Some End-of-April Book Notes

Posted on April 30, 2024 by awtraughber

Back during Lent, one of my plans was to read shorter books only.  And I kept that, for the most part, which was nice.  Since then, though, I’ve taken the plunge with a few longer books (and one short book that I started during Lent and am almost, finally, about to finish).

As I write this, I’m about 16 pages away from being done with Oliver O’Donovan’s The Disappearance of Ethics.  It’s the holdover from Lent.  And it’s good, but it’s also one of those books that requires me to read and reread things a few times.  The book has definitely been good food-for-thought for me, both for the classroom and for day-to-day life.  For being such a small book, it’s quite the big-picture account of ethics and the Christian life (but not in a handbook kind of way).

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I’m about 2/3 of the way through Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation.  His basic assertion is that over the last couple of decades society has gone too far in protecting kids in the real world but not far enough in the virtual one.  Lots of charts and statistics, for sure.  The last chunk of the book, which I just started, is more about what can be done to make a better societal correction with things like smartphones and social media.  Funny enough, a recent episode of Abbott Elementary had an opening scene that dealt with students and technology.  It was both funny and worrisome:

Perhaps one lesson is this: let’s not be naive.

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My other longer read is the book that can be found on the right column of the page: Leif Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse.  It came across my radar the same time as The Anxious Generation; I thought it would be a nice counter-balance.  It’s a great book: compelling narrator, short chapters, and some quality world-building (and it’s a rather small world being built, which is nice).  Turns out I misread the dust jacket blurb about the story: what I thought was a main character simply “going missing” turns out to be much darker.  But Enger is a reliable storyteller, even if everything sad in the story doesn’t get to become untrue.  It’s my bus reading, so I’m still a week or so from finishing the novel.  It really is a good story, both heavier and more beautiful than I had expected.

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I’m not sure where I’ll go next book-wise.  New novels are always a little hit or miss for me (which is why I tend to read the same authors and rarely branch out to new ones).  Ephraim Radner released a new book that I just came across a week or two ago.  It looks a little dense, which is tricky because his style is also somehow elusive to me on a first read.  I’m also really interested in Why Everything That Doesn’t Matter Matters So Much by Charlie Peacock and Andi Ashworth.  It’s been years since I read anything from Peacock, but I’ve always respected his perspective.  Both books have a strong practical edge to them (they look to balance the practical and ideal well, really).  We’ll see what happens next.

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Beating Death at Its Own Game

Posted on April 22, 2024 by awtraughber

Eastertide continues, of course, up until Pentecost, which is just under a month away.  Here’s another great Easter song.  Andrew Peterson did that rare but great thing (almost George Lucas-like) by releasing Resurrection Letters Volume One years before releasing Volume Two.  This song, from the second volume, is one of my favorite AP songs lyrically, which is saying something.

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Forty-Eight and Four Squares

Posted on April 15, 2024 by awtraughber

Today is Birthday 48 for me.  Not quite as cool a number as 47, which is prime , or as 49, which only has three factors, but it is what it is.  I’m hopeful for a mostly normal day: early morning at the gym, a day of work, phone calls and messages from family and friends, and some time with the neighbors.  But as I write this, who knows what the day or the year ahead will bring?

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I’ve mentioned the work of Erik Varden often over the last few months.  The Bishop of Trondheim, Norway, he’s also a monk, which means he brings an interesting perspective to life and how it is lived.  In a recent homily, Varden tried to articulate something about freedom and the religious life that I thought was interesting.  He writes:

All of want to be free, naturally. But freedom may seem to us elusive. We’ve an understanding of freedom that is limited. For us, freedom is normally a matter of the absence of constraints. We think that a given circumstance, a given person, a given wound prevents us from being free. We spend our time moaning about that circumstance, that person, that wound.

He then mentions the three “stages” of what he calls the monastic pedagogy of freedom.  First, he says the monk must “make a preferential option for the real.”  This means accepting things the way they are given as an act of humility.  The second stage, then, is “to trust that God can do something wonderful with this particular reality.”  In this stage, humility is joined with a sense of self-abandonment that “gives God freedom to act.”  Finally,  we learn to practice a “readiness to wait.”  This brings patience into the mix.  As monks live into these three stages, Varden suggests, they will find themselves living in a kind of “perfect freedom.”

