Friday Five: Positive Potpourri

Will Smama has the Friday Five from RevGals this week:

Greetings friends! It's been awhile since I've contributed to the posts here at
the revgalblogpals website, but I agreed to step into the Fifth Friday of the
Month Friday Five slot.

So here I be.

As I zip around the
webring it is quite clear that we are getting BUSY. "Tis the season" when clergy
and laypeople alike walk the highwire from Fall programming to Christmas
carrying their balancing pole with family/rest on the one side and turkey
shelters/advent wreaths on the other.

And so I offer this Friday Five
with 5 quick hit questions... and a bonus:

1) Your work day is done and the brain is fried, what do you do?

Stay at the office and do some posting on the Husker bulletin boards at the Lincoln Journal-Star website. Because, let's face it, with two girls under the age of two at home, there ain't no rest at home until at least one of them is asleep.

2) Your work week is done and the brain is fried (for some Friday, others Sunday afternoon), what do you do?

Fridays I try to get home and go for a walk or something similar with Kris & the girls. Sundays, if I'm lucky, I get two hours to read through the Sunday paper. I'm not a napper, so Kris takes my preacher's nap for me and I read the paper, IF the girls are both asleep. Hasn't happened much lately.

3) Like most of us, I often keep myself busy even while programs are on the tv. I stop to watch The Office and 30 Rock on Thursday nights. Do you have 'stop everything' tv programming or books or events or projects that are totally 'for you' moments?

Anytime my beloved Cornhuskers are on TV. Anyone who knows me knows better than to interrupt anything Cornhusker. Beyond that, we love our new DVR because we can just wait until we've got time to catch anything else. I do like to read, also, but lately that's been a struggle since I'm getting home after 10:30 several nights a week and that doesn't lead to quality reading. I also love to do yard work, but again, with our girls it's sometimes impossible to do what I'd like to do.

4) When was the last time you laughed, really laughed? What was so funny?

Last night, at Theology on Tap, when I asked D why he keeps coming back to our faith community, and he immediately answered, "Guilt." :-)

5) What is a fairly common item that some people are willing to go cheap on, but you are not.

Beer and/or coffee. Life is far too short to drink cheap versions of either one. Also, shoes. I've paid over $100 for each of the last three pairs of 'work' shoes I've bought (black & brown Dr. Marten's boots and a pair of Born dress boots), but they are all at least four years old and showing no signs of wearing out.

Bonus: It's become trite but is also true that we often benefit the most when we give. Go ahead, toot your own horn. When was the last time you gave until it felt good?

This is going to sound a bit weird, but I've been doing much better at pastoral care since I moved to this new call, and it feels good. Pastoral care is NOT something I do well; I've always been far more of the "preach and teach" pastor, and I've learned to be honest about that so that folks understand who I am and why some things they might expect from a pastor are difficult for me. But a few of our students have come to me for 'counseling,' and I've found myself able to do it, and do it well, I think. Not that I'm going to be looking for a chaplain's call anytime soon - I'd no more ask people to let me do that than I would ask them to let me remove their appendix. But it feels good to know that something I've always considered a weakness is improving, even if it'll never be my strong suit. So, no, it's not "giving until it feels good," per se, but I think it fits the spirit of the question. Besides, it's my blog, right? :-)

Reading Day

I'm spending the morning slowly but steadily digging "out from under" in my office.

Every once in a while, when things get particularly hectic, the stuff on the desk piles up as I spend my time working on other stuff. I realized this morning that today would be a great day for getting to the pile, hitting the "tasks" list on my PDA, then spending the afternoon catching up on my reading.

One of the great privileges of ministry is the fact that I'm expected to be well-read. Newspapers, journals, books - all of them contribute to the ministry I'm carrying out here. And, since corralling two girls under the age of two doesn't leave a lot of time (or energy) for reading at home, my study here is where I get that reading done lately.

Granted, it's not Tolkien: it's work. But it is work that feeds me, leaves me challenged, invigorated and enthusiastic. And I get to do that today. Hurrah for reading!

Forgetting A Long-Expected Party, Thinking About "Revelation"

I can't believe I missed a long-expected party last night. September 22nd is the birthday of both Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, and upon a time I had that date marked in my Palm Pilot so as not to forget it. Alas, with my switch to the new Centro and some syncing problems, I lost that date along with many, many others. So, last night I enjoyed a beer in my hobbit-like basement completely unaware that I was neglecting my old friends, even as I journey through Tolkien's Unfinished Tales toward The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo, Frodo, even though you're fictional, you have my deepest apologies for missing the chance to raise a glass with you. Next year I shall do better.

This week's gospel reading has brought to mind one of my favorite short stories, "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor. If you haven't read O'Connor before, I highly recommend it, but be sure you strap on a helmet before setting forth. O'Connor was a demanding, critical person in both her Christian faith and her writing. She once said, "I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it" But her prose was as powerful as her faith, and as I read some of what Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew I can't help but think of her demanding challenge to all of us: what does it mean to truly be a person of faith?

"Revelation" is one of those stories that I'll never forget reading, along the lines of "The Gift of the Magi" or another O'Connor classic, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." Here's the quote, toward the end of the story, that just might find its way into my sermon on Sunday:

[She saw] a vast horde of souls ... rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in white robes and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right....They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.

Powerful stuff there - but the best sermons are always powerful, and this story is as much a sermon as it is a story. I hope those of you preaching out there will consider it for Sunday's message.

