Space Enough, and Time

A Simple Code

Posted on August 16, 2019 by awtraughber

This past week I spoke to some students about the importance of having some kind of code (or what others would call a rule). The context was the realization that a lot of things were being thrown at them (which is true of all, regardless of academic standing), and that they would benefit from having something personal to serve as some kind of filter. I also showed this nifty “trailer” for The Kid Who Would Be King, which brought together the threads of “the knights’ code” from the movie.

What I didn’t share during the short talk (because there was so much other stuff to cover) was my own short list that could act as a kind of code. Here’s what it boiled down to:

Use tools, not people. I’ve been thinking about the instrumentalization of people (often by organizations) for some time now. It came back to me this summer while rereading Augustine. It’s something we are all at least a little guilty of. But people are meant to be loved, not used as pawns or parts of some mechanism.
Take up your cross daily . . . and don’t forget to follow Jesus. This, of course, comes straight from the Gospels. It’s too easy for me to do the hard work of taking up my cross and going my own way with it. That way leads to disconnect and despair (and seeing God as someone guilty of breaking #1 above). Taking up your cross only makes sense when you follow along with Jesus, the author and perfector of the way we are walking.
When in doubt, go for a walk. This has been something for me for years, really. Some places are easier to get a good walk in than others, of course. But it’s a great way to pray, clear the mind, and imagine things differently. It’s good because it’s tactile. It’s a version of what I learned a few years ago on my first trip to England, where our tour guide told us that the best thing to do when you’re stuck or in a quandary is to make a cuppa tea.

I might get around to sharing this with the students next week. Maybe the adult leaders? We’ll see. Either way, it was a good exercise to do before giving the challenge to others.

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SHIELD’S Sixth Season End

Posted on July 23, 2019 by awtraughber

Marvel just announced that the seventh season of Agents of SHIELD will be its last. The show is such an odd duck. It never quite got the interconnectedness with the Marvel Cinematic Universe that we were hoping for. At the same time, it never got the interconntectedness with other Marvel properties that you find with the DC heroes on the CW. Even still, ABC has kept it around, giving it time to create its own twisty world full of interesting stories. The show’s six season is about to come to an end, and what an interesting season it has been. Two odd storylines, one on-world and another off, converged a few weeks ago into something quite different from both. Here’s the Comic-Con trailer that points to how things might wrap up.

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Wendell Berry and “The Commitment That Doesn’t See Any End”

Posted on July 22, 2019 by awtraughber

At the end of a recent interview with Amanda Petrusich of The New Yorker, Wendell Berry characterized the life of faith with some interesting wording. When asked about religion, particularly in terms of his parents’ faith and his upbringing, Berry responded:

I attended church under protest. I disliked enclosure, and as I came to consciousness I objected to the belittlement of earthly life I heard too often—but not from my parents. I heard the King James Version quoted and read, and I’m still attached to it. To me, it’s not just an influence on English, some of that is English. What Ruth says to Naomi? And Luke’s passage about the birth of Jesus, and John’s account of Mary’s visit to the tomb—my goodness, that’s my language.

I tried to get along without it, because I thought I was going to be a modern person. But you can’t think about the issues we’re talking about without finally having to talk about mystery. You’ll finally have to talk about the commitment that doesn’t see any end. That’s a life that you are not going to be able to prescribe, that finally you’re not in charge of. I think my dad was speaking religiously when he said, “I’ve had a wonderful life and I’ve had nothing to do with it.” That was a submission.

“You’ll finally have to talk about the commitment that doesn’t see any end.” What a wonderfully sober way of thinking about the Christian life. Don’t get me wrong: it’s clear to me that there are some point about the Christian faith that Berry and I probably don’t see eye to eye on, but this descriptor is not one of them. Sure: there is an “end” to the Christian life. But the road between here and there can often look or feel description-less, far more open-ended in certain ways that are difficult to articulate because life is a mess from our end unpredictable. The life of faith requires a certain kind of openness. Not an openness that says “anything goes.” That’s a mistake that will shipwreck you. It’s an openness captured in a great hymn: wherever He leads, I’ll go, even if it is through the valley of the shadow of death.

