Mr Postman

I've been reading "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman, a book that is repeatedly quoted in many other books I have read.  Halfway through at the moment, and it really is a fascinating and well written examination of TV culture.   The only problem with the book is that it predates the internet, or even the possibility of the internet, and I just hope that somewhere he set down his thoughts on how it might affect the conclusions he forms in this book.

Anyway, it's tempting to quote most of the book, which I won't be doing, but here's a start.  His main thesis is:

...an argument that fixes its attention on the forms of human conversation, and postulates that how we are obliged to conduct such conversations will have the strongest possible influence  on the ideas that we can conveniently express.  And what ideas are convenient to express inevitably become the important ideas of a culture.  

Which is terrifying in a way:  what TV is able to communicate becomes, because TV is dominant, the content of our culture.  What TV as a medium struggle to communicate, vanishes from a culture.

...I do not know exactly what content was once carried in the smoke signals of American Indians [but] I can safely guess it did not include philosophical argument.  Puffs of smoke are insufficiently complex...You cannot use smoke to do philosophy. Its form excludes the content....

...on television, discourse is conducted largely through visual imagery, which is to say TV gives us a conversation in images not words...you cannot do [political] philosophy on television. Its form works against the content. (p6&7)

Which is why politicians have image management not thinkers at the forefront.

Despair

The disciples went to sleep when they should have kept awake, and when they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of the irreparable is apt to make us despair, and we say - "It is all up now, it is no use trying any more." If we imagine that this kind of despair is exceptional, we are mistaken, it is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize that we have not done that which we had a magnificent opportunity of doing, then we are apt to sink into despair; and Jesus Christ comes and says - "Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost for ever, you cannot alter it, but arise and go to the next thing." Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him.
There are experiences like this in each of our lives. We are in despair, the despair that comes from actualities, and we cannot lift ourselves out of it. The disciples in this instance had done a downright unforgivable thing; they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus, but He came with a spiritual initiative against their despair and said - "Arise and do the next thing." If we are inspired of God, what is the next thing? To trust Him absolutely and to pray on the ground of His Redemption.
Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action. 

Oswald Chamers, My Utmost for His Highest, February 18th

Right...here we go: #15

Well...the problem with my first choice is that it’s incredibly long and involved, and is unfair to spring on someone for a week’s review.  But I have chosen it because, for me, it marked the turning point in music.  Now, you might think I should have turned somewhere else, but this was the album that changed everything.  Prior to this I had a tape of Russian classical music, stuff recorded off the radio, a Bill Hailey and the Comets compilation, two Shakin’ Stevens albums (honest)...and recently had branched out into Survivor (Eye of the Tiger had been a hit a few years before, and their album had been released on that £2.99 Woolworths label...those were the days).

Then, somewhere in 1984/85 The Complete Mike Oldfield came out – and, although it never appeared on an album, Pictures in the Dark was released as a single.  I saw the video on Saturday morning TV:  Oldfield had bought all his own video and computer gear and produced one of the early CGI videos, and I was really interested in that.

A friend said his dad had an Oldfield album and lent it to me.  I still have the incredibly long cassette!  And I had a bit of a shock:  not realising that 4minute singles were a recent imposition by Virgin records on him, I hadn’t suspected over an hour of mainly instrumental and live material.   It was noise!   Later I gave it another go, and another...and realised it was buzzing round my head.   I played the tape to distraction. 

In later years I recognised that the multi-layered sound-scapes were setting off  what turned out to be audio-visual synesthesia.  But more than that, these were vast audio landscapes, and as a morose and troubled teenager, I was lost in them, it was another world.  It was Lord of the Rings through my eyes, and Oldfield through my ears.

Anyway, here it is:  Exposed by Mike Oldfield.  It’s the first tour he undertook:  after the phenomenal success of Tubular Bells, the shy and mentally fragile Oldfield took to the hills (literally) and hid;  a one off incident with drugs to try to ease the anguish produced what we’re warned about these days with regards to cannabis: an instant psychotic episode that left him further damaged.  But In ‘77 he underwent a bizarre self-assertiveness course, and then put together his first tour – thus he was finally ‘exposed’.  With up to 50 people on stage, in an attempt to reproduce the complexities of Tubular Bells and Incantations, the tour nearly bankrupted him.   But Oh I wish I had been there!  Never before and never again would it be tried, by anyone.  I mean, Longfellow’s Hiawatha set to music?  And tens of thousands of people listening enthusiastically?  As they said in the 6^th form:  I’m a hippy born out of time...

It’s not on Spotify, but I found it on LastFM:

Introversion

Some interesting quotes from a CT book review on Introverts in the Church by McHugh:

McHugh identifies three primary characteristics of introverts. First, he says, introverts are energized by solitude and drained by social interaction. (Extroverts, on the other hand, derive energy from external sources and find both inactivity and too much solitude draining.) Second, introverts tend to filter information and experiences internally; thinking generally precedes speaking. Third, introverts prefer depth over breadth in both relationships and interests. They may look calm on the surface, but their brains are "bubbling with activity"; thus, they require less external stimulation than their extroverted neighbors.

...

The challenge for those who tend to focus inward lies in "distinguishing between the healthy components of personalities … and the coping mechanisms that are the symptoms of our wounds." Because introverts tend to be good listeners, we can get enmeshed in one-sided relationships and masquerade as extroverts in order to be accepted. Both tendencies drain us of vitality.

...

He wisely adds that "understanding our introversion is not the end of our self-discovery and growth; it is a beginning point for learning how to love God and others as ourselves," and concludes that "the introverted trajectory of growth is toward relationships with others and relationship with the outside world."

The reviewer is not 100% in agreement with the book, but these comments I found helpful.

One comment the reviewer makes struck me as needing investigation:  "Depression is an illness, not a function of temperament".  Any thoughts on this gratefully received.....

Resurrection effects

John Botkin notes that the first missionaries to the New Hebrides were murdered by the islanders;  later John G Paton decided to go, and this caused fear for many of the same fate.  Warned by an older man of their cannibalism, he replied:

“Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect
is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to
you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus,
it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by
worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as
yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”

So he went, and on this occasion things worked differently (this scenario sounds a bit like the Ecuadorian missionaries doesn't it?):

“Recall . . . what the Gospel has done for the near kindred of these
same Aborigines. On our own Aneityum, 3,500 Cannibals have
been lead to renounce their heathenism . . . In Fiji, 79,000
Cannibals have been brought under the influence of the Gospel;
and 13,000 members of the Churches are professing to live and
work for Jesus. In Samoa, 34,000 Cannibals have professed
Christianity; and in nineteen years, its College has sent forth 206
Native teachers and evangelists. On our New Hebrides, more than
12,000 Cannibals have been brought to sit at the feet of Christ,
through I mean not to say that they are all model Christians; and
133 of the Natives have been trained and sent forth as teachers
and preachers of the Gospel.”

John concludes:

This is what a realized belief in the resurrection can lead to: men and
women who are completely unafraid of what this world con do,
because they were saved into a hope of the future—an eternal future
with the risen Christ in a risen body.

John Botkin, Spirit Powered Living, p68

Chambers: Look and think

LOOK AGAIN AND THINK
"Take no thought for your life." Matthew 6:25 A warning which needs to be reiterated is that the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, will choke all that God puts in. We are never free from the recurring tides of this encroachment. If it does not come on the line of clothes and food, it will come on the line of money or lack of money; of friends or lack of friends; or on the line of difficult circumstances. It is one steady encroachment all the time, and unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the standard against it, these things will come in like a flood. "Take no thought for your life." "Be careful about one thing only," says our Lord - "your relationship to Me." Common sense shouts loud and says - "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing the thought that this statement is made by One Who does not understand our particular circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things so as to make them the one concern of our life. Whenever there is competition, be sure that you put your relationship to God first. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." How much evil has begun to threaten you to-day? What kind of mean little imps have been looking in and saying - Now what are you going to do next month - this summer? "Be anxious for nothing," Jesus says. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the "much more" of your heavenly Father.

