Excerpts from October

This weekend I'll be presenting an extremely distilled version of my thesis at the annual Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association Conference in Niagara Falls. Seems like as good a time as any to post some great lines that have been ringing around in my ears all month. Some of these I've mentioned before. Some go together kind of well. Some are relevant to discussions we've had on the blogs. Some are from great songs I've been listening to. A few are just, well, cute. Some I'm not sure what they mean. You can decide which is which. Enjoy, and have a good weekend!

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Jon (to his boys in the backseat of the van, who are fighting about pretty much everything): "Guys, do you you think you can talk without arguing?"

Brady: "We can talk without arguing right Elijah?"

Elijah (harshly): "No we can't."

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Writer (in Tarkovsky's Stalker) : "Listen Einstein, I don't want to argue anymore."

Philosopher: "Truth is born of argument, damn it!"

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Mallory McGarry (in West Wing Season One): "Don't play dumb with me Sam."

Sam Seborne : "But I'm actually dumb. Most of the time I'm just playing smart."

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My son Elijah, out of nowhere: "Dad, you like books so much you should be a bookaneer."

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Sheriff Ed Bell (monologue in No Country for Old Men): "The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure. It’s not that I’m afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don’t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He’d have to say, 'O.K., I’ll be part of this world.'”

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M. Ward (in "Poison Cup", from the album Post-War):
If love
If love
Is a poison cup
Then drink it up
'Cause a sip
A sip
Or a spoonful won't do
Won't do nothing for you
Except mess you up

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Augustine (from Predestination of the Saints): "No one believes anything unless one first thought it believable. . . . Everything that is believed is believed after being preceded by thought. . . . Not everyone who thinks believes, since many think in order not to believe; but everyone who believes thinks, thinks in believing and believes in thinking."

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G.K. Chesterton: "Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another."

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G.K. Chesterton: “Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”

Birth Day

As a Chestertonian exercise of sorts, I've made it a habit to try to think about a person on their birthday and imagine for one moment that they never existed. Then in the frightful moment of that imagining I am able to see how incredibly thankful I am for that life so taken for granted; what a celebration a birthday actually is. I had a moment like that unexpectedly this summer.

It wasn't anyone's birthday. I was a routine moment in life. I found myself in a huge crowd of people with whom I do not normally spend a lot of time---at a demolition derby and farm exhibition---when a couple of us split off to go get overpriced food for everyone in the group. After my successful trip to the concession stand I was waiting to meet up with my expeditionary partner and my eyes were scanning the mass of strangers for that one familiar face. For a moment I was awash in my isolation from everything and everyone around me. Seconds later she appeared around the corner of a salted pretzel stand, and I was struck by a thought from out of the blue:

Is there anyone in the world who has done more for me in my entire life than that person right there? It was followed by another thought: I am still just a little boy in a big strange world who feels a whole lot more comfortable when he sees his mom.

My mother turns I-don't-want-to-say-how old today, and there is a card in the mail and a gift waiting next time she visits. Probably a phone call if we can connect today too. These are the little things we do for every birth day, often without thinking much about it. This blog-post is not meant to be some cheesy excuse for not fulfilling those annual obligations. I just wanted to say something about parents; about mothers; about birth days; about my mother.

Having become a parent of two boys in the last five years (and about to add two more to the number) I have been inundated with realizations of all that my parents did for me EVERY DAY that went largely unnoticed unless it was one day not done or was done with less than the usual excellence.

Watching my wife raise my boys I am amazed at what it takes to be a mother. Even the nine months of pregnancy are just a ridiculous example of self-giving. Watching myself attempt to raise children I am amazed at how hard it is. Having started out with great ideals I sometimes slip into funks where I can't go one day without raising my voice at my kids; where I am going nuts for a moment of my own; where I find myself wishing I had half a foggy clue what I was doing.

Then I think of my mother and I have absolutely no recollection of her ever raising her voice at me. She was and still is always willing to drop everything she is doing in order to help me out. Anything I actually do well as a parent I probably learned from her and my dad.

If on my best days I ever exhibit a calm restful presence, I got it from my mom. If on my best days I find myself doing things for others without asking them to thank me for it or even expecting in my wildest dreams anything in return, I got it from my mom. If I do what is best for my kids, even at cost to myself, I got it from my mom. Heck, when I wake up tomorrow morning to embrace a new day of life in this world, I got it from my mom!

Of course, there is hope for me yet, not really because of genetic inheritance, but because my mom also told me where she got it. And lately when I think of what it is to be a testament to Christ Jesus, I think less and less of the great preachers and more and more of the people who live day in and day out giving of themselves for others often at great sacrifice to themselves and with little praise to show for it. In that way, for all the attention that I pay to the great writers and thinkers of the faith, I'm not sure I have been witness to a better living example of Christ than my mother.

