Do leaves qualify as fallen heroes? It's enough to put you in a paradoxical, redemption frame of mind.
Friday, November 10, 2006
The Beautiful Dead (Weekend Photo)
The Writing Life?
Scot McKnight has an article up on Writing - On the Side. His argument is pretty straightforward:
Writing can’t be done on the side because, as James Vanoosting says it, “Writing is not pedagogy but an epistemology”...
In other words, writing is a lifestyle, a way of life, a way of being, a modus operandi, a way of breathing and eating and drinking. Better yet, writing is a way of learning, a way of coming to know what someone wants to know, a way of discovering.
Writing is not something to do when everything else is cleared off the desk; no, it is something that makes order of the desk. I don’t get up wondering what I will write about, but I write about what I’m wondering. (That’s almost Chestertonian.) In other words, as Augustine spoke of “faith seeking understanding,” so writing is a pen seeking understanding.
I agree with the main drift of McKnight's argument, but I find myself wondering how to translate this idea practically - as someone who is not a professor, prominent figure, favorite nephew of a book publisher, etc. I'm unsure how the blogging game translates into "real" writing. But I do know that if I wasn't blogging, I probably wouldn't be writing on a consistent basis, so on that count, I'm coming out ahead. Maybe some more submissions to magazines/e-zines would help me dodge the "writing on the side" bullet.
Anybody else mulling this over?
Gospel as God's Divine Comedy
Quick Friday rag poem: Does truth give the lie to appearances?
Does reality run deeper than death?
What if it's Joy that's inevitable?
Will I laugh when I draw my last breath?
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Taste Glory, See the Invisible, Discover Christ
Is it redundant to say you're "impressed" with a towering hero of the Christian faith? Because Moses impresses me.
There’s something striking about this guy God used to orchestrate the Exodus: Despite the miraculous intersecting his world at every turn—a desert bush flowering with fire, water bursting out of solid rock, unleashed lightning dancing on mountaintops—Moses always wanted more. “Please, show me your glory!” (Exodus 33:18) he said to God at one point. But if anyone had seen God’s glory, it was Moses. The man was a libertine when it came to glory, so long as it was God’s.
And thinking about it, Moses wasn’t the only one. There are others in The Book who display this strangely eerie tendency. David, the warrior-poet-king, displayed a similar soul-psychosis, an abnormal fixation with the person of God.Like Moses, David was a grasping man, grabbing up armloads, heartloads of the presence of God like battle plunder.
David met God in the wilderness, stumbled upon him in the heat of battle, wrote poems to God, lived as if this Lord was visible, tangible, nearby. And despite all this, he wrote lines saturated with desire. “One thing I’ve asked from God, that I will seek: a life lived out in the presence of God, every day of my life” (Psalm 27:4). Like Moses, David was a grasping man, grabbing up armloads, heartloads of the presence of God like battle plunder.
I think about people like this and the world seems to invert itself, if only for a moment. Like C.S. Lewis’ character, Ransom, I realize suddenly that the axes of life I consider normal—vertical, horizontal, the “straight” plain of the horizon—are in reality all out of alignment. To be standing “straight up” in regard to the universe, I would be positioned at a 45 degree angle to the floor. Getting a glimpse of ultimate reality.
The earth appears momentarily in its real shape—the shape that Moses and David and others discerned through mists of physicality—and it’s a miniature cosmos designed with one purpose in mind: the fullest possible display of God’s glory. The earth is meant to be seen through. And my fleeting realignment with earth’s ultimate purpose changes the “truth” of many things.Moses had mountaintop encounters with God. That’s where he caught the glory fever. David met God in a fiery back-country wilderness, out beyond the edges of the trail maps.
Greatness, for example, is different than I think. The great ones, I see, are those who take the world at face value and embrace its purpose. That many of them have been world-changers is secondary, almost incidental to their identity. A great person could live out her lifetime on a desert island, stranded, marooned—with God—and not lose an iota of her greatness. The tragedy would not be that her greatness had been lost, but that it had been lost to us.
Moses had mountaintop encounters with God. That’s where he caught the glory fever. David met God in a fiery back-country wilderness, out beyond the edges of the trail maps. Deep in the wilds, God seemed very real—because he was. But you had to open your eyes to see him.
These days, we live our lives in the shadows of a towering, snow-capped peak, a mountain that doesn’t just brush the sky but crowds it, and sometimes pokes through holes. But most of us don’t see it.The goodness and glory of Christ, what I call ultimate reality, burns a lasting image in the heart's retina.
Some do. They look up and discover the heaven-scraping mountain next door. And then they blink and rub their eyes like crazy, because it turns out the vast mountain range is everywhere, and the one next door is just a foothill. We’re living in the foothills, and if we see them, they change us.
Earth takes on sudden depth and height, swimming between the soaring towers of these peaks. True sight flickers to life, adjoined to glory. As Thomas Wolfe wrote, Against the hidden other flanks of the immutable hills the world washed like a vast and shadowy sea, alive with the great fish of his imagining.
