Wednesday, January 28, 2009


"Superficiality is the curse of our age....The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people." [Richard J. Foster]

I want to be deep.
And clear all the way to the bottom.


Tuesday, January 27, 2009

a little less sanguine these days


Last night I drove my roommate to a little place in Chattanooga, where we lounged in comfort and alternated watching a bottle fill up with our plasma and the evening's feature film, "Casino Royale." Thereafter, we exited the building with weighted pockets and lightened veins.
The only negative side to this little arrangement is the rather tender bruise that has taken up residence in the crook of my arm. A small price to pay. I haven't noticed if my humors have come unbalanced, but I've always had a surplus of sanguinity...a reduction this paltry would hardly be noticed.
I have recieved a significant amount of light-hearted criticism for "selling my plasma" (the center prefers to refer to it as a "donation"), but I cannot regard it as detrimental in any way. I get a free movie, an hour of condoned relaxation, and a small sum of money. And somewhere out there, children get vaccinated and burn victims get cured. My plasma is given opportunities that would never have been available to it during its placid existence in my own rather redundant circulatory system.
At the very least, it gives me a new thing to wonder about during the mundane routine of my day.
"Where might my plasma be at this very moment?" I muse, as I swipe off a bathroom counter or pull a bag of trash from a lobby.
How many people in the history of this good earth have ever been able to ask that question with such philosophical detachment?
_________________________________________________
*For the curious...the inscription on the illustration reads thus:
The Aierie Sanguine, in whose youthfull cheeke
The (?) Rose, and Lilly doe contend:
By Nature is benigne, and gentlie meeke,
To Musick, and all merriment a friend;
As seemeth by his flowers, and girlondes gay,
Wherewith he deligtes him, all the merry May.
And by him browzing, of the climbing vine,
The lustful Goate is seene, which may import,
His pronenes both to Women and to wine,
Bold, bouteous, frend unto the learned sort;
For studies fit, bestloving, and belov'd,
Faire-spoken, bashfull, seld in anger moov'd.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

thoughts on fundamentalism

The term "fundamentalist" triggers viscerally negative reactions in most Western pluralistic contexts, connoting ignorance, fanaticism, hypocrisy, and hatred. It evokes images of suicide bombers, televangelists, and crooked politicians. Ammerman’s article, The Nurture and Admonition of the Lord, explored a fundamentalist community’s approach towards rearing its children. Her portrayal of Southside absorbed me because it resembled my own Dutch Midwestern community. Reading this article challenged me to evaluate my experience against the Southside model, and to fashion a personal understanding of Christian fundamentalism from this evaluation.

My home community stresses literal interpretation of the set of basic principles outlined by the Bible. Like the children of the Southside community, I matured in a vigilantly monitored environment.

At home, my parents carefully screened my interaction with the world, whether through media, friends, family, or just day-to-day activities. They encouraged immersion in Biblical principles by including prayer and Bible reading at every family meal. My childhood games regularly featured “playing church.” I loved to read, and I can still remember feeling physically jolted when I came across “bad words” or evolutionistic references, or “bad situations” in books. The Elsie Dinsmore series thrilled me with legalistic but fervent enthusiasm for Christ. My definitions of “good” and “bad” came directly from my community, and were reassuringly black and white. We did not say “crap” or “shut up,” and we never watched movies with such swear words, or New Age ideology, or too much age-inappropriate romance. I also loved to write, and I remember struggling with whether or not to include family prayers or references to church in my stories, because even when I was in third or fourth grade, I felt that doing so somehow detracted from the integrity and value of my writing, but not doing so betrayed my religious commitments. I grew up absorbing theology, especially through my extended family, when all the aunts and uncles would congregate at my Oma and Opa’s house every Sunday or for any birthday or holiday, and talk about religion over mugs of coffee and trays of windmill cookies. Although all too frequently laced with arrogance and scandal, these arguments deeply impressed upon me the significance of religion, and of living according to the Bible.

