Logos2Go

a question

2012-01-27T05:25:00.000-08:00

We evangelicals pull no punches when insisting on the exclusivity of Jesus as the Way, the Truth, the Life.

The very exclusivity of this claim implies holiness, because holiness means separation from that which is common.

But it is curious that this profound truth carries with it few consequences in material terms. In fact it is no exaggeration to say that, of all of the major religions, the Protestant evangelical edition of the Christian faith might be the only one that provides no well-considered guidelines whatsoever in the way the Christian confession is lived out, is expressed, in material expressions of an art-aesthetic nature, of an architectural nature.

And yet this is the confession that stresses incarnation, God-with-us, as man, in embodied form.

If Jesus is the Way, how should the physical venues in which we live our embodied lives reflect this directionality?

If Jesus is the Truth, what practices of décor, of comportment, of the design of our physical environments, are informed by this Truth?

If Jesus is the Life, how should we then live beyond merely mental conceptions of this truth?

If Jesus is indeed the Life, shouldn’t that life spill over, fill up, even overflow, in an incarnational celebration of all that we are physically and materially?

Logos2Go

Matthew 5.16 Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

To the praise of his glory

2012-01-19T10:09:00.000-08:00

To most of our ears, this is a redundancy.

Actually it is a redundancy of two unknowns. We don’t really know what glory is; it is just a term for most of us.

And praise is something we do on Sunday mornings when, frankly, we feel like it. (Shall we go to the Arby’s for lunch after “worship?” They have the 5 sandwiches for 5 dollars deal ...). This is the level of praise for most of us.

But Paul uses the term “praise of his glory” three times in one of the most out-of-this-world chapters in the New Testament: Ephesians 1.

The man saw something. He saw a vision in that prison cell, even though he didn’t write about his vision directly. He just wrote about what he saw in the vision. He saw the cosmic Christ.

And he saw the implications, which amount to this:

If Christ is the anchor of the entire creation – the theologian Hans Boersma calls it the “Christological anchor”; I love the term – if Christ is indeed the anchor of all of creation, that glorious condition must be EXPRESSED.

The expression is the praise.

This is not too complicated. When we smile because of the assurance of God’s love, it is glory expressed. It is the praise of his glory. This doesn’t have to go on in a church building.

In fact, if it is not going on outside of a church building, the church part is just the prelude to Arbys. It ain’t much.

When we live, resigned to the fact that He is God and we are not, and we sense the relaxation which that brings, it is to the praise of his glory. Sense. Sense is of this world, this (still) wonderful world. Sense is what can be seen, what can be touched, what can be handled.

Doesn’t that RING A BELL?? "That which we have heard, which have have seen, which our hands have touched … of the word of life…" Doesn't it say that somewhere...?

The aesthetics of this life, the actions, the expressions, the ART of it, the SENSED beauty of it all … this is (or can be, it can be, say that it can be) to the praise of his glory.

We don’t see glory itself much in our present condition.

But we sure can make everything around us the praise of it.

Logos2Go

Ephesians 1.4-6 ... even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Ephesians 1.12 ... so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1.13-15 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints,

1 John 1.1-2 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us

Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011).

He must be wiping all of our tears away NOW

2012-01-17T15:22:00.000-08:00

Time is here, and then it is gone. Minds better than mine have mused about this conundrum -- Augustine, for one, in Chapter XI of his Confessions.

As I get old, this matter has been profoundly weighing on me. I’ve come to a conclusion of sorts: it cannot be as simple as this. It cannot be that what I experienced a year ago, or a minute ago, is GONE.

They are not gone. My experiences are not gone. They are somewhere; just not here. But then … even as I write this, even here is not here.

And so if I only dwell on the here, woe is me.

As a matter of fact, to dwell well – to really DWELL – requires that you take in more than just NOW and HERE. For example, it takes about three years in a new house before that house becomes a home. What has happened? Well, the accrual of all of your experiences in that house has transformed that house, that land, into a home in which you dwell. The house has become you; you have become the house. The sum is HOME.

… In my father’s house are many dwellings; I go to prepare a place for you …

Here is what I am thinking: it is the totality of what the inner man has been made by all of his or her experiences that somehow goes into eternity.

But eternity is also here and now. This is another mistake we make. We think we live the moments of life now. And then when we die … eternity. But this is logically incorrect. Eternity can’t be eternity if it starts to be eternity only tomorrow. Eternity is eternity by virtue of the fact that it is NOW.

So how can time be gone; how can our experiences all be gone; if eternity is now?

And so we need to live in the fear of God. And all that I do today – ah, I am writing again on my recliner – should be done, should be experienced, with the expectation that I will someday experience it again more fully.

Think of it: it says that God will wipe away all of our tears someday in the New Jersusalem. But how can it be ALL of our tears if he is only to wipe them away someday?

For it to be ALL of our tears, He must be wiping them away NOW.

Logos2Go

John 14.2 In my Father's house are many rooms ( μονή dwellings). If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

Revelation 21.4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

And in the fourth hour of the night, he came to them, walking on the sea

2012-01-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

28" x 36" Oil pastels on craft paper,

with photocopy inlays of:

Christina's World, Andrew Wyeth, 1948

Young Woman with Water Pitcher, Jan Vermeer 1665

Ospedale degli Innocenti (Foundling Hospital), Filippo Brunelleschi, Florence, 1419

Logos2Go

Matthew 14.25 And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.

Sacrament and Art and Stickley Recliners

2012-01-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

Sacrament is the overlapping of heaven and earth expressed in a visible fashion. Defined in this way, all of nature is sacramental, because God’s presence is everywhere-present (omnipresent) in nature. And so the Apostle Paul says that men are without excuse who deny God, because his presence is everywhere evident in creation.

This presence of God is added to in the New Testament by the unique development of God-become-man, Jesus Christ, coming into the word. It says that Christ tabernacles (the word means to dwell) among men. This localizes the everywhere-present presence of God in a way that does not compromise His everywhere-present presence. This localization of God-with-us is one reason for art.

At least it is one opportunity for art. We make art to celebrate the localized presence of heaven on earth.

Now, this truth raises enormous problems in relation to Christian practice. I am referring to religious images. The Eastern Church has long held that religious images – icons – are a special form of art because of their ability to convey the viewer into the divine presence. The Western Church’s view of this matter is a lot more complicated. On the one hand it rejected the Eastern view, holding that physical images of the divine amount to idols. On the other hand the history of Western Christianity (Protestantism aside which, after all, is a recent development) is filled with religious objects. We would not have art history, and we would not have architecture history as most people understand it, without art sanctioned by Western Christianity.

(In other words, I would not have a job as a professor of architecture, of art, of philosophy of aesthetics, and of all of that other stuff for which there are no grant monies to go after; but I digress).

Now add to this Protestantism, which historically has been the most vocal against religious images of any kind, and we have the ambivalent attitude most Christians today have towards art in relation to the practice of their faith.

And the consequence of this is a disjuncture between anything that is material-physical with Christian life. Because I am Protestant, I am mostly thinking of my peers in this category. Whatever worship is, it has little to do with the materiality of our lives. We have mental images of “worship” as something done on a Sunday morning, standing up and sitting down when told to do so by the guy with the guitar up front, and singing pre-printed songs. Many wear jeans and flip-flops; at some places it is de rigueur for the preacher man to wear casual clothing; I have even heard of Mickey Mouse shirts.

And the architectural space in which this activity takes place matters NIL.

The historian Johan Huizinga, in his The Waning of the Middle Ages, makes a key observation about religious images.

“The spirit of the Middle Ages … longs to give concrete shape to every conception. Every thought seeks expression in an image, but in this image it solidifies and becomes rigid. By this tendency to embodiment in visible forms all holy concepts are constantly exposed to the danger of hardening into mere externalism. For in assuming a figurative shape thought loses its ethereal and vague qualities, and pious feeling is apt to resolve itself in the image.”

The Eastern tradition of being conveyed into the divine presence by icons stresses the moment of encounter. Ideally, at that moment, the materiality of the art object goes away. Thus the art-thing is not an object of veneration, as the Western criticism would have it. But on the other hand, the art-thing is there, with its candles and incense and all the rest of it. And to the one who is not in the moment, it is, problematically, a religious something or other with no actual power.

My point is that true sacramentalism can never be resident in objects alone. It must begin in the heart, a heart hungry for the moment of being in tune with heaven’s presence on earth. And heaven’s presence not only in a general way, but in a Christ way, in which he is here, with me, in this place, at this time, in this nice Stickley recliner on which I am writing. In moments like this, whether it is in front of an art object or whether it is sitting at meal, or whether it is writing these thoughts, sacrament and art meet, because heaven and earth meet.

For the possibility of these moments, I set my table with honor and care; I work on my art with expectation; I look out at the nature around me with quiet humility; I treat all men with eager expectations of honor and redemption.

And I am blessed by this Stickley recliner not as a haughty display of “taste” in expensive furniture, but because it is of an excellence that is becoming for the moment in which You are with me.

Logos2Go

Romans 1.20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

John 1.14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages [1942], Doubleday Anchor, 1954, page 152.

C.S. Lewis on the learned life

2011-07-16T19:25:00.000-07:00

This is from The Weight of Glory:

... The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly "as to the Lord." This does not, of course, mean that it is for anyone a mere toss-up whether he should sweep rooms or compose symphonies …

A man's upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation. If our parents have sent us to Oxford, if our country allows us to remain there, this is prima facie evidence that the life which we, at any rate, can best lead to the glory of God at present is the learned life. By leading that life to the glory of God I do not, of course, mean any attempt to make our intellectual inquiries work out to edifying conclusions. That would be, as Bacon says, to offer the author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie. I mean the pursuit of knowledge and beauty, in a sense, for their own sake, but in a sense which does not exclude their being for God's sake. An appetite for these things exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain. We can therefore pursue knowledge as such, and beauty as such, in the sure confidence that by so doing we are either advancing to the vision of God ourselves or indirectly helping others to do so. Humility, no less than appetite, encourages us to concentrate simply on the knowledge or the beauty, not too much concerning ourselves with their ultimate relevance to the vision of God. That relevance may not be intended for us but for our betters -- for men who come after and find the spiritual significance of what we dug out in blind and humble obedience to our vocation. This is the teleological argument that the existence of the impulse and the faculty prove that they must have a proper function in God's scheme …

The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a road, and it may be the appointed road for us. Of course, it will be so only so long as we keep the impulse pure and disinterested. That is the great difficulty…: we may come to love knowledge -- our knowing -- more than the thing known: to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the reputation they bring us. Every success in the scholar's life increases this danger. If it becomes irresistible, he must give up his scholarly work. The time for plucking out the right eye has arrived.

Logos2Go

"The Weight of Glory" in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 56-57.

A thought about constructive criticism

2011-03-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

When someone asks you to review something he wrote, here is a thought for you.

Do you see that sunset over there?

Constructive criticism is both of you trying to describe that sunset. The first response is the joy of the opportunity to see the view. The other person has made an attempt at describing it and has asked you to help in that description.

First, stop and enjoy his description; you were doing something else; you might have missed the view unless he drew your attention to it.

Now, what do you see that can perhaps add to what the other is seeing, so that the celebration might even be greater?

This is especially true if you know the other person. You know him or her, so when you read something that you think might mean this-or-that, but you know that person could not possibly mean such a thing, than your response ought to be a question, not a disagreement.

This is why I find papers written by my students at the end of a semester easier to grade, because by then I know them better than I knew them at first. Criticism then becomes a suggestion of how to word things better, rather than warning them that, hey, that sunset they think they see over there is really a hallucination.

That would be destructive criticism, not constructive criticism.

There always must be humility, because we do not make the sunsets, we only learn to describe them better.

Logos2Go

Matthew 17.24-27 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”

The first women's movement in the Church

2011-03-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

In 1243 ... Matthew Paris -- surveying the European scene from his English monastery -- made an entry in his Chronicle to which he attached great importance:

"At this time and especially in Germany, certain people -- men and women, but especially women -- have adopted a religious profession, though it is a light one. They call themselves 'religious', and they take a private vow of continence and simplicity of life, though they do not follow the Rule of any saint, nor are they as yet confined to a cloister. They have so multiplied within a short time that two thousand have been reported in Cologne and neighboring cities ..."

We know that (Matthew Paris) was greatly impressed by the news of this new movement because in 1250, when he summarized the main events of the previous half century, he repeated his information ..."

"In Germany there has arisen an innumerable multitude of celibate women who call themselves beguines: a thousand or more of them live in Cologne alone..."

[Here is also Robert Grosseteste, the great bishop of Lincoln]: one day he preached a sermon to the Franciscans in which he extolled ... the highest kind of poverty: this was to live by one's own labor "like the beguines."

Between them, Grosseteste and Paris surveyed a very large slice of European life, and they were both impressed by the new and strange phenomenon. The beguine movement differed substantially from all earlier important movements within the western church. It was basically a women's movement, not simply a feminine appendix to a movement which owed its impetus, direction, and main support to men. It had no definite Rule of life; it claimed the authority of no saintly founder; it sought no authorization from the Holy See; it had no organization or constitution; it promised no benefits and sought no patrons; its vows were a statement of intention, not an irreversible commitment to a discipline enforced by authority; and its adherents could continue their ordinary work in the world ...

Logos2Go

Quoted from: R.W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Penguin Book, 1970) 319-321

Polanyi on art and mastery

2011-03-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Michael Polanyi is the thinker who gave us the term "tacit knowledge." He said so many insightful things, like this:

"An art which cannot be specified in detail cannot be transmitted by prescription, since no prescription for it exists. It can be passed on only by example from master to apprentice...

... It follows that an art which has fallen into disuse for the period of a generation is altogether lost. There are hundreds of examples of this to which the process of mechanization is continuously adding new ones. These losses are usually irretrievable.

It is pathetic to watch the endless efforts -- equipped with microscopy and chemistry, with mathematics and electronics -- to reproduce a single violin of the kind the half-literate Stradivarius turned out as a matter of routine more than 200 years ago ...

To learn by example is to submit to authority. You follow your master because you trust his manner of doing things even when you cannot analyze and account in detail for its effectiveness. By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art ...

Logos2Go

Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, University of Chicago Press, 1974, 51

Psalm 122: where fellowship is complete

2011-01-31T13:56:00.000-08:00

One of my desires is to pictorially interpret the Songs of Degrees (Psalms 120-134); one composition per psalm. Psalm 120 and 121 are here and here.

I've been stuck on Psalm 122 for about 4 weeks; none of my sketches have been satisfying. There's so much in this psalm. Here is the first complete effort for 122, although it doesn't satisfy me either.

In this psalm, the wanderer finds himself already in the precincts of Jerusalem, the City of God and, in verse 3, he notices something.

This something is translated in our English versions as "Jerusalem is a city that is compact together," or "... is bound firmly together," or variations thereof. But I like the English translation of the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament. Here, verse 3 is translated this way:

"Jerusalem is built as a city whose fellowship is complete ..."

