In imitation of my friend, the host of betterthanmydesk.blogspot.com, I will today post a quote that recently (about an hour ago) affected me powerfully. It is from John C. Puddefoot's essay in BELIEF IN SCIENCE AND IN CHRISTIAN LIFE. In a completely different language (philosophical) he says roughly what I was trying to say in a couple of recent posts about the Christian life.
"In the Church we are not concerned to produce congregations of biblical scholars or dogmatic theologians; we are concerned to impart the knowledge of Jesus Christ which can be received as his own personal encounter. Our efforts are necessary, but not sufficient to enable others to obtain an understanding of Jesus and the Triune God, and thereby to find life more meaningful, richer and less puzzling. A purely formal education which remains formal is susceptible to any attack which can destroy formal evidence, but by enabling people to acquire the non-formal skills of the Christian life we provide them with an endelible character, a character with which they can enver be separated from the love of God. Kowledge of God is personal, and personal knowledge is not made, but discovered. Personal knowledge comes from love, and love never fails. Love cannot be described, and relies upon no formal treasures which moth and rust can corrupt. The process by which the child acquires such knowledge unconsciously must be folloed by application of effort in the adult. By taking up the Bible and doctrines of the past into ourselves, and accrediting and reaffirming what we find expressed there ourselves, not because it is there but because we perceive it to be true, we find ourselves in continuity with a great crowd of witnesses living and departed who have searched for and in some degree found the love of God."
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Psalm of Life
This Longfellow poem is performed magnificently by Malcolm Dalglish and the Ooolites, a musical group from here in Bloomington where I live. I was singing their version of it today as I carried my mail. I wish I knew how to put music on this site. But the words are musical even by themselves.
A Psalm of Life
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
A Psalm of Life
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Father Loves the Son
Why would an eternally happy God create the universe? Without the Creation Jesus would never have had to suffer. The Father would not have had to turn away from his own beloved Son. The Spirit would never have been blasphemed and offended. They could have been eternally happy together without us!
In my book, Covenant and Community, I take some space to emphasize that the central motive (from the Father's perspective) behind the creation of the universe, creation of humanity, human history, the sending of the Son to Earth, the crucifiction and resurection, and the marriage supper of the lamb~the central motive of it all is the Father's love for his Son. This whole grand creation is a means whereby the Father can bring glory to his Son, shower his love on his Son, elevate his Son. I hesitate to give citations for this doctrine, because that makes us think that we only believe what is stated catagorically, whereas this fact is attested to throughout the New Testament as a constant theme that is being developed but not always explicitly stated. But if you insist on catagorical statements, look at the first chapter of Ephesians, the middle portion of John 5, the first few and last few chapters of Revelation.
Jesus insisted that his own actions, both those that made the crowds love him and those that lead to his death, were proof that the Father loved him. You may answer, "For God so loved the WORLD. . .." Yes, that is true. Jesus came into the world because of the Father's love for the world. But why was there a world to love? What motive was there to create in the first place? I think that the consistent thrust of Scripture is that the motive for Creation is "For the Father so loved the Son. . .." That love was prior to and always has priority over his love for us.
Consider Jesus' words, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." The Father loves us for the Son's sake. He loves the one who loves his Son.
If this is the starting point for God, should it not also be our starting point? Should not the Father's love for the Son be at the very center of our understanding of what the Gospel is? Should it not even be the starting point in our evangelism? Jesus repeatedly said that the things he did and the things he said were so that people would know that the Father sent him, hears him, loves him. He wanted us to see their relationship.
(This is a very truncated explanation. In its full scope it should acknowlege that the Father's love for the Son is fully reciprocated and the Son is using the Creation and his own incarnation to heap up honor to his Father. Also, their relationships with the Holy Spirit display more intricacies of loving communion. This is gone into in more detail in Covenant and Community.)
Should not all of our faith, doctrine and conduct begin with the relationships of the Father, Son and Spirit, for it is those relationships that prompted even our very existence.
In my book, Covenant and Community, I take some space to emphasize that the central motive (from the Father's perspective) behind the creation of the universe, creation of humanity, human history, the sending of the Son to Earth, the crucifiction and resurection, and the marriage supper of the lamb~the central motive of it all is the Father's love for his Son. This whole grand creation is a means whereby the Father can bring glory to his Son, shower his love on his Son, elevate his Son. I hesitate to give citations for this doctrine, because that makes us think that we only believe what is stated catagorically, whereas this fact is attested to throughout the New Testament as a constant theme that is being developed but not always explicitly stated. But if you insist on catagorical statements, look at the first chapter of Ephesians, the middle portion of John 5, the first few and last few chapters of Revelation.
Jesus insisted that his own actions, both those that made the crowds love him and those that lead to his death, were proof that the Father loved him. You may answer, "For God so loved the WORLD. . .." Yes, that is true. Jesus came into the world because of the Father's love for the world. But why was there a world to love? What motive was there to create in the first place? I think that the consistent thrust of Scripture is that the motive for Creation is "For the Father so loved the Son. . .." That love was prior to and always has priority over his love for us.
Consider Jesus' words, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." The Father loves us for the Son's sake. He loves the one who loves his Son.
If this is the starting point for God, should it not also be our starting point? Should not the Father's love for the Son be at the very center of our understanding of what the Gospel is? Should it not even be the starting point in our evangelism? Jesus repeatedly said that the things he did and the things he said were so that people would know that the Father sent him, hears him, loves him. He wanted us to see their relationship.
(This is a very truncated explanation. In its full scope it should acknowlege that the Father's love for the Son is fully reciprocated and the Son is using the Creation and his own incarnation to heap up honor to his Father. Also, their relationships with the Holy Spirit display more intricacies of loving communion. This is gone into in more detail in Covenant and Community.)
Should not all of our faith, doctrine and conduct begin with the relationships of the Father, Son and Spirit, for it is those relationships that prompted even our very existence.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Ogden Nash
After the gravity of the poems of Turbina and Yevtushenko, I thought I should lighten the mood a little with a few pieces from Ogden Nash. He would, however, I think not have liked for me to use the word "light" in connection with his name. He was a witty poet, with a style all his own, but he did not think of himself as a writer of "light verse." His poems had serious points to make (except when they didn't, which was often), and although the point was couched in playful rhymes he did not want the reader to toss off the serious undercurrent as part of the joke. He expected the reader to be able to discern seperate serious and humorous threads within the same poem. Too much to ask? Perhaps. Even his obituary in the NY Times called him a writer of "light verse."
It is this flippancy of presentation combined with his expectation that the reader was discerning enough to distinguish serious trains of thought in playful banter that links him to the great newspaper voices of the past. Although not really a newspaper man himself, he has much in common with the presentation of Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard), Mark Twain, James Thurber, Ambrose Bierce, and James Whitcomb Riley (those last two being my fellow Hoosiers, that is natives of Indiana). If one wanted one could trace the geniology of that style of newspapering back to the likes of Addison and Steele, or even back to Senaca and Juvenal if one were working on a dissertation, which I am not.
THE HUNTER
The hunter crouches in his blind
'Neath camouflage of every kind,
And conjures up a quacking noise
To lend allure to his decoys.
This grown-up man, with pluck and luck,
Is hoping to outwit a duck.
A LADY THINKS SHE IS THIRTY
Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.
Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.
Shining like a morning star,
Like the twighlight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda sits a-pining.
Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.
Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?
Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then~
How old is spring, Miranda?
CHILDREN'S PARTY
May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party's over.
Since three o'clock I've done my best
To entertain each tiny guest;
My conscience now I've left behind me,
And if they want me, let them find me.
I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats,
I kept them from each other's throats.
I told them tales of magic lands,
I took them out to wash their hands.
I sorted their rubbers and tied their laces,
I wiped their noses and dried their faces.
Of similarity there's lots
Twixt tiny tots and Hottentots.
I've earned repose to heal the ravages
Of these angelic-looking savages.
Oh, progeny playing by itself
Is a lonely fascinating elf,
But progeny in roistereing batches
Would drive St. Francis from her to Natchez.
Shunned are the games a parent proposes;
They prefer to squirt each other with hoses,
Their playmates are their natural foeman
And they like to poke each other's abdomen.
Their joy needs another's woe to cushion it,
Say a puddle, and somebody to push in it.
They obeserve with glee the ballistic results
Of ice cream with spoons for catapults,
And inform the assembly with tears and glares
That everyone's presents are better than theirs.
Oh, little women and little men,
Someday I hope to love you again,
But not till after the party's over,
So give me the key to the doghouse, Rover.
THE PARENT
Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
It is this flippancy of presentation combined with his expectation that the reader was discerning enough to distinguish serious trains of thought in playful banter that links him to the great newspaper voices of the past. Although not really a newspaper man himself, he has much in common with the presentation of Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard), Mark Twain, James Thurber, Ambrose Bierce, and James Whitcomb Riley (those last two being my fellow Hoosiers, that is natives of Indiana). If one wanted one could trace the geniology of that style of newspapering back to the likes of Addison and Steele, or even back to Senaca and Juvenal if one were working on a dissertation, which I am not.
THE HUNTER
The hunter crouches in his blind
'Neath camouflage of every kind,
And conjures up a quacking noise
To lend allure to his decoys.
This grown-up man, with pluck and luck,
Is hoping to outwit a duck.
A LADY THINKS SHE IS THIRTY
Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.
Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.
Shining like a morning star,
Like the twighlight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda sits a-pining.
Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.
Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?
Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then~
How old is spring, Miranda?
CHILDREN'S PARTY
May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party's over.
Since three o'clock I've done my best
To entertain each tiny guest;
My conscience now I've left behind me,
And if they want me, let them find me.
I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats,
I kept them from each other's throats.
I told them tales of magic lands,
I took them out to wash their hands.
I sorted their rubbers and tied their laces,
I wiped their noses and dried their faces.
Of similarity there's lots
Twixt tiny tots and Hottentots.
I've earned repose to heal the ravages
Of these angelic-looking savages.
Oh, progeny playing by itself
Is a lonely fascinating elf,
But progeny in roistereing batches
Would drive St. Francis from her to Natchez.
Shunned are the games a parent proposes;
They prefer to squirt each other with hoses,
Their playmates are their natural foeman
And they like to poke each other's abdomen.
Their joy needs another's woe to cushion it,
Say a puddle, and somebody to push in it.
They obeserve with glee the ballistic results
Of ice cream with spoons for catapults,
And inform the assembly with tears and glares
That everyone's presents are better than theirs.
