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This, I realized, is how a man becomes what he is not: by doing what he could never do — Philip K. Dick
The Kid will memorialise his mother tomorrow, two days after Christmas. Any holiday after losing someone can be hard to get through. The winter holidays, so closely associated with the nuclear family, take on a bittersweetness, a time of remembrance and of re-experiencing the loss. His mother, though, died in-between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The holidays will never be the same.
L and I wanted to go down to Kansas for the service. I can't get away. We tried, we wanted to, but it's return season. I suppose it's a compliment to be considered one of the regulars, a part-timer who is the equal of the full-timers. But now, when if I were consulting I would have been able to go, it's hard.
The holiday for me was barely one: we went to services, heard some heretical statements, gave some help to some folks even worse off than we are. We gave a ride to a woman who just had a baby. His father doesn't know about him. The guy left the mother because she went back into drugs. He has their daughter. She isn't allowed to see her.
"I really screwed up," she says matter-of-factly. She looks squarely at what she did and lays the responsibility right at her own feet. It's not wallowing in guilt. Just the nemesis catching up.
Central problem in philosophy. Relation of word to object . . . what is a word? Arbitrary sign. But we live in words. Our reality, among words not things. No such thing as a thing anyhow; a gestalt in the mind. Thingness . . . sense of substance. An illusion. Word is more real than the object it represents.
Word doesn't represent reality. Word is reality. For us, anyhow. Maybe God gets to objects. Not us, though.
[From Philip K. Dick, 1960, Time Out Of Joint, pp. 60.]
The concepts are fascinating but the end of the book is a let-down. You go through a wild ride and it turns out, well, like a 1950s SF novel. Only partly written on speed.
But the idea that there is nothing but our language for it and how he makes happen is interesting.
I've not been saying what I'm reading online lately. Of course, with my new life, it's hard to have the energy to read much. I'm going to ramble mindlessly on topics in which I have no expertise or knowledge. So just like always.
Today, let's spin through the blogsphere.
No, I don't still have the reference. It's from one of his more recent bible studies at the Trinity Foundation in Dallas, though. So this isn't intended to be a thought-through talk. It's in part a conversation with the people there, who regularly interupt or make jokes about each other.
You have to risk everything, all the time. Not so that you can be right but so that you can be exhorted. Exhort one another daily while it is still called today. Because XXXXXXXX it will no longer be called today anymore.... [Called eternity]
So this is why "above all things, my brethern, I would that you prophesy." What do you say? You say what's there. You simply bubble forth at all times. Not so that you can be right. Prophesying isn't about being right.... this is what we've taught here from the beginning.
"Above all things, I would that you would say what's there."
Prophesy.
So somebody does, and then somebody yells at them. And so, therefore, I'm not going to prophesy any more. I'll show them. No, you'll rebel against God, by returning to the mode of acting.
Well you don't understand, Ole, I'm just silent by nature. That's just the way I am. I'm shy. Yeah, right. While you mass murder you're shy.
It's all so simple. You never again have to try to be or try to do, you just be.
"For this is the will of God, that we keep his commandments", and his commandment aren't hard, aren't grievous, aren't difficult. His commandments are simple.
[CROSSTALK]
As I finally get around to acknowledging the voluminous email I have received (can one say that email has volume?) — especially as a result of that earlier post which is now no longer a part of the blog, which cannot be named — I determined it best to set down in magnetic tape of some form on the servers in Oklahoma City (home of the Cowboy Hall of Fame and my mother-in-law) an answer to the most pressing question they raise. I shall endeavour to provide further answers in the near future, perhaps even numbering them according to some esoteric system to be mysterious.
Q1: If you were a pizza topping, what type of pizza topping would you be and why?
One of our adopted college students has been going through a period of struggle in the faith and her life recently. They came over before Thanksgiving for some food with us. She just felt out of balance. Not wrong or weird. Just off balance. Different. Something in the background. Hard to describe.
But she didn't say anything about it so I let it pass. I have a deeper relationship with her boyfriend, The Kid, so I didn't think much of it that night. It gnawed at me, though.
So when someone else mentioned that she had quit a leadership position on campus, it didn't take by surprise. I figured though that perhaps she might be going through what I went through at her age (God forbid!). Nowadays I call it the search for the Real Thing. Kind of combination of Mode and a Complexity boundary transition. I started asking difficult, jerky questions of all my fellow Christians. Okay, I'll be honest: I had a complete breakdown and spent an entire semester sleeping for over 16 hours a day. Luckily, I have a "phonographic" memory and only failed differential equations. I left all my positions of leadership, left most of my friends, and picked up the ones who stayed through my wedding, including my best pal.