A city whose fellowship is complete.

I've been wondering and wandering over this for days.

Logos2Go

Psalm 122, ESV (121 in the Septuagint)

1 I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”
2 Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!
3 Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together,

(3 Jerusalem is built as a city whose fellowship is complete),

4 to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
5 There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you!
7 Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!”
8 For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, “Peace be within you!”
9 For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

Somewhere over the rainbow

2011-01-18T14:56:00.001-08:00

Upon seeing the above painting, my friend Joshua Gilstrap was reminded of Psalm 97. I think it is an appropriate passage to post with this image.

I had titled the painting "somewhere over the rainbow."

Oil pastels and color pencil on paper.

Logos2Go

Psalm 97.1 The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! 2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around. 4 His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.

Psalm 121

2011-01-10T13:06:00.001-08:00

Oil pastels on paper.

Logos2Go

121:1-8 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? / My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. / He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. / Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. / The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. / The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. / The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. / The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

Psalm 120

2011-01-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

Oil pastels on paper

Logos2Go

Psalm 120.1-7 In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given to you, and what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? A warrior's sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree! Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!

This Christmas, treasure up

2010-12-18T10:07:00.000-08:00

This Christmas I am thinking of Mary. Over the centuries Mary has gotten a bad deal. The Catholics make her almost divine; they even pray to her. We Protestants go the other way: we keep her out of prime time. She's rarely held up as a role model like other women in the Bible: Ruth, Esther, even Dorcas.

Churches have Dorcas Funds to help those in need. But I’ve never heard of a church with a Mary Fund.

But Mary had a Fund. She had treasures in her heart. We all know the story. Shepherds came to worship the baby Jesus – and Luke says Mary "treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." Later on, they lose the boy Jesus for three days only to find him in the Temple. Imagine the panic: You’ve lost your kid, not for three hours, but for three days! What was Mary’s response? She treasured all these things in her heart.

But you say: she was Jesus’ mother! Of course she treasured things about her boy!
But this is what’s so remarkable. She was the mother of God; you’d think heaven would keep her in the loop about things:

“Okay these are the wise men … this is a planned visit … we’ve got sharpshooters on the roof … don’t worry …” etc.

You’d expect her to be treated like royalty. Think of Queen Elizabeth, mother of Prince Charles. No mean life here. No stables for her. What? Lose her son in a crowd? No!; secret service would be all over the place.

But not Mary the mother of God. One visit as a young girl by the angel Gabriel, and that’s it. No more heavenly visits. No more inside scoop. She’s left to her own natural wits to raise this child. She’s not given a palace to live in; not even the Davenport Hotel. She gets a stable. She loses her son and has to go find him. She goes to a wedding and frets about wine. She sees her son die on the cross, and gets handed off to John to be cared for. That’s it.

Brothers and sisters: if this for the mother of God, how about for us? Better than Mary, we have the New Testament to guide us. Better than Mary, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We have it much better than the mother of God.

And yet do we treasure up in our hearts the circumstances of our lives?

Perhaps because of our comfort we take everything for granted. We forget that we are the continuing story of the advent of Jesus Christ into the world. Luke, who wrote the report about Mary, also wrote in Acts that he was recording what Jesus began to do in the world.

We continue to be part of that story.

We often pray to know the will of God. Jesus IS the will of God. But how his life unfolds in us is often unclear to us. We are not given a preview. We are simply brought into the circumstances of our lives with Jesus in our midst, in our hearts, in the Word. And far from taking our circumstances for granted -- or even griping about them -- we need to do some treasuring up.

What should we treasure? Not the circumstances themselves. But we treasure the mystery of Jesus Christ in our circumstances. Because he is in the midst, there is something about these circumstances I am going through that is right at the heart of God’s counsel for Christ in me the hope of glory.

In this sense they are holy; in this sense I need to give my best, my all, with humility and worship, and free from complaint.

Treasure up … this word in the Greek means to preserve, to keep from perishing, to protect from being lost. It means to value. This Christmas, thank God for the circumstances of your lives, because Jesus is in the midst.

And that is something worth treasuring up for.

Logos2Go

Luke 2.19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Luke 2.51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

Acts 1.1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach...

de Tocqueville on Christianity and Islam

2010-12-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville traveled in this country in the early nineteenth century. I came across this observation he made in 1835, and I think it makes for good discussion in light of current events (I break up his paragraph for easier reading):

"It has been shown that, at times of general cultivation and equality, the human mind does not consent to adopt dogmatical opinions without reluctance, and feels their necessity acutely in spiritual matters only.

This proves, in the first place, that at such times religions ought, more cautiously than at any other, to confine themselves within their own precincts; for in seeking to extend their power beyond religious matters, they incur a risk of not being believed at all. The circle within which they seek to bound the human intellect ought therefore to be carefully traced, and beyond its verge the mind should be left in entire freedom to its own guidance.

Mohammed professed to derive from Heaven, and he has inserted in the Koran, not only a body of religious doctrines, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories of science. The gospel, on the contrary, only speaks of the general relations of men to God and to each other -- beyond which it inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone, besides a thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of these religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and democratic age, whilst the latter is destined to retain its sway at these as at all other periods ..."

Hmmm.

Logos2Go

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve, B&R Samizdat Express, 504

This is what it's all about ...

2010-12-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

"What is Life?"

"What is Love?"

Big questions like these take up a lot of time without producing answers. Or they occupy huge tomes nobody reads. Some people, having talked long enough about them, might even earn tenure at an institute of higher learning. But the questions only get bigger.

At the Mission, I've been getting to know a man named Art; and Art tends to ask the big questions. Like last night over dinner ...:

... the dining room was overflowing with people and noise, the aroma of dependency freely mixing with the warmth of caring. In addition to the guys staying at the Mission, many had come in from the dreary cold. They were served hamburger patties smothered with chili, with curly fries and salad on the side.

As usual, it was a miracle: hundreds of servings ... with leftovers.

And Art blurts out:

What's any of this about anyway... ?

Art is a deep thinker in faded blue jeans; I'd even say he's tortured by his thoughts. That's why I find him a kindred spirit.

But I'm chomping down on my hamburger and mildly irritated at having to do philosophy at the same time.

"Pass the salt and pepper."

Yea but what's any of this about anyway ... I mean look at us ... nobody's interested in anything but eating and the basics ...

It was one of those moments when the jigsaw puzzle of thoughts aligned with insight from above; so I blurted out, probably helping myself more than helping him:

This is what it's all about: you are here; I am here; we are eating this meal together; this moment ... together ... here ... and we are thankful. All of this, NOW, is by God's grace. This is what it's all about, and we must capture the moment ...

Logos2Go

John 6.29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

water turning into wine

2010-11-21T19:13:00.000-08:00

Oil pastels on board.

Logos2Go John 2.9 When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew) ...

starry starry night

2010-11-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

We came home last night after dark. "The stars are out tonight!" said Valerie, as we walked up the drive.

Yes, they were. They were splashed across the sky in a virtuoso display of generosity.

"It's one of the pleasures of living out here," I said.

Even this short distance away from the artificial lights of urban Spokane, the night sky is un-embarrassing in its beauty.

Then I said as we walked into the house, against the inklings of creeping old age that seem to always be near my mind these days:

"We know nothing ... absolutely nothing about how any of this really works..."

And I had a vague sense of having something to look forward to.

Logos2Go

Psalm 19.1-2 The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge.

Downsizing and dying

2010-10-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

These days I've been in Los Angeles helping my parents downsize.

They are on in years now -- in their late 80s. The one can only walk very slowly; the other, well, she asks me the same questions over and over .

The move to a senior community comes with its own exertions; the weight of moving their things is quite different from the weight I carry inside me.

In midst of moving, I get a call telling me that a good friend's father just passed away in New York.

In midst of moving, I know I'm probably myself headed for a biopsy for another spot on the roof of my mouth. What can these spots mean? I've few people to talk to about this here in Los Angeles; and my parents don't know. Why worry them?

All of this in midst of: "... do you still want this old bookcase? can we put this stuff on the curb? when is the donation truck coming ...?"

The piano I learned to play on is taken away to some Catholic church.

I've been thinking a lot about death and dying these days. How absolutely OTHER death is! And yet, and yet ...

This is what it's all about. If all of our confession merely stops short on this side of the divide, then there really is ... nothing. Better to just enjoy all these Lexuses and BMWs that seem to flourish here in Southern California. (But the drivers don't seem all that happy).

What is it going to be? Dirt ... or GLORY?

What is it going to be? Everything I've ever read in the Word: TRUE ... or ... nothing.

In midst of a thousand other displaced objects in the house, I see an old calendar with a trite saying for each month: February: Live Each Day to the Fullest. April: Help Me to See it's All Been for Good.

Help me to see it's all been for good.

I wonder: why do we humans have an instinct for better-ness? An instinct that life can be lived to the fullest, which can be missed. An instinct that assumes that, beyond this messy reality, there must be a better reality? It must be an instinct God put there. Animals don't have calendars that say: "Help Me to See it's All Been for Good."

But we have calendars that say that.

I pick up an old book about a trip the book's author made to Ephesus. The place is all a ruin now, he writes as he sits on a knoll overlooking the old city -- and he was there in 1897. There's a lot of old books laying around here.

But he then says that the words of Paul's letter written from Ephesus are still new every day. Oh may it be so! And I do take comfort that I'm all of a piece with Paul's vision; that, somehow and I don't know how, at some point in my existence I'll be able to see Ephesus as Paul saw it. And that would not be a place Northwest-KLM can fly me to.

I'll be flying some other way.

I think of old Ralph Gwinn. Ralph was so confident he was about to see God that, with joy in his voice and energy in his failing body, he led us in a Bible study from the bed he would die on a week later.

I find myself wishing for more examples like Ralph: role models of people who knew how to die well.

I hope you're reading this Ralph, or whatever it is that passes for reading where you are.

Logos2Go

Philippians 1.20 ... it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

The part I miss the most is the power of the Wind

2010-10-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

Not all my friends know this, but speaking from a church pulpit has been a fairly regular part of my life since the 1980s.

Changing churches several months ago has significantly reduced my opportunities to do this. In fact, presently, they are nil.

It's been an adjustment. There's the freedom of not having to prepare throughout the week; that's true. But after several months, the thrill of that freedom is getting a bit old.

It's a freedom I'm not sure I'd like to be enslaved to.

The bottom line: I easily get to feeling like I've been sidelined.

Sidelined at 26 or 36 is one thing. Sidelined at 56, well, it feels like the cleats have been hung up for good. The thoughts are too complicated to describe in words, at least on a blog post.

These days I sometimes critically evaluate my preaching in the past. How hard it is to do well! That's because, besides all of the prep, there's one thing you can't control. It's what I call the anointing of the Holy Spirit while delivering the message. Some times you have it. Other times you don't. And it is never formulaic, because the Spirit is Wind.

All there is is humility and hard work. If ever given the chance again, I would want to learn that humility more than in the past.

But the part I miss the most is the power of the Wind.

Logos2Go

John 3.8-10 "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?

A whiff of snoot

2010-10-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

I finally see what struck me about a recent event Valerie and I attended.

It was one of those financial seminars with the offer of a free dinner at a good restaurant. Free food at Luna is hard to turn down; so we went.

The minute I stepped into the foyer I realized this was for "high income" folks. (Duh ... when it comes to money I'm not the brightest).

So then, how did we get selected? This was my question. Well, we don't know, they said, your names just cropped up on our list. Anyway, heeere we go ...

Over the aroma of the great food, I caught the whiff of something else ... what was it? What was it?

It was ... it was ... it was a whiff of Philadelphia.

But why? Why did that evening remind me of Philadelphia?

Well, it wasn't just any whiff of Philadelphia (and Philadelphia has its share of odors).

It was a whiff of the Philadelphia Main Line: MONEY.

It was a whiff of snoot, that's what it was. Swimming pools, movie stars ... you know how that Jed Clampett song goes.

There in a room at the Luna in Spokane, it felt like I had been transported again to Philadelphia, rubbing shoulders with a particular kind of snootiness I knew so well...

My! How money can make people a certain way! What way?

Well, I was invisible to them. They walked right by me. I didn't exist. They sat right next to me and ne'er a smile, ne'er a hello, not even a look in my direction. I love Valerie because she just simply engaged the people to her right in conversation. I felt like they put up with it. I wasn't that way with the folks on my left; I just couldn't get it up to bother them in their self-sufficiency.

(So I'm totally willing to say it was my arrogance ... I know how complicated these things can be. One can be arrogant in having less money as well).

The wine was not included in the free meal, by the way.

When the folks next to us left -- they left early -- their signed check was on the white tablecloth for all to see. For two, they spent near 50 bucks on wine that evening.

Logos2Go

Jeremiah 9.23-24 Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.

Looking for the Word for the Day

2010-10-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

This is a new concept for me: instead of reading the Word in the morning (only), look for it in conversations through the day. For example:

"Why not rather suffer wrong?" This came up over dessert with friends.

Later I found it in the Book: it is 1 Corinthians 6.7, where Paul is chiding believers about taking one another to court.

In our case, it was over a relational dust-up in which, if the offended party stood by his guns, he would be correct on principle but probably damage the other person. But "why not rather suffer wrong?" was advice that later led to healing in the relationship.

It was the WORD FOR THE DAY. It did not come early in the morning in the privacy of my room, sitting on my recliner with a Bible in my lap. It came in the hubbub of conversation late one evening.

And the advice wasn't even given to me. But I witnessed the working of the power of the Word.

Or this: "Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger ... for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God..." It is James 1.19-20.

This came in a conversation with a former drug addict at the Mission. Meth, coke; he did it all. Now old and grisly, he sat there in his tattered green jacket, with half his teeth missing. But a well-thumbed Bible was in his hands.

As we sat talking the thought crossed my mind: who's ministering to whom?

That morning I tried reading the Word, but felt empty and dry. So I started surfing the net and checking my email. Later I went to the Mission wondering what good I can do. That's when a former drug addict hit me with the WORD FOR THE DAY.

Looking for the Word through the day enriches each conversation. It takes me out of my bookish ways, as if reading the Scripture by rote in the morning -- and then forgetting it -- has any sanctifying power.

One last example: "it is better to give than to receive."

I haven't even looked up the address for this passage as I write this. But "it is better to give than to receive" has been on-again-off-again on the radar of my consciousness the last several days.

It gives me a quiet joy, and a willingness to infuse the fabric of daily events with a spirit of giving.

It makes the ho-hum a little more special.

Logos2Go

Okay I just looked it up: Acts 20.35: In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

James 1.19-20 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

1 Corinthians 6.7 To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?

Wasteful grace

2010-10-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

The East Door is where a homeless man first enters the Mission; it is the gateway to the Rescue portion of the Mission's work.

Of all the men who come through the East Door -- not to mention the women and children who also walk through for free meals -- only a very small percentage go on to benefit from the Mission's Recovery and Restoration programs.

