From a New York Times column by Nicholas D. Kristof.
Centuries ago, serious religious study was extraordinarily demanding and rigorous; in contrast, anyone could declare himself a scientist and go in the business of, say, alchemy. These days, it’s the reverse. A Ph.D. in chemistry is a rigorous degree, while a preacher can explain the Bible on television without mastering Hebrew or Greek — or even showing interest in the nuances of the original texts.
Hmmm...
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Monday, August 1, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Xristos Anesti
Death! thy sting is gone forever,
He who deigned for me to die,
Lives, the bands of death to sever.
He shall raise me with the just:
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.
Jesus lives and reigns supreme;
And, His kingdom still remaining;
I shall also be with Him,
Ever living, ever reigning.
God has promised: be it must;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.
Jesus lives, I know full well,
Naught from Him my heart can sever,
Life nor death nor powers of hell,
Joy nor grief, henceforth forever.
None of all His saints is lost;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.
Jesus lives, and death is now
But my entrance into glory.
Courage, then, my soul, for thou
Hast a crown of life before thee;
Thou shalt find thy hopes were just;
Jesus Christ, our hope and trust..
Friday, April 22, 2011
Triduum
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, Thine—
And bathed in its own blood—
While the firm mark of wrath divine,
His Soul in anguish stood.
Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!
Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut his glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker died,
For man the creature’s sin.
Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt my eyes to tears.
But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give my self away
’Tis all that I can do.
-- Isaac Watts
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Not Like the Movies...
My wife knows.
When we are watching a movie, she knows that the minute they show someone paddling a canoe, I will tense up. Clearly I want to say something, but I am holding back. She knows that I want to complain about how Natalie Portman can study ballet for a year to play the lead in Black Swan, but the producer of this film apparently can't spare $30 to hire some summer camp recreation director for 1/2 hour to teach his lead actors how to properly paddle a canoe. She knows that my barely suppressed rage at this travesty is only surpassed by my knowledge that she has forbidden me to speak on the subject ever again. Ever.
That's what happens when you rant one too many times, I guess.
It's just that it jars me out of my willing suspension of disbelief when the supposedly woodscrafty hero, a man wise and skilled in the ways of making his way through the wilderness can't even paddle a gosh darn canoe straight without switching sides every 3 strokes and getting water in the boat to boot. Drives me up a wall.
The movies just can't seem to get the details right.
In the same way, it seems that neither script writers, nor directors nor any actor seems to be able to get the portrayal of religious belief right on the screen. It seems lately that almost every time some religious thread is introduced into a story, something about the way it plays just seems off. It seems off in almost the same way as when you are trying to speak to someone with eyes that point two different directions. All the pieces of the face are there, but it's all just far enough off the mark to make the result disconcerting.
I can understand how this can happen. If you have never had an authentic religious experience, if you have not had extensive firsthand familiar with the religious subculture and the real people that live it, or even more importantly if you do not respect religious folk enough to look past the surface, it is almost a given that the result will tend more to caricature than to characterization. To authentically portray such people, you may not need to be one of them, but you must have a certain sympathy and certainly a real familiarity with them as people. Otherwise your dialogue will never rise above a ragtag collection of religious cliches. I watch these plays and the words jar me in the same way as a poorly paddled canoe.
I recently viewed a video on youtube that comes from a completely opposite pole. In our film, television, books and stories, missionaries are mostly vilified. They are presented variously as cultural imperialists, deluded naifs, or corrupt powermongers, just to name a few options. Quick. Do an inventory of all the films and stories you have viewed which include missionaries. How many actually treat the missionary with any type of real respect or seriousness? Include pastors and priests in that mix.
I know missionaries. I grew up with missionaries. The fact is that they are real people who are seeking to live out their real faith in direct confrontation with a real world. The most important thing, beyond all else, is that they help the people to whom they go. As people, they are just as susceptible to all human stumblings. Nevertheless, in so many cases the work they do is highly valued by the people with whom they choose to live and love and help.
This youtube video struck me because it takes the viewpoint of the people helped by christian missionaries. And not just in terms of medical care, agricultural training or food relief. No, these people are joyful from the deepest place and grateful to the missionaries for the MESSAGE that has been brought to them. There is no acting, no mediating by writers or directors to dilute the genuine joy with which these people greet the coming of God's Word in their language to their people.
It seems to me that the testimony of these people is worth far more than that of most filmmakers and TV producers.