Oh, little women and little men,
Someday I hope to love you again,
But not till after the party's over,
So give me the key to the doghouse, Rover.
THE PARENT
Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Another Russian Poet
Yevgenny Yevtushenko was already an upper middle aged poet when he "discovered" Nika Turbina in 1983. She was eight. He had lived through most of the communist years, at first in love with the ideals but later coming to hate and fear the realities of communist totalitarianism. He had been a Russian hero and icon, been denounced by the authorities and become a real Russian hero and icon in people's secret hearts. Among the very many accomplishment of Yevtushenko, he served on the Russian Parliament as a staunch advocate of democracy.
For the second poem here, Babii Yar, he has been nominated for the Nobel Prize. We will see in December whether he wins it. In my opinion it is much deserved and long overdue. If he does indeed win, it will almost certainly be the shortest work for which the Nobel has ever been awarded, though of course the award would be in recognition of all of his work and not only the one poem for which he was nominated.
But his poems really do not need my introduction.
One note however: Babii Yar was originally spaced all over the page, causing one to search somewhat for the next phrase. This silly host site does not support such a format and therefore everything is left justified by default. I can't make it obey me and format it as it should be!
NO, I'LL NOT TAKE THE HALF
No, I'll not take the half of anything!
Give me the whole sky! The far-flung earth!
Seas and rivers and mountain avalanches--
All these are mine! I'll accept no less!
No, life, you cannot woo me with a part.
Let it be all or nothing! I can shoulder that!
I don't want happiness by halves,
Nor is half of sorrow what I want.
Yet there's a pillow I would share,
Where gently pressed against a cheek,
Like a helpless star, a falling star,
A ring glimmers on a finger of your hand.
BABII YAR
No monument stands over Babii Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
Today I am as old in years
as all the Jewish people.
Now I seem to be
a Jew.
Here I plod through ancient Egypt.
Here I perish crucified, on the cross,
and to this day I bear the scars of nails.
I seem to be
Dreyfus.
The Philistine
is both informer and judge.
I am behind bars.
Beset on every side.
Hounded,
spat on,
slandered.
Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace
stick their parasols into my face.
I seem to be then
a young boy in Byelostok.
Blood runs, spilling over the floors.
The bar-room rabble-rousers
give off a stench of vodka and onion.
A boot kicks me aside, helpless.
In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies.
While they jeer and shout,
"Beat the Yids. Save Russia!"
some grain-marketeer beats up my mother.
O my Russian people!
I know
you
are international to the core.
But those with unclean hands
have often made a jingle of your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
How vile these antisemites--
without a qualm
they pompously called themselves
"The Union of the Russian People"!
I seem to be
Anne Frank
transparent
as a branch in April.
And I love.
And have no need of phrases.
My need
is that we gaze into each other.
How little we can see
or smell!
We are denied the leaves,
we are denied the sky.
Yet we can do so much--
tenderly
embrace each other in a dark room.
They’re coming here?
Be not afraid. those are the booming
sounds of spring:
spring is coming here.
Come then to me.
Quick, give me your lips.
Are they smashing down the door?
No, it’s the ice breaking...
The wild grasses rustle over Babii Yar.
The trees look ominous,
like judges.
Here all things scream silently,
and, baring my head,
slowly I feel myself
turning gray.
And I myself
am one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here.
I am
each old man
here shot dead.
I am
every child
here shot dead.
Nothing in me
shall ever forget!
The "Internationale", let it
thunder
when the last antisemite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all antisemites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
I am a true Russian!
For the second poem here, Babii Yar, he has been nominated for the Nobel Prize. We will see in December whether he wins it. In my opinion it is much deserved and long overdue. If he does indeed win, it will almost certainly be the shortest work for which the Nobel has ever been awarded, though of course the award would be in recognition of all of his work and not only the one poem for which he was nominated.
But his poems really do not need my introduction.
One note however: Babii Yar was originally spaced all over the page, causing one to search somewhat for the next phrase. This silly host site does not support such a format and therefore everything is left justified by default. I can't make it obey me and format it as it should be!
NO, I'LL NOT TAKE THE HALF
No, I'll not take the half of anything!
Give me the whole sky! The far-flung earth!
Seas and rivers and mountain avalanches--
All these are mine! I'll accept no less!
No, life, you cannot woo me with a part.
Let it be all or nothing! I can shoulder that!
I don't want happiness by halves,
Nor is half of sorrow what I want.
Yet there's a pillow I would share,
Where gently pressed against a cheek,
Like a helpless star, a falling star,
A ring glimmers on a finger of your hand.
BABII YAR
No monument stands over Babii Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
Today I am as old in years
as all the Jewish people.
Now I seem to be
a Jew.
Here I plod through ancient Egypt.
Here I perish crucified, on the cross,
and to this day I bear the scars of nails.
I seem to be
Dreyfus.
The Philistine
is both informer and judge.
I am behind bars.
Beset on every side.
Hounded,
spat on,
slandered.
Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace
stick their parasols into my face.
I seem to be then
a young boy in Byelostok.
Blood runs, spilling over the floors.
The bar-room rabble-rousers
give off a stench of vodka and onion.
A boot kicks me aside, helpless.
In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies.
While they jeer and shout,
"Beat the Yids. Save Russia!"
some grain-marketeer beats up my mother.
O my Russian people!
I know
you
are international to the core.
But those with unclean hands
have often made a jingle of your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
How vile these antisemites--
without a qualm
they pompously called themselves
"The Union of the Russian People"!
I seem to be
Anne Frank
transparent
as a branch in April.
And I love.
And have no need of phrases.
My need
is that we gaze into each other.
How little we can see
or smell!
We are denied the leaves,
we are denied the sky.
Yet we can do so much--
tenderly
embrace each other in a dark room.
They’re coming here?
Be not afraid. those are the booming
sounds of spring:
spring is coming here.
Come then to me.
Quick, give me your lips.
Are they smashing down the door?
No, it’s the ice breaking...
The wild grasses rustle over Babii Yar.
The trees look ominous,
like judges.
Here all things scream silently,
and, baring my head,
slowly I feel myself
turning gray.
And I myself
am one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here.
I am
each old man
here shot dead.
I am
every child
here shot dead.
Nothing in me
shall ever forget!
The "Internationale", let it
thunder
when the last antisemite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all antisemites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
I am a true Russian!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The Postman Life: An Analogy
An analogy related to the post a couple of days ago regarding the need to live the Christian life:
I am a mailman, a postman, a letter carrier. However you say it, that is what I am.
But what makes me a mailman? How do I know that I am a mailman?
Yes, the post office hired me. I applied, took a test, waited for months and then they called. They hired me. But that in itself did not yet make me a mailman.
I went to training. But that did not quite make me a mailman.
I went to work, was given a spot in which to work and shown what to do. But I wasn't a mailman yet.
I began to sort the mail. I prepared the mail and took it to the street. Not a mailman yet.
I put mail into people's mailboxes, checking the names and addresses carefully to make sure it was the right mail in the right box.
I was a mailman! Suddenly it wasn't theory, it wasn't a possibility, it wasn't a goal, and it wasn't dubious. It was certain! I was a mailman because I was doing what mailmen do.
Yet I didn't make myself a mailman. I was called to it. Actually I was called via a postcard in the mail that told me to report to training. No amount of walking down the street fiddling with other people's mailboxes would have ever made me a mailman if the US Postal Service had not chosen and called me.
Conversely, (some extra sensitive Calvinists won't like this part) the US Postal Service did not make me a mailman either. In one sense they did. They called, hired, and trained me; they gave me uniforms, a title, and a place to work. But until I began, rather slowly and hesitantly at first, to actually deliver mail I was not a mailman.
I know that I am a mailman because I live the life of a mailman. Similarly I know that I am a Christian because I live the life of a Christian. (The question of how to define what that life is does not concern me here, just that there is such a life.)
Now as a mailman I do not know everything. I do not really know who lives in the houses. I know only who the tenants tell me lives there, if I can get them to tell me. On my mail route there are very many college students. They tend to move rather frequently, often three or four times a year. And they don't always let me know. So, as I deliver the mail I am very careful to always put only the mail that belongs to a house in their mailbox. I often knock on doors to ask exactly who should currently be getting mail at that address. I am careful.
But no amount of being careful could ever make me one hundred percent accurate. These students move far too often. I know as I am delivering my mail that there are likely to be some homes to which I am delivering mail that no longer belongs there. I am sure to make mistakes that are purely my own fault too. But I am still a mailman, even if I can't be a faultless mailman. I am a mailman because I deliver the mail, not because I am never wrong in some deliveries.
However, lest you hear me saying that it does not matter whether the mail goes to the right home or not, let me assure that it matters very much. I would not be a mailman for long if I didn't care whether the deliveries were accurate. In fact if I really didn't care you might say that I was not even a mailman at all, just some guy who wore a uniform that didn't rightfully belong to me and who was embarrassing the postal service.
Likewise, people who are living the Christian life will not be right in all doctrine, they will not be perfect in all matters of conduct, and their worship style may fall short of the angels saying "Holy, holy, holy," before the throne in heaven. Yet we are truly and exuberantly living the Christian life. We are LIVING, despite our shortcomings.
These shortcomings do not stop us from living the Christian life. Not at all. But they matter. They matter to God, perhaps. But they also matter to the people engaged in this life that Jesus has given us. We care! It is not that by getting it right we will suddenly become true Christians. We already were true Christians. It is that if we didn't care whether our understanding, actions, and worship were appropriate, that would just be proof that we really aren't living the Christian life. We would be disclosed as those who are merely wearing a uniform that doesn't really belong to us.
I am a mailman, a postman, a letter carrier. However you say it, that is what I am.
But what makes me a mailman? How do I know that I am a mailman?
Yes, the post office hired me. I applied, took a test, waited for months and then they called. They hired me. But that in itself did not yet make me a mailman.
I went to training. But that did not quite make me a mailman.
I went to work, was given a spot in which to work and shown what to do. But I wasn't a mailman yet.
I began to sort the mail. I prepared the mail and took it to the street. Not a mailman yet.
I put mail into people's mailboxes, checking the names and addresses carefully to make sure it was the right mail in the right box.
I was a mailman! Suddenly it wasn't theory, it wasn't a possibility, it wasn't a goal, and it wasn't dubious. It was certain! I was a mailman because I was doing what mailmen do.
Yet I didn't make myself a mailman. I was called to it. Actually I was called via a postcard in the mail that told me to report to training. No amount of walking down the street fiddling with other people's mailboxes would have ever made me a mailman if the US Postal Service had not chosen and called me.