The overwhelming majority of them -- I would say 90% -- are simply there to freeload. And it is a very good deal; they get better food and shelter than many "middle class" folks have in other parts of the world.

When I first volunteered at the Mission, I felt these guys were just using the place -- and often with ungrateful attitudes. Not a few of my conversations with the men in the Day Room (which is what the East Door opens into) have to do with their gripes: how restrictive the Mission is; how holier-than-thou the staff is (they are not); how daily life at the Mission is boring; yada yada yada.

Then they are the first in line for three hot meals a day.

Besides a free bed, there's free showers daily; free laundry, free medical consultation; free legal advice; volunteers come to sew their clothes. Hosts of volunteers attend to these guys' every need.

Last year, the Mission served over 230,000 meals. Food was always on the table.

Who says that the miracle of feeding 5,000 people with no guaranteed supplies no longer happens? It happens every day, three times a day.

Nowadays I am simply struck by the on-going miracle that is the Union Gospel Mission.

I've learned that grace, in order for it to be grace, must be wasteful.

Love is wasteful. It is not measured. It gives and asks nothing in return.

Perhaps we see so few miracles these days because we keep too many accounts.

Logos2Go

Mark 14.3-4 And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?

Luke 17.12-17 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?

Matthew 18.12 "What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?

Way, Truth, Life

2010-10-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

These are three characters written with one continuous stroke:

Way (dao-4), Truth (li-3), Life (ming-4).

Logos2Go

John 16.4 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Oil pastels on paper.

Why Chinese conceptions are more artful

2010-10-08T05:50:00.000-07:00

Here I've stylized two Chinese characters, and compared them with a well-known sign from American culture.

On the left is the character for "love," normally written: 愛. In the middle is the character for "virtue," normally written: 德. The I-love-New York, of course, is on the right.

What all three have in common is the red heart.

In both 愛-love and 德-virtue, notice how the character for heart 心 is embedded in each word. So my stylized rendition substitutes the conventional way of writing "heart" with a Valentine's heart.

Love, already and concretely, includes heart. Virtue, already and concretely, includes heart. The aesthetics of each character emits a penumbra of meaning, as it were, that entails connotations of heart. Each character is a pool of meaning.

English works in a different way: abstract units, whether letters or words made up of abstract letters, convey meaning. Here, the N and the Y are additionally abstract because they are only the first letters of abstract words that are actually not there.

In this case, the Valentine's heart is something from an order of things totally separate from the order of words.

The aesthetic value of I-(heart)-N-Y is that something from another order of things -- the artwork of the heart -- has replaced the abstract arrangement of lines that mean LOVE.

Put another way, if all we had was I-L-N-Y, the sequence would be incomprehensible. It would not only have minimal aesthetic value; it would have little value of any kind. What is aesthetically striking about the I-heart-N-Y is precisely because the English tendency to abstraction has been breached with a symbol that more directly means "heart."

But in the Chinese cases, 心 is already and concretely in each character.

So in the Chinese cases, the use of the Valentine's heart for "love" is a symbol-to-symbol transformation. In I-heart-N-Y, the use of the Valentine's heart for "love" is an abstraction-to-symbol transformation.

In the Chinese cases, the art-value is intrinsic.

In the English case, the art-value had to be added.

Logos2Go

Note: contemporary Chinese script used in mainland China deletes the heart from the word for love (爱). When some folks of my parents' generation bemoan the use of the "simplified" script, they are feeling the loss of the richness of meaning of some of these more utilitarian characters.

Frozen frames

2010-10-04T15:57:00.000-07:00

The most meaningful memories I have of people are frozen frames:

A moment, a look, an action; single instances in which the complexity of a person is summed up in a frozen frame.

Like that one instant, when he was about 10, when we were playing touch football in our side yard in Blue Bell. There was a dispute about a rule -- I think it might have been how many 1-1000, 2-1000s to count before rushing the passer; it doesn't matter because the dispute is not part of the frozen frame.

Ten year old Jeremy stood me down. I can still see the determination in his eyes. At that moment I realized I might have a handful of a son here ... a fact that never occurred to me before.

He is almost 30 now, but that frozen frame endures.

Here is an incident in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, a father thinking about his now-grown daughter:

But one picture came back to his mind ... It was a picture of her childhood, of a day from some forgotten summer on his country estate in Connecticut long ago. He had forgotten the rest of that day and what had led to the one moment he remembered. But he remembered how he stood on the terrace and saw her leaping over a high green hedge at the end of the lawn. The hedge seemed too high for her little body; he had time to think that she could not make it, in the very moment when he saw her flying triumphantly over the green barrier. He could not remember the beginning nor the end of that leap; but he still saw, clearly and sharply, as on a square of movie film cut out and held motionless forever, the one instant when her body hung in space, her long legs flung wide, her thin arms thrown up, hands braced against the air, her white dress and blond hair spread in two broad, flat mats on the wind, a single moment, the flash of a small body in the greatest burst of ecstatic freedom he had ever witnessed in his life ...

Logos2Go

Citation from Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, Book I, Chapter XII

Jack of all trades, master of none

2010-10-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

This is how I'm feeling these days.

Oil pastel on board.

Logos2Go

1 Corinthians 1.26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

Smooth ... like Keith Stone

2010-10-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

One intersection away from the Union Gospel Mission is a large billboard advertising beer. It sports a picture of Keith Stone with a box of Keystone beer.

Keystone ... Keith Stone. Got that?

And both are so smoooooooth.

You can see variations of this smoooooth ad campaign here and here.

At the Mission, I meet many men who have a different tale to tell about beer. Once they start on a can, they can't stop until 6, 8, 12, 16 cans later. As a consequence their lives have been anything but smooooooth.

Rocky, bumpy, broken; these are better words to describe what they've been through.

I can't count the number of men who've lost everything because of beer: wives, homes, kids, businesses, self-esteem.

What most troubles me about the ad is the "look" of Keith Stone. His attire is everyman blue collar -- like most of the guys at the Mission. His eyes are focused on something far off, projecting a rugged but dreamy look, full of confidence that the future -- well, if not the future, at least the weekend -- will be going his way no-doubt-about-it.

So long as he lugs along that oversized box of Keystone beer.

This post is not about abstaining from alcohol; I enjoy my pizzas with beer and my meals with wine. Okay: I love margaritas.

But there is such a gap between the ideal worlds advertising paints for us ... and the nitty-gritty reality of this world, this life. To keep the nitty-gritty smooth, often the smooth spin of advertising must be denied.

That's all I'm trying to say. Nothing profound.

When I see that ad, I make a right turn to hang out with the guys at the Mission; nothing profound.

Logos2Go

The believing ones: how language hinders faith

2010-09-15T15:19:00.000-07:00

The Greek sentence, if directly translated, goes something like this:

But the Scripture consigned all things to sin, so that the promise out of faith of Jesus Christ might be given to the believing ones.

It reads a little bumpy, because it is not how we normally speak English. So, in contrast, here is the translation from the popular New International Version (NIV):

But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

This sounds more "normal."

But let's do something. Let's imagine standing in relation to the transaction described in the first sentence, the one that is more of a direct translation of the Greek. Where do we stand in relation to the action?

Well, we see something (the promise of faith of Jesus Christ) being given to a group of people (the believing ones). Neither the promise, nor the group of people, have anything to do with you and me. We do nothing, nor do we feel any suspense, in observing the action of the first sentence. Neither do the group of people -- the group called the believing ones -- need to do anything nor feel anything. They are merely the recipients of this promise. The giving of the promise to them is a done deal; nothing prevents it from happening.

But now imagine us standing in relation to the action described by the NIV translation. Read it again above. What do you feel? If you are like me, you feel some doubt as to whether or not the promise would be given, don't you? Why? Well, because, first of all, that promise needs to be given through faith IN Jesus Christ.

What faith IN Jesus Christ? The English language is ambiguous about where this IN is. Is it my faith that I need to place IN Jesus Christ? Is that what needs to happen before the promise is given? Well, then, I'd better drum up some of this faith so that I can place it IN Jesus Christ. But ... what if I'm not up to the task?

And what about that group of people? In the NIV translation, they are no longer "the believing ones". Instead, they are "those who believe."

Those who believe? Well, what if they don't believe? What if, today, they believe just 75% of what they believed yesterday? How much do they have to believe ... before the promise can be given?

You see how the NIV translation -- which is far and away the more common "take" of this passage in English translations -- makes the entire transaction something of a "maybe" situation?

There is no faith IN Jesus Christ in the original. There is only faith OF Jesus Christ in the original.

And never mind "the whole world" and "prisoner to sin." None of these phrases are in the original Greek. The NIV translators were just moved to put them in -- just so, in their view, the English can read a little more smoothly.

The original language of the sentence tells us that, if you are indeed a Christian, you are among THE BELIEVING ONES -- and that is independent of whether or not you feel like you believe today. It's a done deal. The promise is yours.

This is the scandal of the gospel.

Logos2Go

Galatians 3.22 ἀλλὰ συνέκλεισεν ἡ γραφὴ τὰ πάντα ὑπὸ ἁμαρτίαν ἵνα ἡ ἐπαγγελία ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ δοθῇ τοῖς πιστεύουσιν.

ensuing and glomming

2010-09-07T09:32:00.002-07:00

Now that football season is here, we'll all be hearing this word ad nauseum on ESPN or approved equal:

" ... with 15 seconds left, he fumbles the ball! And on the ensuing play ...blah blah blah..."

Ensuing .

I guarantee you'll hear this word an average of 3.5 times for every 20 seconds of replay footage this football season.

It's not simply: "... and on the next play ..."

No. It has to be: "...and on the ensuing play."

What a heady word! These guys must be taking a correspondence course.

Ensue. Get used to it. Take a bite of the chips and salsa every time ensue is uttered. You'll need to give up on Weight Watchers.

I noticed this out of the corner of my awareness several years back. Ten years ago, no play ensued after the previous play. For crying out loud, it was just the next play.

I bet it was Chris Berman who started to use ensue; it wouldn't surprise me. Berman of the "back-back-back-back" coinage. That's another one: back-back-back-back -- although this one is so unique no one else could use it except Berman.

But everybody now says, "and on the ensuing play ..."

It really is a study on language: how a word becomes fixed in usage, and what it describes somehow becomes wedded to that word so that no other word would quite do.

Another such word is glom, meaning to latch on to somebody or something, as in: "She really glommed onto him during the trip." Ten years ago, nobody was glomming on to anybody. Now, teenyboppers glom all the time.

(Nobody's ever glommed on to me that I know of; shucks).

Another emerging word is meme. Watch out for this one; I think it has a future. Meme means the thrust of a general narrative someone wants you to believe in. As in, "The Obama Administration's meme is that it's all Bush's fault..." Meme is roughly equal to spin, although I would say meme is the germinal concept for which spin is the action.

Am I getting just a little too OCD about this stuff?

OCD ... that's yet another one. More and more people are somehow OCD ... as in: he's just a little too OCD about that stuff ...

Ten years ago I wasn't OCD.

But now, hey, I am.

Logos2Go

An early example of collaboration

2010-09-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

From Augustine:

They [the Romans] decided that responsibility for the land should not be entrusted to any one god; they put the goddess Rusina in charge of the rural countryside; they consigned the mountain ranges to the care of the god Jugatinus; the hills to the goddess Collatina, the valleys to Vallonia.

They could not even find the goddess called Segetia adequate on her own, to the responsibility for the crops from start to finish. Instead, they decided that the corn when sown should have the goddess Seia to watch over it as long as the seeds were underground;

as soon as the shoots came above the ground and began to form the grain, they were under the charge of the goddess Segetia;

but when the corn had been reaped and stored the goddess Tutilina was set over them to keep them safe.

Would not anyone think that Segetia should have been competent to supervise the whole process from the first green shoots to the dry ears of corn?

But that was not enough for men who loved a multitude of gods -- and so much so that their miserable soul disdained the pure embrace of the one true God and prostituted itself to a mob of demons ...

Logos2Go

Augustine, City of God, Book IV, Section 8. Translated by Henry Bettenson (Penguin, 1984), 143-144

When CNN and FOX agree ...

2010-09-03T05:47:00.001-07:00

... there must be a hurricane coming.

They do the same thing: Hey, let's send our reporters down there and have them talk into a mike while getting blown sideways:

"Shep ... this is Geraldo ... I'm ... I'm ... wait ... whoa ... [picture jiggles as cameraman dodges a falling palm tree] ... you can see ... you can see Earl ... is picking up steam ... wait ... Gotta send it back to you ..."

Yes I can see. I'm seeing it on MSNBC, CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS. It's probably on the Shopping Network...

All other news stop: it's 24/7 hurricane coverage.

(Note to Congress: now's the time to spend even more money we don't have; nobody will ever know).

But what they say about Chinese people -- which isn't true-- is definitely true with hurricanes: they all look alike.

Wind. Rain. Waves.

Reporters blown sideways.

And it's on 24/7.

Logos2Go

Ecclesiastes 1.6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.

Haircuts

2010-09-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

You don't really see them while they happen.

Of course most barbershops have the mirrored wall, but I bet most people (at least the guys) don't spend their time on the chair looking at the progress. I usually have my head down, thinking about the next paper I'll write that nobody will read.

And there, with my head down, askance off both sides, I see the snips of hair falling to the floor.

I've seen that sight for over fifty years.

Haircuts are one way you can mark time.

"You have a lot of hair," is a remark I've heard over the years from barbers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and now Washington.

When I was a kid living in Ohio, I'd bike down to the barbershop, next to Avellino Drugs. Afterwards, the barbershop floor would be covered with black hair.

It was different yesterday.

While sitting on that chair, askance off both sides, I saw tufts of white fall to the ground.

Oh there was still some black. But mostly I saw white.

When I left, it was all over the floor, like clumps of dirtied snow on a trafficked street.

Logos2Go

Luke 12.7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

A culture of commentary versus ... a handful of quietness

2010-08-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

There is only one Apostle Paul; but there are endless commentators on what he wrote. Endless.

You can't count all the commentators. Not only those who write about his epistles (which, indeed, comprise about 50% of the New Testament).

But also those who every Sunday preach on passages he wrote -- from Ephesians, for instance, or Galatians, or Philippians, and so on and on. Let's listen in:

"Ah ... Our text this morning is Ephesians 2.10 ... Last Sunday we spoke on such and so ... and today I want to further elaborate on just what Paul meant when he said that we are the workmanship of God. You see, this word for workmanship is poeema. What a wonderful thought ... we are God's poetry!!!"

And he's off to the races... with all the good people in the pews taking notes ... because there's going to be a midweek discussion group on the passage ...

I don't mean to demean any earnest commentator or preacher, or Bible discussion groups. Of course not.

But I am suggesting that a culture of commentary substitutes -- actually inhibits -- genuine ability to live out the truth of the Word of God.

