Second Drafts

Booklist 2011

It was a pretty personally disappointing year of reading, both in terms of quantity (didn’t even average two/month) and quality (the least amount of theology and classics reading I've done in the past five years). In conducting the autopsy here, I realize that I simply tried to read too many books at once; as a result, I lost interest in several and found it hard to pick back up when and where I left off with a few.

New year, new rule: no more than three books (preferably of different genres) at a time.

Those qualifiers out of the way, it’s with great shame that I post my annual booklist, complete with notes and rankings (10 is highest) for each. In light of the thin offerings, perhaps a look through my previous years' lists (2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006) will aid in your search for a good book. Hope to do better in 2012 (please add your recs below).

January – June (0)

• Started Atlas Shrugged and about a dozen other books during this six-month period, but we moved/started a new life in Oklahoma, which is my only semi-legitimate excuse.
  

July (3)

• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – Absolutely dumbfounded by the fiscal prophecy of the first third of the book; the 1,000 pages dragged in the middle but still good. (7)
• The Case for Classical Christian Education by Douglas Wilson – A primer for anyone involved in classical Christian education; could do without some of the attitude, but okay. (7)
• The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo – Interesting read about Jobs and his role as innovator (not inventor) at Apple; some helpful strategy observations. (6)

August (4)

• Repairing the Ruins edited by Douglas Wilson – Another of Wilson’s contributions, this one reads a little more moderately in terms of tone; good content. (8)
• Histories (volumes 1 & 2) by Herodotus – First two books I read on the iPad. Skimmed much of it, but parts made it a fascinating look into the ancient world. (6)
• Teacher by Mark Edmundson – Took 50 pages to get into memoir of Edmundson’s favorite teacher, but worth sticking it out; never get enough of these. (6)

September (2)

• The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer - Skimmed through this once before, but had to read about/revisit more carefully the education I never received. (8)
• The Great Expectations School by Dan Brown – File under “Everything you’ve heard about urban public schools is true.” Sad take from a first-year teacher. (8)

October (3)

• The Secret of Terror Castle (The Three Investigators #1) by Robert Arthur – Revisited (with my second daughter) my youth w/ Alfred Hitchcock-involved series; Investigators better than the Hardys. (7)
• Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker – Nostalgic walk through 1970’s baseball cards with plenty of narcissism along the way; good idea, but could have been more. (4)
• Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki – Simple (but not simplistic) book that gets so much right about how people are motivated and enchanted; highlight of the fall. (9)

November (2)

• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson – One of the saddest books I’ve read in terms of leadership and legacy. Jobs was a hero, but not for nearly as much as I thought. (8)
• Wisdom and Eloquence by Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans – Lucid expression of classical Christian education from two long-time practitioners; well-written pedagogical gold. (9) 

December (2)

• Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson – Read it too disjointedly, but this “conversation in spiritual theology” also seemed to wander a fair amount; still, some insights/moments. (7)
• Pastor by Eugene Peterson – Listened to this one and loved it. Peterson is both accurate and articulate in his description of his craft; best of the year for me. (10)

Lessons from the Wilderness

Got an email today from an old acquaintance from back during my Christian camp and conference center days. Here's what he wrote:

Hey, maybe you could offer some advice on an article I've been asked to write for 3CA (Christian Camp and Conference Association). I'm writing on "best practices" of how those who work at Christian camps and conferences can grow and nourish their own faith. From your experience in Christian camping, would you do me a favor and answer a few quick questions?

How can they do it?

What might it look like (paint a word picture from your experience)?

Any particular Scripture that inspires you in this area?

Here's what I wrote back (complete with a pic from my old program director days - circa 2004 - and a trivia question: Can you name the Christian pseudo-celebrity in the picture?):

From what I remember about my time in the 3CA world, the biggest irony of camp and conference work is its potential personal hypocrisy: working ridiculous hours so others can get away from their ridiculous hours; never wanting to recognize one's own limits (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual) while encouraging others to repent of their anger at theirs; downplaying one's need for the Church and Sabbath while trying to meet them for others.

Christian camp and conference workers - much like health care professionals or pastors - can be the worst patients. Go to a 3CA conference and check out the physical shape so many directors and staff are in. While harder to measure, the same reality is often true of their spiritual shape (or at least it was of mine): little discipline in Scripture reading and meditation, less dependence in prayer, rare trust or submission to elders of a local church, and minimal personal evangelism. When camp and conference workers lack resolution in their own lives in these or other areas - all while trying to solve the same problems in others' - they risk hypocrisy. This was the tension I felt and fought for years on a daily basis.

In terms of solutions, for me, "best practice" started with personal repentance before God and others that a self-made martyrdom and "Oh, Lord, beat me so I'll feel better" mentality was far from biblical, as it made ministry more about me than about God and those he might use me to help.

Practically speaking, regular reassessment of (or perhaps creation of) job descriptions, evaluations of schedules, and emphasis on personal and communal responsibility to ensure that all heed Christ's call to "Come with me by yourselves (plural) to a quiet place and get some rest" (Mark 6:31) is foundational, but must be committed to and carried out at all levels of the organization to really be effective.

I can think of no better warning for camp and conference center staff than this quote from C.S. Lewis:

"Those like myself, whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty; we easily imagine conditions far higher than any we have really reached. If we describe what we have imagined we may make others, and make ourselves, believe that we have really been there."

In my mind, this is and always will be the potential curse of the camp and conference center staff, but it takes courageous leaders to call it what it is and care for their staff (and themselves) in honest ways concerning it.

Felt good thinking through some of that - should probably do more before I forget some of those lessons (there's plenty of opportunity for personal application here and now).

Second Drafts, Redux

Five years ago (give or take three weeks), I created and launched Second Drafts. Here was part of the birth announcement (you can read the original post here):

My friend and co-author, Doug Serven, is right when he says the idea of writing a book is a lot more appealing than actually doing it. In fact, a lot of bookwriting (at least in our experience) amounts to "vomiting on the page" and then rearranging what sticks. Doug is fond of the vomiting part; I tend to tolerate the rearranging (though we each did a fair amount of both).

Likewise, life is much like bookwriting, as so much of living is really editing what we and others "throw up" (again, continuing the vomit metaphor). Anyone can come up with a first draft of something; writing the second draft, however - revising thoughts, letting go of bad choices, and improving the overall whole of the manuscript - is the more difficult part of the process...and the most rewarding.

So, with that in mind (and just to be sure I run the metaphor fully into the ground), my goal is always to think about life "editorially" - listening for Voice, considering word choice, getting rid of fluff. You're invited to bring your red pen along (or your purple one if red is too threatening) and mark things up with me, or just wait around for the finished project.

A word of warning, though: if you wait, you'll probably wait a long time. Writing and life are both too confusing without community. You're welcome (and wanted) as part of mine.

Leave it to me to equate writing and vomiting (actually, readers have probably drawn the conclusion before, but were too kind to leave their observation in the comments).

I haven't spent as much consistent time on the blog in recent years due to the advent of micro-blogging (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), but I still enjoy keeping one for reasons of posterity and/or narcissism. Two-and-a-half years ago, I wondered aloud if blogging was dead, but looking back on my own experience, I would say the medium was not so much on its deathbed as my literary creativity seemed to be.

Five years later, I choose to relaunch here at Second Drafts with a new header and color scheme, a slightly different design, and a new hope of some reinvigorated reasons to write. I shouldn't lack for material - new state, new place, new people, new job - but I suppose dealing with aspects of the novelty is what keeps me from writing about it.

So, welcome (or welcome back). Do me a favor and spread the word that everything old is new again here at the blog. And drop in every now and then and leave a fresh comment or add to an interaction - those mean more than you ever might think.

The Write Stuff

A funny thing happened on the way to choir drop-off Wednesday night: due to a change in plans, I ended up without my MacBook.