Conversely, (some extra sensitive Calvinists won't like this part) the US Postal Service did not make me a mailman either. In one sense they did. They called, hired, and trained me; they gave me uniforms, a title, and a place to work. But until I began, rather slowly and hesitantly at first, to actually deliver mail I was not a mailman.
I know that I am a mailman because I live the life of a mailman. Similarly I know that I am a Christian because I live the life of a Christian. (The question of how to define what that life is does not concern me here, just that there is such a life.)
Now as a mailman I do not know everything. I do not really know who lives in the houses. I know only who the tenants tell me lives there, if I can get them to tell me. On my mail route there are very many college students. They tend to move rather frequently, often three or four times a year. And they don't always let me know. So, as I deliver the mail I am very careful to always put only the mail that belongs to a house in their mailbox. I often knock on doors to ask exactly who should currently be getting mail at that address. I am careful.
But no amount of being careful could ever make me one hundred percent accurate. These students move far too often. I know as I am delivering my mail that there are likely to be some homes to which I am delivering mail that no longer belongs there. I am sure to make mistakes that are purely my own fault too. But I am still a mailman, even if I can't be a faultless mailman. I am a mailman because I deliver the mail, not because I am never wrong in some deliveries.
However, lest you hear me saying that it does not matter whether the mail goes to the right home or not, let me assure that it matters very much. I would not be a mailman for long if I didn't care whether the deliveries were accurate. In fact if I really didn't care you might say that I was not even a mailman at all, just some guy who wore a uniform that didn't rightfully belong to me and who was embarrassing the postal service.
Likewise, people who are living the Christian life will not be right in all doctrine, they will not be perfect in all matters of conduct, and their worship style may fall short of the angels saying "Holy, holy, holy," before the throne in heaven. Yet we are truly and exuberantly living the Christian life. We are LIVING, despite our shortcomings.
These shortcomings do not stop us from living the Christian life. Not at all. But they matter. They matter to God, perhaps. But they also matter to the people engaged in this life that Jesus has given us. We care! It is not that by getting it right we will suddenly become true Christians. We already were true Christians. It is that if we didn't care whether our understanding, actions, and worship were appropriate, that would just be proof that we really aren't living the Christian life. We would be disclosed as those who are merely wearing a uniform that doesn't really belong to us.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Nika Turbina
Nika Turbina began composing poetry before she could write. When she was three she would tell poems to her grandmother who would write them down for her. "I began composing verse out loud when I was three. . . I banged my fists on the piano and composed." In fact her poems were composed so early that one of them is about learning to count, and her fear of the zero's that was making it difficult to learn to count above nine.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko pointed out one great value in her verse. "Nika's poetic diary, thanks to its vulnerable sincerity, becomes the diary of other children, those who do not write poetry."
At eight years old she was "discovered" and was soon giving readings of her poetry around the world, including a private reading for the Pope. But it is not the fame and fortune, nor the tragic turn that her life soon took, but the poems themselves that I want to share here.
See what you think.
WHO AM I?
Whose are the eyes I look through at the world
of friends and family, of trees and birds?
Whose are the lips I use to catch the dew
from a leaf that has fallen in the street?
Whose are the arms I use to hug
this helpless and precarious world?
I lose my own voice in those of forests,
fields and blizzards, heavy rain and night.
But who am I?
Where should I look for myself?
How can I answer
all these natural voices?
7 years old
We speak a different language,
you and I.
The script may be the same,
but the words are strange.
You and I
live on different
islands, even though
we are in the same apartment.
8 years old
My poems are heavy,
hauling rocks uphill.
I'll carry them to the cliff,
its sheer, blank face.
I'll fall face down into the grass,
I won't have enough tears.
I'll tear up my line-
the verse will weep.
Nettles
will dig pain into my hand!
And the bitterness of the day
will all be transformed into words.
6 years old
TO MAMA
I need your tenderness
as a dying bird
needs air.
I need the worried tremble
of your lips.
And when I feel lonely
I need the sparkling laughter in your eyes.
But they weep,
as they watch me.
Why is there so much black
pain in the world?
It must be because
you are alone.
6 years old
THE VOICE
Down the parkway
like a crystal ball
your ringing voice
passed me.
It ran along rooftops,
it ran along leaves,
in the autumnal rustle
it captured music.
Suddenly, it stopped
near the bench,
with the smashed
lamp post.
Your crystal ball
sparkled with laughter.
And the smashed lamp post
suddenly glowed light.
6 years old
Yevgeny Yevtushenko pointed out one great value in her verse. "Nika's poetic diary, thanks to its vulnerable sincerity, becomes the diary of other children, those who do not write poetry."
At eight years old she was "discovered" and was soon giving readings of her poetry around the world, including a private reading for the Pope. But it is not the fame and fortune, nor the tragic turn that her life soon took, but the poems themselves that I want to share here.
See what you think.
WHO AM I?
Whose are the eyes I look through at the world
of friends and family, of trees and birds?
Whose are the lips I use to catch the dew
from a leaf that has fallen in the street?
Whose are the arms I use to hug
this helpless and precarious world?
I lose my own voice in those of forests,
fields and blizzards, heavy rain and night.
But who am I?
Where should I look for myself?
How can I answer
all these natural voices?
7 years old
We speak a different language,
you and I.
The script may be the same,
but the words are strange.
You and I
live on different
islands, even though
we are in the same apartment.
8 years old
My poems are heavy,
hauling rocks uphill.
I'll carry them to the cliff,
its sheer, blank face.
I'll fall face down into the grass,
I won't have enough tears.
I'll tear up my line-
the verse will weep.
Nettles
will dig pain into my hand!
And the bitterness of the day
will all be transformed into words.
6 years old
TO MAMA
I need your tenderness
as a dying bird
needs air.
I need the worried tremble
of your lips.
And when I feel lonely
I need the sparkling laughter in your eyes.
But they weep,
as they watch me.
Why is there so much black
pain in the world?
It must be because
you are alone.
6 years old
THE VOICE
Down the parkway
like a crystal ball
your ringing voice
passed me.
It ran along rooftops,
it ran along leaves,
in the autumnal rustle
it captured music.
Suddenly, it stopped
near the bench,
with the smashed
lamp post.
Your crystal ball
sparkled with laughter.
And the smashed lamp post
suddenly glowed light.
6 years old
Friday, July 25, 2008
Life and Death
Often I think the presentation of the Gospel gives the impression that on the Cross Jesus purchased for us future life in Heaven. Life after death. And this is of course true. But it is not even close to all that he bought on Calvary.
More and more I am impressed with the need to accentuate the life that he brings us into here and now also.
In focussing primarily on the future aspect we seem to have abandoned the sense of reality for the life in which we now find ourselves. If I am content to know that I will be saved on that final day, and this verdict is sure, then it is hard to fathom the purpose of leaving me here on earth for the next twenty, thirty, fifty years. Often, to see Christians live and to hear them talk, I think that they are just living humdrum lives waiting to die and be ushered into "real" life.
There are very many factors that may contribute to this attitude. I won't analyze them all here, but merely mention a couple. One is perhaps the emphasis in some circles on the fact that God accomplished all the work of salvation. And he has given it all to us as a free gift. While this is true, in its extreme form it can lead to a distrust of claiming any work as our own. And claiming that we need to live the Christian life could be construed as a work. Also an over emphasis on what is sometimes called "eternal security" can lead one to wonder why one should bother because the outcome is the same whether one matures as a believer or not.
But Jesus did not simply purchase for us a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free card. His life will not be imparted to us after death if it was not imparted to us before our death.
No, there is nothing I ever did our could have done that would have gained for me the life that Jesus bought for me on the Cross. It was all a free gift, given to me for no reason that I can discern other than the love of God working through his Son. In absolutely no way did I manage to earn his love; in no way did I manage to acquire the benefits of Jesus blood. He did it. All of it.
But, and this is a very big "but," what the Father sent his Son to Calvary to do, what Jesus sent his Spirit to seal me into, is LIFE. And because I have been given life, I must LIVE.
It has been said that life begins at fifty. I don't know, I'm not there yet. But if a child is born, not breathing, temperature falling, no pulse, etc., the family mourns the loss of their child. They do not put it in storage waiting for that magic moment, on it's fiftieth birthday, for the child to suddenly spring to life with grey hair and a bum knee from an old football injury.
Likewise, when we see conversions, or when we ourselves are converted, we should expect to see and experience life. We may not be able to adequately describe all of the signs of life, nor can we say that they will all be always discernable in each living member of Christ's body. Neither are they all and always discernable in our human bodies. All living humans breath, but when I hold my breath that does not mean that I am dead. Living humans feel warm to the touch. But not when they are climbing out of the ice after one of those crazy "polar bear swims." Nevertheless, any mature living human can distinguish another living human from a corpse. Just so in the community of believers there are signs of life.
This is not at all a call for us to "weed out" the "false brothers" from among us. Rather it is a very simple reminder that we were not brought from death to life so that we might sit in some Limbo until our bodies die so that our spirits can then float off into real life. Rather we were given life so that we would live it.
For some this earthly life is the beginning of eternal life, while for others it is the beginning of eternal death. If eternal life does not begin here it will not begin. Rather at the ends of our lives we will find that we move from life to life, or from death to death. "For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him."
More and more I am impressed with the need to accentuate the life that he brings us into here and now also.
In focussing primarily on the future aspect we seem to have abandoned the sense of reality for the life in which we now find ourselves. If I am content to know that I will be saved on that final day, and this verdict is sure, then it is hard to fathom the purpose of leaving me here on earth for the next twenty, thirty, fifty years. Often, to see Christians live and to hear them talk, I think that they are just living humdrum lives waiting to die and be ushered into "real" life.
There are very many factors that may contribute to this attitude. I won't analyze them all here, but merely mention a couple. One is perhaps the emphasis in some circles on the fact that God accomplished all the work of salvation. And he has given it all to us as a free gift. While this is true, in its extreme form it can lead to a distrust of claiming any work as our own. And claiming that we need to live the Christian life could be construed as a work. Also an over emphasis on what is sometimes called "eternal security" can lead one to wonder why one should bother because the outcome is the same whether one matures as a believer or not.
But Jesus did not simply purchase for us a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free card. His life will not be imparted to us after death if it was not imparted to us before our death.