Still, a horrible time. I wanted an answer that no one provided. I exasperated everyone I talked to because I kept destroying their answers. "Is God real? but I don't want an intellectual answer...." Even then I knew that I searched for something that I couldn't name.
These transitions stink.
I thought about her plight for awhile, wondering if it had the same qualities that mine did. I felt rather alone back then, at least when it came to anyone who could put my experience into context. And I was, looking back on it. It felt wretched and I'm surprised that I made it through without a extra orifices in my forearms.
So I sent her a quick email. Except that I can never write briefly so it got long.
I'm putting it here because I don't know what else to do with it.ace to myself eighteen years ago.
If we want to create a workplace that values idealism, human connection, and real, in depth learning, we will have to create it ourselves.
From the book of the prophet Jeremiah:
I have heard the prophets who prophesy lies in my name say, "I had a dream! I had a dream!" How long will this continue? Is my name in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy lies and their own deceitful fancies? By their dreams which they recount to each other, they think to make my people forget my name, just as their fathers forget my name for Baal. Let the prophet who has a dream recount his dream; let him who has my word speak my word truthfully!
What has straw to do with the wheat?
says the Lord.
Is not my word like fire, says the Lord,
like a hammer shattering rocks?[23:25-9, NAB]
We should all be careful when we claim to be saying the word of the Lord, for how can we know if it is not our own interpretation? We must tread carefully about our dreams, about revelations. Speaking a dream that is not God's as his is to lead the peopl astray to the false gods. You being foremost among the list of fake gods, of course.
But Reformed people don't have the problem with dreams. We ignore the last part of the passage, for in fear of anything charismatic we ignore the dreams that God has given us, we keep to ourselves the prophecy he has given us.
For doesn't "prophesy" mean in part to speak that which is, to say plainly that which is laid bare before us?
I keep the word of the Lord hidden in my heart. I let others speak a word that is not God's, let them speak about the Word in ways that are not true. I sin by not prophesying, by not saying, "No! The Scriptures plainly say something else!"
It is easy for those of us in rationalist denominations to condemn those who claim words from the Lord, dreams of prophesy. "Oh, that is simply their own minds!" we say. Of course, we deny that our own rationalist interpretations of the Scriptures are just as sinful as those who would speak a dream that comes not from the Lord. To speak the Scriptures aloud without revelation, without the interpretative voice of the Spirit, is a bold sin, as evil as speaking your own dream as from the Lord. Both our nothing more than your own "deceitful fancies".
The Lord does not take kindly to this, of course. He tells Jeremiah earlier in the passage:
Hence their way shall become for them a slippery ground.
In the darkness they shall lose their footing
and fall headlong;
Evil will I bring upon them:
the year of their punishment, says the Lord....
[23:12, NAB]
But those who have been given the words of the Lord, the dreams of the Lord, the plain statements of his reality, these need only speak them to change the world.
Had they stood in my council,
and did they but proclaim to my people my words,
They would have brought them back from their evil ways
and from their wicked deeds.
[23:22, NAB]
The prophets, those given the mind of God on this matter or that, do not have to use some fantastic methods. They do not have to plead or wheedle. They need only speak the words and the people will return, will turn from evil and turn back to the Lord.
Unless the Lord hardens their hearts against him so that they will not repent, as seems the case with our friend, Jeremiah.
Reformed people read these passages, in my experience, and rail against Pentecostals. "They prophesy their own dreams!" we shout. "They shall be condemned!" We're missing the point of this passage.
There are two things for us to note. The first is that "prophesy" does not denote necessarily that one speaks of the future. To prophesy is to simply state what is there. If God gives me a dream, I speak the dream. If God shows me his word (through the Scriptures), then I speak this. Our ministers prophesy, we say, when they preach. They speak the word of the Lord to us, the word as in Scriptures. But we often forget that it is only through the Spirit of the Lord that any prophesy can come. Great study of the Scriptures may be needed but it is not sufficient to reveal the words of the Lord to the people.
When you speak your own interpretations of the Scriptures, you prophesy your own deceitful fancies and you will be condemned.