In a culture of commentary, everybody is reading the Word not so much to humbly receive from it, so as to humbly submit to it, so as to quietly live out the truth of it, in daily life, minute by minute.

I'll say it again:

In a culture of commentary, everybody is reading the Word not so much to humbly receive from it, so as to humbly submit to it, so as to quietly live out the truth of it, in daily life, minute by minute.

NO. None of that. I've got a Bible Study to lead on Ephesians chapter 2, and I've got to PREP for it. Oh my goodness, it's tomorrow and I've got nothing to say ... Well, lemme check these commentaries ...

I wonder how much of American evangelical culture is more a culture of commentary than a culture of quiet submission:

The radio programs; the piles and piles of study guides; the endless conferences and retreats; and so on and on.

It fosters ambitions and aspirations to comment; to be an expert commentator. (Maybe someday I'll be a conference speaker ...!).

But when you quietly submit, nobody notices you. Or at least very, very few will. But it may be at the heart of godly living.

And then there are those who blog about this problem ...

Logos2Go

Ecclesiastes 4.6 Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.

Augustine on political gangs

2010-08-29T07:04:00.001-07:00

I found this segment from Augustine's City of God striking enough to cite it here with no additional elaboration:

Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention.

If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates itself the title of kingdom, which is conferred on it in the eyes of the world, not by the renouncing of aggression but by the attainment of impunity.

For it was a witty and truthful rejoinder which was given by a captured pirate of Alexander the Great. The king asked the fellow, 'What is your idea, in infesting the sea?' And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, 'The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I'm called a pirate; because you have a mighty navy, you're called an emperor."

Logos2Go

Augustine, City of God, Book IV, Chapter 4, trans. Henry Bettenson (Penguin, 1984), 139.

Universal nature

2010-08-27T09:05:00.001-07:00

Here is a chart for "universal nature" from the 11th century. It was devised by a English monk named Byrhtferth. Note how it makes connections between natural phenomena and personal temperaments.

Well before the 11th century, ancient models of how things were put together all assumed that the behavior of nature and the behavior of humans answered to a single underlying structure.

From the mists of time in ancient China, for example, we have the five element theory: Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. These elements comprised universal nature -- which incorporated human moral conduct: Fire is inquisitive; Water is insecure, etc.

The ancient Greeks posited a four element theory: Air, Water, Earth, Fire. The early thinker Hippocrates (of the Hippocratic Oath) assigned these elements also to personality factors.

It wasn't until the Enlightenment -- let's say this began in the 17th century; it's hard to pinpoint exactly when "enlightenment" came to the West -- it wasn't until the Enlightenment that the behavior of natural elements (air, water, etc) and the grounds for human moral conduct were divorced from each other.

If you dealt in "science," then you weren't dealing in "morality," and vice versa. This was one of the innovations of the Enlightenment.

In the process was lost any sense that a single system cohered together both natural and moral phenomena.

Sure, we now have such "master theories" as evolution. But the tendency here is to celebrate randomness and the unpredictable workings of impersonal forces rather than the workings of an orderly system conforming to higher, even if mysterious, powers.

This is somehow less comforting than earlier models of universal nature.

I am not promoting a return to ancient Chinese or Greek theories of universal nature; nor am I persuaded by Byrhtferth's 11th century model. I am merely bemoaning the loss of a phenomenological awareness in our culture for any organic and orderly universal nature at all.

A loss of wonder at the mystery of how all of this got here, and works beautifully, rather than there being nothing at all.

Recently I came across an essay by Wendell Berry entitled "Solving for Pattern." Written in 1981, the essay is prescient in its discernment that "big business agriculture" not only degrades the corn and the meat it produces, but also degrades the land, ultimately the society it purports to serve. Here is Berry (the bold is mine):

The real problem of food production occurs within a complex, mutually influential relationship of soil, plants, animals and people. A real solution to that problem will therefore be ecologically, agriculturally, and culturally healthful...

This is one challenge to today's environmentalist movement. It is difficult to be respectful to nature -- which is a moral disposition -- when morality itself is something of an optional, because ungrounded, reality.

Logos2Go

Colossians 1.17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

歌罗西书 1.17 他在万有之先，万有也靠他而立

The image for the 11th century model comes from R. W. Southern, "England in the Twelfth Century Renaissance" in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 165.

The citation from Berry is actually from Chapter 9 of his book The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural & Agriculture. The chapter can be found here.

Offices versus Creativity

2010-08-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this is just me, or if it is common experience:

To get serious work done, I need to be out of my office.

For serious writing or lecture prep, I have to hit the Starbucks, or the Rocket Bakery, or simply go driving somewhere -- in other words, I have to get out of my office before the juices can flow.

Even as I write this a colleague emails me an interesting article. After printing it out, my knee-jerk response was: "I need to go out for lunch so I can read this ..."

And I usually don't go out for lunch.

At home it's the same thing: serious reading takes place on my recliner; serious writing at the dining room table. None of it in my home office.

As for art work, absolutely no artwork is ever done in my office. (Well, once. This was done in my office, drawn on the back of a note card; and it is the most-visited blog I ever posted. So there's always an exception).

But the minute I sit down in any place called "my office," doing anything other than surfing the internet -- or snacking -- is a major stretch.

Or blogging. That can be done in my office.

Or goofing off: yesterday I had to delete a computer scrabble game off of my home office computer just so it wouldn't be the main attraction. It was a major decision. Because: what else would I do??? I would be faced with the stark whiteness of the WORD document on the screen in front of me, with no escape -- and no ideas what to write. But I took the plunge anyway.

For me it raises questions about names and roles and creativity; about functions we associate with physical spaces verses what we actually do in those spaces.

We humans are limited creatures, and every culture develops special ways to limit itself. In our culture, "going to the office" is a well-accepted limitation. And like any limitation, it comes with expectations. When you go to the office, that's when you're supposed to "work."

"Work." This is another limitation.

And so there are many businesses that thrive off of the limitations of "office." Like all the clothing stores to help you "dress up for work." But I don't recall the last time I produced anything worthwhile dressed up in my office best.

Like Office Depot. This is where you purchase things for your office; all sorts of things from pencils and pens to computers and hard drives to office furniture.

Office furniture.

Nothing can be more stifling to the creative imagination than having to create surrounded by office furniture.

Logos2Go

Mark 2.23-28 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

The point behind the image of God

2010-08-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

In the introduction to his translation of Homer's Odyssey, E.V. Rieu said this (the underline is added by me):

He (Homer) does believe in his gods ... but whereas the Christian conception of godhead is based on our creation by God in his image and likeness, with imperfections introduced by Satan, Homer regards his gods, though immortal, as made in the image and likeness of man. Mixed with his deep respect of their almost unlimited powers and his aesthetic appreciation of their beauty, he betrays a very tolerant understanding of their motives and frailties ... These powerful beings, who were so intimately connected with men's passions and desires, were there to administer, not necessarily obey, man's moral code. Christian apologists of a later age made a mistake when they suggested that the pagans had invented the gods and their iniquities as an excuse for themselves. Homer never censures a god nor lets a mortal use a god's misdeeds as a pretext for his own ...

And so this is Rieu's appreciation of Homer's virtuous character. Never would Homer countenance misdeeds among men -- just because the gods he (Homer) admires indulge their misdeeds and iniquities!

So on the strength of Homer's example, according to Rieu, Christian apologists "make a mistake" when they claim that a weakness in the theory that the gods are created in the image of men is none other than that it provides a license to sin. (e.g.: After all, the gods do it! etc).

No No No, says Rieu. Homer would never stoop so low!

But I think this misses the point.

The point is this: Where does the very meaning of "iniquity" or "misdeed" come from?

Put another way, Rieu seems to think of iniquities and misdeeds as a moral consideration quite separate from the logical consideration of whether men are created in the image of God (the Christian view) or gods in the image of men (the Greek view).

Thus, in Rieu's thinking, Homer's moral uprightness in the face of his god's misdemeanors is used as a kind of independent evidence that the Christian critique of the Greek view is wrong.

But this leaves the independent nature of the moral category in question. Where does morality come from? Who regulates it? Rieu uncritically says that, in the Greek view, it is men who came up with the moral code; that the gods' job was to administer this moral code that men set up, but not necessarily to obey it.

But this is a logical nightmare. If indeed men -- who are frail and inquitous; this is not in question (it is precisely why Homer's virtuous character is viewed by Rieu as so extraordinary) -- if indeed it is men who came up with the moral code, and gods are created in the image of men, and so the gods engage in iniquity (because they are created in the image of men), but Homer rises above it all and does not accept the gods' immoral conduct as a license for such conduct himself, then Homer -- himself a man -- is basing his moral virtue on neither human nature (which is iniquitous) nor the nature of the gods (which is also iniquitous).

So where does Homer's virtue come from? What is it referencing? This is left unexplained.

If, however, men are created in the image of God, then the seat of moral virtue is in Him. And so this conforms with the logical argument that His image is what we humans reflect: His moral character is what determines good and bad deeds (misdeeds) among men.

The Christian theory is so much more simpler, with no contradictions.

Indeed, Rieu is actually using Christian measures in his admiration of Homer's virtuous character.

Logos2Go

E.V. Rieu, "Introduction" to Homer: The Odyssey (Penguin, 1971), 15.

Genesis 1.26-27 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

In praise of fitting things

2010-08-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

Daily life often gives us our deepest questions, like this one:

Why don't things fit?

Clothes don't fit. Jobs don't fit. In America one of two marriages end in divorce ... in other words: marriages don't fit.

Here's something that doesn't fit: see the daylight coming through the wood framing at the top corner? The 2x4 wall frames on the greenhouse I'm building don't exactly fit.

Who cares? one might ask. The wall sheathing will cover it, so nobody will know.

Nobody will know.

In the 1990's the influential computer scientist and polymath Herbert Simon coined the term to satisfice, a combination of to suffice and to satisfy:

All any solution has to do is to satisfice. In other words, just get the job done in an okay way; forget about everything fitting perfectly.

In a highly utilitarian / consumerist culture such as ours, satisficing is highly valued. We not only have technologies to fit things together; we have technologies to cover up things that don't.

Studs don't fit? We have sheathing.

You look ugly? Cosmetic surgery.

Can't get along? No fault divorce.

I think one fallout of covering up things that don't fit is the disappearance of praise.

In our culture, we've lost an ability to praise because we've lost an ability to marvel. To marvel at amazing things that do fit -- in fact, that fit so well it is downright unbelievable: Microscopic mitochondria that are veritable factories of life. No covering up there (even though we don't see it).

And I can't even align 2x4s.

I came across an article the other day that reports nature itself -- in the form of bacteria in the water -- is doing her own job at cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf.

This is not to take away from the magnitude of the disaster.

But come on, as I struggle to align 2x4s, my larger struggle is why I'm not filled with praise at this news.

Logos2Go

Psalm 146.1 How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! (NIV)

Note: This word "fitting" is translated in other versions as "comely" (KJV) or "seemly" (RSV) ... or simply beautiful (NKJV)

Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1996, MIT Press

Dorothy Sayers on the original vision

2010-08-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

The original vision for the painting was this, drawn on the envelope of a bank statement. Compared with the final outcome, there is some likeness, but not much.

In the original impulse, I wanted to abstract the undulating fields of the Palouse into curved lines. The lines would be pronounced, acting somewhat like the cames (the black lines) of stained glass windows. So in the original vision, I saw something sectional; a kind of Mondrian with curves: solid colors each framed within lined boundaries.

The haziness of the outcome was not planned; it is something that the painting itself wanted to be.

But the tension between what I wanted, and what the painting wanted to be, left the work unfinished on my desk for weeks. I was tempted to discard it -- abort it -- and forget about it. It was only resignation (not inspiration) that brought me to finish it.

The process became more cheerful, although still suspenseful, when it occurred to me that it might have a direction of its own.

The whole exercise raises questions about the nature of creativity, about the creator and what is created. Does the artist "see" the thing whole ahead of time, and just bring it into being? For example, tradition tells us that Handel wrote the entire Messiah in 24 days, going almost non-stop, eschewing food. Upon completing the Hallelujah Chorus, it is said that he exclaimed he saw "all of heaven before me, and the great God Himself..."

But conversely we know that Beethoven struggled for years with some of his musical ideas before they took their final form in his compositions.

Here is Dorothy Sayers; she is writing about the literary art:

"The lay public ... rather like to believe this inspirational fancy; but as a rule the element of pure craftsmanship is more important than most of us are willing to admit. Nevertheless the free will of a genuinely created character has a certain reality, which a writer will defy at his peril. It does sometimes happen that the plot requires from its characters certain behavior, which, when it comes to the point, no ingenuity on the author's part can force them into, except at the cost of destroying them ... In such dilemmas, the simplest and worst thing the author can do is to behave like an autocratic deity ..."

Logos2Go

Dorothy Sayers, "Free Will and Miracle" in The Mind of the Maker (1941). Harper San Francisco, 1979, 67-68.

Ephesians 2.10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

See this for a traditional account of how Handel wrote the Messiah.

The play-by-play during art-making

2010-07-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

What's going on inside the artist during the act of art-making? This is an area where no camera can go, no reporter can espy, no companion can observe.

It is the most private of private worlds.

Even the artist doesn't exactly know what's going on while creating a work of art. This idea has early roots. For example, Plato noted that an inspired orator is inspired precisely because he is "out of his mind" -- controlled, instead, by something divine.

Does the artist "see" something whole, and then merely gives it visible (or audible) form as is?

In the movie Amadeus, the Mozart character composes with one hand while gently rolling a billiard ball with the other. The musical notation, as it were, simply comes out of him as if by automatic writing.

If you listen to Mozart's music, you believe this is true. The theologian Karl Barth once said something to the effect that, when we have Mozart's music, there's no need to wonder what heaven's like.

Or does the artist, in some way, "figure out" the rough inspirational impulse inside of him as the artwork takes shape in front of him? We might call this the sculpture analogy: making art is like carving out a block of solid rock; you chip away at the medium until there, in front of you, is an object of aesthetic delight.

This is how this piece of art, A day in the Palouse, came about. I started with quite another "look" in mind. But as I "chipped away" at it, it began to tell me what it really wanted to be.

A play-by-play commentary sort of thing went on inside of me while the artwork came into being. I mean play-by-play because, just like watching any sports event with commentary, I didn't know what the end result would be. There was a fair amount of suspense.

Now as I look at it -- in other words, now that this piece of art has been brought into the world, it has a life of its own, and I, like anybody else, have to get used to relating to it -- now as I look at it, I have gradually come to like it.

But it does not look like that original impulse I had for this work. That impulse is still stuck somewhere in the inner rooms of my being.

I don't think this is how God creates ex nihilo. Because if this is how He creates, it would raise enormous questions about His sovereignty and foreknowledge.

This whole thing, then, is a conversation between freedom and determination.

That is what art is, in a way: a living example of the tug-of-war between what a creator "wants" and what the work of art ends up to be.

