Svenson: Margin and its loss

Margin, the space that once existed between ourselves and our limits, was an early casualty. When you reach the limits of your resources or abilities, you have no margin left. So as history and progress picked up speed, we hit limit after limit. Slowly, margin began to disappear. Then when exponentiality took over the controls, margin vaporized. Now that we have exceeded so many of our limits—personal, emotional, relational, physical, financial—we have no margin at all. Yet because we don’t even know what margin is, we don’t realize it is gone. We know that something is not right, but we can’t solve the puzzle beyond that. Our pain is palpable, but our assailant remains unnamed. Much of this pain is in our relational life: to self, to others, to God. We miss margin in many areas. But we require it in our relationships. When we have no margin and our limits have been exceeded; when we are besieged by stress and overload; when our relational life is ailing; when it seems the flood of events is beyond our control; then problems take on a different dimension. One at a time they are perhaps manageable. But they just won’t stand in line. Instead, they mound up suddenly and then bury us without warning.

 

Margin, location 572ff

Svenson: the real way to measure progress

Wilberforce: “Above all, measure your progress by your experience of the love of God and its exercise before men."

Margin: location 431/432

This line struck me with great force:  how have I been measuring my progress?  And how far out of whack have I been?  And how much happier might life be if I stopped using...(speed, efficiency, quantity, visibility, meeting expectations) to assess how I am doing?  What if each day I really asked a question based on this - and how my work, my plans, relationships etc?

Quick review: The Holmes Affair

Maybe I shouldn't have gone from TLOR to this book.  TLOR in many ways embodies an anachronistic language, evoking a previous age of magic and myth.  Then I pick up this well-reviewed book and...I wonder if TV has forever altered the way people write?  As a script for a movie or TV it's pretty well ready to roll; in terms of lyrical quality and depth, not so much.

But that's not my biggest problem with it.  It's OK.  But whilst the book in spots spoke of how Conan-Doyle constructed his tales and how you could see his method, his system...this book seemed to follow a system too, just as visible.  It came over a bit like the Da Vinci Code: 1. Introduce unusual  main character  2. Introduce female who will turn out to be more important than you realise.  3.  Introduce the mysterious crime with sinister overtones.  4. Lots of travelling about pursued by mysterious assailants, whilst seeing how the past plays into the current crime.

It was OK.

I know sophisticated grown-ups aren't supposed to comment and complain about this BUT: the profanity gets worse as you progress. (as well as being spoken by historical persons for whom, one presumes, we have no idea whether they used those words).

The best bit is the afterword explaining that a number of facets of the story have historical reality!  That was the truly breathtaking moment.  And I'm interested in finding out more about that.

Should have been brilliant, but was just OK - for me, anyway.

Swenson: love more than the solutions of progress

How might we know that the relational environments are where God would have us concentrate? Simply put, these are the same areas Christ spent His time developing and where His teaching is focused. Where do you think God would have us search for answers regarding drugs, crime, divorce, suicide, depression, teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and litigation? In the material and cognitive realms, or in the relational ones? Our society tries in vain to remedy these problems using the popular notions of progress—appropriating more money (that is, material/physical answers) and setting up more classes (that is, cognitive/educational answers). But insufficient funds and lack of education are not the problem. The problem is lack of love.

Margins, location 405

Swenson: did progress betray us?

Did progress betray us? Not really. We should have known from the start there was more to life than material and cognitive well-being. Until we understand what progress is and isn’t (that is, should be and can never be), we will remain trapped in a paradigm that is not taking us where we need to be going.

Richard A Swenson, Margin, (Kindle location 353)

Postman: making the alternatives invisible

Technopoly eliminates alternatives to itself in precisely the way Aldous Huxley outlines in Brave New World.  It does not make them illegal.  It does not make them immoral.  It does not even make them unpopular.  It makes them invisible and therefore irrelevant.  And it does so by redefining what we mean by religion, by art, by family, by politics, by history, by truth, by privacy, by intelligence, so that our definitions fits its new requirements.  

Technopoly, p.48

Quick Review: The Return of the King

Well, it's over.  After 25 years I read TLOR again.  And I'm glad I did.

The suspense was absent as I remembered most of what happened - although in this third part I had got some of it muddled. Having said that, I did find myself wanting to catch up on another strand of the story whilst following the present one (volume1 is a united narrative;  volume two divides into two;  but in volume three there are often three strands unfolding).

SPOILERS (little ones, but you might want to read with one eye closed)

So what stands out here?  Especially striking is the friendship and bravery of Sam, who tends to fade into the background in memory.  In fact friendship, trust, courage and sacrifice run throughout as possibly the most constant theme of the book.   Also, the intrinsic power of a noble King - to inspire overturn darkness, establish justice and to inspire loyalty. And in narrative terms, the co-ordination of the big spectacular battle (the Pellenor Fields) and the tiny movements of the Ringbearer, and how one cannot succeed without the other.

A big difference from my 17-year old reading, is that I'm no longer befuddled by the end.  In those days I think I felt "Hey, it's a magical world - why does this have to happen?".  But I'm older now, and the idea that darkness could wound one so badly that it cannot ever heal; and that there is an undying land of life and peace and rest...that all makes a lot more sense.

So last time, it was the epic scale, the internal consistency, the fantastical lands.  This time that was all still there, but also as a frame that hold a picture of the deep themes of life.