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There’s a lot more of value in the interview, by the way. Berry says interesting and challenging things about limits and marriage and joy, all worth reflecting on. I might come back to some of those things later. But next I want to go to a recent First Things article and what it says about one of our primary guides on this commitment without visible end.

(image from newyorker.com)

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Everyday Endgames

Posted on June 15, 2019 by awtraughber

Yesterday ended up being a particularly good day. Which is great, because I spent most of the day thinking it was time to get back to work. Let me explain.

C98218CF-1851-40BB-8EAF-8A3229A54A11 My plans to go into work a little each day this week got side-railed relatively quickly- by Tuesday morning. And while I’ve checked work email a few times, I haven’t stepped back on-site. So this week was a chance to eat well, play Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit with friends, go to the gym, and take care of some church stuff. But it’s time to get work back into the schedule. There’s a frustration that comes with having a bit too much time on your hands with no one to spend it with. It was clear yesterday that I had hit that point.

Which isn’t to say that I haven’t gotten much done this week. I finished Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. I’m continuing my red-read/note-taking on Cavadini’s Visioning Augustine. I got back to some too-long neglected correspondence. I’ve spent time with friends. It’s just time.

Yesterday I saw Avengers: Endgame one last time. I like to see favorites one last time before they leave the theater, and Endgame should leave any day now. It holds up really well. The emotional beats stuck. The pacing held up. If anything, I wanted a little more time at the end to learn more about life after the final snap. That’s what Far From Home is for, I suppose.

It’s been a slightly disappointing movie summer so far. Godzilla was visually amazing but narratively weak (and I firmly believe that you can have a narratively strong monster movie). At least it wasn’t as nihilistic as Skull Island. I caught Dark Phoenix a few days after its release (it was way to close to semester-end meetings). While it was no where near as bad as its reviews made it out to be, the last installment of this particular X-franchise fell flat from a lack of chemistry and humor. Plus I’m not a huge fan of turning Professor X into such a questionable figure. Beyond that, it will take me some time to see McAvoy and not see the Horde from Split. In my mind, the X-Men franchise ended with Days of Future Past and Logan. Ah well.

Winning a big game of Hand and Foot last night makes up for it, I think . . .

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Summertime Trivium

Posted on June 13, 2019 by awtraughber

In yesterday’s post I mentioned three things I was keeping in mind as I planned out and worked through my summer. Those three things we mostly “structural.” By that I mean they are key to the framework of the season. They aren’t quite the same, though, as the content for the season. That’s what this post is about: my summertime trivium.

As the school year came to a close, I gained some real clarity on three areas of concern for myself moving forward. If I hoped to make the most of a transitional summer, there were three things I need to spend time reflecting on. And this while knowing that everyday, face-to-face conversations might not be able to happen because most of the people I would talk to about it were either too close to things or are “quick fixers.” The quick fix is not an option.

Before giving the list, let me acknowledge that the three are almost inseparable. They intermingle on deep levels. And while all three have been important to me for some time, the work of the last two years have helped me appreciate a different slant on each.

The first area is COMMUNICATION. One of the core tasks of the last two years was to think through what public (almost mass) communication of the Gospel looks like, feels like. I’ve spent the last decade-and-a-half in the classroom. 24 is a far cry from 400. So there’s the level of right proclamation of the Gospel to a mixed audience (mixed in age, mixed in intent). Something like “scale” definitely has to be considered here. The simple fact is that some things don’t scale, particularly if they are tied to practices or personalities. I wasn’t kidding a couple of years ago when I labeled my task a “temporary vocational stretch.” So there’s a need for me to think through effectiveness and style and intent and even purpose, really.

The second area is intimately tied to the first. MEANING is always tied closely to communication (it’s part of the communication model and is inextricably linked to what is being communicated). And while there is a communication component to it, the question of meaning is perhaps as much about context as it is about content for me. When speaking broadly to a mixed audience, equivocation is always a real danger. But because day-to-day life is so messy (and that can be particularly true for the life of faith), it’s also inevitable. Just underneath the surface of things there creeps a potential meaningless that is frightening because it leaves you with no traction, no sense of what is genuinely essential. So actions and words, what do they mean? And what does it mean when we do them often? And what does it mean when we do nothing with them once said or done?

