A Reading for Today

Posted on December 22, 2021 by awtraughber

One of the things I like most about using the Daily Office as my Scripture-reading guide is that it often ties things together thematically (especially during seasons like Advent and Christmas).  Here’s today’s selection from Paul’s letter to Titus (some of chapters 2 and 3 in the NIV), with little bit of Christmas and a little bit of the Second Coming and a lot of hope in between:

11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

15 These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.

3 Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2 to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone.

3 At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8 This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.

Posted in Scripture | Leave a comment

Twenty Years of Fellowship

Posted on December 19, 2021 by awtraughber

Turns out that it’s been 20 years since the premiere of Peter Jackson’s take on The Fellowship of the Ring.  Truly difficult to believe that much time has passed.  So I’ll just leave this right here:

Posted in Books, Movies, The Long Story | Tagged | Leave a comment

Saturday’s Rest

Posted on December 18, 2021 by awtraughber

The fall semester officially came to a close yesterday.  I’ve been done with classes since Monday, but have had grading (and re-grading?) to do, along with a mix of meetings and cleaning.  I’ll still go in a bit on Monday (and maybe Tuesday), but most of the first semester’s work is over (including the first chapel talk of the second semester, which we recorded yesterday).

So today is a bit of a chance to recapture some of the charm of life that vacation allows.

+ + + + + + +

I went to an early showing of Spider-Man: No Way Home Thursday.  What a great movie!  This is the first Spider-Man movie in the MCU that actually feels like a Spider-Man movie.  Don’t get me wrong: that comes with a cost, as there’s something deeply tragic about Spider-Man’s story that has been mostly absent from the Tom Holland version of the character.  With No Way Home, that is no longer the case.

It will be interesting to see where the character and the story go from here. This one has a cliffhanger that also gives some closure.

The oddest thing about the movie was the fact that I was sitting in a packed theater for the first time in forever.  I’d gotten so used to pandemic-style seating that I hadn’t thought to check if theater capacity had changed.  It had.  And while the audience was definitely more subdued than the one’s I experienced Infinity Way and Endgame, there were still many good “whoop and holler” moments to be had.  Word on the street is that opening weekend for the movie will be huge.  It should be.  In so many ways, the whole Spider-Man story feels like the real coda to the Infinity Saga.  That’s especially true for this story.

+ + + + + + +

I think I’ve said this before, but I can’t quite remember.  Here’s one significant way this semester was different from previous ones: this semester felt like there was more outside pressure than inside inspiration.  Lots of things didn’t change this semester, but things still felt more like a greenhouse/hothouse than an actual garden.  That’s not a particularly good place for a soul to be, so I’m hoping that I can tend things better this time (that and not have three separate chapel talks running at the same time).

+ + + + + + +

So here’s to the end of the semester!  There’s still lots to do, but at least there’s some closure with the turning in of grades.  I’m hopeful that the next couple of weeks will bring a good and healthy change of pace.

Posted in Movies, Teaching | Leave a comment

Entering the Every

Posted on October 12, 2021 by awtraughber

For the first time in months, I’ve changed the “currently reading” information on the side of this page.  I finished A Secular Age by Charles Taylor last night around 11:00.  I’d made that commitment earlier in the day and then, with 30 pages left, made my way for an evening mostly away from home.  So it finally happened, though not at the highest level of excitement on my part.

Taylor says a lot in the 700+ pages of the book, so I imagine that I’m “done” with the book in one sense but not in others.  A lot of what he wrote over a decade ago is still applicable for us today.  I’m tempting to go back and reread Jamie Smith’s book “explaining” ASA (it came out in 2014 and I read it quickly as it was much, much shorter and less expensive than Taylor’s tome).  It’s an interesting historical survey of the last 500 years (how does anyone hold all of that in one’ head for so long?) that makes many connections that I still see resonating today.  So maybe I’ll give it a couple of days before looking back over my annotations in the book.