Which I think is also true for those of us not living the “religious life” but who are trying to “know ever more intimately Jesus Christ, the Truth who sets us free.”  That is a key aspect of life after Easter, of life through the end of the fifth act of God’s Story.  I would like to do my best to cultivate this perfect freedom with this next journey around the sun.  You can read the whole homily by Varden here.  It definitely a good way to continue to reflect on Easter.

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Something I’ve been practicing over the last few months has been putting thoughts and ideas into graphic form: timelines, something I call “line spectrums,” simple sketches (as I can do nothing better), and what Andy Crouch calls 2x2s.  I first encountered Crouch’s 2x2s in Strong and Weak, where he used the concepts of vulnerability and authority to think through questions of leadership and human flourishing.  Two boxes across, two boxes down, the axis in the middle.  I’m still working out how to do that easily with my simple word-processing program, but I think I’ve got something basic that I can use to some effect.  I thought I’d share some of them here over the next few weeks, if only to get a sense of my own current “location in life.”  My first “four square” (as I will call them from now on) is about the dynamic relationship between freedom and faithfulness.  Both of these are key aspects of living well in the Biblical Story.  But they are also often seen as being at odds with each other, and understandably so.  So I’ll put this right here to whet the appetite for later in the week:

Freedom and Faithfulness Tetrad

There’s definitely a sense of connected between this “four square” and the ideas mentioned in the quotes from Varden above.  For now, it’s enough for me to put this “out there” and come back to it later, I think.

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It’s always good to celebrate with a song, I think.  So here’s a song from Steven Curtis Chapman about looking back and preparing for what’s ahead.  A good way to start a new year, I think.  This is “Remember to Remember.”

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“In the Valley of the Shadow”

Posted on April 13, 2024 by awtraughber

A great song to remind us that Eastertide continues.

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The Tension of Enchantment

Posted on April 11, 2024 by awtraughber

This semester in class we’ve started each period with a reading from the New Testament letter of James and prayer.  This week, as we’ve come to the end of the letter, we’ve read and briefly talked about what James says about prayer and its effects.  Yesterday’s verses were about Elijah and his prayer for rain.  A student mentioned how odd it is that God would allow that, and what would have happened if Elijah had not prayed.  How would it be possible to change God’s mind, he wondered.

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In his post on the same day, Richard Beck wrote about prayer, particularly praying at the beginning of his classes.  His reason for doing this?

Two years ago, I made the intentional decision to pray before all of my classes. I’m in agreement with Andrew Root: the most critical and pressing spiritual formation task facing the church today is teaching ourselves how to pray.

To be clear, this isn’t about some pious “add-on” to make my class “Christian.” It’s not really even about practicing a “spiritual discipline,” some grueling work we engage in to become better Christians. Prayer is, rather, simply an enchantment.

I definitely agree with Beck and like his reminder that prayer is, on multiple levels, an enchantment.  Granted, it’s also a discipline and what Jamie Smith would call a “habitation of the Spirit.”  But it is the reminder that there is more going on than what we see.  Beck’s is a good post and a great reminder.

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The Deity and the Details

Posted on April 9, 2024 by awtraughber

A couple of weeks ago, back in my fifth Lenten reflection using Erik Varden’s The Shattering of Loneliness, I mentioned his use of the church father Irenaeus, particularly his “notion of God and man getting used to each other.”  I think that’s a good picture of the entire Biblical story, really, from God walking in the Genesis garden to manifesting as a pillar and cloud in Exodus to the still and small voice of Elijah.  I imagine the assertion that Jesus’ divinity was an odd pill to swallow, even as it made a good deal of sense to those who had followed him, and then to those who had seen Him after the resurrection.   It’s no small thing that post-resurrection-Jesus appeared throughout the days leading up to His ascension.  Paul makes a list of Jesus’ appearances as part of his discussion of resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. (NIV)

The resurrection is definitely a reality that the followers of Jesus had to get used to.

