Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

I've been reading Michael Korda's life of T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia), called Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia. A good book despite it's being overlong with repetitions and the author's stabs at psychoanalysis of his subject (a common problem with modern biographies). For example, the theme of the overbearing mother is returned to again and again, and I suppose it must be based on something, but there is almost no evidence of it in the book. It is simply used, time after time, as an explanation for Lawrence's behavior. Oh yes, and this of course all goes back to his suffocating mother. I'd prefer the biographer to simply tell the story.

Nevertheless, it's a fascinating book, because Lawrence was a fascinating man. The justly famous David Lean movie, Lawrence of Arabia, only scratched the surface. Lawrence was a man who became a legend in his own lifetime (the process was driven by media hype, an early instance perhaps of the mass-marketing of heroes), and yet, at least much of the time, he despised the falseness of it all.

He was a secular man with a strongly-held moral code, but that code got shot all to hell in the war. And yet, that same war made him a hero. It made him "epic." It made him revered. He tried to hide himself away from all that, but of course there was no turning back. For all his achievements, he seems a man of great brilliance and also great cunning, and ultimately like a man who had lost his way. His story is amazing, and perhaps more tragic than Korda is able to say.

Friday Songbook: It's Been a Long, Long Time

WWII produced a host of songs about missing someone, leaving and expecting to be gone for a long while but promising to return, being far away and longing for home, or remembering the old days when the two lovers were together. Many of these songs were written long before the war ("I'll Be Seeing You,", "As Time Goes By") and so there is no overt theme of going away to war in particular, but these older songs gained new meaning and depth during the war and were sung, wistfully but fervently, by millions. The classic example of the genre, though, is probably "They'll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs of Dover", which you imagine being sung in barracks and barrooms all over England.

Many of these songs will undoubtedly seem over-sentimental at first blush, but given the larger societal context, I find them very moving. Take for example Styne and Cahn's "It's Been a Long Long Time," which dominated the charts in late 1945 (thought it was written in 1938). The war was over, but many of the boys were still scattered around the world or in transit. So when Bing sings these lyrics, he is speaking the deep longing of many many hearts.

Thieves Welcome

The first "Christian" book I ever read was required reading in my public school, way back in 1969. The book was The Cross and the Switchblade, by David Wilkerson. I mention it now because I just read that Wilkerson died recently in a crash in Texas. Nancy French pays loving tribute to the man in Remembering David Wilkerson. Wilderson was the long time pastor of Times Square Church, which French attended for a while. She writes:

The first time we were there, [Wilkerson] said, “Ladies, when we stand to sing, please don’t leave your pocketbooks on the ground. Some thieves are here in the sanctuary, so keep an eye out on your belongings. And for those of you who came here expressly to steal,” he said, “we welcome you. You came here thinking you’d leave with a few bucks, but you’ll leave knowing the life-changing love of God. Stay as long as you’d like.”

3 Things Wednesday

1. Demythologizing Radical Christianity has been a typically thoughtful series of posts from Chaplain Mike.

2. Justin Buzzard gets the nod for best Easter post this year. Brief, and beautiful.

3. And I just bought Revise Us Again.

Me and My Ereader

I bought an ereader a couple of weeks back and almost immediately grew very attached to it. I'm definitely sold. Ereaders are still very controversial among some bookish people (many librarians, for example) who see them as a harbinger of the end of life-as-we-know-it. Meanwhile tech-ish people see them as limited and boring (compared, say, to an ipad).

I've encountered both these responses. And I think they're both right, in their way. The trend in book sales is very clear. Ebooks are taking a larger and larger chunk of the market. In other words, the market for printed books is shrinking drastically. The librarians are right. We're entering a new era for readers, and that is a sad thing for lovers of books. I get that.

But the tech-ish ones are right too. Ereaders feel like old technology already. Most of them are black-and-white only, so as a platform for images they actually represent a significant step backward from traditonal printing (so far). That they do only one thing well--provide a platform for the printed word--makes them more akin (in a way) to washing machines than to digital technology generally.