I should note that the word "nigger" occurs in the mind of the main character; I don't use such language in my own speech, nor do I condone it in the speech of others. But the story is set in the deep South of the early 20th century and thus belongs to its context. It is intended as a critique of the main character and should definitely be read as such, okay?

Coffee, Reading and a Good Afternoon

Thanks to happy circumstance, the Sermon is 95% written already, and should require a very little bit of revision prior to preaching on Sunday morning. Thus I'm in for an afternoon of good coffee and catching up on my reading. Damn, but I love my job!

The Wednesday Reflection: Tolkien, Accidents, and Free Will

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12.9-21

I’ve just started reading Tolkien again, for the umpteenth time in my life (seriously – I can’t remember how many times I’ve read The Lord of the Rings, but it is 'many', as in ‘more than I have fingers to count’). The trigger was a rebroadcast of the Peter Jackson films on some cable station the other night; seeing the Rohirrim charging into the armies of Mordor just got me thinking it was time to revisit Tolkien’s fantastic world.

This time, I’m starting with The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s history of Middle-Earth from the dawning of its creation to the end of the Third Age (The Lord of the Rings era, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the Middle-Earth timeline). The story begins with the creation of the world through the song of Iluvatar and his children, the Ainur, but even at the beginning, something went wrong. One of the singers, Melkor, desired more power and the dominion of his own vision of creation, so he sang in ways that weren’t harmonizing with the other Valar. This pattern of betrayal and contention continued for ages upon ages in this wonderful tale: Melkor, also known as Morgoth, chose the path of greed and malice and thus was Middle-Earth stained by evil and sin.

Those aren’t the words Tolkien uses, mind you: I don’t think the word “sin” occurs even once in this first part of The Silmarillion, and if it does occur in the rest of the Tolkien library, it does not occur often. But Tolkien was a theologian nevertheless: his mythology bears the tragedy and glory of free will and our bondage to sin better than any writer of the 20th century.

I bring this up because of the reading from Romans for tonight. As we were working on this text in our pastor’s group study yesterday afternoon, a local pastor said, “I didn’t listen to this kind of stuff when my mother said it: why would I listen when Paul says it?” Standing by itself, this passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans bends the back of every sinner in the joint with the weight of heavy expectations and missed opportunities. Notice that in these verses the word “until” does not appear once. There’s no end in sight to this list of demands, and so Paul’s words take on the full power of the Law to push and demand and accuse. Let’s face it: we will all lag in zeal, we will rarely bless those who persecute us, and there will always be a small part of us that wants most desperately to repay evil with evil.

There’s no “until” in this passage because what Paul describes is not a program for self-improvement: this is the pattern of life for which God created us in the beginning. But, like Melkor in The Silmarillion, we insist on calling the tune and create discord where there is supposed to be harmony. It’s no good insisting that we try to work our way back to the original melody, either: for every moment where we do heed the call of God to holy living, there are a thousand moments where we deny the call, sing our own tune and bring the whole thing into discord all over again.

There is, however, reason for hope. The other reason the word “until” doesn’t appear in this passage from Romans is this: there is no “until” left for God’s children. We who have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever already have everything God has to give. Our choices are ours to make, and the consequences are ours to bear, but the first and most important choice has already been made by God: you are God’s child and can never be separated from God, even by your own decisions to live in discord with the world around you.

In a recent article at the Christian Century website, a woman wrote about surviving a terrible car accident. An onlooker said to her, “God must have plans for you, because you all survived this accident.” The problem with this kind of thinking is that not everyone survives accidents – and not every accident is a genuine accident. People make poor decisions, like running stop signs, speeding, driving drunk, and sometimes those poor decisions bear terrible consequences, but those decisions are our own, not the hand of God squashing us flat because we’ve served our purpose in this world. Here is the mystifying nature of the grace of God: grace forgives poor decisions, missed opportunities, denial and fear, and sets us free with the distinct possibility that we will likely do it all over again. But, as we are set free, the teachings of Jesus and his followers, like Paul, remind us that there is indeed something better for which we were made. “Overcome evil with good”? Maybe not today – but I’ve been set free for tomorrow, and that is all that matters.

The Road Goes Ever On And On...

I'm setting forth on a great journey, again, one I've taken many times before. Yet along that road I find new wonders and fantastic places each time I set out.

The journey of which I speak is the journey to Middle-earth. Starting with The Silmarillion, I will be traveling in Tolkien's land again, and as always, I'm excited to set out.

As Bilbo once said, "It's a dangerous business, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Monday Meme: 7 Random Things

I've already given up on the 365 Project with Alanna. This is NOT due to Second Child Syndrome (at least, I keep telling myself it isn't); I just don't have enough mental space for a daily reminder to take a picture and post it. But I'll get some pics up pretty regularly anyway, especially as Kristin continues to regain her strength post-C-section and can take up more of the kid-wrangling duties. Right now MIL and I have it covered, but it takes a lot of our time.



HotCup and Cheesehead did a Random Seven meme in the last week, and I thought it looked fun. So, here goes:



Thing the 1st: I sweat. A LOT. I've been trying to ride my bike to work more often as a conservation thing, but when it's in the 90s with that thick, thick humidity as it is now, it's just awful because I'm a sweaty mess by the time I arrive. At the gym, I'm the guy who's through his shirt in the first five minutes on the treadmill and needs to just soak the thing in disinfectant spray after a good long run. Being summer, I'm even worse than normal at the moment. That guy way down on the end of the treadmill line? Yeah, that's me. Don't get too close - you might get splashed. Sorry about that.