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Varden recently posted an Eastertide homily reflecting the the resurrection from John’s Gospel and one of those odd facts that’s always interesting but not one talks much about: the appearance of Jesus’ grave-clothes in the tomb.  From the NIV:

6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.

Varden writes about the cloth (or napkin) “lying in its place”:

There’s a striking contrast in today’s Gospel between what goes on outside the empty tomb and the ambiance within. Outside there’s a great to-do. Everyone is in agitated motion. Mary Magdalene runs. The apostles run, one faster than the other. The snippets of conversations we hear let us sense great perplexity. The absence of the Lord’s Body, that had carried a Presence that changed everything, represents a total loss of orientation. The result is anxiety — and in isolated moments flashes of mad hope.

In the tomb reign order and calm. John and Peter see, when they look in, the linen shrouds used for the burial of Jesus, not just put away, but folded. As for the napkin that had covered his faced, it is carefully rolled up apart.

These details are important.

There’s not much time to linger in the tomb, of course.  And yet, in a way, maybe all the time in the world.  Lots to ponder, to think about, even if it wouldn’t be clear to the women and the apostles for a while.  And yet John mentioned the details of the grave-clothes in a way almost too easy to take for granted.  Varden continues:

They let us understand that God vanquished death without violence. Violence pertains to the world of human beings. God acts in peace. The evidence of the tomb suggests a peaceful awakening, as if the resurrection were a matter of course: ‘I have slept and taken my rest: and I have risen up, because the Lord has received me’ (Ps 3.6).

Jesus, rising from Sheol, serenely put off death as if were an old pyjamas for which he had no further use. He did not cast it off with disdain. He folded it neatly, showing even this last enemy (1 Cor 15.26) divine respect, a kind of tenderness due, not to death as such, that’s for sure, but to the wounds death has imprinted on human experience.

It’s an interesting assertion, obviously somewhat speculative, and yet somehow in light with the facts that John leaves with his readers.  And, quite honestly, I’ll take whatever I can get when it comes to “getting used” to the reality of resurrection on the other side of death, not just for Jesus but for you and me, too.  I like the prayer Varden closes his homily with, as he brings the Easter morning assertion into our day and time (and the day and time of all of us in the “fifth act” of God’s Story):

Brethren, let us then serenely, but decisively, fold away anything in our lives that may still pertain to the reign of death. Let us leave this in the tomb once for all. We are made to live. Let us not seek the Living One among the dead (Lk 24.5).

Happy Eastertide, indeed!

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Eastertide

Posted on April 8, 2024 by awtraughber

Yesterday, a week after Easter Sunday, church was mostly “back to normal.”  Which is both understandable and unfortunate.  At least with some version of Advent, and the desire to keep the tree up a little bit longer, Christmas gets to feel like a period of time and not just a moment.  As a low-church evangelical, I feel some loss in not getting to sit a little but longer at the empty tomb and its implications.  Nevertheless . . .

The morning prayer readings for the week after Easter Sunday this year were resurrection day readings from across the Gospels.  They were paired with a return to the Old Testament readings from the book of Exodus, picking up with the final plague and the institution of the Passover meal.  And then the New Testament Epistle readings were mostly from 1 Corinthians 15, Paul’s great chapter on the resurrection.  The Monday morning psalm to kick off the week was also well chosen:

1 The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength;
indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
2 Your throne was established long ago;
you are from all eternity. (Psalm 93, ESV)

So I’m going to linger a little while in this period known as Eastertide (which “technically” ends with Pentecost).  Here’s a clip of my favorite modern Easter song, Christ is Risen by Matt Maher and Mia Fieldes.  I am always grateful when we get to sing it Easter Sunday at church.  It retells the turning point of God’s story and reminds us of our place in it.

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The Resurrection Optic

Posted on March 31, 2024 by awtraughber

Over the Lenten season I’ve posted some short reflections on Erik Varden’s The Shattering of Loneliness.  I think it appropriate to link to his Easter reflection, which I found to be short and sweet.  You can read the whole thing here.  One of my favorite snippets:

It seems to me that we, as Christians, more easily identify with Jesus’s Passion than with his Resurrection. We should do something about that. Life is what is definitive. That’s what we’re made for.

We don’t inhabit a world of pretence. But we live in a redeemed world. No death is final.

