The Wright Reading of Scripture?

Posted on April 10, 2012 by awtraughber

I RECENTLY GIFTED a copy of N. T. Wright’s How God Became King to a friend who I thought would enjoy the theological challenge.  In the book, Wright asserts that we have “turned the speakers too high” on two aspects of historical Christianity while “turning down” two other speakers.  The book is his attempt at helping us understand the necessity and benefit of adjusting the speakers and getting the fuller sound.

“How likely is it that we’ve gotten things this wrong for so long?” is a form of the question that my friend asked as we talked about the book.  The Reformation, of course, is an example of a response where a large number of believers realized that some major things had gotten decisively out of whack.  And while I’m still “feeling out” Wright’s assertions about the Gospels and the general thrust of the biblical text, I do find a lot of his thinking resonant.

The folks over at Relevant just posted an excerpt from Wright’s book on biblical authority: Scripture and the Authority of God.  The excerpt is a hefty chunk that looks at what Wright asserts as misreadings of the biblical text committed by both the “left” and the “right.”  Take a look here and see what you think.  Would love to hear your thoughts.  Points to Wright, of course, for multiple uses of the word symbiosis, a word we don’t use often enough.

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Taking Stock

Posted on April 9, 2012 by awtraughber

ONE OF MY FIRST EVENINGS in Honolulu back in the the summer of 2003 involved going out to eat with my one friend and many of my new co-workers.  I think we had Japanese food, though that memory eludes me.  It was a good evening, full of people that I could see being good friends with as time and chance allowed.  We talked books and Calvin and Hobbes and other things that made me feel like I had come to a good place at a good time.

A couple of weekends ago, one of the last people from that group of then-strangers got married.  It was the nice event, the third I had been to from that group.  In one wedding I was a groomsman and sang at the reception.  For the second occasion, I was one of the emcees for the reception.  This third time I got to be a simple and pleasant presence.  As I listened to people share (at least three of them present at that first dinner), I couldn’t help but reflect on how this group of people, these people I had partially “banked my new life on” had changed.  Almost all of them now married, some of them with children.  A good number have moved away, with some of them leaving and returning (and even leaving again).  Some of them I have gotten closer to, though most of our friendships have settled at a co-worker’s distance.  Whatever existed nine years ago has in many ways changed.

And so what for me, nine years into this place and life?  No wedding bells, no little ones.  Lots of students.  Other friends from other moments in time here.  But also a sense that this world has moved on (like the world of Steven King’s Gunslinger, really).  I’m thankful for every good moment here, but I also know that yesterday’s manna won’t be much good today and certainly no good tomorrow.  I like where I am, love my job, am invested in my church.  Something has to change, though.  Not an arbitrary change, mind you, but something that can sustain me for the long haul, for the longer story.  I’m going to be teasing this notion out here over the next few days.  I’m even going to write some about how I’m being led to change even as I have no leading to change locale or vocation.  Feel free to chime in with comments as they come to mind.

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Easter Quotations

Posted on April 7, 2012 by awtraughber

IN A FEW HOURS, morning will break and Christians around the world will greet each other with “He is risen; He is risen indeed.”  I’ve been mindful of the time almost all week, attending a short church service for many evenings.  I’ve been rereading Donald Miller’s first book and came upon a nugget that encapsulates the holy day quite well.  Thought I’d add a couple of other quotes into the mix to commemorate the day.

“Death is a difficult thing to process when no hint of it is at hand.  We may never hear the ice crack.  Mark Twain was right in assessing that the two elements of success are determination and ignorance.  Success being the six-figure salary and ignorance being a blindness to its temporal capacity.  Beyond the gravity binding us, our souls travel alone.  We ascend without the anchors of material possessions.  We ascend empty-handed; our shells, neatly dressed in pressed suits, set snugly into caskets.  The graves are all silent.  The caskets are vacant.  Stalin has no more wisdom for us.  Nietzche is preserved in books, having forgotten to lift his casket lid and tell us he was right.  Muhammad gives us the slip.  So does Buddha.  It is Christ alone who defeats the grave.  He came back from death.  Nothing left in the tomb but echoes and cobwebs.  And so we do well to listen to Him with the ears of dying men.”     -Donald Miller, Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance

“The symbol of Easter is the empty tomb.  You can’t depict or domesticate emptiness.  You can’t make it into pageants and string it with lights.  It doesn’t move people to give presents to each other or sing old songs.  It ebbs and flows all around us, the Eastertide.  Even the great choruses of Handel’s Messiah sound a little like a handful of crickets chirping under the moon.