Thing the 2nd: I'm totally addicted to the Star Wars: Legacy of the Force series. It's awesome - righteously fireplacing awesome storytelling. Forget the bloviating, ponderous crap George Lucas foisted on the Star Wars universe with the prequels (it's sad how good those movies could have been if someone else had written the dialogue): this series, written by Aaron Allston, Karen Traviss and Troy Denning is where the best Star Wars work is happening. In addition to their excellent work here, I'd add anything written by Timothy Zahn; these are the best writers out there currently in the Star Wars universe, IMHO.


Thing the 3rd: I think my beloved Huskers will win nine games this year and push for the Big 12 North division title. I know last year's record doesn't indicate this type of reversal is in the cards, but I think most of the predictions I've seen thus far this summer are woefully wrong due to a) an underestimation of the talent Bill Callahan's staff recruited to Nebraska and b) the potential that the new staff under Coach Pelini can tap from said underestimated team. Frankly, though, I don't care if they win any games so long as they show up and play hard, physical, balls-to-the-wall football. I think Nebraska is in for a return to glory, and I haven't been this excited for a season to get started since 1997.

Thing the 4th: I've gained about five pounds since Alanna was born, but I don't care. What with mid-night feedings interrupting my sleep (studies show that a lack of sleep contributes to weight gain) and the corresponding lack of energy sapping my workouts, it's a wonder I can still get into any of my clothes, to be honest. I'm going to give myself about a month to just not worry about training too much; being a good daddy is much more important right now.

Thing the 5th: I LOVE our minivan, even though it gets about half the mileage our Passat gave us and it's a Ford. Yep, you read that right: I love our Ford minivan, crappy quality reputation and all. It's just nice to be able to get the girls in and out of the vehicle so quickly, and to have room for a double stroller, two child seats, a mother-in-law, and me & the wifey, plus our luggage, all of which we'll be taking to Nebraska later this week.

Thing the 6th: My aunt sent me some information about hypermiling that I thought was intriguing. Some of these practices I've been using for years: coasting onto exit ramps and up to stoplights in neutral (recommended only if you drive a manual transmission like I do), using cruise control as often as possible, etc. But some of it seems pretty crazy. No air conditioning? Drafting as often as possible? No-brake corners? There's some safety concerns there that I wouldn't care to risk.

Thing the 7th: I really miss our massage therapist from Minnesota (not to mention the extra cash it took to take advantage of her skills). Getting older really sucks sometimes. As I've been working out over the past few weeks, and working outside as well, I've had a lot of muscle soreness and pain, especially in the mornings. Man, I'm tired of getting up in the morning with everything aching like it does. I need a good, 90 minute, full-body massage, and financially it's not in the cards for a while yet. Ouch.

Well, that's the random stuff for the day. If you've read this far, consider yourself tagged.

Friday Five: Summer Reading

Hey, all,
So, getting my pictures from the marathon is going to be spendy - not sure if I'll post them anyway since, as usual, the pros took worse pictures than Kristin (or would have, since Kris wasn't in Duluth). So I'll post the marathon story later this afternoon. BUT it's Friday and I haven't done a Friday Five in a while, and this one seemed too good to pass up.

Back in the day, before I went to seminary, I worked in the Children's Room at
the Public Library, and every year we geared up for Summer Reading. Children
would come in and record the books read over the summer, and the season included
numerous special and celebratory events. As a lifelong book lover and
enthusiastic summer reader, I find I still accumulate a pile of books for the
summer.

This week, then, a Summer Reading Friday Five.

1) Do you think of summer as a particularly good season for reading? Why or why not?
Well, for me EVERY season is a good season for reading. But then, I was the kid whose first grade teacher said, "I've never told parents this before, but your son reads too much." Like Groucho Marx is rumored to have said, "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

2) Have you ever fallen asleep reading on the beach?
On the beach? No. In my lounge chair in the backyard? Yes.

3) Can you recall a favorite childhood book read in the summertime?
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were both summertime reads. Actually, I read them both for several summers in a row from ages 13-20 or so. As far as books when I was younger, I can't remember any summer favorites (because I can't remember the seasons), but the best books I remember were Where the Red Fern Grows, Charlotte's Web and The Grey King (that last one is the book that flipped the fantasy/science fiction switch in my head). Oh, and I do remember my friend Bill giving me the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov one summer - great stuff!

Ooooh, wait - I just remembered a good one! The summer I turned 10, our babysitter gave us a box of books to look through before she sent it to a garage sale. I'm sure she didn't check it very carefully, as a copy of Cujo was in there and she was not the type to let 4th graders read Stephen King. But I grabbed it, read it and never looked back. Did a book report on It in 8th grade that really raised some eyebrows from my english teacher that year. So, there's your summer reading story: how my babysitter corrupted me forever. :-)

4) Do you have a favorite genre for light or relaxing reading?
Probably fantasy/sci-fi, though I wouldn't call it light reading. Authors I've enjoyed on vacation in Minnesota recently are John Grisham and John Sandford. When I need a "sure thing" instead of a new read, I generally turn to Stephen King.

5) What is the next book on your reading list?
You can see what I'm reading now in the sidebar list. Next for me is Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf (just watched the movie last night), Grendel by John Gardner (because it sounds cool), and on the serious side, Confessing Jesus Christ: Preaching in a Post-modern World by my homiletics professor from Luther Seminary, David Lose.