I mean, you can't play colorful interactive games on them, check your email (not yet anyway), text your friends, or map your route to that funky now cafe downtown. But most of the people I've encountered who are bored by the whole concept of the ereader are probably not people who would consider sitting down and reading a 700 page tome. They're multi-tasking people who are tied to their smart phones and ipads, eager to download the next great application. But the very reason they're disinterested in ereaders is exactly what makes ereaders appealing to me.

Ereaders are quiet little un-busy machines, focused on their one simple task. They're not dazzling. They're not really impressive in the way that many new gadgets are. They're for readers--people who run their eyes along endless strings of text for hours on end. In other words, they specialize in providing a platform for long-term digital reading, not for digital flitting from one app to another. That's why they already feel like old technology. They feel, in many ways, like a book! They're about focus, not versatility. They're not flashy, but capable of conveying to the mind of the user the thoughts, mental images, and linguistic engagement, that all authors intend.

I have no doubt that the manufacturers will continue to add new levels of interactivity to these devices (The Nook Color, for example, which advertises itself as something that you can play Angry Birds on . . . whoopee!). But that is to mar the beautiful simplicity of the device. Just give me a good book, whether printed or digital, any day.

Sojourn Music

Americana Monday 6

This lineup of pickers is about as good as it gets. Plus, this is one of the best bluegrass song titles ever: "Blue Railroad Train."

Friday Songbook: East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)

That about says it right there...

Best item on my Facebook "News Feed":

I just want to be a NORMAL Christian: I want to continue to repent and believe the gospel and follow Jesus, take up my cross, deny myself, eat and drink with sinners, turn the other cheek, lose my life for Jesus' sake and the gospel, love my enemies, abide in Christ, & make disciples of Jesus who will do the same.

April Bonus Poem: I Will Build My Cottage

April is National Poetry Month (silly concept, actually) and I happen to have been writing a lot of them lately (for me). I think of poetry as speech that is skewed toward the numinous, making compromises with sense in order to draw up something unexpected and until then hidden. With a definition like that, you can write prose poetry, you can play with formalities any way you like.

I love poetry but do not read much of it any more. What I love is that people write poems, and hardly know themselves what for. It will always be a minority report, misfit ruminations. In the case of my own poems, I think of them as rudimentary observations. Very simple, very tonal and moody. Certainly not deep.

Anyway, a couple of mornings back while jogging I passed a purple and orange house with lobster traps stacked in the side yard, and I thought, "I'd like to build a little cottage in the back of that house," and knew then that I had a poem in mind. It recalls an old poem by William Butler Yeats, Lake Isle of Innisfree. That one begins:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

I knew immediately that the poem gestating in me as I ran would be a kind of Lake Isle poem, so, well, I jogged home and wrote it. I'm calling it, I Will Build My Cottage.

I will build my cottage
in the back yard of the purple and orange house
on the pebble road to the beach, the one
with the lobster traps stacked
against the green fence,

under the old willow,
and it will be made of sea wrack
and sea foam, and painted the color of islands,
and flash in the light like a gull’s wing
in the morning,

and there will I wile my time,
lost to the world of plans and contingencies,
carefully sculpting my stories,
becoming a legend.

April Poem: Gulls in the Wind

Who of us knows the weather
like the gull knows it, from high above
or deep within, how he knows, how he knows
and understands, how he soars,
hovers, dives, according to
the weather’s plan.

And how, sometimes, he casts down
his single cry, which rides
on invisible streams
to the ears

of height-fearing crawlers,
here below.

Warning: Prose Poetry Ahead

A Monday in April

Everything looks, feels, particularly dramatic this morning. I don’t know what it is, but it’s as if this was the Monday that changed the world forever. Something about the sky. Something about the shadow of the house on the neighbor’s stockade fence. Something about the sound of the wind in the still leafless trees. What’s going on here? What’s happening? I hear a dog barking. I hear the pat-pat-pat of a jogger going by. I hear the single cry of a gull, up in the wind, and then a flurry of remarks from a nearby crow. Is this the Monday that changes everything? Is this the moment before the earthquake, or is a star exploding somewhere far away, or is your brother thinking of calling you with some deeply consequential news? On this day, I will write in my journal, everything changed. On this day, the sky opened. On this day, light shone in the dark. It was Monday, and the world was new.

