Cupboards, Vaults and Underground Tunnels: Digging into N. D. Wilson's Fiction

It's been a while since I've gotten caught up in a book in a way reminiscent of my experience with C. S. Lewis' and J. R. R. Tolkien's works. Okay, it will probably still be a while before I find something comparable to Tolkien - I'm holding out for the next world. But N. D. Wilson's got me. After reading his dancing and dizzying Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl, it was really only a matter of (very short) time before I started in on his fiction. And a whirlwind of a month or so later, I'm stuck having nothing left of his to read, and anticipating September when his next book comes out.

His fiction is written for children, with an imagination and craftsmanship that takes its readers seriously and thus can reach a wide audience, including those no longer supposed to be playing dress-up. Personally, I can't wait to read these books to my kids, should God so bless us, and in the meantime my husband and I have enjoyed reading and discussing them. Wilson is a skilled writer, very aware of what he's doing with sentences and imagery, and I found the storytelling of sophisticated enough craft to not only hold my attention, but spark it. And when it comes down to it, he spins a good yarn: exciting plot, seductive landscapes and quirky and compelling characters. Actually, his character portrayals and development are particularly successful. I appreciate his attention to creating secondary characters in such a way that one recognizes them to be significant; had a different storyteller chosen, the story could have been told from their perspectives with equal interest. Also, the adult characters aren't demoted to the characterization that seems to haunt them in much children's literature: irrelevant, boring, ineffective, unable to understand, or just plain oppressive. Thus, even if as a thirty year old you have a hard time following around a thirteen year old protagonist, you may find yourself invested in the story for the sake of the forty year old father trying to make a go of it by selling tumbleweed on the internet.

I started with 100 Cupboards, and knew after the first few pages that I was in the hands of a storyteller whose work I could respect. The initial description of the town of Henry, Kansas, was emotive and impressive. Granted, as an English major I'm particularly guilty of looking for ways in which landscapes interact with the characters, reflecting, subverting, creating them. But I think Wilson is fully aware of this too, and uses it in a very productive way. The main character of this particular series (which includes #2 Dandelion Fire and #3 The Chestnut King) is Henry, accompanied in many of his adventures by his cousin Henrietta. Yes, Henry and Henrietta. And it works. The basic premise: a kid with a pretty sheltered upbringing spends the summer at his cousins' farm and discovers a wall of cupboards behind the plaster walls of his room. And of course, they aren't for holding socks. As with the Lewis' wardrobe made from a Narnian-grown tree, so are Wilson's cupboards made from wood with a tendency to transport...

The only complaint I had against this series was the matter of pacing in a few sections. I felt the end of book one a little rushed - with the villain appearing and disappearing a little too quickly and dramatically. Book two produced the opposite reading experience for me as I felt it started a little slowly, with a bit too much "recap" of book one, but then accelerated in a fantastic accrual of events and characters. What I perceive as weaknesses of pacing are minor, and don't detract from the overall thrill and thrust of the books. And indeed, book two boasts one of the best battle presentations (in terms of pacing and attention to what is described and what is not) my husband claims he's ever read; I have to agree.

Wilson's Ashtown Buriel series seems to be progressing in an equally positive direction, but the book I am currently excited about is his first and shortest, Leepike Ridge. I think I had the lowest expectations for this one (not sure why), and so it turned out to be a surprisingly pleasurable experience. I read it in a day, following its eleven year old protagonist down a river and under a mountain. More than any of the books, Wilson nails the narrative pacing here - it's dynamic and contemplative all at once. Its world feels simpler than the other books, and yet, like the others, and like the events of the plot itself, it digs deeper. It draws on old stories like the Odyssey. It weaves in a counter-cultural view of history. And it does so in a way that will keep an eleven year old engaged and thinking and enjoying.

With the books back on the bookshelf (until I return them to the public library), what I think I value about them the most is that like with the Narnia Chronicles, Till We Have Faces and The Lord of the Rings, they continue on in the real world. Wilson has said in regards to his own writing that he seeks to open peoples' eyes to the wonder around them, to the magic that is woven into the world we live in. And it's true. He doesn't squirm around suffering and death. He doesn't avoid the beauty and danger intrinsic to life.

And I will never look at dandelions the same way again.

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The Magical Movement of Mr. Walker

I saw magic a couple of weeks ago. It was beautiful. It made me actually shake my head in awe. It made look around to call my husband over to see, even though he wasn't home yet.

I sat down with my laptop, logged in to Facebook and got ready to do my daily perusal of friends' status updates, cleverly captioned photos and mildly inspiring videos. I was expecting to be distracted from whatever I was supposed to be doing, and I was hoping to be amused. But I wasn't expecting to be confronted with magic. It went something like this:

I see a video. A close friend has posted it, and it is called 'Mr. Walker!' Sounds promising (an exclamation marks always helps). And I love her posts about her son, Baby D, the firstborn within our intimate friend group from high school.

I scroll over that familiar right-facing arrow and click; the slightly pixilated home-video flicks to life. A  round little face comes into focus a few feet from the camera, blond hair whisping, smiling eyes looking beyond me, looking at the Great Wielder of the iphone. The little boy sways back and forth for an instant, rocking against his dad who's kneeling behind him. His hands are scrunched in little excited fists, and he is held up by his dad's hands wrapped around his yellow-shirted tummy.

The camera goggles, the thirteen month old flexes his knees up and down, and his dad whispers "Go see mommy!"

All this I take in within a mere two seconds. There is no further warning. I am not prepared for what will happen:

Baby D leans towards us, even before his dad has let his hands gently fall from the chubby belly. Baby D bobs. His arms are stretched up, fingers grabbing air. He steps. He is released. And he walks.

I am completely and utterly taken aback. My own delighted laughter dances with the sounds of the moment. The thwump sound as he lands on his bum after three steps. (And he doesn't even seem to notice his dad lifting him up again, just begins again with that focused, excited trot towards the camera as soon as he finds himself back on his feet). The sound of his mom bursting out "Come see mamma!" in musical, rising tones and "Woohoo you made it!". The sounds of flump, flump, flump, of baggy little pant legs shuffling back and forth against each other.

How can I describe this? Here is the little boy I first saw only just over a year ago, a tiny, red, delicate little ball of preciousness, newborn. So fragile. So helpless. And here is the little boy who I've held, who I've listened to gurgling or crying, who I've had pee on my jeans, who I've helped bundle up into the carrier on his mom's back. He's grown and changed so much. Of course, babies grow. But this? I wasn't expecting it to be like this. Here he is - bumbling and bouncing and bounding on his own two feet. Walking. Reaching the camera.

And then his mom turns him around, saying "Go see daddy!", and he walks back to his daddy with that zestful bend of newly found knees. And then he thwumps down on the ground and the adult arms reach in and pull him up again. And so, back to mommy as he takes another step all by himself. 
 

And it is magic, just magic, and I'm in total wonder at it.

I don't think I'm alone in this experience, in this realization of the wonder that is present within the very normal and the very human. I'm embarrassed at my failure to expect it (although in this case, it's a pleasant failure). For there are moments when I am too numb to recognize the magic. Too familiarized to notice the Divine's artistry. Too busy to see and rejoice. Or just too tired (albeit sometimes legitimately so) to wonder.

Please - splash the cold water of your comments over me, share your experiences of magic in the everyday, so that we can wake up to the magic that God has woven into the universe.

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Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl: an Author Acknowledgement

Is there a particular phenomenon which in all this wide world causes you to take notice and feel a certain way – almost entirely regardless of when you encounter it or how you are feeling at the time or who you are with? And when I say “take notice” I don’t just mean that you notice it, in which case any gaudy or unavoidably attention-grabbing thing would suffice. No, it might be very subtle, or common, or silent, or  yes, gaudy, but when faced with it, you cannot help take notice, pay attention, open up your ears to what it is saying. It ends up not being the focus of your attention; what it is saying does. For me, the it is standing in the snow, and feeling – realizing really – that it’s cold. I will often take my gloves off and grab a fistful, because the feeling of burning, icy, melting snow turning my fingers red and cold and eventually numb reminds me that I am alive. It reminds me that I am not numb, not really. It reminds me that I am not wholly calloused to the Voice that speaks through all of His creation, that I am not wholly dead to those non-lingual words that N.D. Wilson identifies in his book as “God’s Spoken World.”