BONUS: see my 2008 book list 'so far' below!

My 2008 Books List - January to June edition

1. 1776 by David McCullough
2. Desperation by Stephen King
3. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
4. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
5. Duma Key by Stephen King
6. The Sandman Vol. 1, Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg and Malcolm Jones III
7. The Centered Life by Jack Fortin
8. No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
9. Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
10. 1916: The War for Independence by Morgan Llywelyn
11. 1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War by Morgan Llywelyn
12: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
13: 1949: A Novel of the Irish Free State by Morgan Llywelyn
14. 1972: A Novel of Ireland's Unfinished Revolution by Morgan Llywelyn
15. 1999: A Novel of Ireland and the Search for Peace by Morgan Llywelyn
16. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
17. World Without End by Ken Follett
18. Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal by Aaron Allston (seriously, could we have a few more colons in that title?)
19. Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker
20. Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (in German, Discipleship is Nachfolge, the source of my blog title)
21. Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines by Karen Traviss
22. Dreamcatcher by Stephen King
23. Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
24. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
25. Cell by Stephen King

The Reading Report

For the past month, I've been trying to get into Quicksilver, a book by Neal Stephenson, which comes highly recommended from others. A few years ago, a friend gave me paperback copies of Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, cyberpunk novels I really enjoyed, so I figured that Stephenson's writing style combined with Baroque age historical fiction would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it's not so much fun at the moment.

I'm not sure why I'm not getting into the book at the moment. I can tell from reading it that I should enjoy this novel. The writing is crisp, the story compelling and the characters well-drawn. But I'm afraid that I'm 'just not that into' this book. After several nights of debating whether I wanted this or something else, I decided to give in and let the thing go. It happens sometimes.

One thing I do wonder is whether the attention-grabbing nature of parenting a toddler is preventing me investing the mental space necessary to enjoy a demanding novel like Quicksilver. I had a similar experience with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell not so long ago, but this was before children and I was able to slog through a book that, in the end, was thoroughly enjoyable. So here's hoping that in a few years, I'll be able to come back and really enjoy a book that, for all my struggles, seems really enjoyable.

Until then, my Stephen King kick continues. Every now and again I feel the urge to break out some old favorites from the bookshelf and enjoy them all over again. Last week it was Dreamcatcher. Currently it's Cell. The difference between SK and other authors who've not captured my attention lately is mainly plot and characterization: King's got the ability to create compelling, sympathetic characters (which I've always claimed is his primary strength as a writer) AND keep the plot rolling along. I just don't have to work to enjoy Stephen King, and at the moment, that's a good thing.

I've finally settled into a good rhythm for morning devotional reading, too. The alarm goes off at 5:00, and by 5:10 I've settled into my chair with a cup of coffee and two books: Bread for the Day, an Augsburg Fortress book of prayers and readings from our new daily lectionary, and something a bit more theologically demanding. Currently it's Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. After this I'm going to find someone other than Bonhoeffer for a while: thankfully, I've got shelves of unread books in my office that will do.

The most enjoyable 'reading' I'm doing at the moment, however, is in the car. Orson Scott Card is, in my opinion, one of the best American writers of the last 30 years, in any genre. The Ender Quartet is an ethical journey that just happens to be set in the genre of science fiction. I'm currently listening to Children of the Mind from our local library, and even though this is at least my third time through the series, it's as enjoyable now as it was the first time. If you've never tried science fiction, you should give Ender's Game a shot - I'm willing to bet you'll at least last through the first, and it's probable that you'll be hooked for the series.

So, that's the reading update for this month. At the end of the month I'll post my 'list' for the year. Currently I've completed 22 books through various means (CD, iPod, and "good ol' reading"), the question is, will I get to 50 or not this year? Bleak House might have put that in jeopardy, taking nearly the first 90 days of the year, but only time will tell. As you were.

A Great Night of Reading

Yeah, so, my back is aching now, isn't it? Stayed up until 2:00 in the morning reading 1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War by Morgan Llywelyn. Title's a bit cheeky, but it was a fascinating read. I'm familiar with the story of the founding of the Republic, but this was a more-than-worthy successor to 1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion, Llywelyn's first novel of the "Irish Century." I know it's a fictionalized history, and I also know that Morgan Llywelyn is an Irish sympathizer (actually, she's now an Irish citizen and lives in Dublin), but still, it's a tragic story that seems nearly impossible to the modern understanding.

Anyway, my back is aching because I usually read for 30 minutes or so lying on my stomach in bed before turning out the booklight, rolling over, and falling instantly into sleep. Didn't happen last night: waiting to hear how the book told the story of Mick Collins and the end of stage one of the war for the Republic was just gripping. I should've gotten up, gone downstairs and curled up in the easy chair to finish it. Regardless, it was a great night - stories like this are what keep me reading. If you're at all interested in modern Irish history, I'd suggest this book - it's quite the page-turner.

Pax,
Scott

Good Friday Musings

I seem to be a bit premature today - I've brought my laptop 'back from the dead' this afternoon. :-) I'm at a local chain coffeeshop/bakery this afternoon, working on my dialogue sermon with the pastor of our 'other' church at the Lutheran Center in Ames, and while I await her next bit of writing I'm going to blog for a bit. Hope you don't mind.