He rose.  A few saw him briefly and talked to him.  If it is true, there is nothing left to say.  If it is not true, there is nothing left to say.  For believers and unbelievers both, life has never been the same again.  For some, neither has death.  What is left now is emptiness.  There are those who, like Magdalen, will never stop searching it till they find his face.”     -Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit . . .  Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”      -Jesus in John’s Gospel

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Telling Stories Again

Posted on April 6, 2012 by awtraughber

TAKING GOOD MOVIES FOR GRANTED is easy in the winter months, when the Oscar race is heating up and so many major artists have great working coming to the silver screen.  In the glut of greatness, some films go unnoticed, get written off as fare of less substance.  I’m afraid that was the case with Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo.  I did not see it at first because reviews were mixed at best.  Let’s face it: the show looks kind of schmaltzy, too.  But then I gave the movie a go before it left theaters and loved it.  Sure, it had hokey moments, but those hokey moments were anchored by three beautiful moments, two of a kind of magical realism and one of practical symbolism.

The story follows Benjamin Mee and his two children following the loss of Mee’s wife.  As one character puts it, he’s at a place where he has stopped telling stories.  In an attempt to start over fresh, to give his kids an “authentic American experience,” Mee ends up buying and living in a run-down zoo.  The movie showcases the zoo staff’s effort at cleaning things up in hopes of passing inspection and opening in the summer.

Like so many of the great movies of 2011, this one deals with loss (same as The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely and Incredibly, 50/50, even The Muppets).  But there are also moments of joy and healing, moments that completely caught me off-guard.  In fact, I just watched the movie again on DVD and was surprised by one of those amazing moments.  Unlike those other movies, many that I love, this one catches the beauty along with the pain, maybe even the beauty in light of and in spite of the pain.  So much so that maybe the people in the story will find themselves “telling stories again.”

If you get the chance, check the movie out.  It’s worth seeing.  Maybe not as subtle as others, which is okay.  But it crosses a border few movies did last year, a border that should be crossed more often.

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You Might Want to Read This

Posted on April 5, 2012 by awtraughber

BOOKS are always a topic of conversation for me: I spent part of the afternoon catching up with graduates who love to read and one who has written a novel of his own.  I didn’t like them much as a child, but books are a big part of life today.

The Pew Research Center just released information on “the rise of e-readers” and the reading habits of contemporary Americans.  Interesting: while 20% of Americans have supposedly read a book on an e-reader in the last year, 19% of adults didn’t read one book in any form in the last year.  If it weren’t for books like The Hunger Games, I’m not sure what books my current students would read that weren’t academic.  You can check out the USA Today article here and an important part of the actual study (charts and all) here.

A guest-poster to Donald Miller’s site also had something to say about books: mainly about what book-reading does for those who seek to do things meaningful and culture-changing.  Justin Zoradi uses a survey by the Jenkins Group to point out four kinds of people empowered by reading: readers, travelers, empathizers, and innovators.  I suppose the first should be a no-brainer, but the remaining three are quite interesting to think on more.  You can check out the rest of his thoughts here.

Anybody reading anything good these days?

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The Thing to Do

Posted on April 4, 2012 by awtraughber

WHEREVER YOU ARE, be all there.

I can’t remember when I first heard that said, but it’s been a part of my thinking for a long time now.  It’s the other side of being awake: awake is for yourself, being there is for others.  It’s possible for me to stand in front of my students and be a million miles away (well, maybe a few thousand).  It’s better, though, the show up in every way possible.

And so a song by Nashville musician Jill Phillips.  The song, “Show Up,” is from her album In This Hour.  A good thought for a day late in the week.

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Being Mosby: The Lesson of Shelter Island

Posted on April 3, 2012 by awtraughber

second in a series

ROBIN SCHERBATZKY has been the more difficult of Ted Mosby’s friends to like long-term.  Introduced in the first episode of How I Met Your Mother,  Robin is the one who Ted falls for more than any of his other interests.  She’s somewhat cold, overly career-oriented, and hilariously Canadian.  She’s also Ted’s last serious relationship before he meets and gets engaged to Stella.  It’s at Ted and Stella’s wedding that Robin finally steps up to the plate and speaks compassionate truth.

The Moment: Stella and Ted decide to get married on Shelter Island after her sister steals her wedding dreams but then breaks up with her fiance.  The wedding is, of course, a rush, and the almost-married couples end up having bother exes there.  In a moment of awkward confrontation, Robin encourages ever-romantic Ted to “get back to his real life,” that he’s “trying to skip ahead to the end of the book” and that he’s “disappearing into someone else’s house and wedding and marriage.”  It was a good moment for Robin, a hard truth that needed to be said.  And it’s a good first moment to see an important truth from the life of Ted Mosby.  What’s true for a television relationship can also be true of life.

