On Being Occupied

Posted on March 15, 2022 by awtraughber

I think often of this story from Jesus, particularly during times like spring break:

43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12, NIV)

Jesus is speaking in a context that has nothing to do with spring break, of course.  But there’s a principle here for sure.  Something about occupation and location.  N. T. Wright sees it as a picture of temple reform and how just because you get things cleaned out doesn’t mean things are truly put to right.  Something, or Someone, has to come in and fill what has been straightened out.  Occupation will happen one way for another.  Better for the occupation to come from what is good and right and true.

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This is day two of spring break.  Grades are done.  I’ve set the work email for an “out of office” response.  I’m enjoying the rest . . . and the rest that comes from travel, really.  But I’m also mindful that I need to fill things up wisely and well.  Too often, work has become about a kind of preoccupation: there’s always something else happening somewhere else that can distract you from the task at hand.  That’s not healthy at all.  But neither is having absolutely nothing to do.  So having a healthy break means using the given time and space wisely.  The alternative could be disastrous.

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Spring Break Start

Posted on March 14, 2022 by awtraughber

Spring break has sprung.  And it is much-needed.  The third quarter of the year is always a little rust.  This year especially so.  Every day felt like an avalanche.  No matter how prepared I was (some days more than others, of course), stuff just happened.  At the beginning of the quarter I was teaching one class.  Then it went to four.  Then, for a couple of weeks, it went to seven.  Thankfully, the quarter ended with me back at four.  And it was good to teach all seven classes for a while as it let me teach every senior (something I haven’t gotten to do for some time).  But there’s always more to do than teaching class these days.

Grades are done for the most part.  And I’ve got things laid out nicely for the first couple of days back.  So the goal is to spend as little time at school as possible.  Leaving the island in a couple of days will help with that, too.  But I’ve still got a lot to think about when it comes to school and the future.

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I fly out for the West Coast Wednesday morning.  At this point, the plan is to fly into Seattle and make my way to Anacortes, Washington.  I’ll spend a couple of days there before heading up to Bellingham for a wedding.  Then a couple of days in Snoqualmie and some serious snow.  It’s my first time in totally new places in a while, which is exciting.  The goal, as always, is to pack light.  I’ve got to bust out what passes for my cold weather clothes (and will likely do some thrift shopping in Anacortes).  The sense of adventure is nice.  There are some beautiful places that I hope to stand in while I’m there, including a ferry ride through the San Juan Islands.  And thanks to our school’s spring break set-up, I’ll get back and have almost an entire second week to take care of things here.

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The goal, as always, is to get some writing done here.  This site has suffered some neglect over the last couple of months.  I’ll be traveling with iPad and portable keyboard, so I ask forgiveness for typos in advance.  I’ll likely write about school, though maybe it will end up being more about education in general.  And there will likely be some church talk.  It’s all tied together, in the end.

But for now, breakfast has been eaten, I’ve gotten some reading done, and it’s time to move on to the next part of the day.  Who knows, I might even make it back here for another post before the day’s end. During spring break, anything is possible.  Even a miracle like two posts in one day.

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On Ash Wednesday

Posted on March 2, 2022 by awtraughber

Today was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent for many Christians around the world.  I’m not much of a Lent person, for reasons I’ll get to at some point during this season.  But I appreciate the general intent of the season and find the possibilities of the season moving.

Brad East of Anderson of Abilene Christian University had a piece posted today at First Things that is both wonderfully written and spiritually pointed.  Here’s a sample:

Ash Wednesday is the start of the Lenten season. Today we remember that we are east of Eden but short of Zion. In order to journey toward the passion of Christ in Jerusalem, we begin in the wilderness. We fast with Jesus. We suffer want, steeling the will against the suffering to come as we make our way to Golgotha.

“East of Eden but short of Zion.”  So well-said.  He continues:

But we also know that beyond Lent lies Easter: the Resurrection and the promise of eternal life. And so Ash Wednesday reminds us not just that we are mortal, but that the only way beyond death is through it—and that Christ has gone through death for us. We are marked by death, then, both because we are mortal and because we have already died with Christ in the waters of baptism. We have been crucified with Christ, and marked by his death. We now journey toward Easter and eternal life.

No ashes for me this year (it’s been a while, actually).  And not really any particular “giving up” of anything.  I am continuing my months-long reading of The Divine Comedy.  Beyond that, I’m looking to spend some time with The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis (which I’ve tried reading once many years ago but just couldn’t get into).  Beyond that, it’s getting through the end of this quarter and not crashing and burning before the school year ends.

Even still: “East of Eden but short of Zion.”  It’s a map well-laid.

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Sunday’s Best: Face Value

Posted on February 20, 2022 by awtraughber

Today’s classic Calvin and Hobbes could take the spot today on facial expressions alone.  And not just Calvin’s exaggerated expressions: the face of Calvin’s dad is a great foil to the almost grotesque Calvin.

clv02c(image from gocomics.com)

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Out-of-Date Update?