I've dropped the BBC Top 100 Books list for right now in favor of a historic fiction series by Morgan Llywelyn about the Irish War for Independence. Last week I read 1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion and currently I'm reading 1921: The War for Independence. Though Llywelyn is obviously sympathetic to the Irish, and the necessary introduction of Nationalist philosophy through invented conversations gets a bit stilted at times, I still find the series fascinating and I imagine I'll continue to enjoy her writing. Reading about the Easter Monday Rising on St. Patrick's Day was certainly interesting - it almost made up for not being able to toast the day with a pint of stout (due to my Lenten discipline of no alcohol). I continue to be fascinated with Irish history - if anyone out there can recommend a good volume that covers ancient Ireland's history, please do so!

In my Friday Five post earlier today, I mentioned a few hymns that bring this holy day to reality for me. On a whim I tried something that had been recommended to me: I got Bach's St. Matthew's Passion on iTunes. I've been listening to it as I work this afternoon - it's quite incredible. I need to brush up on my Deutsche, naturlich, but it is wonderful music nonetheless.

The week continues to be a bit bizarre for me, with Spring Break and Holy Week coinciding. My crack about bringing back the laptop was in jest, of course, but the concern that was its genesis was not. Without a community with which to celebrate this Holy Week, I've been feeling unrooted and notably 'in limbo.' Our not-so-great worship experience at a Twin Cities church this past weekend didn't help. We went to a Lutheran church which has gone to display screens and praise music, which would have been agonizing on a normal Sunday but was even more so on Palm Sunday. Between the mostly-unsingable praise music (how do you rhyme and metrically match "I just wanna be yours, Jesus?"), the woeful drama/children's sermon that tried to pass itself off as proclamation of the gospel and my daughter's restlessness, it was a worship experience utterly lacking in worship and meaningful experience. Man, it's hard to believe how spoiled I've become by our worship practice in the short time I've been at the Lutheran Center.

Anyway, without a Palm Sunday worship, it's been hard to get myself in the Holy Week frame of mind. Last night we tried to attend a Maundy Thursday service as a family, only to be foiled yet again by the shortest member of our crew. Ainsley has been fussy at the nursery in our new church, and last night we no more than walked down the hall to the nursery and she started screaming and crying. So, we tried to make it through worship as a family. Yeah - ever tried to attend a service of silence and prayer with a 14 month-old? Strike two for the Holy Week experience.

Finally, I went to our church's Good Friday service by myself early this afternoon, and I "got it." It was a devotional service centered on the cross and the church's continuing charge to remember both Christ's suffering and the world's suffering. I was so thankful as I drove away from the church after the service: I finally felt like a Christian again. It's more than just feeling penitential, of course - I was STARVING for the good bread and meat of the Cross, and the poor substitutes I'd gotten until today just weren't doing the work of the gospel, bringing death and life as the full impact of the good news is wont to do. It's no wonder I'd struggled to write my sermon until this afternoon: I'd been on a spiritual bread-and-water diet all week, and being in that kind of situation, you can only survive - you can't proclaim the gospel on an empty spiritual stomach.

Anyhoo, that's the week in a nutshell. Not sure if I'll post the sermon on Sunday or not, since it won't be entirely my work, but you'll be seeing me a bit more often in days to come (I know, all three of you are jumping for joy now!). Until then, I bid you a blessed Good Friday.

Healed by his wounds,
Scott

Failing the Test

I've been trying to get into Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Yeah - not happening. Last night around 10:30 I gave up. I usually give any book 100 pages if I'm struggling at the start, but I got to 85 and just couldn't do it anymore. It's too bad, really, because Rushdie is one of those authors I'd always wanted to try. Of course, he's most famous for his controversial book The Satanic Verses, and I suppose I'll try that someday. But for now, it's off to something more my speed: Fragile Things, a collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors. And, of course, I'll continue listening to The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - I'm loving this story while I run/take the bus/etc. I've actually fallen behind on my podcasts because every spare iPod moment is dominated by this book, which happens to be 40 hours long. That should keep me for a while.

It's an interesting thing when a book just doesn't work for me. I tried to get through Ulysses a few years back and couldn't do it, even though it's always near the top of the "Best Books of the 20th Century" lists. I'm not disagreeing, mind you: it seems to me that if enough people found it worthy, so be it. But for me, the remarkable style Joyce wrought in that book just didn't work for me. Maybe it will someday, or maybe it won't. The same thing happened with The Brothers Karamazov; by all accounts it's a wonderful novel, but I can't even get to the Grand Inquisitor before losing interest. It's not that I don't like to read, or that I'm not willing to challenge myself; it's just that for whatever reason, these and some other books just don't fit with me.

We watched the movie Reign Over Me the other night, and I was struck by the same type of thinking, watching Charlie Fineman (played by Adam Sandler) work with the therapist played by Liv Tyler. As Fineman struggled to open up and do the hard work of healing, I thought to myself, "She may not be the one. She might not be the mental health person who can help him. I wonder how that makes her feel?" From my own history in therapy, I know there is a certain amount of compatibility that needs to be present for a therapeutic relationship to work. I've been fortunate to work with two very compatible counselors at stressful times in my life, but I know of others who've left those therapists because they just couldn't make things work right.