Therefore I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words from each other. Yes, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who borrow speeches to pronounce oracles. Yes, I am against the prophets who prophesy lying dreams, says the Lord, and who lead my people astray by recounting their lies and by their empy boasting. Form me they have no mission or command, and they do this people no good at all, says the Lord. [23:30-2, NAB]
So, there is an obvious question: am I prophesying in saying this? I surely meet my own definition. I am claiming that the Word, who is Christ, says these things through the Scriptures.
I am prophesying against myself. I prophesy against my own refusal to speak the word of the Word when he makes the scriptures clear to me, when he gives me a word to speak to my people. It is only a word, not his will: I can't claim to know what God thinks on this or that, only that I see this plainly. I prophesy against my nature to speak that which is my own interpretation of the Scriptures as words from the Word. I prophesy against my own reluctance to speak his dreams.
I prophesy the punishment of the Lord that has come upon me for my silence.
I prophesy the punishment of the Lord that has come upon my for speaking my own deceitful fancies when they did not come from the Lord.
Without the Spirit, I can say nothing. I have no wisdom, no life, no hope, no knowledge. But that which is given me I am responsible to speak.
The Kid's mother died this morning after a very long decline. He's twenty.
Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?A. That I am not my own,
but belongâ??
body and soul,
in life and in deathâ??
to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven:
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.
So, I learn something even in the midst of suffering.
The Powerpoint Church, that congregation that I belong to, had 24-Hours of Prayer thing over the weekend. I had not signed up, saying that I didn't know my work schedule in time. True enough. Except it was probably because I was resentful of not being asked to lead it again, not being asked to help out. Not being paid attention.
I ended up helping out, agreeing the night before to do "watch" coverage from 6am to 8am, before I went in for the day at 9. The job basically consists of sitting in the other room, watching the time and letting people know when their time is done. It's pretty boring but last time it was pretty worthwhile.
It turned out that my pal Kim forgot to show up at 6:30am. Someone has to be praying at all times. So I stole her slot.
I did't remember what I prayed about, to be honest. I ended up having to write it out on the pad, since I couldn't focus. I didn't sleep much the night before — I've developed back pain since working at the Shack — and I got up earlier than I normally do. I went ahead and reread what I'd had written.
In the end, I learned two things:
But what was interesting was the mini-prayer service at the end.
J sent me the following link, in part to remind me to retract saying that the hurricanes of late are just another sign of increased energy in the atmosphere.
Very interesting article, too. It also might explain why civilisations in Africa and the Americas kept disappearing.
OBTW, Lee Raymond, outgoing CEO of Exxon-Mobil, also dealt with the issue of global warming in a recent Charlie Rose. Very interesting also.
Dr. Ben Witherington, III has written a new book, The Problem with Evangelical Theology. In it, he complains that the four major strands of western Protestantism have serious exegetical problems in the areas of doctrine that are their particulars, where they differ from everyone else.
["Exegesis: Scholarly explanation or interpretation of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage in a written work, based on close study and critical analysis of the text, especially to clarify an obscure point in the Bible or some other sacred work." (from the Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science]
He's pretty clear on the point that Evangelicals are all wrong:
Popular Evangelicalism has three main theological tributaries. Each of these three tributaries ultimately goes back to the Bible in one way or another and each has made serious and lasting contributions — the Augustinian-Lutheran-Calvinist juggernaut kept Evangelicalism focused on soteriology or the way of salvation. Dispensationalism renewed our focus on and thinking about the future in eschatological ways. Wesleyanism/Pentecostalism stressed the experiential dimensions of Christian thought and life and the need for holiness of heart and life. However, each of these contributions came at a priceâ??individualism and determinism in the case of the Augustinian heritage; systematic ahistoricism in the case of Dispensational reading of prophecy; and the raising of experience to a norm, sometimes even above the Bible, in the case of Wesleyanism/Pentecostalism. My concern is not just to point out the problems with each of these theological streams, but rather to clean up the streams by passing these theological tributaries through a more purifying and rectifying biblical filter.
...........................................
My interest is in the big ideas that serve as building blocks for looking at the biblical text in a certain kind of way and that undergird Evangelical theology in this tradition. My concern is that various of these seminal and interesting ideas are simply not biblical.
Personally, I know my beliefs should pass "through a more purifying and rectifying biblical filter" on a more regular basis. The rigor of the process that he's advocating seems reasonable. Of course, we all think that the purifying process should bring everyone closer to our own beliefs and I wonder if Witherington feels the same way.