Yep: it's still a great, great book.  And I shan't wait 25 years again - currently I'm planning 5...

Postman: fully-armed 19thC technocracy

There on the wings of technocracy, the United States soared to unprecedented heights. That Jefferson, Adams, and Madison would have found such a place uncomfortable, perhaps even disagreeable, did not matter...
 ...Technocracy did not entirely destroy the traditions of the social and symbolic worlds...In nineteenth century America, there still existed holy men and the concept of sin.  There still existed regional pride, and it was possible to confirm traditional notions of family life.  It was possible to respect tradition itself and to find sustenance in ritual and myth.  It was possible to believe in social responsibility and the practicality of individual action.  It was even possible to believe in common sense and the wisdom of the elderly.  It was not easy, but it was possible.

The technocracy that emerged, fully armed, in nineteenth century America disdained such beliefs, because holy men and sin, grandmothers and families, regional loyalties and two-thousand year-old traditions are antagonistic to the technocratic way of life.

Technopoly p45-46

Postman: technology changes thinking

New technologies alter the structure of our interests: the things we think about.  They alter the character of our symbols: the things we think with.  And they alter the nature of community: the arena in which thoughts develop.

Technopoly p20

Quick Review: The Two Towers

Well it has been a different experience reading volume 2 this time.

Some epic moments turned out to be only a few pages long (eg. Helm's Deep).  And the parts last time that felt like they were holding up plot developments were great this time.  This is especially true of some key conversations.  The best example would be Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas running through the plains of Rohan and encountering the Riders.  The suspicion gradually giving way to a recognition of noble hearts of similar cast, fighting one enemy, was great - as cultural barriers and the paranoia of the times gradually fall before a warm-heartedness.

This nobility of heart was largely lost in the movie, which tended to play relationships like buddy-movies where the protagonists fall out until united by need.  In TLOR Tolkien recognises sometimes people simply are noble-hearted.  Treebeard does not need to be provoked into action by the ecological disaster effecting him in his quiet safety: in the book, he knows Saruman is evil and has merely been taking time deliberating what to do.  Faramir does not have to struggle long and hard to resist the ring:  as written by Tolkien and not Peter Jackson, he soon works out what the situation is and is one of several characters (eg Sam) who seem largely unaffected by the ring.  Ah, a time when a true-heart was seen as possible.

But alongside this, one other thought that bypassed me last time.  25years ago Middle-Earth seemed like a wondrous place to live, and it is.  However, what I realise this time is that for the characters in the book these are difficult times and much that was great has passed or is passing.  The men of Gondor are not as their ancestors, the woods of the Elves have shrunk, the number of Ents who sleep has risen.  The Third Age is ending...and much that is golden will not be seen again.

3 Irrational beliefs - excerpts

He identified three irrational core beliefs that cause the most trouble:

#1: "I absolutely MUST, at all times, perform outstandingly well and win the approval of significant others. If I fail in these important—and sacred—respects, that is awful and I am a bad, incompetent, unworthy person, who will probably always fail and deserves to suffer."

#2: "Other people with whom I relate absolutely MUST, under practically all conditions, treat me nicely, considerately, and fairly. Otherwise, it is terrible and they are rotten, bad, unworthy people who will always treat me badly and should be severely punished for acting so abominably to me."

#3: "The conditions under which I live absolutely MUST, at practically all times, be favorable, safe, hassle-free, and quickly and easily enjoyable. If they are not, it's awful and horrible and I can't ever enjoy myself at all. My life is hardly worth living."

 ....But many pastors, me included, are self-identified people-pleasers. We know that it's irrational to expect everyone's approval, yet we still sometimes feel devastated by one unhappy congregant.

What are the consequences of this irrational belief? Your sense of worth becomes as unstable as the fickle opinions of others. You ride a roller coaster of ecstasy and pain. Your identity depends on the person who sings your praises today, or who calls for your resignation tomorrow.

...Anyone who has ever led a church knows that expecting everyone to treat you nicely is the whopper of irrational beliefs. Church is a place for broken, sinful, messed up people, yet we're surprised when they behave like broken, sinful, messed up people. Pastors should know better, but we don't.

...We cannot eliminate hassle from our lives, but we can diminish its impact. Many of life's stressors can be attributed to the lack of margin. With no margin, one delay, one extra crisis, or one walk-in appointment can be enough to tip us over the edge. Margin is one of the least expensive luxuries in life and costs no more than the time it takes to sit down in front of a calendar and mark certain days and times as off limits.

Leadership

Josh Garrels: Love & War & the Sea in Between

It's not often I post about a new album (in fact this may be the first time), but this is a note to anyone who comes on here to go and download his last one. 

There are only a handful of albums I would call approaching perfect (some of which are listed on this blog in the best album duel with Dickie Mint) and it's early days yet with this album, but I suspect it will be up there with them.  He has a pretty unusual voice, a massive vocal range;  don't know where you'd peg the music as he changes styles frequently, but it's nearer mellow than loud, nearer poetry than praise songs - plus instrumentals and, at one point, rap.

And it's free!  Honestly, this is really good stuff.  If you don't do anything else, listen to the streaming version of White Owl through good speakers or headphones.