I have to wonder, do psychiatrists and psychologists fall victim to the same misplaced Messiah complex as pastors? Do other people in the "healing/helping arts" have to learn how to separate their personal identity from their professional work? I wonder about this because in my vocation, there will be people I can help, but there are also people I can't, and I've had to learn how to make my peace with this (actually, I'm still learning). Of course, there are varying degrees of competence and excellence in psychotherapy and ordained ministry, but I also know some very competent pastors who've been forced to leave calls because they just weren't able to be the person that call needed them to be (or wanted them to be, which is an entirely different problem). There's no fault involved - it's just a growing realization that, for whatever reason, this just isn't working, and at some point you reach the tipping point and have to leave the not-so-fitting parts behind.

I'm sure there are people who love Salman Rushdie's work. I know Joyce and Dostoevsky have their legions of admirers. But they didn't work for me, so I'm off to somewhere different. I can't really compare literature to therapy or ministry, of course; they aren't even remotely similar. And yet, I wonder: in this thing we call vocation, where's the difference between our work not 'clicking' with certain folks and our work not 'clicking' at all? It's one thing if something I read fails the test for my reading preferences - when we "fail the test" in our professional fields, is it the same, or something different? At what point do we need to begin to ask ourselves, "is it them, or is it me?"

Well, anyway, that's the Monday afternoon thoughts on literature, ministry and vocation. Carry on.

Pax,
Scott

Bleak House

Yeah, I know - two posts in one day. But the Child has calmed down and it seemed a good time to do it.

So, I've been reading Bleak House for, I dunno, EVER. Damn, that is one LONG piece of classic literature. I got interested in reading it because of Stephen King and Peter Straub's Black House - the two 'heroes' of the tale are Jack Saywer, now grown from the pre-adolescent we met last in The Talisman, retired from police work and now spending much of his free time with his friend Henry, to whom he begins reading Bleak House aloud in the evenings over a glass of good wine. I've read some Dickens in the past, always have loved A Christmas Carol and thought I should probably venture into the classics again - it's been a while.

Uff da. Now I know what Virginia Woolf meant when she reportedly said, "Dickens makes his books blaze up not by tightening the plot or sharpening the wit, but by throwing another handful of people upon the fire." There's a hell of a lot of people to keep straight in the thing, not to mention the barrier of dialect and, frankly, the distracted state of my reading these days (I don't have time to actually study the stuff I'm reading). But in the end I'm glad to have made the attempt nonetheless. It's a work of staggering length, but a worthy one at that, especially regarding the relationships between Esther Summerson, Mr. Jarndyce, and Ada and Richard Carstone. Will I read it again? Probably - but not for some time.

Now it's on to a new project - I'm going to try some of the books from the BBC Big Read list of a few years ago. First on the list is Midnight's Children, the first novel by Salman Rushdie. I note that it's much lighter than Bleak House; let's hope I finish it sooner as well.

Duma Key and the Monday Morning Playing With The Kid iTunes Shuffle

I'll admit to being a HUGE Stephen King fan - have been ever since I read Cujo in 4th grade (yep, you read that right...). But even with the admittedly familiar elements of this book (traumatic accident creates vast alienation for protagonist, who fills the void with creepy pursuits that he doesn't immediately realize are supernatural; see Bag of Bones and Lisey's Story for past attempts at this story), Duma Key is the scariest novel I've read in quite a while. As I was finishing it Friday and Saturday night, the story creeped me out enough that the noises our cats made after I went to bed made me get up and check to make sure it was only the cats making all the noise. That, folks, is the sign of a good, scary, fascinating read. As usual, the strong characters that King weaves out of thin air make you wish you knew them in real life, especially Edgar, the main character, Wireman, his new best friend, and Jack, Edgar's assistant. And a series of interludes on the nature of creativity, as one book critic noted, is a great window into King's own creative process. All in all, it was a great break from Bleak House for me - and now, back to Dickens and Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

So, then, here's the iTunes shuffle:

1. "Happy Go Lucky Local" - Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Live in Swing City - Swingin' with Duke
2. "The Ladies In Town All Know My Name" - Strong Bad, Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits
3. "Minas Morgul" - Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
4. "Standin' Round Crying" - Eric Clapton, From the Cradle
5. "New Love" - Chris Cunningham, House Concert
6. "Pull" - Justin Roth, Shine
7. "Tennessee Stud" - The Chieftains, Down the Old Plank Road: The Nashville Sessions
8. "Bigger Than My Body" - John Mayer, Heavier Things
9. "Uranus, the Magician" - Gustav Holst, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, James Levine, Cond., Holst: The Planets (stop that snickering...)
10. "Another Time" - Storyhill, This Side of Lost
11. "Tight Rope" - Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, Greatest Hits
12. "There's Always One More Time" - Harry Connick, Jr., 30
13. "Cottontail" - Wynton Marsalis & the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Live in Swing City - Swingin' with Duke
14. "Interlude" - Igor Stravinsky, The Composer (Robert Craft; the orchestra of St. Luke's)
15. "Finale" - The Chieftains, Live from Dublin - A Tribute to Derek Bell
16. "Rondeau" - Canadian Brass, Fireworks! (Baroque Brass Favorites)
17. "Undercurrent Blues" - Benny Goodman, Ken Burns Jazz: Benny Goodman
18. "Out Of My Mind" - John Mayer Trio, Try! [Live]
19. "Bona & Paul" - Wynton Marsalis, Standard Time, Volume 3: The Resolution of Romance
20. "Looking Back" - Nat King Cole, The Very Best of Nat King Cole

Page 123 Tag

Thanks, Tripp!

