“The nature of language…”

I’m reading Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book, in preparation for WBCL’s Digging Deeper on MidMorning this coming Thursday, September 10th, at 9:05 am.  This is one of the more challenging small books I’ve read recently.  For instance, what to make of this statement?

It is the very nature of language to form rather than inform.  When language is personal, which it is at its best, it reveals: and revelation is always formative–we don’t know more, we become more.  Our best users of language, poets and lovers and children and saints, use words to make–make intimacies, make character, make beauty, make goodness, make truth.  (page 24)

I’ve certainly experienced enough of the worst of language…the dryness of a text book, reciting facts in a way no one could ever read for pleasure or interest;  the convoluted prose of an instruction manual for assembling a bookshelf which only frustrates and confuses.  But what does it mean that language at its best is “personal”?    The dictionary definitions helps a bit. Personal can mean  “pertaining to or coming from a (particular) person, a self-conscious being.”   Good communication has an element of the personal–or perhaps conversational?– about it.

So far, so good.  But how does language make beauty or goodness or truth?  Making is different from revealing, isn’t it?  When something is revealed to me, I recognize its truth or beauty, perhaps for the first time.  Do the words make it true or beautiful, or only reveal something inherent?  I believe God is the source of beauty and truth, and I think Peterson does, too.  My biggest problem with the early chapters of this book is that he makes statements which are deep with implications, and then he does nothing to unpack them with illustration.

The rich metaphors of a good poem cause us to see in a new way.  For instance,

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes -

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

–Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, Book vii

This snippet of verse is a powerful picture of our God-saturated world, and the necessity of looking at creation with awareness of God’s presence.  The idea of being so oblivious we’d sit and pluck berries when we should be worshiping carries a sense of shame.  So few words, so much depth.  But does the poet create the beauty or the truth?  Or does she reveal it by her fresh metaphor and strong verbs (crammed, afire, pluck)? The comparison of Moses at the burning bush to simpletons feeding their faces with fruit carries conviction which cuts to the heart.  It reveals not only a truth of nature, but a truth about our own perceptions (or lack).

If this revelation creates a desire in us for change, if we are formed (or perhaps re-formed is more apt…formed anew) by it, then I suppose we can say that the poet “made” more goodness, character, beauty.

Of course Peterson’s contention is that the Bible is the all-important text for our spiritual formation. We are not to “use” Scripture for our own goals, plans, information or agenda. Rather, we are to ingest it so that it permeates us, becomes part of us, nurturing us as the best food does.

“Eating a book,” he writes, “takes it all in, assimilating it into the tissues of our lives  Readers become what they read.”   I do believe that “it is the very nature of” Scripture to form rather than inform. I’m just not convinced that the same is true of language in general.

Loving a “Wild Thing”

The oddest things make me cry these days.

Reading to cuddly two-year-old Luke before naptime:

The night Max wore the wolf suit and made mischief of one kind…

and another…

his mother called him, “Wild Thing!”

And Max said, “I’ll eat you up!”

and was sent to bed without eating anything.

–from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

And I wished, oh how I wished, that it were only a wolf suit and some idle words, instead of mischief and misdemeanor that the wide world frowns on.  I wished he were only in his room instead of in a concrete block.  I wished I could fix him supper after sending him to bed without it, and serve it to him “still hot”.  Instead I know that he never gets enough to satisfy him, the tall young man with the high metabolism.

As long as he chooses to be the King of all Wild Things, and go on wild rumpuses any chance he gets…then he’s better off staying where he is.  But someday, please God, he’ll decide that he’s lonely.  He’ll really want to be “where someone loves him best of all”.  Then perhaps he’ll step into his private boat and sail back over a year and in and out of weeks…

and he’ll not only find his supper waiting for him, but he’ll see his parents sailing out to meet him as he approaches the harbor.  And they’ll be smiling.   And so will his Father.

Another “new” idea that proves to be old…

I commented to a book-loving friend that I felt as if I’d read the same book over and over again throughout 2008.  The theme of why the Christian Church (in general, but the American church in particular) has such limited impact on society, and the importance of getting back to obedient discipleship (or apprenticeship) and spreading the message of the Kingdom, are treated over and over, a modern theme and variations.  Rob Bell, Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren and Dallas Willard–among others–are all preaching this message in compelling ways to Christians, seekers and many who are disenchanted with organized religion.