Introverted Leader

However, in more than a decade of Christian leadership I have come to see the significant contributions introverts make to others and have learned effective introverted models of leadership. So we must distinguish between our energy level for a task and our gifting for that same task. Just because we lose energy doing something does not necessarily indicate we are not a good fit for it. I am convinced that calling, not personality type, is the determinative factor in the formation and longevity of a leader. It was no coincidence that God met Moses in the very place that he tried to flee, nor was it accidental that Moses would later drive another flock, the people of Israel, into that same wilderness to the mountain of God. God's call sheds light on our darkest hiding places....

...and though we do not determine our vocation, we can learn how to protect it and to thrive in it through self-care, spiritual disciplines, thoughtfulness about how we expend our energy, and a healthy perspective on our role in the ministry of the church.

Perhaps the most vital ingredient to longevity in ministry for a leader is self-care. We devote so much time and energy to caring for the spiritual and emotional needs of others that we can neglect our own needs—both to our detriment and to the long-term detriment of those we care for. The less we pay attention to ourselves, the less we have to offer others over the long term....

...However, even as we are intentional about our scheduling, we must leave room for the surprising work of God. Introverts can become so absorbed in our internal worlds that we miss the needs of others around us. Our scheduling and emotional boundaries must not preempt the divine interjections that shape so much of our identity and our work. We must remember that the events that form the foundation of our calling—the incarnation of the Son of God and his resurrection from the dead—were cosmic interruptions in a world that had grown callous to God's love.

Adam S McHugh

Leadership

Move: can anyone tell?

So what are the conclusions? If you are a pastor, you are going to have to look at yourself in the mirror and ask, "Am I passionate about the Bible?" and "Can anybody tell?" Congregations tend to mirror their leaders-what do they see in you? Can they tell that every decision you make has its foundation in the Word of God?

from Review of Move

Chester/Timmis: cross-cultural at home

Claiming that the West is a mission field is now common.  But there is a big gap between the rhetoric and the reality of our attitudes.  One of the measures of that gap is the extent to which we are willing - or  unwilling - to learn from the experience of mission and the church around the world.  If we really believed we were in  mission field then we would all be reading books written by Third-World Christians and cross-cultural missionaries.

Everyday Church, p45

Postman: techno worldview war

...new technologies compete with old ones - for time, for attention, for money, for prestige, but mostly for dominance of their world-view.  This competition is implicit once we acknowledge that medium contains an ideological bias.  And it is a fierce competition, as only ideological competitions can be.  It is not merely a matter of tool against tool - the alphabet attacking ideographic writing, the printing press attacking the illuminated manuscript, the photograph attacking the art of painting, television attacking the printed word.  When media make war against each other, it is a case of world-views in collision.

Technopoly, p16.

Tripp: meditate on God's goodness

You would be surprised how many pastors have confessed to me a lack of good spiritual habits. It is sad to think of how many pastors live in functional isolation, not putting their hearts in places where they can be watched, warned, protected, and nourished. Without daily meditating on God's glory and grace, all you're left to meditate on are the struggles within you and the problems outside you. No wonder our pastoral muscles grow weak.

Paul Tripp
(article on waiting)

Postman: the monastery clock & what was never meant to happen

The bells of the monastery were t be rung to signal the canonical hours;  the mechanical clock was the technology that could provide precision to these rituals of devotion.  And indeed it did.  But what the monks did not foresee is that the clock is a means not merely of keeping track of the hours but also of synchronising and controlling the actions of men.  And thus by the middle of the 14th century, the clock had moved outside the walls of the monastery, and brought a new ad precise regularity to the life of the workman and the merchant.  

"The mechanical clock," as Lewis Mumford wrote, "made possible the idea of regular production, regular working hours and a standardised product."  In short, without the clock, capitalism would have been quite impossible.  The paradox, the surprise and the wonder are that the clock was invented by men who wanted to devote themselves more rigorously to God;  it ended as the technology of greatest use to men who wished to devote themselves to the accumulation of money.  In the eternal struggle between God and Mammon, the clock quite unpredictably favoured the latter.

Technopoly, p14-15

Postman: our culture conspiring against itself

As for change brought on by technology, this native optimism is exploited by entrepreneurs, who work hard to infuse the population with a unity of improbable hope, for they know it is economically unwise to reveal the price to be paid for technological change.  One might say, then, that, if there is a conspiracy of any kind, it is that of a culture conspiring against itself.

Technopoly p12

Simeon: preaching to lower numbers

For 12 years the people refused to let [Charles Simeon] give the afternoon Sunday sermon. And during that time they boycotted the Sunday morning service and locked their pews so that no one could sit in them. He preached to people in the aisles for 12 years! How did he last?

In this state of things I saw no remedy but faith and patience. The passage of Scripture which subdued and controlled my mind was this, "The servant of the Lord must not strive."  It was painful indeed to see the church, with the exception of the aisles, almost forsaken; but I thought that if God would only give a double blessing to the congregation that did attend, there would on the whole be as much good done as if the congregation were doubled and the blessing limited to only half the amount. This comforted me many, many times, when without such a reflection, I should have sunk under my burthen. (Charles Simeon, by H.C.G. Moule, p. 39)

From DG

Universal Solvent

But skepticism is a universal solvent, and once applied, it does not stop just because Christendom is gone. "I think, therefore I am. I think." We pulled out the stopper of faith, and the bathwater of reason appeared undisturbed for a time. But modernism slowly receded and now postmodernism is circling the drain. Our intelligentsia needs to figure out how to do more than sit in an empty tub and reminisce about the days when Voltaire knew how to keep the water hot. 