Posted on February 16, 2022 by awtraughber

This past weekend I finally made it to the “barracks” of the Others from LOST.  We took a group of students to Camp Erdman for a day camp, our first off-site trip like that in over a year.  It was great to get away, to see another part of the island, and to get a glimpse of TV history (at least for me).  You can see the barracks in the pictures to the right; they’ve been painted since the series aired, but it’s still them.

As is too often the case, the days are packed.  And the evenings sometimes, too.  Yesterday was a day for three classes, a live chapel (thankfully with a guest speaker), picking up the car from the shop, and two church meetings via Zoom.  Today has been quite tame compared to that.  The thing is that I try to keep things pack in the daytime, which is both good and bad.

It really is always something.  A teacher in my department left mid-year.  We brought in two part-timers for help.  One wrapped up his time after one unit, so I went from three sections to four.  This week and next, the other part-timer is on a pre-hire vacation.  So, for the next week-and-a-half, I’ve got seven sections to teach.  I love teaching, though, so I’m glad to do it.  But it definitely packs out the day.

The pastor search continues at church.  The search for a Christian Ministries coordinator continues at school.  And we’ll be looking for a new teacher for the fall to more permanently replace the teacher that left mid-year.  This next Sunday will be my third Sunday in a row with the worship team at church (usually it’s every other week).  So yeah, there’s lots to do.

But I am more and more convinced that God isn’t really honored in busyness, no matter how important it is.  I could be wrong, of course.  And God’s love doesn’t change.  But I know that I’m in a better place when the days and nights aren’t packed.  I feel like the last few years have made working throughout the day and night both more normal and acceptable.  That’s going to have to change for me.  As I’ve already mentioned, I’m done with Christian Ministries with the end of this semester.  I am hopeful that the pastor search will come to a wrap with the summertime, but you never know.  I’ve got a two-week spring break coming up that will involve a trip to the west coast for a wedding.  I am hoping to work in a day or two of “mini-retreat” somewhere around that destination before the celebration takes place.

Sometimes life too often feels like a boat that keeps leaking or a driveway that keeps getting covered in snow and no matter how much you bail or you shovel, the water and snow keep coming.  Which is okay for a season.  But not for more than a season if you can help it.  And while I’m grateful for this time, I’m also looking forward to this particular season coming to an end.

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Rings in the New Age

Posted on February 15, 2022 by awtraughber

It’s been some time since Amazon first announced their plans to adapt the stories by Tolkien that preceded the age of hobbits and the One Ring.  This past Sunday, they finally released a teaser trailer for the September-premiering The Rings of Power.  There aren’t many rings in the trailer, but there are a lot of nice, wide shots.

There are, of course, Tolkien fans who are upset about things.  Any adaptation runs the risk of veering from the source material and offending long-time fans.  But I think I’ll take the approach of enjoying whatever you get.  Sure, there might be things that go against the general approach that Tolkien took to his work.  It will be what it will be.  But the books, those great books, will always be there.

So here’s looking to a few more months of teasers and possible trailers and to seeing whether or not it is possible to tell some stories visually that have never been told that way before.

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A Tale of Time

Posted on February 14, 2022 by awtraughber

I’m about 30 pages into Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties.  Klosterman is one of my favorite non-fiction writers, especially when it comes to American pop culture.  The book looks to be a 300-page dissection of what it was like to live in what many of us (myself included) have called a last kind of decade (before the ubiquity of the internet, Apple, and everything else that came in the early 2000s).

And right on time, UnHerd has posted a piece by Douglas Coupland, one of my favorite fiction (and non-fiction) writers.  Coupland coined the term Generation X, a book I finally got around to reading during my first year in Honolulu).  Along with discovering Dave Eggers, Coupland and Klosterman helped me reflect on a decade I had grown up in (but was by no means fully entrenched in).  The piece is an interesting read.  I’m not sure I agree with all of Coupland’s assertions, but I think he gets the sense of things right.

Part of what is interesting for me now, of course, is the sense that I have of moving through time, that things have changed for me even over the last ten years as a teacher who often relies on the greater narrative of culture to make connections.  So much of that is lost; it really only remains because of Marvel movies.  And even then . . .

Here’s one quote from the piece about the 90s (and the quintessential MTV Unplugged concert by Nirvana) that I quite like:

It was the opposite of right now, when everything drags on forever. Marshall McLuhan said that when one medium makes another obsolete, it frees up that previous medium to become an art form — which is what happened with the internet eclipsing TV. Around the early 2000s you had the Sopranos and other long-form TV programming emerge, shows which could genuinely be considered art. Recently there’s a new Soprano’s show based on Tony Soprano’s early life, The Many Saints of Newark. If they announced that next month the Muppets were doing a Soprano’s variant, I wouldn’t be surprised. As I said, everything goes on forever these days, sprawling out into seasons of episodes and spawning relentless new iterations.

It was Coupland, of course, who put me in the direction of Marshall McLuhan a few years ago when he penned a quick biography of the Canadian thinker.  I’m curious to see where Klosterman lands by the end of his book.  But I’ll also probably take my time to enjoy the read.