DeGroat: addicted to security

Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that the times when I feel most drained and lifeless are the times when I’m expending a lot of energy on managing my life impeccably.  In these times, I find myself addicted to security, to people’s approval, to extreme control of my schedule so that unpredictable things cannot happen...

http://drchuckdegroat.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/the-recovery-of-desire/

Suffering and perseverance

We live in a sinful world, and as a result we will suffer under the effects of that sinfulness.
As we consider this, surely we then ask, why we must suffer with Christ in order that we might be glorified with him? The answer is simply this—suffering works the perseverance of faith. Earlier in Romans 5:3, Paul says, “we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance.” But how does this work? How does suffering or tribulation bring about perseverance? Suffering forces us to trust in God rather than ourselves. It forces us to depend
on him and his strength, not on what we can muster.

Spirit Powered Living, John Botkin, p51-52

Mid life continues

Well, me and Minty have been having a nice time reliving our mispent youth and latter years in our blogs - and we see no reason to stop yet, especially as for me, I am (or will be in the next 20 hours) unequivocally off the waiting list.

So we thought we would do LP/Albums next!   Oh yes.  But we have encountered a problem:  we wanted to make sure anything we choose is on Spotify or the like, so we can inflict our key musical moments on each other and the rest of the world.  But, although Spotify does seem to be almost limitless, suddenly we find when pegging our turning-points, things are missing!   It does have limits! 

In order to do justice to the past, we felt we should do some posts on what isn't there but should be as well as the list that will include available online material.   So...well, indulge me - I'm on the turn this weekend...

Given that my musical interests were limited to a tape of Russian classical music, bits taped off the radio and a couple of (gulp) Shakin Stevens albums, in 1984 a bit of a revolution took place...

(more to follow once festivities ease...)

psalms

One thing evangelicals are good at is gaining information for the Bible:  for doctrine, for building up, for guarding the heart and the flock.   And all this is essential.

But there have been many times when the head feels stuffed with data (somehow we have made life giving words into intellectual filing) and, certainly within reformed evangelicalism, one can cry out "But were is the life, the feeling, the experience - what does it look like?"

Slow on the uptake, one significant, probably the most significant, help falls into place:  Psalms.   Regarding it simply as the songbook of Israel can make it sound like an ancient hymnal, which needs reworking for a contemporary audience.  Whereas, I think, it is the place to see how the God-ward life is worked out in the human heart:   here we see what happens when life in a fallen world pours in, and when the truths of God's word pour in.  

Good but not easy

[we are truly human when ] "...when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live."

GK Chesterton

#1......

You might think this was inevitable. And it's not unusual, as it is often voted the top novel of the 20th century. I'm not sure it would tick all the boxes for "the great novel", but if you have enough imagination to let elves and dwarves be among your main characters, then there isn't much this book can't offer you.

Like what?

Well for a start, elves and dwarves. What I mean is, when we normally encounter creatures of faerie, it's going to be twee, or kitsch-fantasy, or normal mundane life with short hairy people. TLOR is in a different category: Tolkien created the world first, (not the plot and then stuck some dwarves on it to spice it up). The development of Middle Earth began decades before TLOR was published - as a philologist he used his knowledge to create languages and melded these with peoples, and an entire coherent history (this is why, although they vanished from the movies, the poems and songs in the book they carry the air of ancient times and places - because, in effect, they do; they aren't artificially aged - they come from another time, so to speak). This multi-layered sub-creation provides a massive and detailed canvas, upon which JRRT later spun out the colossal tale of the Fellowship pursuing the solution to the ultimate problem.

It grows a landscape that lives in the imagination forever. For years afterwards, the sight of grey hills (and more recently, of mine-workings) bring a sense of Middle-Earth, a distant sound of the horns of Elfland.

The characters are fully formed, with real lives, no matter how fantastical. And their mutltitude of motivations and interply prevent one dimensionality. And there are selfless, noble acts of courage and friendship (often removed from the movies, presumably because we moderns know that you can't have true noble-heartedness - eg Faramir and the Ents)

It moves from homely to epic. The opening chapter could be a wordy sequel to the Hobbit. But once the hobbits encounter the Barrow Wight (absent from the films), and the menacing unseen presence of the Riders, an uneasy sense builds that we aren't in Kansas anymore. By the time they enter Moria we are on a crescendo of increasingly epic moments. And there are no simple solutions, but a final hundred pages that stays forever.

Basically, it's got everything - which is why most such tales that have followed have been pale imitations and always suffer by comparison. And it's much better to read than to watch.

If I had to have one novel on my island, this is it.

And thanks to Minty for another fun list!

Luther: texts for times

Do you think that some passages in the Bible only really make sense to us when we go through certain experiences? I'm thinking here of how I did not notice how much suffering there was in the first third of the Psalms until I read it whilst concurrently suffering - and then it came home to me. I mention that because I thought about this from Tabletalk (111)

The second Psalm is one of the best Psalms. I love that Psalm with my heart. It strikes and flashes valiantly amongst kings, princes, counsellors, judges, etc. If what this Psalm says be true, then are the allegations and aims of the papists stark lies and folly. If I were as our Lord God, and had committed the government to my son, as he to his Son, and these vile people were as disobedient as they now be, I would knock the world in pieces.

And how this must have hit home to Luther as he faced down Kings and rulers - but the image of Jesus sorting out Kings has remained pretty remote from my feelings, until I saw today how it must have touched Luther as he refused to back down to Princes and Popes.

Luther: hating myself

God styles himself, in all the Holy Scriptures, a God of life, of peace, of comfort, and joy, for the sake of Christ. I hate myself, that I cannot believe it so constantly and surely as I should; but no human creature can rightly know how mercifully God is inclined toward those that steadfastly believe in Christ.

Tabletalk 110

#2 To Kill a Mockingbird

So, phase two of our ever-extending mid-life crisis is nearly at a close - and my penultimate is in fact identical with Minty's number 8.

Back when we were obliged to buy a TV, I was ready for the onslaught of drivel, only to find to my astonishment that BBC2 was in the throes of The Big Read. Mainstream TV devoting hours to books! Wonderful! Of course it was a crushing blow to realise this was the exception...

Anyway, John Humphries (I think) was arguing for Harper Lee's (only, I think) novel. And, having an interest in slavery and the civil rights movement, and sold on it by Humphries enthusiasm (and the mysterious reclusiveness of its author) I bought it for my wife for that Christmas. She thought it was great and I read it after her...

Now, bearing in mind the majority of my reading diet has been SF and fantasy, theological and Christian, and history, I'm not sure what I was expecting from a fictional novel set in the real world and no elves.

I was utterly spellbound.

I'm not sure I can quite explain what its qualities are. It wasn't even the book I expected - some kind of black/white struggle played out I imagined. I was amazed to find most of the book was about a smalltown childhood, and the controversial issue does not come to the fore for many pages. And despite this I was still captivated - the warmth, the detail, the humanity. And so when the socio-political crux is reached it is not as though we have been subjected to a didactic build-up. It's just drawn in on a wider, folksy but not by any means twee canvas.

As well as the lack of sweet conclusion to the racial theme which must have left a lot of people with an uneasy feeling, high points for me....: how Boo Radley is dealt with sympathetically, Scout's view of the world as a rough and tumble tom-boy and especially (I bet I'm not alone here) the moment when Atticus takes care of the rabid dog. For me, it is one of my top moments in literature.