Americana Monday 5

Uncle Earl is one of the many fine all girl string bands out there.

Poem for a Good Friday

Did the hammer fall
from the hands of the man
who drove the bolts home
in the hands of the One
who cried when He died
and into the hands
of the Father had flown?

It ought to be known.
Did the steel-hard hands
of the nail-driving man
release their hard hold,
letting the hammer go?

And did the hammer-man cry
when the Man who had died
in the sixth-hour dark,
having finished His work,
cried, "Father forgive,
though I die let them live"?

Did the hammer fall?
And did the man cry?

On Receiving and Believing Forgiveness

What are the most significant words ever spoken?

Maybe, "Let there be light."

Or perhaps, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

Of course you would only believe these words to be truly significant if you believed that the Creator of all things actually did speak them, and that this was in fact effective speech. That, in truth, it was God who said, "Let there be light," and then there was light!

If you don't believe all that, fine. You might still consider the words significant (in a sociological way), but perhaps no more so than, say, the kama sutra. Words, any words, take on a certain power, a certain effectiveness, when they are believed. Even when a lie is believed, it effects things. This is something demagogues understand well. And obviously the demagogue (or any commonplace liar) is only believed because we have mistakenly deemed him or her worthy of our trust. See, what we think about the one speaking will have a great deal to do with how we receive the words spoken.

But if God had never said, "Let there be . . .", there would never have been a universe in which demagogues could mislead people. That's another level of effectiveness entirely.

But getting back to the original question, here's another candidate for most significant.

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

These words were spoken by Jesus of Nazareth while he was being nailed, hands and feet, to a wooden stake by Roman soldiers, almost exactly 2000 years ago.

But what didn't they know they were doing? They knew, certainly, that they were killing a man. This was an officially sanctioned execution. What they didn't know, I think, was who the man was that they were murdering.

Remember, these words are the more significant if they are truly effective. And their effectiveness rests, to a great extent, on who Jesus was (and is) and why he allowed himself to go to that stake. If, in fact, he is the Son of God, and if his purpose is what the Bible says it was, these are words then which have a similar effectiveness to "Let there be light," or, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

Jesus is opening the door, from the agony of the cross, to a new creation. He is saying, in essence, "Let there be . . ." all over again. He is saying, "Let the image in which we created them--even these who are crucifying me--be restored."

Magnificent words. Significant words. Amazing to think they were spoken over those men who were in fact at that point carrying out his brutal execution.

But again, there is another side to this coin of significance. If the significance of these words is to be realized, the words must be believed. Believing is what makes influential communication possible, but not all acts of communication are worthy of belief.

These words of Jesus, though, are fundamentally worthy, because Jesus is worthy. Because Jesus is who he is, his words do what the do.

But here's the rub. There seems to be something in us, something in our nature, something deeply ingrained in us, that reacts against these words of Jesus. I am speaking now of believers, people who call Jesus Lord. Yet, who have trouble believing themselves forgiven. Believing that the words of Jesus are in fact effective for them.

Someone can write a book, and maybe should, about why this is so. But I have no doubt of the remedy. We should frequently remind ourselves of who Jesus is and what he has done. We should remind ourselves that this was always the plan of God, even before he said, "Let there be. . . . " God is effective. He speaks, and things happen. He brings to pass his will, and cannot be denied, and it is his will to restore his creation, and even its pinnacle, man, to what he had intended. And he has chosen to make this happen through forgiveness, offered and received.

It is the season now to remember this. Something lifts from the shoulders of the forgiven man or woman. Something that had clouded his vision is removed. Something that had hindered her steps is taken away.

One of my favorite people in the Bible is a Roman centurion who had taken part in the execution of Jesus. This man, who must have seen a lot of dying in his day, saw the way Jesus died and heard the words Jesus spoke even in the midst of his agony (and, we might add, saw the effects that his death precipitated in the very creation) and it caused him to believe something shocking: "Surely this man was the Son of God!" [see Matt. 25:54]

Note, he did not say, ah, so now I am forgiven. He said, "This man must be God!" Receiving forgiveness depends on just this recognition. The "good news" begins here. Jesus is God!