Notes from a Tilt-a-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God’s Spoken World. This book – a poem in prose, really – made my reading experience very much like picking up a handful of snow. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that one recurring image throughout the book is the vivid recollection of snow-experiences. But mostly it has to do with Wilson’s beautiful preoccupation with uncovering the Voice of the Poet, with de-numbing our senses to God’s words, specifically His spoken world, all around us. Like the medievals (but unlike the medievals), Wilson believes strongly that this world is a book, a book revealing the Author - if we are willing to become literate (which is much more an issue of the heart than of dissecting analogies). I can’t help but quote him directly here: “In the beginning… There was a Word, a Voice. There was Artist, but there was not yet art. And that Voice said Light, and extended Himself a finite canvas to paint the only thing that could be worth painting, to paint the I AM” (186 – 187).

In reading Wilson’s book, I didn’t feel like I was being taught something shockingly new, but rather being exposed to wider and stronger and more beautiful depths of the familiar. These are the whispers and shadows of light that some of us were introduced to through the writings of Tolkien (with his mythology of “splintered light”) and Lewis (who resists the possibility that a star is simply a ball of gas, that its existence consists only in its materials of composition). These are the whispers and shadows of light that we are hopefully aware of to some degree through our own experiences. And if not there, then certainly through the words of Scripture: “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:1-2).

And Notes is steeped in Scripture. Not in the ways we may be used to (whether bad or good). There is no copy and paste of de-contextualized verses. There is no in-depth exegesis of a passage, a phrase, a word. But the Written Word of God pervades: it forms the base of Wilson’s theology, it permeates his assumptions, it sweeps through his anecdotes, it colours his perspective with an irrevocable dye. The fear, for some of us, is that a book which insists on God’s effectiveness to speak through every created thing will crumble into diverse mantras of  “god is whatever you understand him to be through whatever you discovered him in.” Fear not. This book is anything but flaky. And it is anything but tame – there are no half-hearted convictions here. This book insists on God’s sovereignty, on His power, on His goodness, on His holiness, on His Incarnation, on His humility in coming “to live in a trough and die on a pole,” on the reality of Hell, on the gloriousness of God, on the joy that is ours to come.

"But what kind of book is it?" you may ask
It is a book of very big ideas and very small details. There are many lists in the book. In sentences, mostly. Juxtapositions. And all are carefully crafted. The chapters start off with a scene, a recollection of the author’s, with a deeply visceral connection to the landscape or some creature therein. And there the chapter returns in closing. In between, however, the images shift. We are in places confronted with the voice of a philosopher (Plato? Nietzsche? Annie Dillard?). We are introduced to a butterfly. We are told that there are shellfish fossils in the Rockies. We are privy to lists like: “A single world combining galaxies, black holes, Jerry Seinfeld, over 300,000 varieties of beetle, Shakespeare, adrenal glands, professional bowling, and the bizarre reproductive patterns of wasps (along with teams of BBC cameramen to document them), precludes easily palatable explanations” (4-5). These lists are marvelous. They de-familiarize the familiar; that is, they prompt us to think of common things in new ways; that is, we must put some work into it. But it is invigorating work. And Notes is ultimately cohesive – it is a fitting embodiment of the paradox we see around us of the diversity and unpredictability of life, and of its unity under the creating, sustaining, reigning Lord Jesus Christ. Notes is a story, with a kind of plot, with an accrual of force and emotion, with a point. Like life.

Life. Wilson weaves within the book’s pages a provocative and humbling account of life, of this created life, and he does not hold back from dealing with the hard stuff: death, the (so-called, but much felt) problem of evil, pain, decay, Hell, Heaven, bodies, souls, laughter, language, wonder, worship. Of what is. Of what will be. Oh yes, of what will be! There is a quote on the last page (before the acknowledgments section) that I wish I could read to you, but it is on the last page and so I don’t want to read it to you. You must read it yourself. I think you’ll know which one it is.

There are so many other passages I want to share too. In fact, when I first drafted this post I had worked up my own juxtaposition of something from Barthes’ purposely provocative short essay, “Death of the Author” with one of Wilson’s statements regarding the Voice of the Author. I've obviously since discarded that idea, but I’ll end here with the quote from the latter: may its reminder of your created-ness and God’s creative authority provoke you to go find the book and read it.

“You are spoken. I am spoken. We stand on a spoken stage. The spinning kind. The round kind. The moist kind. […] The magic is real, and I stand blinking on the stage because of it. I’m real. I’m heavy. I’m matter. Cut me and I’ll bleed. But I’m not made out of anything, and if the Magician, the Poet, the Word, if the Singer were to stop His voice, I would simply cease to be” (24).

If you've read Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl, what are your thoughts on it? How did it impact you? And have you read any of his children's fiction yet?

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Fast to Feast: thoughts on observing Lent

What Lent means, literally.

It seems like many people are doing Lent this year – or at least more are posting about it on Facebook. This will be the first year I’ve participated in the fast (no TV for me!) and as such I’ve decided to do a bit of research and thinking about it, especially regarding the benefits of observing Lent and the best way to go about it.

But before we get to this, I must share the first question that naturally came to mind when I started my musings: “What does Lent mean?” I asked. I don’t mean “What is it all about?” or even “What does it mean to me, personally?” But literally, what does the word lent mean? I’m curious, you know? (And I’m married to a linguist, so this kind of question is to be expected).

I let my brain do some of its own internal research as I lay in bed “falling asleep” the eve before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent). It ran something like this: “Lent? Perhaps its related to the word relent, as in “a period of relenting from sin”? Or maybe the past tense verb lent, like “I am giving back that which I’ve been lent from God”? No wait – it’s clearly Latin because the origins of Lent lie in Medieval Catholicism. Despite my almost non-existent Latin, verses from Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus” spring to mind: “O lente, lente currite noctis equi!” or “O, run slowly, slowly, horses of the night!” Slowly? Really?

Actually, a quick trip to the Oxford English Dictionary makes me somewhat embarrassed to call myself a medievalist. Lent is not a Latin word in this case – but Middle English. Lent, from lenten, refers to the season of Spring and may derive from the Old English lencten, meaning to lengthen (i.e. Spring is the season in which the days lengthen). I guess I should have checked Chaucer before Marlowe.

All right then, lent means spring. Moving on…

What Lent means, practically.

Lent is the forty day period prior to Easter (excluding Sundays) during which Catholic and a number of Protestant denominations engage in fasting. In the Middle Ages, Lent functioned as a counterpoint to something we might call the carnival impulse – that practice of delighting in the flesh (carne), which of course we all do in some form or another. For the medievals, Lent usually involved fasting from meat and other rich foods, those luxuries which the body enjoys. However, what Lent was really meant to signify through such a fast was a rejection of the bodily corruption indulged in during the feasts and other carnival-esque activities and excess. For them, Lent’s significance was intended to be spiritual, and the Lenten fast was meant to counter the damning effects of the carnival impulse and help make one right with God again.

Now, not all Christians observe Lent (growing up, it was never something I was aware of in any of the churches I attended). And many have stayed away from the Lenten fast citing the danger of falling into a works mentality or mere ritual. Certainly for the medievals, not all was right; while many likely participated in Lent because of an awareness of sin, there existed the danger of viewing it as a convenient way to compensate for the carnival impulses, without intending to renounce and turn from the sin. Back then, as today, I am sure that some participated in genuine contrition and repentance, while others, as is so easy to do, would have found it a useful means to ease a guilty conscience and procure insurance for the sin which they knew would damn them, but had no intention of turning from because it was so enjoyable. In the latter case, the spiritual significance of Lent gets turned on its head, for its main goal is to be free the rest of the year to cater to the desires of the carne and indulge oneself in sin.

Today, I think Lent is often de-spiritualized in a different way. It can be less about compensating for sin, and instead becomes an opportunity to exercise our human will, a moment of self-discipline meant to aid us in experiencing the kind of purification found in self-denial. It’s a chance to prove to ourselves that we can abstain from Facebook for a month and a half. Or it’s a chance to experience the health benefits of avoiding sugar. These are not bad motives, but I can’t help but feel they miss out on the best!

What Lent can mean.