Today I got my copy of the new Dave Eggers novel in the mail.  The Every is a sequel to The Circle, which I remember buying at a bookshop outside Windsor Castle during my first trip to England years ago.  That novel was intended to be a page turner, a story that escalated into almost-absurdity.  I’m not sure that translated well in the movie version (at least not for some viewers), but that’s okay.  I’m a couple of chapters into the book and enjoying it.  There’s a certain playfulness in both the text and in the features of the book itself reminiscent of early Eggers.  I mean, the book is called The Every, but it also has three other (sub?)-titles: The Every or At Last a Sense of Order or The Final Days of Free Will or Limitless Choice is Killing the World.  And the dustcover flap copy?  Heh.  Beyond that, there’s an interesting self-awareness in the storytelling and characterization that resonates on a basic level and that, so far, keeps you interested.

You can find a copy of one of the early chapters of the book here at Wired.  I haven’t actually gotten to that chapter in the book.  I imagine it might happen soon, but with Eggers you just never know.

I imagine it will take me a while to finish The Every.  But I imagine it will be a quick 577 pages, especially when compared to A Secular Age.

Posted in Books | Tagged | Leave a comment

Traction and Distraction

Posted on October 8, 2021 by awtraughber

If you can’t already tell, I’m trying to use this two-week “break” to find my way back to posting here regularly.  This last quarter has been a lot busier than I had anticipated.  And while I’ve mostly been able to keep up with regular reading, regular writing has been more difficult for me.

The two thinkers who helped me most at the beginning of the pandemic have gone a little more quiet over these last few months.  Andy Crouch’s pieces from the beginning of Covidtide really helped me think institutionally and broadly, particularly his images of blizzard and ice ages.  The other thinker, Ephraim Radner, helped me think a lot about the life of faith (and the communal life of faith) in light of The Current Moment.  I think often of his First Things piece titled “Theology after the Virus” from just over a year ago.  He teases out some of the ideas that he had introduced earlier in 2020 about churches and the quick move to online services, this time wondering about the future of theological education and training across the board “after the virus.”

I think it’s because of these two thinkers that I’ve tried to make clear adjustments to work over these last few months.  Working with our school administration (and knowing that gathering everyone back in the gym for weekly chapel wasn’t an option), I pushed for a more “small groups” model to chapel time, where there is still a “chapel talk” and worship/reflection song and even student “micro-interviews” but that also had a greater “conversational” component.  This is because conversation is easily lost in a digital (and particularly concurrent) learning environment.  And so this quarter has seen my team (my wonderful team) helping with videos but also with slides and scripts to equip our teachers to engage in better conversations with their students.  We’ve also been given time to do some of that “faculty equipping” in person, which has been good (I hope).

Church has been in-person for a good while now.  Our pastor left back in May.  I preached for three weeks in July.  Well, I suppose I tried to lead them in some conversations more than anything else.  I tried to bring to mind potent New Testament images of the church that are as much about being as they are about doing.  They did some talk and turns, some writing and reflecting.  I’m now serving again on the pastor search committee, which is mostly meeting via Zoom.  Much of the old committee is back, which gives us a decent amount of familiarity.  But I’m also trying to ask some questions to build some community and make some connections.  We’ll be meeting in person soon (at least once), which I’m looking forward to quite a bit.

Now that we are this far into the pandemic (and now that I’m involved with approximately three search committees), I am more mindful of wondering about “what has been learned” from these last 18 months.  Perhaps learning something isn’t the most important thing.  Perhaps surviving these days is the more important thing.  But I can’t help think that a good stewardship of This Moment would bring some fruitful reflection that could lead to some intentional action.

Having said all of that, I’ve got a stack of articles to post about over these next few days.  It’s a hodgepodge ranging over the last few months (with nothing from Crouch or Radner).  So consider this the warning.  While I’m grateful for things learned and done this last quarter, I’m also hopeful about getting some traction back here (and with getting my thoughts down again, in general).  Not that one thing is a distraction from the other- in the best of all possible worlds everything works together well.  Maybe the next few days will allow a course-correction for that.

Posted in Notes for a World's End, Teaching | Leave a comment

Tome Reader

Posted on October 7, 2021 by awtraughber

I spent the first half of 2021 mostly reading short books, books that hovered nicely around the 200 page mark.  Since the summer, though, I’ve been in a season of (two) longer books, some of the longest I’ve ever read.