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Easter Sunday Refrain

Posted on March 31, 2024 by awtraughber

A song for Easter Sunday:  deep reminder of how big the day is and how utterly important is the One we celebrate it.

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Remembrance Part Six

Posted on March 29, 2024 by awtraughber

Varden LonelinessThroughout The Shattering of Loneliness, Erik Varden brings to attention a number of instances in the Biblical Story where remembrance is key.  He started with the Ash Wednesday reminder that we are dust.  From there he revisited call to remember slavery in Egypt, the fate of Lot’s wife, Jesus’ words in the Last Supper, and the promise of the Spirit (who would “call everything to mind”).  In the final chapter, Varden looks back to earlier in the Biblical Story and attempts to go deeper and wider in what he wants readers to remember.

The chapter title comes from a moment early in Deuteronomy, right after the giving of the Great Commandment and as preparation for entering the Promised Land.  The full paragraph from the ESV:

10 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— 15 for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

In his reflection on this command, Varden brings in the chief monastic task to “remember God” while also bringing in the poetry of Rainer Marie Rilke and the theology of Athanasius, particularly as they all point towards the idea of longing as key in the Christian life:

Human beings, says Athanasius, are conditioned to long because they are structured in such a way that nothing in this world can satisfy them.  Made in the image of the Word of God, they find no peace outside of a sustaining relationship with the Logos who, alone, can bring them satisfaction.

A precursor of C. S. Lewis, for sure.

From there, Varden sets out to tell the story of our longing as it relates to God’s nature, the creation of the world and humanity, and the affect of the Fall on our God-given/God-directed longing.  Over the course of the chapter, Varden tells the story well (thus making it difficult to replicate in a quick reflection).  Varden summarizes:

There is a distinction to be drawn between our heavenly, ‘logical’ longing and our earthbound, ‘illogical’ desire.  Yet the fundamental principle holds: any authentic longing, any longing that, even implicitly, points towards eternity, is a possible path towards God.  Dying, Christ declared a sentence of death on death.  Death alone is dead.  In Christ, we go beyond what is ‘natural’ so that our nature, one with the Word, is no longer what it used to be.  The condition of newness, which corresponds to what at first we were, makes us, too, possible epiphanies.  ‘Our arguments,’ says Athanasius, ‘are not composed merely of words, but have the proof of their truth in experience itself.’  On this basis he concludes by professing the principal result of the Word’s incarnation: ‘He became human that we might become divine.’

All this to say, I suppose, that one way Christians can and should engage those around us is through an “apologetics of desire.”  Or, perhaps as Jamie Smith would say it, helping us realize that “we are what we love.”  I’ll be the first to admit that I find the argument appealing and of the utmost importance . . . and that I find very few good examples of its effectiveness in contemporary Christianity (at least of the evangelical sort).  I suppose we often hear it as some version of the “God-shaped hole” approach, though that’s not quite it.  Varden is convinced, though, that the approach of longing is key in the 21st century, for a people who either do not know or have forgotten to remember who it was and is that delivers us from slavery into a good and pleasant land.  Varden claims:

Our time is wary of words.  It shuns dogmas.  Yet it knows the meaning of longing.  It longs confusedly, without knowing what for.  But the sense of harboring a void that needs filling is there . . . The gospel does not obliterate our longing.  It validates it, assuring us that what we long for is real and substantial.

Because what we truly, deeply long for is Who made us and What we were made for.

There is more to say about this, of course, and Varden does a good job throughout the chapter.

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Over the course of this Lenten season, I’ve attempted to trace some of Varden’s key thoughts on remembrance.  In remembering well, it seems, we might be able to “shatter loneliness.”  It’s not quite the clearest connection or thread for book title and content, but I think I sense what Varden was going for.  Because when we remember well, we can be less lonely.  We remember the God who is always present and always at work, who has not left us even when it feels like He has.  Each of these ways of remembering call us back into a story and a reality that is far too easy for us to forget (which takes me back to what Lewis said about faith and remembrance and the importance of keeping things in front of our eyes and hearts).  It is fitting to end these reflections on Good Friday, I believe, a day in a season ripe with opportunities to remember.

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