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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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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