The things of religion are so great, that there can be no suitableness in the exercises of our hearts, to their nature and importance, unless they be lively and powerful. In nothing, is vigor in the actings of our inclinations so requisite, as in religion; and in nothing is lukewarmness so odious.
brown-headed musings
Most of us live as if we believe that the surest path to happiness is that which spins out endlessly and offers up the least resistance, but traveling that path is a futile business. I’ve confessed elsewhere that I assume that the highest form of freedom is not the ability to pursue whatever whim or fancy may strike us at any given moment, but rather the freedom to make choices which will promote our well being and the well being of our communities. And such choices often involve sacrifice and the curtailment of our own autonomy. To put this another way, happiness, that elusive state which according to Aristotle is the highest good we all pursue, lies not at the end of a journey at which every turn we have chosen for ourselves, but along the path marked by choices for others and in accord with a moral order that may at times require the reordering rather than immediate satisfaction of our desires.
This vision of the good life does not play well in the society we have made for ourselves. In fact, it has become counter-intuitive. If it is ever to gain any traction, it cannot be merely preached. It must be lived and its beauty must of its own mysterious accord draw us in. This is, I believe, Dreher’s great accomplishment. He has faithfully and honestly written that beauty into his story so that it may speak to his readers, may they be many.
Why the essential fixed-mess of truth, beauty and goodness is absolutely necessary for happiness to be forever elusive. How oh we need C.S. Lewis’ voice in our day!
Every poet, consciously or unconsciously, holds the following absolute presuppositions, as the dogmas of his art:
(1) A historical world exists, a world of unique events and unique persons, related by analogy, not identity. The number of events and analogical relations is potentially infinite. The existence of such a world is a good, and every addition to the number of events, persons and relations is an additional good.
(2) The historical world is a fallen world, i.e. though it is good that it exists, the way in which it exists is evil, being full of unfreedom and disorder.
(3) The historical world is a redeemable world. The unfreedom and disorder of the past can be reconciled in the future.
It follows from the first presupposition that the poet’s activity in creating a poem is analogous to God’s activity in creating man after his own image. It is not an imitation, for were it so, the poet would be able to create like God ex nihilo; instead, he requires pre-existing occasions of feeling and a pre-existing language out of which to create. It is analogous in that the poet creates not necessarily according to a law of nature but voluntarily according to provocation.
W. H. Auden, from The Dyer’s Hand (via ayjay)
Very, very good.
Sitting here, thinking this…
It is Christianity that provides us the superpowers necessary to reveling in the richness of life. It brings us to & indeed endows us with Holiness. Holiness is not some stoic commitment to the moral. It is the full delight of a soul in that which is delightful. This simply can’t be accounted for in any other understanding of the universe. I sit here enjoying a really, really good beer-crafted thoughtfully for the month of May (Maibock). I am looking out over a well-built and rising city, the mountains behind me. The sun is shining just enough to produce adequate warmth- just around 60 degrees of it. Materialism and Secularism can’t account for how these things all come together to form something as beautiful as this moment. Darwin’s answer is simply too thin. If your worldview can’t account for things as simple as warmth, beer and a city and the irrational pleasure they evoke, then your worldview is inadequate. They surely can’t account for things like grace, the warmth of your wife’s body in the morning, the wonder of a good Ryan Adam’s song played while driving the right stretch of 285, or the lingering smile of my youngest daughter. Not to mention baseball, roller coasters, and why Jack Johnson is only tolerable near the ocean (he’s the only dissonant chord in this current experience). To hell with your secularism. I want beauty and goodness.
In Christianity, God invites us into the incomparable beauty and joy of the Holy (and therefore Happy) Trinity. When I sit here looking out over this city, drinking this beer and listening to the laughter a few tables over- I am beholding the work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. I am invited by this God to delight in what He delights in, to live what He loves, and to marvel at Him- in all His Trinitarian goodness. He is real. He makes real goodness-goodness that flows with ever increasing speed to Himself. It is Christianity that exalts this good God. It is Christianity where we discover grace- grace that invites us into the inexplicable wonder of God’s delight in God, to share in it, to point to it, to be ever climbing further up and further in.
Went to the Dunes last weekend. Took some pictures.
Over the years of teaching students and others in a variety of settings, I saw that some learned to link belief to behavior and that some did not. But even more troubling to me as a teacher was that some appeared to understand the relationship between worldview and way of life—they read all the right books, went to all the right conferences and gave all the right answers, with seeming sincerity—and then slowly, inch by inch, they began to disconnect what they said they believed from how they lived. It is those stories which are the most painful to me. I am chilled in my soul as I remember these people whom I have loved, prayed with and played with, who have read “the right books” but no longer believe them to be true to the way the world really is.
Took some pictures for some friends this weekend. It was good to take pictures again, and excited to see these two married in a few months. Bela & Breanna.