The first, whose image has graced the “currently reading” space for months now, is A Secular Age by Charles Taylor.  As I’ve likely mentioned before, I’ve been reading around it for almost a decade.  It was part of the content of a course that I took this summer, though the course was only reading selections of the book.  I decided to bite the bullet and read the whole thing.  As of this morning, I passed the “page 600” mark, which means I’ve got a bit less than 200 pages to go.  The book is brilliant in so many ways.  Taylor attempts to trace the story of Western Civilization’s stance on religious belief and why it has become such an optional thing over the last 500 years.  He goes down lots of interesting roads to arrive at his destination, so it’s both an interesting look at history as well as a kind of Rorschach test for how each of us understands that journey.  I’ve already tried incorporating some of his language into my junior-level Bible class (mostly the porous and buffered selves at this point).

The other long work I’m reading, also tied to that summer course, is Hartmut Rosa’s Resonance.  Rosa showed up in the summer course primarily for his work on social acceleration (which I need to read more about).  I previously read a short book by Rosa earlier this year, The Uncontrollability of the World, and quite enjoyed it.  Where Taylor takes a sweeping look at post-Reformation religious history, Rosa takes a sweeping look at how we feel our way through the world around us.  It feels like a kind of catalogue of sensations and relations akin to what Marshall McLuhan achieved with Understanding Media.  Taylor has obviously influenced Rosa (as he gets mentioned often), but Rosa is definitely working on his own trajectory here.  I’m about halfway through the book’s 450 pages.

I am reading one more longer work this fall.  I’m about 13 cantos into Dante’s Inferno.  I’m reading through the entire Divine Comedy via 100 Days of Dante.  It’s a program run by a number of “honors colleges” across the country.  We read about three cantos a week and get to watch a video reflection on each one (done by any number of humanities professors from across the country).  I’m enjoying the read so far.  I think I only read sections of the story back in college, so it’s mostly new for me.  I’m reading the Penguin Classics translation by Robin Kirkpatrick throughout the week and then doing a weekend re-read with Anthony Esolen’s translation (which is so much easier to follow for some reason).

My goal is to finish Taylor and Rosa over the next couple of weeks (fall break goal!).  Finishing Taylor is more likely for me than finishing both, but I can dream.  Dante will take me up to Easter, which is pretty cool.  I’ve got other books in line, too.  I need to jump back into MacDonald’s Alec Forbes of Howglen.  And then there’s Eggers and Card waiting in the wings.

It’s good to be a reader.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Look! New Photos!

Posted on October 5, 2021 by awtraughber

If you look to the right side of this page, you’ll notice that I’ve updated my Flickr account with some new photos- the first new batch in over a year, I think.

This past weekend I took a quick trip to Dallas-Fort Worth for a wedding.  It’s the quickest trip to the mainland I’ve ever taken, I think.  I spent the first day in Fort Worth in an attempt to revisit my old stomping grounds.  It’s amazing how much you can forget!  The first thing I noticed (at the car rental station) was the existence of a number of toll roads that weren’t there the last time I drove the “mix master.”  I got in my rental Kona, took a deep breath, and made a bee-line for south Fort Worth.  I found Seminary Drive but actually had a difficult time finding the seminary.  It didn’t help that the weather was gray and overcast.  I eventually found the school and then James Street, where World Relief was before it relocated a few years ago.  Then I wound my way over to Hulen Street via Trail Lake.  So odd: so much had changed (at least two apartment complexes I had known were completely gone) while my old comic shop was still around.  I landed at Barnes and Noble to look for a new Tolkien book (none in stock) and to get my bearing a little more.  Went to Macy’s to get a couple of things for the wedding.  The place was dead . . . the whole mall, it felt.  Then I made my way to Half-Price Books (which had also moved).  Then I made my way to my favorite Mexican restaurant in town: Fiesta (not to be confused with the grocery store).  When I got there, it was almost empty.  By the time I was done with the best lunch-time chimichanga in the world, the place was busy and more Fiesta-like.  The waitress said “see you next time,” and I found myself hopeful that they would still be around whenever that “next time” happened.

Knowing that I would have a chunk of time before I could check into my hotel, I bought a ticket (?!) to the Botanical Gardens, which was a favorite place from years ago.  That’s where the pictures to the right are from.  The drizzle had abated by then.  Sure, the sun wasn’t out, but that was okay.  It was nice just to be in a beautiful and familiar place.  I wove my way back to the Japanese garden.  I found myself way too excited to see squirrels (something we don’t have in Hawaii).  And when the time was right, I headed south and east to the hotel.