This was significant because, since my two oldest daughters' children's choir rehearsal is just far enough from home to weekly justify spending two-and-a-half glorious hours in a very quiet part of a county library to write, it doesn't take much convincing for me to "take one for the team" and do the drop and pick-up. On Wednesday night, I'm happy to serve.

Still, the problem: no computer. What was I thinking? Should I go home, get it, and come back? Seemed silly, but this was my writing night (it's not like I get to do this every evening).

Not wanting to waste the time driving, I pulled into the library parking lot, grabbed some paper from the floor of the van (there was - and always is - plenty), found a pen, and walked in the door strangely giddy at the prospect that I was about to publicly go "old school" by putting pen to paper to crank out some content. I anticipated the scrawl sound of my Pilot Precise V5 rolling ball scratching across the paper. I recalled the joy - yea, even the novelty - of not having to delete wrong words and phrases before continuing, as I could just scribble them out and keep moving forward.

I found a table. I sat down. I spread out the paper. I pulled out the pen. I wrote.

Somewhere Wendell Berry smiled...and it was good.

"I don't do this enough," I thought, moving my right hand almost - but not quite - silently over the flat surface of paper on table. I had no desire to do anything else but to embrace my kinesthetic side and write, letting my words come not just from my brain but through my body as well.

This was not a foreign sensation to me. I was 15 years an avid hand-journaler before I crossed over to the kinesthetic Dark Side of blogging nearly ten years ago, but even my experience now seemed novel, for I was writing on loose-leaf paper that was indeed as loose as leaf gets, having been ripped out of the crumpled notebook in the van.

In my handwritten habit of the past, I usually wrote into bound journals, but I was hesitant to write without some degree of concern that what I wrote needed to look somewhat presentable should I die and someone (God forbid) read my journals. I was a victim of the literary version of thinking that if you're going to be in an accident, at least have on clean underwear. Like a new pair of tighty-whities, my journal writing was clean...but it was tight. But no more!

But then I stopped. My left brain caught up with my right brain long enough to bring to mind articles - myriads of them, it seemed - with titles meant to remind me of my position in this world of twenty-first century and the land of all things digital. Having found their way to me because I'm a teacher, the articles psychologically attacked my handwriting bliss with their theses of why "Some Blogs I Like, and Why Teachers Should Be Using Them," and why handwritten expression should not even be considered as part of "21st Century Excellence."

I recalled an article I read just a few weeks ago about wired Chinese college students who could not remember how to write out their language because they were so used to typing pre-formed characters that their hands physically - kinesthetically - once learned to form, and that's when I wondered: Was I the last person in the world - at that moment - writing by hand? Was I the last hand standing?

I thought of my four daughters, all to whom Megan and I have stressed the importance of good handwriting AND proper typing skills (not to mention fundamental English grammar instead of text graffiti). They're learning the aforementioned joy of free writing, scribbling, and progress that handwriting provides as well as the digital version of diction that the educational elites are hurriedly hurtling us toward.

At least I thought they were learning. Weren't they learning?

I hoped so, but then the thought crossed my mind: were they learning from my enjoyment of writing - from my experience of the convenience of the scribble; the brevity of the note; the flow of the letter? Did they even know what Daddy's handwriting looked like? Could they read not only the meaning of my handwritten words, but the subtext beneath their father's flair? Could they do so in a personal letter from me in the future? Would they even know what a letter - a personal, intimate, handwritten letter that crinkled at one's touch and so often smelled of its sender - was?

I wondered. And I wonder.

So many ideas; so many dilemmas. And all this because I forgot my computer on the Wednesday night choir run. What post might I have come up with otherwise if I'd been able to type? I have no idea, but here's what this one looked like before my keyboard took all the fun out of it.

Biblical Imagination: New Opp w/ Michael Card

When I was 14, a friend of mine gave me my first Michael Card cassette, Scandalon. The year was 1985. Though quite different from the music my friends were listening to at the time, I was desperate for anything that spoke of my new friend, Jesus, who had just introduced Himself to me a few months earlier.

Thirty days later, I had worn out the tape.

While I enjoyed the richness of Michael’s distinct voice and memorable melodies, I was more intrigued by the words and phrases that made up his profound lyrics. Sadly, growing up in my small-town Methodist church, I had not heard much about (let alone begun to understand the meaning of) “the stone that makes men stumble and a rock that makes them fall” (Scandalon), or that “the Lamb is a Lion who’s roaring with rage” (The Lamb is a Lion), or that when we follow Christ, we are following “God’s own fool” (God’s Own Fool). I was fascinated.

Though little of the language made sense to me at the time, I kept listening (though I had to get another tape—where were CDs when I needed them?). I also began reading (barely) the Scriptures, which I didn’t understand much at first, either. But whether listening to Michael (and others), or “semi-reading” the Bible, the imagery of it all stuck with me, dancing in my high school-aged head at night, sparking a hunger and thirst within me not only for this imagery’s meaning, but for being able to respond to its meaning. That’s what the power of creativity can do...and that’s what it has done in my life.

In 2002, as the program director for The Navigators Glen Eyrie Group, I booked Mike for a series of conferences/concerts at the Glen and insisted he be part of planning them. This was surreal for me and new for Mike (he had never had the opportunity to actually speak into the planning of a retreat for which he had been booked), and together we created the Scribbling in the Sand Conference on Creativity.

Twenty-five years since that initial listen to Scandalon and five years since our last conference days, I'm flying to Nashville this weekend to hang with Mike, as he has asked me to join his team as a creative adviser/collaborator/teacher for the next stage of his ministry. Mike has just signed a four-book deal on the topic of biblical imagination with InterVarsity Press, has a new album coming out in February, and wants to converge all these together in a weekend retreat/conference experience beginning next year.

Because of our friendship and past ministry together, he's asked me to help, both as a facilitator and as a co-teacher like we used to do back in the day. I'm thrilled, especially since a majority of the teaching he's doing these days is in the summer, which works well with my own teaching schedule during the school year at Westminster Christian Academy.

As a friend of mine mentioned as we were having breakfast this morning, God does not waste a thing in our lives. Indeed, to trace the hand of God through all of this has been yet another significant lesson in the reality of God's sovereignty and the importance of our faithfulness in the littlest of things. I don't know all that lies ahead (whether with Mike or otherwise), but I do know that God does, and he has proven himself trustworthy far too many times throughout history (the world's and my own) to doubt him.

I'm sure I'll have more after the trip, but in the meantime, thanks for any prayers you may offer on my behalf. Pray I'll be faithful to what God (and Mike) may be asking me to do as part of this new opportunity, as well as to what I'm doing now here in St. Louis.

Summer 2010 Preview, Etc.

Sitting here on a Sunday night listening to some Lucinda Williams and doing a little writing. It's been a while since I've done a summary post of sorts, so since Megan and the girls are out of town and we're collectively an entire season behind to really make the LOST finale worth watching, here are a few things I've been thinking about and/or looking forward to:

School: This week is finals week, so I'll be spending most of my time grading. The good news is, unlike the past three years when I was evaluating projects and papers, I'm going into finals week with nothing other than finals to grade, so that should make for a little less consuming week in general.

In other school news, I've signed on for another year at Westminster, but my role is changing a bit as I'll be leaving the world of freshmen New Testament behind for fourth section of sophomore Ethics and one section of senior Worldviews next year. I'm glad for the transition all around.

One last note on the school front (this time the homeschool front), we're going to be entering a new stage of education here at home. This fall, our two oldest girls will be full-time students at Central Christian School in Clayton, while Megan continues leading the Classical Conversations group and homeschools our younger two (here are details from Megan's perspective).

Summer: In addition to writing (more on that below), my primary goal in June is to hang out with the little ladies, read some books, and get a few projects done around here. In addition, I'll help coach our Westminster summer baseball team for a week in June, as well as get trained on some new school information software, as I've been asked to be a mentor teacher to the rest of the staff this fall.

