Rioting and Dancing, Building and Fighting

Posted on March 20, 2018 by awtraughber

Last night I had the opportunity to view The Riot and the Dance, a nature documentary directed by one of my favorite writers, N. D. Wilson.  I’d known of the documentary’s existence for a while, but didn’t think it would screen in Honolulu.  When I found out (the day before) that it was screening, I thought I should show my support.

It was, overall, an interesting experience for me.  The movie was enjoyable.  Lots of cool images and clips of animals doing creaturely things.  Not a big fan of the simple “leech” scene.  And the extended look at snakes brought out the inner-Indiana in me, for sure.  The most interesting thing was watching a movie produced with an obvious Christian worldview.  I don’t see very many movies like that.  The movie lined up with the idea of “stewardship” as an essential ingredient to the question of the nature of the world around us, though.  Much was made of both the goodness and fallenness of creation.  And, as awkward as it sometimes sounds, the language of mankind’s dominion is scattered throughout.  So it’s interesting to see things you talk about in class put into practice by others.

The other interesting part of the experience involved the advertisements before the show.  Even though it was a Fathom event, the company knew that most of their viewers would be Christians of a certain kind.  So I smiled when a slide thanking “Classical Conversations” popped up on screen and the family three rows in front of me cheered a little.  The commercial I liked the most was an advertisement for New Saint Andrews College, where the narrator of the movie teaches and where Wilson graduated.  It’s interesting both artistically and philosophically.

It’s an interesting blend of Old Testament language and (post)-modern mindset.  And it definitely speaks to a certain audience.

It also speaks to a way of understanding how Christians can or should live in the world.  Questions concerning “levels of engagement” always arise when the dividing lines are made clearer (and rightly so).  The concept of formation is vital, and the stakes feel like they keep getting higher.

+ + + + + + +

Last week I had the opportunity to listen to David Kinnaman talk more about You Lost Me.  While the book has been around for a while now, the picture he and the Barna Group paint about the current church/cultural landscape are pretty daunting (and a good reminder that I’m not crazy).  He mentioned a framework that has also been brought into his most recent work, GenZ.  He spoke briefly of our cultural move from a “Jerusalem” to a “Babylon” context: from having some kind of “home team advantage” to always being the visiting team.  I think he’s right: it is the new normal.  And admitting that is something that many of us find difficult to do.  It requires a completely new disposition from us.  But it is one as rooted in the Bible as the more “Jerusalem” approach so many of us assumed for so long.

Posted in Movies, Teaching | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Single Man and the Arc of Life

Posted on March 20, 2018 by awtraughber

A Time to KeepLast month I started a slow articulation of my current disposition towards church and the Christian life.  It started with thoughts about friendship or community through the lens of a Rod Dreher post.  From there I moved to a reflection via Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer on the search for a God that so many have, statistically, already found.  Then I landed on thoughts from C. S. Lewis via his discussion of “nice” and “nasty” people and his thoughts on “membership” in the context of restoration and “the collective versus community.”  I understand that this articulation has been slow and scattershot at best (with lots of music and movie clips in between).  That’s been a matter of time and timing as much as anything else.  I’m hoping to use these next few days of spring break as an opportunity to move the articulation forward, mostly through Ephraim Radner’s A Time to Keep, a book I’ve mentioned here once or twice before but only in the hopes of getting back around to his thinking.  Maybe the time for that is now.

+ + + + + + +

A Time to Keep is Ephraim Radner’s attempt at articulating a big picture theology of life and the human lifespan in light of what he calls the “the Great Transition.”  Through means medical, social, and economic, this “Great Transition” has moved humanity from a place of relative stability in our understanding of a life’s span (live in one place, have one family, work at one job, live 80 years if all goes well) to something that has unmoored us from what he calls “the arc of life” (seen in the wisdom of experience and literature).   Radner’s argument is abstract and inductive (at least for me), but when it starts to get more solid (almost 100 pages in), clarity and Christian wisdom are found (after all, “we cannot pry apart the concrete realities of our life spans from the redemptive claims made about our beings in the gospel”).