I decided to begin a new year by trying (again) to read a classic text which has been gathering dust on my shelf while I read all these newcomers:  The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  After just a few pages I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.  Sixty years ago, in the midst of a world war, in a different country, in a different language, and there’s the theme yet again.   Is it the most important message anyone can deliver, or am I personally being hounded by heaven?  And if the latter, what am I to do about it?

Bonhoeffer makes an intriguing case for the paradox that both the following statements are equally true at the same time:

Only he who believes is obedient.

Only he who is obedient believes.

In other words, obedience is impossible for an unbeliever…and it is nonnegotiable for a believer.  Bonhoeffer seems to see obedience rather than faith as the “first” step.  Jesus calls, we obey the call which leads to belief which compels us to further obedience and deeper faith.

And so this got me to thinking:  I know two young men who once professed belief.  Now they deny any spiritual convictions whatsoever.  They want to do their own thing.  I certainly don’t expect them to “obey” like believers when they don’t believe.  But I wonder:  is it a measure of integrity that they have jettisoned belief because they see the necessary connection between faith and action?  Or are they simply trading one sin (disobedience) for another (dishonesty)–talking themselves out of legitimate faith in order to avoid the guilt of disobedience?  Or does it even matter?  If they are not obedient, then in Bonhoeffer’s view, they are not believers, period.

And what will make them want to believe? Surely it will be a call from Christ, though who knows how or when it will come.  Meanwhile, do they see any Christians being obedient to their faith?  That seems to be the recurring question: what has God ever done for you? How is your life different/better because you believe?

And I am chagrined to find that I stumble over the answer to that.  One of my resolutions this week is to take seriously Peter’s charge:  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (I Peter 3:15) I’m pretty sure that’s a charge to which I need to be obedient.

Acedia as the sin against myself–“How is it that we choose to sin and wither?”

The quote above is Dante again, to which Kathleen Norris responds: “The question presumes the freedom to choose; if I am truthful with myself, I recognize that in midlife, there are many days in which I indeed choose to sin and wither. Even if I can think of ways in which I might rouse myself from lethargy, I resist acting on them.” (Acedia & Me, page 201)

The picture of sinning as withering makes it clear that the choice of passivity, non-caring, is a self-destructive one. Isn’t it ironic that we sometimes get to this place of lead-limbed inaction through a misguided sense of ‘taking care of myself for a change’?

Perhaps I become weary with doing good—and as Ruth pointed out in a comment recently, it may be that I was doing too much, or taking on burdens not rightly mine. In any event, I am not seeking God’s face and asking for my proper work (Ephesians 2:10). It may begin to feel as if God is requiring too much of me. So I deaden myself to agape and replace it with a languid narcissism, acedia. I reject discipline as being tedious or repetitive. I embrace the new, the sensational.

But though I may think I’m seeking an exciting life, I’m really only looking for new ways to be passively entertained. My senses become dulled to what is productive, life-affirming and God-honoring. In any “activity” I should ask: who am I serving with this? If the answer is too often “me” then acedia rules our hearts.

Now listen: we’re not talking about the healthy care for one’s physical, mental and emotional health. And an occasional self-indulgence as a “treat” is a vastly different thing from wallowing in amusement—a word which literally means to not think. But like the naughty boys in Pinocchio who are enslaved because of a surfeit of sweets, sin “so easily entangles” us…once we awaken to truth, it can seem like a hole too deep to climb out of.

I wonder if perhaps acedia is sometimes a defense mechanism we use when we think we’re too far gone. We choose to deceive ourselves into thinking that “it doesn’t matter” what we do or don’t do. The demon’s lies seem plausible at times when we feel that either God doesn’t care what we do, or we can never live a life that pleases Him enough, so why try? As Norris says, “When we are convinced that we are beyond the reach of grace, acedia has done its work.”

More thoughts on Anger and Acedia

I think my previous post may have been unclear.  I was following my own train of thought about anger and acedia, based on just a few sentences in Norris’ book.  She takes a passage from Dante’s inferno, describing the fourth circle of hell, where “the angry are denied the mercy of forgetting” and stand naked in the mire striking at one another. Nearby, sunk in the bog and barely visible are the slothful who ignored beauty while they were alive.  “Inside us, we bore acedia’s dismal smoke…”

The juxtaposition of anger and acedia strikes Norris as meaningful, and so she explores it. “When unexpressed anger builds up inside, people perform even legitimate duties carelessly and resentfully, often focusing on others as the source of their troubles.”  Notice that Norris doesn’t specify that the anger is caused by someone else, or that one’s resentment is expressed necessarily against the person with whom you are angry.  I imagine this could as easily be a case of “kicking the dog”–taking out one’s frustration on an innocent third party.  The passage isn’t definitively about one or the other…her point is only that acedia is sometimes linked to anger.

