Whither Fandango?

That's my question for myself, and one for which I don't have a sure answer.

After all these years I feel like I've kind of run out of posts that once made up the lion's share of the writing here. That would be (1) the teacherly (and I hope encouraging) posts about Bible passages and (2) the snarky critiques of churchy things. Just to let you know, I'm reading my Bible devotionally (and with great joy) and journaling through Mark, but I'm not inclined to refine my journal notes into blog posts, at least not just yet. That may come later.

The other theme of this blog has been book notes. What I'm reading, what I'd like to read, what others have recommended for me to read. I had wanted to use the blog to help me retain such recommendations, but I haven't actually accomplished that. I think the future of Fandango in the near term will be more along these lines.

Then of course there's the music posts, and the occasional poetry. I hope to keep that going. I see this becoming a book-chat sort of blog now, with the occasional faith-content. By the way, in case anyone's wondering, though I suppose in some ways I'm less of a faith-blogger now than at one time, I'm not having a crisis of faith or anything like that. I've kind of peeled off from the crowd (no disparagement to the crowd intended, it's just something I had to do) and I'm simply not masquerading as a teacher or faith-guru for anyone. I've been getting with a few folks at the beginning stages of a local church-plant, and I'm feeling inclined to hang with them and talk about Jesus, working out in fear and trembling what God had been working into me.

Selah.

Now Reading

"The Mrs." has been reading John Aiken's "Wolves" novels, or at least every one she can get her hands on. She loves 'em, and has just about convinced me that I should read them too. Here's the official website, a nice review from Strange Horizons, and an interview with the late author here (in which she says she offers a low opinion of the Narnia cycle and calls Aslan "that dreadful lion").

Me, I'm reading two novels just now. Neil Gaiman's Stardust (that's my riding the bus and lunch-break book), and also Perez Reverte's The Nautical Chart (my evenings on the couch book). I'm enjoying both quite a lot.

So what are you reading?

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This is both a Memorial Day post and the usual Americana post.



Today I remember my Dad (Korea, Vietnam) and my Father-in-Law (WWII).

Friday Songbook: The Folks who Live on the Hill

I want to stay with last week's singer, Johnny Hartman. Here he's doing a Jerome Kern tune, 'The Folks Who Live on the Hill' (lyrics by Hammerstein). These gently jazzy versions of show-tunes, in the hands of great singers like Hartman, always seem to add meaning to the lyric.



That's pretty fair singing, methinks. These lyrics have a kind of anticipatory nostalgia about them, a way of saying, "I'm going to love growing old with you." In this song the lovers imagine themselves grown old together, sitting on the front porch and enjoying the view (not just of a lawn, but of a lifetime together). In the next and very different song, Hartman sings about the child of such folks, coming back to the old home and finding that "nobody's home."



Enjoy your Friday, people!

Out Stealing Horses

Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson, is a great book. Simply said, it was very hard to put down. It is not so much a story as an internal monologue, filled with reminiscence, understated regret, secrets, work, and finally the narrator's desire to simply disappear (against which he struggles not at all).

Practically every character in this book does disappear in some sense. They pass through a sort of ephemeral psychic curtain and become, to all intents and purposes, lost to their former world. The book has a slow pace with details about daily work (or even getting out of bed, walking across the floor, looking out a window) which may seem egregiously mundane to some. Yet I think it's pitch-perfect. If you know from personal experience about "disappearance," you may find this book hauntingly accurate.

On Reading

Sometimes I take on too many reading projects at once. Then sometimes, one of these reading projects steals all of my attention, to the neglect of the others.

I've been reading Tim Keller's King's Cross for a while now, but intermittently, while other books grabbed the lion's share of my attention. But I'm aware that I've done the book a disservice and so I'll probably read it again, as soon as I'm finished.

The book that occupied much of my reading time lately has been Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt. For a while I thought it was boding well to be one of the finest novels I'd ever read. Robinson is a very fine writer, and there was much to like here (and I'll certainly read more of his work), but this book was ultimately unsatisfying. Fascinating, but unsatisfying.

Back to the Keller book. It's a kind of devotional commentary on Mark. So that in itself is particularly valuable to me because I'm starting to read Mark devotionally these days and to journal about it. The essence of my approach is not to assume too much as I read, but to try to read the document as if for the first time. So, for example, when Mark uses that phrase, "son of God," in his very first sentence, I want neither to pass it by unnoticed nor to assume I know exactly what Mark means by it. Instead, to remind myself, as I read, to look for Mark's own answers to these kinds of questions. In other words, letting the author, if he will, answer my question in his own time.

Well, that's an aside. Back to my reading these days. I've also been reading Paul Miller's A Praying Life. I'm finding it very helpful, but this one too I've been reading "intermittently." Both this and the Keller book I'll finish off soon though.

a=Also, just to note, I'm reading A Praying Life in ebook format, which doesn't feel quite as real somehow.