July ups the ante considerably in terms of travel, as we're planning a family trip to Colorado Springs, as the girls are now old enough (somehow) to attend The Navigators' camping programs (Eagle Lake and Eagle's Nest) we helped lead back in the day. I'll try to see as many folks as I can in a few days' time before I jump on a plane from Denver to Portland for my third year as part of Westminster's Summer Seminar. This time, I'll be investing ten days with 25 soon-to-be seniors in Washington state instead of South Dakota, after which I'll fly back to Colorado and then we'll all drive back to Missouri.

August sees staff reporting as earlier as the week of August 9th, but I'll have a few publishing projects to edit and design from the Washington trip, as well as a fair amount of prep work to finalize for my new Worldviews class. Orientation starts the 12th and the first day of class is the 16th.

Studying: Despite baseball high-jacking my time and energy, I've been reading in a couple areas of interest this spring, not the least of which has been the study of the end times, or eschatology. N.T. Wright's book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, has been helpful, as has revisiting my notes from seminary (particularly Dr. Dan Doriani's notes from his Epistles and Revelation class). Of the three years I've taught Revelation to my freshmen New Testament classes, I feel like I've done the best job this year.

I'm also finishing up a couple books on education, namely John Dewey and the Decline of American Education by Henry T. Edmondson III, Curriculum 21 edited by Heidi Hayes-Jacobs, and The Secret of TSL by William Ouchi. It seems I've been reading these for a while (and I have), but there's been some good content that's come as a result.

Looking ahead, I have some Worldviews reading to do this summer, including (Re)Thinking Worldview by J. Mark Bertrand; The Compact Guide to World Religions edited by Dean C. Halverson (ed.); The Journey by Peter Kreeft; Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey; and The Universe Next Door by James W. Sire. Should be fun.

Writing: Now that my second book, Learning Education: Essays & Ideas from My First Three Years of Teaching, is finished, I'm turning back to finishing the ThirtySomewhere manuscript this summer. I'm still looking for a formal publisher to get behind it, but now that I've experimented with the self-publishing gig a bit (and am still experimenting), I may go with what I've got at some point this fall and see what happens. We'll see.

I plan to continue blogging here, though I really wonder how much people are interested in anything longer than 140 Twitter characters these days. Speaking of which, I've enjoyed Twitter enough to keep using it, but there again I just have no way of really knowing how far the medium's actual reach is so as to invest more time in it. Oh well.

Guess that's it for now. There's more, but this is long enough. I'll try to post a few more thoughts later on this week (nothing brings out literary creativity like the desire to avoid grading). Have a good one.

Happy Post-Easter Thought

From Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright:

"As the reformers insisted, bodily death itself is the destruction of the sinful person. Someone once accused me of suggesting that God was a magician if he could wonderfully make a still-sinful person into a no-longer-sinful person just like that. But that's not the point. Death itself gets rid of all that is still sinful; this isn't magic but good theology. There is nothing then left to purge. Some older teachers suggested that purgatory would still be necessary because one would still need to bear some punishment for one's sins, but any such suggestion is of course abhorrent to anyone with even a faint understanding of Paul, who teaches that 'there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.'" (p. 170)

And continuing on in Romans 8:10-11:

"But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."

The point: death deals with sin and it is done; life comes by resurrection...and then after it, according to Wright, as resurrection is really "life after life after death." (p. 169)

Grateful to God for his mercy and grace to even be able to think, dwell, and hope on any of this today...

This Just In

We interrupt this discussion to bring you Megan's latest post - on baseball. Hints of spring, familiarity of home, America's pastime done on the cheap...I'm in love all over again.

Dispatch from Wartburg

As I lamented with a colleague my 2009 booklist, she made the observation that I had read little to no biographies in 2009 and ought to amend that for 2010. Taking her advice, I pulled off the shelf a 300-page biography on Martin Luther. Thus, in this first post of 2010, rather than critique something (as I am usually wont to do), I thought I'd share a few thoughts and quotes from my Christmas break reading. I hope they're encouraging as you start the new year in earnest this week.

The good thing about James Kittelson's Luther the Reformer is that it is an enjoyable and theologically astute biography with a balanced approach to a man often caricatured as "unbalanced" (make no mistake, Luther was no saint, but he lived very consistently). Kittelson early and accurately identifies so much of what drove Luther to be the Reformer we know him to be, but he does so in a way that is as human as it is theological:

"Luther discovered that true religion was far more than just the proper inclination of the heart and earnest attempts to work out his salvation. But every time he tried to fan his own spark of goodness, he found that all he was doing was focusing his attention on himself. From his own teachers, he knew that to think of himself was to be in his most sinful state. How then could he 'do what was within him' without yielding to the basest of motives, the desire to save his own skin? How could he possibly confess every one of his sins when he knew that he did so only for the purpose of currying the favor of a righteous God who would surely condemn him for them? Every act of confession therefore became yet another sin. The sincerity of the confession and of the acts of penance that followed was always in question. And if he himself questions his motives, how could they not have been more than dubious in the mind of a God who knew all and was always right?" (80)

The book is filled with original quotes from Luther, many of the ones below I resonate with in a deep and desperate way. Here are three which particularly struck me:

"Learn Christ and him crucified; despairing of yourself, learn to pray to him, saying, 'You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am your sin; you have taken on yourself what you were not and have given me what I was not.' Beware of aspiring to such purity that you no longer wish to appear to yourself, or to be, a sinner." (95)

"For it cannot be that a soul filled with its own righteousness can be replenished with the righteousness of God, who fills up only those who hunger and are thirsty. Therefore, whoever is full of his own truth and wisdom is not capable of the truth and wisdom of God, which cannot be received save by those who are empty and destitute." (99)

"The Christian life does not consist of being but of becoming, not of victory but the fight, not of righteousness but of justification, not of comprehending but of stretching forward, not of purity but of purification." (109)

In chronicling Luther's life, Kittelson is particularly insightful of both Luther's historical context of Roman Catholic corruption and God's use of him within it:

"Luther had developed a way of understanding the Christian life that utterly contradicted what he, and everyone else in his day, had been taught. He flatly denied that there was any possibility of becoming genuinely better in the presence of God. As time passed, Christians could hope only to become ever more radically dependent on the righteousness of God in Christ." (99)

In addition to the encouragement taken from the above passage, I took to heart the orator Mosellanus' description of Luther below:

"In his manner and bearing, he is very polite and friendly and has nothing of stoic severity or crabbiness about him; he comports himself well at all times. People chide him about only one failing, that in rebuttal he is somewhat more intense and biting than is appropriate for someone who wants to open new paths in theology and be regarded as taught by God." (145)

Ahem. Moving on, here's Luther on the concept of will:

"The human will is like a beast between [God and Satan]. If God sits on it, it wills and goes where God wills to go...If Satan sits on it, it will and goes where Satan wills. Nor does it have the power to choose which rider it will go to or seek, but the riders struggle over which of them will have it or rule it." (206)

On education (Luther, after all, was a professor as well as a theologian and pastor):

"If I could leave the office of preacher and my other duties, or were forced to do so, there is no other office I would rather have than that of schoolmaster or teacher of boys. For I know that next to the office of preaching, this is the best, the greatest, and the most useful there is. In fact, I am not absolutely certain which of the two is the better." (248-249)

And finally, with regard to depression and the importance of community (and despite my introverted preferences to the contrary, curse him):

"Satan delights in the solitude of Christians." (251)

While we in the Presbyterian branch of Protestantism often align ourselves more with Calvin than Luther in areas of systematic doctrine, church government, and the sacraments, if you haven't read any Luther lately, it might do your "frozen chosen" heart good to slip in a book or biography in 2010. It's done mine good in starting off the year.

I know I've got some Lutheran scholars lurking out there. What say you?

(About the title: In honor of Luther, I'm naming my home study space "Wartburg" (pronounced "Vartburg"), the castle to where Frederick of Saxony "kidnapped" Luther to save his life and from where Luther published a dozen books and translated the entire New Testament into German in a mere matter of months. Must have been the desk...)

