August Poem

All in a Dream

I followed the old path to the river
and then along the river
to the place where we hid the raft,
the raft we'd fashioned from fence-pickets
and clothes-line wire and then carefully hid
among the cat-tails, forty years ago.

You'll remember how we'd planned
to take to the river some great day,
fishing from the raft and camping
on islands, dreaming of open water.

The great day never came--
it was only a dream--
but now in my waking thoughts I find the raft,
I tug it out into the stubborn current and climb aboard,
I watch the old blackened derricks of home
slide by in the brilliant morning light,

and I think of you waiting for me
on some island, downstream,
and we
are boys again,

and the sea waits.

Sunday Morning Reading Notes

The weather in Maine has been outstanding for about a month now, but it's not too soon to begin thinking about winter. The WSJ checks in with the five best books on extreme cold.

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I picked up a few old books at the library yesterday: Christopher Morley's The Haunted Bookshop and Parnassus on Wheels, and Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop. The librarian who checked them out, an older woman, said mistily, "Nice old books," as if it were somewhat remarkable--and I suppose it is--to see them come across her desk. The old books are gradually disappearing from library shelves, to be replaced by contemporary stuff--or perhaps the stacks are simply consolidated to make room for more computers.

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I walked home from work on Friday reading. Hadn't done that in quite some time. Managed not to crash into telephone poles or trip over curbs, and dutifully took my face out of the book at intersections. I used to do this on return trips from the local library as a kid. The book, by the way, was Loren Estleman's The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion, which was engaging enough but not great.

"Our Father"

For a long time now most of my prayers have been uttered within the framework of the disciple's prayer, aka The Lord's Prayer, found at Matthew 6:9-13. The six petitions of this prayer have informed my own petitions, and kept me from maundering. They've strengthened my prayers, in the sense that I pray with greater confidence, knowing that I'm praying according the Jesus' instructions to his disciples, not according to my own estimations of what is needed.

A while back I wrote a series of posts about all this, which if you'd like to read you can find here (in reverse order, of course). My emphatic point there was that this was a missional prayer, and that it makes a lot less sense if we miss this crucial aspect. It is a prayer for missional people--the followers of the Jesus Way--not simply for the discontented with their checklist of needs.

I mentioned just now that I generally pray within this framework, and I even said something about praying with greater confidence, but while this is generally true, I have to admit that lately my prayers have been rather spotty at best, and so has my Bible reading. I need a little revival in this heart of mine. So I decided to go back to this prayer, taking another look, and journaling devotionally around its major themes.

Leaping right in, take a quick look at the very first words of address: "Our father in heaven..." For today, I just wanted to share a few things learned from the ESV Study Bible notes. First, the word here for "Father" is Abba, which, it has often been said, translates as "Daddy." The ESV isn't so sure that's a correct understanding:

Father (Gk. patēr, “father”) would have been “Abba” in Aramaic, the everyday language spoken by Jesus (cf. Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). It was the word used by Jewish children for their earthly fathers. However, since the term in both Aramaic and Greek was also used by adults to address their fathers, the claim that “Abba” meant “Daddy” is misleading and runs the risk of irreverence. Nevertheless, the idea of praying to God as “Our Father” conveys the authority, warmth, and intimacy of a loving father's care, while in heaven reminds believers of God's sovereign rule over all things.

I'll look a little more closely at these descriptors ("authority, warmth, and intimacy") in a future post.

Apologetics

Yesterday's post provoked a (shall we say) disappointed response from one reader (see first comment), I don't know, maybe it was his church I visited on Sunday. But his response leads me to want to clarify something. Simply, I've got nothing against apologetics. Some of my heroes are apologists of the faith (C. S. Lewis, for example).

But not all of us are called to do "world-view" combat in the intellectual marketplace. When Christians get hepped up about this sort of thing, it often leads to nothing more than uninformed scoffing at Darwinian evolution and such. I've heard it often enough. Most of us are not going to get beyond rote bullet-point responses to these world-view issues.

