N.T. Wright on Scripture July 16, 2009

A friend sent me this after telling me about the longer article it’s part of (which I have not yet read). I think I like what he is saying. Still chewing on it.

Thoughts, anyone?

…God (as in Acts 1 and Matthew 28, which we looked at earlier) wants to catch human beings up in the work that he is doing. He doesn’t want to do it by-passing us; he wants us to be involved in his work. And as we are involved, so we ourselves are being remade. He doesn’t give us the Holy Spirit in order to make us infallible—blind and dumb servants who merely sit there and let the stuff flow through us. So, he doesn’t simply give us a rule book so that we could just thumb through and look it up. He doesn’t create a church where you become automatically sinless on entry. Because, as the goal and end of his work is redemption, so the means is redemptive also: judgement and mercy, nature and grace. God does not, then, want to put people into little boxes and keep them safe and sound. It is, after all, possible to be so sound that you’re sound asleep. I am not in favor of unsoundness; but soundness means health, and health means growth, and growth means life and vigor and new directions. The little boxes in which you put people and keep them under control are called coffins. We read scripture not in order to avoid life and growth. God forgive us that we have done that in some of our traditions. Nor do we read scripture in order to avoid thought and action, or to be crushed, or squeezed, or confined into a de-humanizing shape, but in order to die and rise again in our minds. Because, again and again, we find that, as we submit to scripture, as we wrestle with the bits that don’t make sense, and as we hand through to a new sense that we haven’t thought of or seen before, God breathes into our nostrils his own breath—the breath of life. And we become living beings—a church recreated in his image, more fully human, thinking, alive beings.

That, in fact, is (I believe) one of the reasons why God has given us so much story, so much narrative in scripture. Story authority, as Jesus knew only too well, is the authority that really works. Throw a rule book at people’s head, or offer them a list of doctrines, and they can duck or avoid it, or simply disagree and go away. Tell them a story, though, and you invite them to come into a different world; you invite them to share a world-view or better still a ‘God-view’. That, actually, is what the parables are all about. They offer, as all genuine Christian story-telling the does, a world-view which, as someone comes into it and finds how compelling it is, quietly shatters the world-view that they were in already. Stories determine how people see themselves and how they see the world. Stories determine how they experience God, and the world, and themselves, and others. Great revolutionary movements have told stories about the past and present and future. They have invited people to see themselves in that light, and people’s lives have been changed. If that happens at a merely human level, how much more when it is God himself, the creator, breathing through his word… (N.T. Wright).

life in-between July 1, 2009

After small group tonight, a friend and I noted how many of us are in perplexing “in-between” stages of life. Half of our group of young adults are currently job-searching. In a way, that’s disheartening, but in another it’s encouraging since it means we can support and understand each other. Most of us didn’t expect to find ourselves in this spot at this time of our lives. When I was younger, I thought maybe by age twenty-six I’d have my life stretching clearly in front of me like a straight road. I’d be able to pinpoint my goals and come closer each day to reaching them.

Instead, every aspect of my life is surrounded by question marks. The possibilities are endless, and to my occasional dissatisfaction, I still cannot pinpoint specific goals that I feel “called” to fulfill in the long-term. I have goals, but they are either short term ones or abstract ones (neither are less important, I am finding).

The interesting thing is that my position now – without a clearly defined pathway before me – is very similar to what I faced post-college graduation in 2006. Circumstantially, I’m in the same boat. Emotionally and spiritually, though, I am in a different place. Only God’s grace can explain this change. Instead of depression and doubt, I see doors of opportunity around me. I’m confused by them, but also excited. I know God will provide, and I know it will probably be in ways I don’t expect (or even particularly want, until the right time). I’ve come through difficult times before, when God seemed silent for a while and then spoke loudly enough for me to hear. That will happen again. Thanks to Him that I can say that – for the gift of faith. Although it flickers and wavers daily, it’s there, like He is there.

formulating my philosophy of education… June 18, 2009

…with the help of For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay. I’m enjoying it immensely. This is the book that inspired my mom when she embarked on homeschooling in the early ’90s. It’s about more than homeschooling, though, and doesn’t apply to just those who choose a certain type of education. It’s more a philosophy of life. And for me, it rings true and clarifies why I have such issues understanding the traditional education system. (And also such issues with legalistic Christianity.) Verbatim quotations will explain all of this better than I can, though, so here’s a smattering.