Having the Appearance of Godliness, But Denying Its Power

“In his classic book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster reminds us that the spiritual disciplines are uniquely designed by God to allow us to receive his grace by allowing ‘us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us…We must always remember that the path does not produce the change; it only puts us in the place where the change can occur.’” The Leader’s Journey, p. 136

I’m trying to recall when in my life I’ve felt most spiritually disciplined. It hasn’t been often. My first thought goes back to my sophomore year of college, when I embraced (via The Navigators) the concept of Scripture memory and the Quiet Time (or “Q.T.,” as we affectionately called it then). I would rise every morning at 6 a.m. (after a 9:30 p.m. bedtime – unheard of for dorm life), make my way down the hall to the student lounge (which was always empty that early in the morning), and read, pray, write, memorize, and review verses for an hour. Over the next couple of years of doing this, I read through the Bible a few times, memorized (and retained) 2-3 verses a week, and filled 6 journals with my thoughts. I learned and grew a lot those three years, which was good. I was hungry to do so.

My second memory consists of a collage of my first three summers at Eagle Lake – first as a counselor responsible for the physical and spiritual care of a tee-pee of seven teenage kids each week, then as one of four program directors responsible for the whole camp (about 2,000 souls each summer). The sense of responsibility I felt was enormous, and my prayer life reflected it through multiple prayer walks (often in the same day) around the lake, across camp, and on a particular flat rock in the path leading to the A-frame. I prayed a lot those first three summers – sometimes out of gratitude, but mostly out of desperation – as the challenges felt immense and my ability to meet them seemed so small. These were hugely developmental times in terms of spiritual growth and leadership, and much of this had to do with those times spent in prayer, voicing my dependence to God.

If spiritual hunger and voicing my dependence to God are criteria for engaging in the spiritual disciplines, one might think there would be plenty more examples of having done so in my life. After all, since my days in college and at camp, I’ve gotten married, had four children, bought three different houses, written a book, traveled and spoken many times, experienced significant ministry transition, graduated from seminary, and now teach 100 high schoolers a day in my New Testament and Biblical Ethics classes. It would seem I have/have had reasons to exercise my dependence on God through spiritual disciplines.

Unfortunately, I haven’t felt spiritually disciplined for a long time, for in addition to the spiritual disciplines producing fruit in me in the past, they have also made me more competent at handling life and ministry in the here and now. Maturity, of course, is by God’s design, but competence is not meant to be an end in itself but a means to the end of continuing spiritual transformation and formation. This is what Foster means when he writes, “the path does not produce the change; it only puts us in the place where the change can occur.” Thus, when I have been most desperate, it has been when I have been most spiritually disciplined – not because I had to be, but because I needed to be.

In considering all this (and I do often), I think of Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 3:2-5:

“For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”

Sadly, I recognize myself too much in these verses – not in every way mentioned, but in more ways than I care to admit. The appearance of godliness – so often mistaken as competence – too easily hides my desperation for God. Self-reliance and self-sufficiency – values affirmed in our culture – too often numb my felt need to practice the spiritual disciplines as they numb my real need to experience God. Spiritual disciplines can help me realize what’s going on in my life, but only God has power to transform my heart.

City of God or Country of God?

Maybe I've read too many Wendell Berry books, but it's taken some time for me - a country boy - to come around to the thought of the city being a cherished part of the Christian mission. Indeed, I get the concept of the biblical narrative taking us from the Garden (Genesis) to the City (Revelation), and it does seem God spends an awful lot of time in the Scriptures interacting with ancient cities and their inhabitants, but it's only been since moving to a big city myself that my heart has warmed to the idea.

Growing up six miles outside a town of 1,200 (Griggsville, IL - "Purple Martin Capital of the Nation") two hours north of the STL, my big city experiences were few and far between. When I did visit St. Louis or Chicago (which my family rarely did), or even when I traveled overseas at the age of 16 to major cities like London, Paris, or Munich, I was rarely scared by them, but I was not all that enamored, either. While I enjoyed the idea of being there, the cities all felt too touristy to me (granted, a tourist), and I just couldn't figure out who or how one enjoyed living in a place so overrun by millions of non-residents.

This theme continued when I moved west. Colorado Springs - as beautiful as it can be - seemed to prostitute itself to the spring break and summer tourist crowds. Add to that feeling the fact that there's absolutely no good way to drive east-west in town (which was unfortunate, since that was how we had to go to get to our PCA church), and I began to lament our attempts at church community in the city. I couldn't figure out how church "happened" naturally and personally in a city of 350,000, let alone 3.5 million.

Then we moved to St. Louis - a classic example of an American city that has suffered from decades of racial tension, white flight to the suburbs, and inner-city poverty (both financial and human). As the middle-class moved out, so grew with them the megachurches. Harvie Conn, in his book The American City and the Evangelical Church, sums up well what seems to have gone on here and in other metropolitan areas like it:

"The community church has become a regional church. And in becoming a regional church it becomes a megachurch...In this decentralized world the church loses its grip on local geographical neighborhood and is transformed into a megachurch, twenty-five minutes by car. The size of the megachurch becomes limited only by the size of its parking lot. And the lost community created by this change finds its replacement in the small cell groups and house meetings also characteristic of the successful megachurch." (p. 191)

(Random thought: Maybe this is why I really don't like small groups - it's an unconscious rebelling against megachurches everywhere. Actually, I love the Catholic "parish model" with churches geographically placed throughout the city and members living within the neighborhood attending; in fact, if it weren't for those pesky doctrinal issues - worship of Mary, sainthood, purgatory, etc. - I'd probably have become Catholic by now if for no other reason than I love the architecture. But I digress.)

After we moved to Maplewood (where we live half a house from the St. Louis city/county line), we knew we wanted to be part of as local a PCA congregation as we could. Thankfully, Crossroads Presbyterian was just a ten-minute walk around the corner and up the hill from the house we bought, and we're glad for the fact that in terms of both vision and facility, there are no plans nor means to grow the church beyond 300 members without planting another church (which we're actually doing now) first.

All that said, my heart for the city (Maplewood and/or St. Louis proper) is growing in addition to my heart for the country. Yes, I'm still waiting for the PCA to catch a vision for church planting in more rural areas, but I know it's tough financially and (honestly) culturally. But, while I still feel the need to be an advocate for rural ministry here in the city, I'm glad to feel an expanding love in this country boy's heart for the city as well.

So, with apologies to Augustine, is it the city of God or the country of God that matters?

My best answer: yes.

Mid-Week Memo

It's been a while since I've done a random links post, so since it's mid-week and I'm always looking for an excuse not to grade something, here are a few items that might strike someone's fancy:

• It's tough being married to a celebrity, as more and more people know me as "Megan's husband." This will probably continue for at least another month since I'm married to one of the six official members of the St. Louis Mom Squad. The cool part is the role comes with new wheels (temporarily, that is - click link for details).
• As it was a slow day in the bookstore yesterday, I read the first 75 pages of Donald Miller's new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The first couple of chapters have some great quotables about understanding life as story, and the following chapters provide humorous illustration of the ideas. I liked it.
• My wife and daughters are pretty excited that Owl City is coming to The Pageant in January. Megan is contemplating getting tickets for all of us to go as a family, which I'm presuming would probably be different from their normal crowd.
• I've always wanted my own op-ed column in a newspaper; this opportunity with the Washington Post may be my big break (of course, it requires me writing something for consideration - any suggestions?).
• In case you hadn't heard, I reluctantly started using Twitter a few weeks ago. While I'm still evaluating its real value (some general stats), I have enjoyed following/stalking a few people here and there (search for "SecondDrafts" to see whom, as well as to follow me if you like).

That's it for now. I need to finish well the day so as to get ready for the black tie/red carpet vehicle pick-up tonight with the Mrs. and Misses. Honestly, I don't mind being "the husband," but the paparazzi can be annoying.

