tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32317809494186612732024-03-13T11:03:51.822-04:00Lonely VocationsI blog about my plurality of callings -- writing, teaching, editing, as well as resourcing for pastors, and (most recently) renovating our new house into a home and centre for spiritual direction -- and about the ways in which these callings cohere together. Writing has been described as a lonely vocation, but the same applies to all of the above, to varying extents; yet in none of them do we truly work alone.Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-47493106905979496832015-09-30T07:56:00.000-04:002015-09-30T07:56:29.721-04:00Book Review: Russell Moore, Onward<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">A short review of Russell Moore, <i>Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel</i> (B&H Publishing, 2015), for <a href="http://www.netgalley.com/" target="_blank">NetGalley</a>:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Having only recently learned of Russell Moore’s work, when I began wading through the post-<i>Obergefell </i>debate over questions of culture war and “exile” that the North American church faces today, I was excited to read his new book. <i>Onward </i>is, for the most part, a pleasant surprise: though I don’t consider myself a “liberal” Christian, I don’t often find myself agreeing with Southern Baptists, but I often agreed with what Moore says here. From his opening indictments of American civic religion (noting an atheist friend’s entrance into politics: “Finding Jesus was his way of asking America into his heart, as his personal lord and savior”) to the poke he takes at Joel Osteen (describing the Gospels’ rich young ruler wanting “a religion that would promise him his best life now”!) and his comparison of “pop-dispensationalist” depictions of the Rapture with American culture’s perception of the post-Christendom church, Moore’s critique of Christian culture is enjoyably wry and incisive. As Moore has blogged against the misuse of the “exile” trope as an excuse for nostalgia and despair, it’s good to see him expand that argument here. The church, he reminds us, “is never a majority—in any fallen culture—even if we happen to outnumber everyone else around us.” And elsewhere: “If the church believes the United States is a sort of new Israel, then we become frantic when we see ourselves ‘losing America.’ We then start to speak in gloomy terms of America as, at best, Babylon, a place of hopeless exile, or, at worst, Gomorrah, slouching toward the judgment of God. This leads to a siege mentality…”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Moore does make a few missteps. For example, yes, it’s important to see that the “world system around us, the cultural matrix we inhabit, is alien to the kingdom of God”; but it’s also vital, in learning to live into our new (or perhaps reclaimed) calling “to an engaged alienation,” that we <i>remember that we are not in charge of our own alienation</i>. God, through his gospel and his calling, is the One who alienates us—and the One who has the right <i>to alienate himself, to absent himself, from us if he so chooses</i>, if his seeming absence will help us to grow. So I agree, once more, with Moore when he says, “The church is not to be walled up from the broader culture but to speak to it (1 Pet. 2:12), but that can only happen if, as sojourners and exiles, we have something distinctive to say (1 Pet. 2:11).” I only want to make certain, in recommending this book, that we remember that it is not our prerogative to call ourselves into exile: God is the only One who may call or send us there. I think Moore knows this, but it should be a clearer point in this ongoing discussion.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-3914495488545463452015-08-13T15:25:00.000-04:002015-08-13T15:25:50.528-04:00Book Review: Kuhn's The Kingdom according to Luke & Acts<span style="font-size: large;">A short review of Karl Allen Kuhn, <i>The Kingdom according to Luke and Acts: A Social, Literary, and Theological Introduction</i> (Baker Academic, 2015) for <a href="http://netgalley.com/" target="_blank">NetGalley</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As I've been hunting for a good auxiliary textbook for an upcoming course I'll be teaching on Luke-Acts, I had dismissed Karl Kuhn's new book when I first saw it advertised, thinking it would not be able to provide a solid but accessible introduction to kingdom themes in Luke-Acts <i>and</i> a satisfactory introduction to the overall books at the same time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I was wrong. I'm now seriously considering this book for that second textbook slot. Here's why, briefly. Kuhn skillfully uses Luke's view of the kingdom of God as his lens for understanding the evangelist's entire work, so the introduction to the overall content of Luke and Acts is gradual, methodical, and easily digested. In separate chapters, he also incorporates the background of both "Israelite Visions of the Kingdom" and Rome as an "Empire of Disparity and Want," repeating this latter description as a refrain throughout the book. Luke's social location as a member of the elite, calling his patron Theophilus and other readers to leave behind their commitments to the elite lifestyle, furnishes him with the narrative artistry he needs in order to tell his kingdom story with such evident pathos and (beautifully explained) rhetorical flair. At times, Kuhn's kingdom themes and the components of Luke's narrative become richly interlayered, so much so that they can be hard to keep distinct; but as Kuhn encourages us as readers, if we remember even <i>some</i> of these themes, he will have accomplished something helpful and enriching. Kuhn's role thus mirrors Luke's, helping readers to see what a life of kingdom-oriented discipleship begins to look like: "Such is part of the bold vocation of embracing the Kingdom in a world gone terribly awry -- it is not simply an unfortunate reality to be endured," but a cause for rejoicing, even in the midst of hardship and persecution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So why am I still uncertain about selecting this book? Simple: it's the occasional moments where this remains, for all its accessibility, an academic text. Predictably and understandably, for a book from the Baker Academic imprint, words like "agonistic," "Hellenistic," "midrash," "ethos," and "inclusio" aren't explained; though a skilled and careful reader can pick up at least part of these terms' meaning from contextual clues, not all readers will be so skilled or careful -- or so patient. Then, too, Greek words are not transliterated, probably with the assumption that most readers will have at least a cursory knowledge of New Testament Greek. To his credit, Kuhn doesn't assume too much here, offering translations of all the Greek words and phrases he includes. But for my undergraduate students, most of whom will have a NT intro course as their only prerequisite, the un-transliterated language will prove a challenge. So if I do opt for this text, I'm thinking of drawing up and distributing a glossary (just a short page long, able to be fit inside the book) of the Greek and technical English terms employed here. My hope is that such a glossary would allow less advanced students to experience the full benefits of Kuhn's thorough -- and thoroughly enjoyable -- text.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-10294395397117431962015-07-28T21:14:00.002-04:002015-07-28T21:14:54.687-04:00Book Review: Guthrie's 2 Corinthians<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">Another short book review for </span><a href="http://www.netgalley.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">NetGalley</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">: George H. Guthrie, <i>2 Corinthians</i> (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Baker Academic, 2015).</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">It's difficult to summarize a commentary as detailed as this in only a few words, so I will focus here on just a few short passages in this fine book from Guthrie. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">First, on Paul's use of triumphal imagery (a word-picture that draws from the Roman Empire's victory parades): Guthrie makes a strong argument that </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: large; line-height: 29.2688884735107px;">"Paul actually distinguishes himself and his ministry from those who 'are being destroyed,' who are spiritually aligned with death, a point that speaks quite loudly against the interpretation that he sees himself as represented by the captives in the triumphal procession." I'm not entirely convinced, as I think the "captives" interpretation agrees with Paul's theology of suffering in 2 Cor (and throughout his letters, for that matter) in ways that remain underappreciated in the church; but Guthrie's argument may yet change my mind as I continue to reflect on it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 31.3033332824707px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">Second, concerning Paul's statement that "as long as we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord" (</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">2 Cor 5:6): I appreciate Guthrie's sensitive treatment of Paul's theology here. He skilfully unpacks what Paul is (and is not) saying by using words like <i>end</i></span></span></span><i style="font-family: inherit;">ēme</i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><i>ō</i> ("to be at home"/"in a familiar place") and its opposite, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"><i>ekd</i></span></span></span><i style="font-family: inherit;">ēme</i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 30.4688873291016px;"><i>ō</i></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> (to be away, in an unfamiliar place; the alien-ness of this term could have used more elaboration): "So long as Paul is 'at home' in his mortal body, he is 'away from' the presence of the Lord. This does not mean that Paul doubts the presence of Christ, through the Spirit, in the believer's life prior to death or at the parousia [the return of Christ]," but rather that our relationship with Christ "will change both spatially and qualitatively at death and will be consummated at the resurrection from the dead." As I've</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> been wrestling with this passage in Paul, personally and theologically, off and on for the past few months, I deeply appreciate Guthrie's thoughtful engagement with what Paul means by absence and presence. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"><br />Third, one of Guthrie's introductory statements proves helpful throughout the reading of the commentary as a whole: "one approach to grasping the book's reason for being is to analyze the relational network reflected in its pages." This is put simply enough, but Guthrie unfolds this statement into the relationships between (1) Paul and his God, (2) Paul and the Corinthians (in keeping with the ministry and sphere of influence God assigned to him: 2 Cor 10:13-14, as Guthrie notes), and (3) Paul and his opponents at Corinth (including, of course, attendant disagreements about what true apostleship looks like). As he begins to chart the ways in which these relationships intertwine and inform one another, and the ramifications of each, we begin to suspect what the rest of the commentary goes on to prove: Guthrie is offering us a reading of 2 Corinthians that will keep us prayerfully reflecting -- and faithfully responding! -- for quite some time. </span></span><br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-11546629507977901782015-07-16T13:17:00.002-04:002015-07-16T13:17:18.000-04:00Book Review: Winner's Mudhouse Sabbath<span style="font-size: large;">Another short book review for <a href="http://www.netgalley.com/" target="_blank">NetGalley</a>: Lauren F. Winner, <i>Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline</i> (Study Edition; Paraclete, 2015).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've only read snippets of Lauren Winner's work before, so I was happy to read this new Study Edition -- some 50 pages longer than the 2003 edition, thanks to more endnotes, multiple sidebars, and reflection/discussion questions. In the introduction to this edition, Winner points out that although "study" itself could have been added on as a twelfth chapter, instead it "threads" throughout as a further invitation, echoing the book's new subtitle. It's a little difficult to tell from the advance proof, but I think this idea will work well, as it offers (there's that invitation again!) greater depth and opportunities to study, without overwhelming those who wish to read more sparingly. Winner even acknowledges this, noting that she herself, her students, and her colleagues don't necessarily ruminate on the texts that they purportedly "study," but race through and even "cannibalize" their readings. She doesn't condemn that practice, but wisely offers, again, the chance to read more deeply here.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Other than the sidebars and so on, the text of the book stands much as it did in the earlier edition. Winner guides us through eleven spiritual disciplines, each informed both by her Jewish upbringing and her conversion to Christianity: sabbath, "fitting food" (kosher), mourning, hospitality, prayer, body (i.e., embodied-ness), fasting, aging, candle-lighting, wedding, and doorposts (the making or setting-apart of Christian space, drawing from the traditions of Deuteronomy 6). Winner's decision to leave her original text largely unchanged gives her readers a bittersweet window to her past -- we know that her mother will die, and that the marriage she is about to begin will end -- but that adds a rich, honest poignancy to her earlier words. And the words she adds in sidebars bring additional warmth to her invitation, and occasionally some humor, too: having noted that sabbath-keeping entails rest from the act of creating, she asks us, "What do you make" of the weekly reiteration of this ritual? With this and other pointed but hospitable questions (many of which have both individual and communal applications), Winner shows us the best of what a "study" edition can be. I highly recommend this book as a welcome reminder that the rich heritage of spiritual disciplines is an integral resource for our practice of them.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-38239420596559232042015-07-01T16:29:00.000-04:002015-07-01T16:29:47.008-04:00Flash Fiction Wednesday: When Foxes Have No Holes<span style="font-size: large;">I'd already made plans for today when I saw <a href="http://ecimagazine.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">East Coast Ink magazine's</a> promotion of Flash Fiction Wednesday; so while I didn't have time to write a new story (600 words max., apparently), I'll post this one that qualifies, which I wrote pretty recently, as part of a much larger story cycle. The only disclaimer I'll add is that the use of meter is very deliberate: to convey a dog-like dissatisfaction with being enclosed, the narrator's voice slips in and out of (usually trochaic) meter -- and not just in the parts that are set in verse. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">“When Foxes Have No Holes”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Bark! Bark,
my kits!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Bark across
the empty space until it carries sound.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Bark as if
keen ears could hear your echoes coming home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Bark: the
Farmers weren’t the ones who drove us from our dens, yet they fend us off and
Fence us out into the dark.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Bark! The
Fence! It keeps us prowling, searching out ways In.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Can’t you
all remember how and when we met the Fence? Come! We’ll catch the tale in our
paws so it can’t (yip!) escape. It begins:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> First Outfoxes
saw the Fence<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> (sitting
there, all innocence!),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Metal
balls, misthrown and lost;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Outside
noses caught their scents:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Lonely,
shiny outcasts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Nosed and
pawed, the balls bit back<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> (in an
unprovoked attack)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> There,
Outfoxes learned, beware:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Pouncing Fenceposts
in the Black<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Punish
those who trespass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> And the
sentries spied, we found,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Those who
sought out routes around<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Digging
under, jumping o’er, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Foxes
tasted vacuum, drowned<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In the
airless reaches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Then would
all the Fenceposts speak<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> In that whistling,
rasping squeak<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Painful to
Outfoxes’ ears,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Squawking
while we cowered, meek<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Animals,
mere creatures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>Stay</i>,
they whined. <i>You can’t come in. There’s no controlling you. You’re
uncivilized. You’re wild. You’re robbers. Now go home!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Go home,
kits? How could they?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Driven from
their planet-den by Vermin long ago, now the Fence had locked them out; they
never could return. Days when kits could chase and play and loll in warm
sunlight, growing into sandy-whiskered gentlemen: all gone. Even days of sauntering
and hunting 'cross the stars, catching prey as chickens in their interstellar
coops – never caring what it was or who it was we ate – all gone now, too, my
kits!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Soon they
found that Fenceposts, like Outfoxes, like to move: discontent, unjust, their
border migrates as they go. Piece by piece expanding, yip! so gradually it
grew, spreading civilized space, shrinking ours; for we could sense larger
predators out lurking, out beyond the stars’ firelight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Would the
Fenceposts listen, when we whined of this?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>No</i>,
the biting toys squeaked, <i>still you can’t come in, you dogs, good
barbarians!</i> (Bark!) <i>Noble scavengers! Protect our border that we share.
Guard our space. You’ll keep it safe from darker animals.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> What to do,
my kits? What Fencepost knows nobility? Are we noble, living witless, carefree
lives? And weren’t we more helpless than so many creatures, worrying bones of
helplessness? But when we gnawed the problem down – so the caught tale tells –
we saw what we must do to let our barks be free, be heard!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Settle
down! Now settle down! What taming irony: minding what the Farmers and their
Fenceposts asked of us, settling down against the Fence, nomads no longer.
Leashed our caboodles, panting ships, together, save for scouts sent to roam
the Fence in search of holes or gaps, where Outfoxes might slip through. We
bark! in savage protest, bark! Not so noble, but defiant: outside, barking in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> So bark!
bark! for our remembered home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Bark again!