Sorry if this sounds sentimental. When I stood in that crowd it hit me not like a hallmark card---just bald fact. I'm not going to use this blog to do this all the time, but today I publicly toast my mother. Happy is the day of her birth.

Burn After Reading

I don't often get out to see new movies while they are still in theatre so I try to do full-scale reviews when I do. It was a treat to get out to see Burn After Reading with my wife the other night. It was one last date before our twins arrive and things get hectic again. This is not exactly a date movie, but we didn't have a lot of options, and my wife is a good sport!

Like Fargo, this Coen brothers comedy had its share of violence and f-bombs (readers be warned). Also like Fargo, however, the main humour of the film is that it makes the bad guys look really stupid. In this case it is the CIA's bumbling and one man's infidelity that gets the brunt of the satirical edge. This isn't "ha ha" funny so much as it is the joke that you are left with at the end of the day---and it is a joke very well told.

Besides that, the humour of the film is delivered in such a way that it wouldn't be funny if I told you. My brother was right when he told me that the great thing about the Coen brothers' films is that they do stuff in a way that could only be done in film. It is true use of the medium. If you read the script or looked at the stills or even listended to the audio-reel you probably wouldn't laugh at the parts I laughed at. But there were these moments that were indescribably funny and I'll only look stupid trying to explain them. Odd situations lead to oddly-said lines from quirky characters and next thing you know you are laughing uproariously at an otherwise non-descript moment like getting the name of a bike wrong.

The weird thing about it is that these odd characters seem more true to life than most "normal" characters in film. They do the awkward things that real people do, and it ends up being fairly funny or fairly disturbing, mostly because it is just way too true.

It is hard for me to review a film without interacting with the content a bit--even for a comedy. That's just me. I appreciated the ridiculously satirical depictions of infidelity and vanity, as well as of the careless powers-that-be. The plot didn't take itself too seriously, but still had an edge to it. One also catches a subtle jab at the of injustice of life in undertones of the story where, of all that happens, the worst of it goes to the two most quality guys in the film. One might describe this as a "nice-guys-finish-last comedy," if there could be such a thing.

Far and away the best part of this film was Brad Pitt. In the last couple years he has become one of two or three actors who I always want to see, almost no matter what the film. That one he did with Angelina ("Mr. & Mrs. Smith" was it?) was horrible, but otherwise I can't get enough of his acting. In this movie he was hilarious. In fact, while I can respect the desire not to overdo it or play up the character too much, if he had been the focal point from start to finish I might have given this movie a 9 or 10. What a great role this was. I laughed at almost every single thing this guy did. Oh man. I even laugh at the photo.

Something keeps me from giving this movie more than a seven out of ten though. I think it took me awhile to get into the story, and even though I am not incredibly bothered by swearing, sometimes the cruder elements were less than funny to me. I can't recommend this to all my readers, but if you appreciate the Coen brothers at all I think you will like this one.

Another Conversation (About Growing Up Evangelical)

Another conversation has opened up online that I have been invited to be a part of by my friend Colin. It is something of a discussion group for those wishing to work through some of the struggles of being a contemporary evangelical. You are free to look on and comment. It begins with each of the contributing members introducing themselves, thinking particularly of their own back-story in regard to the perceived foibles of evangelicalism. I have posted my own introductory entry below.

It is odd telling such stories because they inevitably involve other people, especially when we are talking about generational generalizations. I also hesitate to tell such personal stories, but then again I don't see how we can discuss such matters without being personally honest. All that to say: I want the stories of my church upbringing to read more like a tribute to my parent's faithful dialogue with me through some messy evangelical decades than like an indictment of everyone who ever had an influence on me.


I say this with fear and trembling: I'm not entirely sure I would be a Christian today if not for spending thousands and thousands of dollars to get a theological education, thus discovering Christianity to more relevant, life-giving, complex, beautiful, intellectual, and communal than I had ever realized.

I'm not trying to make a statement with that, I'm just saying that's my story. I'm not trying to say the evangelical churches I grew up in never had any of that, I'm just saying I never caught much wind of it (and still don't very often). I'm not saying I have my own theological education to thank for my faith (as if it is mine in some way), I'm just saying that key professors and authors have been the part of the church which God has graciously used to keep me. (I think this does speak to a problem in evangelicalism, but we'll get to that later I'm sure.)

Reading Robert Webber's Younger Evangelicals a couple years ago I realized that being born in '75 put me between generations---and this explained to me why I've always felt tugged in two directions at once. It has never been incredibly difficult for me to join in on the postmodern critique of modernity; the Gen-X critique of Boomers; the emergent critique of the seeker-service; and so on. Whatever you want to call it, I feel it in my bones.