No, there is nothing I ever did our could have done that would have gained for me the life that Jesus bought for me on the Cross. It was all a free gift, given to me for no reason that I can discern other than the love of God working through his Son. In absolutely no way did I manage to earn his love; in no way did I manage to acquire the benefits of Jesus blood. He did it. All of it.
But, and this is a very big "but," what the Father sent his Son to Calvary to do, what Jesus sent his Spirit to seal me into, is LIFE. And because I have been given life, I must LIVE.
It has been said that life begins at fifty. I don't know, I'm not there yet. But if a child is born, not breathing, temperature falling, no pulse, etc., the family mourns the loss of their child. They do not put it in storage waiting for that magic moment, on it's fiftieth birthday, for the child to suddenly spring to life with grey hair and a bum knee from an old football injury.
Likewise, when we see conversions, or when we ourselves are converted, we should expect to see and experience life. We may not be able to adequately describe all of the signs of life, nor can we say that they will all be always discernable in each living member of Christ's body. Neither are they all and always discernable in our human bodies. All living humans breath, but when I hold my breath that does not mean that I am dead. Living humans feel warm to the touch. But not when they are climbing out of the ice after one of those crazy "polar bear swims." Nevertheless, any mature living human can distinguish another living human from a corpse. Just so in the community of believers there are signs of life.
This is not at all a call for us to "weed out" the "false brothers" from among us. Rather it is a very simple reminder that we were not brought from death to life so that we might sit in some Limbo until our bodies die so that our spirits can then float off into real life. Rather we were given life so that we would live it.
For some this earthly life is the beginning of eternal life, while for others it is the beginning of eternal death. If eternal life does not begin here it will not begin. Rather at the ends of our lives we will find that we move from life to life, or from death to death. "For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him."
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Commentary Review
I have been missing from the website for quite some time as I prepared to write a review of a largish commentary. I sent it off a couple of days ago, I hope they will use it as I put rather more time into it than the short length of the review would suggest. Here is what took me so long.
COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Edited by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson
Baker Academic (in America), Apollos (in England), 2007
This commentary on the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament is, without a doubt, the most useful reference tool that I have added to my collection since I acquired Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament some years back. Yet it would be a great shame if it were only used as a reference book.
As I read through its careful and scholarly analysis of each use the NT makes of the OT, I became increasingly aware of how very little the NT authors’ claimed that they had any new revelation to offer to the world. Yes, they had Jesus, and he was a new and more clear revelation of God, but as much as a new revelation Jesus seems to be in the NT a new hermeneutic.
Was Jesus a new revelation of God? Yes. The beginning of the letter to the Hebrews emphasizes that, and the whole New Testament seems to expound the statement. But the revelation of God in Christ set about a whole re-reading of the OT. As we consider in detail the utter reliance of the New Testament authors’ on the Old, Jesus continually provides to them a new way to understand all that the Old Testament authors have said. They now have a new lens through which to understand the act of creation (John 1, Romans 1−2, Ephesians, 1 Corinthians 15:45, and a host of others), the calling of Abraham, the slavery and redemption of Israel, etc.
The authors of the NT did not, as OT prophets had, introduce new topics with the phrase “Thus saith the LORD.” Instead, from the Gospels through the letters and Revelation, they quoted the prophets of old and explained their significance in light of the new revelation of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus was their hermeneutic for understanding the Scriptures. Therefore the importance of a work like this commentary can in no way be overstated. If we want to understand the Gospel of Jesus we must understand it in the terms in which it is presented to us and those terms are almost exclusively drawn from the Old Testament.
This prompts the question of the hermeneutical methods that the NT authors used in interpreting the OT. While they each approached Scriptural interpretation somewhat differently, there are a few constants that are worth noting. As has already been stated they read it in the light of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus.
It is also very significant that they extensively used a typological hermeneutic. Thus the historical events of the Exodus are used throughout the NT not to give a mere illustration of how Christ is saving his people, but to actually build the theological understanding of what Jesus is doing. They can use scripture this way, not because they can proof-text their statements by saying that the Exodus story says what they are saying, but rather because they assume that the God who was at work in the exodus is the same God who is at work in redemption and at work in us. They also assume that this same God will work now in a similar pattern to which he worked then. Paul does not claim that God gave him a whole new revelation describing the salvation that came in Christ. Rather he and the other NT authors built their understanding of this ultimate act of redemption by examining the workings of God’s redemption of his people from Egypt, from Babylon, from the Philistines, and so on.
In doing this Paul and the other NT authors seem to reason that just as a good author will build up to the climax of a story with repeated foreshadowing and variations on a theme, God has been authoring the history of the world and of his people as a building up to the climax of the revelation of his Son.
Interestingly, this very typological mode of interpretation that seems to have been the bedrock of the New Testament’s understanding of history and theology is somewhat out of fashion at present.
One of the principle rules of hermeneutics that has been repeatedly hammered into theology students (especially in a Reformed context) is that we must always ask the question: What did this text mean to its original audience. For example the use of the plural form for God in the first chapter of Genesis should not be taken as a reference to the Trinity because that understanding would presumably have been foreign to its original audience. The New Testament authors however were not willing to follow this rule quite the way it is often taught these days. Examining their uses of the OT I was pleasantly surprised by how very careful they were in most cases in sticking very close to the original context to which they were alluding, generally including faithfulness to the way the texts would have been originally understood. However they emphatically did not allow themselves to be limited by that historical understanding. They worked from the older understanding by reading always through the hermeneutic of the fuller understanding that they had now gained through the recent revelation of God in Christ.
No commentary can be, and this one is not, truly complete. It seems to rely almost exclusively on wording similarities to pick out the NT/OT parallels. Thus stylistic echoes are not treated, even when they are so plain as when Jesus echoed the blessing on the new couple (Be fruitful and multiply. . .) with what is sometimes called the Great Commission (. . . make disciples of all nations. . .). Nevertheless, although we may each be sorry to see some pet echo omitted, there seem few that were missed. Overall this is a masterful and scholarly work that will not be soon surpassed.
This commentary will, I’m afraid, usually be used merely as a reference book in helping pastors to prepare sermons. That is fine in its way, but it can be so much more. It is really a rather thorough examination of how the Bible does, and how we should, understand the Bible.
Edited by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson
Baker Academic (in America), Apollos (in England), 2007
This commentary on the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament is, without a doubt, the most useful reference tool that I have added to my collection since I acquired Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament some years back. Yet it would be a great shame if it were only used as a reference book.
As I read through its careful and scholarly analysis of each use the NT makes of the OT, I became increasingly aware of how very little the NT authors’ claimed that they had any new revelation to offer to the world. Yes, they had Jesus, and he was a new and more clear revelation of God, but as much as a new revelation Jesus seems to be in the NT a new hermeneutic.
Was Jesus a new revelation of God? Yes. The beginning of the letter to the Hebrews emphasizes that, and the whole New Testament seems to expound the statement. But the revelation of God in Christ set about a whole re-reading of the OT. As we consider in detail the utter reliance of the New Testament authors’ on the Old, Jesus continually provides to them a new way to understand all that the Old Testament authors have said. They now have a new lens through which to understand the act of creation (John 1, Romans 1−2, Ephesians, 1 Corinthians 15:45, and a host of others), the calling of Abraham, the slavery and redemption of Israel, etc.
The authors of the NT did not, as OT prophets had, introduce new topics with the phrase “Thus saith the LORD.” Instead, from the Gospels through the letters and Revelation, they quoted the prophets of old and explained their significance in light of the new revelation of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus was their hermeneutic for understanding the Scriptures. Therefore the importance of a work like this commentary can in no way be overstated. If we want to understand the Gospel of Jesus we must understand it in the terms in which it is presented to us and those terms are almost exclusively drawn from the Old Testament.
This prompts the question of the hermeneutical methods that the NT authors used in interpreting the OT. While they each approached Scriptural interpretation somewhat differently, there are a few constants that are worth noting. As has already been stated they read it in the light of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus.
It is also very significant that they extensively used a typological hermeneutic. Thus the historical events of the Exodus are used throughout the NT not to give a mere illustration of how Christ is saving his people, but to actually build the theological understanding of what Jesus is doing. They can use scripture this way, not because they can proof-text their statements by saying that the Exodus story says what they are saying, but rather because they assume that the God who was at work in the exodus is the same God who is at work in redemption and at work in us. They also assume that this same God will work now in a similar pattern to which he worked then. Paul does not claim that God gave him a whole new revelation describing the salvation that came in Christ. Rather he and the other NT authors built their understanding of this ultimate act of redemption by examining the workings of God’s redemption of his people from Egypt, from Babylon, from the Philistines, and so on.
In doing this Paul and the other NT authors seem to reason that just as a good author will build up to the climax of a story with repeated foreshadowing and variations on a theme, God has been authoring the history of the world and of his people as a building up to the climax of the revelation of his Son.
Interestingly, this very typological mode of interpretation that seems to have been the bedrock of the New Testament’s understanding of history and theology is somewhat out of fashion at present.
One of the principle rules of hermeneutics that has been repeatedly hammered into theology students (especially in a Reformed context) is that we must always ask the question: What did this text mean to its original audience. For example the use of the plural form for God in the first chapter of Genesis should not be taken as a reference to the Trinity because that understanding would presumably have been foreign to its original audience. The New Testament authors however were not willing to follow this rule quite the way it is often taught these days. Examining their uses of the OT I was pleasantly surprised by how very careful they were in most cases in sticking very close to the original context to which they were alluding, generally including faithfulness to the way the texts would have been originally understood. However they emphatically did not allow themselves to be limited by that historical understanding. They worked from the older understanding by reading always through the hermeneutic of the fuller understanding that they had now gained through the recent revelation of God in Christ.
No commentary can be, and this one is not, truly complete. It seems to rely almost exclusively on wording similarities to pick out the NT/OT parallels. Thus stylistic echoes are not treated, even when they are so plain as when Jesus echoed the blessing on the new couple (Be fruitful and multiply. . .) with what is sometimes called the Great Commission (. . . make disciples of all nations. . .). Nevertheless, although we may each be sorry to see some pet echo omitted, there seem few that were missed. Overall this is a masterful and scholarly work that will not be soon surpassed.
This commentary will, I’m afraid, usually be used merely as a reference book in helping pastors to prepare sermons. That is fine in its way, but it can be so much more. It is really a rather thorough examination of how the Bible does, and how we should, understand the Bible.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Growing Older
Today I went to Indy and visited for about an hour with a woman who was my first real girlfriend. In the seventeen years since I have seen her she has lived in Oregon, Arizona, Chile, and now she teaches at a University in St. Louis. Although time has drawn some thin lines in her face, she looks very much as I last saw her when she was not quite out of college. She is still very beautiful!