Words to Live/Write By

"If you would not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten
Either write things worth reading
Or do things worth the writing"
Benjamin Franklin

Sobering Up

Maybe I'm just suffering from a DNC hangover, but apparently I'm not the only one. You have to read David Brooks' column in the New York Times today. It's a little cynical for him, but see if you can spot some truth in and among the overstatement. Here's his opening paragraph:

"My fellow Americans, it is an honor to address the Democratic National Convention at this defining moment in history. We stand at a crossroads at a pivot point, near a fork in the road on the edge of a precipice in the midst of the most consequential election since last year’s 'American Idol.'”

Read the rest here.

Letters to Malcolm by C.S. Lewis

Despite his stated belief in purgatory (albeit somewhat qualified) and some interesting linguistic gymnastics on the topic of bodily resurrection, C.S. Lewis's last book (published post-humously), Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, offers insight and comfort regarding the duty (and sometimes drudgery) of prayer. Some favorite quotes:

"We have long since agreed that if our prayers are granted at all they are granted from the foundation of the world. God and His acts are not in time. Intercourse between God and man occurs at particular moments for the man, but not for God. If there is - as the very concept of prayer presupposes - an adaptation between the free actions of men in prayer and the course of events, this adaptation is from the beginning inherent in the great single creative act. Our prayers are heard - don't say 'have been heard' or you are putting God into time - not only before we make them but before we are made ourselves." (p. 48)

"I have never met a book on prayer which was much use to people in our position. There are many little books of prayers...but you and I wouldn't know what to do with them. It's not words we lack! And there are books on prayer, but they nearly all have a strongly conventual background. Even the Imitation [of Christ by Thomas a Kempis] is sometimes, to an almost comic degree, 'not addressed to my condition.' The author assumes that you will want to be chatting in the kitchen when you ought to be in your cell. Our temptation is to be in our studies when we ought to be chatting in the kitchen. (Perhaps if our studies were as cold as those cells it would be different.)" (p. 62)

"It is well to have specifically holy places, and things, and days, for, without these focal points or reminders, the belief that all is holy and 'big with God' will soon dwindle into a mere sentiment. But if these holy places, things, and days cease to remind us, if they obliterate our awareness that all ground is holy and every bush (could we but perceive it) a Burning Bush, then the hallows begin to do harm. Hence both the necessity, and the perennial danger, of 'religion.'" (p. 75)

"An omission or disdain of petitionary prayer can sometimes, I think, spring not from superior sanctity but from a lack of faith and a consequent preference for levels where the question 'Am I only doing things to myself?' does not just out in such apparent crudity." (p. 87)

"William Law remarks that people are merely 'amusing themselves' by asking for the patience which a famine or a persecution would call for if, in the meantime, the weather and every other inconvenience sets them grumbling. One must learn to walk before one can run. So here. We - or at least I - shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not have 'tasted and seen.' Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures 'patches of Godlight' in the woods of our experience." (p. 91)"

"The truth is, I haven't any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life. If I weakened it enough it would cease to be language at all. As when you try to turn the gas-ring a little lower still, and it merely goes out. Then again, by talking at this length about prayer at all, we seem to give it a much bigger place in our lives than, I'm afraid, it has. For while we talk about it, all the rest of our experience, which in reality crowds our prayer in to the margin or sometimes off the page altogether, is not mentioned. Hence, in the talk, an error of proportion which amounts to, though it was not intended for, a lie." (p. 113)

"I have a notion that what seem our worst prayers may really be, in God's eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling and contend with the greatest disinclination. For these, perhaps, being nearly all will, come from a deeper level than feeling. In feeling there is so much that is really not ours - so much that comes from weather and health or from the last book read. One thing seems certain. It is no good angling for the rich moments. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when He catches us, as it were, off our guard. Our preparations to receive Him sometimes have the opposite effect. Doesn't Charles Williams say somewhere that 'the altar must often be built in one place in order that the fire from heaven may descend somewhere else?'" (p. 117)

A kindred spirit (but an incomparable writer)...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Interpretation

A few weeks ago, a post in which I wrote on gay marriage got quite a bit of traffic and discussion. In the midst of the interactions, some important questions came up pertaining to my use of the Bible as the basis for my thinking.

For instance, escapethedrain wrote in comment #2:

"If you are using the bible to prove your point that homosexuality is wrong, then you also have to include the scripture that says:

(1 Tim. 2:12)
'Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.'

(Lev 19.18b)
'You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.'

Do you believe in this as well? I am interested in your response."

In addition, transientreporter wrote in comment #3:

"Mull over this:

(Deuteronomy 13:7-11)
'If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or your intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known,gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the LORD, your God…'

The bible is a deeply ugly book."

I summed up the tensions (see comment #5) as being 1) the use of ancient Scripture (Old and New Testaments) to address modern issues, and 2) the brutality of the Bible. While I'm not sure if the two readers who asked the questions are still reading (thanks for sticking around if you are), I promised to try to address their questions, so I will (though it's going to take a couple of posts to do it - hang with me).

Let me start with an illustration. As part of the recent build-up to the new Indiana Jones movie (which I've still yet to see), Slate ran a review that started with this:

"If some 32nd-century archeologist were to unearth a DVD copy of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount), her first task—after converting the barbaric early digital technology to a more current brain-wave-based viewing system—would be to understand what this object meant to the culture that created it...Though it's a scholar's job to shed her 32nd-century prejudices and understand the belief systems of those long dead, our archeologist will have to ask herself: What were these scribes thinking?"

When I read this, I thought immediately of our recent discussion. It's true: many aspects of the Bible can seem foreign to us because of where we are (or aren't) historically in relation to them. However, we aren't being fair to the Scripture (or to any ancient text) if we approach it with our 21st-century prejudices.

For instance, I just finished reading Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion. Make no mistake, Dawkins is a good writer, but listen for the modern bias in his take (found on page 269 in case anyone's following along) on the beginning of the Old Testament:

"Begin in Genesis with the well-loved story of Noah, derived from the Babylonian myth of Uta-Napisthim and known from the older mythologies of several cultures. The legend of the animals going into the ark two by two is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children and also, for good measure, the rest of the (presumably blameless) animals as well."

Dawkins continues:

"Of course, irritated theologians will protest that we don't take the book of Genesis literally any more. But that is my whole point! We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories. Such picking and choosing is a matter of personal decision, just as much, or as little, as the athiest's decision, without an absolute foundation."

Dawkins then dismisses the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18 and 19 and the Levite and his concubine in Judges 19 before starting in on the New Testament and questioning Jesus' "somewhat dodgy family values" (page 284).

For the record, I agree with Dawkins that, unfortunately, there are plenty of theologians who don't take Genesis literally any more, but I am not one of them. This doesn't (or shouldn't) make me a flaming fundamentalist by default; I do not read Genesis as a science book anymore than I read Song of Songs as a recipe. I read Genesis as narrative and Song of Songs as poetry, for reading either as something they're not does not respect their genres as literature, which, in my mind, is as big a problem for fundamentalists as a figurative-only reading.

But I digress.

My point is that Dawkins (an evolutionary biologist) gives little to no consideration to the first basic rule of hermeneutics (interpretation) - that is, we have to understand an author's intent as well as the needs of the author's first readers to rightly understand the text. Dawkins seems only interested in picking apart the text; likewise, if any reader does not interact with ancient writings beyond their words, then she is not playing by the rules of good exegesis.

So, getting back to the questions above, what was the Apostle Paul's intent and his audience's needs that caused him to write about women and submission? What were Moses' purposes and the needs of the nation (not the state) of Israel that led him to encourage loving one's neighbor in Leviticus and, at the same time, punish his neighbor so violently if he enticed him to forsake God? We have to try to get as close to these original intents and audiences before we can begin figuring out what (if any) meaning these passages have now.

