A Polite Disagreement with Jayber Crow and the Mad Farmer [sharing at Art House America blog this week]

Art House America produces one of my all-time favorite blogs.  I admire the founders, I follow the contributors and I embrace the topics of conversation.  What a joy for me, then, to be able to add to the conversation with this essay last week.  

If you've followed my blog for a while, the post might sound familiar, but this is the new and improved version thanks to the feedback of a band of writer friends (and to Central Market's pinot grigio and sweet potato fries which we all shared ravenously, editing pens in hand to edit out extra words like "ravenously").  

My friend, Katie, asked me "Have you considered that Wendell Berry might actually read this?"  Well, we all laughed at the image of Mr. Berry checking his blog reader, and then considered he might actually have some friend or intern who does that for him.  So, Mr. Berry, if you do happen to read this, I would be honored, sir.  

read the entire article at Art House America 

Photograph by Genta Mochizawa

"When I read Wendell Berry's poems, I find it easy to believe that he and I share a kindred spirit. I too care about resurrection and preserving the good and true and beautiful in a hell-bent civilization. But when I read Berry's fiction, I begin to suspect he would not much approve of me. As I read, I find myself constantly refuting, "Yeah, but . . .” to the author's scrupulous definition of the good life and general dismissal of anyone who'd wander off the narrow path. I can be contrarian too, Mr. Berry. 

I read about the Coulters, the Proudfoots, the Branches, and Mr. Crow as if I know them personally, and I find them to be not representing themselves altogether truthfully. Both sides of my family going back several generations come from Port William-type villages in New York state. As I’ve matured, I've begun to blend the good with the bad in that heritage — the almost visceral knowing of the beauty of a creek bed, for example. When Mr. Crow moves to his final home, living out the rest of his life on a riverbank, I feel like he's speaking my family dialect. I know exactly the "substantial sound" of a boat line plunking into the wooden bottom and echoing across a quiet morning. I comprehend the language of a single fish slurping from the surface of still water. I know it because, by the grace of God and kindly grandparents, I've spent countless childhood days on a quiet waterfront. But I also think I know it because it's buried in my genes from generations before me.   

My earliest memory involves a cow pasture, a barbed wire fence, a lazy brook, a picnic lunch, and a homemade fishing pole. This was the location for my first caught fish, I’m told. I’m pretty sure it was my first and only. The pasture and the brook ran the edge of my great-grandfather's family town. He spent many early days wandering in that place, and — in some mysterious way — passed that knowing down to my generation. 

In the quiet moments with Wendell Berry's farmers and town folk, I imagine myself accepted as one of them. I've known them — in my own family tree, in the contrarian churchgoers my father, a pastor, attracted for most of my childhood, and in the lives of my best friends still sharing family land with several generations of kinfolk. 

Other moments I am angry. Mr. Berry's body of work lauds the unadulterated; how does he reconcile glossing over (or at least hiding from view) the ugly dysfunctions that prosper alongside the natural beauty of such villages and pasturelands? I've seen firsthand not only the ornery nature of such characters — wishing to deny, for example, a decent salary to their pastor who does not make a living with his hands — but also the ingrown, incestuous thinking that tends to breed in rural places. Eventually, my paternal great-grandfather brought his family to town, and he drank away the family income. I guess Mr. Berry might argue that moving into town, working for the man across the desk rather than staying close to the family land, they introduced their own demise. 

I'd ask: What were they running from?"

read the entire article at Art House America 

--- bonus feature ---

Chasing geese with my cousin on my uncle's farm in the rural Northeast, circa 1972?

what I read in June & July [from the book pile: 2015]

Sometimes when you're really trying to finish a book and you're also really tired,
you have to take extreme measures.

what I read in June & July

-- 1 --

16  Blow Out the Moon by Libby Koponen (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2006. 224 pages)

Reading challenge category*:  a book your mother loves

I read this and Nancy Drew #8: Nancy's Mysterious Letter (Reading challenge category: a book from your childhood) tucked away under the eaves in my mother's bedroom on our visit in June.  Easy-breezy, just-for-fun, summer reading.

-- 2 --

17  Image Journal issue #85:  Evolution and the Imago Dei

Reading challenge category*:  a book of short stories

Still my favorite literary  journal (and my favorite treadmill companion).  I rarely agree completely with the variety of perspectives on theology represented in the contributors, but I always enjoy the beauty of reading every single page.