But more importantly, the sermonic call on congregation members to practice apologetics seems to crowd out the preaching of the gospel of Christ. Once again we drift into human imperatives with no apparent relation to Christly indicatives! What you often hear in these cases is something like the introductory remarks in a seminary course called "Apologetics 101," and nothing more.

Apologetics people I have known tend to depict themselves as folks who choose content over fluff, head over heart (because the heart is deceptive, don't you know). Their talk often takes on a strident tone, and they much enjoy clashing sabres with straw-man opponents.

Ah well. It is all a far cry, so it seems to me, from Peter's attitude in his first epistle, where he says this:

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

At least I got a cowboy hat . . .

I went to church on Sunday. I rode my bike to a Baptist joint down the road. Made it past the professional greeters at the door and sat in the last pew (yeah, that's right, wooden pews, baby!). Was welcomed by numerous people, shook numerous hands. The congregation looked mostly like a retirement community, but with a scattering of the usual goatee and funky glasses types. An old gal played piano and we sang some songs I wasn't familiar with. One of them was called (something like) "I give my life to you," and the choir director (who didn't have a choir, so he faced us and waved his hands as we sang) told us to sing it like we mean it because God looks on the heart, which I found kind of baffling.

After that we heard a couple of testimonies from twenty-somethings who had done mission trips to Peru and Haiti. I liked that part a lot. That was interesting, and these kids were the genuine article. Then we heard a sermon from the guest preacher (the regular guy being on vacation). He was an apologetics dude, the head of an "institute" for apologetics (in rural Maine of all places). He proceeded to tell us we needed to be ready to face down the pagans and the New Agers and the emergers, etc. He warned that we would soon be coming under persecution of the Book of Revelation variety. He said beware the fine sounding message that is 98% Biblical, but 2% heretical. That's the most dangerous kind of message of them all, he said.

If I wasn't in a great mood that morning, I would have walked away scowling. Instead I was just mildly disappointed, like when you toss a coin and you call heads and it lands tails. Going to church is always a crapshoot, it seems.

Anyway, the morning hadn't been a total loss. Across the street from the church was a little boy who had laid out a blanket on the sidewalk and was selling his old toys. Things he now valued less than whatever it was he intended to buy with the money he raised from the sale. Well, I can't ever pass up a six year old entrepreneur, so I had stopped by before heading across the street to lock up my bike in the church parking lot. I bought a cowboy hat for a dollar. It didn't fit me, but there's probably somebody I can give it to. As I was making the exchange with the young dealmaker, cars were flowing into the church lot, and I wondered why more people from the church weren't stopping by to bless the little boy across the street.

Anyway, I stashed the hat in my satchel and went to church, and all the while that I listened to the guy talk about apologetics, my mind kept wandering to the cowboy hat in my bag. At least I got a cowboy hat, I kept thinking. Not a bad deal on a Sunday morning.

Two Dang-that-Woman classics

Dang-that-woman music. Truth is, I can't really relate, but the theme has sure produced some great music. Here's a classic from the 70s:



And this bluegrass standard, Big Spike Hammer (the band is Appaloosa):

Saturday Rambling

My wife tells me there's something of a knitting boom going on. Has been for a while (so it's no passing fad). There are lots of new books coming out, some of them best-sellers. There are knitting stores, fiber arts festivals, famous knitters, knitting blogs. Of these, my wife's favorite is Yarn Harlot. The Yarn Harlot is from Toronto, which seems to be some sort of Mecca of knitting (although Scotland's Fair Isle is the true holy land).

The trend toward knitting might be like the musical trend toward folk or Americana. It's a significant subculture, and seems to be gaining young devotees all the time. In a society where everything seems technically over-processed, hurried, and stridently cool, some folks are engaging traditions in new ways. This is nothing new, of course, and yet it also belies the dominant media-depictions of current trends among young people.

Not that I'm a young people any more. It's increasingly clear to me each day that I ain't. But I basically like my life. My wife and I are homebodies. Evenings you can find us in the parlor. She knits or reads. I read (no knitting for me). We interrupt one another from time to time to chat. The fat rabbit-eared TV in the corner is mostly dormant.

We walk together fairly often. I realized yesterday that I don't see much of that in my neighborhood. Couples walking together. I don't know why people seem to think walking is such a labor, and should only be done in a gym on a treadmill!