But it isn't so easy: I am just as suspicious of my critique as I am of the one I critique. I am postmodern enough to believe that it isn't so black and white as all that---as if modernity is all bad and postmodernity all good; as if my generation will be able to right the wrongs of evangelicalism past without in turn bringing new and even worse wrongs to evangelicalism future; as if we are the enlightened ones whose first step ought to be to shrug off the lies and errors of our fathers. Uh-uh. I'm with Elijah: My ancestors may have had some problems, but the harder I try to fix them the more I discover that I am no better than my ancestors. We've seen generation after generation err by over-reacting to the one before. Too many babies have been thrown out with the bathwater. The errors of today's evangelicalism are the over-reactions to the evangelicalism which preceded.

But lest this become a rant instead of an introduction, let me give a couple anecdotes from my life that illustrate why I look at it this way.

When I was a boy of 12 I was for the first time listening to rock music on my headphones---and it was so good. I was loving it. I had never really heard anything like it and new vistas of experience were opening on my horizon.

But all the time I listened I was full of this debilitating and deathly fear that I'd be found out for being so rebellious; I'd be in huge trouble for brushing the dark side---and this new world of music that had just opened up in front of me would be taken away by my parents forever.

Then one day it happened: I was listening to this music and my mom was trying to talk to me. I couldn't hear her, so naturally she spoke louder to get my attention. When I noticed, well, I thought my time had come: I was busted!

I don't recall exactly what happened next but I think I burst into tears. Turned out she was just telling me we had to go somewhere. That's all. She couldn't understand what I was so fearful of. What she and I both didn't realize, I think, was what a hold guilt and fear had on my young Christian heart. I felt guilty for pretty much everything and I was afraid of even more.

Now here's the crazy thing: The music was Micheal W. Smith! And my parents had not only overseen the purchase of the cassette but had given me the walkman! Why was I afraid? For the life of me I can't figure it out except to say that the fear (and guilt) that I felt crippling me growing up was part and parcel of the evangelical air I breathed.

I'm not going to try to say that guilt and fear don't have their place, but they are not the beating heart of the faith. Something went seriously wrong in my corner of the 2oth century evangelical world and many like me have not survived it. I am thankful that by the grace of God somehow the faith still has a hold of me, but at times it has been barely. Eventually the icy grip of guilt and fear squeezes the life out of it and you either run for cover or you find that there is something deeper to the faith.

I hope this doesn't sound like therapy, but one more anecdote: In grade 7 the San Francisco earthquake happened right before my eyes while I watched TV. Given my upbringing I was fairly certain the rapture was about to happen any moment. Unexpectedly, I became very afraid of being raptured. I did not want to go to heaven. I did not want to go to hell, either, don't get me wrong, but all I could think of when I thought of heaven was this eternal extension of my current experience. At the time I did not appreciate things like love and grace and peace and reconciliation and hope. Those things had certainly been taught in church but I didn't hear them.

I had sure heard about the "slippery slope" though. And it certainly kept me out of trouble. Something good might still be said about it. I had heard conviction of sin. And in some way it certainly led me to Jesus. Something good might still be said about that too. I had heard all about the end-times. It certainly made me aware of the urgency of life, and something good might still be said about it as well, but beneath them I had nothing but a gaping hole where Jesus (and Christian community) ought to have been thriving but instead were barely breathing for air. Here I was petrified of heaven because all I could picture was me sitting alone in a crowded church feeling completely out of the loop . . . for ever. I was beside myself. I really was. Few things are as frightening in my memory as that time of my life.

What got me through was my dad praying with me. Notice that? I had the evangelicalism of my ancestors partly to blame for the trouble I was in, but I also had my living breathing ancestor to thank for leading me in Christian communion to engage the Jesus somewhere behind it all.

20 years later I am still working through all of this (and it has been interesting now to laugh about those stories with my parents, and also together to ask quizzically: "What was going on there?") My church upbringing is something I have become very thankful for. But it is also something I want to build on. Hopefully little conversation groups like this one can be some good therapy---ahem, I mean edification!

I doubt that ours is a period of transition which will smooth out the church experience for our children. I shudder to think of the messes I am leaving for my kids to clean up. But I take solace in the grace of God and I make it my goal not simply to pass on a heritage of my own achieved perfection, but ultimately to pass on the ministry of reconciliation that (whether it has always been realised or preached or not) has been the beating heart of the evangelical church all along.

Three Years Blogging

On October 22, 2005, this blog was born. I had heard of blogging on a West Wing episode, was intrigued, did some playing around online, and came out with this.