Practice. (at Park Church)
I submit that Bonhoeffer may provide us with a way out of this conundrum. Avoiding what he calls “an attack on the adulthood of the world,” we may realize that it isn’t part of our Christian calling to first expose (or conjure) guilty feelings before we commend, say, a traditional Christian vision of marriage. Rather, we can simply acknowledge that human emotions are unpredictable; “peace” and “fulfillment” may indeed be the outcome of practices and behaviors that, from a Christian vantage point, we must deem sinful. But no matter. The gospel lays claim to the whole human being in the midst of that “peace.” Here in Advent, we remember the One who told us he did not come to bring peace (Matt. 10:34). He came to demand our all—to ask for our death and our life. No matter how robust our consciences may be, he came to save us all.
12 years with this girl. Still smiling. (at Ale House at Amato’s)
Now, those sound like our Advent hymns, not our Christmas hymns. And they sound like the kind of Christmas hymns that N. T. Wright might have written. As it turns out, Wright is no Grinch. He didn’t steal Christmas. What he stole was a false Christmas, a de-contextualized and apolitical Christmas. But we shouldn’t have bought that Christmas in the first place, and should have been embarrassed to display it so proudly on the mantle. Good riddance, and Bah humbug.
I suggest a moratorium on new Christmas hymns, until we all learn the Magnificat and the Benedictus and the Nunc Dimittis so much by heart that they seep out our fingers at the keyboard, until we instinctively sing of Jesus’ birth like Mary, like Zecharias, like Simeon.
Providence as Magic
Once the pervasive providence of God is permitted (there was a time when such a thing didn’t need to be argued for), there are really two very different ways to live ones ’ life afterwards. The most common is boredom. The world spins. The weather happens. Our lives proceed in all their monotony and repetitive cycles. You’ll eat too much this month, the gym will be over-crowded in January. You’ll go to work on Thursday, you’ll have the same conversations about politics or weather or sports or the latest episode of ‘The Voice’. You’ll notice the little dramas that occur during your scenes. You might notice some of the other ones that are thrust upon by the national media or twitter or Facebook. But the world spins on, while we remain oblivious to most of it. We are bored, more enthralled with the latest political scandal or Hollywood pairing.
Now, this is where children truly make things interesting. Some friends and I were sitting in a bar, discussing how odd it is that people who had absolutely no interest in things like diapers or the clumsy steps of a toddler (toddling, if you will) suddenly can speak of nothing else once they have their own toddling, pooping toddler. Things which would normally bore us suddenly get filled with meaning and beauty and significance. We barely notice the change while it deeply annoys our friends and co-workers who want us to be those interesting people who know and care more about the latest law the policy-slingers are trying to get slung out of Washington, or the latest affair happening among the beautiful people in LA or New York. But here we are comparing diaper rash creams and the different benefits of making or buying baby food.
This shift is what I want to advocate for (not necessarily the issue of diaper cream, but the sudden discovery of meaning and beauty in what we consider mundane). If God rules the world, every breath of it by his word, and if we and all of history really are his creative writing project, then suddenly everything—absolutely everything—gets invested with a significance and beauty most of never consider. The world gets filled with magic again. All the colors and textures aren’t simply there, nor are they accidental, they are there with purpose and meaning. They suddenly have a beauty and a reality that we have an obligation to notice and enjoy.
C.S. Lewis called it ‘quiddity’ or ‘whatness’.
In other words, it is the creative & continuing providence of God that gives all of reality substance. Atheists do not have this. They have nothing close. They have their own particular interests which become increasingly less interesting the more consistent their worldview becomes. Those who would deny such a historic view of God’s providence do not have this. They have a God whose simply a sort of actor in an unwritten play. That might be an interesting literary concept but it falls apart quickly. Oh but with a rich and full vision of a sovereign God speaking history, mountains, fires, grass and snow - there is suddenly beauty and meaning everywhere. Toddling becomes worth noticing and laughing at. Policy making suddenly gets cast in an entirely new light. Love-making and wine-drinking are no longer things to pass the time, they are filled with the intent and glory of God.
Oh, that we would become ambassadors of Quiddity. Living and speaking in a world filled up with God’s intention and meaning. Not only having our eyes opened again and again to the significance and beauty that surrounds and fills our days, but calling one another to see. Don’t just walk past a tree, see the tree for what it is—a spoken miracle. Don’t miss the stunning mass of stories that surround us when you look down from Speer in the Highlands to see the whole city spread out as far as you can see in every direction. Do you see the thousands and thousands of people, their houses, and their paint choices and yard work? Next time you pull up onto I-70, stop for a moment (not your car, but your conversation) and consider the mountains, not simply that they are there, but what it is that they are saying.
Stop being bored.
Prepping for our Team retreat.