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Gas in the Tank

Posted on January 14, 2022 by awtraughber

Empty Gas GaugeOne of the questions you are asked when renting a car is whether or not you want to prepay for gas or if you’d rather fill it up right before you return it.  Over the years,  I’ve settled for the first option: paying in advance and then returning with the tank mostly empty.  Sure, gas at the pump is likely to be a little cheaper than what the rental company will charge, but what ultimately constitutes a “full tank of gas”?  Then you have to figure in what time of day you are likely heading to the airport.  When traveling back to Hawaii, I often leave way before dawn, so I prefer not stopping at a gas station.  So pre-paid it is.

This last trip, I predicted gas for the return trip almost too well.  I mostly stayed around the homestead this trip.  Aside from one day-trip to Kentucky, I didn’t make any long drives.  So I filled it up a little, but tried to add just enough to the tank to get me to the airport.

So about a fourth of the way to the airport that morning, the gas light came on.  By my calculations, I should still have been able to make it to the airport with a bit to spare.  But at some point (relatively early on), the gas gauge just flashes a dash instead of giving you a predicted remaining mileage.  Which was a little unnerving to me.  Once you get down the ridge towards Nashville, there aren’t that many easy exits for obvious gas stations.  But I pressed on in hopes that I could make it the whole way.

And I did.  Which was great.  But I wasn’t expecting the nervousness of calling it so close.  I imagine next time I’ll allow for a little bit more buffer. We’ll see.

Either way, a great analogy for living and transitions in life.  On some level, it’s understandable to push until you’ve got nothing left in the tank.  On another, though, that idea is ludicrous.  Because even if there’s not another leg in the same direction, there still might be a return journey.  Life isn’t always a rental car situation: it’s a pit stop, not a terminal stop.

Last week I started my self-declared last semester with my “temporary vocational stretch.”  These last two weeks have been crazy.  The temptation is to just do enough to survive the moment, the meeting, the week in question.  But the road is longer that, and more gas is likely necessary.  And that’s okay.  Maybe it’s not always the best thing to “finish the trip” with as little in the tank as possible.  Maybe sometimes it’s more appropriate to always have more in the tank than you think is necessary.

(image from kawarthanow.com)

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Self-Knowledge and Systems

Posted on January 10, 2022 by awtraughber

Self-knowledge is almost meaningless if a system is indifferent and unresponsive.

That’s one of my big take-aways from the last couple of years.

Self-knowledge is a good thing.  Not everything, mind you.  But it’s something.  Observation of what makes you tick, “why you get up in the morning,” what it is that brings joy or frustration.  Those are good things to realize about yourself, especially if you get a sense of those things over time and not just in the moment.

But all the self-knowledge in the world is meaningless if the system you are a part of is either indifferent or unresponsive to your realizations of self-knowledge.  Granted, most systems are by nature indifferent and unresponsive.  That’s why they are systems.  I suppose you could use the term framework.  Organization might be a better fit.  But ultimately, people are behind systems.  And even opting out of a system is probably a kind of system.

There was a quote on the office door of my political science professor in college: freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you (or something like that).  The quote assumes a hierarchy of some kind, a contingency of the individual’s life on something bigger or greater or more powerful.  There’s something slightly defeatist about the quote. (I just looked it up; it’s attributed to Sartre.  So yeah, there’s something existential about it.)  But there’s something freeing about it, too, especially if it points you to what is beyond the system.  Because there is something beyond the system.  And that’s a good thing.

Next time: what I learned from renting a car.

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Halfway Through

Posted on January 4, 2022 by awtraughber

About fifty days ago, I started a journey that I had thought about for some time but ever gotten around to: I started reading Dante’s Divine Comedy.  I did it because one of my favorite newsletter-writers, Matthew Lee Anderson, promoted it as 100 Days of Dante.  Anderson is part of the honors program at Baylor University.  He also writes a lot about politics, ethics, and the Christian faith.

So we read three cantos a week and then get to watch one video per canto where someone, usually from an honors program, talks about key insights into that particular canto.  Yesterday, we hit the halfway mark.  34 cantos of Inferno and now 17 cantos of Purgatory.  Here’s the video for yesterday’s canto.  It’s by Dr. Brian Williams of the Templeton Honors College.  This is his second video.  Both of them have been amazing.

One of the things I like the most about the canto is that it says a lot about “the ordering of loves,” something that I was first introduced to because of Jamie Smith and Augustine.  If Williams is right, it is no coincidence that this topic finds its way into the very middle, the very heart, of Dante’s journey from hell to heaven.

As has been so often the case for me these last few months, I can’t help but think of C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce when reading and reflecting on The Divine Comedy.  Dante packs so much into his tale.  Lewis does the same in The Great Divorce, just with a much smaller page count.  After an initial reading of a canto from Robin Kirkpatrick’s edition, I watch the video and then reread the canto, this time from Anthony Esolen’s translation, which is one that I highly recommend.  His introductions and footnotes are quite good.

So halfway through, halfway there.  It’s been an interesting journey for me, if only to dispel some of my preconceptions about Dante’s greatest work.  I’m looking forward and looking ahead, which is exciting.

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