In fairness, I have to point out that the people aren't rejoicing over the missionaries. But they are certainly rejoicing over the gift the missionaries have brought to them. I suspect that this type of occurrence is more common than we know. It should be shown on Nightline, 60 Minutes, and 20/20 more often, but it doesn't really align with the popular understanding of how the work of missionaries are received by the people to whom they minister.
It's just not like in the movies.
When we are watching a movie, she knows that the minute they show someone paddling a canoe, I will tense up. Clearly I want to say something, but I am holding back. She knows that I want to complain about how Natalie Portman can study ballet for a year to play the lead in Black Swan, but the producer of this film apparently can't spare $30 to hire some summer camp recreation director for 1/2 hour to teach his lead actors how to properly paddle a canoe. She knows that my barely suppressed rage at this travesty is only surpassed by my knowledge that she has forbidden me to speak on the subject ever again. Ever.
That's what happens when you rant one too many times, I guess.
It's just that it jars me out of my willing suspension of disbelief when the supposedly woodscrafty hero, a man wise and skilled in the ways of making his way through the wilderness can't even paddle a gosh darn canoe straight without switching sides every 3 strokes and getting water in the boat to boot. Drives me up a wall.
The movies just can't seem to get the details right.
In the same way, it seems that neither script writers, nor directors nor any actor seems to be able to get the portrayal of religious belief right on the screen. It seems lately that almost every time some religious thread is introduced into a story, something about the way it plays just seems off. It seems off in almost the same way as when you are trying to speak to someone with eyes that point two different directions. All the pieces of the face are there, but it's all just far enough off the mark to make the result disconcerting.
I can understand how this can happen. If you have never had an authentic religious experience, if you have not had extensive firsthand familiar with the religious subculture and the real people that live it, or even more importantly if you do not respect religious folk enough to look past the surface, it is almost a given that the result will tend more to caricature than to characterization. To authentically portray such people, you may not need to be one of them, but you must have a certain sympathy and certainly a real familiarity with them as people. Otherwise your dialogue will never rise above a ragtag collection of religious cliches. I watch these plays and the words jar me in the same way as a poorly paddled canoe.
I recently viewed a video on youtube that comes from a completely opposite pole. In our film, television, books and stories, missionaries are mostly vilified. They are presented variously as cultural imperialists, deluded naifs, or corrupt powermongers, just to name a few options. Quick. Do an inventory of all the films and stories you have viewed which include missionaries. How many actually treat the missionary with any type of real respect or seriousness? Include pastors and priests in that mix.
I know missionaries. I grew up with missionaries. The fact is that they are real people who are seeking to live out their real faith in direct confrontation with a real world. The most important thing, beyond all else, is that they help the people to whom they go. As people, they are just as susceptible to all human stumblings. Nevertheless, in so many cases the work they do is highly valued by the people with whom they choose to live and love and help.
This youtube video struck me because it takes the viewpoint of the people helped by christian missionaries. And not just in terms of medical care, agricultural training or food relief. No, these people are joyful from the deepest place and grateful to the missionaries for the MESSAGE that has been brought to them. There is no acting, no mediating by writers or directors to dilute the genuine joy with which these people greet the coming of God's Word in their language to their people.
It seems to me that the testimony of these people is worth far more than that of most filmmakers and TV producers.
In fairness, I have to point out that the people aren't rejoicing over the missionaries. But they are certainly rejoicing over the gift the missionaries have brought to them. I suspect that this type of occurrence is more common than we know. It should be shown on Nightline, 60 Minutes, and 20/20 more often, but it doesn't really align with the popular understanding of how the work of missionaries are received by the people to whom they minister.
It's just not like in the movies.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
It's Not About You
A few weeks ago, I had another opportunity to speak at a retreat, this time to the student body of Jesse Remington High School. We had a group of about 40 students who gathered at the Horton Center on Pine Mountain, overlooking Gorham, for a few days focused on building their life as a learning community. Yeah. I know. But that's just the kind of school Jesse Remington is.
As with my previous retreat experience, I tried simply to open up the Gospel to these kids, trying to help them see it through fresh eyes. Rather than expound the text, I tried to read the text. Rather than preach the 3 point sermon I worked at telling the 3 chapter story. Rather than set forth the three propositions, I tried to frame 3 pictures of the Gospel from what I hoped was a fresh new perspective.
I say this because when I approach speaking or preaching on the Gospel, I stay away from a scholarly approach because I am not a scholar, a philosopher or a particularly deep thinker. I just don't have the training for it. My approach is more pastoral -- what in this text will feed His sheep?
