From the archives: Epiphany, liturgy, lasagna

First posted January 2014; edited slightly

Epiphany, January 6th, celebrates Christ made manifest, and shown in His glory to the Gentiles, who are represented by the Magi.  A manifestation is when you see something, right?  And "having an epiphany" is often used, these days, to describe suddenly seeing (and understanding) something clearly.

And what is "liturgy?"  A generic definition might be "a fixed set of ceremonies."  A spiritual habit or discipline, maybe.  If you attend a liturgical church, it means that the worship time is laid out ahead of time, word for word: prescribed, observed, repeated.  As opposed to figuring it out fresh every time, or letting everything happen spontaneously.

In Jan Karon's Mitford books, Father Tim, an Episcopalian priest, often goes off by himself to "repeat the office."  He is not going to his office; he is saying his prayers, those that are laid out in the prayer book for different days and different times of day. An office is a service you do for someone, in the same way that we call worship time a service. That's where we get our word "officer."

On a site called The Daily Office West, I found this thought in their FAQs: "The Office provides a framework for your thoughts, needs, concerns, thanksgivings, confessions and resolutions, so your praying becomes extremely personal. You wouldn't build a house without a foundation; once that’s down, you follow a written plan, and after it’s done, you decorate it so it suits your personality. Ideally, the Office provides a discipline; that’s why it’s best used Daily. If you wait until you’re inspired to pray spontaneously, God may be waiting a very long time to hear from you."

Framework, written plan, discipline. What does this have to do with Epiphany, or Charlotte Mason? It's coming, hold on.

Several years ago I posted "Lasagna Without Recipes," meaning that you could add a variety of ingredients, mix and match, leave out the tomato sauce or the cheese or the meat, and still have something that's recognizably lasagna.  But you still have to give it structure with noodles or something else to keep it separated in layers, or what you end up with is not lasagna.  It might be a good casserole, but it's not lasagna, because it's the structure that gives it its shape and identity.

Like lasagna, we need a framework in our worship, our life and our learning. Or at least we can say that a framework gives it more meaning.

In her preface to The Living Page, Laurie Bestvater quotes a passage from Wendell Berry's novel Jayber Crow, about seminary students who "could tell you" but "didn't see."  They could not see the beauty of the world around them, and so did not connect it with the Creator.  She also refers to Charlotte-Mason-style notebooks as things that "teach us to see" AND that are "the liturgy of the attentive life." A framework, a discipline, a structure...and yet a place to add our individuality, our own taste.  ("Us" and "our" also meaning the students, of course.)

A big epiphany, a star in the heavens, might be experienced once in a lifetime, but we can watch for small epiphanies, glimpses of glory. And if we make use of the disciplines of learning, they may help us to keep our eyes open.

Quote for the day: The Hand and the Ear

"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." (C.S. Lewis, "Membership")

A walk through Advent with Charlotte Mason

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Just published at Amazon: An Advent-themed 24-day tour through Charlotte Mason’s book Ourselves Book II. There are also readings for the twelve days of Christmas, drawing on her essay “The Eternal Child” which ends the book Parents and Children.

The title Honest, Simple Souls is taken from the chapter “Praise,” near the end of Ourselves.

So, too, do honest, simple souls who bear affliction willingly, or who live their appointed lives with the sense that they are appointed. All of these ways of giving praise we recognise and bow before; but the duty would seem to pass us by as incompetent persons. We are not angels, we carry no harps. But the duty of praise is not for occasional or rare seasons; it waits at our doors every day. (pp. 194-195)

Let’s open the door to praise, both in this rare season and beyond.