What is the best? The Bible says that it is to “glorify God” in whatever I eat, drink or do, including the act of abstaining from these things (1^st Cor.10:31). The Psalmist puts forward this sole vision for his life: “one thing I have asked from the Lord, that I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to see the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 27:4). John Piper sums it up with a reference back to the Westminster Catechism: “the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.” So how might I use Lent to glorify God by enjoying Him? How might I return to the spiritual meaning of Lent, without falling into the traps of works-based righteousness or attempted bargaining with God or mere ritual? Here are two things that I’ve come up with:

First, consider carefully what to fast from:

Think about fasting from something that distracts you from God. Do you spend 30 minutes a day checking Facebook photos? Or 45 minutes watching an episode of The Mentalist? Or 2 hours listening to music during your commute? Or 16 hours a day accessing the convenience of your iphone? None of these are sin – many are good! – but they can take time away from communing with and hearing from God. Consider such a fast.

Or something that you enjoy…maybe even a teensy bit more than you enjoy God? The point is not to say that chocolate, meat or shopping are evil. But might a time away from these things make us more aware of these things as blessings from God’s hand? Might a time away from these things demonstrate that we are serious about first cultivating our enjoyment of God? Consider such a fast.

Or something that offers an area of temptation for you. I don’t mean sin – we should be striving to permanently fast from sin and shouldn’t give ourselves the option of sinning the rest of the year if we can but manage to abstain for forty days. But think about places or activities or even people which seem to make it a greater challenge for you to keep from sinning. They prove a special weakness for you at this point in your life in terms of falling into sin. Are there things that God has been whispering that you should give up in wisdom, and you’ve been ignoring Him because you think you can do the dance and avoid falling down? Might a time away be spiritually wise? Consider such a fast.

Second, consider carefully why you are fasting:

Fasting in the Bible is often used to express our sorrow over something (2^nd Samuel 1:11-12, Neh.1:3-7). For the medievals, Lent was meant to be a time of mourning over sin, a time of repentance, a time of penitence. Christians are called to regularly confess our sin to God so as to keep fellowship with Him and actively engage in His work of freeing us from the power of sin in our lives(1^st John 1:5-9). Lent can be a yearly opportunity, a season built into our calendar, to humble ourselves, confess our sin, meditate on God’s holiness and our sinfulness, be convicted of these, and genuinely repent (that is, seek to turn from sin, not just store up “good points” in an attempt to outweigh our sin). Use the Lenten fast to declare to God that you are serious about His desire that you walk in holiness. Use the Lenten fast to physically support your mental decision to turn from sin, and to physically fuel your heart’s resolve to do so.

Fasting enables us to become more aware of our weakness, need, and selfishness, and to realize our dependency on God (Ps. 109:21-24). Have you ever fasted from food before? (Please don’t try this for forty days!) I tell you, the moment you lapse in judgment and walk into your college’s dining hall and smell those delectable fibs (“fake ribs”), you experience a monumental flood of desire: you are overwhelmed with how hungry and weak you are feeling, how much you want food, and just to what extent you might go to provide for yourself. You realize how much time and effort you usually spend during the day satisfying yourself and caring for yourself so that you don’t need to feel this way. And, if you allow your thoughts to go there, you realize that this is just a small picture, a tangible experience, of your deep spiritual need. Use Lent to re-sharpen your sensitivity to your great need for God. Use Lent to re-awaken you to an awareness of what stuff you are made of and what is in you.

Fasting is used to cultivate Godly self-discipline. Here we can engage in the Spirit’s work of producing self-control within us (Gal.5:22-25). Here we have a tangible opportunity to submit to God’s sanctifying work in us by learning to die to self. I believe that if we are in the habit of restraining our desire for good things, we will have a better time restraining our desires for evil things. Use Lent to strengthen your self-control and to weaken the habit of surrendering to self’s priorities instead of God’s.

Lent: fast to feast.

Until now, any of the last three points could be modified to leave God out of the picture – you could fast as a way of mourning, or fast to remind yourself of your weakness, or fast to exercise your self-discipline. This last point then is crucial. In the Bible, fasting is used to open up a space, a silence, an opportunity to meet with God. It is a way to return to Him (Joel 2:12-13).

Human beings are never vacuums or voids. We are always filled with something. If I remove dessert from my diet, I will replace it with something – salad hopefully, whining possibly, but certainly another activity during the time in which I would have eaten dessert. If I fast from Facebook, I may use that time to invest in youtube. If I stop listening to music while I clean the dishes, I will still listen to something – perhaps silence, or my own thoughts, or the sound of construction next door. What if during the 10 minutes I’d normally spend having dessert and coffee, I found a quiet place and thanked God for his grace to me? What if I took my 30 minutes of Facebook time and used them to read God’s word and pray, communing with Him and interceding for others? What if I filled the music-less silence with meditating on Scripture that I had memorized and asking God to speak with me? Consider how I would be trading the good for the best! Imagine how I would be enjoying God, experiencing His presence, growing in His holiness, rejoicing in His grace! Think about how this would honour Him, how it would declare “Your love is better than life!” (Ps.63:3), how it would bring Him glory!

You see, we have returned to the best. We have abstained from good things in order that we might gain something greater. We have fasted that we might feast. Use Lent to spend more time communing with God in the Word and in prayer (Dan.9:2-4). Use Lent to not only fast from something, but also to take that newly opened space and use it to return to God. Fast from the good in order to feast on the best.

What Lent means, to the glory of God.

Lent leads up to Easter, to the celebration of that most central event in all of history – that moment when God broke the power of sin and death over us, that place where His love and justice met in the humiliated and broken body of the Holy Man, that victory in which God purchased a people for Himself that they might enjoy Him forever and in doing so, glorify Him. This is the moment we celebrate at Easter – and this is the climax to which Lent leads. We break our fast with a celebration of the Gospel. And what a wonderful way to prepare ourselves to celebrate what our God has accomplished! What an opportunity to humble ourselves in surrender to God, to view ourselves and our sin as they truly are, to declare that we are serious about Him, to actively participate in His progressive transformation of our lives to holiness, and to experience that for which He saved us, namely to spend time with Him, to know Him, to love Him, to enjoy Him, to glorify Him.

This Lent, I’ve given up watching TV; it’s an area of temptation for me which rivals my time and affections for God. But I’ve also replaced it with something. Each week I meditate on a single Psalm and I have committed time every day to read the Psalm, memorize part of it, meditate on it and talk with God over it. I have missed a few days, but when I do I resolve to stick with it, moving past the failure by trusting God to help me choose His best one day at a time, knowing that He saved me for such a purpose.

Are you participating in Lent this year? What are you fasting from? What are you feasting on? O that we will fast in order to really and truly feast!

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The Disappearance of God: a resolutely hopeful book of warnings

What’s your view on the existence of hell? Does the term “church discipline” have any meaning to you? How do we maneuver a God-glorifying balance of maintaining cultural sensitivity and relevance with Biblical truth and imperative? Has anyone ever offered you counsel, wisdom or even – gasp - warning about these things? How much warning literature do you read (aside from the Bible)? Do you read so much that you find it difficult to trust a Christian from a different church because you are afraid of uncovering heresy at every turn? Or do you read only those books which confirm a happy and calm state of mind, which don’t participate in something so archaic as fear-mongering?

Some things, I am convinced, merit warning, serious warning. It is true, some of us are so steeped in it that we honestly need to step back and spend some time actively trusting God to sustain His Kingdom-work in this world, learning to love selflessly and be less self-defensive. However, my guess is that for the majority of us, reading a book full of warnings is not something that occupies a lot of our time (unless it’s a joke column listing ridiculous warnings that are found on some products, such as “Do not eat” on an electric can opener). I’ve read a few (books full of warnings, I mean, not the jokes), and this is one which I found very appropriate and timely, and especially suitable for people for which this is the first foray into warning literature. This little book offers a useful survey of a few very significant ways in which God is “disappearing” from Western church doctrine and culture. An intentionally provocative term, “disappearance” as Mohler uses it refers to the apparent trend of rejecting the truth about God’s character and will as revealed in the Bible, and replacing it with one of our own choosing.