And even taking a pastoral approach, I still tend to avoid the heavy lifting of exegeting the original languages to make a fine theological point. Again, partly because I lack the training. But even moreso, the most useful thing to feed the flock isn't a new insight into the aorist tense in the original Greek. Nor is it another insight into the Pauline logic of the doctrine of justification.
The most useful thing for feeding the flock is pictures. Clear, powerful, visceral, emotionally charged pictures that teach us about who God is and what he has done.
That's at least part of the reason why Jesus left us with two basic practices around which he builds his church -- baptism and eucharist. These are first and foremost living pictures of him and his grace. Even better, they are not pictures that we merely gaze upon. They are pictures in which we partake -- we are included in the picture.
Chew on that.
I kind of wish I had this video a few weeks ago. I would have shamelessly stolen from it, because it makes the point I worked so hard to make to those students in the mountains.
As with my previous retreat experience, I tried simply to open up the Gospel to these kids, trying to help them see it through fresh eyes. Rather than expound the text, I tried to read the text. Rather than preach the 3 point sermon I worked at telling the 3 chapter story. Rather than set forth the three propositions, I tried to frame 3 pictures of the Gospel from what I hoped was a fresh new perspective.
I say this because when I approach speaking or preaching on the Gospel, I stay away from a scholarly approach because I am not a scholar, a philosopher or a particularly deep thinker. I just don't have the training for it. My approach is more pastoral -- what in this text will feed His sheep?
And even taking a pastoral approach, I still tend to avoid the heavy lifting of exegeting the original languages to make a fine theological point. Again, partly because I lack the training. But even moreso, the most useful thing to feed the flock isn't a new insight into the aorist tense in the original Greek. Nor is it another insight into the Pauline logic of the doctrine of justification.
The most useful thing for feeding the flock is pictures. Clear, powerful, visceral, emotionally charged pictures that teach us about who God is and what he has done.
That's at least part of the reason why Jesus left us with two basic practices around which he builds his church -- baptism and eucharist. These are first and foremost living pictures of him and his grace. Even better, they are not pictures that we merely gaze upon. They are pictures in which we partake -- we are included in the picture.
Chew on that.
I kind of wish I had this video a few weeks ago. I would have shamelessly stolen from it, because it makes the point I worked so hard to make to those students in the mountains.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Despising the Body and Longing for Resurrection
At some point we began to assume that the life of the body would be the business of grocers and medical doctors, who need take no interest in the spirit, whereas the life of the spirit would be the business of the churches, which would have at best only a negative interest in the body. In the same way we began to see nothing wrong with putting the body - most often somebody else's body, but frequently our own - to a task that insulted the mind and demeaned the spirit...
Divided against each other, body and soul drive each other to extremes of misapprehension and folly. Nothing could be more absurd than to despise the body and yet yearn for its resurrection. In reaction to this supposedly religious attitude, we get, not reverence or respect for the body, but another kind of contempt: the desire to comfort and indulge the body with equal disregard for its health. The "dialogue of body and soul" in our time is being carried on between those who despise the body for the sake of its resurrection and those, diseased by bodily extravagance and lack of exercise, who nevertheless desire longevity above all things. These think that they oppose each other, and yet they could not exist apart. They are locked in a conflict that is really their collaboration in the destruction of soul and body both.
Attributed to Wendell Berry but the source is unknown
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Practical Ecclesiology 8 - All Religion is Local
I lifted this from Michael Spencer over at InternetMonk. It is classic Spencer and just worth quoting at length. I recommend his writing. From his recent post Theology, Depression, and the Unsolvable Problem of the Right Church.
Now, I want to get down to this matter of the One True Church. If you judge that you are a person who believes there is only one true denomination, then I believe you should check out the candidates from the RCC to the EC to the LCMS to the local Church of Christ (if you are in west Kentucky) and reduce your choices to the actual candidates. You simply don’t need to mess around with denominations that don’t believe there’s only one true franchise or that believe we are all part of the broken, fragmented body of Christ. If you are in a typical Baptist church and you really believe that Jesus made the successor of Peter the living authority, then go to the RCC…please. Whatever the issues are that are keeping you from doing that aren’t very important.
Now, if you say “I just don’t know….” you should keep reading.
10. I am a critical and analytical person. Send me to ten churches, and I will find ten things to like and ten things not to like at each one. I do not believe that any congregation is an expression of the one true church so much that there aren’t problems. But this is my nature. It’s EASY for me to see the brokenness and hard for me to see anyone’s claim to being the one, divine “it.”