And that's where we'll start tomorrow...

On Nostalgia

"Nostalgia undermines the ability to make intelligent use of the past. Memory, in contrast, does not idealize the past to condemn the present, but draws hope from the past in order to enrich the present and guide the future." Christopher Lasch

"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be." Peter De Vries

Listening to Lamott

Last night my nine-year-old and I went to hear author Anne Lamott read from her new book, Grace (Eventually). The setting for the evening was the "sanctuary" of the Ethical Society of St. Louis, and the place was packed with at least 500-600 folks eager to hear Lamott's random but winsome thoughts about writing, politics, and religion. Judging by their response, she did not disappoint.

I've read four of Lamott's books: Bird by Bird (her book on writing); Blue Shoe (a novel - eh); Operating Instructions (a journal of her son's first year of life); and Traveling Mercies (her first book on "faith"). I think we have Plan B (more thoughts on faith) somewhere on the shelf, and I've read various essays she's written for Salon over the years.

In other words, I'm a fan.

Lamott makes no bones about her political distaste for all things Republican (especially George Bush and Dick Cheney), but there was almost none of the verbal expletives or berating for which I had prepared my daughter and myself (though I'm no fan, either); when she wasn't gracious, she was super-clever in making her points, and she found a supportive crowd for her most stinging critiques.

Lamott's personal story is one of redemption to be sure - single mother battling alcohol addiction finds way back to church and writes her way out of a bad situation. She wears (and shows) the scars of her life admirably in the stories she writes and in the change she lives, and it was fun hearing more of these in her own voice (if you've read any of her work, she's as funny in person as she is in her writing).

And yet, as good as Lamott is on the details of her craft, she glosses over quite a bit when it comes to religion. Jesus "works" for her, yes, but she's very accommodating to "one mountain, many paths" thinking (or at least she said so last night). Heavily influenced by the feminist movement, liberation theology (read: Christian socialism) and her PCUSA church in Marin County, CA, when asked about the most influential man and woman in her life, Lamott named her politically active parents (both now deceased), though that influence was both for the good (her father) and the bad (her mother). It was both a touching yet bittersweet reflection.

We didn't stick around for the book sale/signing afterward, but I'll probably read the new book on grace (eventually). Regardless, what last night confirmed to me was that Lamott still seems to be Lamott, and though I have questions as to what she says she believes, I take much joy in who she is.

Introducing

As an unofficial ambassador for the blogosphere, let me introduce you to three new blogs (and the people behind them) worth your reading time in the future:

• My Life in Sweat Pants - a good friend from my old Navigator days, Leura is a freelance editor and terrific writer (and I say that not just because she chooses to use proper grammar and punctuation on her blog) who writes, "After 14 years at the same job, I'm now a 30-something mom of four kids who suddenly finds herself unemployed and wondering what's next." Warm and thoughtful writing.


• The Golden Dragon - if you're into the fantasy genre at all, you'll want to check out what friend and co-worker (we teach together at Westminster), L.B. Graham, is doing online. Soon to finish up his five-book Binding of the Blade fantasy series, L.B. talks about his future publishing plans, as well as shares some personal reflections on writing, faith, and life. Insightful and well-written.


• Christocentric - friend and former co-worker (we taught together at Wildwood), Matt Heckel, has just written his first of what promises to be many posts of intellectually and philosophically-challenging topics. Matt has his PhD in Reformation Studies from Concordia, so he's always good for a Luther story as well. Glad to see him blogging, and looking forward to post number two.

Anyway, if you would, pay these folks a visit and tell them Craig sent you. And, of course, if you're not subscribing to Second Drafts, let me encourage you to do so through Bloglines - it will save you tons of time, and might just change your life.*

(*results vary, depending on degree of blogaholism; check with your doctor for details)

Emerging Evangelicalism?

Rob Bell was featured in Time last week, causing somewhat of a stir among the evangelical faithful that perhaps an heir apparent to the fading Billy Graham is emerging. Bell, of course, is used to "emerging" - he's founding pastor of Mars Hill Church (which I think I visited once back in the mid-90's but can't remember) in Grand Rapids, as well as part of a movement known as the "emerging church" or the "emerging conversation".

I recently took a weekend class on all this, and one of the most helpful things the speaker (Darrin Patrick, lead pastor of The Journey here in St. Louis and member of the Acts 29 Network) did was identify three predominant streams within the emerging movement. (If you're interested in any of this, you can hear the same opening session I did here.)

According to Patrick, Bell floats on the "emerging conversational stream," which is "mainly after theological revision by challenging evangelical theology." Patrick's other two streams are "emerging attractional," which is mainly after methodological revision," and "emerging incarnational," which is "mainly after structural revision" (think 'house church' here).

Patrick’s filling in of the proverbial “lineup cards” was helpful, as I was able to mentally organize some of the names I knew were in the conversation. Regardless of what you call it (or which stream you prefer to float on - I'd be an "emerging attractional" guy myself), the ultimate question is not what the "emergent church" is emerging from, but what is it emerging to?

This is where Bell's latest press becomes interesting. I've not read Sex God, but I have recently read Velvet Elvis. While I know Bell is a dynamic speaker and communicator, I have not heard him speak, and this was the first writing of his I’ve read. I appreciated his tone in presenting his thoughts and ideas, as his writing voice is one of gentle passion and reasonable zeal. I liked the combination.

However, this attractive combination – whether intentionally or unintentionally – provides cover for some ideas that, though sounding good, are more problematic than Bell’s tone implies. It’s not that all of what he writes seems wrong; it’s just not all of it seems right.

I think the biggest problematic area involves Bell’s theology of what and for whom Jesus’ atonement was. In many ways, Bell comes off as a universalist when he states that, “…this reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody. Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross, he was reconciling ‘all things, in heaven and on earth, to God’. All things, everywhere.” (146) Graham has been accused of similar universalist tendencies as well.

Without more qualification (and written in his gracious tone), Bell’s conclusion that, “Heaven is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for” and “Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for” (146) implies a soteriology having more do with us choosing well and less to do with a Sovereign God’s limited (but completely saving) atonement as taught per the Scriptures (and clarified by the Reformed systematic).

Another area of concern is Bell’s leveling of the authority of “binding and loosing.” In the course of a couple short paragraphs, Bell explains how in ancient times, “…a rabbi would bind certain practices and loose other practices,” and then give his disciples the authority to do the same. He goes on to explain that Jesus followed suit with his disciples, and how we can do the same today (that is, “giving his followers the authority to make new interpretations of the Bible,” and “somehow God in heaven will be involved.” (50)

The authority Jesus gave the disciples he gave to the apostles (that is, to the twelve), and this authority does not automatically pass down to followers of Christ today, as it was an apostolic responsibility ending with the apostles and the closing of the canon of Scripture, rather than a license to reinterpret Scripture’s meaning over and over through time. I believe there was one meaning intended by the apostles, and it is our goal as disciples coming after them to affirm and adhere to it.

While these (and perhaps a few other smaller) areas were problematic for me, I did think Bell had some good things to say about a variety of things, particularly the unfortunate continuation of the sacred/secular split (85), the significance of the Sabbath (117-118), and true counter-cultural living (163). I wouldn’t say I trust all of his theological insights, but in terms of common sense observation, I think he makes some good points.

Anybody got thoughts on this?

JPod Quotes

Three favorite quotes (among others) from various characters in Douglas Coupland's JPod:

• "You can't fake creativity, competence, or sexual arousal."


• "After a week of intense googling, we've started to burn out knowing the answer to everything. God must feel that way all the time. I think people in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless."


• "It turns out that only twenty percent of human beings have a sense of irony - which means that eighty percent of the world takes everything at face value. I can't imagine anything worse than that. Okay, maybe I can, but imagine reading the morning newspaper and believing it all to be true on some level."

His storylines go nowhere and his characters are all the same, but when it comes to cultural observation wrapped in irony and realism, there's nobody better. I love Douglas Coupland.