Later today we'll walk to the library. Laurie will bring her knitting (she never leaves it behind). We'll drop off the last batch of books, pick up a few new ones. It's the Saturday ritual. Sit for a while. Chat with the librarians. It's a very rewarding part of our week, this Saturday morning library trip. It's peaceful. Unhurried. And we come home with books!

So this has been a post about almost nothing. About knitting. About slowing down. About creating a de-hurried life. "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance."

I suppose I should end this with some music. Here's The Belleville Outfit:

"We are all vaudeville magicians."

In the past week I've read two novels by William Maxwell and a handful of his short stories as well. His voice is very humane, very alert and sensitized to the emotional dangers of ordinary life. He is a kind of troubled elegist, adamantly honoring the past even as he admits that his memory of it is ultimately misleading.

There is religion in Maxwell's story, but no God to speak of. Still, he has a deep-seated understanding of sin and its consequences. You get the sense of a gentle agnostic, plagued by troubling memories (see, for one vivid example, his short story, With Reference to an Incident at a Bridge).

In one of his short stories he says something like this:

"When it comes to self-deception, we are all vaudeville magicians."

I love that. I love the way it places us on both sides of our own magic act. The performer and the audience. Picture a second-rate vaudevillian in a small-town theater in Illinois, circa 1910, with his down-at-his-heals elegance, his traveling chest of gimncrack stage props, his somewhat shoddy sleight-of-hand trickery. Then picture the wide-eyed boy in the front row, eager to be fooled, to be misled, and thereby to be awed. Now picture both of these individuals as one, and both as yourself. That is Maxwell's wolrdview.

The novels I've read are They Came Like Swallows, and So Long, See You Tomorrow. The short stories can be found in his collection, All the Days and Nights. Go down to your local library and give William Maxwell a try.

Introverted Blogger

Introverted Church is the blog of Adam McHugh, the author of the highly regarded book, Introverts in the Church. I've not read that one, but I like the sound of it. It was heavily reviewed when it came out and was an eye-opener for many. Anyway, it's an interesting blog. Check it out.

Maxwell's Swallows

I've been reading William Maxwell's They Came Like Swallows. It's a beautiful little book, first published in 1937. A very deft recreation of family life (and a family tragedy) in a small mid-western city in 1918.

Maxwell was a fiction editor at the New Yorker for many years. I've read in Roger Angell's memoir, Let Me Finish, that he was a wonderful editor, and it doesn't surprise me. The book is written by a man who cares very much about words.

I suppose it might qualify as a neglected book. Then again, I googled the title and quickly found several book-bloggers who've read it and loved it (here, here, and here).

Maxwell's writing is spare, unspectacular, and yet it sings. His understanding of the pitfalls of subjectivity, the different slant of light with each new perspective, and the inner-life of children, it is all quite beautiful. I'm definitely going to sample some of Maxwell's other books after this.

What was the last "old" book you read? Published before, say, 1950. Just throwin' it out there. Anyone?

Update: Finsihed "Swallows." Now, because I can't get enough of Maxwell's exquisitely modulated voice, I'm on to So Long, See You Tomorrow. I notice that dovegreyreader likes that one too. Is there a little William Maxwell boomlet going on?

The Church in New England

I direct your attention to two posts: first, Dane Ortlund, writing at the Gospel Coalition Blog, notes the renaissance that happened in C. S. Lewis' life when he "awakened" to the truth of the gospel of grace. This "grace awakening" is something we are all, in my opinion, at any given time moving toward or away from. We are either waking up, or falling back to sleep. Another way of saying that is, we are inclined, in our nature, to nap on the Gospel. The Lewis quotes in Dane's post are of course eloquent, but I wanted to take note of something Dane says at the very end:

Something of a gospel resurgence is taking place today across various swaths of evangelicalism. All this we happily receive from the hand of the Lord. The need of the hour, however, is neither self-congratulation nor smug diagnosis of who “gets” the gospel of grace. The need of the hour is deeper reverence, new levels of wonder at the grace shown oneself, and a whispered prayer that the good news of God’s free grace in Christ would spread with a continued contagion the effects of which will be felt for generations to come.