Spread of the gospel

We [Christians] are but of yesterday, and yet we already fill your cities, islands, camps, your palace, senate, and forum. We have left you only your temples.

Tertullian

Luther: trials and temptations

God delights in our temptations, and yet hates them; he delights in them when they drive us to prayer; he hates them when they drive us to despair. The Psalm says: “An humble and contrite heart is an acceptable sacrifice to God,” etc. Therefore, when it goes well with you, sing and praise God with a hymn: goes it evil, that is, does temptation come, then pray: “For the Lord has pleasure in those that fear him;” and that which follows is better: “and in them that hope in his goodness,” for God helps the lowly and humble, seeing he says: “Thinkest thou my hand is shortened that I cannot help?” He that feels himself weak in faith, let him always have a desire to be strong therein, for that is a nourishment which God relishes in us.

Luther, Tabletalk, para.90

Akenfield: re-incumbent

When you bury a Parson you always bury him re-incumbent - the opposite way to everybody else. Everybody lies with their feet to the east so that when they rise they face the Lord. But a Parson, you see, you bury him with his feet to the west, so that when he rises he faces his flock. And serve him right, I say.

William Russ, Akenfield, p324

Gravedigger

Just finished Akenfield, which was published in 1967, chronicling a rural way of life that was passing, and is now long gone. It has been fascinating (and blows a hole in the rural idyll of yesteryear, big-time) , but especially the last chapter about the village gravedigger. Here's one section:

The clergy don't stick to religion as we knew it. They do things that are forbidden. They are pulling the Bible to pieces. Altering, altering...I said to the Bishop, 'What do you think of Parsons, my Lord?' He said 'What do you?' I said, 'Well, they don't preach hellfire. They used to, why don't they now?'

He said, 'What, are you blaming the Parsons?' 'Certainly,' I said. 'All these Parsons preach is the love of God. But they leave out the wrath. What is the use of love without wrath? Tell me that,' I said, 'You are told what will happen if you obey His will, so it is only fair that you should know what will happen to you if you don't.'

People aren't frightened any more, that is the trouble. If they had to do my work they would know that life is a frightening business.

Wiliam Russ, gravedigger, Akenfield by Rinald Blythe, p327

#3 Perelandra

Sorry, yet another Lewis book, and the second of the SF Trilogy.

Sometimes published as Voyage to Venus, Professor Ransom returns in another space travel, spiritual adventure. This time, at the request of the supernatural being met in the previous book, he is asked to travel to Venus (still assumed not to be, at this point of history, utterly uninhabitable).

He finds an ocean world, where life takes place on large, flexible floating islands made of some kind of matted vegetation (if I remember rightly, I read it over 20 years ago!). Dwelling on the islands is the queen of Venus, a human being newly created by God, and somewhere around, the King as well - though we don't see so much of him. They are living in innocence and will continue to do so as long as they never spend a night on the one point of fixed land on the planet (see where it's all going?). But soon Ransom finds they are not alone, when a figure from his past also arrives, and he has not been sent by the forces of good...

Another great read from Lewis (really, he is a brilliant writer) this book marked another introduction to me into theological thinking. Rather than sledgehammering Christian themes into a conventional story (as so many "Christian novels" do), the story and the theology are woven seamlessly and neither works without the other. What did I, in my formative years, find injected into my thinking from this book, probably subconsciously? The first inkling (ho,ho) of how the Fall 'works', and why, by implication, biting a fruit from a tree is not a silly mythological idea; the idea of indwelling - that Christ (and satan) can be present in people; the sense of preFall innocence, and how being caught up in the wonder of God might fill up all one's capacities to overflowing.

The picture at the top of the page is the cover on the edition I now own (I read it originally in an old Pan Books 70's paperback) - I accidentally (don't ask) ended up buying a hardback first edition for just a few pounds. So the next time I read the trilogy, I will be reading book 2 in exactly the same format that The Bodley Head would have sent Lewis on publication! I might buy a pipe for the occasion...

Keller: prayer

Just finished listening to a freebie from Redeemer; here's two (misquoted, I expect!) quotes:

Turn your sighs into prayers; what you can't pray about, forget - take yourself in hand

Romans 8:28 - God always gives you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knows.

Intellectual rude words

For many years I've struggled with the modern notion that art which is truly grown up has to include lots of rude words, swearing and general profanity. These days almost nothing can be taken seriously without wall to wall profanity (how did Dickens manage?) I've often been put in my place by people telling me that it reflects real life, shows artistic integrity and bravery. Which is strange cos when I was little we were told it was childish.

Anyway, my wife (of all people!) put me onto the fact that Flanders & Swann had already noticed this over 50 years ago, when such artistic freedom and wonderment was just starting to become trendy, and sang a jolly nice song that (I think) puts it in the right perspective.



And below are the words, so you can sing along (actually, don't sing along, just read, or you will become an artistic person of integrity by accident).


Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers

By Flanders and Swann

Ma's out, Pa's out, Let's talk rude!
Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.
Dance round the garden in the nude,
Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.
Let's write rude words all down our street,
Stick out our tongues at the people we meet,
Let's have an intellectual treat for
Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.

Sunday again on CBC,
Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.
And Norman Mailer's coming to tea,
Pee Po Belly Bum Pants!
Alan Ginsberg reads on and on,
But we're having a happening when he's gone,
Come to the party in the John,
Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.

Disney's planning a double bill,
Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.
Christopher Robin meets Fanny Hill,
Pooh Bear Belly Bum Drawers.
On stage and screen we all work hard,
Throwing toilet rolls in our own backyard,
Who's afraid of the avent garde?
Pee, Pee, Po, Po, Belly, Belly, Bum, Bum, Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.

What gets prizes and wins awards?
Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.
What did prince Phillip tell the Lords?
Well, never mind that.
At Oxford and Cambridge, and Yale and all,
At Berkely, they really have a ball,
'cos the higher the brow, the harder they fall,
Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.

Dickson: enthusiasm

I would go as far to say that, over time, the number of visitors in our church services is directly proportionate to the level of enthusiasm felt by those who regularly attend.

Promoting the Gospel, p123

Fascinating quote

From Professor Rodney Stark:

...I’ve never been an atheist. Atheism is an active faith; it says, “I believe there is no God.” But I don’t know what I believe. I was brought up a Lutheran in Jamestown, North Dakota. I have trouble with faith. I’m not proud of this. I don’t think it makes me an intellectual. I would believe if I could, and I may be able to before it’s over. I would welcome that.

Luther: wealth & plenty again

God could be exceedingly rich in temporal wealth, if he so pleased, but he will not. If he would but come to the pope, the emperor, a king, a prince, a bishop, a rich merchant, a citizen, a farmer, and say: Unless you give me a hundred thousand crowns, you shall die on the spot; every one would say: I will give it, with all my heart, if I may but live. But now we are such unthankful slovens, that we give him not so much as a Deo gratias, though we receive of him, to rich overflowing, such great benefits, merely out of his goodness and mercy. Is not this a shame? Yet, notwithstanding such unthankfulness, our Lord God and merciful Father suffers not himself to be scared away, but continually shows us all manner of goodness. If in his gifts and benefits he were more sparing and close-handed, we should learn to be thankful. If he caused every human creature to be born with but one leg or foot, and seven years afterwards gave him the other; or in the fourteenth year gave one hand, and afterwards, in the twentieth year, the other, then we should better acknowledge God’s gifts and benefits, and value them at a higher rate, and be thankful. He has given unto us a whole sea-full of his Word, all manner of languages, and liberal arts. We buy at this time, cheaply, all manner of good books. He gives us learned people, that teach well and regularly, so that a youth, if he be not altogether a dunce, may learn more in one year now, than formerly in many years. Arts are now so cheap, that almost they go about begging for bread; woe be to us that we are so lazy, improvident, negligent, and unthankful.