Quote for the Day: "He has also come down"

"But to my mind the real joy of psalm 47 is not so much that he has gone up as that he has also come down. The great revelation here is that, though heaven is, in one sense, still to come, we can nevertheless begin rejoicing now because God has not abandoned us here on earth but has already come down to be our king and kindle our hope." (Malcolm Guite, "He Is The Great King: a response to Psalm 47")

Quote for a Sunday: In good hands

"'The sea may kick up her heels a trifle,' said Mr. Pipes.  He scanned the blue expanse all around them.  'A blow could follow a calm such as this....However, no sense our worrying over the future; we are in God's hands, my dear, not some storm's.'" The Accidental Voyage: Discovering Hymns of the Early Centuries, by Douglas Bond. 

Isness? (Quote for the day)

The course I'm taking has us talking about ontology, which reminded me of something that Madeleine L'Engle wrote in A Circle of Quiet.

"...[Alan] reads me a quotation from Sartre about the isness of an oak tree; but Sartre felt depressed and threatened by this; the idea that the oak tree simply is seemed to diminish him. I suppose the perfect isness of anything would be frightening without the hope of God. An oak tree is, and it doesn't matter to it--at least Sartre thinks it doesn't; it is not a thinking oak. Man is; it matters to him; this is terrifying unless it matters to God, too, because this is the only possible reason we can matter to ourselves: not because we are sufficient unto  ourselves--I am not: my husband, my family, my friends give me my meaning and, in a sense, my being, so that I know that I, like the burning bush, or the oak tree, am ontological: essential: real."

Quote for the day: Each immediate evil

"I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can....the dentist who can stop one toothache has deserved better of humanity than all the men who think they have some scheme for producing a perfectly healthy race." ~~ C.S. Lewis, from "Why I Am Not a Pacifist," The Weight of Glory

Quote for All Saints' Day

"With this magnificent God positioned among us, Jesus brings the assurance that our universe is a perfectly safe place for us to be." ~~ Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (italics his)

Quote for the day: Tellers of our own story

"Christians are going to have to become better tellers of our own story. Young people are not going to be argued into Christian chastity or browbeaten by moralistic maxims. Beauty and goodness, embodied in great art and fiction, and in the lives of ordinary Christians, married and single, is the only thing that stands a chance.

"If we don't do it, the culture will do it for us." ~~ Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option

Quote for the day: Travels with St. Luke

"As they walked, Luke kept them informed of the history of the area, pointing out where Octavian and Antony had met Brutus and Cassius in  battle.

"How is it that a physician knows so much about history?' Silas asked.

Luke smiled at him. 'An educated man should know about many things. And besides, history is the most fascinating of subjects. Have you never read Thucydides' history?'

Silas frowned. 'I never heard of him.'

Luke shook his head. 'What a bunch of dolts I am forced to travel with! One of the most famous Greeks of all time and you have never heard of him!"

Timothy spoke up. 'I know who he is. I read his history in school.'

'Ah,' smiled Luke, 'all is not lost! Here we have an educated young man. Now tell me, Timothy, have you also read anything by Xenophon?'

'Only his Anabasis.'

'Then you are in luck. I have a copy of Memorabilia. You will have to read it. It is marvelous.'

And so as the four men approached the city of Philippi, Luke and Timothy were lost in a conversation about history and philosophy. Paul silently contemplated the great challenge that lay before him, and Silas complained about the blisters that were developing on his feet." ~~ Lydia, Seller of Purple, by Robert W. Faid (1984)

From the archives: Serious Times (book review)

First posted September 2011

"God calls us to live large on the very stage we find ourselves.  God has placed us in this very situation to infuse it with meaning and significance.  This enables us to live for Christ now rather than waiting for a set of circumstances we imagine will allow us to serve him in the future.  This simple but profound attitude has marked many of the great lives...."

The best book I've read lately...really the best...is Serious Times: Making Your Life Matter in an Urgent Day, by James Emery White, published in 2004.

I'm not sure if I'd ever read anything by Dr. White before.  I didn't go looking for him.  The book turned up in a pile of "religious non-fiction" I was pricing at the thrift store.  I liked the look of it and decided to buy it myself.