One of the greatest strengths of this book is Mohler’s ability to pack the basics of the issues into a concise and yet provocative study. I’ve been told that the book originated on his blog, and if so, I can certainly see this reflected in its composition and content: the chapters are short (short enough, I believe, for someone not-so-academically-inclined to read and enjoy and learn from without getting worn out or bored) and the discussions are well balanced in unpacking some pretty thought-provoking ideas while generally operating at a layman’s level of expertise. (I think some terms like “penal substitution” and “liberalism” do go undefined, but can largely be understood from the context. And if you occasionally need to reach for the dictionary or google a word, remember that so many of us easily spend forty-five minutes jumping from video to video through youtube links, that we can probably handle looking up a few definitions!) This book does assume that the reader is a Christian with some knowledge of the topics, which is a reasonable expectation; hell and sin are two such topics general to the Christian faith, and even the more specific movement of the emerging church is likely a label which most Western Christians have come across at some point. Each chapter offers you enough to be informed and properly oriented to the discussion at hand, while pointing the reader to further resources and areas for consideration. In many ways the chapters are jumping-off points. If you never have another chance to properly research the debate around the existence of Hell (aside from your personal study of the Bible and exposure to Sunday preaching), the respective chapter offers sufficient warning. However, the chapters also work to pique reader interest, and I think many readers will come away from the book wanting to further invest in equipping themselves to respond to these issues in a God-honouring way.

As is clear from above, there are a range of topics covered in the book. These include the disappearance of the Biblical concepts of hell and sin and the need for missions and preaching from Christian belief and practice. The Emerging Church movement is also discussed for three chapters and I appreciated Mohler’s conclusion: “The Emerging Church and its leaders are right to insist that substance must be preferred to superficiality. We can only pray and hope that they will remember and acknowledge that substance requires a substantial and honest embrace of truth” (95). Now, obviously I am coming from a position which is largely in line with Mohler’s own and I don’t expect that those of you with Emerging Church leanings will simply bow to each claim Mohler makes – but I think, I hope, you will find that he treats the movement and its leaders with fairness, as he attempts to respectfully but adamantly draw our attention to areas for concern. Mohler draws heavily on Carson’s book, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, and so if you have already read that, you probably won’t discover anything radically different – although, as I maintain, this book’s treatment has the benefit of brevity which makes it easier to remember.

The chapters which I really responded to the most include Mohler’s discussion of “A Christian version of Beauty,” in which he suggests that beauty is a concept in crisis, and that as Christians we must not divorce beauty from its proper relation to what is good, true and real – that is, from the glory of God. These were refreshing chapters despite the warnings, and I was particularly affected by the move he makes to suggest that “the confusion over beauty is not merely an item of cultural consternation, nor is it merely a matter of theological debate. It is a matter of redemption.” (56) Beauty and missions are related – and it’s a beautiful thing.

I also greatly appreciated his discussion of church discipline and the reality that the Western church now exists in an increasingly post-Christian culture and what our response to this should be. For those more pessimistic individuals among us (perhaps of an older generation disappointed with the direction of our culture, or of a younger generation jaded because we’ve read too much Nietzsche, or of any generation and owning a melancholy personality), the warnings of this book may not be new or shocking. However, the book is not a mere lament over change, nor does it fall into the tired rut of mourning the truism that the older must inevitably give way to the newer. If you are a younger reader, you are not excused in ignoring the book because you feel that in it you will find only the protests of the previous generation at the deviations of the following one. No, this book crosses generations, for it unites around the common grace that is given in the conviction of the absolute truthfulness of Scripture. Change itself is not the issue. Change in our attitude towards the truth of God’s revealed Word is. Our response, however, in light of the solemn warnings is not to be pessimism, and this was a point I found particularly striking. How easy to pile warning upon warning about how our culture and, more seriously, the church is turning away from the Living God and to then shake our heads and give up! It’s hopeless! It’s inevitable! We just have to resign ourselves and survive it! But Mohler makes it clear that there is no place for pessimism, and this is so refreshing in a book so (necessarily) burdened with warning.

I leave you with his words and encourage you to go out and find a copy of this hopeful book of warnings.

He writes, “In reality, we have no right to be either optimistic or pessimistic. To be either optimistic or pessimistic is to be deluded, and in some sense to deny the sovereignty of God. We cannot be pessimistic because Scripture tells us we are to be a people of hope. Of course, that does not mean that we are a naïve and ignorant people of hope who close our eyes to the reality around us. No, we find hope in something that is far more secure than anything this culture can secure.”(173)

What are we to be?

“We are to be the community of the open-eyed, the intellectually alert, the brokenhearted, and the resolutely hopeful.” (174)

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Whatever you do...be it eat, drink or shampoo

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (I Corinthians 10:31)
 
This is the blog post where I share my not-so-cohesive ideas about living an increasingly healthy lifestyle. The reason it will be not-so-cohesive is because, ironically, I'm coming down with something and my head is achy, my sinuses are clogging and my general faculties are groggy. Having said that, this is a post I've been meaning to write for a while - so why let a little mid-semester cold keep me from it? Prepare for lots of broth and baking soda ahead.  

There are four things that I've been intending to do in an effort to live more health-consciously, and three of them have been implemented, at long last. The fourth will, alas, likely have to wait until January. My reasons for these life changes are many, but some of the more significant include the desire to be a good steward of my body so that I can honour God in my body, a growing awareness of the degree of toxicity to which I expose my body (and brain),the desire to overcome the sometimes heavy weight of moodiness/weariness/now-and-then-depression, and (please, no need to start rumours here) the desire to get my body ready for potentially one day carrying and caring for another life. So, "What are these changes?" you might ask.

•  GAPS diet - This stands for the "Gut and Psychology Syndrome" diet . A good friend of mine got me onto this and currently has her family on it. More information is available at the websites listed below, but very briefly, the premise behind this diet is that for many people, our gut is populated with bad gut flora (for a number of reasons, which you can read about on the sites) and as a result toxins are able to seep from our gut into the bloodstream and eventually into our brain. The bad gut flora breaks down the blood/brain barrier, which as you can imagine has a myriad of negative consequences. Two of the ones that are particularly relevant to me are poor digestion and moodiness/irritability/occasional depression. So what is a girl to do?
  
  According to the GAPS diet, the key is in giving my gut a chance to recover by starving the bad gut flora of the things they thrive on so that they die and disappear, and facilitating the re-population of good gut flora by eating certain types of foods, particularly probiotics. The do not eats consist of sugar (refined sugar - white, brown, whatever...we get so much of this in our North American diet that it's ridiculous), grains (wheat, rice, qinoa, oats, etc. These aren't bad in and of themselves, but they're harder to digest and so if you are filling yourself with them, your body is concentrated on digesting them and isn't able to take the energy to counter the bad gut flora; moreover, we definitely get too much of this in our diet as well), and starchy foods that are converted into sugar in your body (good-bye potatoes). The do eats consist of homemade meat broths (chicken, beef, fish...organic or specialty, so that they aren't full of hormones and antibiotics), meats, vegetables, fruits, eggs and probiotics (such as organic plain yogurt). I've been eating this latter way for about a month and a half, and have been feeling a lot more energetic and less moody - of course, this was before I broke the diet for a wedding and Thanksgiving, and go figure, now I'm sick! ;) Okay, so the correlation of the two isn't necessarily one to one. But needless to say, I'm looking forward to going back on the diet.
  