The Lesson: In a world that worships connection at any cost, losing yourself in the life of another is an easy option, a real possibility.  And it’s not just a romantic thing.  Any time something new starts, balance is easily lost.  One of the blessings of my life in Texas was that so many of us were new to town, new to each other, and had to make some kind of life together.  Life in Hawaii hasn’t quite been the same: almost all of my friends have had a long life here and there have been very few moments of equilibrium and integration (and believe me: I have had many good moments here).

How easy it is to lose our stories in the stories of others, settling for someone else’s narrative instead of making something new together.  Real life can’t just be filling someone else’s shoes; it’s about finding new places and ways to walk.

For the first entry in the “Importance in Being Mosby” series, click here.

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A Less Immediate Life

Posted on April 2, 2012 by awtraughber

LATELY I’VE BEEN READING the latest book by Anne Lamott.  Her most recent memoir, titled Some Assembly Required, is a journal of the first year of her grandson’s life.  Throughout the journal she takes time to interview her son, Sam, who is the new (and very young) father.  In one interview segment, Sam speaks of his new understanding of forgiveness, how important it is but also how regular it has become in his life.  Life in close proximity, an immediate life full of actions and reactions and mistakes, demands such things.

These days my life is far from immediate.  I get a real-life glimpse of this whenever I hike with my friend Sean and his children.  They are in constant communication, needing constant correction and sincere affection.  Sure, there might be a hint of the “tyranny of the urgent” at play, but there’s also something very real and human about that kind of rhythm and reality of life. I think it’s a bit of the way that life is measured: rubbing shoulders, annoying others, seeking and granting forgiveness for things large and small. My daily life isn’t like that.  While I have neighbors, I must do a lot of life alone.  I’m not complaining here so much as I’m simply trying to understand it.

My less immediate life doesn’t pass the same way a normal life does.  A day’s worth of life for many is what I get in a week, maybe even a month.  The close proximity of spouse or children or siblings isn’t something that I have at this point in life.  So if I do something that required dealing with the fallout of forgiveness, it could be days or a week before I see that person again.  That’s a long time for things to fester or be swept under some relational rug.  The closest thing I get to an immediate life is with my students, those I see every morning before school or throughout the day.  And while such immediacy is nice, I’m convinced it’s not the healthiest.  Slow death and slow life: both the same in this kind of existence.  Like a life trapped in amber, really.

How important is it, then, to live a more immediate life?  How do you do it when the rhythm of life doesn’t much allow it?  What would a healthy version of such a life be like?

 

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And So, The Cruelest Month

Posted on April 1, 2012 by awtraughber

APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH, T. S. Eliot wrote at the beginning of his masterpiece, “The Waste Land.”

And so here we are, this first day of April.  For the poet, April was cruel for its “breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/Memory and desire, stirring/ Dull roots with the spring rain.”  April, it seems, is this strange mish-mash of winter and spring, new life in the remains of the old.  I get that.  Even in my own mid-30s kind of way, I get that.

April should be an interesting month for me.  Lots of things, good and bad, are pending.  Things with work and friends, people making important decisions.  I’ve got two trips planned this month, one with the school to Maui and another to the West Coast for reasons I’ll write about sometime soon.  And in the midst of that, I’ll be turning my next prime number: 36. So three things already frame the month for me.

The trick, of course, is to be awake and aware through it all.  In winter we are prone to slumber, and so the early of April can leave sleep in our eyes.  But spring is here and now and we should be awake for it.  That’s my prayer for the next thirty days: to be awake, to pay attention.  These spring days we can’t afford not to.   And here’s a song about such a thing from the band Mumford & Sons.


							

	
			

													
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Song of Freedom . . . and Law


			

				Posted on March 31, 2012 by awtraughber			


					

				
MY FRIDAY MORNING started with an interesting discussion with a student about the works and thoughts of Dostoyevsky.  Since I didn’t know much more than the average English major on the topic, we ended up discussing the strange relationship between the law and freedom in the Christian life.  The student was trying to understand why always seem to return to the side of law, even though we have experienced freedom in Jesus.


During the conversation, I mentioned a song by Derek Webb.  Hours later, though, I thought of an even better example of a song by Webb that deals with the issues of freedom and liberty in the life of following Jesus.  The song, “A  New Law,” is from the album Mockingbird, which I remember getting on a trip to North Carolina a number of years ago.  Take a moment and check out the song below.  You may not agree with everything he says, but he gets the thought across well.


							

	
			

													
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