Now, if I am convinced that one Denomination is right, my problem is going to be this: I still have to belong to a congregation, and a congregation is the place where the “essentials” are worked out in real life, not just in my head. So if I believe that the RCC has it right, I won’t be hanging out with B16 or Scott Hahn. I’ll be at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, a fine congregation that doesn’t have a piano, that has congregational meetings that make me want to be Shinto and a priest who thinks a homily is practice for his missed career in stand-up. Oh yes, the Catechism is in the church library, but THIS is where I am a member, out here where no one knows what I’m even talking about.
If I believe the Southern Baptist Convention is the church Jesus started, then I’m clearly insane, but for the sake of the illustration…..here’s this wonderful statement of faith, and a great missions network, and Al Mohler and those fine Calvinistic Ascol boys. But at my church….doctrine has been replaced with “How to be a great parent” sermons, the deacons have fired the last three pastors in less than 4 years, the music is a cross between an 80’s metal band made up of fat 45 year old men and the senior adult choir singing from the 1956 hymnal. We haven’t baptized a convert since 1993. Our current pastor looks like Ryan Seacrest and the youth minister looks like the Mindfreak guy.
That’s your church. Oh sure, you can drive elsewhere and you can improve. (I drive two hours each way.) You can work for improvement. You can do all that stuff. But here’s my point: You chose the one true denomination, you still have to deal with your local church. It is the place you do or don’t hear the Bible. It’s the place you do or don’t start churches and do evangelism. It’s the place you are or are not taught the faith you read about on that great web site.
The search for the one true denomination will drive some of you into depression, especially if you can’t admit that no such church exists and that you may never be happy if you find it. That every church is a compromise. That they all require you to live with some tension. You are convinced the LCMS has it right doctrinally? Great. Been to a local LCMS church lately? It’s a dice roll. That’s not an indictment. That’s the grown up world and it’s true across the board.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Stewardship
So----the preacher was dissatisfied with how little his congregation put in the collection plates on Sunday, so he learned hypnosis. He preached the sermon in a monotone and he swung a watch slowly in front of the lectern and at the end of the sermon he said, "Give!" and the collection plate was full of twenty dollar bills. It worked for weeks. The congregation sat mesmerized during the sermon, staring at the watch swinging, and when he said, "Give!" they gave everything they had, and then one Sunday, at the end of the sermon, the chain on the watch broke, and the preacher said, "Crap!"
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Three Old Men Throwing Olives
You are going to have to suffer through my Capon period for a while yet. Here is another quote, this one from his book The Third Peacock: The Problem of God and Evil. Stick this one in your pipe and smoke it.
Let me tell you why God made the world.
One afternoon, before anything was made, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost sat around in the unity of their Godhead discussing one of the Father’s fixations. From all eternity, it seems he had had this thing about being. He would keep thinking up all kinds of unnecessary things—new ways of being and new kinds of beings to be. And as they talked, God the Son suddenly said, “Really, this is absolutely great stuff. Why don’t I go out and mix us up a batch?” And God the Holy Ghost said, “Terrific, I’ll help you.” So they all pitched in, and after supper that night, the Son and the Holy Ghost put on this tremendous show of being for the Father. It was full of water and light and frogs; pine cones kept dropping all over the place and crazy fish swam around in the wineglasses. There were mushrooms and grapes, horseradishes and tigers—and men and women everywhere to taste them, to juggle them, to join them and to love them. And God the Father looked at the whole wild party and he said, “Wonderful! Just what I had in mind! Tov! Tov! Tov!” And all God the Son and God the Holy Ghost could think of to say was the same thing. “Tov! Tov! Tov!” So they shouted together “Tov meod!” and they laughed for ages and ages, saying things like how great it was for things to be, and how clever of the Father to think of the idea, and how kind of the Son to go to all that trouble putting it together, and how considerate of the Spirit to spend so much time directing and choreographing. And forever and ever they told old jokes, and the Father and the Son drank their wine in unitate Spiritus Sancti, and they all threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other per omnia saecula saeulorum. Amen.
It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I’m afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or a principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a Trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can.
One slight elucidation, however. It is very easy, when talking about creation, to conceive of God’s part in it as simply getting the ball rolling—as if he were a kind of divine billiard cue, after whose action inexorable laws took over and excused him from further involvement with the balls. But that won’t work. This world is fundamentally unnecessary. Nothing has to be. It needs a creator, not only for its beginning, but for every moment of its being. Accordingly, the Trinitarian bash doesn’t really come before creation; what actually happens is that all of creation, from start to finish, occurs within the bash—that the raucousness of the divine party is simultaneous with the being of everything that ever was or will be. If you like paradoxes, it means that God is the eternal contemporary of all of the events and beings in time.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Baptism and the Shema
A week ago this evening, my oldest daughter was baptized. I wanted very much to reflect on that event in this venue, but my schedule lately has prevented me from doing much writing at all. So finally, here are a few thoughts.