  I'm going to be starting with the intro diet, which is much more restrictive, but is important in promoting initial and faster healing of the gut (to "heal and seal" the gut, as they say). After that, my goal is to spend approximately two years following the diet pretty strictly. It might seem intense at first, but really - based on my month and a half experience - it's been not only doable, but enjoyable. It actually feels good to be eating healthily and to take control of that aspect of who I am. And I've gotten much more creative with recipes (banana pancakes? cabbage role casserole? superb sphaghetti squash and swiss-chard infused meatballs? delish!). If you're interested in finding out more, here are some useful sites. The first is the "official site" (there is a book you can buy...but who reads expensive books anymore with the convenience of the internet?!...kidding), and the others are blogs from people who are health conscious and are doing or have done the diet for various reasons. These other blogs are a bit more readable, boiling down the information to the basics.
• http://gapsdiet.com/INTRODUCTION_DIET.html
• http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2010/02/the-gaps-diet-what-it-is-and-why-you-might-consider-doing-it.html
• http://www.healthhomehappy.com/grain-free-2/gaps
• http://www.wellfedhomestead.com/recipes/
•  Shampoo-free! Say what? No shampoo? It's true! Starting last Saturday I have ceased to use commercial shampoo and conditioner products on my oh-so-long-desperately-in-need-of-a-cut hair. The reason? It's toxic. Do you know the chemicals that are in these products? I didn't, though I'd heard whisperings on the winds at dark hours of the night...or something. Indeed, many of the products we dump on our precious heads or lather on our beautiful skin have been shown to be carcinogenic (cancer-causing) and just downright dangerous over the long run. Follow this link to see a quick run-down of the warnings. Not only that, but the products we use strip our heads and hair of their natural oils and can actually contribute to greater oiliness! But never fear, long before the mid-twentieth century women were washing their hair and still managing to look fabulous. So what can you wash it with that isn't so toxic? I've starting making up a 'shampoo' out of 1 Tbsp baking soda mixed in 1 cup water, which I pour on my wet hair (scalp) in the shower and then massage around for two minutes before rinsing out. Then I get 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar mixed in 1 cup water and dip my hair into the jar, pouring the excess mixture higher up on my hair, but avoiding the scalp. This works as a conditioner - and it actually does work! I'm currently in the "adjustment period" where my hair is supposed to be super oily because I've stopped using shampoo. It actually looks and feels quite nice, so that might just my luck! But at any rate, this adjustment period is different for different people - but once you're over the two to three weeks, your oils get all nice and balanced and your hair (apparently) looks great. I'll let you know when I get there, but I've definitely got no complaints right now!
• A useful and fun site for natural beauty products: http://www.crunchybetty.com/no-poo-to-you-too
• More natural beauty products! In addition to saying good-bye to shampoo and conditioner, I've also moved on to natural deodorant (so as to avoid the aluminum that's in our wonderful anti-perspirants); this is a bit pricey and it too has an "adjustment period" as your body has to get used to a different way of dealing with the pleasant aroma of sweat. At the moment I just don't have the time to try some of the home-made recipes, so I'm sticking with something from the health food store. Seems to be working - but you can be the judge of that next time we're together! I've also started washing my face with unpasteurized honey, which acts as an anti-bacterial cleaning agent. I'm not quite convinced that this is working for me, but I'll give it a few more weeks (I might just need some better honey). Still, it tastes nice at the end of the day...! This was an idea I got off of the Crunchy Betty blog.
• Exercise? This is the fourth item on my list and, what with the rest of my responsibilities and endeavors, will have to remain on the back-burner a while longer. Having said that, I do try to go on walks or walk to the grocery stores as often as I have a chance. Every little bit counts in staying active, right?

That is all for now. Phew, that took a while to write! But hopefully it was of some interest to some of you. Remember that these are just things that I've been implementing for myself and I'm in no way a professional or authority on matters of health - you need to find out what's best for you.

Care to share your experiences with any the above? What do you do to promote a healthy lifestyle?

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This is the day the Lord has made...

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone. This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:22-24)

 A short meditation on these verses. A short revisiting of a familiar song. A profound awakening to the worthiness of our God and the greatness of what He has done.
I remember singing as a child: "This is the day, this is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made. I will rejoice, I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it, and be glad in it!" A great song. And it's so catchy that it comes back to me at random moments (sometimes upon hearing the word "rejoice;" sometimes upon thinking upon the "day" ahead of me). I would sing it as a kind of spiritual pep talk, a sort of "cheer up - God has made today!" or "cheer up - God is in control of this day!". All true. So true. But...actually missing the greatness, the profundity, the life-transforming reality of what these lines actually mean!

A few days ago I read Psalm 118 and was actually surprised to see these familiar lines pop up, "This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!"  Hello, I thought, this is a strange context! I'm equally as familiar with the lines that precede it - they show up in 1st Peter 2:7, in reference to Christ who was rejected by men and the religious leaders of the day, but accepted by God as "the corner stone," the foundation and beginning and redemption of the spiritual house and community of the people of God. So why and how do these two go together?

How much I have been missing out on when the rejoicing song has popped into my head! The day that the Lord has made is not just a generic "any day" is God's day. The day in fact is THE day of our salvation. It is the day which God has orchestrated from the foundation of the world to redeem, buy back, save, restore, make acceptable His people.  This is the day that we are to rejoice in. This is the day that we are to be glad in. Because this is the day that God has made, that He has designed and carried out and accomplished for us. And only through this day can we be bought and brought back to God. What a day!

My challenge to you and to me is that we rejoice in the day of salvation that God has made, that we meditate on and value what the Lord has done - that it be "marvelous in our eyes." May it be that when the song jumps into my head, that it goes beyond the general "God made today" sentiment, but that I am overwhelmed with the reality of the greatness of the salvation God has made for me and the greatness of the God who has made this day of salvation. May we be empowered throughout the day to rejoice in Christ, that He has established our salvation and that He is the acceptable sacrifice to God for us and that He is seated at the right hand of God, reigning. This is our day of salvation.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

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Thoughts on J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún”

 
This is the kind of book that most people will likely not enjoy unless they have a prior investment in it - and a love for Tolkien’s popular works will not necessarily be enough.
It does not continue the saga of his own Middle Earth mythology, nor delve into the background and writing process of that saga. The ‘essay’ that is found within it is not exactly ‘cutting edge’ criticism (which the editor, Christopher Tolkien, seems at times in the introduction to bend ov
er backwards to emphasize), and the poetry itself may lack the certain 'sparks’ that modern poetry readers are used to being engaged by. But it definitely has enough ‘sparks’ of its own, and, as Tolkien suggests,  “To hit you  in the eye was the deliberate intention of the Norse poet” (18).

But what will draw readers to appreciate and enjoy this publication? What drew me? Firstly, the introductory essay, or more accurately put, lecture (for it is based on notes from a lecture delivered by Tolkien on the Norse texts) is interesting to read quite simply because it represents Tolkien’s thoughts, criticism and even teaching style at a particular moment, now passed. Christopher Tolkien does a good job of including as much of Tolkien’s own writings as he can, even if they were quickly scrawled notes in pencil.

Secondly, the poetry itself is engaging, even if you are unfamiliar with the Norse and Southern Germanic mythologies and histories underlying it, as I largely am. Its sharp immediacy draws you into the action (and emotion) of the moment, and its strife-ridden characters demand empathy even as they incite both frustration and at times, awe. In addition to Tolkien's apparent desire to create a unified version of the legends (which have varying and contradictory accounts in the manuscript record), one of the other motives behind his own verse is also to explore and imitate the poetic structures, particularly in meter and rhythm, of this branch of Norse poetry. And for this reason, the poetry itself is to me engaging, in that it taught me to read in a different way, be guided by a different style, see a story through a different textual lens, so to speak – it felt a little choppy at first, but after about the first twenty stanzas came to feel natural, and rather than having the style be a barrier to enjoyment, it came to be one of the contributors. One other thing I found interesting was the gesturing towards Christian hope which was Tolkien’s own addition, of course. Tying the whole tragedy together is this repeated identification of Sigurd as “Odin’s hope,” the one who “deathless stands, who death hath tasted and dies no more, the serpent-slayer, seed of Odin” (63). This is purely Tolkien's invention since it isn't in the sources. It doesn’t seem to interfere with the mythology and factors more into the frame (although it is repeated in the text), and is subtle, in much the same way as Tolkien’s own Middle Earth mythology gestures in places towards a hope for mankind, but never names the Christ, exploring instead the tragedy and beauty of a world populated by gods and powers both strong and terrible, and, in the end, simultaneously subject to futility and persistent in hope.

For the reader of Tolkien’s other works, it is fascinating to see the connections between the Sigurd and Gudrún legends, and his own creative writings and the mythology he developed, to see the accidental growth of a story like the Hobbit (which really does draw on this Norse world), and to see the themes that Tolkien was clearly interested and developed further in the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings. Anyone who has read The Cihldren of Hurin or knows the tale of Turin will see definite threads tying Tolkien’s creativity with the Norse legends. Thus, this book fills out my understanding of the world of the Silmarillion, even as engages my interest in the writing process undergone in creating his mythology.

Finally, the cover is enticing (and for me, a good cover is, well, a good thing) with its wood-carvings. And each section of the text is preceding with an imprint from a series of wood-carvings detailing the Sigurd legend, from a twelfth century door from Hylestad, Norway.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book from cover to cover, including introductions, a lengthy commentary on the poems (sometimes needed to make sense of the plot!), the poetry itself, and a couple of appendices covering the origins of the legends historically and two supplementary poems written by Tolkien. Of course, I was predisposed to enjoy it.

