Has it been Three Months Already?

Has it been three months since my last post? It hasn't been from laziness, that's for sure. In fact, it's been quite a busy stretch. In addition to the usual 40-hour work week, trying to be a good husband and father, I've been working on a few exciting projects.

• This quarter The INN University Ministries is looking at the letter to the Colossians and they asked me to kick it off by giving an overview of the entire book: no small task for 20 minutes but it seemed to go well. I'd like to believe I'm the first person to connect this letter to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• The great folks at Acme Presbyterian Church invited me to fill the pulpit for a few weeks in February and March. If you're ever in Whatcom County on Sunday morning and you need a small country church to visit, you couldn't do much better.
• I've been busy facilitating a Barth Pub Theology group. Due to its popularity I ended up leading two groups. This meant I got to spend 10 Thursday's centered on my two favorite "B" words: Barth and beer. I'm a bit bummed this one is done. However in the weeks to come, I'll gladly accept any of your offers to combine beer and theology.
• Finally, I wrote a couple of articles for the forthcoming Lexham Bible Dictionary. For the curious, one was on the genealogy of Jesus Christ and the other was on the sacraments. For the record they're short, I wished I could have written more. But they turned out well (I think). I'm especially proud of the article on the genealogy and believe it will be helpful for pastors, teachers, small group leaders, and anyone interested in those sort of things.

 Now that those projects are through I'm hoping to get back to updating this blog regularly. I've read some great books, listened to some great music, and have been kicking around some ideas that I'd love to share.

Thanks for reading.

Best Books of 2010

Anyone who considers himself a reader will probably tell you that they still don’t read as much they would like. I count myself a member of this not-so-rarified air. I’d like to read a book a week. It seems a tangible, realistic, and obtainable goal. Unfortunately, I usually fall short of this goal. Now, mind you, partially this isn’t entirely my fault. When your regiment of reading includes multiple novels hovering around 500 pages and you’re carefully picking your way through Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics—whose individual volumes average around 700 small-printed pages of ridiculously thick meaning, you’re bound to fall short in the book-a-week front.

Still, I think I read a fair amount.

While I don’t have a list to back it up, I’d estimate I read about 40 books last year. Of these, they were split fairly evenly between fiction and non-fiction. Most of my non-fiction selections were of the theological or philosophical variety, but not totally. I did enjoy books by Barbara Kingsolver on growing her own food and Sara Marcus on the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90’s. (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Girls to the Front respectively)

Of the 20 or so novels I read in 2010 only a handful were published this year. So, I’m hardly an expert on the best of the bunch from twenty-ten. Still, I do consider myself a reader. And, I’d like to believe I have discriminating taste. So, with that caveat, here are some newish books that I enjoyed in 2010:

David Mitchell

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

To say I recommend this book isn't saying nearly enough. Truthfully, this is one of the most enjoyable and memorable work of recent fiction that I have had read in some time.

Jacob de Zoet arrives in 1799 to Nagasaki Harbor on a five-year stint as a clerk with the Dutch East Indies Company hoping to earn enough money to return home and marry Anna. Instead he meets a mysterious Japanese mid-wife with a disfigured face, duplicitous translators, rogue colleagues, warring shoguns, and a changing Europe.

At it's core, this is book of collisions--cultures, religions, values, classes, genders, economic systems, etc.. But it’s more than that. It's a character study of one idealist full of scrupulous morals, values, and ideals facing a life in a world where those values are not shared and are in fact spit upon. Mitchell is able to create a multi-dimensional world that moves beyond the black and white and creates dilemmas and conflicts that are brutally honest in their reality. Good is never strictly good and bad is never strictly bad. Just like today's philosophical marketplace there is a spectrum of options and mores that we all must navigate. De Zoet is certainly a fine guide in this regard.

Thousand Autumns also deserves mention because it introduced me to the wonderful David Mitchell who has quickly become my favorite living author. I finished the dazzling and mind-bending Cloud Atlas over the holiday and now I’m enjoying his life of a 13-year old boy in 1982 England Black Swan Green.

Jonathan Franzen

Freedom

You’ve probably heard of this book. It made the cover of Time magazine before its print. When’s the last time a book that didn’t feature vampires or a teenage wizard did that?

If you haven’t heard it Freedom, you might be familiar with his tour de force The Corrections. Freedom has many similarities with that work. Both cover an enormous amount of time. Both deal with families in crisis, existential and otherwise. Both deal with the disconnect between a Midwestern locale and an east coast worldview. Both are full of characters pre-disposed to destroying the people closest to them.

But the similarities end there. Putting it bluntly, there wasn’t a single character in the Corrections that liked. I found them petty, mean-spirited, sad and spiteful people. In Freedom, the Berglands often embodied many of those same qualities but came off as much more likeable. I found myself rooting for them, which made their pain, follies, and failures all the more difficult to watch unfold. One never wants to see a friend self-destruct and be destroyed.