-- 3 --

18  Housekeeping: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson (Bantam Books, 1980. 219 pages.)

Reading challenge category*:  a book with a one-word title

Heartbreakingly beautiful.  I can read Marilynne Robinson's fiction all day long.  The grasp her words have on the ache of motherless-ness for the story's main character never lets up from the first page to the last, even when we glimpse hope and beauty, the ache is understatedly there.  Not in words as much as in the story.  Masterful.  

Here's an example: 

"...Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, 'Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we ill pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it.' Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort and safety that lonely people covet and admire."

-- 4 --

19  Slow Church: Cultivating community in the patient way of Jesus by C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison ( InterVarsity Press, 2014. 230 pages.)

Reading challenge category*: a book with antonyms in the title

I chose the reading challenge category for this book in jest.  But only a little bit.  The very title "Slow Church" is what caught my attention when I chose to read it.  Brian and I have always been advocates for slower living.  We haven't always practiced it well, but it's a value we always return to when we get disoriented. We ran against the status quo with the number of activities our kids were involved in at school, for example.  

In Brian's ordination process we keep discussing together how that value can apply more deeply at the ministry-level.  By the title, it seemed like Smith and Pattison's book would give us greater insight into solving the dilemma of busy, overscheduled church life.  

Ironically (or perhaps, not?) it took us about 2 years to read this out loud together.  Mostly because we were too busy to find time to read at the same time (!), but -- if I'm being honest -- it's also because we were pretty disappointed with the book.

It's really the title (or, rather our hope of what the title meant) that kept us determined to finish the book.  On our 60-hour road trip to the Northeast and back home again, we finally managed to muscle through.  

I'm not saying that there wasn't a lot of great content in Slow Church -- the premise ("inviting us out of franchise faith and back into the kingdom of God, where people know each other well and love one another as Christ loved the church") is spot on and important to our conversations about how to be the Church and how to do ministry.

What frustrated us (and, frankly, disappointed us) was a frequent use of sloppy rhetoric.  For example, on an important chapter about the church's role in environmental care, the authors quote Greenpeace.  Really?  There's no other data available to encourage us to pay attention to caring for creation than an organization that employs terrorist-style methods?  Why would the authors have chosen this?  A quick Google search to support a point they wanted to make?

Occasionally, their interpretation of the Scripture was equally sloppy (prompting great outcries from my seminarian husband).  

With those caveats, I'd still probably recommend this book to those who care about a sustainable, integrated approach to ministry that worships and serves in holistic ways.  Brian and I would especially point out the chapter about the Ecology of Abundance (vs. scarcity) for church's struggling to make budgetary ends meet.  

"When it comes to generating income, churches need to think outside the offering plate. Do we, like the early Christians in jerusalem, believe our resources are held in common? Do we make them available when needs and opportunities arise? Churches can leverage the resources they already have to generate continuing income -- from the familiar (preschools, bookstores, coffee shops) to the peculiar (farming, coffee roasting, apartment rental). Many churches are finding creative ways to use the skills of their members and the resources of their neighborhoods to generate income"

-- 5 --

20  Everyday Church: Gospel Communities on Mission by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis (Crossway, 2012. 161 pages)

Reading challenge category*:  a book you started but never finished

I made an agreement with myself to not use the public library this summer, but to read through the 20+ unread books that had gathered in stacks around my house the last couple of years.  Several of the unread books -- like this title -- fall under the category of "how to be the Church now that no one goes to church", which I typically approach with a fair amount of skepticism and a dash of hope.

I had special hope for this book because I had so much enjoyed Tim Chester's A Meal With Jesus back when we first moved to Austin in 2011.  And it's not to say that I didn't like Everyday Church; it's just that I didn't find it especially unique or illuminating.  

If this category of books is new to you, and you care deeply about being the Church in your everyday, walking-around, going-to-work life, then you'll probably enjoy this book and will certainly find good and helpful encouragement.

-- 6 --

21  The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches Are Transforming Mission, Discipleship and Community by Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens and Dwight J. Friesen (InterVarsity Press, 2014. 190 pages.)

Reading challenge category*: a book by an author you've never read before

Of the three "ministry" books I read this month, this one was the best by far.  It's another book that I started over a year ago and never completed.  The New Parish and Slow Church could be considered partners in the conversation (both books released by the same publisher around the same time and both reference each other, if I remember correctly), but the book by Sparks, Soerens and Friesen has the feel of being the wiser mentor to Smith & Pattinson's.  A couple of reasons, among several: It's more carefully stated and covers a broader range of anecdotes.