The Amazon reviews are pretty right on.  To say it's an entertaining book (as someone there said) might sound like you were doing it an injustice (I mean, the title is Serious Times); but it is written in an engaging and readable style.  Good thought stuff, good faith stuff, good life stuff.  I especially liked the chapter on "Developing Our Minds."  Here's a quote from that chapter:

"Beyond engaging various fields of thought, it is critical to be able to think about our faith in relation to its significance.  In dialogue with the world, the deepest question regarding the Christian faith is 'So what?'  This simple question gets to the heart of not only thinking Christianly but communicating Christianity itself....The Christian mind must understand the significance [of the resurrection] in order to offer it to the world.  If we cannot, we will have lost our place in the most critical of conversations--indeed, the only conversation that matters."

This one is a keeper.  I'd like to figure out a way to use it for an adult Sunday School class.  It would also be a great addition to a highschool worldview course.

One more quote:

"By nature we tend to adapt, to conform, to our surroundings.  There are only two forces shaping us: one is the world and the other is the will of God.  If we are to avoid becoming in the surrounding culture, we must take a stand.  That stand comes through the renewing of our minds....Taken into prayer, ideas become real, life-changing, dynamic.  Then, and only then, they change my life."

Minimalism is not animism, so don't throw that baby out with the bath products

Some people are turned off from KonMari-style decluttering because of Marie Kondo's Buddhist worldview. They get nervous about holding up a sweater to see if it sparks joy...to mix religions, that sounds a lot like reading auras. And they definitely don't thank their shoes for a good day's work. It's like the Zen cookbook that recommends asking the carrot how it feels like being seasoned today.  In our Western view, shoes and carrots do not have feelings.

But it's an interesting question: can you encounter a philosophy, use its good practices but disagree with some of its fundamentals? That comes up often with Charlotte Mason: can you embrace her educational principles without giving credit to the Holy Spirit? Tough call, because she drew on philosophers, writers, and educators both inside and outside of the Christian tradition; but she believed that God's Spirit inspired all such insights. I think it's hard to pull off a secular CM education and not miss something vital, but there are those who disagree and do it anyway.

So, is there a non-Buddhist version of KonMari, beyond the cliche of not talking to socks? Are there places in this philosophy of tidying where wisdom crosses cultural and religious lines?

Thought One

One reviewer said that "spark joy" is simply asking who we are, what in our lives made us acquire these things, and who we think we would like to be from this point on. What are our true priorities? In Anne Tyler's novels, including her latest one, Clock Dance, characters have a habit of disengaging themselves from their built-up, overstuffed lives...running away for awhile to gain a new perspective. Sometimes they return home, sometimes they don't. Since running away is not always practical, we need to find other ways of looking at ourselves, and one way to do that is by examining our homes and possessions. If we can climb out from under harmful stories or false expectations, and begin to "know ourselves" (I think that's Marcus Aurelius oops, no, Plato talking about an inscription at Delphi), we may not want to live any longer with stuff representing those stories. The author of Goodbye, Things says he did not really want to read hundreds of books,  that he was not enjoying his large camera collection. For him, those things were props that said "I want to be that person." For other people, belongings from the past say "I was that person, and I am still that person. Or, I will be that person again."

Someone else (I can't remember who) pointed out that it's easier to ask what things in your life might "spark more joy" for someone else. Kitchen utensils and bedding might spark joy for a refugee family or fire victims. When we downsized, I let go of many large toys and books that families with  younger children could use. The dollhouse my grandfather built was a pivotal one for me, because holding on to it said that I stilll recognized the work he had put into it, and also remembered the fun that our girls had playing with it. But, in the end, it was a large, cumbersome wooden object that we could not possibly use or fit into our apartment, and it would not do anybody any good sitting in storage for someday-grandchildren. Time to let go.

Sometimes, ironically for Western objectors to animism, we hold on to objects because we're afraid of not having them around. They are emotionally powerful, imbued with the history and meanings we give them. Books are often like that...we want to hold on to the exact book someone once gave us, or that we bought for a quarter in a little secondhand store. I have my share of those. But perhaps, sometimes, it wouldn't hurt to lean a bit Eastern in our ways of letting go. Have a little goodbye party, if you need to. Be Miss Sadie and have a hat fashion show before you give your new friend all your mother's hats.

