FALL OF THE PHANTOM LORD
By Andrew Todhunter
Anchor Books, 1998
ISBN 0-385-48641-3
Review by George R. Pasley
The title “Phantom Lord” is a name given by climbers, jumpers and various sorts of extreme sports enthusiasts to the fear of death. Todhunter’s book chronicles a series of visits the author had with Dan Osman, known for the dangerous sports of “free-soloing” (rock climbing without ropes or other safety gear); and "rope jumping" (controlled free-falling) (falling several hundred feet from a cliff then being caught by a safety rope), for which his record was over 1000 feet. Osman died in 1998, shortly after publication of the book, from a fall in Yosemite National Park.
Death of the Phantom Lord occurs when a rope-jumper stands on the edge, confronts his or her fear of death, and leaps. In leaping, fear of death dies, hence, “fall of the Phantom Lord.”
Todhunter intersperses accounts of his visits with Osman with memories of his own risk-taking (Todhunter is a diving instructor and a sailor). The book does not seem to encourage risk-taking, but is instead a guide through the conflict occurring in the author as he wrestles with putting his risk-taking youth behind him in order to take on the responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood.
Todhunter is something of a climber too, and well versed in the techniques of climbing and mountaineering. That knowledge adds depth to the story as he is able to give detailed descriptions of the climbs and jumps that he observed, and of his own attempts to follow Osman on some of the rock-climbing and ice-climbing adventures. Not being a climber myself I did not understand much of the technical descriptions but they did not overwhelm the story.
Talking about people who don’t face fear the way he does, Osman says “I strongly admire that quality in people, those people who are secure in themselves enough to say, ‘You’re not getting me out there. I’m fine right here.’” (p. 130). Another climber is described as being well respected because he was not afraid to back down the mountain if conditions were not safe.
As Todhunter makes an assortment of visits to Osman, his wife becomes pregnant and gives birth. Todhunter describes the birth, a difficult one in which at one point the baby’s life was in jeopardy and after which the mother’s life was briefly in jeopardy. That experience was numbing to Todhunter so that he didn’t really understand the depth of his fear until hours later, after mother and child were both safe. His best writing describes that experience:
“I have never been hit by an avalanche but in the hospital bed I am struck so fast and hard by such a fear that it feels as if I am going to disintegrate, to rip apart. I clutch the sheet with my hands. Erin is bleeding and I can’t stop it. The blood is running from her. I am drowning. The ceiling is upon my chest and crushing me. My bones are snapping. I am choking, gasping for air.
“I throw myself to the floor, kneel on the tiles, and lean into the seat of the chair. I crush my hands together and grind my forehead, brutally against my clasped hands, I cannot escape. My wife and child are dying and I cannot help.
“The walls stop shaking, suddenly. The roaring is extinguished.
“There is someone else in the room. I can feel the distinct presence of Erin and Julia, alive behind me, as clearly as I can feel my two hands, clasped the one within the other. But there is another, near the foot of the bed behind me, closer to the ceiling than the floor. I do not look. I know exactly where he is… (pp. 163, 164)”
Todhunter does not use the name, but in being overcome by fear, he has met the real Lord.
At the book’s conclusion Todhunter decided he will not join Osman on a high jump from a bridge. He describes that decision as “feeling like loss”, but he realizes he will never face another fear as great as that which he experienced after the birth of his daughter. He writes:
“Throughout a youth spent largely in pursuit of fear, I never for a moment suspected where I would find its source. We all draw lines, spontaneously or after long reflection, and every one that matters is a kind of death. And yet each line is an offering, less a bar of closure than a circle, inscribed to shelter something we love more (p. 209).”
I found this to be a profound book, a book that should be appealing to risk-takers and thinkers of many types.
August 22, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
WONDROUS DEPTH
WONDROUS DEPTH: Preaching the Old Testament
By Ellen F. Davis
Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005
ISBN 0-664-22859-3
Book Review by George R. Pasley
I purchased this book by Davis after hearing her lecture on preaching the Psalms at the Calvin Institute of Worship in 2006. Only recently did I read it, and I am exceptionally joyful that I did not neglect that task entirely.
What we have is a relatively simple book on preaching. It does not try to accomplish a great number of things, but that which it seeks to do it does well. The book contains only about 75 pages of text by Davis on how to exegete and preach. The remainder of the book consists of sermons- two from 17th century preachers and four by Davis.
Davis starts out with a theme that has recently been expounded on in excellent manner by Anna Carter Florence, homiletics professor at Columbia Theological Seminary (See, “Preaching As Testimony.” I have not reviewed it, but highly recommend it. I gave it away to a colleague as soon as I read it.). The best way to describe it is to quote Davis:
“The plain fact is that no preacher can ever be astonishing (in a positive sense) unless she has first been astonished. And the only regular and fully reliable source of astonishment for the Christian preacher is Scripture itself.” (p. 2)
Davis claim is that Scripture is astonishing, and in an extremely successful attempt to prove scripture’s astonishing nature she exegetes the story of the binding of Isaac. Those few pages alone deem this book worthy of a place on every preacher’s bookshelf.
Davis urges preachers to immerse themselves I scripture and especially to pay attention to each word, and she makes extensive use of examples of paying attention to the Hebrew words found in the Old Testament.
An Episcopalian, Davis also provides some very solid commentary on the way that lectionary texts, tied to the liturgical context, can be used to teach theology to congregations.
That which I enjoyed most in Davis’ work was her fine commentary on the two early 17th sermons provided in the book, one by the famous poet John Donne and the other by Lancelot Andrews. Each sermon was first introduced with instruction by Davis. Then, the sermons were printed in narrower column on the following pages, with comments and interpretation by Davis in the margin. While their archaic language virtually made interpretation necessary, that circumstance allowed commentary on techniques and sermon structure by Davis. I would like to see more sermons that are published in collections or examples be commented on in this way (I’m sorry to see that she didn’t choose to do the same thing with her own four sermons). The two old English sermons were definitely long by modern standards but there was certainly much to be learned by studying them, and it seems that Davis makes use of many such sermons in her teaching at Duke.
August 15, 2008
Ketchikan AK
By Ellen F. Davis
Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005
ISBN 0-664-22859-3
Book Review by George R. Pasley
I purchased this book by Davis after hearing her lecture on preaching the Psalms at the Calvin Institute of Worship in 2006. Only recently did I read it, and I am exceptionally joyful that I did not neglect that task entirely.
What we have is a relatively simple book on preaching. It does not try to accomplish a great number of things, but that which it seeks to do it does well. The book contains only about 75 pages of text by Davis on how to exegete and preach. The remainder of the book consists of sermons- two from 17th century preachers and four by Davis.
Davis starts out with a theme that has recently been expounded on in excellent manner by Anna Carter Florence, homiletics professor at Columbia Theological Seminary (See, “Preaching As Testimony.” I have not reviewed it, but highly recommend it. I gave it away to a colleague as soon as I read it.). The best way to describe it is to quote Davis:
“The plain fact is that no preacher can ever be astonishing (in a positive sense) unless she has first been astonished. And the only regular and fully reliable source of astonishment for the Christian preacher is Scripture itself.” (p. 2)
Davis claim is that Scripture is astonishing, and in an extremely successful attempt to prove scripture’s astonishing nature she exegetes the story of the binding of Isaac. Those few pages alone deem this book worthy of a place on every preacher’s bookshelf.
Davis urges preachers to immerse themselves I scripture and especially to pay attention to each word, and she makes extensive use of examples of paying attention to the Hebrew words found in the Old Testament.
An Episcopalian, Davis also provides some very solid commentary on the way that lectionary texts, tied to the liturgical context, can be used to teach theology to congregations.
That which I enjoyed most in Davis’ work was her fine commentary on the two early 17th sermons provided in the book, one by the famous poet John Donne and the other by Lancelot Andrews. Each sermon was first introduced with instruction by Davis. Then, the sermons were printed in narrower column on the following pages, with comments and interpretation by Davis in the margin. While their archaic language virtually made interpretation necessary, that circumstance allowed commentary on techniques and sermon structure by Davis. I would like to see more sermons that are published in collections or examples be commented on in this way (I’m sorry to see that she didn’t choose to do the same thing with her own four sermons). The two old English sermons were definitely long by modern standards but there was certainly much to be learned by studying them, and it seems that Davis makes use of many such sermons in her teaching at Duke.
August 15, 2008
Ketchikan AK
Thursday, August 7, 2008
THE FIRST WORD
THE FIRST WORD: The Search for Origins of Language
By Christine Kenneally
ISBN 978-0-14-311374-4
Book Review by George R. Pasley
I saw this book and, being a man who deals in language all day long, I just had to pick it up. I was not disappointed.
Strictly speaking it is not an academic book. It is written for the general population. But it is a book about an academic subject and for the most part it is not “dumbed down.” Consequently it is not a book for the intellectually uncurious.
The book is arranged in four parts. Part one deals with the history of research into the origins of language, which for the most part is pretty recent. Much of the discussion in part one is fairly philosophical and sometimes hard to understand, but a general understanding of what is going on helps lay a framework for the later parts of the book. An interesting side note to part one is the realization that academic debates are sometimes emotional and even knee-jerk reactions, something we might do well to remember.
Part two gets into the nitty-gritty of what we have learned about language, mostly in the last 30 years. It is neatly arranged into seven chapters that start with thought, and proceed through words, gestures, speech, structure, the human brain and human mutations.
By that list alone one can see that a study of the origins of language would involve a great number of disciplines. Research field that have contributed to the subject range form early childhood development to anthropology to robotics. Within these various chapters I found a great many interesting tidbits that tell me how language works: not only the way words work when put together, but how they work in conjunction with gestures, why they work, and why we communicate.
Part three has thee significant chapters on evolution, the first being evolution of species, the second being evolution of culture and the third a description of how things evolve. Kenneally’s argument is that language has evolved on its own, separately from human biological evolution. These chapters contain significant detail on how evolution happens, and they are not for the faint-hearted. The challenge of her argument might be best summed by these words of Kenneally: “The point is that although we experience ourselves in some sense as finished or perfected, we are not in any way intended. There is no blueprint for what humans are meant to be. And as this moment is merely one moment in the past and future history of our evolutionary lineage, your life right now is merely an instant in the past and future history of the interaction between your genome and your environment” (p. 197, italics original). Not especially affirming!
However, there are significant details in this portion, and they are enlightening. For instance, I learned there is no single one-to-one correspondence between specific genes and their expression- for the most part a biological expression is influenced by a host of genes, and they in turn are influenced by the environment.
Part four is very short and deals with the future of language studies and the future of the human race itself.
In conclusion, if you are curious and want answers, this book will provide some. And if you think you know all the answers, this book will leave you with some new questions.
George R. Pasley
July 30, 2008
By Christine Kenneally
ISBN 978-0-14-311374-4
Book Review by George R. Pasley
I saw this book and, being a man who deals in language all day long, I just had to pick it up. I was not disappointed.
Strictly speaking it is not an academic book. It is written for the general population. But it is a book about an academic subject and for the most part it is not “dumbed down.” Consequently it is not a book for the intellectually uncurious.
The book is arranged in four parts. Part one deals with the history of research into the origins of language, which for the most part is pretty recent. Much of the discussion in part one is fairly philosophical and sometimes hard to understand, but a general understanding of what is going on helps lay a framework for the later parts of the book. An interesting side note to part one is the realization that academic debates are sometimes emotional and even knee-jerk reactions, something we might do well to remember.
Part two gets into the nitty-gritty of what we have learned about language, mostly in the last 30 years. It is neatly arranged into seven chapters that start with thought, and proceed through words, gestures, speech, structure, the human brain and human mutations.
By that list alone one can see that a study of the origins of language would involve a great number of disciplines. Research field that have contributed to the subject range form early childhood development to anthropology to robotics. Within these various chapters I found a great many interesting tidbits that tell me how language works: not only the way words work when put together, but how they work in conjunction with gestures, why they work, and why we communicate.
Part three has thee significant chapters on evolution, the first being evolution of species, the second being evolution of culture and the third a description of how things evolve. Kenneally’s argument is that language has evolved on its own, separately from human biological evolution. These chapters contain significant detail on how evolution happens, and they are not for the faint-hearted. The challenge of her argument might be best summed by these words of Kenneally: “The point is that although we experience ourselves in some sense as finished or perfected, we are not in any way intended. There is no blueprint for what humans are meant to be. And as this moment is merely one moment in the past and future history of our evolutionary lineage, your life right now is merely an instant in the past and future history of the interaction between your genome and your environment” (p. 197, italics original). Not especially affirming!
However, there are significant details in this portion, and they are enlightening. For instance, I learned there is no single one-to-one correspondence between specific genes and their expression- for the most part a biological expression is influenced by a host of genes, and they in turn are influenced by the environment.