I see it as a theological - aesthetic question.

But I see everything in these terms.

Logos2Go

Psalm 139.14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Ephesians 2.10 For we are his workmanship (the word here is "poetry"; as in we are his poetry), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. I believe Barth's comment comes from his Church Dogmatics, but I don't have it in front of me. Here are many quotes by famous people about Mozart; several of the observations are by Barth.

Plato, Ion 532b-536b SOCRATES: I perceive, Ion; and I will proceed to explain to you what I imagine to be the reason of this. The gift which you possess of speaking excellently about Homer is not an art, but, as I was just saying, an inspiration; there is a divinity moving you, ... so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains...

A day in the Palouse, oil pastel on poster board

The cultural evolution of sermons

2010-07-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Sermonizing is never easy.

The word "sermon" is never mentioned in the Scriptures. This is the first challenge, because it suggests something of a conventionalized practice commonly understood as a church-authorized person speaking from the Scriptures to an audience.

And this is fine as far as it goes; many well-established truths are not explicitly enumerated by Scripture, but are nevertheless unassailable as Christian doctrine or practice.

But sermonizing is not easy for this simple reason: it doesn't mix well with established culture.

This is seen in the very first recorded sermon, the one given by Jesus himself, the one conventionally referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. Six times in that sermon, Jesus said:

But I say unto you ...

It is part of a formulaic contrast between what the culture had come to expect in the way of life and practice, versus what God is saying now via his spokesperson. Here is one of the six times Jesus invokes the contrast in his famous sermon:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment..."

And so on for six categories of the most commonest issues we all deal with. The culture says this about anger; but I say unto you something different. The culture says this about adultery; but I say unto you something different. The culture says this about divorce, but I say unto you ...; About oaths, but I say unto you ...; About taking revenge, but I say unto you ...; About hating your enemies ... but I say unto you...

... love your enemies...

Taken together, the list is an impossible bar to attain to. And so the kingdom of God must be lived by the grace of Christ, not by our own efforts; this is the difference between the bondage of the regime of law and the freedom of the regime of grace.

But to return to sermons and sermonizing: most of the sermons today are not of the but-I-say-unto-you variety. They are not that disruptive.

They are, shall we say, kinder and gentler.

If we look to history, we see that there is something of an evolutionary pattern that can be discerned about sermons and sermonizing, depending upon the cultural venue into which sermons are spoken. The pattern can be roughly divided into three stages:

1. At the beginning of a work of God, sermons tend to be disruptive in relation to how cultural life is conducted. This certainly applies to the Sermon on the Mount: the culture tells you this, BUT I SAY UNTO YOU ... that.

And it applies not only to the heathen; it applies to the devout, to the simple, to the innocent. All are shaped by their culture. Thus it is to all that the word of God comes as a DISRUPTION. This is the first stage.

2. And then, as the news of the disruptive word becomes incorporated into the lives of the people, sermons at the second stage tend not to be so disruptive. They tend more to be informative.

Let's see now ... what was it that Luther and the first Reformers found? Oh yes: they found that we can live by faith alone. Now, here are the ways we can do that ...

And so disruption becomes INFORMATION. Sermons as information are what they are. But they aren't what they aren't. They may have the stamp of God's mind. But they may not have the force of his Word. These kinds of sermons inform; they hardly ever convict.

3. And then, in the third stage, sermons become evaluative. By this stage, the onus shifts to the audience -- who are, at this point of the evolution of sermons, comfortably in their pews, perhaps dressed in their Sunday best. (In America, even Sunday best has gone by the wayside; jeans and shorts will do).

Sermons at this stage are merely for evaluation. Did he have three clear points? Did he follow the accepted rules of exegesis? Wasn't he just a tad too funny this morning? Hey, where do we go for lunch?

This stage of the process often coincides with divine re-adjustments of cultural complacency.

Logos2Go

Matthew 5.22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Matthew 5.28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Matthew 5.32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Matthew 5.34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne...

Matthew 5.39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Matthew 5.44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you...

Why old corn?

2010-07-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

It says they ate old corn when they crossed into the promised land.

Why old corn? Why not new corn for a celebration? After all, this was the culmination of forty years wandering in the desert. They had finally entered the land! But ...

... they ate old corn. It sounds like having leftovers. What a let down!

There are two ways we can apply the Old Testament account of the Israelites crossing the river Jordan into the promised land. One way pictures a future condition: Having received salvation (the exodus from Egypt and crossing the Sea of Reeds), God's people wander through a fallen world today (the desert) ... towards a future entrance into God's kingdom. And so the New Testament says we are like those of old, who "did not receive what was promised;" and that, like them, we should persevere, looking towards Jesus, the "author and finisher of our faith."

The other way is this: crossing the Jordan is a picture of being in Christ now. For the New Testament also says: "If anyone is in Christ ... he is a new creation!" In other words, those in Christ have already entered into the promised land; it is a present condition.

But the problem of the old corn holds for both interpretations.

Why old corn? Why old corn when it will be a new heavens and a new earth? (Picture 1) Why old corn when, in Christ, there is a new creation now? (Picture 2).

The old corn signals that, while the mercies of Christ are new everyday, those mercies are never of our innovation, as if we can (newly) cook them up. They were planned for us from of old. Life in Christ is never our plan, our cleverness, our resources, our education, our upbringing, our good looks, our high perch in society, our professional title.

Sure we talk a good game: God is sovereign over everything in our lives. But when the rubber meets the road, we are really quite anxious about picking up those new boy scout badges.

But what we feast on in Christ is never these new things we've picked up along the way. It is of the salvation that included us before the foundation of the world.

It is that old.

This, by the way, might explain a curious observation Jesus made:

Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

And then there was that incident when Jesus met Peter and some others struggling to catch fish all night long without success. He told them to place their nets at another location -- and they hauled in great numbers of fish (153, to be exact). But ...

... when they came ashore, He had a breakfast of fish waiting for them. In other words, the fish they ate was not the fish they caught.

That fish is the old corn.

It is always the meal that was provided for from long ago; it is never the meal we work for and cook up for ourselves -- even when that work is also blessed.

Logos2Go

Joshua 5.11-12 And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched [corn] in the selfsame day. And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. (KJV)

Hebrews 12.1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

2 Corinthians 5.17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

1 Peter 1.18-21 ... knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Matthew 12.52 "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

John 21.8-13 The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off. When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.

Thoughts upon a possible biopsy

2010-07-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

Last week, at a routine dental cleaning, the hygienist noticed a lesion on the roof of my mouth. Upon seeing it, the dentist referred me to an oral surgeon; she told me he'll most likely perform a biopsy. It was not helpful that she also said she "didn't like the looks of it."

Well, the oral surgeon saw me yesterday and concluded that the lesion (or whatever it is) seems to be healing when compared with photos forwarded him by my dentist the week prior. So he's going to wait on it, and I see him again later in August to see if a biopsy is even needed.

But of course this matter has me thinking a lot about facing another serious illness. With Valerie's cancer last year, we've been made aware of just how temporary life is; another biopsy only underlines this sense. What if it's something serious? Can I be as fortunate as Valerie, who, after two lumpectomies and ultimately a mastectomy, is free of cancer today? What are the chances of dodging the cancer bullet twice in 18 months? These have been some of my thoughts.

But they have not been all of my thoughts.

I also sense -- ever so elusively, but it is not a mirage -- I also sense a certain peace about facing the possibility of very bad news. Our Christian confession comes completely down to this: if there is actually nothing on the other side of the grave, if in fact after physical death there is indeed only non-existence, then nothing else about the Faith amounts to much.

As a matter of fact, nothing about our culture -- that is, our way of life -- amounts to much. Despite what secularists say, our cultural ways, the tenets of our worldview, are so steeped in the truths of the Biblical message that, if upon death we discover there really is nothing -- nothing -- on the other side, then all of history amounts to a fiction. All of that would have been a grand mirage.

The countless millions who have gone ahead and left this world with hope, with rejoicing, in anticipation of seeing Christ ... all of them will prove to have been the fools. Count the Apostle Paul as chief among them, because he said, "My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better..." All of the good works done by saints motivated to enact the Christian world-and-life view into cultural institutions -- hospitals, just legal systems, honest business practices, universities (yes, once, alas), the centuries of art informed by Christian theology -- all of these cultural practices ... would have been founded on a lie. Conversely, the reprobate, the deniers of God, those who reject Christ and His message, those who insist on a materialist cosmos as the final reality ... they would have proven to be the prescient ones. Never mind spiritual convictions. This just doesn't seem plausible.

Since the lesion was found, I've posted here and here and here about my thoughts on life and death. This is another way of saying that, somehow, the precise Scriptures of comfort have come to me at the times when I needed them. These Scriptures don't tell me that, if I have a terminal illness, I will be healed. They say nothing of the sort. Instead, they tell me that there is nothing to fear in death. They say to me, in fact, that "all are alive in God."

It will just be "alive" in a completely different sense than what we are accustomed to.

What we are accustomed to. We in this scientific age are so cock-sure of the physics of existence, of the biological science of our existence. But more than any other culture, we are the most blind to seeing beyond any material dimension. And yet we tacitly assume we are the most advanced and enlightened culture there ever was. Even Christians are taken in by this. We have so "scientized" our understanding of the Faith that we have lost the possibility of experiencing the mind-bending awe of the full-orbed reality the Bible really paints. We confess the Scriptures are the Word of God; but by this we merely confess the principle that the Scriptures are the Word of God -- almost like we would confess it as a scientific fact -- but we hardly actually believe the words themselves as the words of God. We hardly ever truly cast our lot with those words.

Until faced with death.

When faced with death, this simple sentence, as one of many examples, strikes our attention. At least it struck mine: ... whether life or death or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

In my worries about a terminal disease, I try to wrap my mind, nay, my heart, around what this one sentence means. Is it an exaggeration? Is it an exaggeration that "all is mine". All is mine, whether in life or death, in present or future. This makes no sense in the framework of this world.

But ... it is the word of God, the word we confess to be His word.

When I say I sense a scrim of peace about possible death, I mean there is something I almost look forward to; because I suspect that the sentence above, if it makes no sense in this world, would make sense in that world. How? I have no idea. But yes, I look forward to finding out. I want to live in a world in which the trees, indeed, clap their hands. I want to live in a world where the angels actually do sing at the unspeakable beauties of creation -- I mean, where this possibility doesn't just come alive in poems, not even in poems that are psalms, but in actual life, period. And I want to learn to sing with those angels.

After all, it will all be mine.

Logos2Go

Philippians 1.22-23. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, which is far better ...

Luke 20.38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him."

1 Corinthians 3.19-23 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Isaiah 55.12 For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Job 38.4-7 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Two facts about eternal life

2010-07-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

After feeding five thousand people with just a few loaves of bread and some fish, Jesus gave two facts about eternal life.

First: For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

This "I will raise him up at the last day" suggests all the trappings that come with death, namely, the grave. The good news is that there will be a resurrection from the grave.

So far, this is pretty much the common understanding of eternal life: we die; followed by a resurrection at some far distant "last day"; and only after that does eternal life commence.

But here is the second fact Jesus said: Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died ... (I am) the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever ...

This seems to be a different fact. Here, Jesus says that those who will be raised up at the last day ... will not die in the first place. It is in this way that Jesus' work supersedes the work of the fathers: they ate manna -- which was miraculous enough -- but they died. In contrast, partake of me, Jesus said, and you will NOT die.

But how does not dying at all jibe with the common understanding of dying first, and only afterwards ... eternal life? How do you die, but not die?

I think this touches on what I said yesterday: those in Christ, that is, those of the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are continuously alive in God all the time.

It is not that there will be no grave. There will be. But as is noted elsewhere by St. Paul, who understood the implications of what Jesus did more than most of us: O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?

In other words, Jesus' second point suggests that eternal life is NOW; that we who believe in Him are already in possession of eternal life. It is not a reality reserved for us only in some far, far mythical future. Eternal life is now.

This suggests that physical death, for those in Christ, is merely a shedding of the body. With respect to life itself, death in this sense is something of an event in a life that never ends. Hence there is no sting to it.

Perhaps it is a kind of graduation.

This might just be the deeper truth illustrated by Jesus feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. Yes, present life in this world amounts to a few loaves of physical bread. But the real Bread of Life is also here, right now, and its magnitude -- right now -- is a thousand times greater. Right now.

And in that distant future, we get our bodies back too, untainted by sin.

Logos2Go

John 6.40 For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6.49-51a Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died ... (I am) the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever ...

1 Corinthians 15.55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?

Why the bush was not consumed

2010-07-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

Jesus proved there is life after death by invoking a Name of God:

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Somehow this is proof enough that there is resurrection from the dead. How? I think in this way:

Jesus' point is that those privileged enough to be in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are always alive.

Think of it.

These patriarchs, from whom issue the great lineage of Judaism, from which issues forth the Messiah's work of including the Gentiles into the purposes of God -- (we Gentiles in Christ are all sons of Abraham) -- these patriarchs are important enough dead.

But they are dead only from our earthly perspective, in time and in space.

From God's vantage point, they are alive and always have been. Therefore, says Jesus, there is life after death.

This point needs to be savored, as I have been, for days on end. Savor it like a sweet something in the mouth of your being. It is not something that the knowledge of this world can remotely grasp.

He is God not of the dead, but of the living ... for all live to him. ALL live to him. This is the word of God.

Jesus gave this proof to the Sadducees, who deny any resurrection from the dead. He said -- and you can almost detect a certain "don't you guys get it?" tone in His voice -- He said: But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob...

Even Moses. Come on guys. Even Moses knew this.

Moses, who by the time he saw the burning bush had come to the end of his life, or so he thought. Educated in the courts of Egypt, he had been exiled to the desert for killing a man in religious-cultural zeal. There in the desert, he tended sheep for forty years -- forty years -- until God met him in the bush. But at that bush he met the God who is always alive, whose purposes are always alive, whose people who serve him are always alive ...

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Those who are called by this God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ... those who are touched by the God with this Name, never come to an end.

And the fire burned in the bush.

And the bush was not consumed.

Logos2Go

Exodus 3.2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

Luke 20.37-39 "But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. "Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him." Then some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well."

Galatians 3.6-9 Thus Abraham "believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith.

How many times does "mind" occur in Psalms?

2010-07-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

It has been said that all the books of the Bible consist of God speaking to man. Only the Psalms is characterized by man speaking to God -- in worship and praise.

Now, in all 150 psalms, the word mind is mentioned ...

... just once (in KJV translation).

And it is not a flattering use of the word: the psalmist is fretting that he is "like a dead man forgotten out of mind."

Think of it: the book of the Bible that records worship and praise offered back up to God ... and the word "mind" occurs ONCE in it.