Doug Wilson

Quick Review: The Fellowship of the Ring

OK, so 25 years after I first read it, I returned to the TLOR.  Why such a long time, when many people I know have read it again and again?  Well two reasons:

1. I tend to remember the details of most good stories I read for a long time.  And as one of the most compelling things about reading for me is not knowing what happens next, I hesitate to re-read a book until a degree of fading has occurred.  This waiting has been complicated by since hearing the BBC Radio version, watching the old British movie of the first half of TLOR, playing War in Middle Earth in the early 90s, and then watching the Peter Jackson trilogy, followed by watching the extended editions.  But although I have waited long, it would appear that the original book made such an impact I still remember most of it.

2. It's this impact that made me pause: TLOR really was one of those pivotal moments, and reading it affected me deeply.  It was and is the best story I ever read, and so I was hesitant to return to it in case it didn't live up to the pedestalled memory; like returning to a childhood place which seemed huge park when we were small, only to discover it was just a normal sized garden.

So?

Well no, it hasn't lived up to the original impact.  But I don't believe this is because the book is not as good as I thought, but is more a statement of my psychology.  By which I mean:
a) I remember too much, so there is little of the suspense, the desperate need to see what happens next because, sadly, I already know.
b) Part of the power of 25 years ago was the change it wrought in me, and that work is done.  So I will not feel the impact of having my imagination stretched this time - because it is still stretched all these years later.  For example, one effect on me (and on many others) was to change the way I viewed landscape: something about Tolkien's dealing with landscape in the book meant that everywhere I went, when I saw a distant view of hills, or Dartmoor, or mountains, it had been affected or infected. But that's happened,  It can't re-happen.  Or, as another example, several scenes in the book in my memory are huge, long, epic.  Moria was like this: I can remember now being spellbound.  Or the adventure with the Barrow-Wight.  It's only a couple of pages!! What?  Surely that's huge?  No - but at the time this was all new, my brain was processing entirely new ideas - and so it seemed many pages long (cf. Andrew Adamson's comments on filming the massive battle at the end of LW&W, which turned out in adulthood to be only 2 pages long!)
c) It has revealed how I have changed.  25 years ago, the first chapters seemed to be holding up the story: "where's the adventure?!  13 years?  O come on.....".  This time my feelings were "No!  Stay in Hobbiton!  Let some other mug do it!".  Something has changed in me...probably I have found out that crisis and pain are not as much fun as one thinks, even if you call them a "quest".

But there are other changes too.  Things which seemed unimportant or irritating then, I find fascinating now.  Chief among these is Tom Bombadil: I was glad to see the back of him 25 years ago, but this time...fascinated!  Who is he?  What is Tolkien saying?  And please can I go stay at his house?  And the relationships between characters are far more significant this time round.  And the way different races interact...

And I ought to say that though I have had little time to read since starting at the beginning of the year, the time spent reading has flown by and suddenly I am at the Falls of Rauros.  It's still a great book.

25 years ago I found The Two Towers the least satisfying of the three...but this time, maybe something unexpected will happen.

Jardine: writing email like letters

It is this second version of the letter that was eventually dispatched, and which evidently satisfied its recipient, who called a truce on their differing views of Fry's influence and reputation. In early September, Woolf wrote to arrange for Nicolson to visit, adding: "I love getting your letters," and "I'm so happy you found the life of Roger Fry interesting as well as infuriating."

Two things strike me in this exchange. The first is the simple good manners both correspondents evidence in the way they address one another and present their arguments, in spite of the real, keenly felt differences of opinion.

Virginia Woolf understood the effects of letters written in haste.

 

The second is the strikingly different outcome arrived at because Virginia Woolf restrained herself from dispatching her first, intemperate draft reply and carefully modified it so as not to hurt the feelings of the young man - a family friend, very much younger and less experienced than herself.

I have, of course, dwelt on this exchange for a purpose. In it, Woolf - using established letter-writing conventions - takes advantage of the time lapses between exchanges to recuperate, clarify, recast and take control of the argument. The result has the elegance of a formal dance - a kind of minuet, in which the participants advance and retreat according to well-understood rules, until they have arrived at a satisfactory outcome.

How unlike the rapid firing off and counter-fire of email messages in which many of us find ourselves engaged nowadays as our predominant means of communicating with colleagues and friends, and even with complete strangers...

Lisa Jardine, BBC

Postman: winners and losers in technology

...the benefits and deficits of a new technology are not distributed equally.  There are, as it were, winners and losers.  It is both puzzling and poignant that on many occasions the losers, out of ignorance, have actually cheered the winners and some still do...

It is to be expected that the winners will encourage the loses to be enthusiastic about computer technology.  That is the way of winners, and so they sometimes tell the losers that with personal computers the average person can balance a chequebook more neatly, keep better track of recipes, and make more logical shopping lists.  They also tell them that their lives will be conducted more efficiently.  But discreetly they neglect to say from whose point of view the efficiency is warranted, or what might be its costs.  Should the losers grow sceptical, the winners dazzle them with the wondrous feats of computers, all of which have only marginal relevance to the quality of the losers' lives but which are nonetheless impressive.

Technopoly p9&11

Postman: technology changes word meanings

...he [Thamus] worries that wisdom will become indistinguishable from mere knowledge.  This judgment we must take to heart, for it is a certainty that radical technologies create new definitions of old terms and that this process takes place without our being fully conscious of it...