Part four is very short and deals with the future of language studies and the future of the human race itself.
In conclusion, if you are curious and want answers, this book will provide some. And if you think you know all the answers, this book will leave you with some new questions.
George R. Pasley
July 30, 2008
IRRITABLE MALE SYNDROME
IRRITABLE MALE SYNDROME
By Jed Diamond
Rodale Inc., 2004
ISBN 1-57594-798-2
Review by George Pasley
I checked this book out of the library for some “self-improvement” (please don’t laugh so hard) and before long I wished I had purchased a copy for my pastor’s library.
Jed Diamond is a licensed psychotherapist who has read, researched and written extensively on issues of male mental health. This particular book is written not only as a researcher and therapist but as a man suffering from the problems he described.
The first portions of the book include anecdotal accounts of the syndrome, its effects, results and some possible treatments. As I read each anecdote I thought to myself, “I’m not THAT bad,” but I could recognize certain behaviors. More specifically, there is a quiz that can be used for self-diagnosis or by a relative/spouse/partner who is concerned about the man in their life. I took it online and was told I have the syndrome. Ouch!
The book contains much helpful information on hormonal causes of irritability, more helpful information on social and cultural causes of irritability, and more helpful information on evolutionary sources of certain behaviors. I found these insights all helpful.
More helpful though are certain chapters written to help spouses and parents help their loved ones address the issue.
Several chapters are devoted to treatment, primary emphasis given to exercise and the need for men to make connections (which was a theme throughout the book). Of particular interest was a study conducted by Rena Repetti at UCLA in which working parents were asked to fill out questionnaires about the events of specific workdays and their subsequent activities at home. “When there was conflict at work, dads took out their anger on their families at home.” (p. 141) In contrast, “The mothers in Dr. Repetti’s studies behaved quite differently. When the moms had a bad day, they were more involved and more affectionate with their children.” (p. 142)
Diamond believes that our evolutionary biology has built a threat response in women that he labels “befriending,” while the threat response in men is “fight.” But, “We can no longer engage in battle to defeat the threat…in the short-run we become hypersensitive, irritable, anxious and frustrated…in the long run, continuous stress, with no ability to relieve it, leads to breakdown and sickness” (p. 142). This insight serves as scientific basis for Diamond’s emphasis on Male support groups.
In a later chapter Diamond references Erik Erikson’s landmark work on human development. I had been exposed to this in my seminary studies, but Diamond’s use of it at this stage in my life allowed me to see some things I had not fully resolved and so I found it very helpful.
Of special interest to pastors is what Diamond calls “our daimons.” The word daimon is of Greek origin, meaning something larger and greater than our every day existence. Romantics may call it destiny but Christians will use the word Diamond prefers to define it, “calling.”
On the subject of our calling Diamond says that learning our calling may likely be a decades long process, but finding and pursuing our calling is essential towards the living of a fulfilling life. It was in this context that Diamond referenced Erikson.
It is quite possible that many who read the book will not subscribe to each of Diamond’s theories, but as a whole many insights and ideas should be helpful. This review has not touched upon all the possibilities discussed by Diamond, and other persons who read the book are sure to find many more nuggets of insight and helpfulness.
George Pasley
June 23, 2008
By Jed Diamond
Rodale Inc., 2004
ISBN 1-57594-798-2
Review by George Pasley
I checked this book out of the library for some “self-improvement” (please don’t laugh so hard) and before long I wished I had purchased a copy for my pastor’s library.
Jed Diamond is a licensed psychotherapist who has read, researched and written extensively on issues of male mental health. This particular book is written not only as a researcher and therapist but as a man suffering from the problems he described.
The first portions of the book include anecdotal accounts of the syndrome, its effects, results and some possible treatments. As I read each anecdote I thought to myself, “I’m not THAT bad,” but I could recognize certain behaviors. More specifically, there is a quiz that can be used for self-diagnosis or by a relative/spouse/partner who is concerned about the man in their life. I took it online and was told I have the syndrome. Ouch!
The book contains much helpful information on hormonal causes of irritability, more helpful information on social and cultural causes of irritability, and more helpful information on evolutionary sources of certain behaviors. I found these insights all helpful.
More helpful though are certain chapters written to help spouses and parents help their loved ones address the issue.
Several chapters are devoted to treatment, primary emphasis given to exercise and the need for men to make connections (which was a theme throughout the book). Of particular interest was a study conducted by Rena Repetti at UCLA in which working parents were asked to fill out questionnaires about the events of specific workdays and their subsequent activities at home. “When there was conflict at work, dads took out their anger on their families at home.” (p. 141) In contrast, “The mothers in Dr. Repetti’s studies behaved quite differently. When the moms had a bad day, they were more involved and more affectionate with their children.” (p. 142)
Diamond believes that our evolutionary biology has built a threat response in women that he labels “befriending,” while the threat response in men is “fight.” But, “We can no longer engage in battle to defeat the threat…in the short-run we become hypersensitive, irritable, anxious and frustrated…in the long run, continuous stress, with no ability to relieve it, leads to breakdown and sickness” (p. 142). This insight serves as scientific basis for Diamond’s emphasis on Male support groups.
In a later chapter Diamond references Erik Erikson’s landmark work on human development. I had been exposed to this in my seminary studies, but Diamond’s use of it at this stage in my life allowed me to see some things I had not fully resolved and so I found it very helpful.
Of special interest to pastors is what Diamond calls “our daimons.” The word daimon is of Greek origin, meaning something larger and greater than our every day existence. Romantics may call it destiny but Christians will use the word Diamond prefers to define it, “calling.”
On the subject of our calling Diamond says that learning our calling may likely be a decades long process, but finding and pursuing our calling is essential towards the living of a fulfilling life. It was in this context that Diamond referenced Erikson.
It is quite possible that many who read the book will not subscribe to each of Diamond’s theories, but as a whole many insights and ideas should be helpful. This review has not touched upon all the possibilities discussed by Diamond, and other persons who read the book are sure to find many more nuggets of insight and helpfulness.
George Pasley
June 23, 2008
THE GREAT AMERICAN CONTRADICTION
JOHNNY CASH AND THE GREAT AMERICAN CONTRADICTION
By Rodney Clapp
ISBN-13: 978-0-664-23088-3
One might be led by its title that this book is about Johnny Cash. Such is not the case. This book is (as the author describes it) a “Christian cultural criticism.” In my opinion it is an excellent critique.
Johnny Cash then enters the book as both an example of the contradictions of American culture and the Christian faith, and of prime importance to the author, an example of how those contradictions might be bridged.
The foundation for the most problematic aspect of the book is laid in the first chapter, which serves as an introduction to the problems created by the five contradictions that Clapp will name later. In chapter one Clapp presents a strong argument for the influence that southern culture has had on broader American culture, especially politics and religion. I do not argue with any of the points made by Clapp, but I suggest that some small amount of what Clapp says may be considered pejorative of the south and southern culture. In particular I point chapter 6, “Violence and Peace,” especially pages 112 and 113, where Clapp discuss the “code duello” and the level of homicides in southern states. Violence and guns are often equated with the south, and there is likely significant statistical evidence to the connection (Clapp even offers some), so I do not argue with Clapp but I do suggest a need for sensitivity regarding the subject if one intends to use the book in some public manner.
The great aspect of Clapp’s book is not just that it critiques American culture, but that it points to a way through the wilderness.
The five contradictions illumined by Clapp are: Lonesomeness and Community, Holiness and Hedonism, Tradition and Progress, Guilt and Innocence, and Violence and Peace. Clapp’s writing is at its best in chapter 3, “Holiness and Hedonism,” when he confronts idolatry: “Because idolatry is the most destructive of sinful conditions, the greatest danger to the faithfulness of the American church comes not from without but from within” (p. 60). Truly, idolatry is a subject many pastors have recognized in recent years, and Clapp gives us some fuel for our thoughts on the subject.
Clapp is most insightful with respect to the contradiction between Lonesomeness and Community. He identifies loneliness as a byproduct of our American desire for individual freedom. In fact, freedom becomes an idolatry that leads to diminishment of our created nature. Here, Clapp is at his best in praising country music, for “Unlike so much about our national culture and politics, it admits the inevitability of suffering and the tragic, and acknowledges the creaturely limitations no mortal can escape” (p. 26).
The practical nature of Clapp’s books reaches its zenith in the same chapter, when Clapp urges a “democracy for grownups” and lists six virtues already found within our traditions that a mature democracy can be built upon. They are: hard work, productive work & citizenship, plain living & simple pleasures, honor & integrity, fortitude & survival with dignity, and democracy itself. The virtues are listed on pages 38 and 39, and are elaborated on in sufficient manner.
The final chapter lifts up baptism as entry into a particular kind of public, the people of God. Throughout the book Clapp offered sharp critiques of the Religious Right, and fewer but no-less sharp critiques of the secular Left. Clapp argues that patriotism is both natural and permissible, but must ultimately be submissive to citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
There is much to benefit the pastor who reads this book, as fuel for prophetic thought, as insight into the nature of the church and the meaning of baptism, as assistance in addressing challenging issues, and as guide through the culture wars.
One of my parishioners learned I was reading this book, and went to the mason web site to read a few pages. She described it as “heady,” and it is. Nonetheless, it is not dense and its format, with chapters for five major contradictions, makes it accessible for a group discussion among thoughtful participants.
George R. Pasley
By Rodney Clapp
ISBN-13: 978-0-664-23088-3
One might be led by its title that this book is about Johnny Cash. Such is not the case. This book is (as the author describes it) a “Christian cultural criticism.” In my opinion it is an excellent critique.
Johnny Cash then enters the book as both an example of the contradictions of American culture and the Christian faith, and of prime importance to the author, an example of how those contradictions might be bridged.
The foundation for the most problematic aspect of the book is laid in the first chapter, which serves as an introduction to the problems created by the five contradictions that Clapp will name later. In chapter one Clapp presents a strong argument for the influence that southern culture has had on broader American culture, especially politics and religion. I do not argue with any of the points made by Clapp, but I suggest that some small amount of what Clapp says may be considered pejorative of the south and southern culture. In particular I point chapter 6, “Violence and Peace,” especially pages 112 and 113, where Clapp discuss the “code duello” and the level of homicides in southern states. Violence and guns are often equated with the south, and there is likely significant statistical evidence to the connection (Clapp even offers some), so I do not argue with Clapp but I do suggest a need for sensitivity regarding the subject if one intends to use the book in some public manner.
The great aspect of Clapp’s book is not just that it critiques American culture, but that it points to a way through the wilderness.
The five contradictions illumined by Clapp are: Lonesomeness and Community, Holiness and Hedonism, Tradition and Progress, Guilt and Innocence, and Violence and Peace. Clapp’s writing is at its best in chapter 3, “Holiness and Hedonism,” when he confronts idolatry: “Because idolatry is the most destructive of sinful conditions, the greatest danger to the faithfulness of the American church comes not from without but from within” (p. 60). Truly, idolatry is a subject many pastors have recognized in recent years, and Clapp gives us some fuel for our thoughts on the subject.
Clapp is most insightful with respect to the contradiction between Lonesomeness and Community. He identifies loneliness as a byproduct of our American desire for individual freedom. In fact, freedom becomes an idolatry that leads to diminishment of our created nature. Here, Clapp is at his best in praising country music, for “Unlike so much about our national culture and politics, it admits the inevitability of suffering and the tragic, and acknowledges the creaturely limitations no mortal can escape” (p. 26).
The practical nature of Clapp’s books reaches its zenith in the same chapter, when Clapp urges a “democracy for grownups” and lists six virtues already found within our traditions that a mature democracy can be built upon. They are: hard work, productive work & citizenship, plain living & simple pleasures, honor & integrity, fortitude & survival with dignity, and democracy itself. The virtues are listed on pages 38 and 39, and are elaborated on in sufficient manner.
The final chapter lifts up baptism as entry into a particular kind of public, the people of God. Throughout the book Clapp offered sharp critiques of the Religious Right, and fewer but no-less sharp critiques of the secular Left. Clapp argues that patriotism is both natural and permissible, but must ultimately be submissive to citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
There is much to benefit the pastor who reads this book, as fuel for prophetic thought, as insight into the nature of the church and the meaning of baptism, as assistance in addressing challenging issues, and as guide through the culture wars.
One of my parishioners learned I was reading this book, and went to the mason web site to read a few pages. She described it as “heady,” and it is. Nonetheless, it is not dense and its format, with chapters for five major contradictions, makes it accessible for a group discussion among thoughtful participants.