Dorothy Sayers on War

Just finished a little 100-page book titled Creed or Chaos?, a collection of essays written by Dorothy Sayers at the height of World War II. Consider the timeliness of these quotes:

"The people who say that this is a war of economics or of power politics, are only dabbling about on the surface of things. Even those who say it is a war to preserve freedom and justice and faith have gone only halfway to the truth. The real questions is what economics and politics are to be used for; whether freedom and justice and faith have any right to be considered at all; at bottom it is a violent and irreconciable quarrel about the nature of God and the nature of man and the ultimate nature of the universe; it is a war of dogma." (28)

"War is a judgment that overtakes societies when they have been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing the universe. People who would not revise their ideas voluntarily find themselves compelled to do so by the sheer pressure of the events which these very ideas have served to bring about." (64)

"Shall we be prepared to take the same attitude to the arts of peace as to the arts of war? I see no reason why we should not sacrifice our convenience and our individual standard of living just as readily for the building of great public works as for the building of ships and tanks - but when the stimulus of fear and anger is removed, shall we be prepared to do any such thing?" (68)

Would it be accurate to say that the majority of us have sacrificed little "convenience" or "individual standard of living" this time around? And how crazy does Sayers' idea of doing so for something other than war seem? Talk about your whacked out biblical craziness...

David Brooks: "The Odyssey Years"

My favorite New York Times writer, David Brooks, had an interesting piece Tuesday on a new stage of life he's calling "the odyssey years". While I didn't pay him anything to write it, his is a fantastic endorsement of a certain book I'd shamelessly recommend. But I digress. He writes:

"There used to be four common life phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Now, there are at least six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age. Of the new ones, the least understood is odyssey, the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood."

Actually, there used to be two: childhood and adulthood. Still, I do think his new categories (odyssey and active retirement) are accurate, and he's spot on in his analysis of the particular contrast he describes young people experiencing during the first thirty years of their lives:

"You can see the spirit of fluidity that now characterizes this stage. Young people grow up in tightly structured childhoods...but then graduate into a world characterized by uncertainty, diversity, searching and tinkering. Old success recipes don’t apply, new norms have not been established and everything seems to give way to a less permanent version of itself."

This "less permanent vision" is, of course, fed by postmodernism, which doesn't really help in figuring life out, at least not by providing any kind of unifying, overarching narrative to fit into and make sense of things. The philosophical shift between modernism and postmodernism is real. Whereas the modern (a la Descartes) said, "I think; therefore, I am," the postmodern says, "I doubt; therefore, I hope I am." Try making concrete decisions about life from this particular vantage point - it's difficult.

I appreciated Brooks' perspective that people in their twenties are not slackers. My observations have been the same, and I marvel at times how hard-working young people going through this stage of life can be:

"The odyssey years are not about slacking off. There are intense competitive pressures as a result of the vast numbers of people chasing relatively few opportunities. Moreover, surveys show that people living through these years have highly traditional aspirations (they rate parenthood more highly than their own parents did) even as they lead improvising lives.

Brooks' conclusion is that it's time to recognize "the odyssey years" as a legitimate stage of life and to call it what it is - an odyssey:

"What we’re seeing is the creation of a new life phase, just as adolescence came into being a century ago. It’s a phase in which some social institutions flourish — knitting circles, Teach for America — while others — churches, political parties — have trouble establishing ties."

I agree, both with the recognition of the stage, as well as with Brooks' observation that the Church tends to have challenges in dealing with it. The key, however, is that we in the Church don't ostracize and let alone twenty-somethings until they get life figured out. This was the mentality that fueled the whole separate youth group idea for adolescents back in the fifties and sixties, and I don't think that's worked too well, either.

On the contrary, we in the Church need to passionately pursue and include those in this stage of life as part of our congregations, our families, our personal relationships, living out the meta narrative of the Christian story, vividly contrasting its brilliance against the drab background of postmodernism, and making the "odyssey years" the most developmental years in a person's life, which, I believe, they are.

But you can read the book (or at least the free sample chapter) for more about that...

Who Are the Real Adolescents?

Columnist Diana West has a new book out that I hope is even half as good as its quotes. The book is called The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization and, while the subtitle is perhaps overdramatic, her thesis is right on. If you read nothing else of this post, at least read this:

"Once, there was a world without teenagers. Literally, 'teenager,' the word itself, doesn't pop into the lexicon much before 1941. That means that for all but this most recent period of history, there were children and adults. Children in their teen years aspired to adulthood; significantly, they didn't aspire to adolescence. Certainly, men and women didn't aspire to remain teenagers.

Today, turning thirteen, instead of bringing children closer to an adult world, launches them into a teen universe. And due to the fold our culture has placed on the maturation process, that's where they're likely to find the adults. Most of us have grown up - or, at least, grown - into this new kind of adulthood, this perpetual adolescence so much the norm that it's difficult to recognize it as the profound civilizational shift that it is."

Ever heard the phrase "thirty is the new twenty" with regard to young adults getting married, having kids, and figuring things out in life? Ever wonder why teenagers try to act like adults while adults often act like teenagers? According to an interview with West, here may be part of the answer:

"The extent to which social and cultural distinctions between children and adults--who dress the same, all say 'cool,' and even watch cartoons--had disappeared. I began to realize I was witnessing at a personal level the same displays of perpetual adolescence in reluctant adults around me ('I'm too young to be called 'mister'') that I was observing in society at large. This led me to make all sorts of connections between the emergence of youth culture in the 1950s, its tantrums in the 1960s, the so-called culture wars that followed, the establishment of multiculturalism, the ascendance of non-judgmentalism and more."

More than anything, we in society (especially in the Church) need children to grow up into adults and then into real and true parents. This doesn't only mean physically and literally, but also emotionally and spiritually. Indeed, we have many people in the Church who are adults, but how many act like older and wiser parents who expect and aspire to be (and be viewed as) older and wiser? Again, West is insightful:

"The unprecedented transfer of cultural authority from adults to adolescents over the past half century or so has dire implications for the survival of the Western world. In other words, what I call the death of the grown-up is not just about sophomorically bad music or babyishly dopey movies (although it's about that as well). Having redirected our natural development away from adulthood and maturity in order to strike the pop-influenced pose of eternally cool youth - ever-open, non-judgmental, self-absorbed, searching for (or just plain lacking) identity - we have fostered a society marked by these same traits, which are usually associated with adolescence."

I'm ordering the book now.

Original Sin

Good quote today concerning original sin from the book, Beyond Identity, by Dick Keyes:

"The original sin is refusal to be and live as a creature and instead to pretend at knowing better than God himself, to set oneself up as the ultimate judge...The original sin is not always expressed in conscious animosity toward God. More often it is a polite relegation of God to irrelevance."

Polite relegation of God to irrelevance. Yep, that about sums it up for me.

The Big Read

Our little book club at Memorial is taking part in The Big Read, a national effort modeled on successful "city read" programs designed to encourage literary reading by helping communities come together to read and discuss a single book. The selected book is Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

Lectures, readings, art exhibitions, theater productions, book discussion groups, and film festivals are occurring in a variety of locations throughout St. Louis, all featuring themes and questions that Fahrenheit 451 raises about the power of books and reading.

There are several informal discussions of the book going on on Washington University's campus in February, and two discussions will be held at Kemper Art Museum on Sunday Feb. 11 and 18 at 2:00 p.m., followed by a docent led tour of the museum's new exhibition called Reality Bites: Making Avant-Garde Art in Post Wall Germany.

Our fearless leader, Heidi Kolk, has given us a month to read the book, culminating with a discussion on Sunday evening, February 18th (all are welcome - if you'd like to join us, drop me an email for details). Megan and I are hoping to take part in at least one of the community-sponsored events as well.