Now there are three other books I've started lately. Island of Lost Maps, Out Stealing Horses, and Neil Gaiman's Stardust. See, this is what comes of wandering through libraries in your spare time.

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Pokey Lafarge and South City Three. Mad harp. Love the lead vocals too.

Wondrous Things

It's Saturday. A chance to breath. Or to think something slowly. To think it through.

I'd like to recapture astonishment. That's what I've been thinking lately. I'd like to be surprised again. By rain. By the color green. By anything so familiar that I've been looking past it for years.

I've been thinking that same way about faith. When it devolves into a mere set of presumptions, a tick-sheet of assertions about Jesus, rather than an encounter with His shockingly real self, well, that's how the American church has become what it has become. Different groups with slightly different tick-sheets, bickering over what should and shouldn't be on the list.

This is when I want to say, what about Jesus? Is he alive? And what does that mean for me and you now? That Jesus is alive.

Well, that's where I'm at these days. So this week I picked up the Gospel according to Mark, because Mark is simple and direct. I was wondering if perhaps I could let the words, the truths, of Mark's Gospel astonish me again. Open my eyes. Make me occasionally put the book down (well, the ereader) and say, "Wow."

This was, and is, my prayer. It sprung up from my heart in the form not of words but of pure desire. Wake me up, God. Astonish me. It is something like Moses saying, "Show me your glory." Or like the Psalmist's, "Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things in your word."

Yes, it's like that.

"Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things in your word." Please.

Wondrous things.

Theology is important. At some level I am a theologian too. But theology comes in behind wonder and attempts to wrap words around the ineffable. In some ways, at some level, it is a betrayal.

So, yes, to Mark. Who is young and excitable (or so it seems to me). He starts his document out this way.

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

"The Son of God"! Have such words (and words like gospel, and even Christ) grown dusty, familiar, merely religious markers rather than indications of something that cannot be adequately dealt with on the rational level alone? Or, in other words, have they lost their power to induce wonder? Have we, have I, lost my capacity to see the wonder, and to bow down?

This is what I desire. To be loosed in a world of wonders. Both as I read Mark's account, and then again when I look up from the page (or from the screen) and into the world around me again. The world He made. Or when I encounter another man or woman, made like me in His image. Fearfully made. Wonderfully made.

Ravish me once more, world (and Word) of God.

[Update: so this morning I come upon this: Michael Card is teaching a seminar down in Asheville, calling it The Gospel of Passion. Here's the summary: "The gospel of Mark conveys the passion of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry like no other book in Scripture. In it the Savior’s emotional depth and caring nature are strikingly portrayed. Allow your imagination to be captured by the Holy Spirit as you explore Mark’s revealing testimony. See the facts you know in your head come to life in your heart as you experience this gospel anew from the perspective of those who first heard it." That's what I'm talkin' about!]

Friday Songbook: It Never Entered My Mind

The composing team of Rogers and Hart will show up a lot on any catalog of the great songs of the American show-tune era. And Johnny Hartman is the kind of singer I like best. Here's a nice rendition of 'It Never Entered My Mind' from an old Sammy Davis TV special:

Wednesday Update

I have so little to say lately, sometimes I think about quitting. But no, I want to continue posting my Americana Monday and Friday Songbook posts at the very least.

We're in the rainy season here. Not much sunshine. Plus, I hurt my leg running. Dang. There's the bad news for you.

I hadn't been reading my Bible for a while. I've been reading Tim Keller's King's Cross, but very intermittently, stretching it out over many weeks. It's a sort of meditation on Mark's gospel, so that's probably why, when I finally decided to get back to reading the Bible like a good boy, I started with Mark.

I love the gospel according to Mark.

Also, I've been getting with a church planting couple in my area, meeting on a weekly basis to talk about Jesus. This has been my "church" experience lately. It's not "church," I guess, but it's "the body". [see Rom. 12:4]

So anyway, reading Mark. Just started. I'm reading it meditatively, as they say. Which means, for me, maybe I'll read a short passage over and over for days. So I'm still in chapter 1. And it's stoking a flame in me. I can feel it. It's happening. I'm getting excited about the Word again. It's very cool.

Meantime, it's still raining, overcast. And my leg hurts. But this guy Mark, he has this astonishing, incredible news. It's crazy. It's about Jesus. I kinda wanta shout!

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These are a few of my favorite teachers

I wrote something the other day that might just need some clarification. I said:

What amazes me lately is . . . just how many people have national/international ministries, glossy websites, books, speaking schedules, podcasts, marketing plans, etc. All of them claiming to have some special angle, or a unique message to help the vast needy masses become un-needy at last, achieve that great triumph they've been dreaming of (or that they've been trained by marketers to think they must achieve, or else life will not be whole). It's a great big house of cards, that's what I think.