George R. Pasley
I REFUSE TO LEAD A DYING CHURCH
I REFUSE TO LEAD A DYING CHURCH
Paul Nixon; Pilgrim Press, Cleveland, 2006
ISBN 978-0-8298-1759-1
I don’t remember how I stumbled upon this book, but I’m glad I did. It’s short, sweet and to the point. It’s optimistic AND it is not filled with theological finger-pointing, as are some church growth books I’ve tried to read. In fact, this book seems almost to be specially written for mainline moderate and even liberal pastors.
Paul Nixon spent his early years in the Southern Baptist Church. Towards the end of the book he tells how a small group of conservative members of that denomination decided to take control, forcing the so called moderates (including himself) out- though he does so illustrating the point that bold churches grow, and he describes the boldness of the SBC leaders and their remaining congregations.
Now a Methodist, Nixon addresses his book to the huge membership decline experienced since 1970 by the mainline congregations. He thinks this need not necessarily be so, and in fact believes that church pastors can make a choice to be the kind of leader that brings about church growth, even in urban and semi-rural communities.
Nixon then devotes a precious few pages to pastoral leadership. He makes a list of qualities of pastors who have helped their church grow. The first on the list is the most important: “A clear personal experience (often over time) of the Risen Christ that has become the foundation for everything else one does in life” (p. 17). He follows this up by insisting that the personal experience of knowing Christ need not be colored a specific theological flavor, but he does point out how the so-called “liberals” are less likely to share that experience. This need not be so! His argument is buttressed by statistics from Stan Wood’s book “Extraordinary Leaders in Extraordinary Times.”
Nixon then boils church growth down to six basic choices:
Choosing life over death.
Choosing community over isolation.
Choosing fun over drudgery.
Choosing bold over mild.
Choosing frontier over fortress.
Choosing now over later.
Nixon dedicates a chapter to each choice addressing particulars and specific issues involved. Each chapter is simple, direct and filled with good examples and ideas. In particular, the chapter on now over later lists arguments often heard for not doing something now, and offers a rebuttal to each one.
The book is exceptionally easy to understand and is not “dumbed down,” making it an excellent choice for distribution among church leaders, perhaps for a retreat setting. I for one would have benefited from this book in seminary (though it had not been written at the time) and would certainly recommend it for various sorts of congregational ministry classes.
George R. Pasley
Paul Nixon; Pilgrim Press, Cleveland, 2006
ISBN 978-0-8298-1759-1
I don’t remember how I stumbled upon this book, but I’m glad I did. It’s short, sweet and to the point. It’s optimistic AND it is not filled with theological finger-pointing, as are some church growth books I’ve tried to read. In fact, this book seems almost to be specially written for mainline moderate and even liberal pastors.
Paul Nixon spent his early years in the Southern Baptist Church. Towards the end of the book he tells how a small group of conservative members of that denomination decided to take control, forcing the so called moderates (including himself) out- though he does so illustrating the point that bold churches grow, and he describes the boldness of the SBC leaders and their remaining congregations.
Now a Methodist, Nixon addresses his book to the huge membership decline experienced since 1970 by the mainline congregations. He thinks this need not necessarily be so, and in fact believes that church pastors can make a choice to be the kind of leader that brings about church growth, even in urban and semi-rural communities.
Nixon then devotes a precious few pages to pastoral leadership. He makes a list of qualities of pastors who have helped their church grow. The first on the list is the most important: “A clear personal experience (often over time) of the Risen Christ that has become the foundation for everything else one does in life” (p. 17). He follows this up by insisting that the personal experience of knowing Christ need not be colored a specific theological flavor, but he does point out how the so-called “liberals” are less likely to share that experience. This need not be so! His argument is buttressed by statistics from Stan Wood’s book “Extraordinary Leaders in Extraordinary Times.”
Nixon then boils church growth down to six basic choices:
Choosing life over death.
Choosing community over isolation.
Choosing fun over drudgery.
Choosing bold over mild.
Choosing frontier over fortress.
Choosing now over later.
Nixon dedicates a chapter to each choice addressing particulars and specific issues involved. Each chapter is simple, direct and filled with good examples and ideas. In particular, the chapter on now over later lists arguments often heard for not doing something now, and offers a rebuttal to each one.
The book is exceptionally easy to understand and is not “dumbed down,” making it an excellent choice for distribution among church leaders, perhaps for a retreat setting. I for one would have benefited from this book in seminary (though it had not been written at the time) and would certainly recommend it for various sorts of congregational ministry classes.
George R. Pasley
NOCTURNAL AMERICA
NOCTURNAL AMERICA, by John Keeble
University of Nebraska Press, 2006
NOCTURNAL AMERICA is a collection of short stories, loosely connected by time, place and characters. They take place in the rural areas of eastern Washington State, and even into Canada.
The book jacket says the stories hinge on love. I agree that love is a connecting element of the stories, but I argue that they hinge more on chaos and conflict than on love. Readers familiar with Wallace Stenger’s theme of wilderness will find familiar echoes in Keeble’s book. Open and wild places are prominent in NOCTURNAL AMERICA, but the concept of wilderness here stems more from the conflict of desires and dreams than from mountains and rivers.
I loved these stories because they seemed to be honest about life without a throwing of the hands up in the air in exasperation- there was redemption woven into each story, and into the collected whole. Each character dealt with conflict in their won way, and each was able to find some sort of peace that was not provided as a gimmick by the writer.
For example, in “I Could Love You (If I Wanted)”, the character Lola struggles with issues at once: caring for an aged and dying other with a history of resenting her daughter; breaking up with a boyfriend of convenience, and moving out of her apartment into a house in the country, all the while struggling to make ends meet. The biggest struggle is with her mother, and Lola concludes that “I could love you,” mostly because she knows her mother is dying.
One earlier reviewer said that Keeble got viewpoints of both the female and male characters just right, and I agree. In fact, that subject would be a great one for a literary group (high school, college, or adult) to discuss after reading two of the stories.
Another story dealt with a character whose car was involved in an accident which killed a young immigrant women. The woman’s fiancé, also an immigrant, struggled to find a way to pronounce forgiveness.
All of the stories are relatively easy to read, yet provide ample food for thought for more serious readers. I look forward to reading them again, and to examining the other works by Keeble. He was a new author to me, but has written several novels as well as an account of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
George R. Pasley
University of Nebraska Press, 2006
NOCTURNAL AMERICA is a collection of short stories, loosely connected by time, place and characters. They take place in the rural areas of eastern Washington State, and even into Canada.
The book jacket says the stories hinge on love. I agree that love is a connecting element of the stories, but I argue that they hinge more on chaos and conflict than on love. Readers familiar with Wallace Stenger’s theme of wilderness will find familiar echoes in Keeble’s book. Open and wild places are prominent in NOCTURNAL AMERICA, but the concept of wilderness here stems more from the conflict of desires and dreams than from mountains and rivers.
I loved these stories because they seemed to be honest about life without a throwing of the hands up in the air in exasperation- there was redemption woven into each story, and into the collected whole. Each character dealt with conflict in their won way, and each was able to find some sort of peace that was not provided as a gimmick by the writer.
For example, in “I Could Love You (If I Wanted)”, the character Lola struggles with issues at once: caring for an aged and dying other with a history of resenting her daughter; breaking up with a boyfriend of convenience, and moving out of her apartment into a house in the country, all the while struggling to make ends meet. The biggest struggle is with her mother, and Lola concludes that “I could love you,” mostly because she knows her mother is dying.
One earlier reviewer said that Keeble got viewpoints of both the female and male characters just right, and I agree. In fact, that subject would be a great one for a literary group (high school, college, or adult) to discuss after reading two of the stories.
Another story dealt with a character whose car was involved in an accident which killed a young immigrant women. The woman’s fiancé, also an immigrant, struggled to find a way to pronounce forgiveness.
All of the stories are relatively easy to read, yet provide ample food for thought for more serious readers. I look forward to reading them again, and to examining the other works by Keeble. He was a new author to me, but has written several novels as well as an account of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
George R. Pasley
WHAT IS THE WHAT
By Dave Eggers
Vintage Books, 2006
“What Is the What” is an autobiographical account of a young boy who fled his village in the Sudan when it was attacked my government sponsored militia. The boy, Valentino, became one of “The Lost Boys of the Sudan,” who received world-wide attention because of their long dangerous trek on foot to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya.
Though it is autobiography, the account is published as a novel because the storyteller, Valentino, is relying on memory of events that happened more than a decade ago. Everything in the book happened, but it may not have happened to Valentino, and it may not have happened when and where the book says it happened.
The book is an interesting and gripping read. It opens in the near present when Valentino, now an American, is the victim of a home invasion in Atlanta. Bound and gagged, he begins to recall the tragic events of his life, imagining that he is telling them to his muggers. The book uses this literary device to the end, interchanging the story of his life as a refugee with the story of his attempt to get help for the beating he received in Atlanta.
The original event- the attack on his village by government sponsored militia- occurred in the 1980s. Valentino does not offer dates, but makes references by his own chronological age. The events in the book should not be confused with modern day events in the Darfur region of the Sudan. These modern events are but one more new atrocity perpetuated by the Sudanese government.
The book is not a complicated read, but neither is it light reading. Each chapter is filled with tragedy, and the book is 538 pages long. However, it provides incredible insight into the life of a refugee- a sort of survival guide for both the body and spirit. Those who read it will not be pleased with the world’s system of responding to massive situations of urgent human need.
In particular, I was struck by the discordant appearance of life in America when the refugees finally arrived. They were shown massive displays of wealth, but they had a very difficult time adapting to life in America. Life in America was supposed to be filled with opportunity, but his sometime girlfriend was murdered. Americans seemed no better at responding to individual need than the world did responding to massive suffering. In particular, Valentino spent hours and hours waiting for treatment of his wounds, while pondering the fact that he was having difficulty in his college courses. He could not identify the reason for his struggles, he was having trouble getting admitted to a four year school, and people who had helped him settle in Atlanta were beginning to lose interest in him. The book closes with Valentino deciding to make a new home for himself in another town, but it left me wondering about the way we Americans care for each other.
I think this would be an excellent book for group discussions, if the readers can get past its length. It is a definite read for persons passionate about issues of social justice.
George R. Pasley
January 14, 2008
Vintage Books, 2006
“What Is the What” is an autobiographical account of a young boy who fled his village in the Sudan when it was attacked my government sponsored militia. The boy, Valentino, became one of “The Lost Boys of the Sudan,” who received world-wide attention because of their long dangerous trek on foot to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya.
Though it is autobiography, the account is published as a novel because the storyteller, Valentino, is relying on memory of events that happened more than a decade ago. Everything in the book happened, but it may not have happened to Valentino, and it may not have happened when and where the book says it happened.
The book is an interesting and gripping read. It opens in the near present when Valentino, now an American, is the victim of a home invasion in Atlanta. Bound and gagged, he begins to recall the tragic events of his life, imagining that he is telling them to his muggers. The book uses this literary device to the end, interchanging the story of his life as a refugee with the story of his attempt to get help for the beating he received in Atlanta.
The original event- the attack on his village by government sponsored militia- occurred in the 1980s. Valentino does not offer dates, but makes references by his own chronological age. The events in the book should not be confused with modern day events in the Darfur region of the Sudan. These modern events are but one more new atrocity perpetuated by the Sudanese government.
The book is not a complicated read, but neither is it light reading. Each chapter is filled with tragedy, and the book is 538 pages long. However, it provides incredible insight into the life of a refugee- a sort of survival guide for both the body and spirit. Those who read it will not be pleased with the world’s system of responding to massive situations of urgent human need.
In particular, I was struck by the discordant appearance of life in America when the refugees finally arrived. They were shown massive displays of wealth, but they had a very difficult time adapting to life in America. Life in America was supposed to be filled with opportunity, but his sometime girlfriend was murdered. Americans seemed no better at responding to individual need than the world did responding to massive suffering. In particular, Valentino spent hours and hours waiting for treatment of his wounds, while pondering the fact that he was having difficulty in his college courses. He could not identify the reason for his struggles, he was having trouble getting admitted to a four year school, and people who had helped him settle in Atlanta were beginning to lose interest in him. The book closes with Valentino deciding to make a new home for himself in another town, but it left me wondering about the way we Americans care for each other.
I think this would be an excellent book for group discussions, if the readers can get past its length. It is a definite read for persons passionate about issues of social justice.
George R. Pasley
January 14, 2008
ENGLISH CREEK
ENGLISH CREEK
By Ivan Doig
Over this past year I have enjoyed reading the novels of Ivan Doig. Born in Montana, current resident of Washington, Ivan’s historical novels feature wonderful character development and a wide variety of writing styles. Most of them are set in Montana, in the time since statehood.
I want to share one scene from one novel with you. The novel is “English Creek,” published in 1984 by Scribner, printed in paperback in 2005.
