Book Review: Todd Billings' Rejoicing in Lament

Time for another Brazos Bloggers review: J. Todd Billings, Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ (Brazos, 2015).

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.

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).

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.    

Book Review: Nathan Foster's Making of an Ordinary Saint

Here's another brief book review for Baker Books Bloggers: Nathan Foster's The Making of an Ordinary Saint: My Journey from Frustration to Joy with the Spiritual Disciplines (Baker Books, 2014).

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, Celebration of Discipline — 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.

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 Kingdom Conspiracy, 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.

Book Review: McKnight's Kingdom Conspiracy

Now it's Brazos Bloggers' turn. This is a brief review -- well, brief for someone used to 1200-to-2000-word reviews, anyway -- of Scot McKnight, Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church (Brazos, 2014).

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 eschatological and parabolic, 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 in its entirety in partial support of a point on first-century use of "Son of God" imagery, p. 132!).

Throughout Kingdom Conspiracy, 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 Rome saw the world (as the oikoumenē, 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.

Book Review: Next: Pastoral Succession That Works

I've written short book reviews here for Speakeasy and LibraryThing.com -- and I'll be starting to add some for NetGalley, Brazos Press Bloggers and Baker Books Bloggers.  This will be the first example for Baker. 

Next: Pastoral Succession That Works, by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird (Baker, 2014).

From its first words -- "Every pastor is an interim pastor" -- to its diverse potential audience, there's much to commend about Next. 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. 

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.

Psbelated Psalmody Psunday: 92

The slow-yet-busy end of summer has done its level best to keep my family's Would-be Blogging Triumvirate (Jenny, Chandra 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:

Those who have been replanted in the Lord’s house
    will spring up in the courtyards of our God.
They will bear fruit even when old and gray;
    they will remain lush and fresh in order to proclaim:
        “The Lord is righteous.
        He’s my rock.
        There’s nothing unrighteous in him.

"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, hard.  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, too 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.  "They will remain lush and fresh in order to proclaim" that the Lord is righteous.

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.

Personal Eschatology

The two most immediate influences on my reflections today: Psalm 143, brought back to my attention by my cousin Jenny's blog; and this interview with Stanley Hauerwas 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, "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 among the most hopeful -- reverberate in my hope-hungry soul.  The interview has some fun and potentially controversial points (e.g, "My reaction to the 'Left Behind' series is one of amusement and pathos...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 assume the Lord who draws me to death is the Lord who draws me into life."

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 Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 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 eschatology shapes ethics.  (Mission is part of this discussion too, as Hauerwas hints with his reference to God's end/goal for creation.)

The Lord who draws me to death is the Lord who draws me into life.  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, Wit; watch the clip from the film version here).  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: The Lord who draws me to death is the Lord who draws me into life.  In the meantime, with the psalmist, I will trust him to tell me of -- and to show me -- his faithful love, come morning.

Small-g gospels, and Being Poured Out

Christian or not, we're all evangelists for something.

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, we all share good news about something that we're most excited about.  
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. 

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 spirit and inspiration 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.

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.

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.

Confession time: I really don't actually like giving blood.  It makes my 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.  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 don't share it to the extent that it eclipses the uppercase-G Gospel; giving blood is a practice that informs my life, not the foundational story of my life.  But it's still quite literally vital: it saves lives -- in a less eternal sense than the Christian "good news," yes, but in a very important earthly sense nonetheless.

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 he sees his own expendability as an act of worship.  Contrast: I do have control over how much I'm being "poured out," at least in this blood-donating regard -- one pint at a time.  

But it can still be an act of worship.
An act of service to fellow human beings.  
A regularly scheduled reminder of precisely how expendable I am.

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.

Even if it doesn't mean quite all of that to you -- if it's an act of service, say, but not worship -- will you join in, if you're eligible?

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?

We're all evangelists for something.

Psalmody Psunday: 123

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?  “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 here, Chandra’s here, and then consider joining in and sharing if you blog.  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.

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 lift my eyes to you (123:1) as the eyes of slaves look to their master’s and mistress’ hands (v. 2); so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy.  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 so that means therefore.  So our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy.

Household Gods: Home is Where the Focus Is

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.  

End result: what was once a hearth, quite literally the focus (Latin: hearth) of the room, later covered over, was now reclaimed as a focus, a focal point, again.

Now this got me thinking of ancient Rome (because, as Joss Whedon once admitted about a reference that reminded him of the Millennium Falcon, "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 lares and penates (lar-ays, pen-ah-tays; more here) -- small statues and mementos representing hero-ancestors and guardians of the home, hearth and storerooms.  (Doctor Who fans may remember a lovely reference to them in a 2008 episode set in Pompeii.)

This history lesson has a point: as we continue to set up our home, what "household gods" are in evidence around our beautiful new focus, 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.) 

 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.

For where your treasure is, there your heart(h) will be also. 

Disciplined, the Better to Model Disciplines?

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 on our house (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.  