Now that the book is done and back up on my shelf however, I must warn: it was sad.

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Thoughts on C. S. Lewis' "The Four Loves"

My long absence from this blog has been – in addition to my lack of time due to school – the result of the general purposelessness of its existence. I’m not working through a cookbook, following particular world events or assigning letter grades to animals like the panda or the musk ox. So there is nothing to drive me every week to sit down and write. I also undergo a slight existential crisis every time I push “publish.” What are the ramifications of this dispersion of my thoughts to the cyber world? What if someone reads them? Worse yet, what if no one reads them? Or, what if someone reads them but doesn’t care. Or, worse yet, what if I write them and don’t care? That, and my general perfectionism seems to surface every time I do write – I am content to chip away at a single written project rather than every week produce a neat four paragraph progression of profundity. I imagine that my writing reflects the sanctification process under which I’m going: never nearly complete, but moving in that direction. But I am determined to attempt what for me is very nearly impossible, that is, keeping a regularly updated blog; and this is partly inspired by the faithful (and interesting) blogging of my dear friend, and also by the fact that I am now done my studies and thus have the time and energy and hopefully the need for a creative outlet.

All this to say, one of the things I hope to do over the course of this summer is to read a number of books that have been sitting on my bookshelf for the past few years, and to write down a few (hopefully brief) comments about them here. And I am excited have finished the first book today, C. S. Lewis’ The Four Loves. It’s a little scary how good it felt to read through an entire book, albeit only 128 pages, in a few days, and not to have to turn around and write a term paper on it. How I enjoyed it! And for me, Lewis is always a good one to get back into since he is a good balance of readability and challenge, comfortable familiarity and thoughtful provocation.

The Four Loves

Although I have read most of Lewis’ writings, this little book had thus far eluded me. I found it at a used-bookstore a while ago and added it to my collection, but had to wait to actually pull it down from the shelf (half of it devoted to Lewis). As I mentioned above, the book is a good balance of enjoyment and intellectual provocation. You won’t find any dryads or lions bounding through the pages, but Lewis can’t escape his tendency towards story-telling, and in his elaboration on the four loves (which he divides Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity) he explores the nuances and ramifications of these loves by many a hypothetical scene or situation. Also, he is constantly referring to works of literature and quoting briefs snippets or aphorisms from these texts (but he is obviously from a different intellectual climate since references and even the speakers are rarely appended to these quotes; this is a little infuriating, although it goes the other way when the text proves familiar to me and I feel a little flattered to be on the “in” with Lewis by recognizing his reference to Julian of Norwich and the world as a hazelnut). 
His general pattern in his chapters on the first three loves is to define what he means by them, clarify what he does not mean by them including countering certain ideas about them, highlight their goodness and beauty, and explore their perversion and insufficiency. This latter part reminds me a lot of his methods in The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters, even though these are both two completely different genres; what he does is to paint the subtleties of these loves corrupted (since it is in the subtle rather than the overt evils that much of the danger lies), and allow the reader to compare them with him or herself and recognize any of our own similar tendencies. He also spends two chapters on useful preliminary stuff, including “nearness to God” and the difference between “nearness by likeness” and “nearness by approach.” This makes it a highly practical little book, because it isn’t content to point out simply the potential for human similarity with our Maker, but also the deep need to approach God, that relational and experiential and doctrinal crux. The final chapter, on Charity, could do with a bit more elaboration, which Lewis both acknowledges and dismisses by saying “And with this, where a better book would begin, mine must end” (128).  I think he could have written a bit more, and wish he had, but there are other places to glean from his insights on Charity, such as Till We Have Faces or That Hideous Strength, and of course there are other authors. The only other negative that I might mention, Lewis can hardly be faulted for. His book shows the marks of his time, and although I am by no means a feminist, there are moments where the tone (rather than the content) of his vignettes is a little uncomfortable in its depiction of women, or at least, the female stereotype. But maybe the men will feel the same way about the male stereo-typing. Still, I love Lewis and certainly cannot let that keep me from the very good, very insightful, very edifying content of his book. It is good, I think, to hold most cultural things in loose hands, while holding onto the truth doubly tightly.

One quote I appreciated for its bluntness, as it proves both funny and convicting at once, and with it I will push “publish” on my first post in a long time. But let yourself ask the question as to whether you ever approach God in the way caricatured at the end of the paragraph.

(On Christian love towards God, largely as Need-love. Lewis here points out the absurdity of trying to hide our need of God in how we relate to Him.)

But man’s love for God, from the very nature of the case, must always be very largely, and must often be entirely, a Need-love…. I do not say that man can never bring to God anything at all but sheer Need-love. Exalted souls may tell us of a reach beyond that. But they would also, I think, be the first to tell us that those heights would cease to be true Graces, would become Neo-Platonic or finally diabolical illusions, the moment a man dared to think that he could live on them and henceforth drop out the element of need…. It would be a bold and silly creature that came before its Creator with the boast, “I’m no beggar. I love you disinterestedly” (Lewis 9, emphasis mine).

Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. Great Britain: Fount Paperbacks, 1982.

The book which I have since taken off my bookshelf must, of course, belong to one of my other favourite authors. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun is up next on the reading list!

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Mutilated Frogs

There is this incredible moment in C.S. Lewis' Perelandra in which the horror of sin and evil nearly causes me to stop reading. I cringe at any rate, scrunch up my nose and close one eye so that it's harder to read the words on the page. The moment? Ransom is on Perelandra (the planet Venus), a pre-fall world, and has recently been joined by Weston, a man who we soon discover has been possessed by a demon or the devil himself with the intent of deceiving and felling the Green Lady. Not yet convinced that Weston isn't merely a mad meglomaniac, Ransom awakes, and here follows:

"Neither Weston nor the Lady was in sight, and he bagan walking in a leisruely fashion beside the sea. His bare feet sank a little into a carpet of saffron-coloured vegetation, which covered them with an aromatic dust. As he was looking down at this he suddenly noticed something else. At first he thought it was a creature of more fantastic shape than he had yet seen on Perelandra. Its shape was not only fantastic but hideous. Then he dropped on one knee to examine it. Finally he touched it, with reluctance. A moment later he drew bvack his hands like a man who has touched a snake.
It was a damaged animal. It was, or had been, one of the brightly coloured frogs. But some accident had happened to it. The whole back had been ripped open in a sort of V-shaped gash, the point of the V being a little behind the head. Something had torn a widening wound backward - as we do in opening an envelope - along the trunk and pulled it out so far behind the animal that the hoppers or hind legs had almost torn off with it. They were so damaged that the frog could not leap. On earth it would have been merely a nasty sight, but up to this moment Ransom had as yet seen nothing dead or spoiled in Perelandra, and it was like a blow in the face. It was like the first spasm of well-remembered pain warning a man who had thought he was cured that his family have deceived him and he is dying after all. It was like the first lie from the mouth of a friend on whose truth one was willing to stake a thousand pounds. It was irrevocable. The milk-wamr wind blowing over the golden sea, the blues and silvers and greens of the floating garden, the sky itself - all these had become, in one instant, merely the illuminated margin of a book whose text was the struggling little horror at his feet, and he himself, in that same instant, had passed into a state of emotion which he could neither control nor understand. He told himself that a creature of that kind probably had very little sensation. But it did not much mend matters. It was not merely pity for pain that had suddenly changed the rhythm of his heart-beats. The thing was an intolerable obscenity which afflicted him with shame. It would have been better, or so he thought at that moment, for the whole universe never to have existed than for this one thing to have happened.
Then he decided, in spite of this theoretical belief that it was an organism too low for much pain, that it had better be killed. He had neither boots nor stone nor stick. The frog proved remarkably hard to kill. When it was far too late to desist he saw clearly that he had been a fool to make the attempt. Whatever its sufferings might be he had certainly increased and not diminished them. But he had to go through with it. The job seemed to take nearly an hour. And when at last the mangle result was quite still and he went down to the water's edge to wash, he was sick and shaken. It seems odd to say this of man who had been on the Somme; but the architects tell us that nothing is great or small save by position.
At last he got up and resumed his walk. Next moment he started and looked at the ground again. He quickened his pace, and then once more stopped and looked. He stood stock-still and covered his face. He called aloud upon heaven to break the nightmare or to let him understand what was happening. A trail of mutilated frogs lay along the edge of the island. Picking his footsteps with care, he followed it. He counted ten, fifteen, twenty: and the twenty-first brought him to a place where the wood came down to the water's edge. He went into the wood and came out on the other side. There he stopped dead and stared. Weston, still clothed but without his pith helmet, was standing about thirty feet away: and as Ransom watched he was tearing a frog - quietly and almost surgically inserting his forefinger, with its long sharp nail, under the skin behind the creature's head and ripping it open. Ransom had not noticed before that Weston had such remarkable nails. Then he finished the operation, threw the bleeding ruin away, and looked up. Their eyes met."