English Creek is the name of a fictional rural community. It is a first person narrative told by Jick (short for Jarrick) McCaskill. It narrates the summer months of Jick’s 14th year of age. His older brother, Alec, is away for the summer- and for good, it turns out- working on the big ranch in the valley. His father, Varick, is a forest ranger. His mother, Beth, is portrayed as a no-nonsense farm wife. Thought the only woman in the household, she certainly held her own. The men in the story are always on their toes as far as Beth is concerned.
Jick is of the age where he is starting to notice things. He notices a strange relationship between his father and a local drifter, a man who is an alcoholic. He worries about the rift between his parents and his older brother. The plot of the story involves Jick trying to figure these things out, and their meaning on his place in the world, (he wonders about that, too).
The year is 1939. The rural community has suffered from plagues of locust, droughts, forest fires and collapsed economy. The old rural neighborhoods where neighbor helped neighbor are disappearing.
The scene takes place at the July 4 picnic in town. Unbeknownst to Jick, his mother has been asked to be the main speaker at the community celebration. She is a former schoolteacher and a member of one of the local school boards for the one room schools.
She stands up to speak, and it is a biography of a certain man, now deceased. But Beth takes the opportunity to talk about the way things have changed, and that change is not for the good. She finds opportunity in her speech to cleverly and subtly incriminate certain “greedy” factions of the community.
The crowd takes notice. Some cheer. Others shift nervously on their feet.
Her speech concludes, “There is much wrong in this world, and I suppose I am not known to be especially bashful about my list of those things. But I think it could not be more than right that we honor in this valley a man who savvied the land and its livelihood, who honored the earth instead of coveting it. It could not be more right that tall Ben English in his black hat amidst green fields, coaxing a head of water to make itself into hay, is the one whose name this creek carries.”
Beth steps down from the podium, and her son describes the reception of her speech:
“…but of us all, it was only to my father that she said, in what would have been a demand if there hadn’t been the tint of anxiousness in it: ‘Well? What did you think?’
My father reached and with his forefinger traced back into place a banner of her hair that the creek breeze had lifted and lain across her ear.
’I think,’ he said, ‘I think that being married to you is worth all the risk’” (p. 157)
The scenes that follow feature a 4th of July square dance in which Jick dances with his mother, a tale wonderfully told.
All in all, the novel- which also features some sheep ranching, mountain trail horse riding, and forest fire fighting- manages to capture and freeze simultaneously a moment of early adolescence and of another America.
George R. Pasley
By Ivan Doig
Over this past year I have enjoyed reading the novels of Ivan Doig. Born in Montana, current resident of Washington, Ivan’s historical novels feature wonderful character development and a wide variety of writing styles. Most of them are set in Montana, in the time since statehood.
I want to share one scene from one novel with you. The novel is “English Creek,” published in 1984 by Scribner, printed in paperback in 2005.
English Creek is the name of a fictional rural community. It is a first person narrative told by Jick (short for Jarrick) McCaskill. It narrates the summer months of Jick’s 14th year of age. His older brother, Alec, is away for the summer- and for good, it turns out- working on the big ranch in the valley. His father, Varick, is a forest ranger. His mother, Beth, is portrayed as a no-nonsense farm wife. Thought the only woman in the household, she certainly held her own. The men in the story are always on their toes as far as Beth is concerned.
Jick is of the age where he is starting to notice things. He notices a strange relationship between his father and a local drifter, a man who is an alcoholic. He worries about the rift between his parents and his older brother. The plot of the story involves Jick trying to figure these things out, and their meaning on his place in the world, (he wonders about that, too).
The year is 1939. The rural community has suffered from plagues of locust, droughts, forest fires and collapsed economy. The old rural neighborhoods where neighbor helped neighbor are disappearing.
The scene takes place at the July 4 picnic in town. Unbeknownst to Jick, his mother has been asked to be the main speaker at the community celebration. She is a former schoolteacher and a member of one of the local school boards for the one room schools.
She stands up to speak, and it is a biography of a certain man, now deceased. But Beth takes the opportunity to talk about the way things have changed, and that change is not for the good. She finds opportunity in her speech to cleverly and subtly incriminate certain “greedy” factions of the community.
The crowd takes notice. Some cheer. Others shift nervously on their feet.
Her speech concludes, “There is much wrong in this world, and I suppose I am not known to be especially bashful about my list of those things. But I think it could not be more than right that we honor in this valley a man who savvied the land and its livelihood, who honored the earth instead of coveting it. It could not be more right that tall Ben English in his black hat amidst green fields, coaxing a head of water to make itself into hay, is the one whose name this creek carries.”
Beth steps down from the podium, and her son describes the reception of her speech:
“…but of us all, it was only to my father that she said, in what would have been a demand if there hadn’t been the tint of anxiousness in it: ‘Well? What did you think?’
My father reached and with his forefinger traced back into place a banner of her hair that the creek breeze had lifted and lain across her ear.
’I think,’ he said, ‘I think that being married to you is worth all the risk’” (p. 157)
The scenes that follow feature a 4th of July square dance in which Jick dances with his mother, a tale wonderfully told.
All in all, the novel- which also features some sheep ranching, mountain trail horse riding, and forest fire fighting- manages to capture and freeze simultaneously a moment of early adolescence and of another America.
George R. Pasley
AMAZING GRACE
AMAZING GRACE
By Eric Metaxas
HarperSanFrancisco, 2007
Amazing Grace was an easy book to read, and one that should be a definite must read for persons interested in the correlation between Christianity and social justice.
Amazing Grace is a biography William Wilberforce (1759-1833), the British parliamentarian who championed a great many social causes during the reign of King George III. Primary among those causes was the abolition of the slave trade by British merchant ships, and the abolition of slavery itself within all British colonies.
Wilberforce took up these causes after a religious awakening, and Metaxas explains in bright detail the tepid religious convictions of the times and the ridicule and scorn that was often extended to Methodists and Quakers. His history includes more than a brief mention of John Wesley and John Newton, who both influenced Wilberforce, and Granville Sharp and Hannah More, who both worked with Wilberforce on his causes.
Other issues that received Wilberforce’s attention are briefly discussed in the book, including the legalization of sending missionaries to India, human rights issues in India, the establishment of nations governed by freed slaves (Haiti and Sierra Leone), capital punishment, and a broad assortment of issues concerning the poor. Metaxas argues that Wilberforce and his wide association of like-minded friends brought about a permanent change in British culture and philosophy.
One interesting point brought to light by my reading of this book is the democratization of England that occurred in the period after the American Revolution. Metaxas says that the abolitionists, led by Wilberforce, were in part responsible for this. He cites a petition received by Parliament signed by opponents to the slave trade. The petition had one million names, while the entire population of Great Britain was only 14 million.
One can tell from the reading that Metaxas surely enjoyed his work- the writing is filled with humor and irony. It is also slightly romanticized, but nonetheless is insightful with regards to current points of view and how certain portions of history are perceived.
The book makes a great companion on my bookshelf next to Beyond the River (Ann Hagedorn, Simon & Schuster, 2002) which chronicles the American abolitionist movement, primarily through the work of Presbyterian preacher John Rankin (1793–1886). Wilberforce seems a much more likable person than Rankin, but the two books, by chronicling the work of these two significant persons, plus others of their time and place, provide an assortment of examples of how Christians have engaged in Kingdom work.
George R. Pasley
November 5, 2007
By Eric Metaxas
HarperSanFrancisco, 2007
Amazing Grace was an easy book to read, and one that should be a definite must read for persons interested in the correlation between Christianity and social justice.
Amazing Grace is a biography William Wilberforce (1759-1833), the British parliamentarian who championed a great many social causes during the reign of King George III. Primary among those causes was the abolition of the slave trade by British merchant ships, and the abolition of slavery itself within all British colonies.
Wilberforce took up these causes after a religious awakening, and Metaxas explains in bright detail the tepid religious convictions of the times and the ridicule and scorn that was often extended to Methodists and Quakers. His history includes more than a brief mention of John Wesley and John Newton, who both influenced Wilberforce, and Granville Sharp and Hannah More, who both worked with Wilberforce on his causes.
Other issues that received Wilberforce’s attention are briefly discussed in the book, including the legalization of sending missionaries to India, human rights issues in India, the establishment of nations governed by freed slaves (Haiti and Sierra Leone), capital punishment, and a broad assortment of issues concerning the poor. Metaxas argues that Wilberforce and his wide association of like-minded friends brought about a permanent change in British culture and philosophy.
One interesting point brought to light by my reading of this book is the democratization of England that occurred in the period after the American Revolution. Metaxas says that the abolitionists, led by Wilberforce, were in part responsible for this. He cites a petition received by Parliament signed by opponents to the slave trade. The petition had one million names, while the entire population of Great Britain was only 14 million.
One can tell from the reading that Metaxas surely enjoyed his work- the writing is filled with humor and irony. It is also slightly romanticized, but nonetheless is insightful with regards to current points of view and how certain portions of history are perceived.
The book makes a great companion on my bookshelf next to Beyond the River (Ann Hagedorn, Simon & Schuster, 2002) which chronicles the American abolitionist movement, primarily through the work of Presbyterian preacher John Rankin (1793–1886). Wilberforce seems a much more likable person than Rankin, but the two books, by chronicling the work of these two significant persons, plus others of their time and place, provide an assortment of examples of how Christians have engaged in Kingdom work.
George R. Pasley
November 5, 2007
THE MAYTREES
THE MAYTREES
By Annie Dillard
HarperCollins, 2007
Annie Dillard has earned a place on a list of America’s greatest authors, and her newest book certainly adds to a rich resume.
The book is a novel, set in Provincetown on Cape Cod, telling the stories of one man and one woman who fall in love (the Maytrees, Toby and Lou, hence the title). Like all of Dillard’s body of work, this one is rich with the flavor and language of the local geography (Dillard now lives on Cape Cod after once living in the Northwest and before that, Virginia). The novel starts just after World War Two, and ends perhaps just before the turn of our century.
In The Maytrees, Dillard resumes her theme of life and death. Her first book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, earned a Pulitzer Prize. It studied the nature of life and death from a non-fiction perspective. Her lengthy novel, The Living, set in the northwest, studied life and death over the course of generations in a community. Dillard’s newest novel studies life and death from the perspective of one couple who live both figuratively and literally beneath the stars on Cape Cod. But Dillard adds a wrinkle to this particular study. Toby Maytree is a poet whose work is an effort to define love. Thus, life and death are shaped by love.
There are three spectacular twists to the love affair of Toby and Lou, and I shall not spoil the book by naming them. Each one comes as a surprise to the reader. They are provocative, and the reader will perhaps find herself muttering, “No.” Whatever the response, the twists work a strong impression on the reader and mark Dillard as a genius not only of words but of plot.
This particular work is perhaps Dillard’s sparsest use of words. The language is almost poetic, for the sparseness combines with a very vivid selection of words:
“Yankee the turtle crawled out from under the couch and stretched his snake neck. He stood square as a pack mule waiting its load, like the lowest totem-pole animal resigned to shouldering all the rest, or resigned to lifting the seas that floated the lands, if this was that kind of world. He regarded dead Dreary with the obsidian calm of a god.” (p. 181)
Some readers may find it odd and unsettling, others will eat it up. Go ahead and chew, it tastes good!
George R. Pasley
By Annie Dillard
HarperCollins, 2007
Annie Dillard has earned a place on a list of America’s greatest authors, and her newest book certainly adds to a rich resume.
The book is a novel, set in Provincetown on Cape Cod, telling the stories of one man and one woman who fall in love (the Maytrees, Toby and Lou, hence the title). Like all of Dillard’s body of work, this one is rich with the flavor and language of the local geography (Dillard now lives on Cape Cod after once living in the Northwest and before that, Virginia). The novel starts just after World War Two, and ends perhaps just before the turn of our century.
In The Maytrees, Dillard resumes her theme of life and death. Her first book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, earned a Pulitzer Prize. It studied the nature of life and death from a non-fiction perspective. Her lengthy novel, The Living, set in the northwest, studied life and death over the course of generations in a community. Dillard’s newest novel studies life and death from the perspective of one couple who live both figuratively and literally beneath the stars on Cape Cod. But Dillard adds a wrinkle to this particular study. Toby Maytree is a poet whose work is an effort to define love. Thus, life and death are shaped by love.
There are three spectacular twists to the love affair of Toby and Lou, and I shall not spoil the book by naming them. Each one comes as a surprise to the reader. They are provocative, and the reader will perhaps find herself muttering, “No.” Whatever the response, the twists work a strong impression on the reader and mark Dillard as a genius not only of words but of plot.