...technology imperiously commandeers our most important terminology.  It redefines "freedom", "truth", "intelligence", "fact", "wisdom", "memory", "history" - all the words we live by.  And it does not pause to tell us.  And we do not pause to ask.

Technopoly, p8-9

Montgomery: don't be a Bugle

It's only that Cousin Ernestine Bugle is catching.

I know now why Rebecca Due has always called her 'Miss Much Afraid'.  The poor soul has borrowed so much trouble she must be hopelessly in debt to fate.

There are so many Bugles in the world, not many quite so far gone in Buglism as Cousin Ernestine perhaps;  but so many kill-joys, afraid to enjoy today because of what tomorrow will bring.

Anne of Windy Willows, p209-10

Vocation and unemployment

In recent years, Christian scholars have reflected in fresh ways on a theology of work. It can be devastating when people are unable to engage in meaningful labor. "It's perfectly natural to be ill at ease about becoming unemployed and to be frustrated and anxious," Ben Witherington, author of Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor, told Christianity Today. "I don't think that most Christians have thought seriously about what the Bible says about work."

When the vision of work is not rooted in Scripture, people fall back on a lesser notion: the perfect job. "Christians have associated vocation with job," said Gene Veith, author of the 2002 book God at Work, noting that job is a secular word, while the word vocation has rich theological meaning.

Vocation is defined as God calling us to serve and love our neighbors. This is something one never loses, Veith said. According to the Reformers, Veith said, there were three vocations: the family, the church, and the state. A paying job is only one aspect of the family vocation.

"We invest so much of the meaning of our lives in our jobs," said Veith, provost and professor at Patrick Henry College. "That's our identity, that's what gives our life reason, that's why we get up in the morning. When that is taken away, we feel purposeless. That mindset has led us to neglect our other vocations and callings."

CT

Dalrymple: cover nihilism with malevolence

It is better [in the minds of those he is describing] to be opposed by an enemy than to be adrift in meaninglessness, for the simulacrum of an enemy lends purpose to actions whose nihilism would otherwise be self evident.

Our Culture... p303

Dalrymple: The West case - loss of family is loss of protection

The [Fred and Rosemary] West case revealed how easily, in the anonymity of the modern urban environment, and in the midst of crowds, people may disappear;  and how such disappearances are made all the easier by a collective refusal - in the name of individual liberty - of parents to take responsibility for their children, of neighbours to notice what is happening around them, of anyone to brave the mockery of libertines in the defence of some standard of decency.  And the various public agencies - the police, the schools, the social services, the hospitals - proved no substitute for the personal contact that families were once supposed to have provided, but that, in a permissive climate in which tolerance all too often shades into indifference, many provide no longer.  The failure of these agencies was not accidental, but inherent in their nature as bureaucracies: the state is not, and never will be, a substitute for an old-fashioned mum and dad.

Our Culutre... p271

The problem with advice (Tolkien)

"...But it is said: Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. The choice is yoirs: to go or wait."

"And it is also said," answered Frodo, "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes."

"Is it indeed?" laughed Gildor. "Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill..."

TLOR, p97

Dalrymple: producing shallow people

...a loss of sense of shame means a loss of privacy; a loss of privacy means a loss of intimacy;  a loss of intimacy means a loss of depth. There is, in fact, no better way to produce shallow and superficial people than to let them live their lives entirely in the open without concealment of anything.

Our Culture...  p.240

Ortberg: Hope Management

A very wise person suggested a great image to our staff recently. I asked him what he thought is the primary barrier people in church ministry face to finding spiritual health. I thought he would speak about how hard church leadership is, but he immediately said that our challenge is no different than anyone else's: "Learning to depend fully on God for every moment of your life, right where you are."

The image was this: Remember Atlas, that old character from Greek mythology who carried the world on his shoulder? Put it down. Refuse to carry the weight of the world anymore. Rely on God's love this moment for your identity and well-being, so that they no longer hinge on outcomes.

I am a recovering Atlas.

When I remember to do this, when I take the world off my shoulders, it always results in life and hope. Hope, after all, is very different from getting myself to believe that things will turn out the way that I want them to. Hope means, among other things, a joyful dying to my need to have my life turn out any particular way at all. Hope comes when I live in the reality that the world is in better, larger, more capable hands than mine.

The ancient Greeks loved virtue, and believed deeply that suffering would produce character. But in the ancient world, only a Paul would top this list (suffering, perseverance, character) with "hope." The Greeks were not big on hope; they did not believe the universe was kindly disposed to humanity. Paul did, because Jesus did. So Paul said hope "does not disappoint."

Hope-management may be the single most important thing you do today. No circumstance or person is allowed to siphon it from you. When you took this job, when you answered this call—you signed on for hope. It's much bigger than you are. Rest in it a little while.

Leadership

I may have a problem with mathoms (Tolkien)

...the museum at Michel Delving.  The Mathom-house it was called: for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom.  Their dwellings were rather apt to become  rather crowded with mathoms...

The Lord of the Rings, p18

Jacobs: read for fun

I say, "Go and read for fun," because that sense of reading as a duty is not going to carry you through. It's not going to sustain you as a vibrant reader, as you will be if you read what gives you delight. You may have actually lost some of that sense of delight over the years reading primarily for school. So go out there and have fun with it.
What will happen when people do that? Will they read frivolous things? Yes—at least I certainly hope so. I quote W. H. Auden, who says that the great masterpieces should be reserved for the "high holidays of the spirit." You're not designed for a steady diet of literary masterpieces any more than you would eat a seven-course French meal every day. At one point, Auden says it's not only permissible but admirable not always to be in the mood for Dante. And I think that's right. Sometimes you just want a lighter fare.