Speaking with her for that short time was quite a mix of sad and sweet. I loved (love) her dearly.
But I confess that while I was with her I was especially aware of the fact that I have gained weight and aged since I saw her last. I was very aware that I have aged, that my skin is beginning to show its age. As much as this does not seem to me like the sort of thing that I would ever think about, I did think about it. And it pained me that she should see me so much older. Even to me it seems foolish, and yet I almost wish that she had never seen me again rather than that she should have seen me so much older than when we were in love. But yet I also wish that I had it all to do over again. It would be sweet to have been able to grow older with her, not apart. And not to meet after so many years to see and feel the shock of age, but to slowly go through that process together.
So, it has been a very sweet, very sad, very introspective day.
Speaking with her for that short time was quite a mix of sad and sweet. I loved (love) her dearly.
But I confess that while I was with her I was especially aware of the fact that I have gained weight and aged since I saw her last. I was very aware that I have aged, that my skin is beginning to show its age. As much as this does not seem to me like the sort of thing that I would ever think about, I did think about it. And it pained me that she should see me so much older. Even to me it seems foolish, and yet I almost wish that she had never seen me again rather than that she should have seen me so much older than when we were in love. But yet I also wish that I had it all to do over again. It would be sweet to have been able to grow older with her, not apart. And not to meet after so many years to see and feel the shock of age, but to slowly go through that process together.
So, it has been a very sweet, very sad, very introspective day.
Friday, April 18, 2008
NT use of the OT
I grew up rather wary of our American judicial system, leaving decisions on people's guilt or innocence in the hands of a group of "their peers" as the Constitution requires. What makes those peers capable of making such decisions? Have they been educated in sifting evidence? Have they the expertise necessary to come to good decisions? What about all of the passions that get in the way of the logical thinking required in a court room drama? Are peers, that is the average Joe on the street, fit for the job?
Well a few years ago I got to sit on one of those juries and I saw the drama from the inside. We were a group of very average Joes. A professor of music, a postman, a low level medical worker, a pawn shop owner, a woman who ran a limestone mine, etc. Not legal eagles! But two days in the court and three days in deliberations convinced me that every single one of us was intensely interested in coming to the truth and in seeing justice come out. We had very different ideas of that truth and of justice, but we all worked for what we understood. In the debates I saw minds change, light bulbs come on, feelings get hurt, compromises reached and justice was done. As the foreman of the jury, I can vouch that the result was impressively just!
In short, I am much less uneasy about a jury of our peers than I formerly was because I saw how well it worked in practice. It is messy, but I think it is valid.
The analogy stops there.
For years I have been uneasy with the New Testament writer's quoting from the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament rather than from the original Hebrew version. Why did they sometimes quote from this translation, given that there are in fact small, inferential differences at many places between the original Hebrew and Aramaic Bible and the Septuagint translation?
I am reading through the Commentary on the NT use of the OT, edited by Beale and Carson to review it for a journal. (This is why I haven't written here for a while, this book is over 1100 pages.) But I have begun to see that I can put much more faith in the NT authors' scholarship and integrity than I had previously supposed.
Any seminary student in the last 150 years has had to listen to profs explain that the NT authors played fast and loose with the OT text, twisting it (and even misquoting it) to their benefit, whatever suited their need at the time. But that is OK; if the Holy Spirit guided their work, then, even if they missed the point in the original text, at least they have the stamp of HS authority on thier misinterpretation so it is Scripture now.
But as I read through this commentary on each use of the OT in the NT I am coming to vastly different conclusions. The NT authors were very careful scholars; they compared texts with the original; they were very nuanced in their thinking. And I am coming to trust the Septuagint more as a valid and very useful translation. Those seventy Jewish scholars were not Caiaphas! They were faithful true Jewish believers is YHWH and in the coming Messiah. And they were scholars who intricately sifted the evidence before they made their choices on what Greek word to use to translate the Hebrew or Aramaic.
And the NT authors sat in judgement, from their hugely greater perspective of having walked with the promised Messiah, on the Septuagint. They did not quote from it blandly, complacently, as if it were the only version they knew. They used it when useful, yes, but more than that. They used it when it was right.
In Matt 1:26 Matthew quotes from the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 7:14. Matthew and the septuagint both call her a virgin, that is a sexually chaste woman. In OT parlance she has never known a man. Well, everybody knows that in the original Isaiah did not quite say that. He said "a young woman (very young but of marriagable age) would conceive and bear. . .".
Why did Matthew use this translation rather than reverting to the more strictly accurate Masoretic Text of the OT? Is the Holy Spirit puting the divine stamp of approval on a mistranslation? True, Matthew was using the Septuagint translation because it fit with the birth of Jesus as he knew it, but much more than that he evidently understood why the seventy scholars, presumably in debate like in a jury's deliberation, ended up going with a Greek word that signified more than the original Hebrew text. It seems that they quite reasonably linked this passage of the birth of a son (which in one way was fulfilled in Isaiah's life, perhaps with the birth of his own son) with the divine son spoken of in Isaiah 9:1-7 (which would require a second and greater fulfilment). Thus the birth, even two hundred years before Jesus' birth, was understood to be a supernatural birth by the translators of the Septuagint. Matthew, in quoting them, is affirming what they had surmised.
When he was less comfortable with their translations he made his own, for example in 4:15-16, or much more often he seems to have taken the Septuagint translation and modified it, usually back toward a more literal rendering of the original text. He was clearly involved in the scholarly work of comparing texts, evaluating subtle inferences, and all the tasks of careful exegesis in multiple languages.
But he was more learned than the fishermen, we will see if John is so careful with his quotes. After all, we have all heard, and I have repeated, that the NT authors were sometimes careless in their quotes. Perhaps by the time I finish this commentary I will know not to say that any more and I will gain confidence in their hermeneutic methods-just as I gained confidence in the jury system-by seeing it in operation.
Well a few years ago I got to sit on one of those juries and I saw the drama from the inside. We were a group of very average Joes. A professor of music, a postman, a low level medical worker, a pawn shop owner, a woman who ran a limestone mine, etc. Not legal eagles! But two days in the court and three days in deliberations convinced me that every single one of us was intensely interested in coming to the truth and in seeing justice come out. We had very different ideas of that truth and of justice, but we all worked for what we understood. In the debates I saw minds change, light bulbs come on, feelings get hurt, compromises reached and justice was done. As the foreman of the jury, I can vouch that the result was impressively just!
In short, I am much less uneasy about a jury of our peers than I formerly was because I saw how well it worked in practice. It is messy, but I think it is valid.
The analogy stops there.
For years I have been uneasy with the New Testament writer's quoting from the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament rather than from the original Hebrew version. Why did they sometimes quote from this translation, given that there are in fact small, inferential differences at many places between the original Hebrew and Aramaic Bible and the Septuagint translation?
I am reading through the Commentary on the NT use of the OT, edited by Beale and Carson to review it for a journal. (This is why I haven't written here for a while, this book is over 1100 pages.) But I have begun to see that I can put much more faith in the NT authors' scholarship and integrity than I had previously supposed.
Any seminary student in the last 150 years has had to listen to profs explain that the NT authors played fast and loose with the OT text, twisting it (and even misquoting it) to their benefit, whatever suited their need at the time. But that is OK; if the Holy Spirit guided their work, then, even if they missed the point in the original text, at least they have the stamp of HS authority on thier misinterpretation so it is Scripture now.
But as I read through this commentary on each use of the OT in the NT I am coming to vastly different conclusions. The NT authors were very careful scholars; they compared texts with the original; they were very nuanced in their thinking. And I am coming to trust the Septuagint more as a valid and very useful translation. Those seventy Jewish scholars were not Caiaphas! They were faithful true Jewish believers is YHWH and in the coming Messiah. And they were scholars who intricately sifted the evidence before they made their choices on what Greek word to use to translate the Hebrew or Aramaic.
And the NT authors sat in judgement, from their hugely greater perspective of having walked with the promised Messiah, on the Septuagint. They did not quote from it blandly, complacently, as if it were the only version they knew. They used it when useful, yes, but more than that. They used it when it was right.
In Matt 1:26 Matthew quotes from the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 7:14. Matthew and the septuagint both call her a virgin, that is a sexually chaste woman. In OT parlance she has never known a man. Well, everybody knows that in the original Isaiah did not quite say that. He said "a young woman (very young but of marriagable age) would conceive and bear. . .".
Why did Matthew use this translation rather than reverting to the more strictly accurate Masoretic Text of the OT? Is the Holy Spirit puting the divine stamp of approval on a mistranslation? True, Matthew was using the Septuagint translation because it fit with the birth of Jesus as he knew it, but much more than that he evidently understood why the seventy scholars, presumably in debate like in a jury's deliberation, ended up going with a Greek word that signified more than the original Hebrew text. It seems that they quite reasonably linked this passage of the birth of a son (which in one way was fulfilled in Isaiah's life, perhaps with the birth of his own son) with the divine son spoken of in Isaiah 9:1-7 (which would require a second and greater fulfilment). Thus the birth, even two hundred years before Jesus' birth, was understood to be a supernatural birth by the translators of the Septuagint. Matthew, in quoting them, is affirming what they had surmised.
When he was less comfortable with their translations he made his own, for example in 4:15-16, or much more often he seems to have taken the Septuagint translation and modified it, usually back toward a more literal rendering of the original text. He was clearly involved in the scholarly work of comparing texts, evaluating subtle inferences, and all the tasks of careful exegesis in multiple languages.
But he was more learned than the fishermen, we will see if John is so careful with his quotes. After all, we have all heard, and I have repeated, that the NT authors were sometimes careless in their quotes. Perhaps by the time I finish this commentary I will know not to say that any more and I will gain confidence in their hermeneutic methods-just as I gained confidence in the jury system-by seeing it in operation.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Top Ten Films
Yesterday I looked at a list of Time's assessment of the 100 best films of all time. Most I had never heard of, most of the rest I had never seen, and most of what I thought should be there was nowhere on the list. But there were a few movies I had seen and that I know should not have made it onto such a list.
So I scanned the web for other such lists, but they were much the same. Some films I think got on their lists because of their historic significance; they are milestones to look at when considering the development of the art of moviemaking. But is that a reason to put them on a best-of list? Intolerance? Birth of a Nation? Star Wars? Metropolis? Worth seeing if you are studying the history of film, but would one watch them over and over, getting more from them each time? Well, maybe you would, maybe they would be the first four on your list. But not on mine.