Yes, this is very well said. But most of my awareness of this "resurgence" is via the Internet, not local.

You see, I live in New England. The situation here is summarized by the erstwhile Jared Wilson in an article at Resurgence.com entitled Why New England is the New American Missional Frontier. Jared speaks of the dearth of "Gospel awakened" churches here:

And where churches are evangelical, the evangel has not yet captured the hearts of many congregations. As the cultural environment became more worldly, conservative churches became more insular, opting to self-protect in their religious “bunkers” instead of engaging their communities in gospel mission. The need for gospel-centered missional churches throughout New England is dire. The good news is that a movement is afoot already, but it needs more workers.

Jared's estimate is accurate. There are plenty of conservative churches who include the Gospel in the "what we believe" page on their website, but the preaching is all us (Christians) vs. them (the world), or else therapeutic deism, or occasionally Todd Bentley-like nonsense. There are also the liberal churches that are all about social justice and gay rights, and put political action first on their agenda.

As I look around my city, I see one church that seems to get it. It's an Acts 29 church pastored by Angel Silva, called Missio Dei. If I was making the decision for myself alone, it would be my choice for a church, but Laurie is not so sure. That's another aspect of the ongoing "thoughts and second thoughts" I wrote about in this recent post.

Another promising item is that there exists a Gospel-driven church-planting organization (called the NETS Institute for Church Planting) which focuses mainly on New England. I note with interest that they're working on starting something in my town. Note also that their vision statement is excellent, and includes this:

According to Dr. David Wells, evangelical Christianity is currently in a free-fall. We agree. Evangelical Christians have largely confused, given up on, or flat out denied the historic gospel. The result is a massive confusion over sin, the person of Jesus Christ, the cross, and the nature of saving faith. At NETS, we desire to recover the biblical gospel through training godly men and sending them out to plant churches to proclaim the gospel to the lost and confused.

Hmmm. Finally, I notice that their board of advisors includes D. A. Carson, Sinclair Furgeson, and Bryan Chapell, all people for whom I have great respect. I'm definitely intrigued!

Taking Note

Two books by Paul Zahl: Who will Deliver Us? and Grace in Practice.

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The blog of Milt Rodriguez. Milt's got a few things to say, and they're well worth considering.

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Today I'll finish up Eugene Peterson's Practice Resurrection. Peterson is a true prophet of our age, an indispensable writer. I would summarize this book for you except that it seems pretty close to unsummarizable. It's subtitle is, "A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ." That'll do for a summary.

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By the way, have you seen Mockingbird Blog. They're very good over there at highlighting the Gospel in pop culture and literature. Well read and culturally engaged without being pretentious about it. Nice blog. Check it out.

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That's were I found this video. I've liked Jim Lauderdale since I saw him a few years ago at MerleFest. Besides, the washed-out-musician-in-a-nudie-suit-in-the-desert motif is one of my favorite motifs ever!

Thoughts (and second thoughts) on church-going

Well, here it is August already and I'm thinking about the end of summer. There was a chill in the air a couple of mornings back, and I've noticed that the rising sun is moving a little northward each day--right on schedule. This has been the summer we didn't go to church. That wasn't exactly a carefully considered decision, just something that sort of fell into place for us. In a related development (as they say), it was also the summer that I ran out of things to say about church, the Bible, faith, etc.

So be it. But now as the summer dwindles I'm beginning to think about church again. I believe in church, in the local church. That is, I believe that the local church is a significant part of the incarnational strategy--shall we say--of Jesus Christ. That's what Paul thought, clearly, and I'm not in a position to argue. So to shy away from the Sunday morning shindig for a season, as I have done, is quite possibly a testy thing to do. But for me it has been necessary, I think.

But now I'm considering the future. I do want to dip my toes in the church pool again. I've thought about different nearby churches, but the few significant relationships with believers that I enjoy cluster in the Vineyard church I attended for a decade or so. My wife, whose feelings about church are just as mixed as mine, would probably prefer that choice.