CT

Carson: preaching gospel Christology

Preaching from the Gospels is above all an exercise in the exposition and application of Christology.

Don Carson, The Gospel According to John (Pillar), p.102

Part 6 (the end)

Slowly he realised he was back in bed with the covers over his head.  He pushed them back.  Early sunshine was in the room and the sound of penguins passing the window, singing their breakfast song, filled the air.  Nick sat up and swung his legs round for the umpteenth time in the last few hours.

Remember, remember...you must remember.  Remember what you are for... Something was happening in his head, in some dark recess, in a locked attic deep in his mind someone or something had awoken and was banging on the door to get out.

For a second he stared into space,  and then he was up and over  to the window.  He called to a penguin who was loitering a short distance away singing his annoying song with accompanying choreography.

“Oi, you!”  The penguin continued dancing about.  Nick collected some of the snow off his windowsill, formed a compacted,  icy snowball and took aim.  It detonated with such force that the penguin flew head first in the drifts.

“Gosh,” said Nick, in a moment of revelation, “I’ve wanted to do that for years.”   The penguin picked itself up and looked about.  “Oi, you, penguin!  What day is this?”

“Eh?”

“What day’s today?”

“Why, it’s Christmas Eve,” it squeaked.  The penguin was experiencing a strange emotion: Nick had for centuries worn a permanently light-hearted and jolly expression.  And could generally be expected to be able to identify Christmas Eve.  He was unsure how to respond to the amnesia and the alien look of...determination?

“It’s Christmas Eve!  I haven’t missed it!  Right, get round to the stables and tell Rudolph to fire up the Team.”

“But it’s not night-time!  What about night-time? You’ll be seen, people will want to talk to you!  What about the presents?”  The  squeaks were filled with alarm.

“Load up the presents now.  And we’re going this morning while it’s light.  And get me the P.R. Elf.  Change of Policy.  We’re going public.  It’s time to talk.”

“To who?”

“Everyone.”

Quick Review: 1001 Books to Read Before you Die

I bought this one second hand earlier this year and read it progressively up to yesterday.  It's a great idea, especially for someone who will not live long enough to read all these books: stretching from 1000+years ago to 2006 (there are multiple editions of this volume I think), listing the must-reads, with a brief summary and lots of illustrations.

Having said that, it could also be called "1001 Books to Make you Miserable."  The small flaw in the book is that the reviews seem to be written by literary critics, 90% of whom are allergic to happiness and, in some cases, to an actual story.  I don't want to overdo this, because it has been a fascinating read.  But I get the impression that for many of these critics there is a set of criteria that a book should contain in order to be worthy.

You get a hint of this when they are covering books up to 1900: every so often you realise they are waiting for Ulysses and 20th century literature to start, and much of what went before is just hanging around til it happens.  Older books are more likely to be approved if they contain elements that come to fruition in the last 100years.  Key words are: psychologising, sexual, bourgeoisie, conflict.  Psycho-sexual bourgeoisie conflict is a definite winner.

Reaching Hardy, James and eventually Joyce, one feels we have obtained the promised land.  From thence on it would appear that the main purpose of literature is to challenge taboos and overturn the conventions of the linear narrative (ie frequent swearing, sexual content and violence + can't tell a story in a straight line = not many happy endings.)

Another double-edged sword is this volume's evolution from previous editions so as to include more non-Western books.  This opens up the horizons and made me realise just how many nations are publishing works which we generally never hear of.  The slight downside is that because they have been chosen by similar critics they are frequently taboo-breaking, non-linear blah-de-blah.  So one is provided with a global picture but left with the impression that basically everyone in every culture is, ironically, part of a mono-cultural approach to literature.

That's probably too bleak an appraisal, but needs to be borne in mind.  The great value of the book is the way it gives brief outlines of many books which one would not necessarily ever have considered or even heard of.  My Amazon list has definitely grown.

Part 5

He was up and sat on the edge of his bed in a moment.  All he could hear was the sound of his own blood pumping at speed.  Nothing else stirred in the darkness.

This time he did not try to sleep.  He stood and looked out of the window at the starlight reflecting on the ice, feeling very tired  and disturbed.  The people in the woods were bad enough, but this last dream had involved images of himself, like broken fragments, shards reflecting something...   It made him feel uncomfortable, but he was not sure why.  “This is Christmas,” he said to himself and the Citadel around him, “this is how Christmas looks.   What’s the matter with it?  Nothing, that’s what.  That’s how Christmas is. That’s how Christmas has always been.”  He wiped his brow.  “Isn’t it?”

The clock began to strike twelve.  Nick stopped breathing and waited....nine...ten...eleven...twelve.  The echoes faded leaving only a suggestion of disturbance in the air, and then that too was gone.  He was about to say “Well, come on let’s get it over with,” when the floor vanished.

 “Welllaaaaaaragghgggghhhhh!” he said instead, falling at considerable speed.  There was no light to illuminate his context, and only the rushing of air to let him know he was falling whilst pointing the right way up.