There are many Hebrew words translated "mind" in English versions. Those original words (nephesh, lav, lavav, ruwach, peh) mean a wide variety of things:

soul / creature / person / appetite / living being / desire / emotion / passions / inclination / relfection / memory / conscience / seat of the appetites / seat of emotions and passions / to breathe / to perspire / mouth / resolution / determination of will / seat of courage / plan / purpose

Here is the conclusion I come to: the Hebrew worldview did not have a concise concept of (what we would call) mind. Put another way, praise of God in the Old Testament worldview was always a whole-person activity. It would have been unthinkable in that worldview to praise God any other way.

Then here's this:

Perhaps the most telling example of whole-person worship in the Old Testament is the famous passage called the Shmah in the Torah -- but here let's consider how Jesus quotes it by the time of the New Testament. Here is the Shmah in the King James Version of Deuteronomy:

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

So the whole person, in the Old Testament, involved heart, soul and might. But when asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus, clearly quoting the Shmah, answered with this:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Mind. This is the Greek word διάνοια, which means "by the mind," where mind (νοῦς) means the intellectual faculty; the understanding.

So when Jesus, a Jewish man, but a Jewish man living in the Greek / Hellenistic culture of the New Testament, quoted the Shmah, he added "with all thy mind." Jesus' point, of course, was also that worship of God must be whole-person worship of God. This much did not change.

But by the time of the New Testament, the whole-person included the mind.

We can go on from here to discuss profound implications of how culture affects Scriptural revelation -- to the extent that even when Jesus, the God-man, cited the Old Testament ... he cited it in context of the cultural worldview of his day.

And it is all the Word of God.

Two points come to me (or, perhaps, come to mind):

1. If the word "mind" occurs only once in the Psalms, perhaps we over-estimate how much the mind -- that is to say, intellectual prowess -- is needed in our worship of God. Perhaps intellectual sophistication is a hindrance to worship.

2. Don't try what Jesus did on your own; instead, cite Scripture passages precisely.

Logos2Go

Psalm 31.12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

Deuteronomy 6.4-5 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Matthew 22.37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Note: the NIV translates Hebrew words as "mind" four times in the Psalms: at 26.2 / 64.6 / 83.5 / 110.4. The ESV uses "mind" 3 times in Psalms (the same as the NIV, but leaving out 83.5). In the KJV, 26.2 renders it "heart" / 64.6 is also "heart" / 83.5 renders it "with one consent" / and in 110.4, while the NIV and ESV has "will not change his mind" the KJV renders it "will not repent."

For all live to Him

2010-07-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

Today on a regularly scheduled visit to have my teeth cleaned, the hygienist noticed something on the roof of my mouth, towards the back.

"I don't like that!" she said.

She took a picture and showed it to me: it looks like some sort of lesion. And she said the picture looks better than it actually looks in my mouth. Recently I've indeed sensed some irritation in that area; what feels like a sinus infection. But I thought nothing of it.

Until now.

The hygienist called the dentist in to have a look. When she came in, after the usual greetings, she said: "Well, my first reaction is I don't like it..."

So she scheduled me to see an oral surgeon, but they couldn't get me in until the middle of next week.

I am now trying to prepare class lectures. But of course my mind is on this new problem. What can it be? Hmmm ... just yesterday I posted about our stay here being so short ...

I reach out to the New Testament next to my computer. Maybe this is one of those times that opening the Book randomly will give insight. This is what I read:

Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him.

Jesus said this in answer to the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. But I've always found it to be an odd answer, because Jesus' proof that there is a resurrection of the dead is by ... recalling Moses at the burning bush. Here is what Jesus said:

But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him ...

So the very fact that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob somehow proves that all live to God. That is to say, all remain alive to Him.

So this passage tells me I will live; it just may be "alive to Him" in another dimension altogether.

This will have to be my comfort for today, and perhaps for upcoming days as well.

Logos2Go

Luke 20.27-39 There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, 28 and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second 31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.” 34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question.

I also found this, the words of the theologian Jurgen Moltmann:

“With God, nothing is at all lost. Everything remains in God. We experience our life as temporal and mortal. But as God experiences it, our life is eternally immortal. Nothing is lost to God, not the moments of happiness, not the times of pain. ‘All live to him (Luke 20.38).’”

A temporary stay

2010-07-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

Last night we learned that one of our dear friends -- the one who has led us on two short term missions to China -- went into the emergency room with inexplicable bleeding, and that this has been going on for a month.

This morning I receive two emails:

My mother in California fell on the driveway and had to go to the emergency room. I cannot communicate with my father on the phone because he is hard of hearing. So I can only await emails.

The other email: Andrew's high school Japanese teacher, one of his favorites, dies at age 55. That would be one year younger than me.

Ours is a temporary stay in this world, no matter how much glitzy technology gives us illusions otherwise. It is just a little while.

Logos2Go

John 16.19-20 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, "Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, 'A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me'? "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

A coincidence at the wedding

2010-07-12T09:24:00.001-07:00

Something happened at the wedding this weekend.

As the outdoor ceremony began, the sun was glaring in our faces like a heat lamp. Many held their programs up for shade. I felt like a judge at some sort of gymnastics competition. But I could hardly see anything in the bright light.

Then, during the course of the ceremony, a shade come over the place.

It was like someone dimmed the lights just a little; and all those programs rested back on everyone's laps. The whole thing was so subtle it could easily have been missed.

But it struck me how quietly appropriate it was, as the young minister made the point the marriage is ordained of God.

These days we deny big miracles. And the little ones we call coincidences.

Logos2Go

Psalm 121.5 The LORD himself watches over you! The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade.

Jonah 4.6 And the LORD God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah's head, shading him from the sun. This eased some of his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the plant.

he's past his prime / he's arrogant

2010-07-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Student evaluations from one of my classes came in while we were traveling in Colorado and Wyoming. Against the backdrop of stunning natural beauty, I read the following (I'm skipping the nice comments because they are not the ones that stay with you):

I didn't learn anything.

The grading was mystifying -- a "B" is unacceptable.

He's past his prime.

He is arrogant.

My first reaction was that students these days are so ungrateful. They are now the patrons and customers; we professors are merely waiters serving them their selections from a menu of their making (a menu that is unknown to us, and probably unknown to them).

My second reaction -- and this is the one that has stayed with me -- is that what they said, all that they said, might be true. And so this summer I am taking pains to revise my material, and to rectify my heart.

Teaching is a mystery. What is it?

Is it a transmission of facts? An impartation of inspiration? An opening of new vistas neither teacher nor student were previously aware of? Is it being a role model?

And there is indeed the question -- especially in these rapidly changing times -- of whether or not a person educated at year-1 can even teach relevant content by year-10.

Teaching is a mystery because knowledge -- this thing we call knowledge -- is itself a mystery. We are never in possession of it. We simply become aware of certain things about God's world for a time; perhaps we tell others about it; but very quickly we pass on and all is forgotten. (Much is forgotten even before we pass).

To rectify my heart. What is meant by this? Well, on our trip we read to each other the words of Paul: For I determined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

This has also stayed with me through these weeks.

Logos2Go

1 Corinthians 2.1-5 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

While I have my being

2010-07-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

I am taken by this from the psalmist:

I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

While I have my being? This suggests that at some point I will no longer have my being. And no longer having my being is much more worrisome than no longer having my body.

A long tradition of thought tells us that our bodies are not us in our totality; that our beings will survive our bodies; that what is to come after our bodies pass away is much better, and hence much more to be desired, than what is presently at hand.

Upon this all the hope of the Christian gospel -- and also all the fear of it -- is founded. As it says in the Book elsewhere: it is appointed to men once to die, and then the judgment. This presumes that after the body dies, there remains something of us to judge. That would be our beings; perhaps what our beings did while in our bodies.

Or, conversely, in the words of St. Paul: if in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. Why most pitied? Because we put our hope in the life to come, after this life -- and this body -- passes. If there is indeed no such future life ... we are of all people most to be pitied.

There is, therefore, a much better existence to come for those who fear God and hold to Christ (or better: for those who are held by Him). Put another way, our beings have not seen nor experienced anything like what remains to be experienced.

All of this presumes that we will continue to have our beings -- or more simply, that we will continue to BE -- after our bodies pass away. So:

I will sing praises to my God while I have my being ... this "while" I have my being is disquieting.

The Old Testament is much less clear on the status of the afterlife in general. But the New Testament is quite clear: that which is sown a physical body will be raised a spiritual body. Taken together -- and we should take them together -- it is a complex brew of encouragement and wonderment.

In other words, I am encouraged. But I also wonder -- not the wonder of one in bliss; but the wondering of one who has questions.

And then there are Job's words: “And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God ..."

How does that really work? I don't know.

Logos2Go

Psalm 146.2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

Hebrews 9.27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment...

1 Corinthians 15.19 If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

1 Corinthians 15.44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Job 19.27 “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God ...

Tent making

2010-07-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

Not a camper, I am constructing a tent for the first time.

Freed from its ingeniously small packaging, there it lies unfurled in large confusion on the grass.

I read the directions in small print -- and these days directions always come in the Interlinear Version, in at least two if not three foreign languages. This is respectful of diversity.

But it is not respectful of any one particular user. It takes some time to find the directions in English, adding feelings of smallness to already-present feelings of incompetence.

Then the discipline of reading and doing.

Reading and doing: these are two different categories of things. You may be able to read the English. But comprehension beyond words, even words you think you understand -- to doing the actions those words describe -- this is not an easy matter.

In fact I think it takes a lifetime to rectify words with actions.

Even in our native language, what a reader comprehends may not be what the writer meant. What, for example, does the writer mean by "sleeve?" Insert the rod through the hole in the sleeve. I look at the puddle of fabric on the ground and see no sleeves.

Are the sleeves under here? (The puddle has many layers). No.

Is this a sleeve? It doesn't look like a sleeve either. I see only hooks. And so on.

There is a reality "out there" the writer is trying to describe. Gradually I must submit my presumed understandings of things, and all of the meanings to words I have already assigned to the "looks" of things in my previous 55 years of life ... I have to submit all of this to the words on the page; to what the writer meant by those words, not to what I want them to mean.

I cannot freely interpret without boundaries. Because it would not conform to the reality that is out there; the reality that now invites me to participate in its further realization.

It is only after several failures at assigning my own meanings to the reality in front of me that I decide something.

Perhaps I should read through these directions -- chapter and verse. And read them again and again, until I finally see, amidst little dawns of realization, those sleeves that were there all along.

Logos2Go

Matthew 5.18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Acts 18.3 Paul lived and worked with them, for they were tent makers just as he was.

Acts 10.34 ... Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons ...

The self interest of St. Paul

2010-07-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

This is a well-known exhortation, although very hard to do:

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Paul wrote this to the Philippians when he himself was in prison. That alone makes his exhortation impressive. But I was struck by what Paul says a few verses later, after addressing another matter:

They all look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

In other words, the encouragement to look after others' interests was written by a man who himself had no one to look after his interests. And he was in prison. Not an easy thing to say.

The only exception was Timothy. Apparently Timothy was the only one around at that time to be mindful of Paul's interests. I have no one like him, says Paul.

But in what way did Paul not have anyone else like Timothy? In this way:

I have no one like him ... who will be genuinely anxious for your welfare...

In other words, Paul had no one like Timothy not because Timothy was the only one interested in Paul's needs, but because Timothy was the only one interested in the needs of Paul's readers.

This is even more impressive. Even at the level of his own needs, Paul was focused on the needs of others. Put another way, others' interests had become Paul's own self interest. To have Timothy around to be concerned about others' interests was enough for Paul to regard his own interests as being met.

Impressive indeed.

And what was that other matter Paul addressed in between his first exhortation to be interested in the needs of others and his latter acknowledgment that he only had Timothy around to encourage him ... by being interested in the needs of others?

That other matter is the famous kenosis passage -- that is, the passage about how Christ ... emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant ... and humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

Logos2Go

Philippians 2.3-21: 3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or questioning, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. 19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. 20 For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. 21 For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

By the signs that followed

2010-06-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

So there is both the defense as well as the confirmation of the gospel.

Defense is something we prepare for. For example, Peter exhorts his readers to "always be prepared to give ... the reason for the hope that you have." This takes some work. At any moment, are we prepared to give the reason for our hope?

But then there is the confirmation portion of this formula. I've been tracking this word in the Greek: βεβαιόω. For example, here is how the Gospel of Mark concludes:

They went out, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.

Confirmation by the signs that followed. Now here is something ...

The disciples were busy, going everywhere to preach the gospel. They were prepared for its defense; they had all the reasons.

But it was the Lord with them who confirmed what they did -- and this by the signs that followed. These signs no amount of preparation can produce.

Indeed, the very nature of confirmation is that somebody else has to do the confirming.

This is what we should live for: the confirmation of our confession by the signs that follow.

Logos2Go

Philippians 1.7 ... both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers with me of grace.

Mark 16.20 And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.

Categorizing out worship

2010-06-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

It was most likely a responsive exchange in public congregation. The speaker points out an act of God: God does such-and-such. And the people would respond: His steadfast love endures forever.

What's remarkable are the many categories of God's actions the speaker intones -- all to which the response is the same: His steadfast love endures forever.

First there are the acts of creation: He created the heavens with understanding. His steadfast love endures forever. He made the sun to rule the day. His steadfast love endures forever. The moon and stars to rule the night. His steadfast love endures forever.

Then there are political actions: He struck down the firstborn of Egypt. His steadfast love endures forever. He overthrew Pharaoh, parted the Red Sea, allowed his people to cross, and so on. His steadfast love endures forever.

There are actions of kindness towards His people: He remembered us in our low estate. His steadfast love endures forever. He rescued us from our foes. His steadfast love endures forever.

Finally there is His care of all people: He gives food to all flesh. His steadfast love endures forever.

To all these categories of divine activity, the response is the same -- because the author is the same: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of the Scriptures.

The result is worship: His steadfast love endures forever.

Fast forward to today.

Nothing created the heavens and the earth; it was a big bang followed by the random activities of atoms.

Political actions? Just be politically correct. Shut up about that overthrowing your enemies stuff. Strive for world peace. (Curious: if everything is random atoms bumping each other, why must we strive for world peace?)

Actions of kindness? Well there is some of that. But we have to have federal funding. It takes a village, you see.

Care of all people? It's a dog-eat-dog world.

It occurs to me that the word "worship" has pretty much been excised from our everyday vocabulary. Can it be because we have categorized God out of every domain of activity?

I am reminded of a remark made by C.S. Lewis in The Discarded Image; something to the effect that when people in medieval times looked up at the stars in the sky, they felt they were in a cathedral.

When we look up, all we see are atoms.

And we don't even see them.

Logos2Go

Psalm 136:

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

4 to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
5 to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
7 to him who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
8 the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
9 the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
11 and brought Israel out from among them,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
12 with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
13 to him who divided the Red Sea in two,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
14 and made Israel pass through the midst of it,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
15 but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

17 to him who struck down great kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
18 and killed mighty kings,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
19 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
20 and Og, king of Bashan,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
21 and gave their land as a heritage,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
22 a heritage to Israel his servant,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

23 It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
24 and rescued us from our foes,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
25 he who gives food to all flesh,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

26 Give thanks to the God of heaven,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

The defense and confirmation of the gospel

2010-06-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

The "defense of the gospel" is a familiar term. It conjures up images of fortification: rugged bulwarks of logic able to withstand the onslaught of enemies of the Christian confession.

