A little music from the Avett Brothers to close out the middle of the week.
Currently Reading:
Flickr Photos
Turing Test in Reverse?
This week’s new Agents of SHIELD took us to Area 51 in the 1950s. There was some nice humor mixed in with this week’s hunt for the evil robots from the future. Plus there was the arrival of Agent Sousa (from Agent Carter) to set up. Here’s a clip.
The team has faced some interesting ethical dilemmas as they tour the past. Next week’s looks particularly difficult.
Ministry is Friendship
I’m just few hours away from the first live Zoom meeting of the course that I’m auditing this summer through my old university. I am cautiously optimistic about the opportunity. Last night I sat down to write my reflection of Gilead. I’m maybe 75% happy with it? I had hoped to frame it a little differently, but the given prompts didn’t quite line up like that (which is fine).
The thing is, I’m almost desperate for a place to talk about/reflect on ministry. These last, mostly-three years of working with our Christian Ministries program along with my regular responsibilities teaching Bible have left me producing a lot of content that I believe in, but it’s also crowded out some other things that I think should be necessary when talking about the implications and realities of the Gospel. Beyond that, I’ve learned that leadership often means everything BUT “getting your own way.” Voices come at you from every direction, and a big part of leadership seems to involve harmonizing those different voices as much as possible, even if it means that you don’t get to sing what you would like.
I’ve had a few ideas percolating over the last few months that I’ve wanted to get down somewhere. A lot of what I’ve been thinking about is a mix of personal experience blended in with the thoughts of people like Jamie Smith or Andrew Root or Ephraim Radner. (Maybe I’ll reflect on each of their influences later). I often find that much communication about what I say or do through class or chapel or camps is evaluative: good job, great approach, well-done type stuff that is fine but not very helpful on a heart level. But you can’t respond with that because then you’re looking down on something intended to encourage. But since it looks like I’m up for another year of doing what I’ve been doing temporarily, I need to get some things down and out. And so here’s where I want to start:
Ministry is friendship. And friendship is ministry.
Anything less than friendship in ministry is likely to be mutual manipulation, even at its best.
Don’t get me wrong: ministry is many things. There are lots of ways to approach ministry, and some are better than others. But in the big picture, in the “long obedience,” I think the thing most needed and least defined in ministry is friendship.
Ministry often starts with an imbalance: I’ve got something you don’t have that I want you to have and I want to help you get it. And rightly so. The Gospel must be preached. Faith comes by hearing. But what does that look like over time? How do we best understand the kingdom of God around us?
At some point, the Good News of Jesus is a reality experienced amongst equals. The New Covenant as mentioned in Jeremiah 31 hints at this:
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
I think that’s a big part of the ontological reality of being considered brothers and sisters in Christ. At some point, the connections between people has to go from a distributionist/top-down model to a form of brothers-and-sisters model. Sure: there will be moments when one has what the other needs (particularly if there is a brother in crisis), but more often the communal life amongst followers of Jesus will be about bringing common things to share at the table (as brothers and sister in Christ). The difficulty with programmatic Christianity, with a kind of hierarchical Christianity, with a kind of Christianity that is not keyed towards growth in Christ towards Christ-likeness, is that an unfortunate approach to community and unity is adopted that might actually do more damage in the long run because of how it sets up a potential mutual manipulation based on the needs of the program or the institution that may ultimately have little to do with the person right in from of you who is seeking to become more like Jesus in ways that the tyranny of the urgent just doesn’t allow for.
Ministry is friendship. And friendship is ministry.
Anything less than friendship in ministry is likely to be mutual manipulation, even at its best.
That’s a start.
Posted in Faith, Teaching
Leave a comment
Strange Summer Day
Today didn’t go as I had planned at all.
Last night I noticed something stuck in my right front tire: turned out to be a screw. No real leak, but you can’t be too careful. So my day started with a trip to Goodyear to get that taken care of. While my car was in the shop, I made my way back to school only to find that I had not actually signed up to be on campus. So there went my morning pans. Spent some time with the neighbors before going to pick up the car. Decided to grab lunch from Teddy’s Bigger Burgers, which was a nice treat. I found out later that Matthew Crawford’s new book had dropped, which led to a quick trip to Barnes and Noble (which is now open for business). And tonight was spent writing a kind of reflection on Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead for Thursday’s class.