I found the outlines and vocabulary more helpful, as well. (why do we need a new parish, what is the new parish, how do we practice the new parish).  A curt contrast between the two might be that Slow Church theorized (occasionally, harped) on what we should avoid ("franchised faith") while The New Parish gave us a framework of what we need to embrace (faithful, holistic presence of diverse church expressions rooted in a specific geographical place).

-- 7 --

22  The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1951. 101 pages.)

Reading challenge category*: a book chosen based on its cover

Another book from my neglected book pile.  Even though I'd always meant to read it because Abraham Joshua Heschel is quoted by almost every author I've ever read (usually from this book), I'll admit it was seeing an image of the cover art that finally got me to purchase the book.  The prints of wood engravings by Ilya Schor on the cover and at the beginning of each chapter provide an elegance to Heschel's graceful words about the beauty of Sabbath time to Jewish faith and life.  Heschel's words are poetic (at times, even, mythical) which I found captivating enough, but especially so when paired with his daughter's prologue to the book which explained in more day-to-day (week-to-week, rather) terms of what a Sabbath practice looked like in her father's home.

Beautiful.

In a fit of reading ADD, I reading this book alongside The New Parish (see above).  Literally, I read one chapter in one book, put it down, picked up the other and read the next chapter and so on.  I found the contrast to be deepening and enlightening.  Just a little literary serendipity.  One book would be talking about the weakness of ministry life driven by techniques and the other would be talking about how life goes wrong when we live by the power of technical civilization above all else. 

In another contrast, The New Parish would be talking about the importance of rooting in place and then The Sabbath would be telling a legend about Rabbis quarrelling about the transience of space and the immortality of time.  

"There is a mass of cryptic meaning in this silent, solitary story of one who, outraged by the scandal of desecrated time, refused to celebrate the splendor of civilized space. It symbolically describes how Rabbi Shimeon ben Yohai and his son went from exasperation and disgust with this world, which resulted in their actually trying to destroy those who were engaged in worldly activities, to a reconciliation with this world."

In the concluding chapter of The New Parish the authors quote C.S. Lewis:  "It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."  I'm not sure C.S. Lewis or the author meant at the same time, but it sure worked for me!

One last, exquisite excerpt from concluding paragraphs of The Sabbath:

"...All week long we are called upon to sanctify life through employing things of space. On the Sabbath it is given us to share in the holiness that is in the heart of time. Even when the soul is seared, even when no prayer can come out of our tightened throats, the clean, silent rest of the Sabbath leads us to a realm of endless peace, or to the beginning of an awareness of what eternity means. There are few ideas in the world of thought which contain so much spiritual power as the idea of the Sabbath. Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry continue to shine. 

Eternity utters a day."

*This year, I'm using a fun challenge checklist with a Facebook group of friends (and sisters!).  You can find the checklist here:  Take Our Ultimate Reading Challenge  If you'd like to join our Reading Challenge 2015 group on Facebook, let me know and I'll send you an invite! *

Go to my Book Pile page to see my reading lists from 2014 and previous years.

What are you reading right now?

*Linking up with Rachel today

Instead of Facebook, a book of Faces [sharing at Think Christian today]

read the entire article at Think Christian

photo credit

"A book of photographs titled Face elicits obvious comparisons to the social media giant. The latest from photographer Bruce Gilden, the collection of portraits might be more appropriately titled Mug Shot. If these folks filled your Facebook news feed with selfies, you’d probably be tempted to click the “hide” option.

In a world overflowing with Photoshopped and filtered images, Face stops our scrolling in its tracks and makes us evaluate exactly what it is we’re seeking. The 50 subjects in Gilden’s project aren’t beautiful by conventional standards; depending on your own definition of beauty, they may be occasionally repulsive. His technique of the extreme close-up serves to highlight everything that is blemished, misshapen and grotesque in each face. 

[...] To be honest, I had a hard time looking at the images in Face. As I observed them on the screen of my large office monitor, my co-worker exclaimed, “What are you looking at?” and immediately walked away. Gilden’s artistic method provokes this dilemma for the viewer: do I keep looking or do I walk away?"

read the entire article at Think Christian

.....bonusfeature.....

(here's the poem mentioned in the complete article)

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Source: Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)

Monday morning thoughts: dancing bear act, crash helmets and a Doxology

a (hopefully undramatized) stream of conscious meditation about Sunday worship:

"A high school stage play is more polished than this service we have been rehearsing since the year one. In two thousand years, we have not worked out the kinks. We positively glorify them. Week after week we witness the same miracle: that God is so mighty he can stifle his own laughter. Week after week, we witness the same miracle: that God, for reasons unfathomable, refrains from blowing our dancing bear act to smithereens. Week after week Christ washes the disciples' dirty feet, handles their very toes, and repeats, It is all right -- believe it or not -- to be people. Who can believe it?" 

(Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk)

I first read Annie Dillard's apt description of corporate worship services at a time in my life when I was really, really tired of corporate worship.  I'd been trained to hope for, above all else, a Holy Spirit revival when God's people met on Sundays.  This hope made every other part of church life pale in comparison.  You can imagine the cumulative effect of such hope year after year with only rare sightings of anything other-worldly in our worship services.  

Eventually, I began to wonder things like "Why did Jesus ask us to do this little routine with the bread and wine when we're just waiting for the Pentecost flame moment all the time?"  and "What's the point of the Lord's prayer if we just want the tongues?"  

Probably these questions marked the moment of my conversion to Anglicanism.  I needed to find  an ecclesial container large enough, and sturdy enough to nourish and sustain the healthiest parts of those roots -- all that was good and true and beautiful planted into my childhood church experience that would produce good fruit in the dailiness of following Jesus.

The Anglican liturgy is old enough, and broad enough to articulate all that I strove for in years of restless worship and anxious altar calls.  Then and now, I hold out hope that one of these Sundays all of it would blow into smithereens, that the Holy Spirit would rend the heavens and touch down in our sanctuary.  In the meantime, this preacher's kid has found rest knowing that no matter how convicting the sermon or provoking the altar call, at the end of the service it is Jesus Himself hosting the feast. That every child, woman and man will walk to the front to receive gifts of God for the people of God, while healing pray-ers stand by waiting for the ones who can’t make it that far.

Last evening we had to modify our liturgy at Christ Church because both of our priests were on vacation and we had no one to serve the Sacrament.  This morning it strikes me funny that I didn't think twice about this.  Oh my, the conversations we would have had years ago imagining that there were actually Christians in the world who believed a priest had to preside over the Table.  And not only that, but that there might in fact be some mysterious element to the Lord's Supper that makes it something more than a mere symbol of remembrance, therefore requiring a wholly-dedicated representative of the Christ we can not see, but can only ingest.

I missed it though.  And Brian led in Evening prayer and taught us well out of the Gospel of Mark.  Our worship pastor Bryan led us passionately and thoughtfully into the worship of all the saints.  We sang the words that even now cherubim and seraphim are singing at the Throne: Holy, holy, holy..."  And we sang about the reality of this place where Jesus sits with the Father "Clothed in rainbows, of living color / Flashes of lightning, rolls of thunder / Blessing and honor, strength and / Glory and power be / To You the Only Wise King."

And for just a moment, aided by the skillful musicians and the Holy Spirit, the veil that clouds my eyes from seeing fully this throneroom of Christ was lifted for a tiny glimpse.  It was a transcendent moment and my eyes and ears were more closely attuned to the Real World that is "on earth as it is in heaven."  And we sang and I raised my arms in the woefully inadequate physical response to this knowledge.  And I prayed in the lyrics and I imagined a more beautiful Truth than I'd imagined for at least the last seven days.  And then the song ended.

And it kind of reminded me of the time my friends Scott & Kim LaGraff performed a vocal recital for us in New York.  With all the grandeur of their voices, it was the moment of silence immediately following each song that nearly wrecked me.  That moment when the only response we can muster is silence.  As a group, we were transported and wondering if we'd returned to the place we started from or somewhere new altogether.

Last night, the pause felt the same way.  Might flames of fire actually fall from the sky and transport us into a new dimension of intimacy with Father, Son and Spirit -- and please, God -- with each other in the room -- and Lord, have mercy -- with hurting, desperate neighbors so in need of miraculous healing, let diseases and demons and death be gone.  And the silence is a sort of time outside of time in which we anticipate and imagine and listen for our orders.  And, hearing no new instructions, we take up again the mantle of praise and we sing -- what our Church mothers and fathers taught us -- the truth that we did not make, but instead makes us:  

1. Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
   Praise Him, all creatures here below;
   Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
   Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

And then we walk across the courtyard to a little, plain room where we potluck (emphasis on the "luck" since no one seems to have remembered it's potluck week) together because Christ has, in fact, made us all priests with food and stories to share. 

May we all be sustained and may the lonely, desperate in our city draw near to the Gift who gives us life even while we wait to see Him face to face.

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”  (Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk.)