This particular work is perhaps Dillard’s sparsest use of words. The language is almost poetic, for the sparseness combines with a very vivid selection of words:
“Yankee the turtle crawled out from under the couch and stretched his snake neck. He stood square as a pack mule waiting its load, like the lowest totem-pole animal resigned to shouldering all the rest, or resigned to lifting the seas that floated the lands, if this was that kind of world. He regarded dead Dreary with the obsidian calm of a god.” (p. 181)
Some readers may find it odd and unsettling, others will eat it up. Go ahead and chew, it tastes good!
George R. Pasley
CORRECTING THE LANDSCAPE
CORRECTING THE LANDSCAPE
By Marjorie Kowalski Cole
HarperCollins, 2006
This is an Alaska novel, but it has next to nothing to do with hunting or fishing.
Set in modern day Fairbanks, the novel tells the story of a weekly newspaper publisher who is falling on hard financial times. Each of the other characters in the story experiences their own “hard times,” and the plot centers on their emotional response to failure. An Irish immigrant without green card status is discovered by the INS; a Native Alaskan woman who has been married and divorced four times struggles to raise her child in the modern world without forgetting her native traditions; A land developer always successful in business is divorced by his wife, then later dumped by his artistic girlfriend.
Each of those characters find their own personal landscape in need of correction, but the title of the book comes from a poem written by the Irish immigrant, and it refers to the making protest, generally in some form of artistic manner.
When do you let go of something or someone you love? When do you take a leap of faith into some new direction? How can you hold your head up after failing? The characters in this story found themselves asking those same questions.
I really enjoyed the plot line in this novel. The text itself is not great prose, but the story line is thoughtful and true. It’s especially nice to see a story that is not a success story and neither a tragedy. The characters in the story turn out to be winners not because they succeeded but because they adapted and because they discovered their real selves.
I say this is an Alaska novel, and it is. Some particular regional references are explained by the writer, but a few others go unexplained and would be totally lost on someone not familiar with the regional cultures. Too much explanation might just spoil the narrative, which is a good one, so bear with what you don’t understand.
George R. Pasley
By Marjorie Kowalski Cole
HarperCollins, 2006
This is an Alaska novel, but it has next to nothing to do with hunting or fishing.
Set in modern day Fairbanks, the novel tells the story of a weekly newspaper publisher who is falling on hard financial times. Each of the other characters in the story experiences their own “hard times,” and the plot centers on their emotional response to failure. An Irish immigrant without green card status is discovered by the INS; a Native Alaskan woman who has been married and divorced four times struggles to raise her child in the modern world without forgetting her native traditions; A land developer always successful in business is divorced by his wife, then later dumped by his artistic girlfriend.
Each of those characters find their own personal landscape in need of correction, but the title of the book comes from a poem written by the Irish immigrant, and it refers to the making protest, generally in some form of artistic manner.
When do you let go of something or someone you love? When do you take a leap of faith into some new direction? How can you hold your head up after failing? The characters in this story found themselves asking those same questions.
I really enjoyed the plot line in this novel. The text itself is not great prose, but the story line is thoughtful and true. It’s especially nice to see a story that is not a success story and neither a tragedy. The characters in the story turn out to be winners not because they succeeded but because they adapted and because they discovered their real selves.
I say this is an Alaska novel, and it is. Some particular regional references are explained by the writer, but a few others go unexplained and would be totally lost on someone not familiar with the regional cultures. Too much explanation might just spoil the narrative, which is a good one, so bear with what you don’t understand.
George R. Pasley
PRAY WITHOUT CEASING
PRAY WITHOUT CEASING: Revitalizing Pastoral Care
Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger
2007, William B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids
I like this book so much I wrote two mini-reviews of praise during my reading of it. As I got closer to the end, I liked it more and more. I bought an extra copy and had it shipped to a friend before I was through. I think it deserves a place on every pastor’s bookshelf, but it should not stay long on the shelf- it deserves to be read over and over again.
One reason I like the book so much is that it serves two purposes, and each of those for at last two audiences. Yet all are bound together in one integrated narrative, as best described in the opening paragraph: “Pastoral care cannot be Christian unless conducted in a spirit of reverence. The work of prayer is integral to every step. If we believe that it is finally God who provides what is needed, then prayer is not optional” (p. 1). This theme is woven into the rest of the book. In the chapter on prayers of lament, Hunsinger describes Job’s unseen encounter with the Holy Spirit, then writes: “The unique history that unfolds between God and Job is a paradigm for pastoral care. The decisive encounter is shown to be not between the caregiver and the afflicted, but between the afflicted one and God” (p. 149)
Hunsinger presents first a ”Theology of Koinonia” in which “prayer in the context of pastoral care draws persons into intimate fellowship with God and one another” (p. 3), then lays solid groundwork for understanding that prayer is the essence of communion with God.
Chapters two, three and four speak to the listening aspect of prayer- listening to God, listening to each other, and listening to ourselves. Chapters five, six, seven, eight and nine speak to distinctive types of prayer.
The book is thus both a primer on pastoral care, and a primer on prayer. It is easy to understand, written without jargon, and develops in logical manner. It can be used by pastor and layperson alike, as individuals or as a class. In fact, there are several wonderful appendages that provide teaching tips for each chapter. These are not lesson plans, but ideas to either shape or include in your own lesson plans. For instance, the ideas for teaching Chapter Two, Listening to God include a group practice of lectio divina (nicely outlined in the suggestion) and a group discussion of which Psalms might be worth “learning by heart.” Many of the teaching ideas could be used as an individual reading or re-reading the book alone.
The book is almost poetic in its style. Consider this passage from chapter eight: “What does the church have to offer when natural eloquence fails? When someone shares a great joy, is it received with the dignity it deserves, or is it trivialized with paltry words of congratulations? Does the church have the sanctified imagination that can discern the sacrifice, the faithful hoping against hope, the persevering struggle that prepared the person’s heart for this longed for day? Can caregivers enter imaginatively into the long night that preceded this day of splendor?” (p. 183).
The author was my professor for one class at seminary, but I did not take a basic course in pastoral care. This book has really added to the knowledge that I need to function as a pastor, both in terms of pastoral care and in my own prayer life.
George R. Pasley
May 23, 2007
Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger
2007, William B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids
I like this book so much I wrote two mini-reviews of praise during my reading of it. As I got closer to the end, I liked it more and more. I bought an extra copy and had it shipped to a friend before I was through. I think it deserves a place on every pastor’s bookshelf, but it should not stay long on the shelf- it deserves to be read over and over again.
One reason I like the book so much is that it serves two purposes, and each of those for at last two audiences. Yet all are bound together in one integrated narrative, as best described in the opening paragraph: “Pastoral care cannot be Christian unless conducted in a spirit of reverence. The work of prayer is integral to every step. If we believe that it is finally God who provides what is needed, then prayer is not optional” (p. 1). This theme is woven into the rest of the book. In the chapter on prayers of lament, Hunsinger describes Job’s unseen encounter with the Holy Spirit, then writes: “The unique history that unfolds between God and Job is a paradigm for pastoral care. The decisive encounter is shown to be not between the caregiver and the afflicted, but between the afflicted one and God” (p. 149)
Hunsinger presents first a ”Theology of Koinonia” in which “prayer in the context of pastoral care draws persons into intimate fellowship with God and one another” (p. 3), then lays solid groundwork for understanding that prayer is the essence of communion with God.
Chapters two, three and four speak to the listening aspect of prayer- listening to God, listening to each other, and listening to ourselves. Chapters five, six, seven, eight and nine speak to distinctive types of prayer.
The book is thus both a primer on pastoral care, and a primer on prayer. It is easy to understand, written without jargon, and develops in logical manner. It can be used by pastor and layperson alike, as individuals or as a class. In fact, there are several wonderful appendages that provide teaching tips for each chapter. These are not lesson plans, but ideas to either shape or include in your own lesson plans. For instance, the ideas for teaching Chapter Two, Listening to God include a group practice of lectio divina (nicely outlined in the suggestion) and a group discussion of which Psalms might be worth “learning by heart.” Many of the teaching ideas could be used as an individual reading or re-reading the book alone.
The book is almost poetic in its style. Consider this passage from chapter eight: “What does the church have to offer when natural eloquence fails? When someone shares a great joy, is it received with the dignity it deserves, or is it trivialized with paltry words of congratulations? Does the church have the sanctified imagination that can discern the sacrifice, the faithful hoping against hope, the persevering struggle that prepared the person’s heart for this longed for day? Can caregivers enter imaginatively into the long night that preceded this day of splendor?” (p. 183).
The author was my professor for one class at seminary, but I did not take a basic course in pastoral care. This book has really added to the knowledge that I need to function as a pastor, both in terms of pastoral care and in my own prayer life.
George R. Pasley
May 23, 2007
GOD LAUGHS AND PLAYS
God Laughs & Plays
by David James Duncan
“God Laughs & Plays” is a collection of essays by David James Duncan, a writer known for his love of fly-fishing and for two previous books, “The River Why” (another essay collection) and “The Brothers K” (a novel). This particular collection is subtitled “Churchless sermons in response to the preachments of the Fundamentalist Right”. Fear not, though. The book is neither dry theology, nor ranting polemic. Instead, it is indeed exactly as the title says- a discussion of a happy God, and the creation of that same God.
In “God Laughs & Plays” Duncan repeatedly says he is not Christian, but makes it very clear that he loves Jesus. He also displays a tremendous knowledge of the Christian faith, and a greater understanding of the faith than most Christian congregants and many Christian preachers. Duncan was raised by Seventh Day Adventists, with an occasional visit to church with one Presbyterian grandmother (He calls worship there “banal”. Ouch!)
Duncan’s two main passions are peace- particularly his anger over the war in Iraq- and environmentalism. He is critical of the religious right and the political right, but what makes his writing different (almost uniquely different) is his understanding of the need to love those he criticizes. In a delightful essay titled “What Fundamentalists Need for Their Salvation” he quotes St. John of the Cross: “Have a great love for those who contradict and fail to love you, for in this way love is begotten in a heart that has no love. This is how God acts with us: He loves us that we might by means of the very love that he bears toward us.” (p. 49)
Essay number 10, “Romeo Shows Jamey the Door” is actually a short story about a man and the death of his dog. The book is well worth purchasing for this story alone, which has to be one of the finest short stories in the English language. Preachers who want to reach about heaven will find it well worth reading. “He didn’t understand now. He just sensed, without understanding, that the darting of Romeo’s life out of this world was not the opposite of Lilly’s (his daughter) birth, but its twin. Whatever or whoever made Romeo Romeo was no more dead than Lilly was in the moment before her birth.” (pp. 160-161)
Readers not attuned to mysticism will find a few of the essays difficult to follow, not because they are highly technical (they are not) but because they are a different type of literature than we are accustomed to reading, but even those essays have gems worth gleaning.
This is sure to become a book that I read over and over again because Duncan artfully anchors theology to the earth, and weaves it beautifully into deep solid relationships with friend and foe alike.
George R. Pasley
by David James Duncan
“God Laughs & Plays” is a collection of essays by David James Duncan, a writer known for his love of fly-fishing and for two previous books, “The River Why” (another essay collection) and “The Brothers K” (a novel). This particular collection is subtitled “Churchless sermons in response to the preachments of the Fundamentalist Right”. Fear not, though. The book is neither dry theology, nor ranting polemic. Instead, it is indeed exactly as the title says- a discussion of a happy God, and the creation of that same God.
In “God Laughs & Plays” Duncan repeatedly says he is not Christian, but makes it very clear that he loves Jesus. He also displays a tremendous knowledge of the Christian faith, and a greater understanding of the faith than most Christian congregants and many Christian preachers. Duncan was raised by Seventh Day Adventists, with an occasional visit to church with one Presbyterian grandmother (He calls worship there “banal”. Ouch!)
Duncan’s two main passions are peace- particularly his anger over the war in Iraq- and environmentalism. He is critical of the religious right and the political right, but what makes his writing different (almost uniquely different) is his understanding of the need to love those he criticizes. In a delightful essay titled “What Fundamentalists Need for Their Salvation” he quotes St. John of the Cross: “Have a great love for those who contradict and fail to love you, for in this way love is begotten in a heart that has no love. This is how God acts with us: He loves us that we might by means of the very love that he bears toward us.” (p. 49)
Essay number 10, “Romeo Shows Jamey the Door” is actually a short story about a man and the death of his dog. The book is well worth purchasing for this story alone, which has to be one of the finest short stories in the English language. Preachers who want to reach about heaven will find it well worth reading. “He didn’t understand now. He just sensed, without understanding, that the darting of Romeo’s life out of this world was not the opposite of Lilly’s (his daughter) birth, but its twin. Whatever or whoever made Romeo Romeo was no more dead than Lilly was in the moment before her birth.” (pp. 160-161)
Readers not attuned to mysticism will find a few of the essays difficult to follow, not because they are highly technical (they are not) but because they are a different type of literature than we are accustomed to reading, but even those essays have gems worth gleaning.