Thump!  He hit the floor, tumbled and landed in something which was dry and crumbling beneath his face and hands.  He did not feel hurt, but that didn’t seem an especially convincing reason to look up and face whatever awfulness lay before him.  So he didn’t and just lay there, taking in data with ears and nose: trees again, and these must be dry needles or small leaves, and a very slight breeze rustling in the boughs of something.  Oh goody, another wood.  

“Maybe I can just sleep here. Maybe it will go away.” Deep inside he knew this was a futile hope, not least because he was already, technically speaking, asleep.  There was a stirring nearby, not the wind but a something.   He looked up.  Okay, this one had obviously read the book.

It was night, but the moon shone brightly enough to lightly silver the dark hood and cloak of the tall figure.  Nick scrambled to his feet, no easy task when one has the proportions of a space-hopper.  He brushed from his beard and hair the dead leaves of the large yew trees which formed a circle around them.  “Right,” thought Nick,  “night-time, Yew trees in a circle, cloaked figure.   Feeling bad, feeling bad...try speaking.”

He cleared his throat. “Christmas future?”

The figure remained silent, and although his face – was there a face in there? – was obscured by shadow, it felt as though  he was staring at Nick.  Nick carried on regardless:  “You will show me shadows of things which have not yet happened, but will happen in the time to come, is that not so, Spirit?”  

It said nothing, but slowly raised its shrouded arm.  Nick’s eyes widened at this gesture, and took a step back from what he feared would be a skeletal hand.  Then noticed at the end of the sleeve was an ordinary hand.  It was holding  a torch, an electric torch.

“You’ll need this!” said a voice from within the hood, which the Guide swiftly pulled down.    “It’s dark!” he said cheerfully, by way of explanation,  “Parky, isn’t it?”

 Nick remained frozen, mouth open, waiting for normal transmission in his brain to resume.  Wasn’t this the bit with open graves and silent terror?  The Guide raised his eyebrows and then shook the torch in Nick’s direction in an encouraging manner. Nick took it  and closed his mouth.

“Long night for you!” said the Guide.  Was he a Cockney?   “Mind you I would have thought you’d be used to that, tearing off ‘round the world in one night.  ‘Ere, how come your reindeer don’t catch fire?”

Nick was staring at the torch as if he hadn’t seen one before and then stared at the man instead.  The head protruding from the dramatic cloak was, in its own way, also dramatic – plentiful black hair and a sharp black beard, with deep, olive  skin and angular features.  The Guide continued, with the chatter of one of life’s individuals who cannot bear a vacuum:

“You’re thinking ‘how can an imposing figure like him  talk like that?” aren’t you?

And why he doesn’t comb his hair, thought Nick.

“ ‘And why doesn’t he comb his hair?’ Well the thing is, I don’t normally look or sound like this. Technically speaking, I don’t look like anything.  I just thought I’d try it out for the night.  It’s been a while, you know.  So I thought: powerful Dickensian exterior, but underneath Merlin-esque imposing looks, with a hint of John the Baptist, plus barrow-boy nuances.  I don’t get to do this kind of thing often these days, so you gotta grab it while its going.  Four for the price of one.”

Nick was not sure whether to feel terrified or just slightly short-changed.  “Where am I?”

“Graveyard.”

He settled for terrified.

“Right, me old ducka,” continued the Guide.

“Mucca.”

“Mucca, that’s what I said. This way.”  He marched off between two of the yews. Nick trailed  behind.  On the other side of the trees was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot more darkness.  Clouds had drifted across the moon and all he could see was the vague outlines of shapes, angular shapes.  Gravestones.  He felt depressed.  Jiggling was  now off the menu.  They walked for a few minutes and then the Guide stopped and said, “This’ll do!”

“For what?” Nick’s mouth was dry and he was desperately wishing he was somewhere else.  He did not deserve this.  He knew he didn’t.  He had brought immense pleasure to billions.  His life was about giving, not taking, about lights and smiles and music.  How could this be happening?

“Turn your torch on then.”

The torch became the weight of granite and the switch touch of poison. He didn’t want to switch it on. “If I turn it on, where should I point it?”

“Errr....over here, this one will do.”

Nick turned to the darker blackness of the headstone and pointed the torch.  He did not want to see or feel what was inscribed there.  As slow as death, he moved the switch and the light flicked on.  He stared in horror at the words before him.  The words took a moment to sink in, and then:  “Never heard of him.”

“No?” the Guide peered at the name on the grave, “Oh well.  Try this one.”

Nick swung the beam onto another stone. “Nor him.”

“You’re not very good at this are you, me old miner?”

“China.”

“China.”

“Are you sure you’ve done this before?”

“Course I have!  I’m what you might call a Professional Messenger.”  He drifted off in  the dark a little, “Here’s a likely looking one, I mean look at the size of it!”

Nick followed and played the torch over the impressive tomb.  It was four times the size of the other stones, towering above the two men, with ornate carving down either side, and the words were not carved but inlaid with what looked to Nick like titanium.  He swallowed hard and started to read.

“The whole earth mourns the loss of one we can never replace,” tears started to form in Nick’s eyes, “the strength and security he brought through generations was matched only by his endless generosity – oh that’s nice,” sobbed Nick, “very nice – and we rest our hearts in the knowledge that his sons – my sons!  They take over? It’s what I wanted! – will continue the great work and tradition.  To his detractors – ha! All those whiners about the T-MOC -  we say: you can’t prove anything!  He was nowhere near the betting shop the night Big Jimmy went down...”  Nick’s mental equipment was under a lot of strain, and the air was starting to feel very close and stuffy, but one thing was clear:

“ This isn’t my grave.”