Further, I found the writing to be even better. Like the Corrections, Freedom is an equal opportunity critique on American culture where no one is left standing. The left, the right, the Christians, the atheists, the punks, and the suburbanites all look equally bad. Anyway you slice it we’re all consumers waiting to devour our next kill. But this time, Franzen writes with a warmth and humor that makes the pill easier to swallow. I’m a Christian, NPR-listening, leftist-leaning, indie rock kid. Let’s just say none of those identities look good here. But rather than being mean-spirited Franzen simply props up a mirror and allows us to see all our idiosyncrasies in unflinching details.

Pre-hyped extensively, it would be hard for Freedom to live up to its early buzz. But it exceeded and more.

Gary Shteyngart

Super Sad True Love Story

There is more than the slightest bit of irony posting a blog review of this super, sad, and hopefully not true love story on Facebook. Still, onward I go.

Set in a near dystopian future eerily similar to a Brave New World, the United States is crumbling. Swallowed by foreign debt and an obsessive addiction to fame, fashion, and sex, the populace is mostly a functionally illiterate mass of libido. Rather than communicate, “friends” troll together with their faces pressed to their i-pad like devices, updating statuses, tweeting, and rating people in personality and “desirability” (or a much more profane term).

The book follows the affable Lenny, keeper of perhaps the world’s last diary, and his romance with the anorexic Eunice. What happens isn’t quite as important as the world Gary Shteyngart describes. For this bibliophile, the future Shteygard describes is terrifying. Harnessing the ghosts of Douglas Adams, he writes with a satirical humor and an absurdist wit that keeps the book from collapsing into doomsday prophecies or morose navel-gazing. Instead it’s a chipper, if not perverse, delight that hopefully is no more than a fanciful romp into a future that is in no way coming.

This book is worth it just for his description of “onion skin” jeans alone.

Rafael Yglesias

A Happy Marriage

I’ve already written about this book before, so I’ll keep it short: this book destroyed me.

Like many of the best plots, it’s deceptively simple: it’s the mostly autobiographical love story of Enrique and Margaret. It alternates between their fast and furious meeting and courtship and the last few weeks of Maragret’s life as she wastes away from cancer.

I’ve never experienced the horrors and sadness Yglesias faced. I’d like to believe he put into words the universal feeling of emptiness and loss and the total inadequacy of expressing to the person you’ve shared your life with, just who they are to you. This is a tear jerker in the most real of worlds—the one we live and walk.

Michael Chabon

Manhood for Amateurs

This isn’t fiction, but it’s my list so you’ll have to deal with it.

Chabon wrote the memoir Manhood for Amateurs based off one undisputable hypothesis: the standard being a good father is set abysmally low.

Manhood is written for people like me. It’s a book for Dads who are finding their way in a new landscape of parenthood. It’s a book for Dads who want to be involved. Who like their kids. Who don’t believe that parenting is the responsibility of the mother.

Manhood isn’t a how-to. It isn’t a tome. It isn’t a revolutionary siren call. It’s one man’s reflection on what it means to be an involved, active, and responsible parent. Chabon does this with humor, heartbreak, insight and poise. I’m thankful there are books like this being written.

Words or Images, Words and Images?

Do we think and interpret mostly in words or images?

From my couch, I can see a piece of cardstock. It’s hanging from a piece of string that is strung across the mantle of our fireplace.

But it’s not just any piece of paper.

It is red rectangle with a solid white boarder and measures about 2 ½ inches in width and 3 ½ inches in height. In the bottom right quadrant, a white triangle stands on its tip. Resting on top of the triangle are three green-hued half circle like spheres, stacked on top of one another.

It’s a birthday card. On its front is a drawing of an ice cream cone.

Sitting from the vantage point of my couch I’m able to look at the card, analyze its components and recognize it as “ice cream cone”. With virtually no effort my brain translates the image (red rectangle, triangle, spheres) into words (ice cream cone) and concepts (birthday card).

Certainly there is a strong correlation between images and words, pictures and concepts? But does one drive the other? This question came to a head when I read 17^th century theologian Polanus’ fine definition of Bible interpretation:

The interpretation of sacred Scripture is the exposition of the true sense and use of it, organized in clear words for the glory of God and for the edification of His Church.

While there is much to reflect upon here (e.g. “true sense” of scripture? I wonder how this term might play out in debates concerning the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture? Is there a supra-historical meaning of the text that lays beyond its historical form?), the words italicized above captured my fancy: interpretation of Scripture is “organized in clear words”. Reformation iconoclast tendency aside, Polanus suggests that the results of a detailed investigation into the true sense and use of Biblical words, stories, and texts are to be conveyed in “clear words”. Not images or pictures, but clear words.

Clarity in interpretation seems straightforward in theory and harder in practice. Anyone who has been given the task of conveying the Word of God knows clarity in interpretation is ¾ of the battle.