This was certainly a pivotal point in my daughter’s life and spiritual journey. It also marks a significant high point of my own. My understanding of baptism has been deepening and broadening for several years. And, as I have come to see, that is exactly as it should be.
Baptism is a rite of initiation. It has been described as the doorway of the sacraments for it leads the initiate into the other sacraments. It is an act modeled for us by Jesus, and commanded by Him. It is described clearly by Paul as the sign of the New Covenant, a parallel to circumcision practiced by the Jews. It is most importantly, however, not a human act, but an act of God, who promises to work his way in us through this strange, mundane ritual.
At root, it is simply taking a bath. Washing up. Sprinkling, pouring, dunking – it’s all about the water. Somehow God uses this common ordinary water in some uncommon extraordinary way. Somehow, this symbolic ritual matters. A lot.
The Gnostic in us rebels against this. We like to ignore the inconvenience of baptism because it is so…material. It doesn’t seem spiritual enough. It’s all so wet and sloppy. Yet Christ clearly commands it. He uses it. Our baptism reminds us of our own story with Christ. He come for us. He died for us. He rose again for us. He dwells on high for us. He is with us in our baptism and our baptism is always with us. Ultimately it is His work, and not ours. It is what God does to us and for us in our baptism that really counts. But for some reason, he has set it up to work by the water.
So my daughter is baptized. Did she understand all the implications of what she was doing? Certainly not. Neither did I. Neither do I still. We who are in Christ, are all growing into our baptisms. At the end of the service, when we gathered around her to pray, I placed my hands on her head and prayed this prayer.
Great Heavenly Father,
Bind this girl to you now, and bind yourself to her, to never ever let her go. May she grow into you and you into her, blossoming in understanding and grace.
May she grow ever to be smart and strong and brave and beautiful and kind. May she love others as you love them. And may she love you with all her mind and all her heart and all her strength.
We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
I could not pray this through without choking up at least once. Afterwards, as I thought about what I had prayed, I realized that I had prayed a form of the Shema. I guess that is a fitting thing.
This was certainly a pivotal point in my daughter’s life and spiritual journey. It also marks a significant high point of my own. My understanding of baptism has been deepening and broadening for several years. And, as I have come to see, that is exactly as it should be.
Baptism is a rite of initiation. It has been described as the doorway of the sacraments for it leads the initiate into the other sacraments. It is an act modeled for us by Jesus, and commanded by Him. It is described clearly by Paul as the sign of the New Covenant, a parallel to circumcision practiced by the Jews. It is most importantly, however, not a human act, but an act of God, who promises to work his way in us through this strange, mundane ritual.
At root, it is simply taking a bath. Washing up. Sprinkling, pouring, dunking – it’s all about the water. Somehow God uses this common ordinary water in some uncommon extraordinary way. Somehow, this symbolic ritual matters. A lot.
The Gnostic in us rebels against this. We like to ignore the inconvenience of baptism because it is so…material. It doesn’t seem spiritual enough. It’s all so wet and sloppy. Yet Christ clearly commands it. He uses it. Our baptism reminds us of our own story with Christ. He come for us. He died for us. He rose again for us. He dwells on high for us. He is with us in our baptism and our baptism is always with us. Ultimately it is His work, and not ours. It is what God does to us and for us in our baptism that really counts. But for some reason, he has set it up to work by the water.
So my daughter is baptized. Did she understand all the implications of what she was doing? Certainly not. Neither did I. Neither do I still. We who are in Christ, are all growing into our baptisms. At the end of the service, when we gathered around her to pray, I placed my hands on her head and prayed this prayer.
Great Heavenly Father,
Bind this girl to you now, and bind yourself to her, to never ever let her go. May she grow into you and you into her, blossoming in understanding and grace.
May she grow ever to be smart and strong and brave and beautiful and kind. May she love others as you love them. And may she love you with all her mind and all her heart and all her strength.