I want to emphasize today that there are a lot of teachers and preachers out there whom I admire and am happy to learn from. One of those is Terry Virgo, of the New Frontiers family of churches. here are a couple of example's of Terry's fundamental message.

3a. The Gospel of Grace from Terry Virgo on Vimeo.

3b. The Gospel of Grace from Terry Virgo on Vimeo.

What I appreciate about Virgo is his focus on the one single central message of grace. This puts him in league with another of my other favorite teachers, Steve Brown.



And then there's Dallas Willard.



And just for good measure I'll throw in one more. One of the writer/bloggers who frames this message of grace (the common thread among all these teachers) in unique and sometimes startling ways is Jared Wilson. Read, for example, The Gospel Against Hyper-Spirituality.

By the way, I've noticed that it's mostly old guys that honor the message of grace most persistently (Jared's the exception here, of course); folks like Virgo, Brown, Willard, and for another example, Brennan Manning. The message of grace takes a while, apparently, to really sink in. Life has to humble you a little first, perhaps.

Meanwhile, it's the young church planters and "leaders," so full of visions and plans and gifts of persuasion, who seem to always want to catch people up in their grand designs for the church rather than simply to refresh them with "glimpses of liberty" (Virgo's phrase).

See, I just want to be an ambassador for Jesus, growing into him with others through the living out of this message of grace. The message is about freedom, not more things to do. Me, I don't want to be a counselor or for that matter to be counseled. Also, I don't want merely the language of grace if it's just going to be a bait-and-switch to try to get me involved in your program (or buy your book, or adopt your seven steps to victory/breakthrough/prosperity/whatever). I just want to be a carrier of grace--the grace of God. Those teachers who can help me keep the focus right, who can remind me now and then of the freedom that is in Christ, those are teachers I appreciate and want to hear more of. That's the teaching I'm needy for.

Friday Songbook: I Could Write a Book

I missed out on posting my weekly American Songbook item this week because Blogger was down (boo hoo). Well, better late than never. Here's one of my favorite Rodgers and Hart tunes. The singer is Dinah Washington, whose work I've always had a fondness for.

A Theology of Presence?

Here's something I see a lot more of these days. Dads out with their toddlers, walking along, the child trying hard to keep up, while the Dad is immersed in his "smart" phone (the quotations indicate deep irony).

Hmmm. I don't know you, and maybe it's none of my business, but dude, put down your gadget and be with your kids!

Which brings us to Four Reasons We Need a Theology of Presence.

Distractions are increasing and we need to think through what presence looks like as a mode of life.

Yup.

That's a good post to get us thinking about something that is, it seems to me, deeply important.

And see: Tim Challies' Bad Manners Masquerading as Media

Just musing here

Hey folks. After a week of not posting I'm not exactly refreshed, but hey I'm back!

The Missional Manifesto. I think it's a useful correction or re-orientation, working against the persistent therapeutic model which dominates so many churches today. Meanwhile, Ed Stetzer has been working his way (thoughtfully) through the document (here, here, and here).

I've not been keeping up with the Christian blogospheric conversation lately (although that word "conversation" is used loosely here). All the to-do over Rob Bell just turned me off. What amazes me lately is just how many voices are involved. That is, just how many people have national/international ministries, glossy websites, books, speaking schedules, podcasts, marketing plans, etc. All of them claiming to have some special angle, or a unique message to help the vast needy masses become un-needy at last, achieve that great triumph they've been dreaming of (or that they've been trained by marketers to think they must achieve, or else life will not be whole). It's a great big house of cards, that's what I think.

Social media has weighted these "conversations" against the local and in favor of the "digital." In other words, a lot of digital voices talking among themselves, agreeing and disagreeing, having their weighty say, while down at the street-level there's relative silence. So it seems to me.

Just musing here, but what if we all just, well, shut up. I mean, we don't really need more books, do we? More and more and more every year? We don't need more marketing? We don't need more promises . . . if you'll only attend the conference, buy the book, sign up for the daily edevotional. What maybe we need is "faith working through love," (Gal. 5:6) which happens relationally, locally, after we put down the book, look up from the smart phone, close the lap top, and actually talk to the person next to us.

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My love of American history and my love for Americana music in all its forms are closely related. Sometimes a song is a living document from a past world. Here are two contemporary "readings" of just such documents.

The Haints perform Milwaukee Blues.



Dan Tyminski sings "Dustbowl Children."

Hey folks, not feeling like blogging lately! Will wonders never cease? So just stopping by to say I'm around, I'm fine, and will probably be back to this next week. See ya soon!

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