at those who Fence us out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Pant! with
gnawing hunger for the day <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> (Yip!) when
hole is found, or hole is made,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> When
Outfoxes find ways In,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Lollop,
hunt, and feast again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Bark, bark,
my kits!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-30068873215152712472015-06-29T10:05:00.005-04:002015-06-29T10:10:11.325-04:00Z for Zcreepy<span style="font-size: large;">The Internet Movie Database seems tailor-made for "rabbit-trail" research: look up a particular movie, intending to find out who that actor is that you can't quite place, and you end up looking up someone else, and a movie she was in -- and before you know it, you're eight links away from where you started, and only your browser's search history remembers how you got there. So I approached IMDB's ad for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598642/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Z for Zachariah</a> carefully, intrigued by something new and post-apocalyptic, but not wanting to get drawn too far down the pop-culture rabbit hole. The synopsis didn't promise much in the way of originality, but the movie's based on a novel by a name I knew: Robert C. O'Brien, probably better-known as the author of the Newbery-winning <em>Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH</em> (yes, it was adapted into <em>The Secret of NIMH</em>, but please don't judge the book by it, even if you liked it!), and a <em>National Geographic</em> contributor under his real name, </span><span style="font-size: large;">Robert Leslie Conly. Thus ends the rabbit trail; but since I find it helpful to balance my nonfiction reading and writing with a novel, I picked up <em>Z for Zachariah </em>on my next visit to Mills Library (Thanks, McMaster, for free alumni library cards!). If you're a see-the-book-before-reading-the-movie geek like me, read on...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Yes, it seems weird that the same person who wrote an acclaimed children's book also penned something that could be readily adapted into a post-apoc love triangle. But it doesn't take long for the commonalities between <em>Mrs. Frisby</em> and <em>Z</em> to emerge. For one, they're both well-written for their respective audiences. The former puts its main characters (Mrs. Frisby, her family, and friends she makes along the way) in occasional jeopardy, both in their present and in the rats' backstory; this allows moments of empathy, tragedy, suspense, and joy, but never beyond what, say, a precocious six-year-old could cope with. <em>Z</em>, which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._O%27Brien_(author)" target="_blank">won O'Brien a posthumous Edgar Award</a>, takes the form of a journal, newly started by a lone teenager; it begins with beautiful, suspenseful simplicity ("<em>May 20</em>: I am afraid. Someone is coming."), appears to offer some promise of a hopeful future, then gradually steals that promise away, in ways that are definitely not for younger audiences.<em> </em>For another similarity, both books convey a healthy respect for the day-to-day details of farming -- not just as survival, but as the grounding of personal dignity, too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">That said, it's easy to see why <em>Z</em> lends itself to Hollywood adaptation, and why it does so now, when the novel is nearly 40 years old. Although the love-triangle aspect is added for the movie (after the first few pages of backstory, there are only two characters in the book), <em>Z</em> anticipates pop culture's current infatuation with ever-more-disturbing stories of young adults being forced, with varying degrees of nuance, to kill or be killed; <em>The Hunger Games</em>, <em>Divergent</em>, and <em>Maze Runner</em> series are only the most (in)famous examples. There are several moments in <em>Z</em> that read like <em>Misery</em> for young adults. The problem's not that it's not good storytelling (quite the opposite; I took a few mental notes for my own novel), it's just that it's also just plain creepy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm not sure I'll see the movie, but I wonder if<em> Z</em> was also chosen for adaptation because it's subtly suited to post-Christendom. The title derives from the heroine's description of a Bible alphabet book: she remembers reasoning, as a child, that if A is for Adam, the first man, then Zachariah must be the last man -- foreshadowing the problems of encountering someone who may be the last man on earth. On the one hand, it would be interesting to see how (and if!) the title is explained in the movie, to an audience less biblically literate than the protagonist herself. On the other hand, it's more than interesting: it would illustrate just how well-matched the post-apocalyptic genre and post-Christendom culture are. Weirdly, they might be the perfect couple -- even if neither of them understands why that is.</span><em> </em>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-66794693924306149002015-06-09T20:39:00.000-04:002015-06-09T20:39:21.433-04:00Book Review: Nancy Jane Moore's Walking Contradiction<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It's time for another embarrassingly late review, this time for <a href="https://www.librarything.com/er/list" target="_blank">LibraryThing Early Reviewers</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Nancy Jane Moore's <i>Walking Contradiction and Other Futures</i> (Book View Cafe, 2014) is an entertaining collection of science fiction stories -- well outside the normal purview of my LibraryThing collection, but well worth reading. The common thread between these eight stories is the question of what it means to be human; in most cases here, that question centers on what role gender plays in identity. That question is front and center in the title story and in "Nohow Permanent," as both stories' narrators are "ambi" (or, as the latter narrator puts it, "mostly" female). "Walking Contradiction" itself is skillfully told, full of intrigue and estranged regret; if it's over-exposited at times, that's made forgivable by the narrator's film-noir profession and tone. Here and elsewhere, there are moments when Moore starts to sound like Robert Heinlein, whether in references to the "troubled" years or in sentences like "All the people -- and not people, and not quite people -- made Vlad nervous" (113), reminiscent of gender-bending stories like Heinlein's "All You Zombies." The stories "Borders," "Gambit," and "In Demeter's Gardens" are a little less memorable, all featuring female protagonists in (relatively) near-future military scenarios, but told capably. "Blindsided by Venus in the House of Mars" is a tragic love story that weaves a nice twist into interstellar travel; if it challenges gender assumptions, it's only because of assumptions the reader may bring to the text. "Or We Will All Hang Separately" completes the collection, with a post-apocalyptic tone that still manages to remain more hopeful than some of the other stories included here. Altogether, Moore's talent shines frequently in this book. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for more of her work.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-51630620307246155552015-06-09T12:31:00.000-04:002015-06-09T12:31:58.940-04:00Book Review: Sea Raven's Theology in Exile: Year of Matthew<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Someday soon I will actually write a blog post that's not a book review. But that day is not today. For now, I'm continuing to clear out long-neglected projects, with another review for <a href="http://thespeakeasy.info/" target="_blank">The Speakeasy</a>: an ebook, <i>Theology in Exile: Year of Matthew -- Commentary of the Revised Common Lectionary for an Emerging Christianity</i>, by Sea Raven (Book 1 of Theology of Exile; Vol. 2 of Theology from Exile<span style="font-family: inherit;">; </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013). </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I</span>SBN: 9781491077320.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">First, an apology: this review is badly late. I promised it before beginning renovations on our house, and that process had a predilection for torpedoing deadlines. But I hope that this review, late as it is, will still bring some welcome publicity to this book. As I'm supposed to do here, I'll also state that I was provided with a copy of this ebook in order to review it here on my blog, and that I was not required to give it a good review.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It's safe to say that </span><span style="font-size: large;">Sea Raven, D.Min. -- an Associate of the Westar Institute and lay minister for worship of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, Maryland -- and I differ somewhat on our interpretations of Scripture. This didn't surprise me, as Speakeasy's initial description of her book promised a view of the Lectionary "</span><span style="font-size: large;">through fresh eyes, providing compelling biblical study and insight for pastors and lay leaders ('believers in exile') who are drawn to Jesus' mandate for justice, healing and shalom, but who no longer find meaning in conventional interpretations of scripture." I'm sympathetic to the need to create, as she puts it, "reimagined rituals" of Communion and other rites (p. 9 of 364, according to my device). But having read her re-interpretation of the texts through the Lectionary year, I'm not sure that I find <i>any </i>meaning -- "conventional" or otherwise -- in Raven's commitment to "a non-theistic, 'kenotic God'" (9; "post-theistic," which she uses on p. 31, is more nuanced and might have made a better choice throughout). And though I share her desire to articulate and live out a "theology from exile" (11 and throughout) for a post-Christendom age, as my friend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Church-Exile-Living-After-Christendom/dp/0830840664/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433865025&sr=1-1&keywords=Lee+beach+exile&pebp=1433865031045&perid=1W9TVPCGMGQ7RRXJAW8V" target="_blank">Lee Beach has done,</a> I'm uncertain whether Raven sees the irony in uprooting this theology from its biblical and historical roots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are some features worth commending here. Raven will not let readers hide from uncomfortable truths of contemporary politics, noting, for instance, that "too much of Christian fundamentalism has become United States domestic and foreign policy" (17); nor will she let us forget that there are biblical texts that go unread as one works through the RCL (165, 168 and elsewhere). She excels at bringing the RCL's texts together, as here: "In Isaiah 35, the exiles -- redeemed -- return to Zion. They are redeemed because they return to the ways of the Lord. And what are those ways? Psalm 146 spells them out..." (28). And her exegesis occasionally produces memorable insights: "The pearl of great price is actually worthless to the one who sells everything to get it. In order to live in the normalcy of civilization, he would need to sell it. But nothing is needed for living in God's realm" (182).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, too often her interpretive skills end up serving a predetermined agenda -- which is inevitable in scholarship, yes, but need not be so to this degree. Raven cannot let herself stray far from the Jesus Seminar's findings, so when she doesn't like the meaning of a text, she simply changes it. For John 1:12, "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God," she states, "Believing in the light is not a prerequisite for becoming children of God" (34). Unless, of course, <i>the text actually says that it is!</i> It's one thing for Sea Raven to take issue with those who created the RCL (as she often does), and to offer re-interpretations of biblical texts. It's quite another thing, far more destructive than the "cherry-picking" of passages (of which she finds the RCL guilty), to make those texts mean <i>the opposite of what they say</i>. If you enjoy "progressive" readings of Scripture, to the point of allowing your exegetical skills to regress, then this book is for you. Otherwise, it's best read as an example not of good exegesis, but of skilled <i>eisegesis </i>-- bringing the <i>interpreter's </i>meaning <i>into </i>the text, rather than bringing the <i>text's </i>meaning <i>out</i>.</span></div>
Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-48627523422311041502015-05-06T12:58:00.003-04:002015-05-06T13:00:36.241-04:00Book Review: Sider's Nonviolent Action<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 1.4;">Another </span><a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/brazospress/brazos-press-bloggers" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 1.4; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Brazos Bloggers review</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 1.4;">: Ronald J. Sider, <i>Nonviolent Action: What Christian Ethics Demands But Most Christians Have Never Really Tried </i>(Brazos, 2015).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 1.4;">Seldom has the case for nonviolent action -- which Ronald Sider defines in his new book as "an activist confrontation with evil that respects the personhood even of the 'enemy' and therefore seeks both to end the oppression and to reconcile the oppressor through nonviolent methods" (xv) -- been made so readable. For those only vaguely aware of the victories that nonviolent actions have won, this is an excellent primer: the book's first three parts detail some of the most memorable of those victories (e.g., Gandhi vs. the British Empire; Martin Luther King, Jr., in the fight for civil rights in the US; struggles against Communist control in Poland and Germany; and the "Arab Spring"). Its last section reminds us why the word <i>action</i> appears so prominently in the title, for this is not only a history but a call to engagement. Sider isn't shy about noting the problems and inconsistencies that have arisen in some of the struggles above, but he is clearly and justifiably proud of the campaigns in which he himself has played a role. (Indeed, these emerge as some of the book's best chapters, from his admission of fearing for his life while intervening with Witness for Peace in Nicaragua in 1985 [47] to his involvement in the formation of Christian Peacemaker Teams [147].) His challenge to readers comes through clearly in this last section, when he calls "just- war" and pacifist Christians alike to be more consistent and courageous in their actions, not just in their beliefs. The book would have been improved by adding a concise chapter on the theology of nonviolent action (hinted at but underdeveloped on 173, 177), but even as it stands, it's a volume that cannot and must not be ignored.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm always impressed by Richard Middleton's work, and this book is no exception. It's a difficult trick to write about eschatology without losing sight of the larger narrative of biblical theology, but Middleton pulls it off! He begins by showing how the book's concern fits within <em>his</em> story, noting his concern "to make the Bible's vision for the redemption of creation available to a wide audience" (16) -- many of whom might struggle with some of the same questions that he's wrestled with throughout his theological life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The opening chapters place in narrative context "God's unswerving purpose to redeem earthly creation (rather than take us out of earth to heaven)," arguing that the image of "an ethereal 'heaven' is more traditional than biblical" (17, 23) and that humans bearing the image of God is at least as much about <em>cultivation</em> and <em>culture</em> as it is about conventional images of worship. Middleton shrewdly labels his thesis as "holistic salvation," which puts the onus on potential opponents to prove that their vision is as "holistic" as his -- as some Dispensationalists have previously done with terms like "biblical," "normal," and "literal." The upshot is that Middleton is able to note the Bible's interest in concrete details of creation and culture, including systemic oppression and deliverance from same in the Old Testament, without undermining divine transcendence and redemption. In Middleton's treatment of the New Testament, I particularly appreciate his re-interpretation of pivotal passages like Romans 8, where Paul "includes the nonhuman creation in God's salvific plan" but puts humans in Pharaoh's place: "we have subjected creation to...frustration, much as the Egyptian king oppressed the Israelites" (160). The book's two final sections, taking up "problem texts" for holistic eschatology and the reconstruction of "kingdom" ethics, are commendable for their systematic presentation and humour -- as when the author hopes that the "false teaching" of the annihilation of the present earth will itself be destroyed at Christ's return: " 'Left Behind' theology will finally be left behind!" (200) </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My own (not terribly eschatological) hope is that this book will take its place next to classics like Ladd's <em>The Presence of the Future</em>, though I'm not sure that those who most need to be convinced by Middleton's work will be patient enough to read it thoroughly. As I largely agree with his holistic eschatology, my two caveats concern the theology that supports it. First, I would like Middleton to clarify his definition of sin, as it shifts over the early sections: it's "our culpable mismanagement of our human calling" but does not simplistically drive "God's presence out from earthly life" (48); yet it's also "innovations in the misuse of power, which impede God's purposes for the flourishing of earthly life and prevent God's presence from fully permeating creation" (53; variously rephrased on 55, 71, and 165). I understand and agree that the definition can develop and vary according to different texts within the metanarrative, but again, I'd like some further clarity on the definition that emerges <em>from that very development</em>. Second, I was glad to see Middleton devote attention to 2 Corinthians 5:1-9 (216-17, 229-31), not just for the passage's eschatological importance, but because it's recently become devotionally formative for me. But I challenge some aspects of Middleton's reading of this text, as Walter Grundmann's interpretation (TDNT 2:63-65) supplies some needed nuance -- not least of which is the role of the Holy Spirit, which Middleton neglects.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My heartfelt thanks to Richard for writing this excellent book, and to Baker Academic for publishing and offering the opportunity to review it.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-10741733240186958842015-03-31T15:37:00.002-04:002015-03-31T15:38:47.008-04:00Book Review: Todd Billings' Rejoicing in Lament<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;">Time for another </span><a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/brazospress/brazos-press-bloggers" style="color: #666666; line-height: 1.4; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Brazos Bloggers review</a><span style="line-height: 1.4;">: J. Todd Billings, <i>Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ </i>(Brazos, 2015).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 33.5999984741211px;">It's not always easy to see the connection between a theological book and real, everyday life. Some books seem to forget or ignore that connection; others try to address it by tacking an "application" section on at the end, often brief and unconvincing. This book isn't like that at all: every page reminds us that its author wrote it because of, and in the midst of, his diagnosis of and treatment for multiple myeloma. So it's straightforward and relentless in dealing with suffering and lament. But it's also a joyful, hopeful, and beautiful book.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 33.5999984741211px;">The first two chapters explore Billings' cancer diagnosis as a sensation of "a narrowing, a tightening, rather than 'a spacious place' to dwell" (5, drawing from Billings' blog about his illness, dwelling here on Psalm 31), while introducing the need for lament as a response to suffering, the Psalms as "companions" for our journeys in joyful and well as lament-ful times, and the questions about suffering that Scripture sometimes leaves unanswered. The next three chapters probe deeper into lament as an exercise of paradoxical faith, trust, and protest -- an exercise made more difficult for the author by the trauma of chemotherapy. Billings excels here at helping his readers to see the bigger story beyond his own body and cancer: "we need to learn how to mourn for that which injures the body of Christ and leads away from Christ's kingdom" (39). In subsequent chapters on the role that death plays in the story of God and his church, and the problems of praying for healing, the author returns often to the words of Colossians 3 ("hidden with Christ in God") as a biblical touchstone. After an especially strong chapter that likens the poison of chemo and the "new life" of a stem cell transplant to the "strong medicine" of God's response to sin and death, Billings concludes with a sensitively articulated argument on divine impassibility and steadfast love, and a final meditation on our "displacement": even in rejoicing and lamenting, "our own stories are not preserved in a pristine way... [but] incorporated into a much larger story -- God's story in Christ" (170).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 33.5999984741211px;">This book won't be for everyone. It tries hard to be accessible, and it often is, but at other moments it's more challenging, demanding more empathy and/or more patience for theology than some readers may want to bring to the table. For those who do -- and, perhaps better, for groups who might read this book together as a way of walking more sensitively and prayerfully with loved ones diagnosed with severe illness -- there's much to treasure here.</span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 33.5999984741211px;"> </span></div>
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Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-7544902436571833172014-11-11T06:25:00.000-05:002014-11-11T06:25:32.537-05:00Book review: Galatians and Christian Theology<span style="font-size: large;">A brief (again, brief by Book Review Geek standards) book review of <i>Galatians and Christian Theology</i>, Mark W. Elliott, Scott J. Hafemann, N. T. Wright, and John Frederick, editors (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), for NetGalley:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In this volume of papers from the University of St Andrews' fourth triennial Scripture & Theology conference (2012), the editors rightly note that getting the papers in a conference volume to "talk" to one another -- to convey to the reading audience something of the conversations that took place at the conference itself -- is a work in progress, but one in which they're improving. Many of the papers in this book are splendid examples of what it should look like when biblical studies and theology go hand in hand; many also reference and/or riff on one another, in richly integrated ways. That doesn't mean that the result is always easy to read: some of the papers are highly technical in their approach to biblical studies, theology, or both, so the audience likeliest to benefit from them will probably be at the level of graduate studies or above. But those who choose to invest (financially, intellectually, and even spiritually) in this book will find that it substantially reshapes their thinking about Paul's letter to the Galatians, as it has done with mine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The volume is divided into three parts -- Justification, Gospel, and Ethics -- but even these divisions are more for convenience than rigid categorization, as many of their constituents participate in more than one category. To note just a few </span><span style="font-size: large;">of (what I found to be) the book's highlights: first, having read co-editor Tom Wright's recent two-volume book on Paul, I was amused that he managed to fit several of his most vital points from that book into just (!) forty pages here, as when he repeats his incisive conclusion that "messiahship, like image-bearing humanness itself, was all along a category designed, as it were, for God's own use" (39). I also enjoyed John Barclay's studied description of Paul as living "in a face-to-face society where self-advertisement, rivalry, and public competition were a perpetual cause of tension," to which he responded</span><span style="font-size: large;"> with "a vision of communal life where the destructive features of this agonistic culture can be both recognized and effectively repulsed" (305). And the collective treatment of complex topics in Galatians (not just the principal headings of justification, gospel, and ethics, but also apocalyptic, for example) is highly nuanced, if (perhaps inevitably) repetitive at times. One caveat for Kobo users: I'm not sure whether the problem was with this book or on Kobo's end, but I found that the annotations I made in the text were randomly re-organized (i.e., not by date, position in book, or any other criteria that I could see), and some annotations were dropped completely. Perhaps this won't be a problem for other e-readers -- and it certainly won't be for those who will benefit from reading this excellent new book the old-fashioned way!</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-1850518182979494272014-10-23T16:54:00.001-04:002014-10-23T17:05:21.507-04:00Book Review: Nathan Foster's Making of an Ordinary Saint<span style="font-size: large;">Here's another brief book review for Baker Books Bloggers: Nathan Foster's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2em;">The Making of an Ordinary Saint: My Journey from Frustration to Joy with the Spiritual Disciplines</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.2em;"> (Baker Books, 2014).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">When reviewing a book, there’s a temptation to read quickly,
to skim for a quick grasp of the essentials. A good book on spiritual formation
won’t let you get away with that: you’d see the words but miss the wisdom.