We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
I could not pray this through without choking up at least once. Afterwards, as I thought about what I had prayed, I realized that I had prayed a form of the Shema. I guess that is a fitting thing.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Sacraments
A man digs a lump of rock from the ground. He puts it into furnace. The furnace is so hot that it melts the rock so that the dirt and dreck in it are skimmed off and the pure metal remaining is poured into a mold. The iron cools, and then the ingot is taken up again and thrust into a forge. Another man beats the iron with a hammer, flattening it, folding it, reheating it, shaping it, twisting it, heating and beating over and over. In the end, it is an exquisitely wrought latch, placed on the door of a cathedral, as graceful in form as it is in function, and by it thousands enter in to worship the one true God.
Another man puts a plow blade into the soil and turns up the rich black earth. He works the ground to prepare it for the seed that the sows. He watches the seed sprout, and grow and turn mature and ripe. At the appointed hour he reaps the wheat, threshes it, winnows away the chaff. He takes baskets and basket of this wheat to the miller, who grinds it to flour. The baker buys it, mixes it with water and yeast and puts it into an oven to bake bread. In the end, it too goes into the cathedral, where it is broken and served. If feeds not just the body, but the entire soul for in taking this bread, these people somehow take into themselves the One True God.
Two people gather up the sand of the sea. He places it in a kiln so hot that the sand grains melt together to become liquid. He refines this liquid and adds other minerals to color it. He rolls it out as it cools, so that it becomes sheets of solid light, colored and varied. She cuts the glass, and fits it together with strips of lead. From this she makes pictures of saints, images of prophets and priests and kings and patriarchs. In the end, they go into the windows of the cathedral, and those who look are reminded of how the Light of Christ shines through our lives, just like those saints. They think about the saints, and somehow move just a little bit closer to them.
Still another man sits at his desk for hours. In front of him are books on books on books. Above them all is the One Book of Books. To the untrained eye, it seems that he sits without moving. But the discerning watcher knows that he is wrestling with the text, grappling with what the One True God is saying to His people. It is as if with his bare hands he is trying to tear out the message. Some days it flows like cool water. Other days it is like an obstinate stone that will not budge. But this is his work, to wrestle, to grapple, to hold onto and ultimately to give away the Word to those who have ears to hear. In the end, the Preacher stands up and preaches, and the words he speaks open up the very Word of God to those present, and somehow, the Sprit moves and transforms a life.
A woman digs a soft lump of wet earth from the ground. She brings it back to her workshop. She mixes it with water, strains out the sand and grit, and dries the remaining silt. When it is dry enough, she lifts out a lump and slaps the clay onto the wheel. Her wet hands dance into and around the mud, lifting and pressing, teasing and demanding until the pitcher is fully formed. It is dried and placed into the kiln where the earth is transformed into stone. She paints it and fires it again so that it is now covered in a thin layer of bright glass. It’s shape is graceful and elegant and simple. A priest fills it with water, and asked God to bless it. He pours the water into the vessel, also made of clay. He dips his hand in the water and pours it onto the baby’s head, (dip) in the Name of the Father, (dip) and of the Son, (dip) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The water trickles musically over the soft thin hair and back into the font, and somehow the One True and Living God is well pleased.
Another man takes his shears out into the orchard. Carefully, he selects each branch for pruning. It is delicate work. These trees go back further into his family’s history than the records. In time the trees fruit, and the fruit ripens and is collected and pressed and rich green oil flows from the press, deeply scented, heavy and rich. It is placed into jars, and some into small flasks. In the end, it is poured out, and the priest dips his thumb into it and makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a young man, now confirmed in the faith. He never forgets the feeling of that wet rich oil on his forehead, and for the rest of his life feels the mark of the Spirit upon him.
And so God meets us, not in the rarefied air of space, or in the bodiless spiritual someplace. He meets us here, on earth, right now. He presents Himself to us in everyday things that He himself declares holy. We find Him in other things that He has taught us to make holy. How is it that these base things can lift us up and exalt us even to the highest heavens. These are what he has chosen to help us see and know Him. It is mystery indeed.
Another man puts a plow blade into the soil and turns up the rich black earth. He works the ground to prepare it for the seed that the sows. He watches the seed sprout, and grow and turn mature and ripe. At the appointed hour he reaps the wheat, threshes it, winnows away the chaff. He takes baskets and basket of this wheat to the miller, who grinds it to flour. The baker buys it, mixes it with water and yeast and puts it into an oven to bake bread. In the end, it too goes into the cathedral, where it is broken and served. If feeds not just the body, but the entire soul for in taking this bread, these people somehow take into themselves the One True God.