After unpacking and cleaning up, I made my way to Cousin’s for dinner with a friend, which was really good.  It really made the whole day feel worth it.  From there, I made a quick Kroger run and then hit the sack.  Slept a full 10 hours.  Ate breakfast at the hotel and checked out. Dropped off some gifts at a friend’s house.  Grabbed a Route 44 cherry-vanilla Coke from Sonic and then made my way to Malakoff, TX.

I took the long way, or a way longer than I had intended.  I ended up spending some quality time on some backroads- not because I was lost but because I wanted to see more of the scenery that the other route provided.  And I also had to get to a Chicken Express, the hidden jewel of Texas that I had not enjoyed since driving through Kerrville a few years ago on the way to Laity Lodge.  So I pulled into the Chicken Express in Gun Barrel City, TX (I kid you not) just as soon as a thunderstorm came through town.  Lightning, thunder, flooded roadways.  The workers had no clue where the storm came from.  I sat and scarfed down some chicken tenders before braving the rain and hoping that the wedding venue had dodged the bullet, which it had.

+ + + + + + +

It was good to see the old places.  It was interesting to see what I remembered (how easy it was to get to my friends’ house in Fort Worth) and what I had forgotten (McCart Avenue- how could I forget?!).  And I was surprised at how my mood was affected by travel fatigue (one hour of sleep?) and the gloomy weather.  But the dinner-time conversation and the time at the wedding made it all worth it.

All of this to point out that there are new pictures on the side of the page.  Not sure when that will happen again.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.  We’ll see.

Posted in Travel | Leave a comment

An Unexpected Reading Journey

Posted on July 6, 2021 by awtraughber

Wingfeather 1So last week I looked into purchasing an old novel by George MacDonald (an inspiration of C. S. Lewis).  When it arrived, I realized that I had not read the “fine print” well- the “scholar’s edition” that I had purchased (on sale) was a replication of the original text in its original setting.  Translation: they had made copies of an original printing and had bound it.  Which meant, old book that it was, many pages weren’t even legible.  So I ordered another copy, a modern resetting of the text.  In the meantime, to balance out the heavy reading of A Secular Age, I broke down and cracked open my copy of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson.  I’ve been a Peterson fan for years, just primarily for his music.  I’ve known about his Wingfeather Saga for years but just haven’t been ready to cross media like that.  But I had some time (at least until Thursday), and I had a copies of books one and two at hand, so I took the plunge.

I’m really glad that I did!  It’s not just easy to read . . . it’s pleasant to read.  It reads quickly, but Peterson has inserted footnotes that add texture and humor.  Plus, at times, the narrative voice shines well.  The characters are formed just enough and the mysteries are parsed out at a good pace.  I’m over halfway through, and I still don’t quite know where things are headed (which is really nice in a world where you know how so many stories are going to go before the curtain falls).  And while the main young characters (Janner, Tink, and Leeli) are a joy to read, it really is the adult cast that adds the mystery and the depth.

The other book will come in Thursday.  There’s nothing fantastical about it: no sea dragons or Fangs, no mysterious jewels with their treasure maps.  But it will be a story about Scotland, which should be nice.  But until then, it looks like I’ll be learning about the town of Glipwood and the world of Aerwiar.

(image from amazon.com)

Posted in Books | Tagged | Leave a comment

A Kind of Summer Ending

Posted on June 30, 2021 by awtraughber

It’s June 30th, which means I’m unofficially bringing a certain phase of “summer vacation” to an end.  June has been good: a quality trip home, a few weeks to (re)establish some daily and weekly rhythm and routines, good sleep and good time with friends.  And minimal work: mostly emails and the occasional in-person, on-campus conversation.  I’ve got responsibilities, though, that require the school year start a little earlier for me than for others, and I prefer easing my way into that instead of crashing and burning at the last minute.