So, here is my. . .
Tentative* Top Ten Films of All Time
according to Doug who is no connoisseur
1 A Fiddler on the Roof: I’ve probably watched this more than twenty times over the years, but it grows with me and is at least as moving now as the first time I saw it.
2 Babbette’s Feast: The clearest portrayal of the gap between the grace we are given and the grace we perceive that I can think of.
3 Dekalog: Ten hour-long films, one based on each of the ten commandments. But the relation to the commandment is not always clear and one has to ponder the connection. I come away from some of them with the uneasy question, “Do I really, REALLY, agree with that commandment?”
4 Hamlet (the one with Mel Gibson): This is the least changed from Shakespeare’s language of the versions of Hamlet that I have seen, and by far the best. Through superb acting and intonation, and even through his eyes, the language is rendered so clear that one hardly notices we haven’t spoken like that in five hundred years. In fact, we never did.
5 The General: The funniest physical comedy around. And amazing when one considers that Buster Keaton actually performed those daredevil stunts on a moving train, without the aid of modern special effects. Also great are Keaton’s “Scarecrow” and “The Paleface.”
6 The Rabbit Proof Fence: True story of three Aborigine girls who were “relocated” by the Aussie govt, but decided to relocate themselves hundreds of miles back home. Their simple commitment to each other and to their family is beautiful.
7 The Trouble With Harry: Alfred Hitchcock’s hilarious murder mystery in which too many people are sure that they killed Harry.
8 Amadeus: The comic character of Mozart, mixed with his tragic relationship with his father, with Salieri, and with his wife, plus almost superhumanly beautiful music make one not even care if the history is accurate; it’s a great story. BTW, I don’t know if the history is accurate, it may be, but I expect they took some liberties.
9 Remains of the Day: A servant in the house of a British Nazi sympathizer. . . I can’t explain this one. Delicately woven story, such subtly portrayed characters, like no other film I know.
10 An Affair to Remember: They fall in love and agree to meet, but an accident postpones that meeting for many years. It’s a story of pride and self-sacrifice, full of Cary Grant humor.
Ten is too few, so here are some nearly-made-its.
Children of Heaven, Cry the Beloved Country, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby Dick (the old one), Rear Window, Arsenic and Old Lace, Spirited Away
*I reserve the right to revise this list after further reflection.
Anyone else want to log in with their favorites? Perhaps you'll remind me of one I should have put on my list.
So I scanned the web for other such lists, but they were much the same. Some films I think got on their lists because of their historic significance; they are milestones to look at when considering the development of the art of moviemaking. But is that a reason to put them on a best-of list? Intolerance? Birth of a Nation? Star Wars? Metropolis? Worth seeing if you are studying the history of film, but would one watch them over and over, getting more from them each time? Well, maybe you would, maybe they would be the first four on your list. But not on mine.
So, here is my. . .
Tentative* Top Ten Films of All Time
according to Doug who is no connoisseur
1 A Fiddler on the Roof: I’ve probably watched this more than twenty times over the years, but it grows with me and is at least as moving now as the first time I saw it.
2 Babbette’s Feast: The clearest portrayal of the gap between the grace we are given and the grace we perceive that I can think of.
3 Dekalog: Ten hour-long films, one based on each of the ten commandments. But the relation to the commandment is not always clear and one has to ponder the connection. I come away from some of them with the uneasy question, “Do I really, REALLY, agree with that commandment?”
4 Hamlet (the one with Mel Gibson): This is the least changed from Shakespeare’s language of the versions of Hamlet that I have seen, and by far the best. Through superb acting and intonation, and even through his eyes, the language is rendered so clear that one hardly notices we haven’t spoken like that in five hundred years. In fact, we never did.
5 The General: The funniest physical comedy around. And amazing when one considers that Buster Keaton actually performed those daredevil stunts on a moving train, without the aid of modern special effects. Also great are Keaton’s “Scarecrow” and “The Paleface.”
6 The Rabbit Proof Fence: True story of three Aborigine girls who were “relocated” by the Aussie govt, but decided to relocate themselves hundreds of miles back home. Their simple commitment to each other and to their family is beautiful.
7 The Trouble With Harry: Alfred Hitchcock’s hilarious murder mystery in which too many people are sure that they killed Harry.
8 Amadeus: The comic character of Mozart, mixed with his tragic relationship with his father, with Salieri, and with his wife, plus almost superhumanly beautiful music make one not even care if the history is accurate; it’s a great story. BTW, I don’t know if the history is accurate, it may be, but I expect they took some liberties.
9 Remains of the Day: A servant in the house of a British Nazi sympathizer. . . I can’t explain this one. Delicately woven story, such subtly portrayed characters, like no other film I know.
10 An Affair to Remember: They fall in love and agree to meet, but an accident postpones that meeting for many years. It’s a story of pride and self-sacrifice, full of Cary Grant humor.
Ten is too few, so here are some nearly-made-its.
Children of Heaven, Cry the Beloved Country, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby Dick (the old one), Rear Window, Arsenic and Old Lace, Spirited Away
*I reserve the right to revise this list after further reflection.
Anyone else want to log in with their favorites? Perhaps you'll remind me of one I should have put on my list.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
A Teacher's Pain
In seventh grade I had a teacher whom we, as a class, destroyed. We made his teaching experience very painful, and after that year, his first year of teaching, he never taught again.
He moved back to Iowa, took a job in a grain elevator, and was later crushed by a truck in that job. His children grew up without a father. His wife became a very young widow. His mother had to mourn her son.
And it was because we (and I was a ringleader in this) had purposefully organized ourselves to drive him out of our school. I've never seen anything more evil.
But in the midst of our torment of this teacher, I could tell that he was more pained by our (my) refusal of the gospel that he offered than by the effect our treatment had on him. And the memory of his concern for me followed me for years and was eventually a large part of what led me to the cross. His and his family's loss was very much my gain!
Recently I published an article about that school year in the Journal of Christian Education. Many of this teacher's relatives have read the article. While it was written in large part to honor him for his sacrifice for me, it is still hard for them to read of the torment that he went through at our hands.
When we send our words out how little control we have over who they reach and how they are received!
He moved back to Iowa, took a job in a grain elevator, and was later crushed by a truck in that job. His children grew up without a father. His wife became a very young widow. His mother had to mourn her son.
And it was because we (and I was a ringleader in this) had purposefully organized ourselves to drive him out of our school. I've never seen anything more evil.
But in the midst of our torment of this teacher, I could tell that he was more pained by our (my) refusal of the gospel that he offered than by the effect our treatment had on him. And the memory of his concern for me followed me for years and was eventually a large part of what led me to the cross. His and his family's loss was very much my gain!
Recently I published an article about that school year in the Journal of Christian Education. Many of this teacher's relatives have read the article. While it was written in large part to honor him for his sacrifice for me, it is still hard for them to read of the torment that he went through at our hands.
When we send our words out how little control we have over who they reach and how they are received!
Recognition for Covenant and Community
I don’t want to imply by yesterday’s post that the Covenant and Community has not received any recognition at all. In fact it has gotten very nice comments from some scholars.
David Dilling, a philosopher and biblical scholar from Grace Theological Seminary and Purdue University praised it very highly as a beautiful book. Below is an excerpt of a letter from him.
". . . your book was to me a most magnificent combination of superb exegesis and devotional challenge. I not only found your exegesis of the original texts accurate and compelling, I was also moved to praise the Lord for this magnificent work which caused me to repent of my sinful past, to rejoice in the grace of our Lord in my life, and to well up with thanksgiving and praise for the glorious culmination of the Image of God in my own life that will be consummated in Christ's coming Kingdom.
Your combination of exegetical scholarship and devotional challenge are a rare blend in a work such as this. I have been thrilled with your theological insights, and that is all well and good; but as I have studied your work, I have been challenged to a life of greater holiness before the Lord of whom you write. That God made us in his image, as you have so successfully defined, is glorious. That we can participate in that glorious adventure here and now, and then have the prospect of participating in this glorious adventure forever is beyond comprehension!
Praise be to the Lord for what you have been teaching me!"
Charles Taber, the great linguist and co-author with Eugene Nida of “Theory and Practice of Translation,” which has been used for decades training Bible translators, praised in particular the book’s work on the prepositions in Genesis 1:26. They have generally been translated “in our image and according to our likeness,” which I think to be the wrong prepositions for the passage.
Tite Tienou, dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, speaking at Yale to a seminar of missions leaders from around the world, recommended that they all read Covenant and Community because it informs the discussion of intercultural communications. He said that had he gotten the book earlier he would have used it in preparing his lecture on “Ethnicity as Gift and Barrier.”
Robert Duncan Culver, a Brethren theologian and scholar who has written very many books, said that “It is well written and quite persuasive.”
Add to these Tim Tennnent, John Armstrong, Patrick Kuhlman, and Dennis Fisher, all scholars with very different denominational allegiances, who have praised it in manuscript form before it was published.
So, the silence is not from the world at large but only from my own home church.
David Dilling, a philosopher and biblical scholar from Grace Theological Seminary and Purdue University praised it very highly as a beautiful book. Below is an excerpt of a letter from him.
". . . your book was to me a most magnificent combination of superb exegesis and devotional challenge. I not only found your exegesis of the original texts accurate and compelling, I was also moved to praise the Lord for this magnificent work which caused me to repent of my sinful past, to rejoice in the grace of our Lord in my life, and to well up with thanksgiving and praise for the glorious culmination of the Image of God in my own life that will be consummated in Christ's coming Kingdom.
Your combination of exegetical scholarship and devotional challenge are a rare blend in a work such as this. I have been thrilled with your theological insights, and that is all well and good; but as I have studied your work, I have been challenged to a life of greater holiness before the Lord of whom you write. That God made us in his image, as you have so successfully defined, is glorious. That we can participate in that glorious adventure here and now, and then have the prospect of participating in this glorious adventure forever is beyond comprehension!
Praise be to the Lord for what you have been teaching me!"
Charles Taber, the great linguist and co-author with Eugene Nida of “Theory and Practice of Translation,” which has been used for decades training Bible translators, praised in particular the book’s work on the prepositions in Genesis 1:26. They have generally been translated “in our image and according to our likeness,” which I think to be the wrong prepositions for the passage.
Tite Tienou, dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, speaking at Yale to a seminar of missions leaders from around the world, recommended that they all read Covenant and Community because it informs the discussion of intercultural communications. He said that had he gotten the book earlier he would have used it in preparing his lecture on “Ethnicity as Gift and Barrier.”