Random Saturday

Ah, Saturday!

And a 3-day weekend, to boot!  [Patriot's Day weekend.  It's a Maine and Massachusetts thing.]

Having our eldest, Nate, back in the house for a few days has been nice. We'll be celebrating his birthday (which was yesterday) on Monday, since he's been out "gigging" in the remoter parts of Maine this weekend.  [That way, too, we can decouple his birthday from 3 negatives: tax day, the sinking of the Titanic, and the death of Abraham Lincoln.  Sheesh!]

I'm really taking to this ereader thingie like a fish to water. I downloaded a couple of free Bible translations (ESV, HCSB) from B&N, and an old book called Bible Holiness. So it's pretty obvious, I like free stuff.

I'm sitting in the library right now. A quiet place full of printed books. But most of the people here are plugging away on computers.

It's National Poetry Month, so they've got a special display of poetry books, from which I selected Mary Oliver's Owl and Other Fantasies. Mary Oliver is one of my three favorite poets, for sure.

The downside of etexts on these ereaders: illustrations (maps, for example) are almost useless. Also, at least in the book I'm reading just now, you get a lot of typos. A lot. It gives you the sense that the makers are slipshod, careless, but I suppose it's all to be blamed on the software or something.

Still, the traditionalist's nostalgia for printed text on paper seems overdone to me. I run into this a lot among library people. But isn't it the words themselves, not the technology by which they're reproduced, which transport us? And that's why we love books, mainly. The words, conveying as they do all kinds of excitement, deep thinking, emotion, and the sense of dramatic motion . . . simply getting caught up in a story . . . these things transport us. Right?

Here's the start of a Mary Oliver poem to leave you with. The poem is called, "Herons in Winter in a Frozen Marsh."

All winter

two blue herons

hunkered in the frozen marsh,

like two columns of blue smoke. 

Ereading Update

Well, I bought myself a Nook. It arrived this week and I've spent a couple of days just kind of getting friendly with it.

The device came with Bram Stoker's Dracula and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women already loaded. I downloaded a couple of free Bible translations to start with, bought a 99 cent book from Barnes and Noble (just for practice)... Consider Phlebas, by Iaian Banks. I also downloaded the first ebook that caught my eye from my local library website, that being Michael Korda's Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, which should be an interesting story.

Bottom line, I'm loving this little doohickey.

Friday Songbook: Stardust

I usually focus on singers and songwriters here on the Friday Songbook series, but today I want to feature an instrumental. Stardust, written by the great Hoagy Carmichael, is one of those songs from this era that seems to hover on the edge of preciousness and most singers do tip it over that edge. If the song is familiar to you (if you're of a certain age) you can hear the ghost of the lyrics as a kind of shadowy accompaniment to the players here, but what I really like is Paul Desmond's sax part in the latter part of the song. Just close your eyes. It is a song about lost love. Who needs lyrics?

The Cups of the Lord

An old friend of mine, and a fine preacher.

Updates 4-10-11 from philstrout.com on Vimeo.

Americana Monday 4

Two versions of the same song. First Roy Acuff, doing it in that mountain gospel style, and then delta blues great Mississippi Fred McDowell.

3 by Crowell

I've liked (and sometimes loved) Rodney Crowell's music since the '80s. Having just finished reading his uneven but heartfelt memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, I've been listening to some of his more recent music online. It reminds me that there is a great difference between the songwriting of veterans who have been through a lot of living and that of the young (however gifted). Here are a few Crowell gems that tell some of the stories from his book, only in the form in which his writing really shines, the country song. All these songs reference stories in the book and ring with the same spirit.

4 miler!

I just had to share my run with you this morning. Over 4 miles, a record for me. And sweet all the way!

Let 'er rip!

Remember how, when you were a kid, you used to laugh hysterically at absolutely nothing? I wish I could still do that!



Found at: Preacher Mike.

Friday Songbook: Blue Moon

Fridays here are about the great American Songbook and its singers. Here's a song from the Rogers and Hart collection, one I've always loved. It was written in 1934 but caught a second life in the 50s after Elvis and then the classic doo-wop version by the Marcels. I also think Nat Cole's version is really fun, but let's go back to the swing era for the great Billie Holliday's rendering. Billie has shown up in the Friday Songbook series more than once and will surely again, because I think she's about the greatest singer ever, period.