Thought Two

A big part of KonMari is finding homes for everything that remains in your home. That implies not only that you have good reasons for keeping whatever you do keep, but that you can find enough space for that number of things. It's like admitting that you're never going to be tall enough to pull off stiletto heels: you have the floor space and cupboards that you have. As I've posted here before, right now my wardrobe limits are four drawers, half a closet, and (currently) a suitcase that is holding a few transitional summer things. When the t-shirts are folded, and you see them all lined up in the drawer, you can't imagine either that you don't have enough shirts, or that you would be able to put more of them somewhere else. There is a sense of gratitude, of contentment, and of order.

Recently my daughter gave me a zippered case that she wasn't using, that she thought I'd like. She was right: it is just the right size to store the small amount of makeup I own, and it fits perfectly into the dishpan which fits in the cupboard under the sink in the bathroom. It's such a pretty design that yes, it does spark joy when I pull it out. I don't need more than that.

Thought Three

Christians have been instructed to live lightly here; to set their hearts on things above; to view their time on this earth as full of delights, but still only as a taste of what is to come. That doesn't mean we should all become nomads without possessions, or that having just one of everything is always best. We are instructed to show hospitality, and that implies that at least some of us should have extra forks and plates, extra beds or blankets. I think that sometimes God even leads people to buy houses with extra rooms, or to buy a van rather than a small car. What that does not give us is permission to pack those spaces with clutter and garbage, things that don't work, things we never really needed. (I do know people whose garages are piled high with donations collected for others, or whose pantries are stocked against emergencies, and those are different matters. One point Marie Kondo makes is that even hospitality or disaster supplies should be kept current and useable, and checked regularly for mildew, mice, moths, whatever.)

Finally

I read a comment that blamed Marie Kondo for causing a recent increase in the amount of stuff given to thrift stores and thrown in garbage dumps. That's like criticizing a weight-loss trend for a resulting downturn in fast-food revenues. And if there is a glut of donations right now, I think it's due more to demographics than KonMari. Baby Boomers are all downsizing, and their kids don't want their stuff.  Drastic dumping is a sad symptom of our consumerist culture, but it may be the only way some people can get free and start fresh. Don't blame Kondo for overstuffed houses; just thank her for getting them cleaned out.

Quote for the day: There is no magic pill

"People who are anxious, confused, and looking for answers are quick to search for solutions in the pages of books or on the Internet, looking for that 'killer app' that will make everything right again. The Rule [of St. Benedict] tells us: No, it's not like that. You can achieve the peace and order you seek only by making a place within your heart and within your daily life for the grace of God to take root. Divine grace is freely given, but God will not force us to receive it. It takes constant effort on our part to get out of God's way and let His grace heal us and change us. To this end, what we think does not matter as much as what we do--and how faithfully we do it." ~~ Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option

Quote for the Day: Don't turn off your brain

"There is even a sense that an undeveloped mind is more virtuous than one prepared for battle...for many Christians, humble ignorance is a far more noble human quality than a cultivated mind...[but] deep within the worldview of the biblical authors and equally within the minds of the earliest church fathers was the understanding that to be fully human is to think." ~~ James Emery White, A Mind for God

Four thrifted books

 The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, by Lesslie Newbigin

"What comes home to the heart of the hearer must really be the gospel and not a product shaped by the mind of the hearer...But of course the truth is that every communication of the gospel is already culturally conditioned...[the need is] to speak God's word to the total context in which people are now living and in which they now have to make their decisions."

The Art of Facilitation: How to Create Group Synergy

"The way to bridge the gap between groups is to establish commonality of values, purpose, vision and shared experiences. Full humanity covers the whole range of human emotions including love, joy, sadness and loss. Consciousness leads us towards one another, unconsciousness leads us away."