To possibly whet your appetite, below is a review I wrote of Fahrenheit 451 when I first read it a couple of years ago. The review is hardly in-depth, but it might give you an idea of the basic story and serve as an encouragement to pick up and read a good book.

With all the publicity generated by Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, I thought it might be a good idea to read Ray Bradbury's original book of similar title. Fahrenheit 451 represents the temperature at which paper burns, which is fitting considering Bradbury's book is about censorship, and I enjoyed the futuristic story (which takes place now, fifty years later from when he originally wrote it) as it bears great and realistic resemblance to our ever-interesting (and complicated) world today.

The story follows one Guy Montag, a "fireman" whose job it is not to put out fires, but to start them in homes whose owners are reportedly hiding books. All seems well and fine to Guy (who has been burning books for ten years) until he has a conversation with Clarisse, a 17-year-old girl who questions him about his present occupation.

This gets Guy asking questions in his head, and at his next fire, he secretly salvages some books as part of his consideration of Clarisse's inquiries. He then meets a former professor (with no books, there is not much to teach; hence the "former" qualifier) and he relates to Guy that just because books are banned doesn't mean their content is lost and may one day be reclaimed.

Seeing the literary light, Guy has a drastic change of heart and, in the course of 24 hours, plots to single-handedly rage against the censorship machine, risking his job, relationships, and life to evoke such revolution. The rest of the book details his crusade, his ideas and motives that accompany it, and resolves in a satisfying and hopeful manner as he joins forces with other "book people" to one day create a new beginning from the ashes of censorship.

A bit vague and hodge-podge at the start, Bradbury's writing style smoothes out to tell a good story at a good pace. While his characters are semi-developed at best, Bradbury's main idea and overarching themes branching out from it are most interesting, especially when read in the light of the current political climate and clash of government mistrust and freedom of speech.

Comparable to George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 is probably the most believable of these three "doomed future" stories as it does not come across so "futuristic" as it does "future-is-now" in terms of plot and perspective.

Of all three books, Fahrenheit 451 seems most organic in its storytelling, and this perhaps is what makes it more frightening to think that a few generations of bad decisions could very well cast us into a cauldron of censorship, a concept so foreign to us right now that it makes it all the more scary to think about and believe.

Links for the Weekend

If all goes well, you probably won't hear much from me until early next week. Now that my two-week Pastoral Theology intensive ended this morning, I've got a couple papers to write, the larger of which is a ten-pager on "whatever aspect of your understanding, personality or character you consider might be most problematic for a diligent and faithful ministry." Folks around here just call it "the sin paper." Only ten pages? At least I don't lack for material.

In addition to the paper writing, I'll also be finalizing the syllabus for the high school Bible class I'm teaching this fall at Wildwood Christian School. I will (hopefully) post the class assignments here next week, just in case anyone wants to follow along in their own studies through the fall (I'm teaching on the history of the nation of Israel through the Old Testament, so again, no lack for material).

I wanted to share a couple of really great links that, if you're at all like me in liking things well-done, you'll appreciate. The first is the Access Foundation's list of The Great Books, a mind-blowing bibliography "from the ancient classics to the masterpieces of the 20th century...that are all the introduction you’ll ever need to the ideas, stories, and discoveries that have shaped modern civilization." Some of the links aren't as up-to-date as others, but the list of books is impressive. Also check out Mortimer Adler's Center for the Study of the Great Ideas.

In case you're preparing to teach any kind of biblical history this fall (in Sunday School, to a class, to your kids - whatever), be sure to check out the Bible Atlas Online, which has over 170 quality full-screen maps of biblical geography available for free download. These are some of the more attractive maps I've come across (especially for the price). I downloaded them all.

If you're a Mac user who also happens to be in school, check out 18-year-old Logan Collins' site and his free Schoolhouse software. Set up with an iTunes-like interface, Schoolhouse is my new assignment organizer of choice and blows away my pseudo-hack of iCal to achieve a similar (but lacking) set-up. If you download it, leave the guy a donation as he's just starting school (albeit at KU - "rock chawk chicken hawk") and he could probably use the money.

By the way, hat tip to Ed for most of these previous links. He's a surf junkie.

Finally (and following up on some ideas in my previous post), here's a well-written and insightful article on life management by World Magazine's Andree Seu called "Invisible Monkeys: They’re on Our Backs, and Getting Them Off Will Unleash Creativity". I liked this piece because it presents life management from more of a Christian worldview than most books and gurus do, connecting some dots from the how to the why. (Note: If you're a magazine subscriber, you can read it for free; if not, you'll only get the first fourth or so.)

Have a good weekend, everybody. And pages to go before I post...

The Irrelevance of Relevance

I’d always heard about (and wanted to read for some time) Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, a book about Nouwen’s life and ministry working with the mentally handicapped after being a priest, as well as a professor at Harvard.

Why the move? Nouwen writes:

“After twenty-five years of priesthood, I found myself praying poorly, living somewhat isolated from other people, and very much preoccupied with burning issues...I woke up one day with the realization that I was living in a very dark place and that the term ‘burnout’ was a convenient psychological translation for a spiritual death...Everyone was saying that I was doing really well, but something inside was telling me that my success was putting my own soul in danger.” (20)

So, he moved to L’Arche, a faith-based community founded by Jean Vanier in France in 1964 "to bring together people, some with developmental disabilities and some without, who choose to share their lives by living together." Nouwen describes the transition as "from the best and brightest, wanting to rule the world, to men and women who had few or no words and were considered, at best, marginal to the needs of our society.” (22)

In the book, Nouwen struggles with his own sense and desire for relevance:

“Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety. I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment. In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again. Relationships, connections, reputations could no longer be counted on.” (28)

In a one-year-past kind of way, I resonate with Nouwen’s experience, remembering back to our first summer here at Covenant and being, for the most part, unknown to so many. Gone were the twelve years of ministry and memories with The Navigators; in their place were fears of what others might think of me (or perhaps more honestly, fears of whether people would even think of me at all). I went through this crisis of anonymity for most of the summer, reliving it with every new introduction. It was awful and yet needed, as I realized how so much of who I was could (still) be wrapped up in other people’s perspectives of who I was. It was junior high all over again, and I had made the mistake of believing I had graduated.

For me, the challenge of relevance has everything to do with the fact that I think I can and should be relevant to the world. This, I suppose, drives my quest to read, to think, to write, to learn. These are all good things in and of themselves, but they become drudgery when I feel I don’t do them enough – read enough, think enough, write enough, learn enough. This “enough” factor should be a diagnostic for me that I’m moving from a healthy to an unhealthy perspective of myself and who God has created and redeemed me to be, namely his child.

As Nouwen chronicles his experience with those at L’Arche, it’s obvious how impacted he was by the acceptance of those in the community and also how little his relevance to them or others counted. Perhaps this is what handicapped people can teach us – that we who are consumed by the quest for relevance are the ones who are sadly but truly handicapped:

“The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love.” (30)

I’m grateful for men like Nouwen who have gone before me in the process and had the courage to share their experience with others. The book is a short one (a booklet, really - only 107 small pages), and a helpful, reflective read that might help see the irrelevance of relevance.

Meet Edward Abbey

Just got my copy of Orion magazine today and spent some quality time with it this evening. Of particular enjoyment was a collection of unpublished letters written by the late Edward Abbey (think Wendell Berry with a mean streak), about whom the editors write:

"Hands down, no one did more to inspire, entertain, refresh, and invigorate eco-activists and environmental defenders in the latter half of the twentieth century than Edward Abbey."

I don't consider myself much of an "eco-activist" nor an "environmental defender," but being a farm kid (and a Christian), I want to love God's creation more than I already do. After all, as Abbey writes (pre-1990, mind you):

"The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chainsaws. It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."

Gulp.

(Note: I also like Abbey's writing because he uses the semicolon a lot. Regardless of your personal opinion/use of God's greatest gift to punctuation, be sure to read Abbey's letters addressed to Karen Evans and Barry Lopez. Thought-provoking.)