That can't be topped, but The Emanons must have their chance:

IMonk on American Gnosticism

I really enjoyed reading this collectiion of Michael Spencer quotes on "the Evangelical circus." Michael has my vote as greatest Christian blogger ever. Here's his analysis of "American Gnosticism:"

…what is called American Christianity is actually some sort of American Gnosticism, a religion of direct human experience with God that has no need of the Bible, the Gospel or Christ and the Cross in the classically Christian sense. We are apparently such basically cool people, that we can get in touch with God our little ol’ selves if we just tune in the right way. Today, we have a Bible that is described as a “love letter,” a Gospel of manipulated and self-generated feelings and experiences (complete with band), and a Christ who is a whispy, feminized, dispenser of hugs and life management principles and no-cost/no discipleship salvation. Of course, this is the appropriate religion for people whose only actual concerns are feeling good about themselves and having it all without feeling guilty. Sinners seeking a remedy for the righteous wrath of God need not look into modern Christianity for any help.

On a similar note, Do you suffer from Acute Church Center of the Universe Syndrome? I have, but I think I'm over it. Now I want to go to a church that isn't intent on spreading the contagion, infecting me again.

Clinical trials have not yielded a definitive cure for ACCUS but scientists think it might have something to do with acting like Jesus. Turns out, He was the center of the universe and He did everything to not act like it.

Three-Books Wednesday

The Art of Dying, by Robb Moll

The Cruciform Life, by Jimmy Davis

And Revise Us Again, by Frank Viola

Here's the publisher's "trailer" for the Viola book:

A blogging Aside

One of the things that happened to me as I pullled away from church life was that I no longer sought to be a sort of spiritual teacher here at Wilderness Fandango. That had been, largely, the purpose of the early blogging. But now I was having a teacher, teach thyself moment. The problem was, that left me with a lot less to say here. What was my reason for blogging at all then?

I haven't definitively answered that question for myself. Slowly I have broadened the blog's content (a little). It's more like a personal newsletter now (but not too personal), and less like a a would-be teacher sharing his pearls of wisdom. At the same time, I have sought out other bloggers for my blogroll who were not simply church-leaders blogging about church-leadership (there's a lot of that), but instead I've sought a broader kind of conversation; still largely Christian, and with some of the same concerns, but not so bound to Christian culture (have you heard the latest Chris Thomlin song? read the latest John Piper tweet?).

I've also tried to connect with people who share some of my interest in books and reading, music (bluegrass, jazz, etc.) and classic films. This effort is reflected both in the blogroll and in the Americana Monday and Friday Songbook posts.

I think I might start a series of posts that highlight something from the world of books and book-bloggers, maybe every Wednesday, and maybe another series on classic films. Meanwhile, this is still a Christian's blog. That means, at least, a sense that grace, the grace of God in Christ, is the key to understanding everything, and the key to happiness. However various the content of this blog may be, Christ ought to be the cornerstone, or the whole structure falls.

Americana Monday 3

I've always thought this one of the best story-songs ever written. This version is by Session Americana.

Friday Songbook: Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most

Another Spring song. Last week, Blossom Dearie singing They Say It's Spring, and this week the other most Spring-like voice of the Songbook era, the great June Christy. 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most' is one of favorite songs of the period. "All afternoon the birds twitter twit / I know the tune / this is love, this is it!"

Song for Debi

She'd been through more hell
than most, I suppose.

Her faith was weak, and she leaned
on a lot of thin reeds.

The way she "coped" was with make-up, booze,
and right theology.

Many pastors tried to help, but one
was a vicious brute.

In the end, she received her visitors
propped in a bed in the kitchen
with the TV going, smokes
and whiskey at hand.

She'd say her husband couldn't wait
to get rid of her, and it seemed hard for her
to pretend she was just kidding.

Her husband would say no no that isn't true, my love,
then show you the pics of the house
he was planning to buy

after the funeral. Out in the country,
plenty of room, he'd say.

Spread your wings.