In theological seminaries the defense of the gospel is an academic department: Apologetics, which derives directly from the Greek word for defense, ἀπολογία. Apologetics teaches you to get your doctrine right every which way, so that you can be prepared against every which parry of the opposition. All of this is good as far as it goes.

But here I am struck by a phrase of Paul's: "... the defense and confirmation of the gospel."

Now this is a beautiful thing. I take confirmation of the gospel as not so much a successful logical defense of the gospel.

I take confirmation of the gospel as something that necessarily blooms on its own.

While defense can take place in academic settings, or at least within academic outlooks, confirmation blooms in the fields of daily life, usually without us knowing it.

Of course I am not suggesting that heretics can bloom successfully; a life that blooms in the gospel -- that is, a life that confirms the gospel -- is no doubt a life that reflects the correct doctrines of the gospel.

My point is simply that there are many whose lives are beautiful confirmations of the gospel -- who are not very good logical defenders of it, in the sense of knowing, for example, how to finely parse the finer points of infra- versus supra-lapsarianism.

Go ahead and defend the gospel.

But once in a while, don't forget to check for the blooms of confirmation.

Logos2Go

Philippians 1.7 just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.

Artwork is oil pastel on poster board

A dense stretch of fresh green

2010-06-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

When we last visited Yellowstone in1997, we saw the remains of a devastating fire:

Charred tree trunks as far as you can see, some still standing, but countless strewn on the ground like randomly tossed burnt toothpicks.

This time, thirteen years later, new growth is well on the way, a dense stretch of fresh green below the still visible charred stalks of the past.

You can't engineer the location of these new saplings. Each has a unique place, a unique look, a totally original disposition.

The only thing clear is that they are everywhere.

Logos2Go

Psalm 96.12 ... let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy ...

Bread and transformation

2010-06-15T21:43:00.000-07:00

When we dine together, we don't break grain.

We break bread.

By the time we can break bread, an entire culture must be in place: a culture that knows how to plow the ground, plant, cultivate the land, pray for good weather, celebrate the harvest, grind the grain, knead the dough.

A culture that can bake and cook. And then dine and dream about what the future holds.

Only then can we break bread.

Given this, it is amazing that bread is universal to all cultures. I think bread is emblematic of how God made us different from the animals.

Animals simply eat the grain that nature yields. But we humans: it is in our very nature to transform the yield of nature into something new before we can be satisfied.

Grain is good. But bread is beautiful.

Logos2Go

John 6.35 And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

Luke 22.19 And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."

Two views about blogs

2010-06-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

While traveling I am reading R.W. Southern's Medieval Humanism and Other Studies and listening to Ken Myer's Mars Hill Audio Journal.

Southern underlines the importance of letter writing as a literary form in the 12th century. This is different, Southern says, from the subsequent 13th century, which saw more formalized systems of knowledge, conveyed perhaps by treatises and the like, rather than by letters.

Southern reviews a collection of letters exchanged between the French theologian Peter Abelard (1079-1143) and Heloise, a woman with whom he had a romantic liaison while they were young, only to be recanted by both sides due to their religious convictions. The letters span many of these later years, and paint a picture of the struggles of two people torn between love for each other and love for God -- a conflict which medieval theology was particularly ill-equipped to resolve.

The romantic interest aside, Southern's point is that the letters themselves reveal the learning of the day and, because of this, the gestalt of the times. This was the 12th century.

Fast forward to Ken Myers in the 21st century:

In Volume 90 of the Mars Hill Audio Journal, Myers is concerned about the decline of reading as a general practice. In interviews with various luminaries, I was struck by how regularly Myers denigrates blogging as a writing and reading activity. I think he twice invoked blogging with a guffaw, clearly implying it is not something any person serious about learning should be involved with. As I recall:

With Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, blogging is associated with the inability to string several thoughts together.

And with Eugene Peterson, emeritus professor of spiritual theology at Regent College in British Columbia and author of over 30 Christian books, Myers suggests that nasty people Peterson met at a party were probably bloggers -- or something to that effect.

I think Myers may be missing something here.

Future generations may well look back at our day and treat the contents of blogs with a little more respect. It is often the vernacular writing of an era that is most revealing about that era.

It surprises me that Myers, for whom I have general respect, misses this even as he promotes reading and writing.

If he were still around, I think R.W. Southern would be more insightful.

Logos2Go

2 Timothy 4.13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments ...

R.W. Southern, "The Letters of Abelard and Heloise" in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1970), 88-104

Mars Hill Audio Journal, Vol. 90, March/April 2008

note: since I am traveling, it is difficult to cite specifically Myers' comments; I may be slightly off above, but Myers' gist is clear.

Augustine on mercy in war

2010-05-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

Guantanamo. Civil trials for terrorists -- or, ahem, depending on your political stripe, for "freedom fighters."

There's much debate these days on what to do with prisoners of war. But the very fact these guys are even alive is due to a view of human dignity traceable to Christian revelation. Put another way, you don't hear of the other side these days fretting about what to do with their prisoners.

No, they use their own people as human bombs.

In Augustine's day, the idea of having mercy on your enemy was a novel idea, and, after the sack of Rome in 410 AD, Augustine made clear where this idea came from. What is remarkable is that the enemy in Augustine's day seems to have practiced mercy during war much more than some enemies today:

All the devastation, the butchery, the plundering, the conflagrations, and all the recent anguish which accompanied the recent disaster at Rome were in accordance with the general practice of warfare. But there was something which established a new custom, something which changed the whole aspect of the scene; the savagery of the barbarians took on such an aspect of gentleness that the largest basilicas were selected and set aside to be filled with people to be spared by the enemy. No one was violently used there, no one snatched away. Many were to be brought there for liberation by merciful foes; none were to be taken from there into captivity even by cruel enemies. This is to be attributed to the name of Christ and the influence of Christianity. Anyone who fails to see this is blind; anyone who sees it and fails to give praise for it is thankless; anyone who tries to stop another from giving praise is a madman. Let us hope that no one with any sense will ascribe the credit for this to the brutal nature of the barbarians. Their fierce and savage minds were terrified, restrained, and miraculously controlled by him who long ago said, through his prophet, "I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges: but I will not disperse my mercy from them."

Logos2Go

Augustine, City of God, Book I, Section 7. Translated by Henry Bettenson (Penguin, 1984), 12-13.

Augustine on security and entertainment

2010-05-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

I am impressed with how similar our cultural conditions are to the days of Augustine, who wrote the following in the early 400's AD, in his City of God:

... why is it that you put the blame on this Christian era, when things go wrong? Is it not because you are anxious to enjoy your vices without interference, and to wallow in your corruption, untroubled and un-rebuked? For if you are concerned for peace and general prosperity, it is not because you want to make decent use of these blessings, with moderation, with restraint, with self-control, with reverence. No! It is because you seek an infinite variety of pleasures with a crazy extravagance, and your prosperity produces moral corruption far worse than all the fury of an enemy.

Augustine then goes on to praise a pagan high priest from Roman history, Scipio Nasica, who lived in the second century BC. Our translator clarifies that Augustine confuses Scipio Nasica with his (Nasica's) son, but this doesn't diminish Augustine's point, which is to argue that even this pagan high priest saw the connection between endless comfort and pleasure with moral decay. Interestingly, Augustine then cites two examples from Nasica: one from warfare and one from entertainment (I add the italics):

From warfare: ... The great Scipio ... dreaded that this calamity would come upon you. For that reason he opposed the destruction of Carthage, Rome's imperial rival at that time ... He was afraid of security ... And his policy was justified; the event proved him right. The abolition of Carthage certainly removed a fearful threat to the State of Rome; and the extinction of that threat was immediately followed by disasters arising from prosperity: ... a succession of disastrous quarrels and all the slaughter of the civil wars, all the torrents of bloodshed, all the greed and monstrous seething cruelty of proscriptions and expropriations, so that the Romans, who in a period of high moral standards stood in fear of their enemies, suffered a harsher fate from their fellow-citizens when those standards collapsed...

From entertainment: ... It was the same conviction, the same patriotic forethought which lead the same [Scipio Nasica] ... to restrain the senate's project to build a theater. He deflected them from this ambitious design, and used all the weight of his authority in a speech which persuaded them not to allow Greek corruption to infiltrate into the virile morality of Rome, and to have no truck with depravity which would undermine and weaken the Roman moral character. Such was the force of his authority that the senate, moved by his eloquence, had the wisdom to forbid for the future the erection of the temporary stands which the State had by now begun to provide for the spectators of the games ...

(From the translator: The prohibition to build theaters was passed by the senate in 155 BC; the first stone theater was built in 55 BC).

Today, we hear more about the craving of the Roman citizenry for the "games," which included the butchery of Christians by animals in the arenas. That came later, about two centuries after Scipio Nasica. The Roman Colosseum was built in about 70 AD.

Logos2Go

Augustine, City of God, Book I, Sections 30, 31. Translated by Henry Bettenson (Penguin, 1984), 42-43.

What I believe

2010-05-27T05:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is so good to just let the ages speak for you; so comforting to be among the countless who have said this:

I believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For me and for my salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For my sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son],
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Logos2Go

The Nicene Creed, 325 AD

Good is not God, but ...

2010-05-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

When I was in college, a man of the cloth I respected (and still do) -- in fact, the man who married Valerie and me -- told me:

"Just remember David: Good is not God ..."

I lived with that counsel for decades, often being wary of Good -- good things, good conventions, good actions, perhaps good people, even the goodness of Creation -- armed with the the guideline that, remember: Good is not God. Don't mistake the two.

But now that I am well on my way to 60, here is my perspective;

... Good may not equal God, but God is awfully Good. If I separate Good from God, I might end up serving just a concept of God.

Again, the Hebrew word translated "good" means pleasant and agreeable to the senses; valuable in estimation, appropriate and becoming; prosperity and welfare; it means moral good.

In the very first chapter of the Bible, this word "good" is used seven times.

All seven of them have to do with how God himself saw things. Indeed God is bigger than Good, but that didn't stop him from seeing all that he made was good, very good.

And he made sure to let us know about it. Seven times.

Logos2Go

Psalm 118.1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Genesis 1.4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1.10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1.12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1.18 ... to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1.21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1.25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1.31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.

Good-for versus Beauty-full

2010-05-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

Good is what it is because it is good for something.

To say again: Good has to be for something. Therefore good is not inert; it is dynamic. It proves its goodness in benefiting, in some way, others.

That is why it is Good.

Contrast this to Beauty. Beauty doesn't have to be for something. Beauty is complete in itself.

That is why we say Beauty- full. Beauty is already full. As in: Beautiful.

But we don't say good-full. No ...

We say good for. Something is good because it is good for something or someone.

With this in mind, the psalmist says to give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

That God is beautiful is beyond debate. But in Psalm 118, the psalmist is not occupied with beauty. He is occupied with something far more extraordinary:

God is not only beautiful. He is also good. And ...

... Good is for something. And so the psalmist goes on to say:

The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I will look in triumph on my enemies. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes ...

Logos2Go

Psalm 118.1, 7-9 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever ... (7-9) The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I will look in triumph on my enemies. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes ...

Good: sandwiched between duty and reason

2010-05-19T08:58:00.001-07:00

Whatever "good" is, it is sandwiched between a duty and a reason.

The duty : Give thanks to God.

All are called to give thanks to their Creator without condition. This is why the Book says elsewhere: "Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord ... to the glory of God the Father." This is, in the final accounting, a duty.

The reason : His love endures forever.

There is no logical necessity that God ... turns out to be a God whose love endures forever. He could have been a God whose anger endures forever. Or some other attribute. But it turns out that it is his love that endures forever. It gives "dodging a bullet" a whole new depth of meaning. This is reason for thanksgiving.

Now, in between this duty and this reason, where it is supposed to be, is Good. So, here we go:

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

We noted that "good" tends to be devalued nowadays. It is not quite good enough to be good; one must be excellent, tremendous, and so on -- even though the achievements we assign these superlatives to are usually not clear.

The lexicon tells us that the Hebrew word for good means pleasant and agreeable to the senses; valuable in estimation, appropriate and becoming; prosperity and welfare; it means moral good.

So to protect the value of Good in society and culture, we must be reminded of our duty: to give thanks to God. And also be reminded of the reason: that God's love endures forever. When we cultivate the Duty and the Reason ...

... Good comes sandwiched in between.

Conversely, when Duty and Reason are not cultivated, the value of Good loses its meaning.

And then we must scamper around calling everything that is mediocre excellent.

And that would be the least of the troublesome symptoms of a loss of Good.

Logos2Go

Psalm 118.1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Philippians 2.9-11 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

What's happened to good?

2010-05-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

Good is not as good as it used to be. Because of its now uncertain status , a passage like this is not as striking as it should be:

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever."

It doesn't say to give thanks because he is Almighty; or because he is All Powerful; or because he is Awesome. He is all of those things, but ...

It simply says to give thanks ... because he is good.

The lexicon tells us that the Hebrew word, among other things, means pleasant and agreeable to the senses; it means valuable in estimation, appropriate and becoming; it means prosperity and welfare; it means moral good. And so:

When God created light, He saw that it was good. When He created the earth and the seas, He saw it was good.

Light. The Sea and the Earth. Pleasing to the senses, valuable, appropriate, morally good.

But tell a student these days that her performance was -- well, that it was good -- and you may have some explaining to do.

Just good??? What, are you some kind of hatchet man? It wasn't just good. It was Great. It was Excellent. It was Tremendous. It deserved an Achievement Award. And so on. But ... just good?

I suggest that, when a culture devalues good, when good has lost its saltiness -- and salt preserves; it gives taste; it has medicinal value; it even prevents slipping on ice -- when good has lost its saltiness in a culture, that culture has lost the ballast of its moral compass.

It no longer recognizes what is pleasant and what is agreeable to the senses; it loses a grip on what is truly valuable, what is appropriate and becoming.

So when evil comes along, it is not recognized as such. It might even be mistaken for good.

Logos2Go

Psalm 118.1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Genesis 1.3-4 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1.10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

Isaiah 5.20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

But I digress

2010-05-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

This little phrase speaks a thousand words. You come across it so often; or variations of it:

" ... but I'm getting ahead of myself ..."

" ... but back to my point ..."

" ... but that is another conversation ..."

" ... but suffice it to say this ..."

For those of us who write (or fancy that we do), BUT I DIGRESS and its variations is a fascinating conundrum of the writing craft.

I often tell my students that anything I've published (well, peer reviewed stuff; not this blog) has usually been re-written up to 25 times. And gurus of good writing tell us this is typical.