But then there are second thoughts. Ah, yes, the second thoughts. Sunday morning at that church can seem like one part worship of the Almighty, and one part PR campaign. That's definitely an off-kilter ratio. There were times I felt just the same after walking out of a church service there as I do after sitting through an infomercial for some get-rich scheme or life-changing vacuum cleaner or something. Targeted, marketed to, sloganed-at.

There are other possibilities of course. Just as Laurie might lean toward the Vineyard (although with the same reservations as mine), I'd lean to the Acts 29 church in our town. Maybe. But then come the confounded second thoughts. Sheesh.

I've said before that I want to hold onto my relationships with fellow-believers with a firm grip, but keep a loose hold on the Sunday morning business. This means, among other things, we won't be becoming members of any church. When the leadership says, this is how we measure commitment, I'll say, measure away. It's fine with me if you don't think I measure up. I'm using a completely different yardstick.

I know many Christians who don't get this attitude, and indeed find is terribly unbiblical. I can live with that. As I told a friend recently, "I'm never going to be any pastor's idea of a model church-member."

My point is, I'd like to be in on the worship, on the mutual prayer and edification, on the building of relationships that include loving sacrifice on behalf of one another, but leave me off the call-list for the next big campaign or program. Yes, indeed, I do lack commitment.

Now, the way I imagine keeping a "loose grip" is simply by eschewing church bandwagons, avoiding the herd mentality, and occasionally mixing in a visit to other churches . . . and also regularly taking Sundays off from the whole shebang. And by the way, unity does not rhyme with herd.

So there they are: thoughts, second thoughts, etc. Methinks the time has come to pray about it.

Monday Whatnot

Two books that caught my attention this week:

Providence and Prayer, by Terrance Tiessen.

If Trouble Don't Kill Me, by Ralph Bernier, Jr. [reviewed here]

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The area of southwest Virginia, western North Carolina, and Eastern Tennessee has produced an inordinate amount of great music and story-telling. I'm presently reading Forrest Carter's The Education of Little Tree, which takes place in that region (in the neighborhood of Clinch Mountain). It's very beautiful, and very wise. but I hope my reading of it is not marred by the knowledge I've obtained from reading the author's bio on Wikipedia. Amazing. And awful.

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I think Victor David Hanson is one of the most accurate commenters on the scene these days. His recent column, A Rather Angry America, is an excellent example.

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I'm working on seeing every Preston Sturges movie I can get my hands on. Sturges wrote and directed in the 1940s, and is known as a master of the "screwball comedy." Last night we watched Christmas in July, made in 1940 (a golden year in film history). It's a fine and enjoyable example of the form, though lacking the bite of Sullivan's Travels and The Great McGinty, not to mention the wonderful Miracle at Morgan's Creek. The street scene in a New York tenement neighborhood, full of quintessential Hollywood ethnic stereotypes (quite lovingly depicted) is classic.

What I Saw Today

The Lovely One and I rode our bikes to the park today. It's a park right along the ocean, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. There's a little secluded pond there, far from the lighthouse and the tourist buses, a quiet spot where we sat down in the grass to have our lunch.

Well, it wasn't long before we saw the osprey, circling slowly above the pond, peering down into the murky brown water. We watched him glide gradually lower on wings that spanned five feet from tip to tip. Sometimes he would sort of pull up, like a cartoon bird putting on the brakes, and you could see his talons begin to open up beneath him, but then, changing his mind and fluttering his powerful wings just so, he would ease back into his slow circling glide.

So around and around he went, patient and careful. Then, again he pulled up, like a swimmer abruptly changing directions. There was a moment's pause, then suddenly he was rocketing toward the water. The sound when he crashed the still surface was like when you throw a brick or large boulder in the water. For a long moment then he was gone, and I shouted, foolishly, "Dude!" Then it came plunging upward, beating its powerful wings first against water, then against air, and into the great wide sun-bright heavens he soared, carrying a squirming six-inch goldflish in his talons.

That was the most exciting thing I've witnessed since Gandalf fought the Balrog in the first Lord of the Rings flick!