(When evaluating a Christian atmosphere, ask these questions.) Do they enjoy the living reality of a relationship with God and His Word? Do they feel impelled to masticate “Christian” matter and give predigested pellets to the children morning, noon, and night? Do they understand the truth of Christianity? Do they accept its moral framework, and yet believe in our own independent responsibility? Are they living in a tiny little world, a sort of Christian box? Are they afraid of the breadth of life: its art, music, books, activities–-thinking that all life apart from the “spiritual” is “worldly”?

The child should enjoy an atmosphere where life can be explored in a rich way. Little holy hedges are not what is wanted. Understanding the objective certainty of the truth of God gives an atmosphere that is free from fear. We can face up to people’s ideas. Questions can be asked. We can talk about them right in the open. Indeed, the child should be able to know, read, or listen to people who hold all sorts of ideas. As they mature, it is absolutely imperative that they be trusted to have access to current “worldly” thought. Some of it has true greatness (say a play, essay, or book). They should be able to enjoy what is good, and yet be able to see what ideas are wrong.

This open frank atmosphere can only be achieved when those who produce it are aware of what is good, pure, and of a good report (cf. Philippians 4:8).

This approach makes perfect sense to me! Its goal is to nurture kids who can appreciate and identify beauty and truth even when it’s found amidst the world’s other trash. It’s a philosophy not based upon fear.

Later in the book, Macaulay talks about her childhood at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland.

But there are some aspects of my childhood that I point to. We had a sound grounding in God’s Word. We shared in life with our parents, and they became people who dared to trust God. We saw prayers answered. It wasn’t theory. We could talk about real questions, and discuss possible answers together. If there were problems, we weren’t kept in the dark. We knew about the ideas behind the “anxious questions” while our childhood gave us the sort of wholesome life Charlotte Mason talks about. That helped protect us from being dragged down by peer pressure. But we not only heard about other ideas, we met all sorts of people. We could sit up and hear the conversation of a brilliant atheist, a teenage agnostic, a Hindu. We could see the despair of the existentialist and ache with the lostness of someone who was trying to live as if he wasn’t made as a human being. We could listen to the logic of the Christian ideas as they were discussed. We could see where the ideas of the other point of view led: “If what you say is true, then . . .” Often the conclusions of the humanist argument simply didn’t fit reality, or just couldn’t work.

Again, it’s a philosophy not motivated by fear. Their parents dared to trust God, to let their children hear the other options out there and trusted their kids to make the right decision and to see the logic as well as the truth of Christianity.

…We have tolerated a separation between the “secular” and the “religious.” Thus people have had to close their minds to all other aspects of life and intellectual questions when they entered the “faith” box, or that of “experience.” It is as if they were called upon to leave philosophy, literary questions, art, social questions, historical views, political action, science, and so on in a sort of mental parking lot outside the “religious experiences.” Charlotte Mason allowed no such division between the “secular” and the “religious.” She understood that the whole of reality is part of God’s reality. . . We can and should appreciate, execute, and learn about art, music, literature, history, math, science, philosophy, and so on–for their own sakes.

Pardon my enthusiasm, but… yes, yes, yes!

There are many ways of applying the “Christianity that is true to the total reality.” We don’t have to make every day a sort of Sunday school lesson to achieve this. There are several dangers in that sort of approach. Too much pious talk, talk, talk. Too many “holy moments.” Expecting continual religious experiences. Not letting children “be.” Not letting them wonder, puzzle, and ask.

On the other side, we live in a time when our culture is all-invading, all-persuasive. The population, as a whole, is led like a pig with a ring in its snout. Unthinking opinions are the order of the day. The consensus of opinion is more important than what is right or true. Secular humanists preach that there is such a thing as a neutral stance; yet their world view comes over loud and clear as the “obvious” one. We live in a passive age. “Let the experts decide” about the ethics of abortion, the practices of the educational system, the legality of family laws.

It is an imperative priority, as never before, to allow our children to learn to think, understand, and see the central truths quite explicitly and clearly. This is a central part of the “Christian” aspect of our education.

Again, it’s the idea of educating children to think for themselves; to introduce them to the world in a way that nurtures wisdom instead of naivete. The goal is to educate a generation of thinkers. We desperately need such thinkers in this passive, media-obsessed, opinion-driven culture.

“Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).