Which brings me to COMMUNITY. Communication happens in community. Meaning is discovered (is that the right word?) in community. Community can be an odd thing, though, for those set apart in a meeting, a classroom, an auditorium. It can bring with it a real sense of loneliness. It can be an odd twist on a “haves/have nots” mindset. And because it involves people, community is also intensely personal. And because communication and meaning happens on different levels of community, there’s a certain amount of uncomfortable code-switching that might be required that makes community fuzzy.

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These are the three big concepts I’m mulling over this summer. Already I’ve got some resources from Christianity Today and the life and works of Augustine that are proving helpful (and that I will share over the course of the summer). I’ve got a few guiding passages of Scripture in play, too (beyond just Mary and Martha or Jesus’s parable of the cleaned-up soul). I don’t think I would’ve been ready for this kind of reflection last summer. There’s something about “being done” with a thing that helps you reflect well on it. These are things I want to have thought through well so I can embrace something new as the next school year begins.

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Summer Stew

Posted on June 11, 2019 by awtraughber

On some level, the transition from school year to summer-time is an opportunity to trade out one set of concerns for another. Time works a particular way during the school year: the days are packed with routines and habits that don’t really show up during the rest of the year. So I have to come up with other routines, other habits, that will help carry me through the six weeks in between semesters. This year, I’m particularly blessed with some 2019-particular concerns.

Our church has been without a pastor for just over a year. I’ve been serving on the pastor search committee, which has been an interesting blessing. Our candidate and his wife arrive Wednesday night for a week-long visit. After a series of meet-and-greets, the candidate will preach in a service and then we will vote.
At school we hired a Christian Ministries coordinator. That means I’ll be handing the chapel piece over. But it also means that I’ll be taking on some new responsibilities (that I’ll talk more about later). This summer is my opportunity to reflect on the last two years of work that have taken me beyond the classroom. I’ve got three categories of things that sum up my thoughts; I hope to get to them here soon.
If you’ve been able to tell from my last two “current status” updates, I’ve been reading (and reading about) Augustine. It goes back to a comment made by Jamie Smith at last summer’s Laity Lodge retreat. I’m using Augustine as a kind of sounding board/filter for my thoughts about the last couple of years. I just finished a reread of his On Christian Teaching, which is where my status quotes have been coming from.
Beyond those particulars, summer-time allows me to retool and retune some of my regular, school-year routines. I’m able to be more consistent in getting to the gym. I can rethink my diet (still eating well at places I only get to eat during breaks while also eating well at homer). I’m able to strengthen my Bible reading (right now in Deuteronomy, 2 Corinthians, and Luke). And hopefully, once I get into an evening routine, I can get to bed early and sleep well.

So lots of ingredients in the summer stew. I hope to revisit many of them over the next few weeks. And then there’s always stuff that I’m reading and watching and thinking about that doesn’t quite fit the mold of the moment (like the great British cop series I just started reading). I just hope that writing here will be a good habit for me these next few weeks, particularly since posting here became a rarity this past semester.

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Tolkien, Myth, and Reality

Posted on May 8, 2019 by awtraughber

Last night I had the opportunity to catch an early showing of the new Tolkien biopic. I’d known about the showing for a while, but wasn’t sure I would make the early showing, even though it had a 30-minute interview with Stephen Colbert and the cast/director of the movie screening afterwards. But go I did (the latest I’d ever gotten to a “Tolkien” premiere in my life), and I stayed for the whole thing. And while the movie is far from perfect, it is interesting on a couple of levels. Here’s the final trailer:

The most interesting thing about the movie was watching the story of Tolkien’s life from this end, after years of watching movies based on his writings. Sure, the director intentionally added a number of touches that made the leap from what he experienced in World War I with what he wrote about later, but that was almost unnecessary. You see the soldiers being gassed and you think “the black breath of the riders.” You see Tolkien waking up in the infirmary and you think “Rivendell.” So you don’t really need an imagined dragon or hooded figures on horses to make the leap to his great works.