The Stories We Tell

Everyone has a personal story, of course, but everyone also has a personal myth. That's the story we tell ourselves, and sometimes others, about ourselves. It's how we create ourselves, or the selves we want to be--the selves we want others to see--by sifting the facts of our personal history through the sieve of our psychical need. We create, thereby, a kind of interior autobiography--the "portrait of a life"--played out, over and over, inside our heads, and glimpsed frequently in our conversation.

We see this in faith circles as much as any. There are the people who always want to tell you their faith story. Or tell you how often and how much they pray. Or tell you about something they did that they're sure made the angels rejoice, or how this or that good deed at work is causing their co-workers to wonder--they're quite sure of this--just what makes them so dang kind, generous, and humble.

There's this meme (I guess you'd call it) going around Facebook that I quite like. It says, "Be kind to everyone, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Yes! I "liked" it with an enthusiastic click.

Anyway, these personal myths are indicators of the kind of battles we're facing. I'll give you an example. When I was having a little trouble with my boss a while back, I found myself imagining hypothetical scenarios in which I gave my boss what for. In which I proved myself. In which my wisdom and competence was fully on display, silencing all possible counter-arguments. Sometimes I shared these hypotheticals with others, seeking confirmation and encouragement.

I hear this sort of thing all the time from Christians. Tales of Wisdom and Competence, I call them. Along with these we have Tales of Spiritual Fervor, or Tales of Toughness (guys like these stories), or Good-Deed Tales. I have known whole sermons (many of them) built around these personal myths. They all speak to our need to be respected, to be commended.

And they make me sad. Because it means--I'll just speak for myself here--that I have less confidence in the grace of God than I thought I had. My "final pleasure" is not so much in the grace of God in Christ, after all, so I seek instead the affirmations of men. I'm still needy of human approval. I'm still fighting the old battle with self-doubt and self-hatred. I'm still not resting in His grace!

In short, I have not so soaked in His grace toward me--the worst of sinners!--that I can put all this compensatory self-talk to rest at last and simply be thankful. And I think many others are like me in this.

And it only goes to show that our great and never-ending need is for the Gospel, which is the story of God's satisfaction in all who have trusted in Christ. The Son's story has become, by the grace of God, our own.

Frankly Friday

"I've Got You Under My Skin" is one of those default songs for me, something I find myself whistling while riding alone in an elevator or making a sandwich. It's Sinatra I hear in my head, and it's Frank I'm channeling when I sing it to myself, but Diana Krall's version is something special:

Hiroshima

Richard Fernandez is one of my favorite political columnists. On the anniversary of Hiroshima, he has an interesting take (and do read the comments).

Listening in

Interesting interviews with Terry Virgo. If you have the tine, listen in.

Speaking of interviews, I'm listening to blogger Dan Edelen on a radio program called Wise People. Dan is wise, so it's only right that he be on that show.

Reading Plans

Stopped into the local public library yesterday to pick up another book by Erik Larson, whose book, The Devil in the White City, impressed me so much. I brought home two in the end: Isaac's Storm, and Thunkderstruck.

At the same time I picked up a wonderful little novel called The Education of Little Tree, by Forrest Carter. I tend to read one non-fiction and one fiction book at the same time. I'm planning to spend Saturday at the beach with a couple of good books!

I just finished reading The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larsen. Wow, what a book! It is the story of the Chicago world's fair of 1893--The Columbian Exposition--and also the very sad tale of a psychopath who killed perhaps 27 or more people during that time. The book is a little gruesome in parts, but as a piece of cultural history it is utterly fascinating. I should say that most of the book is taken up with an inspiring account of the building of the Chicago fair, which was an engineering achievement of grand proportions. It is a tale full of stunning details, amazing individuals, and the sights and sounds of Gilded Age Chicago.

Missional Thinking

I've been listening to some helpful talks on the whole idea of the missional church . . . what it means, what it is and isn't, and how it changes things . . . by Jonathan Dodson. Dodson is a good teacher, thorough, very well-organized (no distracting rabbit-trails), very clear and direct. The talks were given at a conference in Lubbock, Texas, and you can find the links at Jonathan's blog (here). Good stuff. It'll get you thinking.