Tabletalk 86

Luther: wealthy people

Great wealth and money cannot still hunger, but rather occasion more dearth; for where rich people are, things are always dear. Moreover, money makes no man right merry, but rather much pensive and full of sorrow; for riches, says Christ, are thorns that prick people. Yet is the world so mad that it sets therein all its joy and felicity.

Tabletalk 82

#4 The Complete Works...

of George Herbert.

I think there is so much to say about this man, that I will say very little instead, as I need to go to bed at some point. Why would I take this to my island?

Firstly, he was a genius. His use of imagery, rhyme, rhyme-schemes, the shape of the poem itself, interweave like a complex dance. On first reading I find I understand little of what is going on - it's just a load of words, communicating little. But repeated readings reveal a depth of exploration of a subject and expression of its heart that is stunning. The sense of what he is saying is not simply stated in the lines of verse; it's in the words chosen, the structure, the way phrases resonate, and in the poem as a whole.

Second, he understands the frailty of the human heart, the grace and strength of God, the source of life. He never downplays the mysteries of providence, the unanswerable questions; but he always finds refuge in repentance and grace.

If you want some examples, then just click on Herbert in the tags.

The Everyman edition, as well as being the usual high quality hardback at barely more than the price of a paperback, also contains (and as yet I have not read these parts) Herbert's collection of proverbs, his advice to clergy and Izaac Walton's biographical sketch.

Herbert was really the doorway for me in appreciating poetry; but not simply a door to other things. His genius is such that he is, for me, warp and woof of true poetry,.

Punk

Luther was rude, Luther was a revolutionary, Luther was a punk.

Markus Spiekler, Christianity Today

#5 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

My favourite Narnia book is either The Silver Chair or this one. The reason Dawn Treader is on the list, is not that it is the better book necessarily (in fact it's quite episodic and not quite so unified as Silver Chair) but the atmosphere, sense of voyage adventure, and sheer numbers of ideas that fill its pages. Oodles of characters help offset the loss of Peter & Susan, and the images echoing aspects of the Christian life and faith abound.

And especially it is the feeling of light that pervades the book, as the ship draws closer to the mysterious edge, and Reepicheep's desires mirror the person caught up in the pursuit of God and heaven. If The Lion, the Witch &the Wardrobe helped many to grasp the idea of substitutionary atonement and let it settle in their subconcscious until they heard the gospel, then Dawn Treader engraved a sense of the comfort-terror of the pursuit of heaven, of the longing for joy, onto mine.

Plus, using my 'stuck on a desert island' criterion, what book could be better?!

Calvin: is he serious?

Whilst reading Calvin on baptism, he makes an interesting argument as to why re-baptism is wrong. Now, what I want to know is - is this his sense of humour coming through? Or has his teaching that baptism has continuity with circumcision, blinded him to a certain...well...ahem...biological fact? His reasoning is: we do not baptise a second time because OT Jews, even if originally processed by an unfaithful priest, were never required by God to later undergo a second or re-circumcision...

Err...

Keller: disappointment v idolatry

Q: Is it necessary to suffer disappointment before seeing that idols don't satisfy?

I fear you may be right. I don't want that to be true. Very often it's much stronger than disappointment. It's hard for me to look at a young person and know what their idols are, because usually something has to happen in their life to frustrate them for them to see that something has inordinate power over them. No one learned about their idols by being told about them.

CT October 20th 2009

Keller: prayer v idolatry

Q. How do we get rid of idols?

I confess that I don't say much about that. Practicing spiritual disciplines is another book. I do say that analyzing and recognizing an idol is a step away from its power over you. You also have to have a heck of a prayer life. That prayer life can't just be petitioning. There has to be encounter, experience, and genuine joy. You have to have Jesus Christ increasingly capture your affections.

Christianity Today, 20th October 2008

#6 Greenmantle

So here's an interesting one: Minternational quite rightly placed The Thirty Nine Steps as a great book, but not so much Greenmantle. I think Buchan's first Hannay novel is also a fab read (ritually slaughtered by most TV productions), but actually I feel Greenmantle is the best of Hannay's adventures, and is unlike all the others. Most of the five novels follow a roughly standard thriller motif (though' standard' is a bit of misnomer, as Buchan helped to invent it). But this second Hannay story is a much broader and unexpected canvas - and alarmingly contemporary in many ways: an evil force has realised it can stir up the Muslim world to holy war by religious means, thus tipping the balance of WWI.

We also have some established characters from the first novel, whom it is nice to see again; but the addition of new, interesting men - the mysterious, almost supernaturally gifted Sandy, or Peter Pienaar - who have large parts to play in later novels.

The huge quest, the travels, the local culture and the complexity of the plot, make Greenmantle, for me a quite unusual Buchan novel, and probably my favourite (so far!)

Augustine: prayer

A quote I copied from my friend Doug, over at Triocentric:


Prayer is the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God



Wow. That fits so well with how this year has gone, prayer-wise; and is so encouraging.
There's lots of other quotes on the same post too...

Lewis: democracy

I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason.

Equality in Present Concerns (p17)

Po-mo definition

Postmodernity, then, can be described as a period of cultural disquiet. In the face of the betrayals and failures of past overarching metanarratives, culture-wide suspicion and incredulity takes hold. A single story, providing coherence to personal identity, grounding for ethical action and passion for life in history, is displaced by a carnivalesque existence of fragmentation, numbness and boredom. Final decisions based on rational analysis give way to the undecidability of keeping all options open, and the spiritual promiscuity of pop religion.

Walsh & Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed (p25)

#7 Everyman Pocket Poets...

Gerald Manley Hopkins.



It's possible you might expect John Milton to be turning up about now. But although my sympathies are far more Miltonic (Puritan, thrived under the Protectorate, disliked by Charles II) than Hopkins (introspective Jesuit priest), my desert island criteria lead me to choose him over Milton. Or rather his selected poems (in this rather lovely pocket edition from Everyman). If it was a case of 'complete works' I'd probably go for Milton - but in terms of the 'best of', it would be this volume.

When I first read GMH I wondered what I had come across, as it didn't sound like English. Which it wasn't really. I mean, the poems were made up of English words, but frequently the rules of grammar and syntax had vanished. Now, in some modern stuff I think this is just pretension. But with Hopkins I discovered there was reason to it. It's his 'in-scape' thing, which shows best in his nature poems - that (if I have this right) all created things have this inner dynamism, this self-existential energy, life and beauty - and in bringing this out in poems, normal language-rules take a back seat. But it's not a tumbling of words together that emerges; rather, the words must have been painstakingly selected, because not only do they reflect the inner sense and feeling of what he sees, the words also slot together, or blend, or build cumulative force - and almost it seems he is making the words 'taste' of the thing described.

Or possibly I have been eating too many herbal throat tablets. But I think I'm right.

For example:

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon (The Windhover)

which would get you marked down in class, but makes me almost taste a morning when one sees a hawk flying in dawn's light.

Or what I would think of as GMH's finest hour, God's Grandeur, which also (in lines 9&10) gives a tiny explanation of his 'in-scape' thinking:

THE world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Read it and weep - no one, I think, could ever write anything quite like that. As someone once told me, "That's the best 'ah!' in English literature".

Luther: joy of the Bible

Oh how great and glorious a thing it is to have before one the Word of God. With that we may feel at times joyous and secure; we never be in need of consolation, for we see before us, in all its brightness, the pure and right way. He who loses sight of the word of God, falls into disrepair; the voice of heaven no longer sustains him; he follows only the disorderly tendency of his heart, and of world vanity, which lead him on to his destruction.