(Lewis, C.S. Perelandra. Scribner Paperback Fiction. New York: 1996. p108 - 110)

Two brief points I would make in regards to this.

The first is the sense of sheer horror at the sight of an initially small mutilation. An abberation. A point of destruction in an as of yet, wholesom, whole and perfect line. Lewis is so skilled at writing, that the reader becomes absorbed in the world - it almost feels for those first few chapters on Perelandra that evil has been subdued even for the reader. That is, meditating upon such a surprisingly delightful and joy-filled world causes me to almost forget the injustice and sadness of ours. And this is exactly where the punch comes in. I stand shocked and horrified with Ransom when he sees that first mutilated frog. It even takes him a few minutes to decipher what it is - so accustomed has he grown to the lack of death's presence. It is a foreign thing.

And this is where for a brief instant I am able to recover the horror of evil, the ugliness of sin, the disgustingness of death. It is so easy to be de-sensitized when it is all around us. Our own sin becomes less important and offensive. "It's just a lie. Just a bad attitude. Just a grumpy word first thing in the morning." Ransom shouts at me: NO! It is a mutilation, an act of destruction that is far uglier and serious than you can ever fathom. It is as if I have taken my sharp fingernail and gouged at the soul's skin of the person I have hurt. It is as if I have arrived on the beautiful and perfect planet, expertly and lovingly crafted by the Living God, and stomped around on His frogs, twisting them into a wreck so far removed from their created form that they are barely recognizable. For a brief instant I can actually rise about the pity I feel when the reality of injustice hits me, and feel with Ransom the actual existential travesty that all evil is - from the 'smallest' cutting word to the grossest act of violence. "It was not merely pity for pain that had suddenly changed the rhythm of his heart-beats. The thing was an intolerable obscenity which afflicted him with shame. It would have been better, or so he thought at that moment, for the whole universe never to have existed than for this one thing to have happened" (109).

Taking this to a slight but still related side-note, experiencing this moment of realization of the ugliness and horror of sin (my own sin!) saves me from a pit I often fall into when thinking of injustice in the world. I can so easily start to blame God for the pain. I cry out to Him, "You can stop this! Why don't you? How dare you not? Don't you have any pity and mercy?!" If only I could see that the sheer awfulness of sin, death and mutilation is not only in the pain (thus invoking pity), but in its existence as everything in opposition to the good, holy Living God? Pity and mercy and compassion are gifts from God - unfoldings of His character! But how often I turn them against Him, as if I had more pity and compassion than He. How often I forget that even more than this pain offends the one being hurt, or myself watching, it violates the very person of God, it stomps around on His good, it claws with its fingernail at His holiness. It utterly rejects and pits itself against Him and all the joy in Him we were ever designed to experience. O may I not forget these things!

The second point I want to take from Lewis' passage is yet another feeling or sensation: that of being overwhelmed at the mutilation. Ransom goes to great lengths to kill the first mutilated frog and put it out of its misery (perhaps a foolish action), only to find - oh the sinking feeling - that a trail of mutilated frogs awaits him! This too relates. How often does the sheer thought of exposing oneself to the reality of pain, death and injustice in the world stop me from doing so. As quoted from Ever After, "I used to think that if I was to care about anything, I would have to care about everything." How can anyone of us bear that weight? How are we to expose ourself to injustice in order to engage with it, against it? Wont the extravagent weight of it all boll us over like a huge wave and crush us into tiny particles of sand?

Perhaps that is a question that cannot be answered on paper. There is good possibility that yes, the weight of it all will crush us and we will be crushed. Not ultimately, but here, on earth. Or maybe there is just as good possibility that we will share Ransom's later sentiment: "It surprised him that he could experience so extreme a terror and yet be walking and thinking - as men in war or sickness are surprised to find how much can be borne: 'it will drive us mad', 'it will kill us outright' we say; and then it happens and we find ourselves neither mad nor dead, still held to the task" (112). Maybe we will be crushed; maybe we will be sustained.

I take great hope in the fact that Lewis, the author of Ransom's world, does not leave his character alone. From the very beginning, Ransom was sent by Maleldil (...He has a different name here on earth), and in the end, he carries out what he was sent to do. How much more compassionate and gracious is the Living God: He has sent us and He will sustain us right through to the moment that He decides to bring us home. And again, how much more good and holy is the Living God: He will not let evil triumph forever, and injustice will not stomp around on His purpose for goodness and holiness to thrive - He will be seen and known. He will be glorified.

And we know that if He is glorified, all injustice will be rendered nothing.

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Renewing our minds so that we don't have to have an existential crisis

Have you ever come across someone who reminds you (uncomfortably enough) of yourself? Not necessarily in a negative way, but perhaps someone has similar passions, similar mannerisms, even similar features. And then you are faced with that moment of comparison - how am I different from this person? What makes me worth something compared to them? I find it even in the more trivial things; consider a strong attachment to your favorite book - in my case, when I come across another Tolkien fan I invariably start the comparisons running through my mind. And if my identity is resting in what I'm able to accomplish and be (even if it be my knowledge of Tolkien), then I may find the biting sting of jealousy, or insecurity, or just plain weariness of "me."

There are all sorts of situations where we find our existence under question. And even today I've been reminded of the absolute necessity of grounding ourselves, our hopes, our being, our worth, our past, our future, our everything - in the person of Jesus Christ. The way to fight insecurity about who we are is truly to cast ourselves on Him. And the way to fight existential insecurity in our daily existence is to participate in Paul's command that we "do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds"! (Romans 12:1-2) We must begin and continue in changing what we think and how we think, so that we conform to Him.

Lloyd-Jones' thoughts are very helpful:

The principle is that in the Kingdom of God everything is essentially different from everything in every other kingdom. For, He says in effect, the Kingdom of God is not like that which have always known, it is something quite new and different. The first thing we have to realize is that 'if any man be in Christ he is a new creature (he is a new creation), old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." If only we realized as we should, that here we are in a realm in which everything is different! The whole foundation is different, it has nothing to do with the principle of the old life. We have to work this out in detail, but first let me underline again that new principle. We must say to ourselves every day of our lives: 'Now I am a Christian, and because I am a Christian I am in the Kingdom of God and all my thinking has got to be different. Everything here is different. I must not bring with me those old ideas, those old moods and concepts of thought'. We tend to confine salvation to one thing, namely to forgiveness, but we have to apply the principle throughout the Christian life.

(Lloyd-Jones Spiritual Depression, 128-9)

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Fathers, Mothers and Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I'm so thankful for my parents. I realized that yesterday. For my dad, for his commitment to truth and his wisdom. And for my mom, who like no one else can just sit by me and listen as I try to explain myself through sobs, and then encourages me to keep perspective.

And for the writings of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I've read snippets of his exegetical work in his book on the first chapter of Ephesians, as well as The Sermon on the Mount. Yesterday I borrowed my father's copy of "Spiritual Depression" and am looking forward to equipping myself to fight against the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical slog that has become each day!

In regards to overcoming spiritual depression Lloyd-Jones looks to the Biblical precedent to preach to ourselves. He writes,

"I say that we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing 'ourselves' to talk to us!...Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man's [the Psalmist of Psalm 42) was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" he asks. His soul has been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: "Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you." (Lloyd-Jones 20-21)

Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. "Spiritual Depression." Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Printing Company, 1965.

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The Tension of Vision

Two quite different poems, yet both reminding me of the tension within our vision, of that deep conflict of the 'now and not yet.' The yearning for a heavenly perspective. The straining of one 'yet earth-bound mortal.'