UnPoverty: Rich Lessons from the Working Poor, by Mark Lutz

"When we lived in South Africa, my family constantly heard our white friends rationalize the injustice of apartheid, unable to see wrong in what they were doing and unwilling to recognize rampant exploitation. Knowing this propensity, I must force myself to stand back and look objectively at my position in the world, lest I continue in blissful ignorance."

Tales from Ovid, translated by Ted Hughes

"Some are transformed just once / And live their whole lives after in that shape. / Others have a facility / For changing themselves as they please." ~~ "Erysichthon," in Tales from Ovid

From the archives: Grief, loss, and flattened faith

First posted March 2013; edited slightly

I recently read a Globe and Mail essay that left me both aching for one hurting soul...and wondering how Jesus would respond to his pain.  

The author said that although he believed that his Christian faith was solid, he got the wind so knocked out of him by the senseless death of his mentor that, within another year or so, he had "stopped" being a Christian.

I don't know this person, so I can't guess how deep his faith went, or the amount of grief he had to deal with.

But if the same logic applied to all Christian believers, then there would have been no Christian believers.  Ever.  Because that's exactly what happened on Good Friday.

Of course the disciples had the Resurrection to boost them up, a few days later, just as we have the promise of eternal life.  But all the same, would they ever forget the grief, failure, abandonment, betrayal that that Friday meant?  Yes, they saw Jesus alive--but did that end all their questions about the God who allowed His Son to suffer?  

If the same logic applied to me, my faith would either have been still-born...or killed off as well.  In some ways, it has died, more than once, through sin, stupidity, apathy, failure, disappointment, discouragement, betrayal.  (Sometimes other people's, sometimes mine.)  I've seen Christians I trusted charged with criminal acts.  I've known others who should have been and weren't--which was worse.  I've seen Christian marriages, those that were an example to me, fall apart because of addictions; and ministries break apart over greed and power struggles.  I've often felt, like the author of the essay, that if we lose whatever or whoever most symbolizes Christ to us, then is there a point to continuing?

It seems that the body of Christ, once again, failed to see, to offer support and help where it was most needed...or maybe it was there, and this grieving Christian just didn't see it or couldn't receive it.  I don't know.  But after the last friend has gone, the last mentor or reason to stay in the church has been taken--each Christian is still on his or her own journey.  Whether with welcome (or unwelcome) company, or alone for a stretch, the road is our own.  If that sounds like something from The Pilgrim's Progress, that's exactly what's on my mind, because that "Christian" had a mentor and best friend senselessly taken from him as well...and yet he continued on, I think, in part, to honour the memory of one he had loved.  And for a much greater reason: because it was his journey.

They therefore brought [Faithful] out to do with him according to their law; and first they scourged him, they they buffeted him, then they lanced his flesh with knives; after that, they stoned him with stones, then pricked him with their swords, and last of all, they burned him to ashes at the stake.  Thus came Faithful to his end.

Now, I saw that there stood behind the multitude a chariot and a couple of horses waiting for Faithful, who (so soon as his adversaries had dispatched him) was taken up into it, and straightway was carried up through the clouds with sound of trumpet the nearest way to the Celestial Gate.  But as for Christian, he had some respite, and was remanded back to prison; so he there remained for a space.  But He who overrules all things, having the power of their rage in His own hand, so wrought it about that Christian for that time escaped them, and went his way.  And as he went, he sang, saying:

"Well, Faithful, thou has faithfully professed
Unto thy Lord, with whom thou shalt be blest.
When faithless ones, with all their vain delights,
Are crying out under their hellish plights.
Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive;
For, though they killed thee, thou art yet alive."