I am thankful… May 16, 2009

… that I’m healthy (except for stress)

… for modern medicine, without which two of my immediate family members would not be alive

… for the ability to write, talk, and communicate with others, and grow in my knowledge and understanding

… for great literature and the arts

… for grace…Christ’s sacrificial love and the way His death and resurrection make a close relationship with Him possible

… for supportive, prayerful, understanding, wonderful friends who challenge me, comfort me, and love me the way I am, despite my shortcomings

… for my family, who love me unconditionally and who always “get” my weird sense of humor (and I “get” theirs)

… for the beauty of creation, especially in springtime!

… for the promise of eternal life and better times to come

… for the promise of abundant spiritual life here and now, because of Christ living His life in and through me

… for no more lesson planning, at least for now!

… for the beauty of God’s Word and the way it is alive to speak to me thousands of years after it was written

… for Stabilo pens from Germany, in lots of different colors (pens just make me happy!)

… for coffee and chocolate, and all the pleasant people-and-place-related associations I have with each

pondering the puzzle pieces May 5, 2009

(Sorry for the title; I can’t resist some cheesy alliteration.)

I finished prepping for school and am sitting here gazing out my window at the extremely green and lush world outside. It’s gloomy today, but it feels like rainy season in the tropical jungle. Tennessee spring is very alive, and I love it.

I’m trying not to think too hard right now or I’ll get worried about not having a job next year. If you think of me, pray that God will provide something… I’ve left the door open for either school and either way, at this point, I feel would be a blessing. If He has something different for me than teaching next year, though, I’m open to that as well. I guess I’m just not excited about a long job search (as some of my longsuffering friends are in the midst of) if that be the case. So, I’m praying for clarity and meanwhile, I’m distracting myself with other things and not pondering the issue too much since there is nothing I can do about it.

My life’s been far from boring lately. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and praying, and wanting once again to write a lot. To sort out my thoughts, to process what’s going on, and because I still believe it is part of my “calling,” in some way I don’t yet understand. Journal writing comes easily, but everything else seems difficult right now. I have lots of thoughts but they don’t organize themselves neatly into articles. I need to figure out how to lasso them and pin them down into nice little three-main-point essays.

But maybe life is too complicated, too intricate for formulaic calculations. Maybe the puzzle pieces I’m seeing are bits of a much larger picture; a picture I cannot yet see and therefore cannot define. In that case, I yearn to write about it but I can only describe the bits and pieces; not the whole.

Often, I wish I could glimpse the future and see the larger picture. But I remain feeble-minded, weak, and dependent on God… and there is something beautiful in that. I need Him now, more than ever.

My brother comes home today from grad school! He’s living here over the summer, which makes me happy. We stay in fairly close contact, but phone and IM chat don’t compare with spending real time together. I’m anticipating a fun summer. I’m on the home stretch… Since May 20 is a field day, May 19 is my last day of class. Soon, soon!

a fruitful life? March 31, 2009

Lately, I’ve been anxious and scattered in my thinking. My schedule seems to fill with unexpected items that clutter my mind and increase my anxiety for fear I’ll forget to fulfill a commitment or not do it well. As always, I fear failure. I cringe when my imperfections are brought before my eyes through mistakes. And, I’ve realized, the rising anxiety also reflects a fear of my life becoming a waste — an unfruitful existence.

There’s a bookmark shoved in my Bible at the start of 2 Peter, and for some reason I keep flipping to that page. Verses 3 and 4 of chapter 1 are underlined, with the reminder “BFA 2007″ written in the margin. Those were the theme verses of my second year at Black Forest Academy. I pondered them then, with bland thankfulness, but they return to me now with a greater force. As I read the whole passage this morning, I thought about the practical side of what Peter is saying.

For His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. It helps me to narrow the focus and recognize that these are the fruits of a life lived in Christ. Maybe part of my recent scattered-ness comes from emphasizing the wrong qualities, or seeking after false satisfaction? I don’t know. But it heartens me to know that I have permission to narrow my focus to these fruits as the most important. And, of course, the best part is the promise in verse 3 that I don’t have to conjure them up. His divine power has given me everything I need.

The tools, the means, are present, but… am I using them? In many ways I feel “blind and short-sighted” like “the person who lacks these things.” Once in a while I get an epiphany of His perspective but so much of my life, I feel, is in the fog of human misunderstanding.

Ich liebe Dietrich Bonhoeffer January 24, 2009

So, one paragraph of Bonhoeffer answers some of my recent questions about prayer.