So what I had hoped to write today will have to wait until tomorrow. In the waiting, though, is a quote from Gilead that I quite like but that didn’t make it into this week’s reflection. From the letter of Reverend John Ames to his son:
I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.
Posted in Books, Faith
Leave a comment
Back to Class
When it became clear that I probably wouldn’t be traveling to Tennessee this summer, I decide to look for good ways to frame my time. Vacations are always a little tricky for me: I tend to do best when I’ve got purpose and structure (which travel often provides). Thanks for social media, I got wind of an alumni-audit class at Union University taught by my Pastoral Epistles professor from back in the day. The course? Portraits of Pastoral Ministry in Modern Novels. Right up my alley on a couple of different levels. And coming off of about three years of balancing teaching with chapel/camp stuff, I thought it might be a nice way of recharging . . . and revisiting a kind of Christian intellectual culture that has really formed me all those years ago.
So this weekend I (re)read Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. I tried reading it soon after it’s release but couldn’t get past the first few pages because it felt b-o-r-i-n-g. I tried to read it again a few years later and found it to be one of the most beautiful books I had ever read. It’s the first book on the syllabus, so I knew I could give it a little less time. But even I was surprised to find myself able to finish it in just over two days.
As excited as I am about the chance to read some novels, three of which I had never cracked open before, I think I’m more excited about the opportunity to do some writing. We’ve got five papers to write: one for each novel and one as a summary of things learned over the course. There are also about four short responses to write, too. So I’m kind of hoping to weave in some things that I’ve been thinking about over the last few years to see if any connections exist.
I spent a decent chunk of this afternoon watching the video lectures that go along with the online course. It’s a nice turning of the tables for me, as I spent the last quarter trying to teach online. I imagine all of the joys and frustrations of the quarter will be transferable. And if we have to go online again sometime, I’ll have a better sense of what it’s like on the student end. There was good comfort in lectures presented by a professor from my past. And there was good comfort to see that we hold some key beliefs in common about the pastoral ministry, both from the roots in the biblical text but also in some of the practical implications for life today.
I’m going to try and spend some time each week here writing out some things that I’ve been meaning to articulate for a while now. And I also hope to share some things that I’m learning in the here-and-now. It should be a nice change of pace after a couple of weeks’ worth of television and comic strip posts. (That’s where I go when the days are packed and I just can’t focus much). I’ll also share some pertinent quotes from the books we are reading.
So it’s back to class for me, at least for a little bit each day for the rest of my summer. I’m looking forward to learning.
Also, after many months, I finally finished Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. More on that some other time.
Posted in Books, Faith, Teaching
Leave a comment
Summer Saturday
Today was the first day to try for a more normal Saturday without school and with (hopefully) a restaurant or coffee shop to use for “landing.” Yesterday I met a friend at Ala Moana Center in hopes that we would be able to sit and eat, but the common seating areas still aren’t open. But I was able to walk into Barnes and Noble for the first time in two months, which was great. But, alas, my regular breakfast place wasn’t open for seating either. Turns out that lots of places still aren’t opening up just yet, which is understandable.
So today I thought I’d give it another try. Found a great place for breakfast: Liliha Bakery. It was my first full meal out in two months, and it was great. It was nice to sit and read and write a bit, too. Then I ran some errands before making my way home for the rest of the warm and slightly wet afternoon and evening.
The next few days will be interesting as I try to get some bearings for post-semester life. I’m hoping a few more downtown spots will be open next week. The big one will be Zippy’s, which is holding off just a little bit longer before opening up tables. I’ve got some reading and writing to do over the next few days (that I’ll write more about soon), so having some travel-around-town options would be nice. Tomorrow is back to church for the first time in two months. We’re running two socially-distanced services. It will be interesting.
Posted in Notes for a World's End
Leave a comment
Sometimes by Step
A classic song for the end of a good but tiring school year.
Endings, Beginnings, and Endings
Today was one of those days, usual for late May but particularly potent this year, where the endings and beginnings of things kind of roll into one. Part of it for me is because I end classes with seniors earlier than many teachers, which means I start thinking about next year earlier than most. So today was spent on campus putting something together that can serve as a kind of bridge between this school year and the next.