Early in the book, Radner points to five areas of life most affected by the Great Transition: the shape of the family and relationships, maturation and its meaning, gender roles, the meaning of work, and the meaning of the body.  These areas are, of course, ultimately inter-related, drawing from and then leading back into one another often.  By the time you get to page 96 in the book, these themes are inseparable.  And they all speak to something I’ve struggled with and for for some time: some way of life, some rule of life, to help me navigate the current moment and its extension through my life.  What I need, of course, is a kind of wisdom, a wisdom that takes hold of the entire biblical account that crescendoes in Jesus and the sending of the Spirit and shapes what it means for me to be a single guy traversing the arc of life.  Part of my frustration with the Christian life as it is often articulated today is that limited or no help can be found for this.

+ + + + + + +

And so, based on Radner’s approach, the question is “where does one find oneself on the arc of life?” assuming that the individual is allowed a regular lifespan not cut short by tragedy.

Radner asserts that the New Testament writers present “an array of ‘ages’ through which Jesus passes: birth, infancy and circumcision, infancy and flight with family, family, adolescence in the temple, adult with family, adult, new family at the cross, and [beyond the New Testament] old man.  Beyond that, he asserts that something more broadly Greek is evident throughout the rest of the New Testament:

The New Testament, in any case, seems to have made use of the categories of the Greek “seven ages,” using terms that fit realistically into significant age groups, distinguishing infants, children, youths, adults, mature adults, and the very elderly by their normal Greek terms.

But what if the Great Transition has obscured this assumed “arc of life”?  What does finding a way, finding wisdom, look like?  Radner continues:

The deepest challenge here lies in the form of wisdom that can thereby be learned . . . In many modern post-Transition societies, the loss of a sense of and commitment to the ordering of our lives in this way let alone their right ordering, has seriously undercut our ability to love in a way coherent with our creaturely condition.  We may still have tools to make the world a “better place” in certain material ways; but we can no longer apprehend the truth of who we are as creatures of God made in love and for love.

And so we have what could be considered a broken system relying on a broken timeline. How do you find and live in a meaningful life in such a context?

+ + + + + + +

If this “Great Transition” has caused something of a shipwreck for everyone (and perhaps even more-so for those for whom marriage and children are not real options on the table), then the writers and artists I have found have been good and necessary life preservers.  People like N. T. Wright and Kevin Vanhoozer have helped me recover the biblical story.  Tolkien and Lewis and Chesterton (and to some extent Claremont and Waid and Simonson) have given me the stories of others.  Buechner and Miller, Crabb and Nouwen, Mullins and Peterson, have helped me recover the thread of my own life’s story.  And all of this in the context of a nurturing but 4,330-miles-away family, a short list of churches that haven’t always quite known what to do with me, and a vocation and job that has pushed and stretched me in great ways.  For all of these things and people, I am grateful.

+ + + + + + +

All of this is prelude, groundwork, for the next few text-heavy posts.  These posts will rely heavily on Radner’s view on “the vocation of singleness” and the extension of that vocation into the broader Christian/church community.  I hope you’ll read along.

(image from amazon.com, of course)

Posted in Books, Faith, The Long Story | Leave a comment

The Many Deaths of Lent, Part Two

Posted on March 19, 2018 by awtraughber

Yesterday was the fifth Sunday of Lent.  From this point on, it’s Palm Sunday and the Passion Week.  Lent, then, is either undercurrent and atmosphere or it’s a last-minute add-on.  I’d like to think that it’s the former for me, but I’m definitely making a kind of move within the season as I’m starting two weeks of fall break.