This is sure to become a book that I read over and over again because Duncan artfully anchors theology to the earth, and weaves it beautifully into deep solid relationships with friend and foe alike.
George R. Pasley
GRACE (EVENTUALLY)
GRACE (EVENTUALLY)
A Review by George R. Pasley
New York, Riverhead Books, 2007
Hardbound, 253 pages. $24.95
Anne Lamott never disappoints, and her new book proves the point.
The prelude to GRACE (EVENTUALLY): Thoughts on Faith tells about a horrible time in her pre-Christian life, when she was dumped by her lover and, as she puts it, “still drinking.”
In the story she meets up with her ex, spends the night with him, and then gets physically ill when he leaves his apartment to go back to his new girlfriend. But on his nightstand she discovers a book: The Only Dance There Is, by Ram Dass.
There was nothing new in the book, but it was told by a vulnerable person, with humor, and she could not put it down. It was one step on the way to finding Jesus. So Anne’s latest book, told with the memory of another book, is about learning how to dance- how to walk with God, and learn the steps of grace.
The best thing to do is first remind you that if you have any sense of humor at all, you will laugh with Anne. The second best thing to do is tell you to lay aside any predilections you have towards holiness. They will only get in the way of appreciating Anne’s writing, and if you appreciate her writing, you will be on the path back towards a wholesome sort of holiness.
The final thing that I can do is give you a snippet. After describing how her son, at the age of ten, weaned himself from sleeping in his mother’s bedroom by sleeping on the floor every night, slowly moving out of her bedroom, down the hall, through the living room and into his own bedroom, just a few feet at a time, over a period of weeks, Anne writes:
“That’s me, trying to make any progress at all with family, in work, relationships, self-image: scootch, scootch, stall; scootch, stall, catastrophic reversal; bog, bog, scootch. I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things; also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace’s arrival. But no, it’s clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in silence, in the dark.
“I suppose that if you were snatched out of the mess, you’d miss the lesson: the lesson is the slog…”
Anne is particularly and uniquely adept at learning the lessons of grace. When she writes the lessons, she goes one step better. Every word is graceful. Enjoy!
George R. Pasley
March 23, 2007
A Review by George R. Pasley
New York, Riverhead Books, 2007
Hardbound, 253 pages. $24.95
Anne Lamott never disappoints, and her new book proves the point.
The prelude to GRACE (EVENTUALLY): Thoughts on Faith tells about a horrible time in her pre-Christian life, when she was dumped by her lover and, as she puts it, “still drinking.”
In the story she meets up with her ex, spends the night with him, and then gets physically ill when he leaves his apartment to go back to his new girlfriend. But on his nightstand she discovers a book: The Only Dance There Is, by Ram Dass.
There was nothing new in the book, but it was told by a vulnerable person, with humor, and she could not put it down. It was one step on the way to finding Jesus. So Anne’s latest book, told with the memory of another book, is about learning how to dance- how to walk with God, and learn the steps of grace.
The best thing to do is first remind you that if you have any sense of humor at all, you will laugh with Anne. The second best thing to do is tell you to lay aside any predilections you have towards holiness. They will only get in the way of appreciating Anne’s writing, and if you appreciate her writing, you will be on the path back towards a wholesome sort of holiness.
The final thing that I can do is give you a snippet. After describing how her son, at the age of ten, weaned himself from sleeping in his mother’s bedroom by sleeping on the floor every night, slowly moving out of her bedroom, down the hall, through the living room and into his own bedroom, just a few feet at a time, over a period of weeks, Anne writes:
“That’s me, trying to make any progress at all with family, in work, relationships, self-image: scootch, scootch, stall; scootch, stall, catastrophic reversal; bog, bog, scootch. I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things; also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace’s arrival. But no, it’s clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in silence, in the dark.
“I suppose that if you were snatched out of the mess, you’d miss the lesson: the lesson is the slog…”
Anne is particularly and uniquely adept at learning the lessons of grace. When she writes the lessons, she goes one step better. Every word is graceful. Enjoy!
George R. Pasley
March 23, 2007
LEAVING CHURCH
LEAVING CHURCH
I just finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s newest book, “LEAVING CHURCH: a memoir of faith” (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).
The book describes her faith journey into the Episcopal priesthood, then from a large-multi staffed church into a small rural church, and then out of the parish ministry when that small rural church became large. Taylor is now a college professor. She is still ordained, and sees her ministry as teaching.
I shall endeavor not to put words into Taylor’s mouth by condensing what she has said herself. Let me just say that she loves the church, loved parish life, and loves God. She identifies her own faults, and goes so far as to say this memoir is about her own journey, and it is not everybody’s journey. I’m so glad she made that point important.
There are parts of the book that make me cry with joy. Every part of the book is insightful. It is filled with depth yet incredibly easy to read. I especially like the part where she talks about new ways of being and doing church. Let me give an example.
“What if people were invited to come and tell what they already knew of God instead of learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they’re doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if the church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in church?” (p. 222)
My problem with the book is that she seems to be saying, “You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, and you don’t even have to be a Christian.”
I like the way she says it, and I like most (in fact, almost all) of what she says. I can travel even with her so far, but I have a hard time with either conclusion.
George R. Pasley
I just finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s newest book, “LEAVING CHURCH: a memoir of faith” (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).
The book describes her faith journey into the Episcopal priesthood, then from a large-multi staffed church into a small rural church, and then out of the parish ministry when that small rural church became large. Taylor is now a college professor. She is still ordained, and sees her ministry as teaching.
I shall endeavor not to put words into Taylor’s mouth by condensing what she has said herself. Let me just say that she loves the church, loved parish life, and loves God. She identifies her own faults, and goes so far as to say this memoir is about her own journey, and it is not everybody’s journey. I’m so glad she made that point important.
There are parts of the book that make me cry with joy. Every part of the book is insightful. It is filled with depth yet incredibly easy to read. I especially like the part where she talks about new ways of being and doing church. Let me give an example.
“What if people were invited to come and tell what they already knew of God instead of learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they’re doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if the church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in church?” (p. 222)
My problem with the book is that she seems to be saying, “You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, and you don’t even have to be a Christian.”
I like the way she says it, and I like most (in fact, almost all) of what she says. I can travel even with her so far, but I have a hard time with either conclusion.
George R. Pasley
READING THE BIBLE WITH THE DAMNED
READING THE BIBLE WITH THE DAMNED, by Bob Ekblad
Published by Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005
ISBN-13: 978-0-664-22917-7
US $17.95
The title of this book grabbed me, as for several years I have wrestled with the problem of preaching to the people who are not in church on Sundays- especially those who are aware of their sin and feel they cannot approach God, for fear of being condemned.
Ekblad, an ordained Presbyterian, is executive director of Tierra Nueva (New Earth), in Washington State. One of the ministries of Tierra Nueva is Bible Studies at the Skagit County Jail. The book borrows form real life Bible studies that Ekblad has led there, among men with all kinds of criminal records, many of whom are also illegal immigrants.
The book is very practical and chronicles step by step some specific Bible studies, including the response from the class members.
Take for example chapter one, “Reading Scripture for the Liberation of the Not-Yet-Believing.” Ekblad describes how Jesus gave the gift of hope to the disciples on the Emmaus Road, concluding, “Luke’s description of what Jesus deemed necessary for disillusioned disciples invites today’s church to change our ways of thinking about God.” (p. 2)
For Ekblad, the important thing is to challenge the theological assumptions of those who come to his study. Many of them come with the ability to “talk the talk,” as one of my Ketchikan colleagues says. They have heard the gospel and its explanation many times, and Ekblad says this is the biggest obstacle to their receiving hope. So, Ekblad offers five important things to do: Directly challenge common assumptions about God by offering counter images form scripture; Challenge their views of who God is by revealing Jesus to them; Welcome alternative and creative interpretations, modeling this yourself so they can become comfortable with the notion; Challenge interpretations that tell us what we have to do to be saved, and offer interpretations that tell what God has done to save us; and pay special attention to the silences in scriptures, taking note of what scripture DOES NOT say.
Ekblad’s specific examples include Genesis 1 (he asks the prisoners what is dark and chaotic in their lives), the creation of human beings in God’s image (What do you think God looks like?), Genesis 2 (What did God tell Adam and Eve they COULD do?), God’s call of Abraham (who is discovered to be an immigrant), the oppression and liberation of Hagar (the men in the Bible study quickly identified with Hagar!), Exodus 1 (where Egyptians felt threatened by their immigrant neighbors), the call of Moses (God used a murder hiding out from the law), Isaiah 40-55 (God recruits exiles), the Psalms (intimacy and honesty with God), “God’s call of Matthew (“He was doing something bad!”), and Following Jesus (described as a “Good Coyote”. A coyote is someone who leads immigrants through the dessert and across the border, for a fee. They are sometimes honest and sometimes scoundrels, but they all require trust).
Most helpful to me was the offering of a different understanding of how atonement works. To most law-abiding Americans, there is nothing wrong with understanding God as our judge. But to repeat offenders, the judge is not the person who sets them free, but the one who imprisons them. They know they cannot hear a good word from the judge unless they are innocent, or have paid their penalty.
But Ekblad offers a counterimage from scripture: Jesus as the healer. “The notion of sin as sickness and God as spiritual healer is profoundly biblical. In Isaiah 6:9-10, lack of understanding, spiritual blindness and deafness are depicted as spiritual maladies that result form being turned away from God. Returning to the Lord leads to healing.” (p. 56)
Two particular strengths make Ekblad’s method appealing. One, it is scriptural based. Two, it does not throw away the old, standard, reliable theology of mainline churches. Rather, it adds to it and enhances it, revealing a God who seeks out the lost. I thus found the book a good theological read as well as a practical guide for “how to lead Bible study.” Buy it or borrow it as soon as you get a chance!
George R. Pasley
Published by Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005
ISBN-13: 978-0-664-22917-7
US $17.95
The title of this book grabbed me, as for several years I have wrestled with the problem of preaching to the people who are not in church on Sundays- especially those who are aware of their sin and feel they cannot approach God, for fear of being condemned.
Ekblad, an ordained Presbyterian, is executive director of Tierra Nueva (New Earth), in Washington State. One of the ministries of Tierra Nueva is Bible Studies at the Skagit County Jail. The book borrows form real life Bible studies that Ekblad has led there, among men with all kinds of criminal records, many of whom are also illegal immigrants.
The book is very practical and chronicles step by step some specific Bible studies, including the response from the class members.
Take for example chapter one, “Reading Scripture for the Liberation of the Not-Yet-Believing.” Ekblad describes how Jesus gave the gift of hope to the disciples on the Emmaus Road, concluding, “Luke’s description of what Jesus deemed necessary for disillusioned disciples invites today’s church to change our ways of thinking about God.” (p. 2)
For Ekblad, the important thing is to challenge the theological assumptions of those who come to his study. Many of them come with the ability to “talk the talk,” as one of my Ketchikan colleagues says. They have heard the gospel and its explanation many times, and Ekblad says this is the biggest obstacle to their receiving hope. So, Ekblad offers five important things to do: Directly challenge common assumptions about God by offering counter images form scripture; Challenge their views of who God is by revealing Jesus to them; Welcome alternative and creative interpretations, modeling this yourself so they can become comfortable with the notion; Challenge interpretations that tell us what we have to do to be saved, and offer interpretations that tell what God has done to save us; and pay special attention to the silences in scriptures, taking note of what scripture DOES NOT say.
Ekblad’s specific examples include Genesis 1 (he asks the prisoners what is dark and chaotic in their lives), the creation of human beings in God’s image (What do you think God looks like?), Genesis 2 (What did God tell Adam and Eve they COULD do?), God’s call of Abraham (who is discovered to be an immigrant), the oppression and liberation of Hagar (the men in the Bible study quickly identified with Hagar!), Exodus 1 (where Egyptians felt threatened by their immigrant neighbors), the call of Moses (God used a murder hiding out from the law), Isaiah 40-55 (God recruits exiles), the Psalms (intimacy and honesty with God), “God’s call of Matthew (“He was doing something bad!”), and Following Jesus (described as a “Good Coyote”. A coyote is someone who leads immigrants through the dessert and across the border, for a fee. They are sometimes honest and sometimes scoundrels, but they all require trust).
Most helpful to me was the offering of a different understanding of how atonement works. To most law-abiding Americans, there is nothing wrong with understanding God as our judge. But to repeat offenders, the judge is not the person who sets them free, but the one who imprisons them. They know they cannot hear a good word from the judge unless they are innocent, or have paid their penalty.