The Rules:-
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

I'm going to look so much smarter than reality by happy coincidence (what Tolkien would have called eucatastrophe). Here's my play:

Contempt for others makes worship dishonest and deprives it of any divine promise. Individuals as well as church communities who intend to enter God's presence with contemptuous or unreconciled hearts are playing games with an idol. As long as we withhold service and love from a sister or brother, as long as he or she remains a target of our contempt, as long as a sister or brother has something against me or Jesus' community, our offerings will remain unaccepted.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (from which the title of this blog is taken: the German title is Nachfolge or "following after"). The only reason this was the nearest book is that I took the new Stephen King novel, Duma Key, upstairs with me last night. Discipleship then became the nearest book because it was in my backpack when we moved - everything else is still in boxes.

I tag Matt, LutherPunk, Hot Cup, Songbird and Church Nerd. Have at it, folks.

25th January - A Writer's Almanac Kind of Day

I get The Writer's Almanac from National Public Radio via email every morning. I subscribed in Barrett because radio reception was notoriously poor there - every time we pulled into town most of our favorite stations would go to static. So now I get the WA in my email every morning. It means I don't get to listen to Garrison Keillor read the thing, but I find that's okay; after seven years in Minnesota, you can almost hear him reading it in your head (right up on the mic, breathing through his nose, with his red shoes on, of course).

Today's WA was pretty potent - I had no idea that 25 January was such an important date for writers. The Bard, Robert Burns, the famed Scottish poet; W. Somerset Maugham, a British writer of the early 20th century who is still fairly well-known today, and Virginia Woolf, the great American modernist writer whose classics Mrs. Dalloway and To The Lighthouse changed American fiction forever (and doomed her to forever haunt the halls of sophomore level Literature classes, where she is vilified as one of the most unreadable writers in history by college students too busy to take the time to challenge themselves with good literature. Present writer included, natch) were all born today. Huzzah for writers!

Friday Five: Read Any Good Books Lately?

The website promoting this piece of art says, "For the first time, the worlds most influential religious texts are brought together and presented on the same level, their coexistence acknowledged and celebrated”. The shelf is made of reclaimed wood that contains seven religious books. The designers have put them – literally – on the same level.

Well, pish posh! I think that some books ARE better than others! How about you?

1. What book have you read in the last six months that has really stayed with you? Why?


2. What is one of your favorite childhood books?


3. Do you have a favorite book of the Bible? Do tell!


4. What is one book you could read again and again?


5. Is there a book you would suggest for Lenten reading? What is it and why?

And because we all love bonus questions, if you were going to publish a book what would it be? Who would you want to write the jacket cover blurb expounding on your talent?

Ooooh, this will be fun!

1. The book that has had the most impact on me in the last six months was The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I think one of the reasons it hit me hardest is because I listened to it on my iPod, downloaded from audible, and the author read his own text. The book packs an impressive emotional wallop on its own: add in the authentic Afghan accent and true pronunciation of names and places that would have tripped up a midwestern boy like me and you've got yourself a wondrous epic. I'm hoping to see the movie very soon.

2. One children's book I loved was a version of stories from the Arabian Nights. Now, I don't remember the whole "king who kills each new wife" backstory, and I certainly didn't get the erotic aspect that Sir Richard Burton and others have included in their adult translations. What I do remember was the thrill of the stories of Sindbad, Ali Baba, Aladdin and the many other adventures of all the characters. I'm fairly certain the book my parents gave me was a children's collection of the stories, sans eroticism/homicidal kings, etc.

3. I've been astonished at how much the book of Ecclesiastes has to say about my life and the lives of those around me at present. So much of what we do is often "chasing after the wind" - it is helpful to realize this has always been a problem (though I don't think it's ever been as endemic as it is today).

4. The Lord of the Rings. Have done. Will do again. Greatest book of the 20th century, hands down. Tolkien created something incredible - calling the saga a "book" barely does it justice.

5. The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz. This would be a tough read for the RevGals crowd, as it is ridiculously male-dominated and gender-biased. That having been said, it is a book about failure, repentance and forgiveness, that helped me when I was first starting out in the parish. I may just pick it up again for Lent this year.

Bonus: I've had an idea about a series of essays on the beneficent intent God has when restraining creation through the Law. At one point I even developed a title: Creative Morality. For a gnesio-Lutheran like myself, of course, this is treading dangerously close to heresy, but it's still something that intrigues me, and I'm hoping to make time to develop it further once the kids are a bit older and a bit less labor-intensive.

As to the book jacket, well, if I can't have Martin Marty or ELCA Presiding Bishop Hanson, I suppose my good friend Matt over at LutheranHusker will do. Perhaps LutherPunk or Tripp might add a review blurb on the back? :-)

Surprising Victories, Bookish and Non

Waiter? Whatever Georgia, Michigan and West Virginia ordered - I'd like that, please.

What an interesting week it's been for college football fans. Georgia absolutely manhandles a Hawai'i team many thought would be this year's Boise State, Michigan defeats Florida when many thought they didn't belong on the same field, and last night a West Virginia team I thought was severely overrated put a behind-the-woodshed thumpin' on the Sooners. (Memo to the Oklahoma marching band - Boomer Sooner doesn't sound any better the 467th time than it did the 466th when you're down 20 and your defense has all the stopping power of wet paper towels. Knock it off, already).