Nathan Foster’s new book is no exception. In learning to embrace spiritual
disciplines that had previously frustrated him, Foster makes no attempt to
ignore his father’s legacy. Quite the opposite: not only does Richard Foster contribute
forewords to the book and to each chapter, he’s also present through discussions
that the author includes in addressing his own struggle with each discipline.
And of course, these are the “classical” disciplines as determined by his father’s
classic, <i>Celebration of Discipline</i> — fasting,
prayer, submission, worship, service, etc. — so in emerging from Richard’s
shadow, Foster the Younger journeys through each, but in refreshingly narrative
form. He shows deep honesty in assessing his own earlier failures (and gradual,
painstaking successes) in his chapter on the discipline of study, and again in
admitting his struggle to “unplug” from technological media while seeking
simplicity, and yet again in naming and confessing the addictive patterns that
have darkened his life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Foster does well in inviting readers along on his journey, but
there are brief missteps along the way. Some of the “portrait” sections that
conclude each chapter feel tacked-on, not fleshed out fully enough to do justice
to the lives of those highlighted there; the inclusion of Jane Addams as an
exemplar of service surprised me, perhaps because another very recent book from
a Baker imprint (Scot McKnight’s <i>Kingdom
Conspiracy</i>, which I reviewed a little while ago) severely criticized Addams for diluting and over-socializing
the gospel. Foster’s references to Scripture sometimes seem offhand, and in the
one case where he highlights a specific Greek word from 1 Timothy, he’s simply
wrong: Paul uses another word entirely. That said, many readers will find
welcome ways of encountering the disciplines here, as I have. Foster’s adaptation
of the monastic experience of the early church fathers and mothers — coming to
recognize difficult moments through which God guides us as “my desert to
embrace” (pp. 155-61) — struck deep in my heart and spirit, and I know that
what he’s shared throughout this book will encourage me as I encounter the “deserts”
and the joys ahead.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-80378130462626900862014-10-11T07:35:00.001-04:002014-10-11T07:35:30.083-04:00Book Review: McKnight's Kingdom Conspiracy<span style="font-size: large;">Now it's <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/brazospress/brazos-press-bloggers" target="_blank">Brazos Bloggers' turn.</a> This is a brief review -- well, brief for someone used to 1200-to-2000-word reviews, anyway -- of Scot McKnight, <i>Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church</i> (Brazos, 2014).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I enjoy reading Scot McKnight's work, even when I disagree with him (usually on relatively minor points). And I don't disagree with him here, for the most part. What he's trying to do, and largely succeeding at, in his new book is to reconcile two Christian views of "kingdom" -- as theology, as language, and as activity -- that have tended to diverge over the past century and are doing so again today. McKnight casts one stream of thought and practice, which tends to aim its "kingdom" work toward "the common good," social justice, and culture-making, as "skinny jeans kingdom" people, and the other, the kingdom-as-personal-salvation camp, as "pleated pants kingdom" people (including, cleverly, "the arch-Pleated Pants scholar" George Eldon Ladd, p. 10). Those who recognize themselves as falling into one camp or the other will find their views and practices represented well here, both in strengths and weaknesses. For those folks, and for the rest of us who find ourselves somewhere between the two extremes, this book serves as a fine biblical theology of church, kingdom, and mission. It's very readable, too: the most challenging words in the body of the text are perhaps <i>eschatological</i> and <i>parabolic</i>, while readers who want to go deeper can plunge into sources recommended in the endnotes (as when McKnight notes Tom Wright's recent two-volume work <i>in its entirety</i> in <i>partial </i>support of a point on first-century use of "Son of God" imagery, p. 132!).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Throughout <i>Kingdom Conspiracy</i>, McKnight nicely balances his attention to many facets of kingdom thought and action, including the tensions of its growth in this world (classically, the "already" and the "not yet", and as both "realm" and "reign"); the biblical (and deeply contextual) story that it encapsulates; and what it looks like to live out the kingdom in mission, in vocation, and in public and political presence -- or, simply put, what it means to embody the kingdom in and as the church. There are moments when the author nearly loses that balance. I wish he'd added more nuance to his study of the New Testament's view of "the world" and Jesus' confrontation with its idolatrous worldviews (pp. 17, 60): a brief focus on the way that <i>Rome </i>saw the world (as the <i>oikoumen</i></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>ē</i>, the inhabited world/culture that it had inherited from Greece) might have strengthened McKnight's discussion of culture and counterculture, both here and through the rest of the volume. But that missing nuance does little to hurt his overall argument. This book is highly recommended for anyone -- no matter how close or distant their relationship with "church" -- who has ever struggled with how the church is to embody God's kingdom in the world.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-20567751545460349242014-10-09T07:19:00.000-04:002014-10-09T07:19:33.127-04:00Book Review: Next: Pastoral Succession That Works<span style="font-size: large;">I've written short book reviews here for <a href="http://thespeakeasy.info/" target="_blank">Speakeasy</a> and <a href="https://www.librarything.com/" target="_blank">LibraryThing.com</a> -- and I'll be starting to add some for <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/" target="_blank">NetGalley</a>, <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/brazospress/brazos-press-bloggers" target="_blank">Brazos Press Bloggers</a> and <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/bakerbooks/baker-books-bloggers" target="_blank">Baker Books Bloggers</a>. This will be the first example for Baker. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Next: Pastoral Succession That Works</i>, by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird (Baker, 2014).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">From its first words -- "Every pastor is an interim pastor" -- to its diverse potential audience, there's much to commend about <i>Next</i>. The authors have clearly done their homework concerning the challenges of transitioning from one pastor to the next; in fact, it's their work with pastors and churches whose transitions didn't work well (and many others that did) that drives their concern. Whether the reader is a newly appointed pastor, one approaching retirement or a move to another post, or a new or longtime church board member, there are lessons worth remembering here. The authors are also aware that many of their readers will find themselves in more than one of the above roles over the course of their ministerial lives -- which makes this as valuable as a later reference text as it is for a first-time reading. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Vanderbloemen and Bird wisely note that there's no single formula for a successful succession from one pastor to the next, but they aren't afraid to name names in recounting disastrous transitions, either (nor to protect anonymity, when necessary); and to their credit, even as they gather lessons from such disasters, they're careful not to make too much of the scandal involved, but to call their readers toward greater expressions of grace. They also explore the close interconnections of pastoral vocation, church mission, and personal identity, which (when undervalued) can make pastoral succession such a sensitive issue. And as the spouse of a pastor just entering her second year of ministry at our church, I appreciate that at least some of their stories involve female pastors (notwithstanding the males shown in transition on the front cover!). I did wish that more of their examples drew from smaller churches, but I recognize the difficulty of getting accurate data there. I wondered, too, if there wasn't too much emphasis on "seamless" transitions: a succession should hopefully be smooth, yes, but isn't there a potential idol to be dealt with in wanting it to show no seams, no visible places of continuity (or healthy discontinuity!) at all? That said, there's a great deal of wisdom in this book, including the "Next Steps" at the end of each chapter -- many of which will offer helpful challenges to anyone with a role to play in their church's next pastoral succession.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-1897027758917800352014-09-13T14:07:00.001-04:002014-09-14T09:44:25.347-04:00The Temporary Grease Monkey <span style="font-size: large;">Occasionally, during the long haul of our renovations, amid the self-castigating hollers that emanated from this or that corner of the house, Karen would hear a satisfied little chuckle, often followed by my observation that she, in her wisdom, had married "a clever little monkey": some little detail of a renovation task had finally gone just like I wanted it to, and though this was not what I had trained for, I could be momentarily proud of an accomplishment.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, after months of job-searching and continuing to work on little bits and pieces of the house, it's time to see how well this clever little monkey can pick up some new manual skills: for about three months, I'll be helping out in a friend's auto shop. Again, not my first choice, but I'm happy to do it, and I may even survive it (though the first six weeks, where the job overlaps with the second half of my thrice-weekly stationary cycling workouts, should be, um, interesting). It'll bring in some of that very helpful stuff called money, and it should end, neatly, just about the same time as the New Testament survey course I'll be teaching at Tyndale begins. But it does mean that I'll have to reassess (again) just how to fit writing into my schedule. It's likely I won't have a lot of time to reflect on that here -- but I've already created some space in the fall schedule to work on book reviews and a few other small projects, and </span><span style="font-size: large;">hopefully whatever God has in store for me after that will allow a little more writing time than full-time automotive work does. Maybe I'll even manage, through this interval, to learn a little more discipline with my time, so that I can make better use of what time I have after that. Here's hoping.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-60961785555018095982014-09-13T13:46:00.001-04:002014-09-14T09:44:37.653-04:00Psbelated Psalmody Psunday: 92<span style="font-size: large;">The slow-yet-busy end of summer has done its level best to keep my family's Would-be Blogging Triumvirate (<a href="http://ourjarocookies.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Jenny</a>, <a href="http://severaldrafts.