But Ekblad offers a counterimage from scripture: Jesus as the healer. “The notion of sin as sickness and God as spiritual healer is profoundly biblical. In Isaiah 6:9-10, lack of understanding, spiritual blindness and deafness are depicted as spiritual maladies that result form being turned away from God. Returning to the Lord leads to healing.” (p. 56)
Two particular strengths make Ekblad’s method appealing. One, it is scriptural based. Two, it does not throw away the old, standard, reliable theology of mainline churches. Rather, it adds to it and enhances it, revealing a God who seeks out the lost. I thus found the book a good theological read as well as a practical guide for “how to lead Bible study.” Buy it or borrow it as soon as you get a chance!
George R. Pasley
DRAWING THE HOMELESS INTO CHURCH
DRAWING HOMELESS INTO THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH TAKES TIME
Milind Sojwal says it also takes a firm belief in the church’s calling to exist among the poor
By George R. Pasley
A few weeks ago I Googled our friend Milind Sojwal and discovered his congregation, All Angels Church in Manhattan, was the centerpiece of an article on dissent (with reference to homosexuality) in the Episcopal Church. The story had a picture of Milind leading worship in his bare feet, something which may help build connections with the homeless, artists and yuppies which make up his congregation.
The story was not about homeless ministries, but it mentioned enough about them to make me curious. So I called Milind. He was eager to talk, and this is what I learned.
All Angels was started as a mission VBS in an area north of the city in 1850, in what is now Central Park. So the church had its origins as a ministry to the poor.
In the 1870s, it was decided to build a park and the easiest place to put it was where the people could easily be evicted. The poor were kicked out and the church moved, but only about three blocks. It began to be a church of the rich. Eventually a huge edifice, holding 1300 people was built. But when Park Avenue was built, the rich began to move away form the All Angels neighborhood and by the 1979 the building was sold and the congregation moved into a four-story parish house, expecting to die soon and hoping to die with dignity. Instead, they rediscovered their mission to the poor.
From the beginning there was outreach to the poor and homeless, but Milind repeatedly emphasized that drawing them into the life of the church took time- and lots of it. Meals were served on a regular basis, and there was a drop-in shelter offered one night a week. Sometime during the 19802, there was a soup supper downstairs and a Taize service upstairs, with whites going up and blacks going down, and the rector at the time saw the incongruity and decided to do something different. He invited the homeless to church.
They were rather reluctant to come, but there was one homeless woman who was pregnant, and she asked the rector if he would baptize her baby. He said yes, and church legend says the baptism occurred on a dark rainy night in New York, when the homeless were looking for shelter. They came to church, and they became a more regular part of the church life after that.
Milind said there are a huge variety of services to the poor and homeless in NYC. “It’s impossible to die of hunger here.” But the church plays it s part in making food, shelter and services available to the homeless. But that’s not what brings them to worship. Instead, it’s the desire for dignity, acceptance and welcome. They find that at All Angels, especially the evening service.
“Make no mistake,” said Milind. “It’s a big challenge to sit in a pew next to someone who smells of urine and unwashed clothes.”
It may be a challenge, but the church seems to have accepted it. Milind says the church is about one-third homeless, one-third artists, and one-third yuppies. Most of the white members believe the Christian Church is called to reach out to the poor and powerless, and it shows. The congregation holds three services on Sunday- an early, traditional service; a mixed service at 11:30 which Milind describes as contemporary and loud and very accessible to generation X, and an evening service aimed at the homeless.
“My sermons are not dumbed-down, because most of the people are very smart, but they are accessible,” said Milind.
Milind said about one-third of the worshippers at the evening service are white traditional church members. Two-thirds are homeless, and they are made to feel welcome, including the complete lack of emphasis on attire. But something else is just as important.
Most of the homeless are black, but they do not feel welcome in the black churches, primarily do to unofficial dress codes in nearby black congregations. Even so, their roots are in black music. All Angels has a brilliant music leader. He happens to be white, but he taught himself black music and has built an unusual choir of an assortment of folks, homeless included, who lead the congregation in lively and soulful song every Sunday night.
“I wish I could tell you great success stories, but I can’t,” said Milind. “People get healed, and the next week they are back on the streets, back on crack or whatever they were doing before. Some of the homeless have been members here for 20 years.”
Milind Sojwal says it also takes a firm belief in the church’s calling to exist among the poor
By George R. Pasley
A few weeks ago I Googled our friend Milind Sojwal and discovered his congregation, All Angels Church in Manhattan, was the centerpiece of an article on dissent (with reference to homosexuality) in the Episcopal Church. The story had a picture of Milind leading worship in his bare feet, something which may help build connections with the homeless, artists and yuppies which make up his congregation.
The story was not about homeless ministries, but it mentioned enough about them to make me curious. So I called Milind. He was eager to talk, and this is what I learned.
All Angels was started as a mission VBS in an area north of the city in 1850, in what is now Central Park. So the church had its origins as a ministry to the poor.
In the 1870s, it was decided to build a park and the easiest place to put it was where the people could easily be evicted. The poor were kicked out and the church moved, but only about three blocks. It began to be a church of the rich. Eventually a huge edifice, holding 1300 people was built. But when Park Avenue was built, the rich began to move away form the All Angels neighborhood and by the 1979 the building was sold and the congregation moved into a four-story parish house, expecting to die soon and hoping to die with dignity. Instead, they rediscovered their mission to the poor.
From the beginning there was outreach to the poor and homeless, but Milind repeatedly emphasized that drawing them into the life of the church took time- and lots of it. Meals were served on a regular basis, and there was a drop-in shelter offered one night a week. Sometime during the 19802, there was a soup supper downstairs and a Taize service upstairs, with whites going up and blacks going down, and the rector at the time saw the incongruity and decided to do something different. He invited the homeless to church.
They were rather reluctant to come, but there was one homeless woman who was pregnant, and she asked the rector if he would baptize her baby. He said yes, and church legend says the baptism occurred on a dark rainy night in New York, when the homeless were looking for shelter. They came to church, and they became a more regular part of the church life after that.
Milind said there are a huge variety of services to the poor and homeless in NYC. “It’s impossible to die of hunger here.” But the church plays it s part in making food, shelter and services available to the homeless. But that’s not what brings them to worship. Instead, it’s the desire for dignity, acceptance and welcome. They find that at All Angels, especially the evening service.
“Make no mistake,” said Milind. “It’s a big challenge to sit in a pew next to someone who smells of urine and unwashed clothes.”
It may be a challenge, but the church seems to have accepted it. Milind says the church is about one-third homeless, one-third artists, and one-third yuppies. Most of the white members believe the Christian Church is called to reach out to the poor and powerless, and it shows. The congregation holds three services on Sunday- an early, traditional service; a mixed service at 11:30 which Milind describes as contemporary and loud and very accessible to generation X, and an evening service aimed at the homeless.
“My sermons are not dumbed-down, because most of the people are very smart, but they are accessible,” said Milind.
Milind said about one-third of the worshippers at the evening service are white traditional church members. Two-thirds are homeless, and they are made to feel welcome, including the complete lack of emphasis on attire. But something else is just as important.
Most of the homeless are black, but they do not feel welcome in the black churches, primarily do to unofficial dress codes in nearby black congregations. Even so, their roots are in black music. All Angels has a brilliant music leader. He happens to be white, but he taught himself black music and has built an unusual choir of an assortment of folks, homeless included, who lead the congregation in lively and soulful song every Sunday night.
“I wish I could tell you great success stories, but I can’t,” said Milind. “People get healed, and the next week they are back on the streets, back on crack or whatever they were doing before. Some of the homeless have been members here for 20 years.”
BEYOND THE RIVER
BEYOND THE RIVER
The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad
Ann Hagedorn, author
2002, Simon & Schuster
ISBN 0-684-87965-7
279 pages
“One summer day in 1817, at a church in the Abingdon group, he explained to his audience, with fierce certitude, that the mission of Christianity was to drive oppression from the earth, and that the Bible was opposed to ‘all forms of oppression.’” (p. 30)
Thus author Ann Hagedorn describes the very beginnings of the prophetic ministry of John Rankin, Presbyterian pastor, abolitionist, and conductor on the Underground Railroad.
Beyond the River is a historical account of the Underground Railroad, primarily as it functioned in the river town of Ripley, Ohio. Hagedorn has used a plethora of primary sources, as well as a great many secondary sources, to document the lives of the heroes of the abolition movement. The book encompasses not only the Underground Railroad, but also various anti-slavery societies. In artistic fashion, Hagedorn has also highlighted the significance of geography, national politics, local economy, weather, and personal tragedy to the movement and to the lives of its movers.
I first became aware of John Rankin because some of his descendants are cousins to my mother, and essays about him were included in a family history. He aroused my interest because he was a Presbyterian pastor, and because in his later years he started two Presbyterian congregations not far from where I live in east-central Kansas (both are now closed). A local friend knew of m interest in Rankin, and referred me to this book when it was reviewed in Time magazine. Once I bought it, I could not put it down.
Because the book deals with a prophetic ministry I found it hauntingly current, as I have struggled with how to express misgivings about America’s foreign policy and the current war with Iraq- and how to express those misgivings in community famed for its conservatism. Preaching abolition was a task that required more than moral courage- it required physical courage as well, as Hagedorn documents. But Rankin and the others of his cause went beyond preaching- they were “agitators,” in the parlance of their times, agitators who operated outside the law at risk to their lives, property, and family. Yet they were very rarely deterred.
With Rankin, abolition seems to have been a matter of integrity. What is striking about Rankin is that he saw beyond slavery, and was from the beginning an advocate for equality of the races, a notion that exceeded the opinions of the times, even of many famous abolitionists. In nearby Cincinnati, the students at Lane Seminary (The college president was Lyman Beecher) became active not only in the abolition movement, but in educating local freedmen. “Using a system of rotation devised…out of respect for the students’ own classwork, they conducted reading classes every evening during the week, and during the days they taught geography, science, grammar, and arithmetic. Classes were so crowded that some days people were turned away…Every minute that they could spare form their studies, the students devoted to their cause.” (p. 70)
Even though the seminary was founded by abolitionists, the trustees, faculty, and president were all distressed by the extent of student activism, “mostly over the actual contact between the students and the black community” (p. 70) During the summer break, the trustees abolished the student’s antislavery society, and gave themselves powers to censure the students and limit their activities. Reason given for this was the threat of physical damage to the school by the surrounding community, which was even more agitated by the student activism.
“Upon their return for the fall term, the students asked the faculty if they could discuss the new rules imposed on them, and were told they could not. Weld (one of the students) wrote a statement on behalf of the students, and signed by fifty-one of them. And then, in one of the great moments of America’s history of protest movements, the students who signed Weld’s impassioned statements simply walked out the doors of Lane.” (p. 71)
Rankin supported the students, and in an editorial he wrote, “Far better for the Seminary and the religion, had the mob (from the community) torn the building to the ground. It could have been reared again as a monument to integrity.” (p. 71)
What particularly struck me were the dates of many of the things that happened. The student activism happened in 1834, 27 years before the Civil War. Once these heroes made a commitment to the cause, they had to live through decades if danger and national unrest. And the nation had to live through decades of anger, mistrust, and hatred.
The book documents carefully the change in Rankin over this great time period. In the early years, he was content to preach against slavery only from the pulpit (though he received national fame for a series of letters, widely published, that opposed slavery). But after the Lane College incident, he became much more active nationally in organizing anti-slavery societies, speaking at meetings, and raising funds for the cause.
While the book clearly makes a connection between abolition and the evangelical convictions of its early proponents, it does not clearly show the history of what was happening in the Presbyterian Church during the era. Various historical church events are mentioned, but in a scattered sort of way that does not help one is not already familiar with them- such as Rankin’s departure from First Presbyterian of Ripley and the founding of the Free Presbyterian denomination, nut nothing about the reunion and little about the Old School/New school split. And while it documents the struggles Rankin had in learning to preach (mostly from his autobiography), there is virtually no discussion of how he preached. But this does not in any way diminish what Hagedorn has done, which is to chronicle what may truly be the most courageous chapter in American history.
Other person, too, were given attention by Hagedorn. These included the slave girl who escaped across the river on fast-breaking ice. Her story was later told by Rankin to Harriet Beecher Stowe, and was given national attention in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (though Harriet herself is rarely mentioned in Across the River); John B. Mahon, a colleague of Rankin’s, who was extradited to Kentucky, spent months in prison, lost his health and his property, and whose family suffered poverty after his death; and John Parker, an escaped slave living in Ripley who time and time again crossed back into Kentucky to find other slaves and bring them out. In doing so, Parker risked his life and his won freedom. Hagedorn calls Parker a “tiny minority within the abolitionist minority,” (p. 256), one who used tactics that even troubled Rankin.