Two people gather up the sand of the sea. He places it in a kiln so hot that the sand grains melt together to become liquid. He refines this liquid and adds other minerals to color it. He rolls it out as it cools, so that it becomes sheets of solid light, colored and varied. She cuts the glass, and fits it together with strips of lead. From this she makes pictures of saints, images of prophets and priests and kings and patriarchs. In the end, they go into the windows of the cathedral, and those who look are reminded of how the Light of Christ shines through our lives, just like those saints. They think about the saints, and somehow move just a little bit closer to them.
Still another man sits at his desk for hours. In front of him are books on books on books. Above them all is the One Book of Books. To the untrained eye, it seems that he sits without moving. But the discerning watcher knows that he is wrestling with the text, grappling with what the One True God is saying to His people. It is as if with his bare hands he is trying to tear out the message. Some days it flows like cool water. Other days it is like an obstinate stone that will not budge. But this is his work, to wrestle, to grapple, to hold onto and ultimately to give away the Word to those who have ears to hear. In the end, the Preacher stands up and preaches, and the words he speaks open up the very Word of God to those present, and somehow, the Sprit moves and transforms a life.
A woman digs a soft lump of wet earth from the ground. She brings it back to her workshop. She mixes it with water, strains out the sand and grit, and dries the remaining silt. When it is dry enough, she lifts out a lump and slaps the clay onto the wheel. Her wet hands dance into and around the mud, lifting and pressing, teasing and demanding until the pitcher is fully formed. It is dried and placed into the kiln where the earth is transformed into stone. She paints it and fires it again so that it is now covered in a thin layer of bright glass. It’s shape is graceful and elegant and simple. A priest fills it with water, and asked God to bless it. He pours the water into the vessel, also made of clay. He dips his hand in the water and pours it onto the baby’s head, (dip) in the Name of the Father, (dip) and of the Son, (dip) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The water trickles musically over the soft thin hair and back into the font, and somehow the One True and Living God is well pleased.
Another man takes his shears out into the orchard. Carefully, he selects each branch for pruning. It is delicate work. These trees go back further into his family’s history than the records. In time the trees fruit, and the fruit ripens and is collected and pressed and rich green oil flows from the press, deeply scented, heavy and rich. It is placed into jars, and some into small flasks. In the end, it is poured out, and the priest dips his thumb into it and makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a young man, now confirmed in the faith. He never forgets the feeling of that wet rich oil on his forehead, and for the rest of his life feels the mark of the Spirit upon him.
And so God meets us, not in the rarefied air of space, or in the bodiless spiritual someplace. He meets us here, on earth, right now. He presents Himself to us in everyday things that He himself declares holy. We find Him in other things that He has taught us to make holy. How is it that these base things can lift us up and exalt us even to the highest heavens. These are what he has chosen to help us see and know Him. It is mystery indeed.
Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus!!
Dominus Deus Sabaoth,
Pleni sunt caeli et terra in gloria tua.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Knowing
I would really like to write a long and brilliant post on epistemology. While I’m pretty sure I can easily attain the first criteria, I am just as sure that I will fall far short of the second. I simply lack the chops. Nevertheless, the question of how we know what we think we know has been weighing on my mind a great deal lately. So…bullet points (not really bullet points, because I can't get the !@#$% formatting to work properly).
We can know almost nothing (beyond the self evident) with certainty. All that we “know” is assumptions and probabilities.
The lawyers are actually onto something when they created standards of evidence relating to the burden of proof in a criminal case. Beyond a reasonable a doubt. The preponderance of evidence. Clear and convincing evidence. The fact is that most of what we consider to be Beyond a reasonable doubt is not at all. Most of what we base our lives on is about the preponderance of evidence.
Most of our “a posteriori” knowledge is indirect, and received from other source to which we grant authority. How we select our authority has much less to do with logic than with habit, conditioning and emotion.
Our acceptance of such authoritative sources of evidence is ultimately built in unfounded assumptions. Most people are unaware, or refuse to admit, that most of their view of the world is based on unfounded assumptions for which there is no real evidence. For example, I believe that Jesus died and rose again to save mankind from sin. My source of evidence is the Bible. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God. My source of evidence for this is…well…it’s that a bunch of Bishops decided that it was about 1700 years ago. There are lots of reasons why this makes sense to me, but really it all boils down to assumption. None of my evidence would be acceptable to someone who didn’t ALREADY believe these things.
Knowing is somewhat overrated. If we waited until we achieved certainty on everything, we would be utterly useless, paralyzed by our own intelligence.