At church, I attended services twice every day, and always had Sunday school or Catechism lessons after the morning service. I remember growing increasingly frustrated with the irrelevancy of my church’s attempts to relate to the youth, displaying a rueful attitude toward Christianity, or sending out a weak “Hey, we’re cool too!” message that seemed to only underscore that the world’s standards counted above all. I received a conflicting message at church: I need to be faithful to the Bible as the only standard—but I have to establish that that standard can measure up to the world’s standards. Pipe organs and superbowl parties still exasperate me.

After being home-schooled for first grade, I attended a Netherlands Reformed denominational school that required girls to wear dresses or skirts and to take home economics classes, and taught only the KJV. My parents chose this school in order to err on the side of caution, viewing it as the “safest” option available, but it created a great deal of confusion for me. Many of my friends regarded my family with suspicion because we owned a television, attended a church that used the NIV, wore slacks, shorts, and tank tops, and purchased Christmas trees. When my parents would explain the reasons behind these differences, I began to develop a sense of superiority. My experience at Plymouth made me something of a hybrid: legalistic, sheltered, but also oddly proud of my Christian freedoms. By the time I transferred to a fledgling high school in ninth grade, I had embraced the mindset that women should only have careers if they are unwed, and that the purpose of education for women was either as a backup plan, or to equip women to be good mothers and wives, as enriched as the flour with which they bake their wholesome homemade treats. My new high school was a breath of fresh air because of its focus on freedom in Christ. Looking back, I see that many of the lessons I learned at Zion were still extremely conservative: vote Republican, make sure you take classical courses like Latin and Logic, be wary of songs not in the Trinity Hymnal, never ever read The Message, etc. However, I also learned about the complexity of life, about bias and common grace, and I started to develop a sense of the need for discernment, for critical thinking instead of blind fidelity. Zion equipped me to think, and, most importantly, it emphasized the importance of grace in relationships.

Did my experiences fashion a narrow-minded bigot out of me? I actually struggle with that question. I have learned to flinch whenever the “gender” question is broached, to cringe away from taking a stand on anything short of “do not murder.” In many ways, I have lapsed into apathy. My convictions frequently take a back seat to my desire to be winsome and charitable—to the point that I cannot confront my loved ones when they fall into very real and destructive vices, because I am so aware of my own failings and inadequacies, and so afraid of driving them away by fundamentalist hypocrisy. And in my ambivalence and confusion, I am on the “faithful” end of most of my age group! Many of my friends have reacted against my community and adopted lifestyles that deeply grieve and baffle the older generation: drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, drug use, eating disorders, and otherwise irresponsible living. At home I cannot engage with my friends because they sense my disapproval, but I also disapprove with the way that my community handles their disobedience, because it strikes me as ungracious and unfeeling.

How do I feel about Christian fundamentalism? I find that it is courageous and well-meaning, but inconsistent and inadequate—in short, it is good but fallen, like all other brands of Christianity.

While I am so grateful for the heritage that I have been given, and the way that God has used my community to lead me to salvation, I nevertheless feel handicapped to relate to both the world and the church because of the confusion it engendered in my heart. During these three years at Covenant, my focus has shifted from an attempt to reconcile my upbringing with Covenant’s teaching, to an attempt to discover whether the Bible teaches what I believe. I am clinging to grace, and striving above all to love and know my God. In so doing, I pray that my actions are faithful to the Truth.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Our only hope: to leap into the Word/ That opens a shuttered Universe

We live half our lives
in fantasy, and words.
["Interrupted Meditation", Robert Hass]

For instance, this morning: I looked at the sunrise behind Brock Hall and suddenly the words "the steeples swum in amethyst" wafted through my consciousness with that familiar shiver of delight. And later, walking with my mug of very bad coffee to my office, I saw the arbitrary gentle fall of snow and heard again a wisp of Dickinson, something about "sifting from leaden sieves."

How impoverished my life would be without its cargo of plundered ideas and phrases and metaphors! Despite my yearning for freshness and originality, I cannot imagine an existence unadulterated by the words of Dickinson, Oliver, Buechner... an existence lived outside of fantasy, and words.