At the time I felt like a bit of a bandwagon jumper and wondered how long the fad would last. Almost 200 posts later I find myself communicating with quite a few people this way, and though I feel like taking a hiatus now and again, I generally enjoy posting here once a week or so and taking whatever dialogue comes my way. I also check out about a dozen other blogs throughout the week and comment regularly on at least half of them. Though I have allowed it to distract me from "real life" at times, for the most part it has been really good.

As is common, this side of sunday began with an explanation for its existence, which went as follows:

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This is my first blog so I'm still finding my way around. My intention here is to explore my passion for writing and to see where that takes me.

I plan to write mostly social commentary peices from a decidedly Christian perspective. However, I'm not so concerned about pushing religion as I am in authentically exploring the depths of this faith in a reasoned and empassioned manner.

Spirituality encompasses all of life, from doing dishes to talking philosophy, and so there will be very few topics I won't want to tackle. Unless of course they simply don't interest me at all.

Among the things which do interest me are reading, sports, culture, truth based spirituality, the church, music, movies, well-done television, and even politics to some degree. Although it is rare that my thoughts on the latter are anything less than frustrated.

I look forward to the possibilities this site might hold both for my own exploration of writing and for the potential dialogue that could ensue, whether that be among friends, family, colleagues, strangers or even enemies (should I have any out there or make any along the way)! See you soon.
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I am pleasantly surprised to look back and find that this still pretty much describes what I'm doing here.

My first comment came from tonytanti, my brother, who continues to be one of my most vocal readers, along with matthew wilkinson. I often run into friends and acquaintances who tell me that they read but don't comment, and so I try to keep writing for a pretty general audience. However, it must be admitted that the conversations that ensue are often driven by the reactions of one of those two, which is more than fine with me since they are both people I like talking to. I really do welcome more comments though, even in disagreement. I think dialogue has become my number one reason to be in the blogosphere.

Anyway, I think in the next week or so I'm going to try to update my tags. I've always been sloppy with these and I figure it might be good to get them more accurate before this blog gets too big to handle. In the meantime, here is my first post, from October 29, 2005:

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Blood is Hard to Ignore

On Sunday morning we went to church and sat near the back. The sermon was about Ruth, the singing was mostly hymns, and the pastoral prayer was given by the elder who also goes to our weekly Bible study. The pew bench was particularly hard this week, and there were more than a few empty spots in front of us. We weren't even all that far back either. It occurred to me that attendance was significantly lower this day. Probably some people away, or maybe it was Christian sleep-in day and nobody told me.

I noticed only part way through the service that the "elements" were out at the front of the church. The stale bread and the tart grape juice were all ready to be passed around at the end of the hour. Usually I'm pretty into this part of the service, but today it seemed so stiflingly normal.

Indeed, once we got to it, it went along like most of the rest. The eight elders gathered at the front, only one of them conspicuously wearing no suit jacket, and they took turns praying for "the bread and the cup." I started to wonder why we felt these little cubes of Safeway bread needed our petitions and these tiny glasses needed our prayers. I was also thinking about how we in evangelical circles like to call it "the cup" most likely because it sounds better than "the sacred grape juice" or the "wonderful Welch's." It all gave me a bit of a chuckle ... which of course I had to suppress.

As with most of our services around the Lord's Table, this one was pretty quick and painless and full of Christianese. Being so used to it, I never doubted our sincerity during this time though, in fact I quite appreciated that we were pausing to remember our debt to the Lord -- a debt that grows that much greater with each feeble attempt of ours to give him worship.

Once the bread started its rounds, I enjoyed watching all the people in front of me shuffle down the pew to make up for all the blank spaces, pass the plate, and then return to their places. They were sitting so far from one another! Of couse when it came my turn, I did the same.When the cups came by, I noticed they'd been jostled a bit, and while I tried to avoid taking a spilled one, I realized my failure to steer clear of the sticky little mess as I passed the tray over to my wife.

I saw a dot of grape juice on my finger, and to be honest, it kind of startled me.

When it caught my eye it looked like a prick of blood. Blood is hard to ignore. And with the elements passed now I looked and saw an even larger smear of it on my wife's hand, right in the middle of the palm. Right where the nails might have been. She tried to flick off the grape juice but it only streaked down one of her fingers and threatened one or two drips onto the floor. To avoid this, she closed her hand and clenched it repeatedly until all of it was rubbed into her palm. Moments later we "partook" together.

I have to say that despite my best efforts to notice everything but the sacred truth behind our tradition that morning, it had now become inescapably clear. Tucked away into our pathetic little ceremony was the amazing fact that the bread was as freely passed to us as was Christ's body, and this grape juice made a mess which paled in comparison to that of His blood.And these were just lame little attempts to encapsulate God's passion, as I am but a lame little attempt to encapsulate His Son. An attempt wrought with failure but met by the forgiveness His sacrifice won.
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Well, there you go. Thanks for meeting me here.