Prayer means nothing else but the readiness to appropriate the Word, and what is more, to let it speak to me in my personal situation, in my particular tasks, decisions, sins, and temptations. What can never enter the prayer of the community may here silently be made known to God. On the basis of the words of Scripture we pray that God may throw light on our day, preserve us from sin, and enable us to grow in holiness, and that we may be faithful in our work and have the strength to do it. And we may be certain that our prayer will be heard because it issues from God’s Word and promise. Because God’s Word has found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, all the prayers we pray on the basis of this Word are certainly fulfilled and answered in Jesus Christ.

No matter what I pray for, the answer is Jesus Himself. How simple, yet how past finding out, are the things of God… I understand, yet I don’t.

This quote is from Bonhoeffer’s book about Christian community, entitled Life Together. I read it last year while living in the dorm, and it’s superb. If you haven’t, you should read it.

self-advertising January 13, 2009

In the spirit of American advertising culture, I am here to tell you that I’ve just had an article published on Ungrind Webzine. Now back to your regularly schedule programming.

reflections on indecision and joy… January 4, 2009

I have been pulling my journals out of the closet. Rereading the words, remembering when and why and where I wrote them, and reflecting on everything that’s happened since… it’s comforting to me.

I wrote these entries when I was wrestling with a difficult decision: stay in Germany for a second year, or more back to the States? As my life continues to bring new decisions and uncertainties, it helps me to look back. God is very faithful.

2 February 2007

But when the goodness and love for man appeared from God our Savior, He saved us – not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7).

And the next verse is super awesome: “This [above] saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these things…”

Beethoven’s 9th symphony is playing, and the building excitement of the last movement, which bursts softly and then victoriously forth in its “Ode to Joy,” seems to reflect this joy: the unshakeable kind; the kind of deepest happiness that isn’t tossed by the winds of human emotions, events, and problems. I walked a long distance into the woods today and listened to the entire symphony as I talked with God. The first three movements are frequently booming, violent themes that would make good background music for a thunderstorm. They matched my mood completely; I feel like I’ve been tossed in every direction this year and am now faced with a decision that’s very hard for me to make. I still don’t know the “right” answer, but when the “Ode to Joy” came up after all the dramatic, thundering movements, I felt it rise as my theme song.

Here is my joy: in Christ. Not in my friendships. Not in my changeable emotions. Not in my job. Not in my clothes, my books, my music, or anything else. Humans and their emotions are up and down, depending on circumstances. That kind of “happiness” is transient: so fleeting that I don’t feel like giving it the time of day anymore. Give me the real deal – the joy of my salvation – or nothing at all. Any gift You give me beyond salvation, God, is merely gravy…

3 February 2007

After the fine thoughts and golden intentions of last night, i spent several restless hours unable to sleep because my mind was occupied with very carnal speculations and anxieties. (Side note: I dislike the word “carnal” because it sounds so… Puritan… but I can’t think of another word that’s as descriptive.) What can I say? I’m human… very, very human. I love the glimpses of heaven’s joys and look forward to the day when I’ll fully experience them, but meanwhile I still deal with being human. I wish I could fully realize what it means to “cast all your cares” on God in this world. I used to think it meant a sort of complete mental deliverance from one’s circumstances. Realistically, though, we still live in our human bodies with human minds. Christ does guard us, and on some level we can choose to believe that and gain a greater sense of peace with each further step we take into surrender. But I think it’s a mistake to expect God to bail us out completely; to smooth the ride so much that we feel no pain. If I never experienced pain, weakness, heartache, disappointment, and rejection, I wouldn’t be able to know Christ intimately.

Yeah. Life is such a confusing mess. But the pain happens and it is here for a reason – or many reasons. I am weary of a lot of trials and waiting periods in my life. But God has chosen not to end them yet… and the pain refines me and opens my ears to listen. (Did you hear that, Lord? I’m listening…)

It’s a good thing to belong to the Creator of the universe. I’m no mistake, even though I constantly make them.

resolutions January 3, 2009

My friend Danielle showed me these, and I have decided to adopt them as my 2009 resolutions.

Clyde Kilby’s resolutions for mental health & for staying alive to God in nature:

1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death, when he said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4. I shall not turn my life into a thin straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic” existence.

7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”

8. I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls himself Alpha and Omega.