I know that this attitude towards life seems naive and idealistic at best, escapist at worst. I do not deny that evil is uglier than I know, and that a time may come when I look at a sunrise or a leaden flurry, catch the familiar murmur of poetry, and feel the urge to shrug it away with a cynicism borne from acquaintance with the harsher realities of life.

I hope that when that time comes I will remember that fantasy and words are realities of life, too. I hope I will still believe that "language is responsible to being."

And that, miraculously, "there is a Word / at the end that explains."

Friday, January 16, 2009

empty

"What is lacking cannot be counted." Ecclesiastes 2:15b



I peered into my character, and those words sprang to mind. Whereupon my heart heaved a sigh and my will soldered another link into my rusted, chipped, dented, imperfectly mended chain of resolutions.

Sometimes life makes me very weary.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

joys of courtship

The "wind is like a whetted knife" out there, and I am grateful for even the institutional cell-like shelter (say that five times fast) of my little office this morning.

Yesterday I took Janie out to the cross-country trails for a run. It was a glowery earthy sort of afternoon, and I felt restive from the day's thousand small vexations as I pumped my knees and started for the path in the woods...little suspecting the gift that lay in store.

Moments after we had lost sight of the trail entrance, the wind sharpened and the sky darkened, even as the air took on an odd lightness and began to prickle with thousands of sharp white flakes of hail.

The whole experience--the subtle sifting noises the hail made as it rained down on the husks of leaves, the bright sting as it barbed my face, and the sight of it twinkling white and lively in the drab and dormant woods--was both surreal and infinitely peaceful. I felt pleasantly bewitched, detached somehow from the ache in my chest and the burning in my throat, my thoughts disembodied from my earthbound self.


All that to say: Here is my answer to your question, Mary Oliver*
(*See January 10 post)

Every day I sense an enigmatic smile, a generous hand flinging riddles into my path that glint with their invisible meanings.

There is joy in knowing that the answers are there, and that they are true.

There is joy in the quest, admiring the craftmanship and masterful creativity invested in the fashioning of those intricate labrynths, seeking the answers through the clever trickery. Knowing that each time I reach in and grasp a glinting truth, I come a step closer to solving the Great Riddle of life itself.

There is deep satisfaction and delight in knowing that each puzzle is a personal gift from a wooing Lover, fashioned with ardent care, evidence of His love and desire. He watches me as I meet them and wrestle with them and react to them. He cares about my response. He is ever at hand to give me hints and encouragement.

And someday, with grand laughter, when He knows that I am ready, He will bestow upon me the Answer in its naked beauty and power. And it will be Himself.

What joy.

Monday, January 12, 2009

the obligatory New Year post, belated

I have been listening to my life, exercising my memory like an atrophied muscle, gently but consistently. It's hard to play your own personal pyschiatric physical therapist, but worthwhile. Buried in my ordinary life is a supernatural love story, and in reading the past like a love letter I am romanced all over again, and acutely aware of how I have used the mundane as a shield against my Lover, betrayed Him by forgetting our history and thinking only on the here and now.
Let me touched by the alien hands of love forever, that this eye be not folly's loophole, but giver of due regard.

I love that phrase, "the alien hands of love." Forever alien, forever reaching for me. Folly peers out of my eyes as often as I forget that I have been touched by Love, that I am being touched by Love. In 2009, my prayer is that these eyes may indeed be givers of due regard, through love's transforming touch.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

It is our nature not only to see
That the world is beautiful


But to stand in the dark, under the stars,
Or at noon, in the rainfall of light,

Frenzied,
Wringing our hands,

Half-mad, saying over and over:

What does it mean, that the world is beautiful—
What does it mean?

Mary Oliver: The Leaf and the Cloud

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Sea-Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

[John Masefield]

To Mom

Who would have thought, when years had passed,  and you had left this world for good, I'd find such comfort remembering the way it felt ...