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Chandra</a> and my own self) from blogging very prolifically -- and tomorrow I will note some changes that will probably keep me from writing anything more ambitious than book reviews and short stories for the next three months. But right now, let's make up for just a little lost time (or time otherwise spent, anyhow), with a long-overdue reflection on Psalm 92. Some six weeks ago, when I'd planned to write on this psalm after returning from family cottage time, I'd done some considerable meditating on it -- not with the goal of interpreting it with particular depth (which Chandra did, quite eloquently), but rather treating it as a source of short breath-prayers. Like Chandra, I was struck by the call to "flourish," but I'll spend my moments in this instance on the end of the psalm as a whole, using the Common English Bible's rendering:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Those who have been replanted in the Lord’s house</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> will spring up in the courtyards of our God.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">They will bear fruit even when old and gray;</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> they will remain lush and fresh in order to proclaim:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> “The Lord is righteous.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> He’s my rock.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> There’s nothing unrighteous in him.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Replanted in the Lord's house." Having replanted african violets last week and an orchid just this morning, there's an immediacy to that image for me -- but not just because of gardening. At my church lately as well as in our house, life has been, to put it simply, <i>hard</i>. Rocky. Unyielding. Not an easy place to grow. The prospect of being uprooted from here and replanted to "spring up in the courtyards of our God" seemed vastly preferable. There have been many reminders, <i>too </i>many reminders, that even while I'm in my late thirties, my body is already beginning to operate like it's old, gray, and unfruitful. Not that I'm giving up on it -- the cycling study that I've started participating in at Mac is ensuring that my muscles still know how to work occasionally (even as it also affirms that my recovery time isn't what it once was!). But it will suffice to say at this point that the "in order" in the next line is a much-needed reminder: the promise of holy reinvigoration comes with a missional corollary attached. "T</span><span style="font-size: large;">hey will remain lush and fresh <i>in order to proclaim</i>" that the Lord is righteous.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">May my life in the coming week, as much or as little as I appear to flourish, proclaim that the Lord is my rock, and that he knows what quality of soil I need in which to grow best.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-1030136846382795262014-07-09T07:42:00.002-04:002014-07-09T07:42:38.405-04:00Being Like Ridley<span style="font-size: large;">If you've been following this new daily-blogging of mine and you're becoming concerned that this habit's going to eat up another small chunk of your day (and mine) <i>ad infinitum</i>, fear not: for at least the next week, I'll be transplanting the daily habit from blogging to fiction writing. I'm not in the least giving up on finding "real" (read: paying) work, but I'm eager to see whether I can write as regularly as I have been doing lately here, even if it's just a few paragraphs -- but in a different medium. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As I've mentioned before, I have a reasonably good-looking CV of nonfiction writing, but I've also published one (very) short story and am eager to publish more. I've finished a few others and started several more, but I need to quit stalling and follow through on getting these finished, polished, and published. Why the urgency? Three reasons I can think of offhand. One: as new ideas for fiction and nonfiction writing bubble up, I worry that some of the older ones may fall off the back shelf of my brain, so I'd like to get them on paper and "out there" to see if they're worth anything in anyone's estimation besides mine, Karen's, and occasionally Chandra's. Two: for those who've picked up on a resurfacing theme of mortality and fragility in my recent posts, that's largely due to the fifth anniversary of my father's death; I chose not to blog about it, but Chandra did so with tender depth <a href="http://severaldrafts.blogspot.ca/2014/06/a-successful-grief.html" target="_blank">here.</a> Our earthly father often dreamed up ideas for stories and novels, but as far as I know he only committed one of them to paper in his adult life, a novella that he attempted to publish but (again, as far as I know) took no further when it was turned down. I'd like to get further than that -- preferably quite a bit further -- in whatever time I have left, whether that's forty days or forty years. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Three: I like creating things. That desire shows up in cooking and baking, and over the past year it's been evident in the satisfaction of taking on and completing tasks in our renovations, but it's most apparent when I write, especially when I write stories. Science fiction has known many skilled world-builders, both literary and cinematic; one of the best-known of the latter category is Ridley Scott, whose place in SF canon would probably be secure even if he'd retired after making <i>Blade Runner</i>. But here's something he said about building another richly detailed world, that of <i>Gladiator</i>: </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"I love to create worlds, and every facet of that world has to work within the rules of the story. You must smell the battleground and experience the beauty and light of the golden city.” Sir Ridley makes world-building sound lovely and poetic, and it is; but it's also hard work, fun work, and as he acknowledges, <i>consistent </i>work. I'm not assuming here that I can create worlds as spellbinding as his (but taking the moral of <i>The Lego Movie</i> to heart, I'm also not assuming that I can't!), but with a little -- okay, a lot of -- practice, we'll see just what I can do.</span><br />
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Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-15532175144101647102014-07-08T07:25:00.000-04:002014-07-08T07:25:22.988-04:00Personal Eschatology<span style="font-size: large;">The two most immediate influences on my reflections today: Psalm 143, brought back to my attention by <a href="http://ourjarocookies.blogspot.ca/2014/07/psalmody-psunday-psalm-143.html" target="_blank">my cousin Jenny's blog</a>; </span><span style="font-size: large;">and </span><a href="http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2014/07/07/stanley-hauerwas-reflects-end-times-end-life/" style="font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">this interview with Stanley Hauerwas</a><span style="font-size: large;"> on themes of "the end" (the approaching end of his life, the "end times," and the end, i.e. the goal, of God's creation). The psalm's lamenting cries for help -- where verses 7 and 10, </span><span style="font-size: large;">"Tell me all about your faithful love come morning time because I trust you... Guide me by your good spirit into good land" (CEB), are astonishingly <i>among the most hopeful</i> -- reverberate in my hope-hungry soul. The interview has some fun and potentially controversial points (e.g, "</span><span style="font-size: large;">My reaction to the 'Left Behind' series is one of amusement and pathos...</span><span style="font-size: large;">I take it to be a judgment against the church that that kind of speculation has gained a foothold") that we'll leave for another day. More profound, more deceptively simple, and closer to the spirit of Ps 143 is this statement from later in the interview: "I </span><span style="font-size: large;">assume the Lord who draws me to death is the Lord who draws me into life."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Traditionally, when theologians and biblical interpreters talk eschatology (the study of "last things," and by extension, "end time" stuff), they've found it helpful to use "personal eschatology" as a category to discuss what happens (in a given text, such as Daniel or 1 Enoch, for instance) to the individual after death -- as opposed to what happens to the whole created order, whether at the end of time itself or after an epoch-defining moment of divine intervention. It's easy to wall off such eschatological stuff as having to do with the future (our future as individuals, or the world's future) in such a way that we don't have to think about what effect that future should have on the present. What Hauerwas is very good at doing, even in such a seemingly simple phrase as this (and what N. T. Wright has been doing, especially in the new <i>Paul and the Faithfulness of God</i>, from another angle), is forcing us to bring our beliefs about the future to bear on our choices in the present: put in theological terms, the question of how <i>eschatology </i>shapes <i>ethics</i>. (<i>Mission </i>is part of this discussion too, as Hauerwas hints with his reference to God's end/goal for creation.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Lord who draws me to death is the Lord who draws me into life</i>. So much is contained in this statement: Jesus as shepherd/guide on life's journey, even (especially) when approaching death; Jesus as the Lord who has overcome death and will do so again (Acts 2:36, for example, and 1 Cor 15) and thus has the authority to "draw" us into life, in this life and the next -- so that death is only a pause, a comma (thinking here of Donne's "Death, Be Not Proud" and its interpretation in Margaret Edson's play, <i>Wit</i>; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS-m0UAB3uQ" target="_blank">watch the clip from the film version here</a>). This life offers no certainty as to when it will end for any of us, so there seems so little that we can know for sure regarding personal eschatology. But, with Hauerwas, I know this: </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The Lord who draws me to death is the Lord who draws me into life. </i><span style="font-size: large;">In the meantime, with the psalmist, I will trust him to tell me of -- and to show me -- his faithful love, come morning.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-30661826614869966312014-07-07T09:12:00.001-04:002014-07-07T09:12:59.860-04:00Small-g gospels, and Being Poured Out<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Christian or not, we're all evangelists for something.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">For those who self-identify as Christians, as evangelists and/or evangelicals, the principal "good news" they share is the Gospel: the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, and how that story leads to our salvation. (Sadly, it's sometimes seemed easier for those who share this Gospel to condense it down to "bullet points," which can impoverish the story and over-emphasize the "bad news" side of it; but that's a rant for another day.) But in a more general and sometimes more secular way, </span><span style="font-size: large;">we all share good news about something that we're most excited about. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">True, "gospel" in the vernacular has come to mean something more along the lines of a given, a foundational truth -- as in to "take" such-and-such "as gospel." But the sense of such "good news" as something to be shared survives too, even if it's often hidden simply because we don't usually use the word gospel as a shorthand in that way. Social media testifies to this, every minute: while Facebook, Twitter, and the like can be chock-a-block with inane details that we forget as soon as we scroll past, they're also great platforms from which to proclaim "good news" in words and pictures: new engagements, wedding photos, pregnancies and births, memorably funny interactions with children, anniversaries, graduations, new jobs, and even the bittersweet memorials of lives that were long and well lived or cut tragically short. The same social media platforms boast less momentously good news, too -- of encouraging thoughts, purportedly laugh-out-loud jokes, or the announcement that there'll be another season of that BBC program with whats-his-name, that detective who lives on Baker Street. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We do the same in our daily lives, sharing all these and other little joys. In a similar way to the "lowercase" sense of words like <i>spirit</i> and <i>inspiration </i>that I wrote about a few days ago, we can't help but spread lowercase-g gospels about the thing we're currently most excited about.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That's my cue to mention one an unpopular "gospel," one that can make people's skin crawl a bit (perhaps a little like the uppercase-G Gospel does, for those who may not want to hear it...?). Namely: donating blood.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Bragging time: I've donated a total of 40-some-odd times, counting donations in both the US and Canada. At the maximum pace of a donation every eight weeks, which works out to 13 every two years (these are whole blood donations; if you donate platelets, you can give more often), my official number of 31 donations in Canada will reach 100 around, oh, the year 2025 or so.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Confession time: <i>I really don't actually like giving blood</i>. It makes <i>my </i>skin crawl, too. I'm not afraid of needles and I don't get faint when I see blood, but I'd really rather they just beamed the blood out of me instead of sticking something in my arm that shouldn't be there. <i>But I still donate, and I still share the need to give blood as good news, as something that I'm eager to share, to see more people do</i>. I don't share it to the extent that it eclipses the uppercase-G Gospel; giving blood is a practice that <i>informs </i>my life, not the foundational story <i>of </i>my life. But it's still quite literally <i>vital: it saves lives</i> -- in a less eternal sense than the Christian "good news," yes, but in a very important earthly sense nonetheless.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And there is a connection, even if it's a mite subjective, to the Gospel. Philippians 2:17: Paul writes of his own mortality, knowing that he may not live to see the end of his imperial imprisonment, yet still joyful. "Even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you." Paul may not have had much control over his circumstances -- but <i>he sees his own expendability as an act of worship</i>. Contrast: I <i>do </i>have control over how much I'm being "poured out," at least in this blood-donating regard -- one pint at a time. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But it can still be an act of worship.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">An act of service to fellow human beings. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A regularly scheduled reminder of precisely how expendable I am.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We say we "give our lives" or "spend our lives" in service to a given goal. The good news is that there's another way in which we have the privilege to mean that, and to do something about it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Even if it doesn't mean quite all of that to you -- if it's an act of service, say, but not worship -- w</span><span style="font-size: large;">ill you join in, if you're eligible?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And whether you will or not, it's probably worth your time to think about this: what's your best "good news"? And why do you share it?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We're all evangelists for something.</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-77683963184144111912014-07-06T07:00:00.002-04:002014-07-06T07:04:52.974-04:00Psalmody Psunday: 123<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">What better way to keep up a new habit of blogging daily
than by shamelessly showing up late to the party that my sister Chandra and
cousin Jenny have been hosting on their blogs?</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">“Psalmody Psunday” is an idea that Jenny came up with as a ten-minute devotional/writing exercise/mutual blogging accountability tool for herself and
Chandra; you can read her explanation and first Psunday entry <a href="http://ourjarocookies.blogspot.ca/2014/03/psalmody-psunday-ps-123.html" target="_blank">here</a>, Chandra’s <a href="http://severaldrafts.blogspot.ca/2014/03/psalmody-psunday-intro-and-86.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and then consider joining in and sharing if you blog.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">For my first attempt at this, I’ve
chosen Ps 123 -- not because it’s the one Jenny began with (I’d read her
inter-textual meditation on 123, but later forgot about it until I reread it
this morning; thankfully my interpretation doesn’t repeat much of what she
says!) mainly because it stuck with me a few nights ago when I couldn’t sleep
and was reading the Psalms/Songs of Ascents -- the portion of Israel’s hymnbook
devoted to songs of pilgrimage, to be sung especially while journeying to
Jerusalem/Mount Zion, as for Passover.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">That night, with brain unable to sleep but with eyelids
sandpapery with fatigue, I must have been particularly prone to noticing the
images of eye movement: <i>I lift my eyes to
you</i> (123:1) <i>as the eyes of slaves
look</i> to their master’s and mistress’ hands (v. 2); <i>so our eyes</i> <i>look to the LORD
our God, till he shows us his mercy</i>.
Not by any means the only time the Psalms refer to our eyes “looking to”
the Lord, but one of the most stark, because of that unapologetic use of the
story of slave and master/mistress.
Nothing those who are willing to sing this song can do will introduce
the mercy required; it is in the master’s hand to give or to hold onto for
another moment. The slave can only
choose whether to keep “looking” -- or not; the singer or worshipper can only
choose whether to sing, and thus to rehearse this story, to take on such a
role, and to worship -- or not. For to
enter and rehearse is to begin to see the comparative “so” in this simile as
more causative, like a <i>so</i> that means <i>therefore</i>. <i>So our
eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy</i>.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-83810011547739154242014-07-05T07:56:00.001-04:002014-07-05T07:56:41.858-04:00Household Gods: Home is Where the Focus Is<span style="font-size: large;">July 15th will mark the first anniversary of the day we got the keys to our house. That evening, we walked around, giddy with the newness of it all, giggling to ourselves and at each other, and pulling back carpets to see what surprises lay underneath. (What shape were the carpets in, you ask? Well, 18 hours later, all but one of them were pulled up and taken to the dump. Nuff said?) The nicest surprise was the original oak flooring in the entryway and living-dining room -- and in pretty good shape, too. Months later, I would spend many hours carefully pulling up and replacing damaged boards, and with help from the intrepid Gary Moniz, we were to spend hours more refinishing the floors -- and we couldn't be happier with the results. But in one spot near the front of the room, what we found that first night was an area where there was probably a hearth: replaced with plywood when the carpet was installed, the area was framed by a nicely inlaid pattern of the same oak. Ultimately, we ended up making a labyrinth pattern with leftovers from the board-replacing process, and Karen installed a tile mosaic in the center. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">End result: what was once a hearth, quite literally the </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">focus </i><span style="font-size: large;">(Latin: hearth) of the room, later covered over, was now reclaimed as a focus, a focal point, again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now this got me thinking of ancient Rome (because, as Joss Whedon once admitted about a reference that reminded him of the <i>Millennium Falcon</i>, "most things do"). Thinking of ancient Roman religion may conjure up images of temples dedicated to this or that god or goddess, with offerings made in hopes of an answer to prayers for healing, say, or for a patron god to protect their home city. But Roman religious life was based in the home; based around the table and the hearth; around showing proper thankfulness to, and care for, the household gods. These were the <i>lares</i> and <i>penates</i> (<i>lar-ays</i>, <i>pen-ah-tays</i>; more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penates" target="_blank">here</a>) -- small statues and mementos representing hero-ancestors and guardians of the home, hearth and storerooms. (<i>Doctor Who</i> fans may remember a lovely reference to them in a 2008 episode set in Pompeii.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This history lesson has a point: as we continue to set up our home, what "household gods" are in evidence around our beautiful new <i>focus</i>, the former-and-now-repurposed hearth? It's tempting to think of "hearth and home" as outmoded, when so many of us have homes without fireplaces (or truly functional ones, at least). But I think it's still a vital question. What place does a TV -- or other means of visual entertainment -- have vis-a-vis other focal points in our homes? (It's not for nothing that I've recently placed a Playmobil figure of a Roman centurion atop our TV, as a reminder about this issue before picking up the remote.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> What about our smartphones? Our games? Our knickknacks and other pretty things that we devote, perhaps, just a little more attention to than they deserve? And more broadly, what might our practices and habits -- both within our homes and without -- tell us about where our hearts are, well, focused? Certainly there are good, life-giving answers to these questions; but there are also answers that are good because they reveal tiny little idolatries that we hadn't seen or copped to before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For where your treasure is, there your heart(h) will be also. </span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-31062440672005331802014-07-04T08:54:00.001-04:002014-07-04T08:54:15.160-04:00Disciplined, the Better to Model Disciplines?