It seems to me that the morose mood of acedia is more likely to be the cause of unjust anger than vice versa.  Perhaps it is a vicious cycle, where the numbness of uncaring provokes an irrational anger which results in more careless action or inaction…And this passage in her book is by no means implying that ALL anger is caring too much about the wrong things.  I think I may have made Dante seem to say that, and I apologize for the confusion.

On the other hand, “be angry and don’t sin” is a useful commandment here…even righteous anger can lead to careless words and acts, or a stewing silence in which the offense grows like cancer until it’s unrecognizable. When I choose to let the sun set on my unresolved anger, am I not choosing to embrace acedia?

Anger and Acedia

“Dante ties anger, which entails caring too much about the wrong things, to acedia, which is caring too little about the right ones.” Acedia and Me, page 202

This sentence from Kathleen Norris’ book made me pause and reflect: Does anger really mean that I care overmuch for unimportant things? Is my interrupted quiet time more important than my son’s need to talk? Is that broken cup worth spewing out words that I can’t take back? The questions may be rhetorical, but they can still sting.

Norris suggests that when we are angry–especially when the anger isn’t verbalized–it comes out in action: a duty is done with resentment, carelessly. And so acedia, non-care, rears its head.

When I sweep away my concern for the right things, the best things, and cease to focus my heart, mind and actions on them, that vacuum is easily filled with more trivial desires. My thwarted will, in the midst of an otherwise empty room, seems hugely important. Any real or imagined slight by my family festers there; perhaps the laundry piles up or a requested item on the grocery list is ‘forgotten’…

Jonah couldn’t bring himself to care about the Ninevites, even after he had preached repentance to them. His resentment of God’s mercy emerged when he became unreasonably angry over the withered gourd whose shade he had enjoyed. His energies were turned inward to his own gratification, and he resented what spoiled his comfort.

What Jonah needed to realize was that God was NOT asking him to minister out of his own superior strength and holiness. Norris points out in an earlier chapter that “we engender compassion not through our strengths but through our common weaknesses.” Jonah was supposed to offer the same mercy that he and all Israel had received.

Prayer (no surprise) is the antidote here. My devotional last week gave me a good quotation to round out this relating of anger and acedia:

“I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me…There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned…To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in His mercy”  (from Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

Word for the Week: “Acedia”

I would love to know whether anyone who reads this has heard of this word before…especially if you have not read the book by Kathleen Norris which includes acedia in the title.  Having read all her previous prose works, I happened upon Acedia & Me:  A marriage, monks and a writer’s life on the new book shelf of our branch library and took it home on the strength of the author’s name.  I didn’t really ask myself what the title was (or how to pronounce it) until a week or two later when I picked it up to begin reading.

Norris’ books are all at least partially memoir, and this one is no different, focusing on her marriage to poet David Dwyer, who died in 2003. The author has been for many years an oblate of the Benedictine order, although she claims Presbyterian as her official denomination. The seeming contradiction in that will require the curious to read The Cloister Walk, an earlier book, because it would be too cumbersome to explain here.

Her reading of the early Church fathers led, many years ago now, to a desert monk named Evagrius (4th C.), whose writings introduced her to the concept of acedia…a slippery word which she spends the entire book defining.   Here’s a first stab at it from page 3:

At its Greek root, the word acedia means the absence of care.  The person afflicted refuses to care or is incapable of doing so.  When life becomes too challenging and engagement with others too demanding, acedia offers a kind of spiritual morphine:  you know the pain is there, yet can’t rouse yourself to give a damn.

Norris is very careful to distinguish the spiritual problem of acedia from the physiological and/or psychological one of depression.  A paraphrase of Thomas Aquinas from page 24 says:

For despair, participation in the divine nature through grace is perceived as appealing, but impossible; for acedia, the prospect is possible, but unappealing.

In case you’re still with me, and still curious, acedia is pronounced uh-SEE-dee-uh, and it is variously defined by sloth, apathy and indifference, especially to spiritual things.  Before there were seven deadly sins, the early writers identified “eight bad thoughts”–the motivating cause behind the sinful effect, I suppose.  What does this have to do with us, you ask?  Well…

The torpor of acedia can be felt every time you sit down to read your Bible but remember something else that you “need” to do first…

Every time you question whether there’s any point in praying for so-and-so any longer…

Every time you wonder if God is really interested in having a relationship with you and instead of asking Him you turn on the TV or pick up a magazine (because perhaps the answer would be painful or require action).