I really liked the collect for this week:

Almighty God, You alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

As many who reflect on the season of Lent quickly point out, the season itself is a kind of “crash course” in working with “unruly wills and affections.” That’s the “long game” that this short season points towards.  But it also about the redirection of those wills and affections to what is truest and greatest: God himself.  The other nice stroke in the prayer is the acknowledgement of “the swift and varied changes of the world.”  We are trained like ducks in a pond to go after whatever new break is thrown our way, which betrays our assertions about God and the goodness of his character.

+ + + + + + +

I mentioned a kind of turn in the season now that I’m starting two weeks of spring break.  It’s a little odd to embrace some kind of discipline during a school break.  If nothing else, I’m hoping that, having cleared the decks, I can redirect time and energy to some of the things that I had hoped to process over the course of Lent.  A few weeks ago, I made a short list of things I felt like “needed to die” in the way I was living.   Much of the impetus for the list comes from lessons learned while reflecting on this particular school year and my “temporary vocational stretch.”  The first of those was about how I communicate with others in public (more from pulpit than classroom lectern, but the case could be made for both).  Over the last three quarters, I’ve had multiple and regular opportunities to speak before people.  That’s allowed me to get a better sense of the stylistic quirks and ruts that I tend towards (and that need to change).  The second item on the list involves how I interact with people at work.  That’s a matter of both role and relationship (and is the direct result of taking on more responsibilities for the year while having little, if any, shift in how I (dis)connect with others in the process.  The third item has something to do with general disposition towards the world.  When I made the move to Hawaii, I become a real learner in disposition (little did I realize that such a disposition was one that would help me stay here as long as I have).  And while I have no plan or desire to become less of a learner, I do need to make sure that disposition does not devolve into something passive and unhealthy (and I’m pretty sure it will if it hasn’t already).

+ + + + + + +

One thing that Schmemann encourages people to do while observing Lent is to embrace “spiritual reading.”  I think a lot of Christians have at least a sense of this without being told to do it.  It’s wisdom, nonetheless.  A few weeks ago I decided to revisit the thinking of Henri Nouwen.  While I’ve read many of his books already, I had not taken any time to read a small collection of posthumous edits having to do with spiritual direction, formation, and discernment.  I read through the book of spiritual direction quickly and have moved on to the book on formation.  If nothing else, Nouwen’s thinking and articulation of things is helping me with some handles to use as I try to make sense of the spiritual life, particularly as lived by a single guy far from home.

Posted in Books, Faith, Teaching | Leave a comment

Led by the Howling

Posted on March 17, 2018 by awtraughber

One last video of Andrew Osenga covering Rich Mullins from a recent “tribute” concert.  It’s one of those songs that only Rich could write and pull off, really.  But Osenga does an admirable job.

I really want to post the video for Andrew Peterson’s newest song (from his forthcoming Resurrection Letters Volume 1), but I kind of want to wait until closer to Easter to view and listen.

Posted in Faith, Music | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Harry Potter and the Resurrection

Posted on March 15, 2018 by awtraughber

Today brought the third quarter of the school year to a close.  The quarter both started and ended with a chapel (which I think is pretty rare).  After spending most of the quarter with different speakers walk through the fruit of the Spirit, we wrapped the quarter up with a look at the resurrection of Jesus and encouragement to go to church over spring break.

Part of the time involved setting up, showing, and debriefing this clip from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two, where Harry finally opens the golden snitch and uses the Resurrection Stone.

The clip was then contrasted with this snippet from C. S. Lewis’s “What Are We to Make of Jesus” essay:

Then we come to the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection. It is very necessary to get the story clear. I heard a man say, ‘The importance of the Resurrection is that is gives evidence of survival, evidence that the human personality survives death.’ On that view what happened to Christ would be what had always happened to all men, the difference being that in Christ’s case we were privileged to see it happening. This is certainly not what the earliest Christian writers thought. Something perfectly new in the history of the universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door, which had always been locked, had for the very first time been forced open. This is something quite distinct from mere ghost-survival. I don’t mean that they disbelieved in ghost-survival. I don’t mean that they disbelieved in ghost-survival. On the contrary, they believed in it so firmly that, on more than one occasion, Christ had had to assure them that He was not a ghost. The point is that while believing in survival they yet regarded the Resurrection as something totally different and new. The Resurrection narratives are not a picture of survival after death; they record how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the universe. Something new had appeared in the universe: as new as the first coming of organic life. This Man, after death, does not get divided into ‘ghost’ and ‘corpse’. A new mode of being has arisen. That is the story. What are we going to make of it?