“I never said it was.”

“Well which one is mine?”

“None of them.  You have a timeless existence, you won’t die. Not in the normal sense anyway.”

“Then why am I here?!  All this forbodingness and darkness and graves.  What’s it all about?  If my grave isn’t here, whose graves are they?”

“Everyone else’s.”

“Everyone else? Which particular everyone else? Like who?”

“Like...everyone else’s.”

Nick paused as a number of interpretations suggested themselves.  A particularly dark one was jumping up and down at the back of the queue, but he tried to ignore it.

“Yes, but when you say everyone, specifically who are we talking about.”

The Guide fixed his dark eyes on Nick’s.  “We’re talking about Everyone.  This is Christmas Future.  This is the Last Christmas.”

The air, which had been feeling uncomfortable and odd for a while, suddenly convulsed and a shattering concussion of lightning and thunder hurt Nick’s ears and eyes.  But the shock of sound was nothing compared to the shock of sight.  The percussive flash illuminated ranks of gravestones around him in every direction, for as far as he could see.  In the next flash he looked beyond to the walls of the cemetery: there were no walls, what he had taken for the boundary was yet more lines of graves proceeding far beyond the point where any sensible cemetery would have stopped.  Again the sky arced with electricity, and illuminated the retreating hills that climbed to the distant horizon.  The furthest hill, miles away, was not smoothed in outline by the distance, but serrated with a thousand tiny, angular,  full-stops.  Nick knew in his heart that every tiny point was a grave, and that every hill would be the same. The cemetery was gargantuan; it felt like it was the world.  The lightning ceased, the sound rumbled away and silence returned, a silence Nick now realised that had, until the storm, remained completely unbroken by anything except for himself, the Guide and the wind.

“Everyone?” asked Nick, weakly.

“Everyone.”

“But why bring me here, why show me myself alone in the world?  Did I cause this somehow?”

“No.  This is death at work, this is the curse of the Fall.  I remember it well.”

Something stirred in Nick’s memory, something from the story, the question to the third ghost.  “But is this what certainly will be, or only what might be?”

“Err....both.”  Nick’s slightly reviving hope went limp again.  What did that mean?

“So why bring me here?  What can I do about it? I can’t stop people from dying, I’m Father Christmas – I deliver toy trains and jiggle my belly.”

“But you are powerful. And you are fast. And everyone listens for you. And you won’t die. And, if you don’t mind me saying, you seem to have remembered the what and have forgotten the why.”

“But that won’t make people live forever!  That can’t overturn death.  I can’t bring eternity to a finite universe.  I’m not eternal – I may not die but I had a start, a beginning...sometime...it’s hazy now. But I do know that I’m limited.  I can’t open up a hole into forever and let it flow into the world.  Who can do that?”

“If there’s one thing tonight should do, it’s highlight your memory issues.”

“If someone could do that,” Nick carried on regardless, becoming more agitated, “then they would have done it long ago.”

“Someone can, and someone did.  Think, Nick!  Think!”

There was light from above again, but not from a storm this time.  The sky was clearing, and as the stars appeared once more over the silent world, one star shone more brightly, so brightly that the edges of the graves shone, and he could see the Guide’s features once more. His eyes reflected the light of the great star, at which he gazed with beautiful smile.  “Well, I haven’t seen you in a long time...”

Nick gazed at it too.  “There’s something about it, something long ago...”

“Come on Nick!  Strike a light and push your granny down the stairs, mush!”

“What?!”

“Nick, what are you for?”

“What am I for?”  The star was bothering him. Its light seemed to be inside his eyes, though he was looking at the Guide.  “I...don’t remember...what I’m for...”

“Oh Nick, look, think.”

Nick turned back to look at the star, and in that moment there was a great rustle by his side, and when he looked back to the Guide the cloak was just completing its empty journey to the ground.   In his confusion Nick was aware only of a movement, of a great wing gently brushing his face as it moved upwards. Nick span, but saw nothing, and then looking upwards there was for a moment a lesser light in the sky, approaching the bright star.  It entered the halo of light around the greater brightness, and was gone.  And then the star was gone too. All was darkness.

Dalrymple: thoughts on sexual morality

...this is the first time in history there has been mass denial that sexual relations are a proper subject of moral reflection or need to be governed by moral restrictions...

...how many time I have heard from my patients of their aching desire to settle down and live in a normal family, and yet have no idea whatever how to achieve this goal that was once within reach of almost everyone!


...Thanks to the sexual revolution, current confusions are manifold.  In a society that forms sexual liaisons with scarcely a thought, a passing suggestive remark can result in a lawsuit; the use of explicit sexual language is de riguer in literary circles, but medical journals fear to print the word "prostitute" and use the delicate euphemism "sex worker" instead...anxiety about the sexual abuse of children subsists with an utter indifference to the age of consent; compulsory sex education and free contraception have proved not incompatible with the termination of a third of all pregnancies in Britain and with unprecedented numbers of teenage pregnancies...Sexual liberty has led to an increase, not a diminution, in violence between the sexes, both by men and by women: for people rarely grant the object of their affection the freedom they claim and practise for themselves, with a consequent rise in mistrust and jealousy...The only permissible judgment in polite society is that no judgment is permissible.

Our Culture... p236-240