Today was the last day for students to have any major first-round exams. Monday starts a round of meetings for big-picture wrap-up and then planning. Lots of different kinds of balls in the air. I am hopeful for what’s next even though I know that the fall semester, for all of our efforts to make it “same as it ever was,” will also be radically different. And, like most, we will have an interesting time maneuvering expectations and reality. So even with new beginnings we’ll be mourning some losses.
+ + + + + + +
Today I finished my rewatch of Community. What a great show! It was my first time making it through the “gas leak year” since it aired. And while it was far from perfect, it did have a few shining moments. Today was for the final episode of season six, the episode where each character tells the story of what their “season seven” would look like. It’s odd, the show was on the edge of cancellation for most of its run, I think, so every finale had an extra dose of “finality” built in. The last time I watched the episode, I shared the video clip of the last conversation with Jeff and Annie in the study room. This time I was more struck by the closing scene at the airport. Even though there’s a kind of forced infantile nature for Jeff, he had real moments of realization and letting go. That scene, particularly as he says goodbye to the two youngest remaining members of the group, is somber and hopeful. A great episode to end a great series. And then there’s always talk of a movie someday . . .
(image from collider.com)
Promising Forward
A few weeks ago Andy Crouch and the folks at Praxis wrote about the importance of promises moving forward from Our Current Moment. I wrote about it here. Alan Jacobs recently picked up on the same thread for a piece over at The Hedgehog Review. The title says a lot: “Against Projects; For Promise.” Jacobs has been concerned for some time about our obsession with projection when so much of the future is uncertain. He reflects on the thoughts of Wendell Berry and writes:
Our moment is dominated by such Projectors. In my own field of higher education, I find every morning in my RSS reader essays, articles, and blog posts appearing prophesying the dismantling of universities—this is sometimes called “unbundling,” as though a university is a cable TV service—or at the very least the elimination of academic departments, indeed whole fields of inquiry, that don’t rake in sufficient cash . . .
Such projection is easy and cost-free: No one will remember if you’re wrong, and whenever you turn out to be right you can crow about it on Twitter. This is why Berry says of the language of Projection, “It is not language that the user will very likely be required to stand by or to act on, for it does not define any personal ground for standing or acting. Its only practical utility is to support with ‘expert opinion’ a vast, impersonal technological action already begun.”
To the cheap talk of the Projectors Berry contrasts the more solemn and more responsible language of Promise: “The ‘projecting’ of ‘futurologists’ uses the future as the safest possible context for whatever is desired; it binds one only to selfish interest. But making a promise binds one to someone else’s future.” To make a promise is to utter words that you pledge to stand by.
There is much to be said for promise-making and promise-keeping, something that we have largely left unarticulated in our “terms of agreement” culture where we sign off on things in a moment so we can get on with things. Beyond that, the language of promise is mostly regulated to marriage, where a whole ceremony solemnizes deep promises. The language of promise is present in other religious contexts, but I’d argue that often they get washed out by all of the technicalities and practicalities of “running a church.” Jacobs concludes:
Here’s my suggestion for, my plea to, our habitual Projectors: For every projection you make—I know it would be fruitless to ask you to forswear the projective temptation altogether—make a promise. Tell us not just what will happen but what you plan to do to bring about a better world, or a better university, or just a better neighborhood. Utter some words you will need to stand by . . .
Definitely something to think about moving forward. It’s something smaller and denser, more personal and more powerful, I think. And it’s not part of our language, which means it can be something both ancient and fresh for us.
Ten Years Moved On
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the series finale of LOST. It’s been a few years since I watched the show the whole way through, but I drop in to particular episodes or moments from time to time. In honor of the day, the folks at The Ringer put together a list of things to learn from the finale, which has been quite the controversial episode since it aired (my own viewing group was definitely mixed on how the show ended). It’s still one of my favorite endings to a series. My favorite scene no longer has a clear clip to show (It’s the one where Desmond tells Jack that what happens in one world doesn’t really matter because there’s another, better world. Jack retorts: everything matters, there are no do-overs.) But here’s a clip with two of the central figures, Jack and Locke, in the flash sideways after Jack performs surgery on Locke.
If nothing else, the finale does a masterful job of working flashbacks into the story, something that often feels contrived in other shows that have tried.
Space Enough, and Time 