I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
And begged Him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried, "But Lord, this is a thorn, and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou has given me."
He said, "My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee."
I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.
(Martha Snell Nicholson)


Do I watch the gulls blow,
the wind flinging go over and
under the remnants of air?
Do I callously know
the fierce thrill of Your singing
and yet choke on the chill and stare
at the smudges of concrete and smoke?
O soaring O flailing and flipping
the breeze, O silver in swinging
the currents and space - you poke
at my knees, at my sinews of stone,
at my turf-sunk jaw, my self-pitying
groan. O! bursting grey visions
O! torrents of dust, you scavengers
thirsting and twirling, pursue
the alluring frictions of joy.
Do I watch the gulls toss,
stretch back the glum clouds and
tease at the snow-starched sponges
of white? Do I sigh to my loss
and sneeze at the tickling, prickling,
piercing bright blow: O my sight cannot go,
cannot up that way wind,
when I seek what I seek,
what I seek I still find.
(Yours Truly)

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And the point is...?

A month ago I sat in this orange and green, pheasant-decorated armchair, frantically typing my little Medieval heart onto the page of yet another paper. "Ugh," I repeatedly thought to myself. "I wish I could be doing something else right now - like drawing or writing a story, or cooking."

Yesterday I had a pretty well-rounded day. I spent some time preparing for the course I'm the tutor marker for this summer. I answered a few e-mails. I prepared for the DVBS teacher's meeting. I cleaned the dishes and re-lemoned the linoleum beneath our door to keep the ants out. I even spent time reading the Word and praying. But when that was finished, and I had no other responsibilities, I wandered aimlessly around the house. Should I draw? I looked down at the scene I had started a number of months ago, now about two thirds finished. "But what's the point?" I wondered. "So I draw this, and in fifty years it gets thrown out in the trash - what's the point?" These thoughts kept coming back to me as I considered other things with which I might occupy myself.

Later in the evening, when my husband dropped me off at the skytrain, I was expressing to him my frustration with this strange depression - this purposeless in living. "At least with your paintings," I said to him, "You get paid for them." He shook his head and said, "That doesn't give them any more meaning than yours. They'll still end up getting thrown out in a few years. I make them for someone else - whom I don't know - to hang on their wall. To be consumed - but neither producer nor consumer is doing anything terribly significant." Except of course for trying to make meaning in their life through controlling the material things around them. Josh continued, "I paint them, so that I can make money to buy food, so that I can stay alive to paint more paintings. The meaning has to come from somewhere else - and it does. You have to entrust yourself to God, and entrust to Him to your time and what you are doing with it, to build a foundation for the eternal."

The point is, nothing here will last. Ultimately. But everything here - everything around us, what we do with ourselves, what we think, buy, build etc - can become a part of the kingdom-building if we are surrendering it to Him and working it in His power. It can lay the foundation for the work that we will get to do in heaven, that work which will be so saturated with God's glory that its meaning will be radiant to everyone who comes in contact with it. But it starts here.

My husband said to me, "Go, write a story that is going to make a thirteen year old girl get excited about being a Christian."

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Love through Oppression (or, the Proliferation of Paradox part II)

In this post I want to briefly address the paradox we find in the Christian life, that of 'slave' and 'free.' But rather than going to the more obvious passages that deal with these (such as Romans 6), I'd like to approach this topic through the letter to Philemon. This is in part because I was reading Philemon in my devotional time and God really blessed me through it and I wanted to share those thoughts, but also because as I considered Philemon, I was swept away by the strangeness of God's ways in comparison to our ways. And that is a sure indication that paradox is present.

Philemon is a short letter Paul wrote from prison to a man named Philemon. The letter commends Onesimus to Philemon: Onesimus who used to be Philemon's slave, who ran away from his service and stole from him, and who God saved through Paul's ministry and has been serving Paul in prison. The language in this letter is remarkable. The heart of it is astounding. Within the Roman context, Onesimus' actions were punishable by death and this shows the actions of Paul and the anticipated actions of Philemon to be astounding. Paul is sending Onesimus back to his employer, knowing that in a normal human context, he would likely be killed. And Philemon is accepting back to himself a man who culture dictates should be killed.

Paul commands Philemon to received Onesimus back, "no longer as a slave, but much more than a slave, a beloved brother" (1:16) and he concludes by saying:

• "Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, since I know that you will do even more than what I say." (1:21)

This is incredible. In this we see the heart of God. From broken lives, fractured relationships and even oppressive social systems, God makes good to come. Let no one ever say He is a god of oppression, that He is evil. He restores us, transforms us into new - holy! - people. He delights in reconciliation and healing.
And it is clear that Paul views this all as God's work, as he says:

• "For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever..." (1:15).

For this reason indicates that there is purpose behind all of this - that it is not mere happenstance. And we know from the context that it is God who is behind it.
And this is where I suggest that "oppression" comes in. In his cultural context, Philemon would be expected to at least hold a grudge, remain suspicious, treat Onesimus poorly, even if he didn't have him killed. And let's go a step further - from a much more 21st century perspective, Onesimus would have every right to be resentful, not wanting to return to his position as slave/servant and perhaps feeling betrayed by Paul. But this is not what we see here. Instead we see a network of persons, related to each other through human institutions but more significantly, through Christ. And Christ makes all the difference. It is as a prisoner of Christ that Paul writers to Philemon, and Paul himself hints at the fact that Philemon is likewise under Christ's command as well as indebted to Paul who was the instrument of his salvation (8, 19). And Paul refers to Onesimus as "my child..begotten in my imprisonment" (11) and "my very heart" (13). These men are all utterly enslaved to Jesus Christ. But the result speaks for itself: Christ's power works heavily in and through them because they have been bound to Him. Other chains are broken when Christ's chain is placed on them. The chains of revenge, retribution, hate, guilt, and fear are absolutely shattered when allegiance is given over to Christ. The results are instead life and freedom: "refresh my heart" Paul says!
I'm of course being facetious in my title, "Love by Oppression." Poor Philemon, being oppressed by the power of Christ working in Him so that he must receive back Onesimus - must forgive him, must love him, must hold him as dear as a brother! Truly Christianity is an oppressive force - but oh what freedom and glory comes about!

What I hope the title does is draw attention to the prevailing conception of Christianity as an oppressive institution, and then undermine this conception. That is, the title embodies the layers of revelation one will experience if they take a closer look at Christianity. The surface-viewer sees a regime of oppression, but one who has experienced God's salvation realizes that he or she has literally been set free and experiences all kinds of freedom: from guilt, from the power of sin to dictate all areas of our lives and being (such as self-protection, fear of man, lust for money and comfort, desire for fulfillment through fashion...whatever!), from death, and from God's holy wrath. And as we've seen in the case of Paul's letter to Philemon, God's heart is so set for freeing us that He enables us to be free in ways we find totally mind-boggling from a strictly fallen-human perspective. But, as we grow in our experience of God's salvation, we also find that He is also an immensely oppressive force - He presses in upon us, He does not leave us, His Holy Spirit pushes and prods and bears us down. This is not "oppression" as its current meaning dictates - but more as its etymological roots reveal: God presses upon us.

I love that imagery. For one thing, it reminds us of the physicality of our nature as human beings. We have bodies and God is not ambivalent to this fact. But what this "pressing" really is, is God's refusal to leave us. He does not save us by suggesting we have some sort of esoteric sense of salvation. He does not leave us. He demands we bring our whole being into surrender before Him - our bodies, our minds, our emotions, our wills. And He is passionate to sanctify - to save - us now. He works life in us as He wears away the sin nature in us. This is why the book of Philemon is so powerful for me: God's life-transforming Spirit works in our very real, fleshly world and experience to create beauty and holiness in our lives and relationships.

It is a paradox. God presses in on us. He oppresses our sin-nature and fallen-will, and presses us down: and by doing so, He frees us from the oppression of sin and gives us life and joy and freedom. He creates the unthinkable in us: holiness.


One last note. A P.S. if you will. Paul addresses the letter "To Philemon our beloved brother and fellow sister, and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1:1b-3). Speaking of oppression, I note the reference "to Apphia our sister," who is in this case clearly a woman (the church is referred to later, and thus "Apphia" appears to refer to an actual woman, rather than metaphorically for the church). So may we just close our mouths, when we the ignorant feel the temptation to repeat the mantra: "Christianity is oppressive to women - especially Pauline theology." Here Paul specifically includes her in his address. As Onesimus is coming back to be reintroduced to the Christians in Philemon's house, Paul makes sure to include the many people who will be involved in this relationship: Philemon, Archippus, the church who meets - and Apphia.

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