<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">As noted in several of my "more recent" posts, I've been struggling quite a lot with the transition out of the home-renovation stage -- more than eight months of intensive work, almost exclusively </span><span style="font-size: large;">on our house</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> (save for a few conference presentations and one teaching opportunity), which I had no time or spare energy to blog about so had to content myself with posting pics on Facebook -- and into the next chapter, In Which I Find Work That Results in a Paycheck. I have applied to everything from university presses, sessional teaching jobs and nonprofits on the one hand, to CostCo, Rona, Lowe's and local coffee shops on the other. I still believe I will find work, soon, possibly even work that utilizes some of my best vocational skills. And I haven't exactly been idle in the interim, either: I've done lots more little things for the house and assembled a book proposal, too. But the Waiting remains frustrating. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Not that the Father of the heavenly lights hasn't continued to give good gifts (James 1:17) along the way. Just yesterday, as I explained Karen's and my vision and purpose for the house at the request of a friend and colleague who will be blogging about us soon, one of his questions nudged me in such a way as to consider this Waiting in a slightly different way. Now, Karen and I have been careful to acknowledge that the founding of a house for spiritual direction and retreat doesn't mean that we've mastered related disciplines like silence, solitude, or sabbath-keeping; far from it! No, we've insisted, opening this house will require us to grow in these things in order to model and teach them to our guests. But even once we'd acknowledged that, it took Jim's questions yesterday to make me realize anew that those who would claim to model discipline<i>s</i> must often <i>first</i> be discipline<i>d</i>, both in the active sense (self-discipline) <i>and </i>the passive (being chastened -- but let's not digress here into a full discussion of what that looks like in the biblical tradition!). That is, it's almost as if God has us going through a time of re-learning certain disciplines -- in addition to the two years of similar experience, leading up to the envisioning of Lectio House -- <i>before</i> (not just <i>at the same time as</i>) we model them for others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So the Waiting isn't necessarily any easier. But it's a gift (a small one, he grumbled semi-gratefully) to know that what has felt like the psalmist's valley of the shadow of death will, with enough perspective, be only the shadow of discipline -- a dark place, yes, but one in which the light can still sometimes break through. </span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-67154266411771864022014-07-03T08:21:00.000-04:002014-07-03T08:28:35.164-04:00Gearing Up, after Forgetting<span style="font-size: large;">For many writers -- certainly including myself, and my sister Chandra, as frequently noted over at <a href="http://severaldrafts.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">her blog</a> -- the hardest part of writing is getting started, and getting started, and getting started again. Yes, writer's block can be paralyzing in the midst of any project, but it's especially so at the beginning, and at each new beginning-over (or "reginning"?) when momentum has been lost, or not yet built up<span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I talked a little about this in <a href="http://lonelyvocations.blogspot.ca/2012/09/writing-about-writing.html" target="_blank">my very first post</a>, quoting other authors in support of the point; here, I'll do the same with Vincent Lam's words from a July 2012 interview with George Stromboulopoulos. Every book project, Lam said, was akin to "</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">jumping back into an abyss...the work of
fiction is so intense, so personal, so demanding, that you have to be up for
it. You know, it's got to be from you. Otherwise, it's not going to be right."</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"> The principal fear, of course, is that it will <i>never</i> be right, that even if you've succeeded in writing before, you won't be able to repeat the feat on demand. At some point in there, other priorities begin to crowd in, like they do, and suddenly your number of blog posts (for example) for a given month, or even a given year, is accusingly small. And it becomes that much harder to start over again. The lesson applies to other areas of life, too, but it's at least as clear in writing as in any other field.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But what can we do but pray, take a deep breath, and then pick ourselves up and start forward again? I've heard and read Philippians 3 many times, but it's only today that I've noticed that the "one thing" Paul claims he does, in the marathon of his life and ministry, is <i>forgetting</i>. Or at least the one thing <i>begins </i>with forgetting: "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13b-14).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, following Paul (as imitating him, as he imitates his Lord, is much of what the rest of that letter is about), I choose to forget, and to strain forward, toward the prize. Right now, as I continue to job-hunt and figure out what my spiritual and compositional rhythms will look like now that our home renovations are "done," the shape that "straining" forward takes may be choosing to go to bed earlier, to get up earlier, to have more time to reflect, read, and write before the demands of each day begin to make themselves known. Probably to blog more consistently, too. (Or at least to try. Again. Have I failed to do so before? ...I forget.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">What is it that <i>you </i>need to forget? And what will <i>your </i>"straining" look like? </span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3231780949418661273.post-74483413813526692112014-07-02T17:38:00.002-04:002014-07-02T17:44:54.652-04:00Inspired, with a Medium-sized "i"<span style="font-size: large;">On and off for the past several months, I've been <strike>slogging through</strike> deeply enjoying </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">N. T. Wright's 2013 book, <i>Paul and the Faithfulness of God</i>. On page 1370 (just 150 pages to go!), I came across this:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"To approach the frontier between the human and the divine is also to approach the borders of language. The problem emerges, for instance, when [Paul] talks about 'the divine spirit bearing witness with our spirit' [Rom. 8:16], and the problem is only slightly alleviated when he talks instead about the divine spirit residing in a person's 'heart'. The questions English-language exegetes [interpreters] sometimes ask, as to whether 'spirit' should have a capital letter or not, indicating the divine spirit rather than the human one, shows well enough that there is fluidity of thought at this point."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This struck me particularly because of two recent items; bear with me, since they take a moment to join together. Item One: </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">a conversation I recently shared with a few colleagues, concerning whether or not God still calls people to be apostles today. Leaving aside the more prickly questions of whether (and how) spiritual gifts like prophecy, healing, and speaking in tongues still function today, we talked about what it was that made Jesus' original apostles, well, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">apostles</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">: they were commissioned as such, and sent as such; they were first among Jesus' companions and witnesses; empowered by Jesus' commissioning, and later more directly by the Holy Spirit, they did some pretty amazing stuff ("that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons," Mark 3:14-15). But then of course there's somebody like Paul, who gets to define himself as apostle to the Gentiles/nations, talks about himself as the least (and most undeserving) of the apostles, yet also tries to dictate what kind of spheres of authority he and other apostles have. (And, Paul might well add, he also added letter-writing to the apostolic job description!) All of that is to say that if we were to imagine an "apostolic" calling today, there might be considerable variations in what that would look like between those called. To take some of the loaded-ness out of that term, <i>apostolic</i>, maybe we should place it within the current conversation of the mission of God and his people: where those original, capital-A Apostles were commissioned in some sense directly by Jesus himself, today a lowercase-a</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> apostle could be one who is </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">sent on a mission</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">, not unlike a </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">missionary</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">, as part of the larger mission that God has given his people, the mission that reflects and expresses God's own mission to this beautiful but broken world. For the individual, that's a powerful incentive to do the things one is called to do, to live out a commission most faithfully (in some cases probably including, but not limited to, blogging more consistently).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Item two: a nearby Christian TV station has been using the Twitter hashtag "#inspiring" to promote discussion of its programming -- including its reruns of, say, <i>Gilmore Girls </i>and <i>The West Wing</i>. I happily admit that there are plenty of "inspiring" moments in these and other shows, and <i>West Wing</i> more than most. But it's almost always lowercase-i inspiring. Not that anyone can decide firmly where the break should be between capital and lowercase inspiration, much as Wright says about the use of Spirit and spirit above. The most stirring, Capra-esque moment of compassionate politics in Jed Bartlet's White House is still a far cry from the literal <i>in-spiration</i> of the first Pentecost; but who's to say that the Spirit cannot or would not move in and through that former moment, at which point <i>inspiration</i> becomes, arguably, <i>Inspiration</i>? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So: what do you think? What do you make of Wright's point about the limits of human language here, or my reflection on them? How are we supposed to work out these questions of big and little A's and I's (without getting too far into <i>Dr. Seuss's ABCs</i>!) that can make such a big difference in our spiritual formation and mission? Is there a happy medium-sized expression between the two extremes -- and if so, what does it look like?</span>Matthew Forrest Lowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01232755419928673718noreply@blogger.com3