Definitely an interesting take from Lewis, if only because it reminds us that the “surviving self” has been around for a long time . . . and that the resurrected Jesus stands in stark contrast to it.

All in all, I’m very glad that the quarter is over.  The grades are done.  I have one more speaking responsibility tomorrow.  Then I can get on with planning how to spend spring break.

Posted in Books, Faith, Movies, Teaching | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Listening to the Last Words

Posted on March 14, 2018 by awtraughber

Much as with Advent and Christmas, it can be difficult not to jump ahead to Easter of the season of Lent.  Particularly now that we are almost two weeks away, the hope of Resurrection morning gets a little brighter.  Not only that, but spring break is about to start, which means we have one chapel left before two weeks of vacation.  So tomorrow, during our last chapel of the quarter, we’ll be talking death and resurrection.

Here’s a third song from Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters: Prologue.  This one, “Last Words (Tenebrae)” sneaks up on you quietly, making you wonder why no one seems to have done this kind of song before.

Posted in Faith, Music | Tagged | Leave a comment

Feeling Out of Town

Posted on March 13, 2018 by awtraughber

It’s the last week of the quarter, so it’s all about grading and meeting and trying to wrap things up as much as possible before the final bell rings Thursday afternoon (though I also have a pretty cool speaking opportunity Friday with a co-worker through school).

In light of all that, here’s a clip of a great song from Andrew Osenga.  It’s biographical on Osenga’s part: his walk of faith from early in his life to the great flood in Nashville a few years ago.  It’s a great companion piece to the song “Cary (Where Were You)” on his forthcoming album, The Painted Desert.  Here’s “Out of Town.”

Posted in Faith, Music | Tagged | Leave a comment

Reading Great Lent: Quick Lenten Reflections

Posted on March 12, 2018 by awtraughber

Great LentYesterday I had the opportunity to preach at my home church.  As it was the fourth Sunday of Lent, I tried to bring out some of the Lenten themes in the lectionary readings.  After a quick look at the idea of the interconnectedness of things (a la the spiderweb, something that worked much better in chapel last semester, I think), we spent a few minutes with the three main readings: Numbers 21 (the bronze serpent), John 3 (Jesus and the bronze serpent), and Ephesians 2 (the grace-saved church on display).  It was good to get to draw connections between the three passages of Scripture, particularly as it points to what is fitting and appropriate for us in our part of God’s story.  As is often the case, though, I walked away unsure of how well anything really connected from an audience perspective.  That’s something I have the work on all the time, really (and will tie into my thoughts on community and church when I get back to that thread).

+ + + + + + +

This past week or so I’ve spent some quality time with Alexander Schmemann’s Great Lent (which I first read about in this post by Rod Dreher).  It was definitely the right book at the right time.  Written from a Greek Orthodox perspective, there were a lot of things (terms and traditions) that were utterly foreign to me (see chapter three of the “presanctified gifts- a real stretch for a “memorial” guy like me).  And while I don’t see myself converting to the Greek Orthodox church anytime soon, I do feel some connection with the more mystical approach they take to the season.  From the introduction:

If we realize this [that we have embraced a nominal Christianity in need of repentance and renewal], then we may understand what Easter is and why it needs and presupposes Lent.  For we may then understand that the liturgical traditions of the Church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent and return to it . . . For each year Lent and Easter are, once again, the rediscovery and the recovery by us of what we were made through our own baptismal death and resurrection.