Tolkien focuses on the professor’s early life, particularly with his boarding school/university friendships and how they lead into the Great War. You get a lot of time with Edith, who will become his wife. The through-line is a series of moments set during the Somme that involve his attempts at finding one of his close friends. It cuts and moves rather quickly, which can be a bit frustrating. But the acting and the scenery more than make up for the choppy pacing.

Stephen Colbert was a great interview host. He asked good questions of Nicholas Holt and Lilly Collins (JRRT and Edith) and Dome Karukoski (the director). It was clear that Karukoski had a deep knowledge of Tolkien’s world. There was a good deal of talk about “how Tolkien saved me from a bad childhood,” which was interesting. But it also seemed to personalize the movie in a way that forced a certain interpretation on the events of the story. I was glad when Colbert asked the faith question, as Tolkien’s Christian faith was mostly left out of the story. Even though the explanation was decent, it felt like there was something more to explore there.

Tolkien won’t set the box office records on fire, particularly in the summer season of blockbusters. And that’s okay. The movie good: wonderfully acted and nicely filmed. But the connective tissue that could have made it a great film just isn’t there. There are a handful of beautiful scenes, though, that will make the movie worth a purchase and the scenes worth sharing with others. Tolkien drops in most theaters this weekend.

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On Landscapes and People

Posted on May 1, 2019 by awtraughber

Letters of Lewis While I’m moving rather slowly through it, my reading of the Letters of C. S. Lewis has been interesting on multiple levels. Right now I’m in the middle of a long letter from Jack to his brother involving a week-long trip with relatives through the area near Bath. Wonderfully descriptive in such a mundane, matter-of-fact way.

One of my favorite recent passages comes from a letter on 1 July 1921 to Warnie that includes an interesting comparison of landscapes and people. Lewis write:

Of landscapes, as of people, one becomes more tolerant after one’s twentieth year (which reminds me to congratulate you on your birthday and ask what age it makes you. The rate at which we both advance towards a responsible age is indecent.) We learn to look at them not in the flat as pictures to be seen, but in depth as things to be burrowed into. It is not merely a question of lines and colors but of smells, sounds and tastes as well: I often wonder if professional artists don’t lose something of the real love of earth by seeing it in eye sensations exclusively?

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Enjoying the Endgame

Posted on April 25, 2019 by awtraughber

avengers endgame I don’t suppose it would be appropriate to say too much about Avengers: Endgame. Caught an early showing late this afternoon. It was a “fan event,” so I walked away with a cool popcorn tub and a metal coin. It was nice to get done an hour earlier than the other early showings, too (if only because of parking and traffic).

So what can I say? Well, here goes:

It’s risky. Much like the absence of the Hulk for most of Infinity War, there are a number of things that stand out as “huh, can’t believe they did that.” And it really works.
It’s funny. Maybe not as funny as Infinity War, but that makes sense. The stakes are even higher in this movie. But it’s just funny enough. Some great one-liners for sure. But there are also some great movie-long gags that were good to revisit.
It’s appropriate in scope. This really is the end of a major phase of storytelling. And it feels like they left everything on the court. It helps that the scale is also intimate in the sense that the cast is relatively small (some might say half the size as normal). But boy is the movie big, too.
It’s balanced. I had fears of characters like Captain Marvel acting as deus ex machina. What’s funny is how the movie plays into those expectations. So not only was the scope appropriate, the balance of characters worked to its advantage. Every character gets a moment (or two) to shine.
It’s over. The sense of closure at the movie’s end is nice and well-earned. And while a few new doors have been opened, there’s also a strong sense of Endgame being as much a victory lap as anything else. The movie owes a lot to Infinity War while being its own thing. And that works to the story’s advantage. When the screen fades to black for the final time, you’re okay with it. Rest has been earned.

It will be interesting to see how the general movie-going population responds to the movie. It’s a fast 3 hours. It hits all the right notes. It will also be interesting to see how it holds up to multiple viewings.

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Easter Sunday’s Best

Posted on April 21, 2019 by awtraughber

Upon finding this song by Rick Elias that was on Rich Mullins’s The Jesus Record, I discovered that Elias had recently died from cancer. Elias was a founding member of the Ragamuffin Band, which played with Mullins often. The comment that Mullins makes at the end of the performance says a lot. It’s a song more than fitting for Easter.