And if you can’t relate to any of those scenarios, brother or sister in Christ, then you have much indeed for which to be thankful.

Asking for Direction(s)

Some of us just want to read the directions ourselves. It’s the way we’re wired.

We speak with clenched teeth to the well-meaning:
“Don’t read me the the package insert, and please don’t show me how to do it …just (grunt, sound of ripping) give me the paper and let me read it myself.”  Sigh of relief; panic subsides. I can do this. Leave me alone.

But once in a while, almost in spite of myself, a prayer/groan rises and the Spirit hears it.  So after months of floundering around trying to revamp my devotional time, I stumbled on a book that saved me: Disciplines for the Inner Life, a week by week compilation of thematic Scripture and excerpts from a vast range of Christian writers. Bob Benson, St. and his son, Michael W. Benson prepared this book for Thomas Nelson.  My edition, discovered in Hyde Brothers where I wasn’t looking for it, was published in 1989.  I’d never heard of it, and have no idea whether it’s still in print.

Another groan, occasional and desultory, goes something like this:  “Once upon a time, You gave me a verse for the year, a theme to focus on.  Of course I generally forgot about it before December, and I can’t say I’ve made a lot of progress in those areas…Maybe that’s why You stopped?  Or is it because I stopped asking?”

On the last morning of the old year, I picked up Disciplines and read the passage for the day.  It resonated.  I walked away.  And then, by God’s grace,  as I sat on New Year’s Day pondering the year ahead, that Word came back to me as if engraved in gold on marble.  It’s been some years since I was blinded by the obvious that way, assaulted by a passage which proclaims to me that this is my directive for this time.

I’m sure I’ll be writing about that passage at some point, as I live with it from day to day.  It won’t mean to you what it does to me, but that’s all right.  My thankful heart today sits satisfied because God still answers the prayers we hesitate, forget or are ashamed to pray.  Asking for direction is difficult for some of us.  But not paying attention when directions are given is hazardous in a life which is already hard enough.

Radically Inclusive

I’m often amazed at the way things that I’m reading, hearing and discussing clarify each other, as if each idea is a single candle but as I connect the ideas a 100 watt bulb switches on in my brain.  Yesterday morning I mused over the strange mental bedfellows which had just lit up my mind:  a postmodern theologian’s work, a bestselling novel I read ten years ago, an independent film I just saw–about an introvert and a sex doll, and a history of a cholera epidemic in London.   Just typing that list makes me giggle.

Here’s the book I’m reading…(and the fact that I figured out how to upload the image and put it in the right place may not impress you, but it impresses me!)  Brian McLaren has been quietly rocking my world for a couple of weeks now, and this book–which, trust me, has nothing to do with any gnostic gospel–is continuing to challenge me.  As usual, it’s not so much that the ideas are radically new but that they are expressed in fresh, provocative language which grabs me by the shoulders and compels my attention.

This book is worth getting and reading carefully, prayerfully, sifting the ways it makes intuitive sense to you and the ways in which it rings quite foreign to your own experience.  McLaren, a frontrunner in the emergent church movement, wants simply to let Jesus’ good news be what He said it was:  “The Kingdom of God is among you.”  He likens each believer to a secret agent infiltrating enemy territory to tell someone, anyone, the good news of reconciliation with the King, of liberation from the oppressor, here, now, through a vital interactive relationship with the King Himself.

“The secret message of Jesus is meant not just to be heard or read but to be seen in human lives, in radically inclusive reconciling communities, written not on pages in a book but in the lives and hearts of friends…”

A radically inclusive community. What might that look like?  That’s when I sensed the lightbulb humming, warming up.  Wait a minute…a community that loves one another…willing to take risks, to look foolish, to accept things as they are at the moment in order to express loyalty, faith, enduring affection.  You may laugh when I tell you the title of the film that I’ve just described, especially if you’ve heard of it but not seen it.

Lars and the Real Girl is one of the sweetest movies I’ve seen in a long time.  A deft screenplay which is neither maudlin nor raunchy, brilliant acting, and a powerful message which doesn’t try to bludgeon the audience make this a must-see for anyone interested in what a radically inclusive, loving, healing community looks like.  It deals intelligently, sensitively and humorously with mental illness–quite a feat!