Robert Duncan Culver, a Brethren theologian and scholar who has written very many books, said that “It is well written and quite persuasive.”
Add to these Tim Tennnent, John Armstrong, Patrick Kuhlman, and Dennis Fisher, all scholars with very different denominational allegiances, who have praised it in manuscript form before it was published.
So, the silence is not from the world at large but only from my own home church.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Leap Day
Happy Leap Day everyone! The Canada Geese are flying north, honking as they go, a sure sign that winter is nearly over!
A couple of days ago I had the book release party for my book, Covenant and Community. It really put things in perspective for me.
It was generously hosted by a local book store, not a Christian store. In fact it is predominantly a pagan store, in the strict meaning of that word. Although the people who run it consider it an open minded store, and it carries books from a wide variety of perspectives, paganism in its many forms overwhelmingly fills its shelves. And the store has a very large gay/lesbian selection.
In fact one of the workers thought it good to warn me a few weeks before the party. "I don't know how much you know about what we carry here, it isn't exactly churchy."
Nonetheless, the bookstore offered to host a book release party for me and I accepted. They put a good deal of work into the preparations and advertising. I was pleasantly surprised at their energy and generosity.
And they did all of this simply because I am one of the community and they are proud to be part of the celebration when one in the community accomplishes something. Even a Christian.
For my part I invited many friends, and of course my whole church, some four or five hundred or so people. I also invited many of the local pastors.
No pastors came. Not even mine. A few friends and four people from my church. Only four, out of the hundreds there, people who have known me for a decade, watched my children grow up. I've taught many of their kids.
After five or six years of working on this book, while working two jobs and homeschooling my children (and many of theirs), I had hoped for a little more by way of church pride in it. But there is none. Not that I wrote it for the congratulations, but the silence is disheartening. When I told my pastor about it he neither asked the title nor the subject of the book. In fact he showed no interest at all in it.
And to underscore the generosity of the store, they didn't even want a cut from the few sales of the book. They did all of that for free.
Pagans believe in community.
Christians don't seem to.
All of which I think goes to show that the book needed to be written, and needs to be read.
So I am comforted.
A couple of days ago I had the book release party for my book, Covenant and Community. It really put things in perspective for me.
It was generously hosted by a local book store, not a Christian store. In fact it is predominantly a pagan store, in the strict meaning of that word. Although the people who run it consider it an open minded store, and it carries books from a wide variety of perspectives, paganism in its many forms overwhelmingly fills its shelves. And the store has a very large gay/lesbian selection.
In fact one of the workers thought it good to warn me a few weeks before the party. "I don't know how much you know about what we carry here, it isn't exactly churchy."
Nonetheless, the bookstore offered to host a book release party for me and I accepted. They put a good deal of work into the preparations and advertising. I was pleasantly surprised at their energy and generosity.
And they did all of this simply because I am one of the community and they are proud to be part of the celebration when one in the community accomplishes something. Even a Christian.
For my part I invited many friends, and of course my whole church, some four or five hundred or so people. I also invited many of the local pastors.
No pastors came. Not even mine. A few friends and four people from my church. Only four, out of the hundreds there, people who have known me for a decade, watched my children grow up. I've taught many of their kids.
After five or six years of working on this book, while working two jobs and homeschooling my children (and many of theirs), I had hoped for a little more by way of church pride in it. But there is none. Not that I wrote it for the congratulations, but the silence is disheartening. When I told my pastor about it he neither asked the title nor the subject of the book. In fact he showed no interest at all in it.
And to underscore the generosity of the store, they didn't even want a cut from the few sales of the book. They did all of that for free.
Pagans believe in community.
Christians don't seem to.
All of which I think goes to show that the book needed to be written, and needs to be read.
So I am comforted.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Words (Pt 2)
Today two of my daughters gave me a perfect illustration for the last post, the one about words, and our need for meaning. One was being rather obnoxious and talking in nonsense words. "Schlreg mehug nopan, so ranis gelush," and so on. It ran on rather long. Got on my nerves a bit, but what interested me was her younger sister's reaction. She put her hands over her ears and started howling, "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"
Nothing out of the ordinary here, for our house. Perhaps not that odd for your house either. But it intruiged me because I was already thinking about the subject of meaning.
Now Hope does not react this way when her sisters and I speak in Spanish, nor when the older two girls speak in French. Instead she listens intently and always asks what we were saying, what it means. She then repeats it all to herself. She also does this with our many international friends who regularly speak Korean, Mandarin, Turkish and many other languages around her.
But she recongnizes when there is meaning in words and when there isn't, whether she understands them or not. When she has a sense that there is meaning she is attentive. When she can tell there is no meaning, but just nonsense, she is almost frantic in her desire to be away from it.
Don't we all have this inate desire for meaning? Isn't this part of what makes us turn off certain television shows and what brings us back again and again to the great writings, especially the Bible? The one seems intollerably shallow and the other reveals to us new depths of meaning every time we immerse ourselves in it.
Nothing out of the ordinary here, for our house. Perhaps not that odd for your house either. But it intruiged me because I was already thinking about the subject of meaning.
Now Hope does not react this way when her sisters and I speak in Spanish, nor when the older two girls speak in French. Instead she listens intently and always asks what we were saying, what it means. She then repeats it all to herself. She also does this with our many international friends who regularly speak Korean, Mandarin, Turkish and many other languages around her.
But she recongnizes when there is meaning in words and when there isn't, whether she understands them or not. When she has a sense that there is meaning she is attentive. When she can tell there is no meaning, but just nonsense, she is almost frantic in her desire to be away from it.
Don't we all have this inate desire for meaning? Isn't this part of what makes us turn off certain television shows and what brings us back again and again to the great writings, especially the Bible? The one seems intollerably shallow and the other reveals to us new depths of meaning every time we immerse ourselves in it.
Words, words, words
After a very long day at work I sat down and turned on a cd of Cui Jian, one of the most popular Chinese rock musicians. I love his music, the driving rhythms, the passion, and the words.
But how do I love the words? I don't know a bit of what he's saying. I can't say hello or goodbye in Mandarine. He might be saying terrible things. I very much doubt it, but I don't really know. So how can I say I love the words?
Is it just his voice? His inflection? The passion in his voice? That portion of his poetics that transcends linguistic differences?
I don't know, it probably has to do with all of these. If the same songs were played without vocals they wouldn't have quite the same appeal that they now have.
But the fact that the words do have a meaning, whether I understand it or not, is important. Lewis Carroll wrote some very fun (and funny) nonsense poems in which the voice does all of these things, inflection, passion etc., and I enjoy those poems. But they don't move me like listening to Cui Jian. If in hearing him I were to think that his words were nonsense words like in Jabberwocky then I don't think that I would respond to the songs in nearly the same way that I do.
And yet I am less able to come at the actual meaning of the words than I am in Jabberwocky.
In all this I know I am not alone. Ask any kid listening to heavy metal music, or most any rock, what the song is about and they won't usually be able to tell you. But they listen to the words, sing along and probably wouldn't listen many times to an instrumental version of the song. Same goes for the upper crust listening to opera, be it Italian, German or whatever language. Even English operas are mighty hard to follow, yet I wouldn't even begin to sit through it without the vocals. But those very vocals are only bearable because I know there is MEANING buried there. Buried beyond my grasp most of the time, but still it is there.
And while I bask in the assurance that something, be it a song or my life, is meaningful, my understanding is not really necessary. Understanding would be a bonus, but it really isn't essential. The assurance of meaningfulness is primary.
But how do I love the words? I don't know a bit of what he's saying. I can't say hello or goodbye in Mandarine. He might be saying terrible things. I very much doubt it, but I don't really know. So how can I say I love the words?
Is it just his voice? His inflection? The passion in his voice? That portion of his poetics that transcends linguistic differences?
I don't know, it probably has to do with all of these. If the same songs were played without vocals they wouldn't have quite the same appeal that they now have.
But the fact that the words do have a meaning, whether I understand it or not, is important. Lewis Carroll wrote some very fun (and funny) nonsense poems in which the voice does all of these things, inflection, passion etc., and I enjoy those poems. But they don't move me like listening to Cui Jian. If in hearing him I were to think that his words were nonsense words like in Jabberwocky then I don't think that I would respond to the songs in nearly the same way that I do.
And yet I am less able to come at the actual meaning of the words than I am in Jabberwocky.
In all this I know I am not alone. Ask any kid listening to heavy metal music, or most any rock, what the song is about and they won't usually be able to tell you. But they listen to the words, sing along and probably wouldn't listen many times to an instrumental version of the song. Same goes for the upper crust listening to opera, be it Italian, German or whatever language. Even English operas are mighty hard to follow, yet I wouldn't even begin to sit through it without the vocals. But those very vocals are only bearable because I know there is MEANING buried there. Buried beyond my grasp most of the time, but still it is there.
And while I bask in the assurance that something, be it a song or my life, is meaningful, my understanding is not really necessary. Understanding would be a bonus, but it really isn't essential. The assurance of meaningfulness is primary.
Rainy Day
Today as I was delivering my mail the weather started at well below freezing, but thank God it warmed to the point it could rain on me. Then the rain turned to sleet, ice pellets, and finally freezing rain. I was slip sliding along as the rain fell all around, and on the mail I was delivering. Turned me to thinking of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem that I've copied below. Amazing what a little poem can do to turn a nasty day into a chance to commiserate with a great poet!
THE RAINY DAY
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
THE RAINY DAY
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
To Love the Law
A young pastor once was troubled by a teenager asking if the law of the Sabbath were still binding in modern Christian times. What pastor has not dealt with similar queries? We are no longer under law, right? Isn’t that why Jesus died?
The young pastor mentioned the teenager in a letter to his mentor, the poet William Cowper. Cowper suggested, “I would ask my catechumen one short question− ‘Do you love the day, or do you not? If you love it, you will never inquire how far you may safely deprive yourself of the enjoyment of it.’”[1]
How would our catechumens fare in such a test? How would we? Do we love the Sabbath? Do we love God’s law in general? Do David’s psalms in praise of the law give vent to the overflowing thoughts of our hearts?
Or is it idolatrous to worship the law? Doesn’t all of our worship belong to God alone? Did David gush so just because it was the best he knew? He didn’t know about Jesus after all, right?
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out though:
All prayers of the Bible are such prayers which we pray together with Jesus Christ, in which he accompanies us, and through which he brings us into the presence of God.