So, for "but I digress" to have made 25 edits and still appear in print says something. In fact it says many things. One of the things it says is this:

You are not digressing. You're saying it exactly the way you want to say it.

The idea for this post came while writing yesterday's post, in which can be found this variation of "but I digress":

" ... but this is not where I want to go with this confession ..."

I thought long and hard -- not 25 times, but long and hard -- about deleting the entire section requiring this caveat. If it is not where I want to go, then why go there?

Why? Because in the final obsession, it was worth going there. Something about going there made the main point, well, more the main point: interpreting grades in a culture that has compromised on measurable standards is much harder to do ... if it has any meaning at all.

Here is another thing "but I digress" says:

It says that life in all of its beauty is not linear. It is symphonic, with so many, many moving parts. And those parts all fit together in ways that are far beyond what a linear sentence can capture.

So good writing is about crafting good linear lines of thought ... to describe a fullness not capture-able by lines.

I think this is why we have music.

But I digress.

Logos2Go

Isaiah 28.13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

2 Corinthians 12.13-14 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knows); How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

Many psalms begin like this: Psalm 5.1 For the director of music. For flutes. A psalm of David. Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing.

Confessions of a professor at grading time

2010-05-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

Another semester draws to a close and I engage in a bi-annual professorial ritual: giving grades.

If I were a teacher of arithmetic, perhaps the task would not be as emotionally challenging. There are no subtleties in 2+2=4.

But the humanities are all about interpretation.

And in an academic culture favorable to the notion of The Equality of All Interpretations (which is what has become of the original notion of the equality of all people), the task is made that much harder.

Come winter and spring, that academic culture still demands that I give grades.

So this is the first oxymoron. If all views are valid, what standard for grades? The gyrations on offer as answers to this question range between innovative to ridiculous.

But this is not where I want to go with this confession.

Here is my confession: I live for years with regret over not giving the right (interpreted) grade. The hardest ones are these: a student who is the life of the class in discussions -- and also does well in grades throughout the semester -- but who does not do well in the final exam.

Poorly enough to miss an "A". In fact, misses it by more than a wink and a nod. Let's say the final numeral score for the semester is 86. That's not an "A" right? Another student, Average Joe, does well on his final and scores an overall 85. Surely it is he who should get the "B" -- and he should be doggone thankful.

But, but, but, So-and-So, towards whom I clearly had "A" thoughts throughout the semester; thanking my lucky stars -- I shouldn't say that; thanking Providence for placing him/her in my class ... this So-and-So blows the final and ends up with an average of 86.

Last year, I struggled mightily over one such case. I was in Texas already, driving a U-Haul from Houston to LA, reading Ayn Rand, looking for Chinese restaurants with a Garmin among the endless stretches of cacti outside of El Paso.

But I hadn't submitted my grades. What do I do? What do I do?

I gave him a B+. That's what I did. And I've regretted it ever since. He deserved an A-, the heck with averages.

This year again: a student was the energy of class discussions, and did fairly well throughout the term with her grades.

But hers was the lowest final exam score. And I think she did end up with a semester score of 86.

What to do? What to do?

I gave her a B+ as well.

And strangely, this time, I don't regret it. But it is not an easy peace.

Logos2Go

Psalm 89.14 Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.

The art and craft of correction

2010-05-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

The proof of the pudding in any relationship comes when correction is needed.

Whatever friendship means, whatever "band of brothers" means, even whatever "brothers in Christ" mean, the real substance -- if there is any -- is revealed with reproof.

Can the friendship withstand it? Or is the relationship a kind of poor man's Platonic ideal of friendship? Those kinds of ideals turn out to be illusions. After the reproof -- poof -- all is gone. What you thought was a haven turns out to be a desert island.

An island of make believe that you've been busy trying to make flower, and were frankly ill-equipped to do anything else.

You discover, not unlike the realization that comes upon some young people when they are no longer young, that you've been in love with a concept a love: after many years, you've actually known little of the real thing.

You discover that it is not unlike those Thomas Kinkade paintings: scenes of Something Somewhere that are oh so achingly beautiful. Except they are scenes of memories of times and places that never existed.

Paul conferred grace, mercy and peace upon Timothy because at stake were real relationships in the real world, not make believe ones in Platonic dreams.

How do we know this?

Because immediately upon conferring these substances upon Timothy, Paul didn't send the young man off to vacation. Rather:

... remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith ...

So now we see what grace, mercy and peace really are: They are the tools for the practice of an art. Perhaps they are even the very colors to be applied to the canvas of the artwork.

The art and craft of correction.

Real art and craft, out of which comes true works of art, not ones of make believe scenes.

How do we know this?

Because love is on the other side, love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Oh for apprenticeships that teach this kind of art and craft.

Logos2Go

1 Timothy 1.1-5 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

The joy of slow conversations

2010-05-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

I enjoy the slow speed of conversations with my friend Dan. How slow? Well, something like this:

"How has your week been?"

Silence.

Lots of silence before the answer. During this silence, things can be done. For example: add the basil leaves to the Pho noodles that were just served us; pour the various dipping sauces into their respective little plates; go over a mental list of other items to bring up with Dan ...

All this while, Dan is deep in thought.

(I must admit: sometimes during these silences I would glance across the table to be sure he heard the question ... But he always has).

It just takes him a blue moon to get the answer out. It's as if the Riddle of Life had just been presented to him, and he wants to be sure he gives the answer a good shot.

There he is, mulling it over, eyebrows furrowed, hand rubbing chin in variations of Rodin's Thinker.

Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim. Aim some more. And then, finally, FIRE:

"Are you familiar with the book written by ..."

And then it's off to the races. Not the tortoise and the hare sort of race. No. There is no hare in my conversational races with Dan. At tortoise pace, we intricately go over the points made by so-and-so in whatever book (or some other set of points) ... savoring the ideas; cultivating the implications.

And finally how those points relate to Dan's week emerge into clarity like those old Polaroid snapshots that used to mature right in front of your eyes.

Logos2Go

1 Corinthians 11.33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.

What is bling?

2010-05-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

The wedding is now T-minus several weeks, and Valerie is throwing a new word around: BLING. As in:

"I need some bling to go with this dress."

What does this mean?

I'm not much when it comes to evolutionary theory, but my suspicion is that "bling" is a recent emergence from the primordial soup of language.

So I did some research: in the 1993 edition of The American Heritage College Dictionary (I'm old enough to have a hard copy on my shelves) -- in the 1993 edition, the word bling is not listed.

But look on dictionary.com and ... whoops there it is:

bling: also bling-bling, by 1997, U.S. rap slang, "wealth, expensive accessories," a sound suggestive of the glitter of jewels and precious metals (cf. Ger. blinken "to gleam, sparkle").

and

bling: noun, flashy, ostentatious jewelry; "the rapper was loaded with bling"

Aha, so the rappers and the Germans had something to do with it. And I was (blinken) right: the vintage is only1997.

So, flashy ostentatious jewelry. That's what it means...

Logos2Go

Genesis 4.22 And Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, the forger of every kind of tool of brass and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah. (Naamah means "loveliness" -- the Strongs number is 5279; the footnote in the Darby version translates the name as "charming").

1 Timothy 2.9 I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes...

In season

2010-05-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

Be constant in season and out of season. This was the counsel of Paul.

For everything there is a season. This was the counsel of Solomon.

Paul's advice has been taken to mean: be tough; stiff upper lip come what may; never let'em see your weak side.

Solomon's advice, on the other hand, can easily be taken this way: oh well, I'll do it tomorrow.

We probably all know people who exemplify one or the other of these exhortations. Just one: I'm not backin' down. Or the other: meh, maybe tomorrow.

Inevitably these lives are caricatures of what not to be.

Beauty must be somewhere in the middle. Or better: beauty must be exemplifying both such that the rule of neither is evident. It is very difficult to do.

In writing this post, I recalled a restaurant I knew in Philadelphia in the 1970's, called In Season. Googling it turned up nothing so it must be gone. But in its place I learned about The Little Fish Restaurant. It is obviously a quality place. Reservations are recommended. Here is what it says in its blurb (italics mine):

"Our constantly evolving menu features fresh, in season, seafood accompanied by fine local ingredients."

Current offerings include: Mahi Mahi, crab fregola, tomato vinaigrette, tiny arugala, or Suzuki, little neck clams, fingerling, merguez sausage, roasted pepper...

I have no idea what half these words mean (fregola, finglering, merguez).

But the point is clear: the menu changes in season. The quality is the same always.

Logos2Go

2 Timothy 4.2 ... be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

Ecclesiastes 3.1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven ...

To say or not to say?

2010-05-05T05:40:00.000-07:00

This is the question.

It is a question I'm asking myself more and more these days before, well ... before saying anything.

In almost all kinds of conversations or conversations-to-be, I've come to appreciate the consequences of ... saying nothing.

It's a variation on: Just Say No.

Here's the variation: Just Don't Say It.

For example, in committee meetings at the office, if you say it, chances are you'll DO it. You just may become the chair of a sub-committee. This is not a good thing.

Or out of concern you share what you think to be a constructive insight about a friend's approach to things. And now your friendship is on the fritz.

Or for the sake of pleasantries you say to relatives: "Hey, come again!" And now they're actually coming again ...

Our culture places an enormous premium on Saying It versus Not Saying It.

Speak Up! This is one of the mantras of our culture.

On the other hand, not speaking up is held in lower esteem. You may be seen as a wallflower. In some venues silence is almost regarded as a disease.

But consider all you have to do today; all you must face up to; all the problems on your plate; maybe even all the people you hope you don't bump into ...

How much of all this is because, at some point, you chose to speak up rather than shut up? You were just on your way, minding your own business. But then ...

You spoke up. And now you've got this mess on your hands.

Just yesterday I walked by my boss's office -- I was on the way to the men's room. "Hey," I thought, "this'll be a good time to tell him I'm taking on Project X ... I'll just let him know after my pit stop ..."

But in the men's room an insight came to me: "What if I don't tell him I'm taking on Project X? How about waiting until Project X actually shows promise before telling him anything?"

So I went back to my office without saying a word.

Do you know how many meetings I just saved myself from attending?

The feeling I got from this Non-Intervention Into the Percolation of Events was a pleasant one.

But for most of us, silence is almost never golden. At best it is an acquired taste.

Logos2Go

Ecclesiastes 5.2 Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Job 5.7 Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

James 3.4-6 Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.

Cover Girl Makeup

2010-05-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

Let's think about this:

What is being covered up? Whatever it is, the implication is that the girl we see is not the girl we will get. Because the real girl is covered up.

Cover girl.

What is covering her?

Makeup. Make - up.

So the real girl that is covered is covered by stuff that is made up to cover her.

Stuff that is made up. As in make believe.

"No silly!" I am told by folks in the know. "'Cover' means the cover of a magazine ... Cover Girl Makeup means girls that are made up so beautifully they can grace the cover of magazines."

So at best I'm reading "cover" as a double entendre, they say.

But I just don't see it as a double entendre.

Logos2Go

Luke 12.2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.

What the lilies of the field mean

2010-05-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

If God so clothe the lilies of the field ... how much more will he clothe you, Oh you of little faith ...

So said Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount.

I always took this to mean not to worry about physical clothing and what physical clothing represents: my material needs.

But this never solved a puzzle: There are many followers of Jesus Christ who suffer physical privation. Also troubling was this: Some of them are much more at rest -- downright more joyous -- than me.

And they are probably more beautiful than me as well.

Ah ... Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these ...

So the point is not how much clothing one has -- because Solomon obviously had no need for pomp and regalia.

The point is how much glory -- and whose glory. Is it my glory (in which case I am never happy, because I all too often strive for it)?

Or is it the glory of God shining through, like it shines through the lilies of the field, whose regalia is simply given to them from the Life within.

So, Jesus was not talking about being clothed with Macy's.

He was talking about being clothed with Glory:

Logos2Go

Matthew 6.28-30 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Philippians 4.11 ... for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

1 Peter 1.6-8 ... though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with a joy unspeakable and full of glory...

A definition of glory -- and a question

2010-05-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

Glory is God's nature and presence coming through His creation unimpeded.

By creation I mean all that He has created, the heavens above, this world, the seen and the unseen; but primarily I mean the materials of this creation: physical nature; human nature.

God's glory "requires" the materiality of creation to make it known. By require I do not mean that God needs anything. I simply mean that, had God not created us and all that we are, in context of this creation and all that it is, we wound not be here to wonder what His glory is.

And so glory relates to the fundamental question of questions: Why is there everything, instead of nothing at all?

There is everything because the glory of God has called it all into being.

It appears that nature itself, for all of its current troubles, knows this.

The question is, do we?

Logos2Go

Matthew 5.16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 6.28-29 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Ballerinas who never come back

2010-04-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

After a performance of one of his ballets -- let's say it was the Petrushka -- someone said to Igor Stravinsky:

"Maestro, that was so beautiful!"

To which the great composer responded, with fatigue in his voice:

"Yes, yes, all of those ballerinas going up and down, up and down ... but it would only be beautiful if one of them would go up ...

... and never comes back down..."

Logos2Go

Genesis 5.24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

2 Kings 2.11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.

1 Thessalonians 4.17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Revelation 11.12 And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

dingbat origami

2010-04-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

If you've ever posted on Facebook or commented on blogs, you know the drill: for your post to go through, two strange words appear. Something like:

dingbat origami

You have to type them correctly as spelled or your Very Important Point (or Picture) won't be posted.

"Okay," you say, "I can do this." But it's not a slam dunk. Besides being strangely juxtaposed, both dingbat and origami are also strangely crinkled and warped so you can hardly read them.

If there is ever roadkill for words, they would look like these...

What is this all about?

Is it some kind of security check, just to make sure it is YOU posting, and not some other dingbat?

One thing is for sure: there must be some kind of random word generator in there, working overtime to spew out strange combos like:

halter breeze

simplicious gnarled

(Never: good grief).

Now, here is a question: What if we all got busy and started posting just to generate more of these random words? When do you think we'd get a series of words that make up a simple sentence? A sentence like:

Frankly I'd

rather be

in Philadelphia (?)

It might take a coupla days of trying, no? And how long do we have to try before our random word generator churned out ... presto!:

Shakespeare's Hamlet? -- the whole play, complete and unabridged.

You may have to pack a lunch; maybe several lunches. Many many lunches, my friend, before that will ever happen.

So how much longer for Shakespeare's complete works to appear by random shuffling?

How about the books of all the libraries of the world? How long?

And how about this cosmos: its orderliness and beauty ... its intricate organicism ... all the moving parts not only working, but reproducing each other so that each day is new every morning? How long would that take? How long would it take our random word generator to crank out the words:

Let there be light...

And there was light?

Logos2Go

John 21.25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

Job 38.32-35 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominion over the earth? Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, 'Here we are'?

Psalm 139.14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Genesis 1.3 And God said, " Let there be light," and there was light.