Quote for the day: This is why they believed

"The early message [of the Gospel] was, accordingly, not experienced as something its hearers had to believe or do because otherwise something bad--something with no essential connection with real life--would happen to them. The people initially impacted by that message generally concluded that they would be fools to disregard it. That was the basis of their conversion." ~~ Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

Four book finds

Recent thrift store book finds:

Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year, by Malcolm Guite

That Distant Land: The Collected Stories, by Wendell Berry

Deep Writing, by Eric Maisel

An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture, by Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann, and John McKnight

Favourite posts of 2017, #2: Review of The Arts and the Christian Imagination

First posted February 20th, 2017

The Arts and the Christian Imagination Essays on Art, Literature and Aesthetics, by Clyde S. Kilby, edited by William Dyrness and Keith Call (Paraclete Press / Mount Tabor Books / ISBN 978-1-61261-861-6 / 256 pages  / Hardcover / $28.99)

Our homeschooling community views education in the context of lifelong learning, and as part of the classical and liberal arts tradition. We recognize the value of each person as one who has been created in God's image, and who therefore shares in some of God's attributes such as the ability to imagine and create, and to form a relationship with the things that have been created. Our  curriculum includes more than normal amounts of poetry, drama, music, and art, the things that many schools would treat as frills or extras; but to us they are so vital, in the literal sense of vital meaning life-giving, that we have started referring to them as "The Riches."

Another phrase we use is "spreading the feast," as opposed to shoving things down people's throats, but which acknowledges that as human beings we do have "affinities" or natural, God-given attractions for truth and beauty. In fact, we are so out of touch with current beliefs as to insist that truth and beauty not only do exist, but that teaching them to children, and seeking after them as adults, is part of what we are called to do as Christians.

A writer and academic who agreed with that idea was Dr. Clyde S. Kilby, a longtime professor at Wheaton College, and author of The Arts and the Christian Imagination, a new collection of his writings from about fifty years ago. His essay "Christian Imagination" is also included in the older edition of Leland Ryken's collection The Christian Imagination, and appropriately enough it follows there right after C.S. Lewis's essay "Christianity and Culture." The subheadings include "The Bible: A Work of the Imagination"; "God, the Imaginer"; "The Failure of Imagination in Evangelical Christianity"; and "Learning to Live Imaginatively," and these are typical of the things he discusses throughout his work.

At one point Dr. Kilby refers to Lewis's description of a child on Easter morning who was heard to say "Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen," and he says "In our desperate evangelical desire for a clear, logical depiction of Jesus risen we have tended to remove the chocolate eggs...There is a simplicity which diminishes and a simplicity which enlarges...The first is that of the cliché-simplicity with mind and heart removed. The other is that of art...The first silently denies the multiplicity and grandeur of creation, salvation and indeed all things. The second symbolizes and celebrates them...[it] suggests the creative and sovereign God of the universe with whom there are no impossibilities."

So part of the problem of Christians making sense of the arts, besides needing more chocolate eggs, is that we may try to stick to what we call real, in the "life is real and life is earnest" sense, and forget that God's creation is full of amazement and grandeur, and although it may be fallen, it still reflects the power and beauty of its Creator. We have a feast laid out for us in Creation, and in the beautiful things that people have created in art, in music, in literature, things that are just as real as our everyday world of work, and that can give us a clearer picture of the love and holiness and power of the Father who inspired them.

The only complaint I have about the book is the almost unavoidable problem of repetition through the various essays and talks. Like any teacher, Dr. Kilby had favourite illustrations and examples which he re-used over the years, and reading the whole book in a short time might make you feel that you've been through a particular point several times already. On the other hand, exploring the collection of talks as a whole is a good way to get a sense of his most vital themes.

Well recommended for those wanting to dig deeper on the question of faith and the arts.

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of review, but received no other compensation. All opinions (as much as humanly possible!) are my own.

Merry Christmas

"Christ, our companion, hope for the journey, bread of compassion, open our eyes.
Grant us your vision, set our hearts burning, that all creation with you may rise."

~~ Susan Palo Cherwien, "Day of Arising"

You can read the thoughts behind this picture by Linda Richardson on Malcolm Guite's blog.