Once seen, these “immutable” borders are hard to forget. The goodness and glory of Christ, what I call ultimate reality, burns a lasting image in the heart's retina. But it's easily missed. And most of us do miss the mountains somehow, confused by the shadows they cast. We’re wandering through an art gallery, studying cracks in the marble pavement.There are mountains nearby that you may not see.
Occasionally though, someone looks up. Their names are Moses or David or something with similar resonance. They’re so startled by what they see that their lives lurch off the tracks of normality and never again get with the program.
How could they, when they stumbled on a soaring range of leviathan peaks and golden snowfields, shot translucent red, melting into blues and purples, shouting in the sunset: LOOK! Come follow Christ, and travel the unmapped regions of God.
Maybe you're glancing around now, forehead wrinkled. Maybe your eyes are rolling. Probably you're thinking, Where can I get a cup of coffee? But just remember, there are mountains nearby that you may not see. And by a dusty footpath at the hill next door, a sign reads, “Climb me.”
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Birthday Aftermath
Well, the birthday celebration is fading in the background, I'm happy to say. (Aidan poured almost half a bottle of Bailey's into his coffee, and we thought it was just half & half, until he started dancing a jig on the dining room table). Things are slowly calming down around here.
Fortified by new coffee (Ethiopian and Bolivian were added to the mix), new music (Rosanne Cash and Don Peris), and, of course, new books (Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing, for one), I am ready to face the duration of the semester. Tomorrow, it's back to what we smilingly call "real life" - knowing all the time that real life will actually be exciting, adventurous and very far from staid.
In the meantime, I stare this somewhat surreal academic existence in the face and say tauntingly, Bring it. One year older, one year wiser, one year readier to spit in your eye. I had a good birthday.
Coffee Elation
My Coffee is Better Than Yours
I was recently given a bag of limited edition Guatemala Huehuetenango coffee beans (yes, I can pronounce that, fast, as many times as I like) from Kansas City's own coffee prodigy, the Roasterie. Check out the specs on this baby from CoffeeReview.com, who rated it 92 out of 100:
Sweet-impressioned, deep aroma complicated by dried cherry and hints of chocolate and cedar. Simplifies slightly in the cup, but a silky sweetness and quiet, vibrant acidity compensate. Almost sugary sweet in the long, clean finish.I'm drinking my first cup now, and it's incredible. I can see that I'll need to start making more money so I can journey further into this wonderland called gourmet coffee.
Happy Birthday, Andy!
Unfortunately, I can't remember the birthdays of all my blogging associates, but I have a couple good reasons to remember that Andy celebrates his march toward inevitable resurrection on November 8. I first discovered Andy's blog, A Mile from the Beach (the well-tanned dog!) when he was blogging through G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy - and he hasn't really missed a trick since then. Nice work, Andy. Happy Birthday.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Grassroots C.S. Lewis Movement
I'm currently trying to engineer a grassroots movement on my campus (Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) aiming for the creation of a C.S. Lewis class in the spring semester. The class would be taught by my favorite professor, Dr. DeVine, who is currently writing a book on Lewis. If successful, this class will contribute greatly to my general happiness and mental stability in '07, as well as giving me a chance to read and research an author I already love.
This would be something akin to the ideal education.
Why am I posting this here? Simply to share my excitement. (And so the two MBTS students who read this blog will email me so I can add their names to the petition.;) I really hope this works.
Learning to Fight (Christian Fighters)
God Doesn't Believe in Pacifists
Sitting in the school library between classes, I guess I have time for a quick post, the minimalistic type where you'll have to fill in the blanks for yourselves...
Given this:
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ... - 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
It seems obvious that everyone who follows Christ has to learn how to fight. There is a sense in which life is war, unavoidably, and we are in it. God is at war because he has enemies, and if you know God, you are expected to fight as well. War is woven into the fabric of reality and everyone finds a place on one side or the other. Therefore, there is to be a warlike dimension in every one of us. A spiritual toughness. Is this something we are prepared to look for, assess, and value, in our own lives and those of others?
I watched his fingers curl
around the coffee cup
and wondered
"What kind of fighter?"
Just something I'm thinking about.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Finding the Essence of Worship
Back in the day, the priests lit up cartloads of incense and most people thought Yahweh just liked a lot of incense. Also, after thousands of burnt offerings, it seemed obvious that God was a huge fan of bar-b-q. King David's perspective was a little different.
Incense was a symbol, an arrow pointing to reverent prayer rather than Yahweh's penchant for sandalwood fumes."May my prayers be like incense before you," he asked of God (Psalm 141:2). David's affinity for God and his love of worship revealed to him that heart-allegiance was what God was after. Incense was a symbol, an arrow pointing to reverent prayer rather than Yahweh's penchant for sandalwood fumes.
David was never a Levitical priest, never could be, but he saw through, utilized the priestly regalia in a way that few priests did. David witnessed many sacrifices made to God, and grasped the elusive essence behind the ritual: a subdued and repentant heart.
Which makes me wonder, What are we missing today? True, the days of ritualistic worship (which God decreed for awhile) are over. But what signs are we given now, to point us Godward? If history is any kind of schoolbook, they are no doubt staring us in the face.
"Father, let this closet be my pulpit as I preach to my soul?"
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