Which isn’t to say that I’m ready to go back.  My mind is still a little scattered, my attentions a bit distracted.  I recently, I’m not sure how, got directed to this April 2021 blog post by Austin Kleon about the late-April New York Times article on languishing.  The title says it all: “I’m not languishing; I’m dormant.”  It’s a good read, and a necessary perspective when trying to make sense of the last 15 months.  Lots of gardening imagery, which falls in line with our school’s recent theme of Cultivate.  In the weeks leading up to the end of the school year, I pressed for some kind of conversation about the fall.  I got dismissed and rebuffed, which was not a surprise.  But I pressed for the early conversation because I knew the summer would need to be for re-charging.  I implored those I spoke to at the end of the school year to put things away and to rest.  And I’ve tried to do that myself.  Perhaps a kind of dormancy?

Kleon writes:

I’m not languishing, I’m dormant.

Like a plant. Or a volcano.

I am waiting to be activated.

I like the idea of “waiting to be activated.”  And I think it works on a deeper level than just just getting work done.  Something, perhaps, about coming alive in a deeper way?  Maybe, maybe not.

Kleon continues:

It seems to me that the reason that so many of us feel like we’re languishing is that we are trying to flourish in terrible conditions. It is spring outside — or the “unlocking” season — but it is still “Winter in America,” and, as any gardener knows, if you try to wake a plant out of dormancy too soon, it will wither, and maybe die . . . It is a mistake and a misreading of nature to think that you, a living creature, will be flourishing all the days of your life.

It’s a great post with lots of links, quotes, and images to help us see things just a bit more clearly.

+ + + + + + +

I recently had lunch with a staff-member from church.  One question asked: do you see the summertime as a chance to prepare for the fall or a chance to do other things?  They are connected, in a way, but not in an immediate-fruit-production kind of way.  Part of that is because whatever sense of calling or vocation that I have isn’t strictly about what job I have.  I’ve been fortunate that it all connects, but the two are not totally synonymous.  It can be easy to forget that.  So sure, as I read The Problem of Pain or A Secular Age, things I talk about in class come to mind.  But I’m not reading them solely (or mainly) for using them in class.

+ + + + + + +

So the plan starting tomorrow is to keep my morning routine (with modifications for Mondays) and to use the afternoon to get things done on-campus.  That should be a nice balance of things.  And I imagine I’ll still get a little bit of the afternoon for some summer vacation.  The nice thing is that the work needing to get done isn’t all that verbal: it’s mostly putting things together, ordering things.  So while it’s work, it isn’t as draining as verbal communication often ends up being.

Posted in Books, Teaching | Leave a comment

Short Season of Sequels

Posted on June 24, 2021 by awtraughber

I finished Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary a few days ago.  It’s the kind of novel that almost demands a sequel (or at least a second novel that dovetails with missing but intriguing plot points).  Sequels are always a little tricky.  When I read The Passage back in the day, I was so pleased with the overall reading experience that the need of a sequel didn’t even cross my mind (and even though a sequel made perfect sense).  I’m glad Cronin continued Amy’s story in The Twelve and City of Mirrors.  But reading that first book was reading bliss for me.

Last ShadowI’m not sure we’ll get a follow-up to Project Hail Mary, but I am aware of two other sequels that I’m excited about.  One will bring to a close one of the most fascinating science fiction reads ever for me.  Ender’s Game was a game-changer for me.  I read the first book over twenty years ago (and even then didn’t see that ending coming).  Speaker for the Dead was a sequel so much better than it had to be.  It was a novel that moved Ender’s story in a direction that made total sense, even though the story was completely different in nature.  And then Card went back and told a totally different story by following Bean’s perspective  . . . and it was a fascinating read!  Orson Scott Card brings the series to a close this fall with The Last Shadow.  It brings the threads of Ender’s story and Bean’s story together one last time.  (Which is a real bummer to me because the events of the previous novel made the one thing I really wanted to see impossible).  The book drops in October.

The EveryThe other sequel is from Dave Eggers and picks up threads from The Circle (a somewhat misunderstood thriller that became a better-than-you-remember movie).  The Every brings e-commerce to the world of social networking in way, I hope, that really gets us to think.  I also hope it’s a good page-turner.  The Every drops in November.

It’s been a good summer of books for me so far.  After a series of shorter books, I’m now ankle-deep in Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age.  Brilliant thinking.  I’ve been reading around the book for years now (thanks to James K. A. Smith and Andrew Root).  It’s good to finally read the book for myself (and for the online class I’m currently “taking” each week).

Posted in Books | Leave a comment