Tabletalk, Word of God, 20

Three Men in a Boat #8

...by Jerome K Jerome...

It's a unique piece of literature, that was then emulated endlessly by other writers on other journeys. But the original is a classic. Narrated in the first person by 'J', it is on the one hand a genuine account of travel up the Thames in a bygone era, replete with historical and dramatic vignettes (wherein TV series like Griff Rhys Jones recent one on rivers, derive their origin); and also an utterly absurd comedy - Victorian manners, hypochondria, boating, pets...everything has that delightful, English silliness. There are daft events, but often the humour is wrapped up in J's monologues and digressions on dozens of subjects - sometimes silly in themselves, sometimes he is deadly ernest and only we know it's funny.

I think it's a lovely book, and would happily take it to a desert island: England described from a boat, and England unfolded from the observations of life, and England seen in the gentle comedy of life.

Luther: ultimacy of divinity

Let us not lose the Bible, but with diligence, in fear and invocation of God, read and preach it. While hat remains and flourishes, all prospers with the state; 'tis head and empress of all arts and faculties. Let but divinity fall, and I would not give a straw for the rest.

Tabletalk, Of God's Word, 6

Luther: strength from Scripture

When I find myself assailed by temptation, I forthwith lay hold of some text of the Bible, which Jesus extends to me; as this: that he died for me, whence I derive infinite hope.

Tabletalk, Of God's Word, point 4

Choosing where to act

There is an interesting interview with Dean Jones (the man who appeared in all those Disney films when I was a kid) at Christianity Today. Here's just one quote I liked (real arty types can take issue with this if they like, I don't mind) - on the criteria he uses in picking a film in which to appear:

How does your faith come into play when considering a script?

Jones: First of all, I won't blaspheme God. This immediately eliminates most scripts, but I see no reason, since I need all the help I can get, to encourage God to vacate the premises.

Herbert: Joseph's Coat

As usual, I had to read this a few times before it changed from confusing to touching (and I had to look up 'indite' in the dictionary). But then I saw it captures how God takes our suffering and changes it, does something with it:

Wounded I sing, tormented I indite,
Thrown down I fall into a bed, and rest:
Sorrow hath chang’d its note: such is his will,
Who changeth all things, as him pleaseth best.
     For well he knows, if but one grief and smart
Among my many had his full career,
Sure it would carry with it ev’n my heart,
And both would runn untill they found a bier
     To fetch the body; both being due to grief.
But he hath spoil’d the race; and giv’n to anguish
One of Joy's coats, 'ticing it with relief
To linger in me, and together languish.
     I live to show his power, who once did bring
     My joys to weep, and now my griefs to sing.

#9 Hamlet

That's right, I'm feeling inadequate because of Minternational's quantity of prizewinning books, so I'm pulling rank - Shakespeare! Kudos! Unless you have Homer on your list, I win!

I sometimes wonder why literature is taught to young teenagers, or at least why it is taught without context and preparation. Shakespeare was fairly unintelligible to me and to most of my colleagues; picking Macbeth because "it has lots of blood in it, and I know that will appeal to you" was not, in retrospect, the best way for our teacher to get us into the bard.

However, during my later years at school, and taking lit. at A level, I had to write an extended essay and I needed a unique theme. I chose Mental Decay in Shakespeare; if you know me, you may know why. And with my context for this theme, King Lear started to have some relevance, Macbeth started to make sense. But Hamlet stood out.

I'm not overly sure about taking it to a desert island, given its lack of cheer (although it does have that glimmer of the light of the dawn of hope at the very end). And I'm not someone who relishes all of his work by any means (I think many of the comedies are, far from works of genius, in fact proto-Carry On films, with lots of innuendo and rude jokes; I'm surprised no one shouts "Oooh Matron!"). But for me Hamlet is a practically seamless work of splendour, with the unfolding mystery, the moral dilemmas worked out in tortured but glowing lyricism, and the brooding atmosphere with a sense of timelessness, yet knowing time is ticking away to some kind of showdown. And I love the castle as the stage: it's a silent presence - not like Gormenghast, vast and terrifying in its labyrinth; but as a self-contained world which shows up the characters and story.

Anyway, it's pretty good. And actually, I quite liked Mel Gibson in the role, as improbable as that sounds. Aside from his death scene which would make Ernie Wise jealous, it was great to have a manly Hamlet for a change, and not someone flouncing about in tights. Lots of stuff was missing, but he spun that sword with verve.

#10 Out of the Silent Planet

At some point CS Lewis was bound to appear.

This is one of the firs SF books I read, and maybe one of the first Christian books, as there's a good deal of theology in it too. It's the first of three books featuring professor Ransom (whom, I think, bears some similarities to Tolkien).

On a hike in the English countryside he finds himself a victim of, effectively, a cosmic satanic plot. Drugged, kidnapped and placed on a space-ship he is propelled to Mars - a planet of entirely different creatures ans spiritual forces, and not effected as Earth by the ravages of the Fall.

I got caught up in Lewis' precise and easy prose from page one, and can remember being spellbound to the end, as a teenager, through the exploration of an alien world, and the weaving of the plot around effectively theological ideas.

Wearing suffering

Some days—but not most days, thanks to the manner of Jesus' life and death. Imagine Barack Obama putting on a bad suit or Angelina Jolie wearing an ugly dress. The suit wouldn't look bad, and that dress wouldn't be ugly. These are incredibly attractive people whose attractiveness spills over onto their clothing, changing its meaning and the way other people respond to it. If Obama or Jolie wear it, it's a good-looking outfit. If they wear it often enough, it becomes a good-looking outfit even when you or I wear it. God's Son did something similar by taking physical pain on his divine yet still-human person. He did not render pain itself beautiful. But his suffering made the enterprise of living with pain and illness larger and better than it had been before. He elevates all he touches. Just as his years of carpentry in Joseph's shop lend dignity and value to all honest work, so too the pain he bore lends dignity and value to every pain-filled day human beings live.

William J Stuntz (the article briefly lists his piercing sufferings, so we know the above is not abstract)
Christianity Today

#11 Sophie's World

Already a tussle to know which one to choose - it was nearly Tutus Groan, but on the basis of staying cheerful on a desert island, I've gone for Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder.

It's a mystery novel and a history of philosophy at the same time. As Sophie tries to unravel the mysteries of the plot, so she needs to understand the development of Western philosophy. So the book is really didactic, but given the subject, Gaarder does a good job of making it as pleasant as a story. The section on Jesus is a bit disappointing: even for a po-mo philosopher it doesn't credit Jesus with much influence, and he passes on quickly to more important things. But that aside, it's a painless way of learning the history of western thought.

Goldsworthy: NT effects on Psalms

Just started slowly wandering through Graeme Goldsworthy's Prayer and the Knowledge of God. Early on he makes an interesting point (I don't yet know how he is going to develop it), that we apply the coming of Jesus to a lot of OT issues, but not prayer...

[this issue occurs when] reading a passage from the OT and thinking about it without consciously relating it to the fulfilment of the OT in Christ. Some OT texts, such as those that deal with certain details of Israel's ceremonial law, cry out for us to make some adjustment for the fact that Jesus has come...But other faith matters in the OT, such as the prayers in the Psalms, are quite easily read as they stand and we simply assume the connection with ourselves.

Goldsworthy, p15.