If we want to read and pray the prayers of the Bible and especially the Psalms, therefore, we must not ask first what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ.[2]
In the Psalms we get to eavesdrop on Jesus’ prayers to his Father. And so many of the Psalms are nothing short of law worship. If Jesus is praying in the Psalms, is he an idolater? What is this law that God himself sings its praises?
[1] William Cowper, Letters of William Cowper (London: Religious Tract Society, 1870), p. 116.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974), p. 14.
The young pastor mentioned the teenager in a letter to his mentor, the poet William Cowper. Cowper suggested, “I would ask my catechumen one short question− ‘Do you love the day, or do you not? If you love it, you will never inquire how far you may safely deprive yourself of the enjoyment of it.’”[1]
How would our catechumens fare in such a test? How would we? Do we love the Sabbath? Do we love God’s law in general? Do David’s psalms in praise of the law give vent to the overflowing thoughts of our hearts?
Or is it idolatrous to worship the law? Doesn’t all of our worship belong to God alone? Did David gush so just because it was the best he knew? He didn’t know about Jesus after all, right?
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out though:
All prayers of the Bible are such prayers which we pray together with Jesus Christ, in which he accompanies us, and through which he brings us into the presence of God.
If we want to read and pray the prayers of the Bible and especially the Psalms, therefore, we must not ask first what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ.[2]
In the Psalms we get to eavesdrop on Jesus’ prayers to his Father. And so many of the Psalms are nothing short of law worship. If Jesus is praying in the Psalms, is he an idolater? What is this law that God himself sings its praises?
[1] William Cowper, Letters of William Cowper (London: Religious Tract Society, 1870), p. 116.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974), p. 14.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Deaconess and the Pigeons
A short story for your amusement.
Deaconess and the Pigeons
A bus wheezed by hardly six inches from the curb, a police car gave up on its whiny child siren and switched to its even more obnoxious song of the frustrated housewife, but neither the pigeons nor Deaconess, bending over them, took any notice. They were not so flighty as to start at the sounds of the city. Cities have their own lullabies that only the denizens of the city can appreciate. Four blocks toward the docks and the lullaby would have revolved around the drunken ramblings of the afternoon crowd as it argued its way from The Breakers to The Mecca to The Beachcomber and back. Beyond these bars began the piers at which dozens of boats prepared for the salmon opener that would begin at sundown. There the sounds were mostly of seines being coiled on decks from which they would soon be pulled out onto the ocean by the skiffs that accompanied each seiner, of holds being filled with ice chips, and of engines being checked over one last time. All these work sounds seemed to keep the rhythm of the waves that played between the docked boats and licked the wharf.
Once the seiners were out for their seven day opener, Deaconess might find her way down for a stroll on these docks, but she never had felt at home with all of the heavy work and silent men in rain gear. Even fourteen years with Alex, her silent man in rain gear, had never taught her to think of herself as a fisherman’s wife. Now, there was no longer anything to pull her from the comfort of the city sounds down to the docks. He had left her on those docks, waving his hat at her, but had not returned to them, nor to her.
Deaconess knew, if she had bothered to think of it, that a salmon opener was in the offing, but she took little interest in it. Rarely did she even get down to the bars that surrounded the docks anymore. She did not want to hear of those going out, nor of the boredom and whoredom with which fishermen’s wives waited for the boats to return. She didn’t want to watch the slow motion deaths of those who filled the barstools. Not anymore. She didn’t have to anymore.
The pigeons waddled around the sidewalk in an impromptu dance. Deaconess watched them absently, her thoughts replaying a scene from this very street many years ago.
Her name had been Darcy then. She had been walking beside her dad, clinging to his fingers. She remembered how her hand had swung beside her head in rhythm with his steps. The two had paused before crossing to the side of the street on which Deaconess now stood in reverie. Darcy looked up at her father; he squeezed her hand gently between his thumb and two fingers. A bus had rumbled by, puffing black clouds of oily smoke behind it.
“Come Darce, we can cross now.”
“Where we going?”
“Come and see.”
Darcy could hear the grin in his voice and giggled up at him. Together they crossed the street, he looking ahead, she smiling up at him. When Dad told her to “come and see,” it usually meant that he had a surprise waiting for her.
As they walked down the sidewalk past the pharmacy, her father suddenly stopped and sat down on a bench that faced the sidewalk and the street. Darcy climbed up and leaned one arm on his leg, her feet sticking out in front of her. Together they sat and her eyelids began to droop, little by little, lulled by the steady drone of traffic.
Suddenly the awning seemed to be falling, but it had whirring wings and dozens of little eyes seemed to be peering into hers. “Relax, Honey, pigeons won’t hurt you. Here, take a piece of bread and break off little bits to toss to them.”
Slowly she let go of his leg and took a slice of bread from her father’s hand. Watching him, she began to tear pigeon sized bites from it and toss them out. At first her tosses did not go far enough, and the pigeons left them alone, although Darcy felt certain that they took note of where the crumbs lay. “Throw them farther, so that they will be able to get them without having to come too close to us. Then, after they have a few bites, let the crumbs fall a little closer and a little closer. Once they start eating they will slowly walk right up to us without realizing that they are doing it. Then, if you are very patient and move very gently, they might even eat right out of your hand.”
Together they watched the mystical birds whose colors changed as they moved around, one moment gray and the next pinks blended with purples as they turned sideways to watch for more crumbs. Crumb by crumb they lured the little birds closer to their bench until Darcy could see two of them through the slats of the bench. She dropped the last of her bread straight down and watched as the two birds pulled it apart.
Again the drone of traffic took hold on her eyelids and as she slowly laid her head on her father’s leg, she felt his warm arm pull her up onto his chest. He was warm, strong, gentle, and Darcy fell asleep.
Her eyes filled with tears as his arms comforted her across three decades. Deaconess was suddenly jerked back to the present by an angry voice, “Come on lady. Your stinking birds are pooping all over my sidewalk.”
Without looking up she dropped the last of her bread into the midst of the pigeons and watched them tear it apart, colors flashing off their iridescent heads. Stinking birds he’d called them. No, she thought, mystical birds, and slowly she turned toward her empty home.
A bus wheezed by hardly six inches from the curb, a police car gave up on its whiny child siren and switched to its even more obnoxious song of the frustrated housewife, but neither the pigeons nor Deaconess, bending over them, took any notice. They were not so flighty as to start at the sounds of the city. Cities have their own lullabies that only the denizens of the city can appreciate. Four blocks toward the docks and the lullaby would have revolved around the drunken ramblings of the afternoon crowd as it argued its way from The Breakers to The Mecca to The Beachcomber and back. Beyond these bars began the piers at which dozens of boats prepared for the salmon opener that would begin at sundown. There the sounds were mostly of seines being coiled on decks from which they would soon be pulled out onto the ocean by the skiffs that accompanied each seiner, of holds being filled with ice chips, and of engines being checked over one last time. All these work sounds seemed to keep the rhythm of the waves that played between the docked boats and licked the wharf.
Once the seiners were out for their seven day opener, Deaconess might find her way down for a stroll on these docks, but she never had felt at home with all of the heavy work and silent men in rain gear. Even fourteen years with Alex, her silent man in rain gear, had never taught her to think of herself as a fisherman’s wife. Now, there was no longer anything to pull her from the comfort of the city sounds down to the docks. He had left her on those docks, waving his hat at her, but had not returned to them, nor to her.
Deaconess knew, if she had bothered to think of it, that a salmon opener was in the offing, but she took little interest in it. Rarely did she even get down to the bars that surrounded the docks anymore. She did not want to hear of those going out, nor of the boredom and whoredom with which fishermen’s wives waited for the boats to return. She didn’t want to watch the slow motion deaths of those who filled the barstools. Not anymore. She didn’t have to anymore.
The pigeons waddled around the sidewalk in an impromptu dance. Deaconess watched them absently, her thoughts replaying a scene from this very street many years ago.
Her name had been Darcy then. She had been walking beside her dad, clinging to his fingers. She remembered how her hand had swung beside her head in rhythm with his steps. The two had paused before crossing to the side of the street on which Deaconess now stood in reverie. Darcy looked up at her father; he squeezed her hand gently between his thumb and two fingers. A bus had rumbled by, puffing black clouds of oily smoke behind it.
“Come Darce, we can cross now.”
“Where we going?”
“Come and see.”
Darcy could hear the grin in his voice and giggled up at him. Together they crossed the street, he looking ahead, she smiling up at him. When Dad told her to “come and see,” it usually meant that he had a surprise waiting for her.
As they walked down the sidewalk past the pharmacy, her father suddenly stopped and sat down on a bench that faced the sidewalk and the street. Darcy climbed up and leaned one arm on his leg, her feet sticking out in front of her. Together they sat and her eyelids began to droop, little by little, lulled by the steady drone of traffic.
Suddenly the awning seemed to be falling, but it had whirring wings and dozens of little eyes seemed to be peering into hers. “Relax, Honey, pigeons won’t hurt you. Here, take a piece of bread and break off little bits to toss to them.”
Slowly she let go of his leg and took a slice of bread from her father’s hand. Watching him, she began to tear pigeon sized bites from it and toss them out. At first her tosses did not go far enough, and the pigeons left them alone, although Darcy felt certain that they took note of where the crumbs lay. “Throw them farther, so that they will be able to get them without having to come too close to us. Then, after they have a few bites, let the crumbs fall a little closer and a little closer. Once they start eating they will slowly walk right up to us without realizing that they are doing it. Then, if you are very patient and move very gently, they might even eat right out of your hand.”
Together they watched the mystical birds whose colors changed as they moved around, one moment gray and the next pinks blended with purples as they turned sideways to watch for more crumbs. Crumb by crumb they lured the little birds closer to their bench until Darcy could see two of them through the slats of the bench. She dropped the last of her bread straight down and watched as the two birds pulled it apart.
Again the drone of traffic took hold on her eyelids and as she slowly laid her head on her father’s leg, she felt his warm arm pull her up onto his chest. He was warm, strong, gentle, and Darcy fell asleep.
Her eyes filled with tears as his arms comforted her across three decades. Deaconess was suddenly jerked back to the present by an angry voice, “Come on lady. Your stinking birds are pooping all over my sidewalk.”
Without looking up she dropped the last of her bread into the midst of the pigeons and watched them tear it apart, colors flashing off their iridescent heads. Stinking birds he’d called them. No, she thought, mystical birds, and slowly she turned toward her empty home.
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