, a world of time that is filled with life that is eternal. His offer of more abundant life, then, is not an invitation to declare ourselves as certified "Christians," but rather to become conscious, consenting and responsible participants in the one great life, a fulfillment hardly institutional at all."

"If we take the Gospels seriously, we are left, in our dire predicament, facing an utterly humbling question: How must we live and work so as not to be estranged from God’s presence in his work and in all his creatures? The answer, we may say, is given in Jesus’ teaching about love. But that answer raises another question that plunges us into the abyss of our ignorance, which is both human and peculiarly modern: How are we to make of that love an economic practice?"

God Has a Dream- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Like No Future Without Forgiveness only much, much lighter. Archbishop Tutu elaborates on the theology that roots his reconciliation efforts in South Africa over the past several decades. This theology enlists the African concept of Ubuntu, a shared humanity, the recognition of the image of God in the other. Endearing and self-deprecating at times, he begins each chapter, "Dear Child of God..." From then on you are engaged and edified by this wise, gentle, and incredibly experienced man. Catching a vision for "Hope in our Time," seems like a worthy pursuit, Tutu's contribution is helpful.

The Sacredness of Questioning Everything- David Dark

I really enjoyed this one. A pleasure: well-written, witty, and penultimately relevant for current popular Christian discourse. Something like a Christian Chuck Klosterman. This is kind of a grown-up Blue Like Jazz, the book that you might loan to someone only peripherally interested in God and spirituality, but culturally, academically aware. From his detailed exegesis of Arcade Fire songs, to his unswerving devotion to Steven Colbert's prophetic truthiness, Dark manages to produce a work both religiously and culturally discerning, and at times critical. Dark bridges the gulfs of his current Vanderbilt PhD pursuit (and talks the talk quite nicely) and his gig teaching English at a conservative Nashville Presbyterian high school. What you get is an account that asks the right questions, provides only some of the answers, lets you do the work and prayer to come up with the rest, and hails the process of loving the Lord with our heart, soul, mind, strength, and questions.

Portrait of Calvin- T.H.L. Parker

[available for free digital download at Desiring God.]
I read this biography to celebrate JC's (the less famous/divine one) 500th birthday this month. I also thought it might be nice to get someone else's than Steinmetz' account of Calvin, after all the good Doctor is an unabashed Luther man. The most striking and personal note struck came in the first few pages in regard to Calvin's choice of education. It seemed obvious for him to go to Paris to study Theology at what was considered the orthodox and best option. Instead he chose to study law elsewhere. "...the intricacies and niceties of the law was gained which he could never have won from the University of Paris. At Orleans and Bourges, the intellectual atmosphere was more free. New ideas were not bogies, but food for interesting speculation. The classics...now seemed most desirable- calling, not to danger, but to delights." This portion both particularly resonates with me and the path I've taken in my graduate studies, and strikes me with a certain sad irony that Calvin's delight came in the freedom and curiosity not as widely afforded in some modern institutions that hail his thought.

Related: SUMMER READING: PART I.

processing: At the Helm, Out of My Depth

The following is my second field education reflection group paper, concerning the second half of my Roxboro, NC placement.

At the Helm, Out of My Depth
The age-old image of the Church as a ship has begun to make sense to me. Kind of a “we’re all in this together,” afloat-through-the-storms-&-turbulence type of reasoning. That image is both romantic and frightening. Even more frightening is the realization of pastorally helming such a ship. My turn with the captain’s hat and wheel came over a two-week period whereby my supervisor left the country and left me to steer us down the center.

A couple weeks prior I got my first taste of what, according to Murphy’s Law, could and often does happen. While taking some of the youth (in fact a record number of youth: two full car-loads) to a summer movie special at the local cinema, we got in an accident. I say we, but mean rather four small children and the church matriarch, whom I enlisted to drive. Suffering a vicious sideswipe on a busy separated highway, I watched helplessly in the real-time panorama of a gruesomely violent crash. As I ran to the wreck, my heart pounded and mind raced. No training or preparation readied me for the response required of me. There was a dual awareness in me: a power and certainty, but also a frenetic awkwardness and hesitancy. Like the Platonic horses, I attempted to reign in both competing energies in order to be fully present and helpful in the situation in my midst.

After a day of holding up emergency room walls and wearing ruts into hallway floors, I departed Person Memorial encouraged, but troubled. Encouraged and thankful that none of my charges were seriously or permanently injured, but troubled by what had happened. It seems natural that we get shook up and called to refocus after avoiding an accident. If it was going to be our fault, we reevaluate how we were driving and how we must be more vigilant. If it was to be the other driver’s fault, we let angry thoughts flit across the clarity gained by the mix of adrenaline and awareness. What was troubling here though was that there was an accident. There was a sharpness. There was a momentary disorientation followed by an extreme sense of calm and clarity. But having seen the elderly, Alzheimer-riden antagonist confused in the backseat of the patrol car, there was no anger. That lack of anger was confusing and disorienting in itself.

Fast-forward a couple weeks, past the barrage of rental cars and CT scans, the only remnants of the bruises are now but pale-yellow traces. I am handed the reigns. My supervisor is now six time zones away and I begin an intense battle for both ministerial respectability and my beloved, well-ordered 5-day workweek. That fight began in earnest as I wrapped a 3rd of July barbeque and received a frantic phone call from the aforementioned driving matriarch-turned church liaison. It appeared that, as anyone may assume, the ills and injuries had saved their worst for the worse possibly timing, now. I left the celebration to attend to my parishioner, who suffered an aneurism. The contrast only became more apparent as I reached the bedside: my flip-flops and summer attire accusing the stifling white everything. Why did this aorta, as if on a timer, chose now, a time so festive and light; a time so unprepared and unfocused?

The following ten days featured more visits to Duke Hospital and anxious hikes from Central parking than I would have ever expected. What made the hikes especially anxious was the overwhelming feeling of unpreparedness, the fear of failure, and the nervous tension of not knowing. My visits featured long-periods of silence, awkward prayers, wanna-be tender embraces, over-stayed welcomes, and over-stepped boundaries. Just what to do when you don’t understand the seriousness and risk of the surgery to be performed and everyone else does but won’t admit it? What to do when you can’t communicate with the pacing fifty year-old son long enough to figure out what the family actually needs? To extend the nautical metaphor, wait out the storm. Don’t give up patience, don’t over-correct.

Throughout these varied incidents in my time at the helm, I found great comfort and instruction, perhaps “a peace surpassing understanding,” from the God who both creates and calms storms. Through the turbulence of car-crashes, self-blame, heart surgery and elephants in the room, I was consistently interrupted both by an overwhelming gentle stillness and a certain mantra of, “Peace. Be Still.” It was through these promptings and certainly not through neither some innate ability nor heroic confidence that I was able to offer even a modicum of stillness and peace to these families. Though out of my depth and completely unprepared, I learned my role was to merely offer the peace that I had been given.