One of my favorite parts of the book came early in its content, when Schmemann discussed the themes that precede Lent (which means that your prepare for Lent just like  Lent is used to prepare for Easter).  “Before we can practice Lent we are given its meaning,” Schmemann asserts.  This meaning is found across five Sundays focusing on desire (Zacchaeus), humility (the Publican and the Pharisee), return from exile (the Prodigal Son), the Last Judgment, and forgiveness.  All of this points to the “bright sadness” of the season, something that can be difficult for the even the most faithful practitioner of the season to remember.  All of this preparation for preparation sounds like pre-season conditioning (which I know little-to-nothing about).  Schmemann continues:

Such is the degree of our alienation from the real spirit of the Church that it is almost impossible for us to understand that there is “something else”in Lent– something about which all these prescriptions [“formal, predominantly negative, rules and prescriptions”] lose much of their meaning.  This “something else” can best be described as an “atmosphere,’ a “climate” into which one enters, as first of a state of mind, soul, and spirit . . . Let us stress once more that the purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to “soften” our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden “hunger and thirst” for communion with God.

I suppose I feel about this Lenten season much the same way I felt last year: that I’m learning a lot to try and process and perhaps put into practice next year.  If anything, it is the idea of “atmosphere” that strikes me as something necessary for the season.  It is an atmosphere of preparation on multiple levels that can help us better understand and celebrate that which comes next.

(image from amazon.com)

Posted in Books, Faith | Tagged | Leave a comment

Revisiting the Faces of Scranton

Posted on March 10, 2018 by awtraughber

This week I’ve been revisiting the second season of the American version of The Office.  The Valentine’s Day episode has that utterly awkward bit where Michael visits corporate and ends up showing a video he had made about the Scranton branch.  It embodies both the difficult and the hopeful ends of the human spectrum (and of Michael Scott).  Plus you’ve got some classic U2 in the background.

Posted in Music, Television | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Collective Versus Community

Posted on March 8, 2018 by awtraughber

Mere ChristianityI’m slowly but surely trying to write myself into a place where I’ve articulated something wonderfully, frustratingly inductive about church and community.  About a week ago I posted some quick thoughts around C. S. Lewis’s consideration of the church in “Membership.”  I had wondered what, exactly, was the “restoration destination” when the wayward or the 2% or the “nasty people” attempt to make their way back to the heart of the church.

From Lewis’s “Membership” about the “ontology” of the church:

The society into which the Christian is called at baptism is not a collective but a Body. It is in fact that Body of which the family is an image on the natural level. If anyone came to it with the misconception that membership of the Church was membership in a debased modern sense— a massing together of persons as if they were pennies or counters— he would be corrected at the threshold by the discovery that the head of this Body is so unlike the inferior members that they share no predicate with Him save by analogy. We are summoned from the outset to combine as creatures with our Creator, as mortals with immortal, as redeemed sinners with sinless Redeemer. His presence, the interaction between Him and us, must always be the overwhelmingly dominant factor in the life we are to lead within the Body, and any conception of Christian fellowship which does not mean primarily fellowship with Him is out of court. After that it seems almost trivial to trace further down the diversity of operations to the unity of the Spirit. But it is very plainly there. There are priests divided from the laity, catechumens divided from those who are in full fellowship. There is authority of husbands over wives and parents over children. There is, in forms too subtle for official embodiment, a continual interchange of complementary ministrations. We are all constantly teaching and learning, forgiving and being forgiven, representing Christ to man when we intercede, and man to Christ when others intercede for us. The sacrifice of selfish privacy which is daily demanded of us is daily repaid a hundredfold in the true growth of personality which the life of the Body encourages. Those who are members of one another become as diverse as the hand and the ear. That is why the worldlings are so monotonously alike compared with the almost fantastic variety of the saints. Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality.

Posted in Books, Faith | Tagged , | Leave a comment