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 disciplines must often first be disciplined, both in the active sense (self-discipline) and 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 -- before (not just at the same time as) we model them for others.

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. 

Gearing Up, after Forgetting

For many writers -- certainly including myself, and my sister Chandra, as frequently noted over at her blog -- 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.  

I talked a little about this in my very first post, 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 "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."  The principal fear, of course, is that it will never 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.

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 forgetting.  Or at least the one thing begins 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).

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.)

What is it that you need to forget?  And what will your "straining" look like? 

Inspired, with a Medium-sized "i"

On and off for the past several months, I've been slogging through deeply enjoying N. T. Wright's 2013 book, Paul and the Faithfulness of God.  On page 1370 (just 150 pages to go!), I came across this:

"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."

This struck me particularly because of two recent items; bear with me, since they take a moment to join together.  Item One: 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, apostles: 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, apostolic, 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 apostle could be one who is sent on a mission, not unlike a missionary, 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).

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, Gilmore Girls and The West Wing.  I happily admit that there are plenty of "inspiring" moments in these and other shows, and West Wing 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 in-spiration 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 inspiration becomes, arguably, Inspiration? 

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 Dr. Seuss's ABCs!) 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?

Break, I prithee, break

It's almost the end of the play: King Lear.

The old, stormy-tempered king is dying.  And here's one of his remaining friends, Kent: "Break," he cries, "I prithee, break!"

If you've seen the series Slings and Arrows (and if you haven't, you should), you may remember Paul Gross (yes, the Mountie from Due South) whispering this to William Hutt -- but that's beside the point.  The point is, Kent hasn't given up on Lear yet.  In a moment, he'll see that it's time to let go -- "vex not his ghost" -- but he's not there yet.  This Kent still desperately wants Lear to "break" away from his path, from letting his life slip away.

Sometime during the past few weeks, Kent's words became a central part of my prayer life.  Yes, I know God's not a flawed, stormy, dying old king.  But the urgency of the need is captured there.  And yes, there are people praying right this moment whose need is more desperate than mine.  Nonetheless, I cry out to God, the God who has a tendency to break into our stories with his own: break (in), I prithee, break (in)!  Show up, as you have before and will do again!  Bring me meaningful work, and favor for my book proposal, and a return to the health I (think I) had before the renovations -- and those are just the top of the list.

And I hear the echoes of all the Scriptures about waiting on, and/or hoping in, the Lord.  So I wait, actively, earnestly.  And I pray.  

Break, I prithee, break.

Sound the Retreat!

Time to sound the retreat.

Why has it been almost 7 months since I last blogged?  As all four of my most regular readers well know, the reason is that Karen and I bought a house last June, and took possession and began renovating in July.  This is what we call Lectio House: a small, urban centre for spiritual direction and retreat, operating in our home.  But in order to make it livable and inviting, we've had to do some major, if largely cosmetic, alterations.  I'll probably write more (*surprised gasp*) about the whole process at more length and depth eventually - the idea of "wrighting" a house is pretty appealing - but for now I will let it be enough to say that this has absorbed almost all of my attention and energy for the last half-year, that this will likely continue for another month at least, and that this is in many ways a profoundly good thing: over the past year, Karen and I have discerned that this house is a significant part of what we are called to do together.  If recent endeavors of learning to mortise and hang doors, paint wood paneling, and lay bamboo flooring will get us there, then  it's all to the good. 

But for two days, it's time for a retreat of our own.  Our friends Peter and Cheryl Tigchelaar have graciously accommodated us at their lovely home so that we can rest tired bodies and worn-out souls.  So that soon we can start the ministry of Lectio House, officially, from a good place of restfulness.

So sound the retreat.  And then it's back to flooring, with a little grading and editing to keep things fun.

Living on Consecrated Time

Writing is hard.  Writing consistently is much harder.

I'm sitting between flights at O'Hare, feeling like a zombie after yesterday's stomach flu, but that's okay here -- most people look like zombies at airports.  I'll be better tomorrow, probably, and better still the day after that.

But my writing, and my writing habits, may not be better, unless I do something about it.

It's two days later, and I'm feeling almost myself again.  I've been thinking and praying over this for a while now.  Here's where things stand: I've had some success over the past several months with my writing, with three short articles published in a popular magazine; several papers and workshop presentations given (which often/eventually become articles or book chapters) and several more to come over the rest of this year; and ideas that continue to percolate in my fiction writing, which still comes in fits and starts but continues to be both fun and rewarding (aesthetically, if not yet financially).  And other good, sustaining things are happening, too, as the plans for the spiritual direction and retreat center that Karen and I call Lectio House are growing well.  But my blogging (obviously) and my literary journalling (trust me) are occasional at best, and everything I've tried this year to make more consistent time for more consistent writing has been, for all intents and purposes, a bust.