Nouwen: choosing hope

"You are constantly facing choices. The question is whether you choose for God or for your own doubting self. You know what the right choice is , but your emotions, passions, and feelings keep suggesting you choose the self-rejecting way.
The root choice is to trust at all times that God is with you and will give you what you most need. Your self-rejecting emotions might say "It isn't going to work. I'm still suffering the same anguish I did six months ago. I will probably fall back into the old depressive patterns of acting and reacting. I haven't really changed." And on and on. It is hard not to listen to these voices. Still you know that these are not God's voice. God says to you,'I love you, I am with you, I want to see you come closer to me and experience the joy and peace of my presence. I want to give you a new heart and and new spirit. I want you to speak with my mouth, see with my eyes, and hear with my ears, touch with my hands. All that is mine is yours. Just trust me and let me be your God."
This is the voice to listen to. And that listening requires a real choice, not just once in awhile but every moment of each day and night. You can think yourself into a depression, you can talk yourself into low self-esteem, you can act in a self-rejecting way. But you always have a choice to think, speak and act in the Name of God and so move toward the Light, the Truth, and the Life.

Henri Nouwen

Addendum:
I recently found a bit more of this quote-

As you conclude this period of spiritual renewal, you are faced once again with a choice. You can choose to remember this time as a failed attempt to be completely reborn or you can also *choose to remember it as the precious time when God began new things in you that need to be brought to completion.* Your future depends on how you decide to remember your past. Choose for the truth of what you know. Do not let your still anxious emotions distract you. *As you keep choosing God, your emotions will gradually give up their rebellion and be converted to the truth in you.*

The Day Off ends

I don't often do this, in fact I never do this, but I want to briefly mention an obit from the news in a vaguely fanzine type way. Writer and director John Hughes died today.

The reason I mention him is, along with millions of other people of a certain age, his work kind of defines my late teenage years. OK, some of his stuff definitely plumbed the depths of teenage prurience (I wouldn't bother with 16 Candles again, and bits of Breakfast Club put me off permanently - though compared to contemporary teen-fare they are fairly AndyPandy).

But Ferris Bueller, Some Kind of Wonderful and, more relevant to a little later in life, She's Having a Baby, were kind of formative moments for me - just hearing the titles brings back endless summers, A-levels, and possibilities. On top of that was his ability to put a soundtrack together - outstanding compared to other fodder of the time. Would Suzanne Vega have made it so big without Left of Centre? Would Don't You (forget about me) be quite so iconic? Yello, Furniture, Flesh for Lulu, Psychedelic Furs, Bryan Ferry covering Van Morrison's Crazy Love.....And so on...

Well, I'm going to stop before I start sounding like a real blogger. But the end of an era all the same.

#12 Silver Hand

Actually this book was going to be the next one, but the #12 spot contains two books having a fight at the moment, so I thought I'd cheat and bring this one forward whilst the outcome is decided.

Stephen Lawhead is probably the most successful of modern Christian novelists (Left Behind excepted) and built up something of a cult following in the 80s and 90s. He started off with what, in my opinion, were great ideas and fairly mediocre writing, which then developed into really good ideas and good writing, and finally ended up as good writing with ordinary ideas. I have to admit I have not read his recent reworking of Robin Hood which is getting good reviews.

Bang in the middle of the good ideas and good writing came the Song of Albion trilogy. A celtic fantasy which intersects with our own time as the barriers between worlds is breaking down and wolves rome the dark streets of Oxford, it also had one overarching metaphor (which I won't spoil by revealing here, because it doesn't become apparent til the last chapter of book 3). It's a good adventure in a solid fantasy tradition, with some nice touches and only rare moments of kitsch, as an ordinary bloke from here ends up over there, but has to do something extraordinary to save both worlds.

Tech parenthood

Born into this vast technopoly, today's child understands her world primarily through mass media. Thanks to media's total-disclosure nature, she will be a world-weary 72-year-old by the time she reaches 12, but won't have the maturity of a medieval 12-year-old until about age 36. Ages 12 to 22 will be spent in mandatory survival training called higher education. Regardless of her primary course of study, her secondary course, undertaken when she is biologically fittest and physically strongest to raise children, will be the ironic but ironclad dogma that she must never consider having a child until she is economically, psychologically, and spiritually a fully realized autonomous self. If, after a decade of ingesting this dogma, she still has the desire to become a mother, she can only have at most two children.

If life's most meaningful work for couples is raising children, then it's a cynical system that requires the false choice between having children young, when a large family is physically possible but financially hard, or waiting until they can afford a large family, when fertility has dropped. Technology, it turns out, is a harsher taskmaster than biology, offering a world where the best form of birth control is economics, the best predictor of income is education, and the best deterrent to having children is guilt over failing to give them the very best a consumer society offers.

Meanwhile, the ocean of sorrow continues to fill with the tears of those who are childless or heartbroken by the lie that tells a woman she is free to be anything she wants, so long as she's a man about it.

Read Mercer Schuchardt, Christianity Today

Dickson: the hidden mission

Prayer is the hidden part of our mission...prayer is also the most basic part of our mission. Observing this reminds us that ultimately the mission is not ours but God's. If the fundamental gospel-promoting activity is hidden from us, it is clear that involvement in mission requires faith more than activism, dependence more than programmes, and humility more than boldness.

John Dickson, Promoting the Gospel, p65

#13 Whose Body?

Despite my affection for the Inklings and their associates, I had not read any Dorothy L Sayers (often, strangely, associated with them), until last year. This was after reading Keller's The Reason for God, wherein he uses Lord Peter Wimsey's world and Harriet Vane as a great illustration of the Incarnation. So off I tootled only to discover they are rare as goldust in second hand bookshops...until discovering one secluded bookshop with lots!

I'm not saying Whose Body? is the best, but that it's the first and so far I have only read the first two books of the series. For all I know the best is yet to come, and so I'd take that volume to my island. But for the moment, I'll settle for book No.1.

One reason I had not read them was the assumption it was a lot of posh people being posh (the price of seeing some episodes of the 1980s BBC series, as a child). Well, there are lots of posh people but I also found that Sayers (and thus Wimsey) has an incredibly self-aware wit, and some sections are laugh-out loud funny. At the same time it's a classic, labyrinthine mystery with an impossible crime that somehow must be solvable, but how? In this case, a body is found in bath - no one knows who he is, and it's impossible that he is even there. But there he is. Into this steps the younger Wimsey brother, so much more intelligent and alive than his heir-to-the-family-seat elder brother. Far too intelligent for the high-tea mincing nobility, and suffering post-traumatic-stress symptoms from the trenches of WWI, Lord Peter doggedly pursues the logic of the case, with his utterly loyal batman at his side, throwing one-liners all over the place. On top of this, he is a total bibliophile, likes reading book-catalogues, and attends book-sales.

We must have been seperated at birth.

Happy brirthday UnChristian

I just realised I missed the 3 year mark for this blog. Thanks Minty! Happy birthday blog!

Ortberg: Big God

I strongly believe that the way we live is a consequence of the size of our God. The problem many of us have is that our God is too small. We are not convinced that we are absolutely safe in the hands of a fully competent, all-knowing, ever-present God.

When we wake up in the morning, what happens if we live with a small God? We live in a constant state of fear and anxiety because everything depends on us. Our mood will be governed by our circumstances. We will live in a universe that leaves us deeply vulnerable.

When we have a chance to share our faith, we shrink back - what if we are rejected or cannot find the right words? It all depends on us.

We cannot be generous because our financial security depends on us.

When we need to give someone strong words of confrontation or challenge, we will be inclined to pull our punches. That is because if we don't live in the security of a big God's acceptance, we become slaves to what others think of us.

If we face the temptation to speak deceitful words to avoid pain, we will probably do it. We may try to get credit for something at work that does not belong to us, because we don't trust in a big God who sees in secret and will one day give reward.

If somebody gets mad at us or disapproves, we will get all twisted up in knots - we will not have the security of knowing that a giant God is watching out for us.

When human beings shrink God, they offer prayer without faith, work without passion, service without joy, suffering without hope. It results in fear, retreat, loss of vision and failure to persevere.