Some links:
I'm not very well-read in these circles, and I'll admit that I found the first chapter pretty daunting. I blanked out in a couple of places, eyes glazing over, mostly because I just lack the background in order to understand the things that Witherington takes for granted that his readers will know. I still found it interesting. I enjoy these "let's return to the what the author was really saying" types of books, having gotten the bug from reading Meeks's series at a younger age. I'm intrigued enough to read
I will comment that I don't see how this is all that threatening (surely a good, rigorous examination of the roots is a good thing, and certainly we all have made mistakes somewhere). I can't follow everything he's saying but it seems worth a spin through. I'll probably wait until the local library has it — surely Valpo will get it in if the VPL doesn't — but that's more a function of my current book budget rather than not thinking it worth buying. Of course, I don't know Witherington so maybe he's a wicked, evil heretic. In which case he'll be even more entertaining to read.
I will point out that Witherington desperately needs better editors than he currently has. Maybe he sells well enough that they let it fly by, or perhaps he's difficult to deal with as an author. Many of us are and sometimes successful academic authors become impossible to edit properly, thinking that they can do a better job. But any press that allows the word "sound-bite" written as "soundbyte" is just plain sloppy. The various misspellings and typos are embarassing.
Plus, it seems to me that he could have gotten a more solid argument in these first pages with an editor. He kind of just sends things falling from on-high in a way. That's pretty consistent with the various other academics whom I've edited in the past. It's a function of really knowing your material, it seems.
So perhaps someone from the other traditions would like to read it with me and give me their take.
And let's be honest here: what will end up happening is that the Reformed folks will quote him about the shortcomings of the Dispensationalists and Wesleyans/Pentecostals; the Dispensationalists will quote him on the Reformeds; and the Pentecostals will quote him againsts the Reformed and Dispensationalists.
Bill Mallonee (front-man for the sometimes defunct Vigilantes of Love) is releasing a new Christmas EP. Mallonee is always interesting, even if JMMJ likes Killing Floor better than anything else. I've taken the liberty of re-posting the release from him.
Having to listen to Sirius Satelite Radio's holiday channel all-day at work has gotten me ready to ditch Christmas altogether. Thankfully, they have only ruined "Linus and Lucy" and "Christmas Time Is Here" for me. I'll hate "Baby It's Cold Out There" and "What Child Is This" by the end of the workday on Sunday.
A little Mallonee would be interesting.
Billtunes.com presents Yonder Shines the Infant Light — a 6 song Christmas EP by Bill Mallonee
Just in time for Christmas, this CDr absolutely ships on Dec. 12th. We guarantee it! We are ready for this one! It is being recorded this week and you have the choice of adding specially priced additional CDrs ($6) to be mailed to friends/family with postage options.
The Songs:*
- Every Father Knows**
- Deep Blue Sea**
- An Open Heart is an Open Door**
- Silent Night
- Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
- Instrumental
*Song order and titles subject to change
**Brand New OriginalThe Christmas EP is a GOLD CDr with downloadable artwork via PDF file. Song titles and a personal 5 word message (e.g. Merry Christmas Grandpa Joe - Billy) appear on your CDr if you post it in your order.
Head on over to: Fundamental Records for more information.
You don't have to be a Billtunes.com member to order the CD, but there is a big benefit! (Basically, $6 Christmas presents to your pals!)
In an attempt to get some form of change in my life, I shaved off my beard. I thought that I had had it for about four years. My wife reminded me that I had been hairy for about six, with a respite in there somewhere. I'd warned her about wanting to get rid of it but it's discombobulated her. She's told me I have to grow it back. We will see if I get a new contract or not with it gone.
It feels weird. And I look so young. The last time I shaved it off L said, "I'm married to a high schooler!" I don't look that young any more but I've probably ruined my chances of ever being taken seriously at church. Some of the folks in their 50s already thought that I was ten years younger than I am. Even our 25 year-old pal thought I was about 30. I suppose that now that I'm closer to 40 I should be glad of it but it gets old being thought of as young and innocent. And inexperienced.
Of course, I am inexperienced, but let's let that go by.
I can see why people liked the beard. My face really doesn't have much definition with it. But all the guys at work have facial hair now, mostly goatees. I've never been a goatee fan. And I've never been a mustache devotee, either, except for the classic handlebar. I worked with a guy in west Texas who had one back when I lived in San Antonio. Fabulous mustache. And Visky's is entertaining, although I don't want to see him eat soup.
Anyway, the beard's gone for awhile. It'll take at least four weeks to regrow it to where it was. I'll keep it off and celebrate Christmas here in Valpo clean shaven.
One good thing: no more Islamic terrorist jokes!