It's time for that last part to change.  At a particularly frustrated point a few weeks ago, I assessed all this, looked at my calendar, and admitted to myself that I wouldn't have any time to make effective changes until after our recent (local) move and a conference that followed shortly afterward.  So I picked today, June 7, as a day to start making the aforementioned effective changes.  A moment to question my own commitment to writing (and more broadly to study as a spiritual discipline; see my earlier posts on a rule of life).  A one-day reminder to myself that I am living on what we might call consecrated time.

Consecrated time.  Time set apart for a holy purpose.  Time to ask (often, and honestly) whether I'm doing the things well that God has made me to do.  Time to write, without neglecting my relationships or my responsibilities -- but without letting either of those things become idols, either.  Time to make the most of whatever time I have left on this earth, refusing to let that become more cliche than it already is.

Time to get started (all over again, "for reals," etc.).

Think I'm not serious?  (That's at least partly rhetorical.  And self-addressed.)  Then watch this space.  And watch me.  While you're at it, read Philippians 3:16-17.  (That's somewhat self-addressed, too.)

Time to get going.

The Rule of Life (Part II)

Back to Simon Chan's Spiritual Theology again, as I continue my Lenten goal of formulating a rule of life: retaining a "communal aspect of reading and listening" helps us "become more fully members of the community of the Scripture" (p. 164).  That, in turn, is a distillation of what Chan's said earlier: "reading the Scripture is not just a pretext for preaching a nicely crafted sermon; it is a traditioning process. The flip side of reading is listening, and listening is no less a communal activity" (116).

Helping others (and myself) to rediscover that "traditioning," to "re-tradition," is (I think) one place where the different facets of my calling conjoin.  On the one hand, this isn't news; it's just the latest way of saying something that I've been working out since my junior year of undergrad or thereabouts (the first time I remember someone naming my gift of hospitality, as such).  On the other hand, to finally have a synthetic handle for this thing that I do -- and that Karen and I do together -- is a valuable thing.  (If you haven't read what Madeleine L'Engle and Michael Knowles each have to say about how vital a name is, you should.)  One could do worse than to say that "re-traditioning" holds one's rule of life together...and that in my case, study and hospitality, and the inward and outward cultivation of reading and listening in community, are some of re-traditioning's principal facets.

Maybe I'll walk around with that for a few days.  If you are predisposed toward prayer, pray for me (and us together) as I do so -- and as we pray through some potentially major vocational decisions, coming up over the next month.  And if you'd like to be involved in that conversation, let me know.

The Rule of Life (Part 1)

With this year's Lenten campaigns -- "give it up for Lent" and "Fastbook" (fasting from Facebook), to name two -- frequenting my Facebook feed and probably yours too, I've been thinking and praying about what I might do for Lent that would be more than a self-help project or the liturgical equivalent of a New Year's resolution.  

(I should say at this point that I do think it's a good thing that Advent and Lent are beginning to receive broader attention within the church; I'm just concerned that this will prove faddish, that each season will be sucked in by the marketing power of the not-so-holidays that Christmas and Easter have become.  But I digress.  Obviously.)

What I've arrived at is to set a rule of life.  This is a practice from the ancient church, one most of us associate (maybe too much so) with the monastic tradition, partly because that's where the most famous examples are found, as in the Benedictine Rule or the Franciscan Rule.  Simply put, whether folks were living apart for Jesus as hermits or in community, they needed rules in place to make sure their lives were consistently pointing in Jesus' direction.

As interest in missional living and monastic practice grows here in Hamilton (see my article for TrueCity about one such local initiative, here) and other places in North America, the construction of a rule of life is becoming more popular, too.  And if I want to assemble a rule of life (both individually and with Karen) during Lent, I need to read a little bit more of what's being written on such rule formation these days.  But for the moment, I'm still chewing on what a text from a course in my master's program has to say, as it places the rule in the context of systematic theology.  Simon Chan (not to be confused with the current bestseller, Francis Chan), in his Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (IVP, 1998), writes, "Embracing a rule of life means allowing our lives to be reconstituted by this new pattern...a rule does not mean that a greater part of our time is taken up with performing religious duties. Rather, the rhythm that a good rule establishes helps us maintain our spiritual focus" (190-91).  Chan has lots of other good stuff to say about discerning a personal and a "common" (communal) rule; as I've read here and elsewhere that part of rule formation is determining which spiritual disciplines are (or should be) primary in one's life, the one other quote I'll cite right now falls under Chan's thoughts on "Guidelines for spiritual reading" as a discipline.  In response to common neglect of the habit of careful, meditative reading skills, he argues that the church "could be a vital re-forming agent, but it has to re-create itself as a reading-listening community" (162-63).  That resonates, in part because of potential ministry some plans that Karen and I are praying through.  And I will let that and other thoughts resonate as we continue through Lent.  My first instinct is to say that helping the church to "re-create itself as a reading-listening community" describes two of the disciplines that I already know that I need to recognize as core values in my Rule: study and hospitality.  But we'll see what some more prayer produces on this Lenten journey.