If You Want to Walk on Water.... p192-193.

Calvin on Ambrose on Jesus in prayer

He is our mouth, through which we speak to the Father; he is our eye through which we see the Father; he is our hand through which we offer ourselves to the Father. Unless he intercedes, there is no intercourse with God either for us or for all saints.

Calvin quoting Ambrose (Institutes, 3.20.21, Battles p879)

#14 Guards! Guards!

OK, I'm not making any argument that this is great literature, but it is one of the funniest books I have ever read.

Terry Pratchett is not exactly friendly to Christianity (I'm not sure he's especially unfriendly either though), so it's no good going looking for 'underlying motifs of redemption' etc. But he does write funny books. Well, I think about half of them are - some sequences do get repetitive.

Guards! Guards! stands out for me though as being a great story, with really mad humour, well drawn characters and some really good ideas. Woven through also are a myriad references to police movies from planet earth, but worked out in terms of Discworld. Dirty Harry, but a baby dragon with wind, instead of a gun; endless police show cliches; and, which I remember clearly though I must have read this 15 years ago, the great "million to one shot".

So, if you need something distracting and funny, I recokon you could do worse.

(And the dragon was called Eryl; and for those of you to whom this means something, yes I did read it whilst attending you-know-where)

Calvin: prayer

Words fail to explain how necessary prayer is, and in how many ways the exercise of prayer is profitable. Surely, with good reason, the Heavenly Father affirms that the only stronghold of safety is calling upon His name (cf.Joel 2:32). By so doing we invoke the presence
both of his providence, through which he watches over and guards our affairs,
and of his power, through which he sustains us, weak as we are and well-nigh overcome,
and of his goodness, through which he receives us, miserably burdened with sins, unto grace;
and in short, it is by prayerthat we call him to reveal himself as wholly present to us.

Hence comes an extraordinary peace and repose to our consciences. For having disclosed to the Lord the necessity that was pressing upon us, we even rest fully in the thought that none of our ills is hid from Him who, we are convinced, has both the will and the power to take the best care of us.

Institutes, 3.20.2 (Battles, p851)

The most genteel mid-life crisis continues...

Well, we're not stopping with songs, as you can see from minternational's first post. Now we're on to what we will refer to as 'literature' (ie not theology or non-fiction). We felt we ought to make that clear to our legions of fans, who now number several more than zero.

I've applied my usual aesthetic criterion: if I was stuck on a desert island/in a cave/in an attic avoiding relatives, which books would I want with me? So in countdown fashion, here's the first of my 15:

#15 Foundation by Isaac Asimov

This is pure SF, as opposed to just flying around in spaceships shooting things, and was some of the first real SF I read. I think it has been justly called the ultimate SF series (it really is a series, but me and minty didn't discuss the validity of series, so I'm plumping for volume1).

The central hypothesis is brilliant and simple, the more so for being invented way before modern statistical analysis. Hari Seldon discovers that given a big enough clump of humanity, one can actually predict what the future will be. This doesn't work with smaller numbers, but with a quadrillion people in the galaxy it can be done with startling accuracy.

Through this he discovers that the Galactic Empire will collapse and a dark age of 30,000 years will follow (his description of the beginning of the crumbling of empire has always stuck with me: no big wars or the like, just...grass growing through cracks in sidewalks and no one removes it; systems break down and no one fixes them... and in our day and age, when essential services are being withdrawn...hmmmmm).

But what if it could be stopped? Using this science, he develops a way in which the dark age can reduced to 1000 years and creates Foundation to do it. Outwardly it is a repository for all knowledge (50 years before wikipedia), which will be preserved for through the dark age; but unwittingly it is part of Seldon's brilliant plan to insert other dynamics into history in order to proactively limit the darkness...

Against this massive background characters play out stories, and plots unfold. Foundation's Edge is my favourite, but it is an epic sequence of books all round (I think there is one I have not read: to be honest I think Asimov went a bit funny in some ways towards the end of his career and I was starting to get a bit uncomfortable with some of his later stuff).

So there you go!

Calvin: treasure in heaven

I love the way he puts this:

We ought then to imitate what people do who determine to migrate to another place, where they have chosen a lasting abode. They send before them all their resources and do not grieve over lacking them for a time, for they deem themselves the happier the more goods they have where they will be for a long time. But if we believe heaven is our country, it is better to transmit our possessions thither than to keep them here where upon our sudden migration they would be lost to us. But how shall we transmit them? Surely by providing for the needs of the poor; whatever is paid out to them, the Lord reckons as given to Himself (MT.25:40). From this comes that notable promise: "He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord" (PROV.19:17). Likewise, "He who sows bountifully shall reap bountifully" (2COR.9:6). For what is devoted to our brothers out of the duty of love is deposited in the Lord's hand. He, as He is a faithful custodian, will one day repay it with plentiful interest. Are our duties, then, of such importance in God's sight that they are like riches hidden for us in God's hand? And who would shrink from saying this, when Scripture so often and openly attests it?

Institutes, 3.18.9 (Battles p.827)

Ortberg: Fear

Fear has created more practising heretics than bad theology ever has, for it makes us live as though we serve a limited, finite, partially present, semi-competent God.

John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water..., p131

Robinson on Calvin

From a Christianity Today, including thoughts from Marilynne Robinson, interview:

Though it seems arcane to many today, Calvin's theology is not so unusual, Robinson maintains. Indeed, it brings comfort to the Christian soul.

"For Calvinism, we are all absolutely, that is equally, unworthy of, and dependent upon, the free intervention of grace," Robinson writes. "This is a harsh doctrine, but no harsher than others, since Christian tradition has always assumed that rather few would be saved, and has differed only in describing the form election would take. It might be said in defense of Christianity that it is unusual in a religion to agonize much over these issues of ultimate justice, though in one form or another every religion seems to have an elect. The Calvinist model at least allows for the mysteriousness of life. . . . The belief that we are all sinners gives us excellent grounds for forgiveness and self-forgiveness, and is kindlier than any expectation that we might be saints, even while it affirms the standards all of us fail to attain."

Ortberg: Sin

The problem with what might be called the "victorious Christian living" mindset is not that it takes sin too seriously. The problem is it inevitably becomes selective about which sins God hates the most, and they always end up being somebody else's sins. It misses the deeper layers of sin: sin not just as concrete acts of lying or cheating, but the sin of narcissism that infects my preaching and image-management that corrupts my conversations; the sin in my motives and emotions that is real but that I cannot simply turn off...

...

Frank Laubach preached the gospel to a tribe that had a long history of violence. The chief was so moved by Laubach's presentation that he accepted Christ on the spot. He then turned to Laubach in gratitude and said, "This is wonderful. Who do you want me to kill for you?"

That's his starting point.

I was raised in a church where the Scriptures were taught, given parents who loved me and each other, in a city where being a Protestant Christian was considered normal. So if I think I am superior to the chief because I'm less likely to kill somebody, I'm sadly deluded.

Leadership June 09

Calvin: purpose of affliction

He can best restrain this arrogance when He proves to us by experience not only the great incapacity but also the frailty under which we labour. Therefore He afflicts us either with disgrace or poverty, or bereavement, or disease or other calamities. Utterly unequal to bearing these, in so far as they touch us, we soon succumb to them. Thus humbled, we learn to call upon His power, which alone makes us stand fast under the weight of afflictions...

In peaceful times [holy persons] preened themselves on their great constancy and patience, only to learn when humbled by adversity that this was all hypocrisy. Believers warned, I say, by such proofs of their diseases, advance toward humility and so, sloughing off perverse confidence in the flesh, betake themselves to God's grace. Now when they have betaken themselves there they experience the presence of a divine power in which they have protection enough and to spare...