What gets old really fast is the "we think we're #1" quotes from every last player on each of the teams winning this big this late in the season. Yes, Thumpy McNoseTackle, you did play well tonight - but you also didn't make your conference championship game, sport: you might want to make sure that happens next season before you put in your claim for the title shot. I am aware, of course, that my Huskers made this precise argument for the 2002 Rose Bowl after the infamous 62-36 thumping administered by Colorado in the last game of the regular season, denying the Huskers a Big 12 title. I'm willing to concede that my Huskers were the wrong choice for the BCS that year, especially here in Duck Country where folks still wish (rightly so) that Joey Harrington had gotten his title shot against the Miami Hurricanes.

The other reason this gets old is the complete unwillingness of the NCAA Division I-A (no I will NOT call it the Bowl Subdivision or whatever the hell they call it now) presidents, conferences and ADs to sack up, forget the money involved and get a playoff system together to crown an actual, undisputed, won-it-on-the-field champion. Maybe Georgia, USC or West Virginia could have won it all this year - we'll never know because there's too much filthy lucre tied up in maintaining the present, unhealthy system because (say it with me now!) we've always done it that way (sound familiar to you churchy folks?). At any rate, it's been an ugly, confusing mess of a postseason, enough so that I'm considering dropping my allegiance to the lower divisions, who actually play for a national championship. Unless Nebraska makes a comeback under new coach Bo Pelini, that is.

Since we're in Oregon visiting my in-laws, I've taken advantage of my father-in-law's extensive historical library and read 1776, a book I've wanted to read for a few years now. Good stuff for sure - author David McCullough is a good writer who keeps it dry enough that he doesn't intrude on the action but interesting enough that it doesn't read like a textbook. Personally, I was unaware of how little military action actually took place in that fateful year: the logistics of transport and recruitment and navigating what was at that time a largely undeveloped wilderness required a lot more ingenuity and time than I had thought. On the whole, I enjoyed the book, but I would have liked more information on what the Continental Congress was doing in that year: 1776 is largely about Washington's campaign against the British in Massachussets, New York, New Jersey and Delaware. A good read, especially the last few pages, which describe Washington's victories at Trenton and Princeton and the state of mind in the colonies following such surprising victories.

Now I'm off to read the morning paper and hit the trails for my morning run. A blessed day to you all!

Pax,
Scott

Brainy Stuff

Every once in a while you read (or, in this case, listen to) a book that stimulates your mind in a new and exciting way. This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession did that for me over the past few weeks. I've been listening to it on my iPod while driving/running on the treadmill, and it's been fascinating. One thought in particular continues to amaze me: according to author Daniel Levitin, as well as many other researchers, infants have no frame of reference by which to sort their sensory experience, so things tend to cross over into other sensory areas. Thus, a G major chord might taste like chocolate, or the opening of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik might smell like a freshly-baked apple pie. No wonder I've always loved music - it reminds me of food!

In seriousness, the book was fascinating on many levels. Levitin has a broad, but detailed, grasp of music both modern and classical, and the book, though abridged, stimulated my own mind as I listened to him explain what the most recent brain research tells us about the impact of music on the human mind. If you're a music lover, or especially a music teacher (that's you, Bode!), you might want to check this book out.

I'm walking a fine line with brain stimulation these days. With the move and everything that goes with it weighing on us at the present, there are times when "one more thing to think about" is "one more thing to think about" too many. But I've noticed that the periods when I try to unplug from everything are the periods when my mental and physical health are at their lowest. There's a relationship there somewhere, I'm sure. I need to be stimulated, physically, mentally, spiritually and socially, and this time of year is, unfortunately, a time of year when it becomes much easier to say no to all of it.


Then, of course, there are those around me who remain adamantly opposed to thinking at all. You've heard the furor surrounding the movie version of The Golden Compass, which is in theaters now. Supposedly, author Philip Pullman is trying to kill God and people shouldn't go see the movie. The problems with this email campaign come from so many different sources. First, as with The DaVinci Code, you must remember where one finds the book in question in the first place: the FICTION section of your local bookstore or library. Second, in The Golden Compass the fictional "church" really is corrupt and could do with a bit of opposition - much like the real church has been at many instances throughout its history. Third, an email campaign in opposition to a movie for the sake of our children will only guarantee one thing: our kids will want to see what's causing all the fuss. Finally, when we take the role of absolute moral authority in such matters upon ourselves, it rings presumptuous at best and hypocritical at worst to a world that is tired of the church passing judgment on everything except itself. How, exactly, is condemning a movie sight unseen supposed to reveal the presence of God in our midst? I'll be honest: I'm far more offended by the self-righteous, hysterical and unreasonable fear within the church than I am by the questions posed by an author who admits to agnosticism honestly. Histrionics accomplish nothing for the sake of the gospel - but an open, loving conversation with one who doubts might just prove beneficial for both parties. Can we not agree that the ability to think critically about our faith and the world around us, to be challenged and meet that challenge without fear or violence, says far better things about God and our faith communities than email campaigns and picket signs against movies and books?

Just to be safe, I did spend the last few weeks reading The Golden Compass again in order to answer any questions folks might have. I enjoyed it immensely, as I did the first time. This is just good writing, period, and there's nothing for the honest, THINKING Christian to fear from Pullman's writing or the movie in question. If your kids ask questions, well, one could always do the risky thing and actually answer them - or consult your local clergyperson if the issue gets too deep. We are, after all, available Monday-Saturday in addition to Sunday. :-)

Well, that might be enough thinking for this morning. It's snowing again and I have meetings to get to today - my final Runestone Conference Pastors' meeting is this morning. Plus I need to get a new battery for Kristin's car. Blessings, all!

Pax,
Scott