All philosophy, all seeking of ultimate understanding, all assertions of absolute truth are in essence religious activities. This pisses off the materialistic naturalists, the logical positivists and the scientific empiricists, but it’s true. Their conception of what is a god is uninformed and just simply too small to be really useful in understanding how the world REALLY works. If they dared to peek behind the curtain, they would see that it’s all ultimately about religion, no matter what.
None of this means that what we know is wrong. It just means that we can't really truly say for sure. Believing is not the same as knowing. In fact, I believe that I am absolutely right about those things I believe. I also allow for the fact that I could be wrong.
It’s a wonderful world, ain’t it?
Sunday, April 22, 2007
What going on?
There are days when whole essays emerge fully formed from my head, like Athena leaping from the head of Zeus. Then there are days (or weeks) when I seem to muddle around, juggling half-formed ideas, unlinked trains of thought, and unfocused outlines. I am in just such a time right now. I don't suppose this should be surprising, given that I am reading 4 books at once, attempting to break a personal record in my business, improve the current state of my house in preparation for guests, attend to a number for fairly pressing personal matters and still make time to love my family. My attentions and my energy is focused in directions that don't include a blog. No different from anybody else I expect, but I am finding that having a blog is a good thing. It actually makes me think more about writing down my thoughts and publishing them. Ultimately I believe that will be a beneficial discipline for me. Nevertheless, I'm still trying to figure out my personal blogging rhythms.
So here are some of the things I am juggling:
Christus Victor - This is another way of understanding what happened when Jesus dies and refused to stay that way. It's not so much the sacrifice, it's the victory that matters.
The Emerging Church - I have had several conversations about this maddeningly slippery concept. There is much to like and much not. I owe much of my developing thinking about this phenomenon to Assistant Village Idiot. His conversations are challenging me to sharpen my questions and answers about who these people are and what exactly they are doing. I'm finding that while much of my thinking actually seems to parallel much of theirs, I would never actually take on their label.
The Secret - I'm in the business of personal and professional development. "The Secret" is a film and book that may be one of the biggest events in this kind of business in decades. It's becoming in and of itself a huge pop culture phenomenon. While at a certain level, I applaud and agree with much of what it puts forth, for many people, it will become ( or has become) their substitute for true religion. What should I think about it?
Goals and Grace - In more general terms, I would like to explore the relationship between the American success philosophy and the Gospel. They are not the same, but they also have some fascinating points of intersection.
The Sacraments and Worship - This has been bubbling around for a long long time. My theology of both baptism and the Eucharist have undergone almost complete overhauls over the last several years (decade?). In part, this means that these holy rituals have become much more central to my thinking. I'm very excited about this, but it also has created some problems in terms of figuring out how to work out my new understanding.
These are some of the bigger items in development. There are others that are too unformed to really include here. I find it fascinating how much of this is specifically Christian in nature. I guess I spend more time than I realize thinking about this whole Jesus business. Go figure.
Well...check back every once in a while. Eventually I'll develop some of this stuff into something more complete and informative. It might even contain something worthwhile.
So here are some of the things I am juggling:
Christus Victor - This is another way of understanding what happened when Jesus dies and refused to stay that way. It's not so much the sacrifice, it's the victory that matters.
The Emerging Church - I have had several conversations about this maddeningly slippery concept. There is much to like and much not. I owe much of my developing thinking about this phenomenon to Assistant Village Idiot. His conversations are challenging me to sharpen my questions and answers about who these people are and what exactly they are doing. I'm finding that while much of my thinking actually seems to parallel much of theirs, I would never actually take on their label.
The Secret - I'm in the business of personal and professional development. "The Secret" is a film and book that may be one of the biggest events in this kind of business in decades. It's becoming in and of itself a huge pop culture phenomenon. While at a certain level, I applaud and agree with much of what it puts forth, for many people, it will become ( or has become) their substitute for true religion. What should I think about it?
Goals and Grace - In more general terms, I would like to explore the relationship between the American success philosophy and the Gospel. They are not the same, but they also have some fascinating points of intersection.
The Sacraments and Worship - This has been bubbling around for a long long time. My theology of both baptism and the Eucharist have undergone almost complete overhauls over the last several years (decade?). In part, this means that these holy rituals have become much more central to my thinking. I'm very excited about this, but it also has created some problems in terms of figuring out how to work out my new understanding.
These are some of the bigger items in development. There are others that are too unformed to really include here. I find it fascinating how much of this is specifically Christian in nature. I guess I spend more time than I realize thinking about this whole Jesus business. Go figure.
Well...check back every once in a while. Eventually I'll develop some of this stuff into something more complete and informative. It might even contain something worthwhile.
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