For me the issue is the use of words. Does Biblical interpretation preclude the use of images? And if not, do words take priority and precedent over images?

Bear in mind I ask this as someone who is much more verbal than visual. About the worst thing you could ask of me would be to give me a blank piece of paper and some paint and tell me to make something.

But the scenario with the card got me thinking, can images convey meaning beyond words? Do we need words to make sense of an image? In the case of Biblical interpretation (which following Polanius is not a historical-critical exercise drawn independent of a Biblical theology or ethic, but combination of the exposition of true words and events that give meaning to our world today), should the use of images be used concurrently with words?

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Why I Love my Church

I’ve been a part of First Presbyterian Church in Bellingham, Washington for just over 13 years. I wouldn’t trade it for another. It’s not a perfect church. No church is. Still, I love my church. Today I was given three healthy reasons why.

First, it’s Presbyterian. I’ll just leave it at that.

Second, it’s not always pretty.

No one would ever consider FPC of being polished. No ministry magazine will knock on our door asking us to host a ministry in the 21^st century webinar. We miss cues. There are more technical hiccups than I’d care to admit. And let’s not forget the dreaded dead spaces. The service generally incorporates the buzzing beehive of noise that is crying babies and anxious kids. We pray a lot. We confess our sins. (Who wants to be remided of that?) And then we pray some more. Not everyone that stands to speak was born to do so. From a purely professional standpoint, it leaves something to be desired. If you wanted to critique it and run a review in the paper, you would have plenty of reasons to complain.

It isn’t amateur hour either. We have immensely wonderful talented, Spirit-filled people creating music, writing and giving prayers, preaching sermons, and pushing us into devoted care and service for all that we meet. Still, we’re human. And that means Sunday morning isn’t always the paradigm of beauty.

And I love that. It’s a tangible reminder of how God’s grace comes to us. It’s in this messiness, these failures, and moments of weaknesses that I’m confronted by the character of God.

God’s salvation didn’t come pretty. It came in a man born and raised in a backwoods town. Most of his life didn’t warrant mention. He made his name as a wandering preacher of the rule of God, healer of the lame, one who eats with all kinds, and a challenger of the religious status quo. It didn’t end well either. Just when things seemed to be going his way, the tables were turned and he was crucified as a blasphemous, God-forsaken, political rebel. And in the end, this same Jesus of Nazareth was vindicated by God the Father in his resurrection from the dead, bringing forgiveness, healing, and life for all.

Like any church, FPC is a group of real people. We do your taxes. We pour your coffee. We teach your children. We park next to you. On Sunday morning we’re real people who gather together as ones who have been vindicated by God through the power of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. We live as people who experience God’s presence in the person and work of the Holy Spirit. We come not as people who have it all together, who have everything figured out, and then put on a show to impress each other or whoever might show up. It’s not a time to pat each other’s back on the ways we have it figured out. It’s not a time to celebrate how we’ve got it right. It’s not even a time to point out where those around us have got it wrong.

We come as people who do what we can to offer what we have. We come to give our thanks and gratitude to God.  We come to listen and hear.  We come to proclaim. We come to encounter God and to be changed. I know I can’t speak for everyone, but I feel this in our awkwardness, messiness, and fragility. It’s by God’s grace we’re gathered. It’s by God’s grace we’re healed.

Finally, FPC is a church that affirms, encourages, and enables the Spiritual gifts of women. At FPC, all women are given a chance to use their God-given gifts to minister, equip, challenge, and encourage the entire body of faith—man or woman, adult or child.

This morning the music was led by the talented Jocelyn Meyer. As usual her choice of songs was purposeful and appropriate to the themes of the morning. She led the worship to in a set of songs that were an equal mix of frailty and wild abandon. Technically proficient, they never focused the attention on themselves. They did what they were there to do: lead the congregation in songs of thankfulness and praise.

The prayers were delivered by Linda Kolody. She guided the congregation in a communal praying for not only our community but for our entire world. She prayed for a government that transcends political differences but zeroed in on the concerns of the Kingdom. She prayed with honesty and fearlessness and was grounded in our hope in Christ.

Lastly Lisa Schwank brought a beautiful message of God’s healing power. In her own word and voice she proudly and powerful proclaimed God’s word. In it I was confronted by God to my own inertia and willingness to simply accept as is the areas of my life that need healing. I was reminded of just how much a willingness to receive the healing of Christ means a radical rupture of my carefully constructed life. To put it bluntly, Lisa faithfully proclaimed God’s Word to God’s people and I am thankful for that.

I’m thankful that I’m a part of a congregation that allows these wonderfully gifted women to use their gifts to minister to not only me but the entire congregation. They fearlessly allowed themselves to proclaim God’s word to a broken, yet being restored, people of faith.

My hope is that everyone can say this about their church. I don’t want anyone to leave their church for mine. But if you’re in town on a Sunday morning, we’d love to see you here.