And it is of no slight importance for you to be cleansed of your blind love of self, that you may be made more nearly aware of your incapacity; to feel your own incapacity that you may learn to distrust yourself; to distrust yourself that you may transfer your trust to God; to rest with a trustful heart in God that, relying upon His help, you may persevere unconquered to the end; to take your stand in His grace that you may comprehend the truth of His promises; to have unquestioned certainty of His promises that your hope may thereby be strengthened.

Institutes 3.8.2-3 (Battles p703-4)

Oh Calvin!

Halfway through the massive Institutes is this one, entertaining sentence:

By nature, I love brevity.

Institutes 3.6.1 (Battles p685)

#25 ------?

So, here is my last one. We've been doing this for nearly 6 months you know! Our next phase of mid-life crisis is already in the pipeline, but here's to the end of a short era.

So what to choose? I thought I'd have one clear final boom. But there's a lot jostling about here. So before I put my final track, here's what nearly made it:

Cantaloop by US3
Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes
Free At Last by DC Talk
Some Kind of Zombie by Audio Adrenaline
Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks
Hey Jude by The Beatles
Missing You by John Waite
Need Your Love by Fleetwood Mac

Instead I have chosen to go out with something ridiculous by a man who admits he has very little musical talent. But, despite it's lack of merit and the insults I will garner, it's fun!

Bitter-sweet sacrifice

Cut and pasted this from les Davey de France:

From today's Sud-Ouest, the story of an AirFrance air hostess who found out recently that she is pregnant and so was routinely switched from cabin duties to airport duties. She was due to have been on flight AF447 from Rio to Paris, but instead she was on check-in at Mérignac.

She says, "Because I was reassigned they had to find another air hostess to complete the team. I know that someone died in my place, and I ask myself in what circumstances. This baby that I'm carrying has already saved my life before I even give birth. I am divided between a double joie de vivre and a sense of blame."

If you owe your life to one who died in your place, if a promised child has saved your life, then you'll understand her feelings of double-joy mixed with shame - especially when that child is the one who died under God's condemnation in our place at the cross.

Upon that cross of Jesus my eye at times can see
The very dying form of one who suffered there for me;
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess;
The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by to know no gain or loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.

Techno community

Taking his thoughts from Trinity Sunday, and the way God has determined to share his love in embodied humans in community, Mark Galli writes,

Every technology has the ability to enhance embodied life or to subvert it. Take transportation. Planes, trains, and automobiles allow us to enjoy embodied fellowship with people who live far away from us. This is a great good. But speedy, cheap transportation also makes possible the transient culture we live in, where people struggle to put down roots in one place and ground themselves in their neighborhood...

...Not a few of us find ourselves addicted to email. It is a wonderful thing to be able to connect with so many people so quickly and efficiently. But like many, I often find myself so drawn to my Blackberry and laptop that I fail to be present with the flesh and blood person who is standing before me. I look at them and pretend like I'm listening, but my mind strains to get back to my email. The technology is obviously undermining my ability to be present in an embodied way to the real person in front of me.

Mark Galli, Christianity Today

#24 Takin' Care of Business

Firstly I'd like to observe that I have now, by June 4th, exceeded my total blog entries for the whole of last year. I'm not sure if this is significant, but I felt it was historical at least.

Secondly, there is a bottleneck forming now we're nearly at the end of our mid-life crisis stage 1. This was nearly Sweet Child O'Mine - I don't like Guns&Roses at all, but every band seems to have its moment (even Hawkwind had Silver Machine, ie one actual proper song in 40 years). But in the end I have settled for something that may well cause humiliation as BTO have been a joke in the UK ever since Smashie and Nicie.

Anyway, here it is: a slightly sarcastic look at the rock'n'roll lifestyle:
Spotify

Parental faith

To parents: it may sound cliché, but we followed our father’s teaching in part because he practiced what he preached. Like all children, we needed to look up and see our parents looking up at a great God who has great things in store for those who love him.

Daughter of Bruce Ware, quoted on Discerning Reader reviewing Big Truths for Young Hearts

Calvin: sorrow

Repentance will produce confusion, groaning, displeasure with self, but...

...we must remember to exercise restraint, lest sorrow engulf us. For nothing more readily happens to fearful consciences than falling into despair. And also by this strategem, whomever Satan sees overwhelmed by the fear of God he more and more submerges in that deep whirlpool of sorrow that they may never rise again. That fear cannot, indeed, be too great which ends in humility, and does not depart from the hope of pardon. Nevertheless, in accordance with the apostle's injunction the sinner always ought to beware lest, while he worries himself into dissatisfaction weighed down by excessive fear, he become faint.

Institutes , 3.3.15 (Battles p.608-9)

Which also I think fits well with a great passage in 1 Samuel 12:

And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.” And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

#23 Love and Affection

Oooh! It's getting tough now. Too many songs and not enough space. I was going to write a long bit on the song that should have been here today, except it's not available. So instead here's just a short bit on this one.

I like this song. It's by Joan Armatrading. And it's a lot older than you might think! (1976)

Spotify
LastFM

The ones that got away

I keep drawing blanks for online versions of some songs which should be in the list, so I thought I'd post the titles for further exploration to interested parties. Either these tracks are not permitted online, or the artists are not famous enough to be on there:

Seriously Unrehearsed by John Froud
Sleep by Riley Armstrong
Rolling Thunder by A-Ha

Talking about death

From a BBC interview, this is interesting from a pastoral perspective too:

If you're a young person and you're facing death then you will talk about it, as Jade Goody so evidently did, but deaths under 40, the majority of them are road traffic accidents, so there's no talking time and no preparation. Then 40-60, people have life-threatening illnesses and on the whole, they talk. But the overwhelming majority of deaths are older people and I can tell you from my own research that when older people say to their families, 'I want to talk to you about my funeral', which is a way of wanting to talk about death, a typical response is 'Oh, you don't want to talk about that stuff, that's depressing, you'll go on for a long time'. So if we can create opportunities with people who will listen carefully and be non-judgemental, then you can give them a real lift, because as older people face what we call finitude, the coming of the end of life, many of them become very, very anxious and full of guilt and they've got no-one to talk to

Malcolm Johnson, Professor of Gerontology at Bath
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8058047.stm

#22 Goodbye Ordinary

I got this one off of FreeCCM, not having heard of MercyMe before. This is from their 2007 album All That is Within Me.

The song is a bit obvious (ie you don't really have to work at it) but I like the big sound, and the sentiment. And I think, maybe, the last minute or so makes it sound a bit like someone might be a Beatles fan.

Spotify

Calvin: battle of faith

...it is necessary to return to that division of flesh and spirit which we have mentioned elsewhere. It most clearly reveals itself at this point. Therefore the godly heart feels in itself a division because it is partly imbued with sweetness from its recognition of the divine goodness, partly grieves in bitterness from an awareness of its calamity; partly rests upon the promise of the gospel, partly trembles at the evidence of its own iniquity; partly rejoices at the expectation of life, partly shudders at death. This perception arises from imperfection of faith, since in the course of this present life it never goes so well with us that we are wholly cured of the disease of unbelief and entirely filled and possessed by faith. Hence arise those conflicts; when unbelief, which reposes in the remains of the flesh, rises up to attack the faith that has been inwardly conceived.

Institutes 3.2.18 (Battles p.564)

Conjugating life

Evelyn Underhill's famous observation in her little book The Spiritual Life:

"Most people spend their lives trying to conjugate the verbs 'to want,' 'to have' and 'to keep'— craving, clutching, clinging—when all the Spirit wills us to do is to conjugate the verb 'to be.'"

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2009/mayjun/4.39.html?start=3