Which reminded me–there is a lovely scene in Jan Karon’s second Mitford book, A Light in the Window, where Father Tim takes Cynthia with him when he visits Miss Patty, the dementia-plagued mother of one of his parishioners.  Miss Patty thinks it’s Thanksgiving and keeps passing imaginery food to her visitors.  While Father Tim is paralyzed by embarrassment, Cynthia quietly plays along.  Later Tim tells her, “I think that was one of the most gracious things I’ve ever seen, to eat the drumstick.”  I wonder how often we imagine that to make an impact on our sphere of influence will mean doing something heroic and drastically sacrificial, when in fact we may only be called to eat the drumstick, or dance with a doll.

Sometimes, of course, heroics are called for.

The Ghost Map by Stephen Johnson tells the story of two men in mid-nineteenth century London who traced the origins of a cholera epidemic, one with scientific research and the other by simply visiting every family in the community.  At a time when most people believed that a “miasma” (foul air) caused the disease, these men swam upstream, so to speak, against conventional wisdom to propose that cholera was somehow being contracted through the water supply.  A fearless doctor/research scientist and a local pastor joined forces to track and stop the fatal illness which raced through the Soho neighborhood.  Johnson’s account, which reads like a suspense novel, illustrates the power of knowing one’s neighbors, of being quite literally one’s brother’s keeper.  Without the work of two brave and compassionate men, unspoken prejudices against the destitute residents of the plagued community–the poor are less resilient or have inherently weak constitutions, the poor are depraved and are under judgment–would have meant an even more deadly outbreak. Discovery of cholera’s causation and cure  would have been delayed even longer.

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  This quote (attributed dubiously to Edmund Burke) has become familiar to the point of seeming trite.  But think of the impact of every good man, woman and child, every Christ-follower, every secret agent for His kingdom, doing something.  Not necessarily deeds of heroism which rate an AP news headline, not sacrifice of life and limb or a king’s ransom–but something. “Whatever your hand finds to do (for your neighbor), do it with all your might, as serving the Lord…”   Do those three words in parentheses make the command harder to obey?  Or easier?  Or simply more sensible? After all, there really are only two commandments.

Ballast or dead weight?

I’m reading the latest book by one of my favorite authors right now, Mark Buchanan. Its title is Hidden in Plain Sight, and it is about virtue in the life of a Christ-follower. The key Scripture passage he refers to throughout the book is II Peter 1:3-8.  (I was going to quote it here, but it doesn’t relate to the rest of this post, so I’ll let you look it up yourself.)

At several points in the book, Buchanan has included a lovely piece of creative writing, a “sanctified imagination” kind of meditation on the life of the apostle Peter. The first one, written first person in the voice of the apostle James, describes one of the apostles’ earliest encounters with Jesus (see Luke 5:1-11).

It was the day Jesus co-opted Peter’s boat for a pulpit, and then suggested a deep sea fishing trip. The fishermen had just spent a long, unproductive night on the water and in fact had just finished cleaning their nets. But Peter reluctantly agrees to go out again anyway. He flings his net overboard with attitude. “He knew how to set that net down on water as quietly as pulling a blanket over a sleeping child, but that day he lashed the water with it, calculated to spook the fish.” (page 73)

Buchanan’s beautiful prose continues through the miraculous catch, Peter’s throwing himself at Jesus’ feet: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Jesus tells him not to be afraid; from now on he will catch men. And then the writer pulls the rug out from under my feet, because he describes something I have never pictured, in all the years I’ve read this story:

“And as soon as He said it, we knew He meant right now. He meant for us to choose before we landed, no waiting, no talking. Just decide.

Peter stood up and started tossing fish in the lake. We watched for a moment, then joined him. They hit the water stiff as wood, but after a few seconds they shook their tails, and dove. Those fish sank down in blackness, like fistfuls of silver we had to jettison in a storm.

But afterward, we felt light. Peter stepped ashore and started running.” (page 74)

I had to go back to Luke, shaking my head in doubt, in order to make sense of this image. And there it was:

“So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.” (Luke 5:11) Would fishermen leave a boatful of perfectly good fish to rot? Of course not. So what did they do with that miracle catch? They threw it back.

Does this thought leave anyone but me gasping for breath and fumbling for a kleenex? What have I left behind in order to follow Jesus? What treasure dumped into the deep rather than carry excess baggage on my journey? Or am I still dragging a caravan-load of dead weight at my back, thinking, “Well, maybe I’ll need this some day”? Is anyone else convicted by this thought? What have you left behind in order to follow Him? What would you like to throw overboard?

“Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)