These were certainly heroes. Without their agitation, American history would have been vastly different. “After the war, one of Lyman Beecher’s sons, the renowned preacher Henry Ward Beecher, was asked, ’Who abolished slavery?’ His response: ‘Rev. John Rankin and his sons did it.’” (p. 274)
Well, certainly they had some help. But maybe a better question would have been, “What abolished slavery?” And the answer would have been, “Courage.”
George R. Pasley
The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad
Ann Hagedorn, author
2002, Simon & Schuster
ISBN 0-684-87965-7
279 pages
“One summer day in 1817, at a church in the Abingdon group, he explained to his audience, with fierce certitude, that the mission of Christianity was to drive oppression from the earth, and that the Bible was opposed to ‘all forms of oppression.’” (p. 30)
Thus author Ann Hagedorn describes the very beginnings of the prophetic ministry of John Rankin, Presbyterian pastor, abolitionist, and conductor on the Underground Railroad.
Beyond the River is a historical account of the Underground Railroad, primarily as it functioned in the river town of Ripley, Ohio. Hagedorn has used a plethora of primary sources, as well as a great many secondary sources, to document the lives of the heroes of the abolition movement. The book encompasses not only the Underground Railroad, but also various anti-slavery societies. In artistic fashion, Hagedorn has also highlighted the significance of geography, national politics, local economy, weather, and personal tragedy to the movement and to the lives of its movers.
I first became aware of John Rankin because some of his descendants are cousins to my mother, and essays about him were included in a family history. He aroused my interest because he was a Presbyterian pastor, and because in his later years he started two Presbyterian congregations not far from where I live in east-central Kansas (both are now closed). A local friend knew of m interest in Rankin, and referred me to this book when it was reviewed in Time magazine. Once I bought it, I could not put it down.
Because the book deals with a prophetic ministry I found it hauntingly current, as I have struggled with how to express misgivings about America’s foreign policy and the current war with Iraq- and how to express those misgivings in community famed for its conservatism. Preaching abolition was a task that required more than moral courage- it required physical courage as well, as Hagedorn documents. But Rankin and the others of his cause went beyond preaching- they were “agitators,” in the parlance of their times, agitators who operated outside the law at risk to their lives, property, and family. Yet they were very rarely deterred.
With Rankin, abolition seems to have been a matter of integrity. What is striking about Rankin is that he saw beyond slavery, and was from the beginning an advocate for equality of the races, a notion that exceeded the opinions of the times, even of many famous abolitionists. In nearby Cincinnati, the students at Lane Seminary (The college president was Lyman Beecher) became active not only in the abolition movement, but in educating local freedmen. “Using a system of rotation devised…out of respect for the students’ own classwork, they conducted reading classes every evening during the week, and during the days they taught geography, science, grammar, and arithmetic. Classes were so crowded that some days people were turned away…Every minute that they could spare form their studies, the students devoted to their cause.” (p. 70)
Even though the seminary was founded by abolitionists, the trustees, faculty, and president were all distressed by the extent of student activism, “mostly over the actual contact between the students and the black community” (p. 70) During the summer break, the trustees abolished the student’s antislavery society, and gave themselves powers to censure the students and limit their activities. Reason given for this was the threat of physical damage to the school by the surrounding community, which was even more agitated by the student activism.
“Upon their return for the fall term, the students asked the faculty if they could discuss the new rules imposed on them, and were told they could not. Weld (one of the students) wrote a statement on behalf of the students, and signed by fifty-one of them. And then, in one of the great moments of America’s history of protest movements, the students who signed Weld’s impassioned statements simply walked out the doors of Lane.” (p. 71)
Rankin supported the students, and in an editorial he wrote, “Far better for the Seminary and the religion, had the mob (from the community) torn the building to the ground. It could have been reared again as a monument to integrity.” (p. 71)
What particularly struck me were the dates of many of the things that happened. The student activism happened in 1834, 27 years before the Civil War. Once these heroes made a commitment to the cause, they had to live through decades if danger and national unrest. And the nation had to live through decades of anger, mistrust, and hatred.
The book documents carefully the change in Rankin over this great time period. In the early years, he was content to preach against slavery only from the pulpit (though he received national fame for a series of letters, widely published, that opposed slavery). But after the Lane College incident, he became much more active nationally in organizing anti-slavery societies, speaking at meetings, and raising funds for the cause.
While the book clearly makes a connection between abolition and the evangelical convictions of its early proponents, it does not clearly show the history of what was happening in the Presbyterian Church during the era. Various historical church events are mentioned, but in a scattered sort of way that does not help one is not already familiar with them- such as Rankin’s departure from First Presbyterian of Ripley and the founding of the Free Presbyterian denomination, nut nothing about the reunion and little about the Old School/New school split. And while it documents the struggles Rankin had in learning to preach (mostly from his autobiography), there is virtually no discussion of how he preached. But this does not in any way diminish what Hagedorn has done, which is to chronicle what may truly be the most courageous chapter in American history.
Other person, too, were given attention by Hagedorn. These included the slave girl who escaped across the river on fast-breaking ice. Her story was later told by Rankin to Harriet Beecher Stowe, and was given national attention in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (though Harriet herself is rarely mentioned in Across the River); John B. Mahon, a colleague of Rankin’s, who was extradited to Kentucky, spent months in prison, lost his health and his property, and whose family suffered poverty after his death; and John Parker, an escaped slave living in Ripley who time and time again crossed back into Kentucky to find other slaves and bring them out. In doing so, Parker risked his life and his won freedom. Hagedorn calls Parker a “tiny minority within the abolitionist minority,” (p. 256), one who used tactics that even troubled Rankin.
These were certainly heroes. Without their agitation, American history would have been vastly different. “After the war, one of Lyman Beecher’s sons, the renowned preacher Henry Ward Beecher, was asked, ’Who abolished slavery?’ His response: ‘Rev. John Rankin and his sons did it.’” (p. 274)
Well, certainly they had some help. But maybe a better question would have been, “What abolished slavery?” And the answer would have been, “Courage.”
George R. Pasley
BARBARA JORDAN
BARBARA JORDAN: AMERICAN HERO
By Mary Beth Rogers
Bantam Books, 1998
Paperback, 2000
ISBN 0-553-38066
My sister gave me this book for Christmas, but told me she needed to borrow it as soon as I was through reading it, because it was worth two books in her local book club. I agree- it is worth two or three.
The book is a biography of perhaps the most notable black woman of the twentieth century, Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), for several terms a congresswoman from Texas. Jordan became a national figure when she served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment hearings.
Rogers provides a biography that is entertaining to read, insightful, and analytical. Rogers and Jordan knew each other, but Rogers freely admits that Jordan was an intensely private person who very few knew very well.
“I worked to come to terms with this remarkable woman who survived the complexities of public life and the realities of racial politics, turning away from the both with surprising contentment. And, of course, as a white woman, I had to come to terms with her blackness, with what it meant to her- and to me.” (p.xviii)
I can remember quite vividly each of the famous speeches of Jordan’s life: the two at the impeachment hearings, and the keynote speeches from the 1976 and 1992 Democratic Conventions. They are memories for me, but this book brought Jordan- and her life- to life.
Rogers begins with a historical irony that Jordan was forever unaware of: her great-grandfather, Edward A. Patton, was the last black to serve in the Texas legislature during reconstruction. His last speech was of sufficient persuasiveness to delay the institution of the poll tax for several decades. Never the less, he was defeated in 1892, shot at by the local sheriff, and in fear for his life, left Texas and his family, never to return. Throughout the book, Rogers does an enlightening job of describing the historical context into which Barbara was born, and the family context in which she was raised.
Of great interest to pastors, beyond the historical elements, is the way that Rogers comes to an understanding of Jordan’s thinking on religion and politics through two theologians: Howard Thurman and Reinhold Niebuhr. Rogers devotes 4 pages in the book to Thurman’s influence, more than any other one person (except perhaps Lyndon Johnson).
“Barbara Jordan also made time during her second year (at Boston University Law School) to attend Sunday Services at marsh Chapel, the religious center of Boston University. She was drawn to its preacher, Howard Thurman, who served as dean of the chapel and as a professor in the Boston University School of Theology. She heard in Thurman’s sermons a way to change how she thought about and experienced religion, a way to free herself from Ben Jordan’s harsh interpretation of the scriptures and his narrow path to living a Christian life.” (p. 68)
In fact, says Rogers, Jordan briefly considered pursuing a degree in theology. Rogers gives a synopsis of Thurman’s career, his association with Martin Luther King, Jr., and then returns to Jordan:
“Jordan was so taken with Thurman’s sermons that she literally preached them to herself. She would take the program from church services back to her dormitory and preach Thurman’s sermons anew to her roommates, ‘whether they wanted to hear them or not. I was making sure I had it all,’ she said. ‘If I could preach it again, I really did have it.’” (p. 71)
Niebuhr appears after Jordan has become a skilled politician, and it is not exactly clear from Rogers’ writing at what point Jordan actually discovered him.
“For Niebuhr, both political and moral realists understood the use of power, and the moral realist was willing to use political power to achieve some human ‘good.’ Jordan had become a Niebuhr-style moral realist, with an understanding that if she wanted to promote human good, then she had to have enough power to operate effectively.” (p.153/154)
There are, in fact, several places in the book where Rogers uses Niebuhr as a way to understand and explain Jordan.
Regarding Jordan, the thing that most amazed me was the almost natural astuteness she had, politically. Jordan served parts of three terms in the Texas Senate, and then three terms in Congress. But almost from the beginning, she was able to figure out ways to be an “effective” legislator. Those who are considering that ways that “outsiders” enter into “inner circles”, as well as those who are simply fascinated with politics, will both find treasure in Rogers’ description of Jordan’s legislative techniques.
Of great interest in the book are those pages that deal with segregation, the African American Church, Barbara’s experiences on her college debate team, and the research that she devoted to various issues (including impeachment). But two other things I found to be especially captivating, and the two are intertwined.
The first is the matter of Jordan’s “voice.” For Rogers, this is not simply a matter of timbre, or even cadence and rhythm. It had also to do with authenticity and passion. Speaking of Jordan’s speech during the impeachment hearings, Rogers writes: “Her passion conveyed the clarity of righteousness and justice.”
Many chapters later, Rogers considers Jordan the person, and writes: “Before Watergate, all she wanted was to be a politician- not a statesman, or a moral leader, or a guardian of government ethics, and certainly not a civil rights leader. After Watergate, Jordan added one more label to describe herself: patriot. She considered the U.S. Constitution her personal charter for freedom.” (p. 324)
By the force of destiny perhaps, Barbara had discovered her core beliefs. And the passion with which she believed them gave power to the voice that expressed them. Rogers book powerfully describes how that larger voice matured in the years after she left Congress.
I remember a great amount of mystery associated with her decision not to seek another term. Rogers’ explains in depth the combination of physical strain caused by multiple sclerosis, and the strain of disillusionment caused by differences with the Carter administration, and the explanation is helpful. But what is enlightening is Rogers’ study of Jordan’s return to private life, and her emergence as a voice of authority as a private citizen. And, Rogers’ develops a definition of patriot that defies old clichés and stereotypes. Having recently read David McCullough’s “John Adams,” Roger’s portrait of the citizen Jordan reminded me, in many ways, of the ideals of citizen Adams.
Quoting Jordan, “There is no reason why a country as large and powerful as we are should not occupy the highest moral position possible in relation to other countries…The core of morality is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you…I believe each individual should have a principled core of his or her being that cannot get negotiated out. That has served me well.” (p. 325/326)
And in our shallow post 911 way of defining patriotism, we ought to consider once again Jordan’s love of the rule of law, her belief in democracy, and her great sense of personal integrity. If we did, I believe they would point us to a much richer, nobler, definition of “patriot.”
George R. Pasley
January 7, 2003
By Mary Beth Rogers
Bantam Books, 1998
Paperback, 2000
ISBN 0-553-38066
My sister gave me this book for Christmas, but told me she needed to borrow it as soon as I was through reading it, because it was worth two books in her local book club. I agree- it is worth two or three.
The book is a biography of perhaps the most notable black woman of the twentieth century, Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), for several terms a congresswoman from Texas. Jordan became a national figure when she served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment hearings.
Rogers provides a biography that is entertaining to read, insightful, and analytical. Rogers and Jordan knew each other, but Rogers freely admits that Jordan was an intensely private person who very few knew very well.
“I worked to come to terms with this remarkable woman who survived the complexities of public life and the realities of racial politics, turning away from the both with surprising contentment. And, of course, as a white woman, I had to come to terms with her blackness, with what it meant to her- and to me.” (p.xviii)
I can remember quite vividly each of the famous speeches of Jordan’s life: the two at the impeachment hearings, and the keynote speeches from the 1976 and 1992 Democratic Conventions. They are memories for me, but this book brought Jordan- and her life- to life.
Rogers begins with a historical irony that Jordan was forever unaware of: her great-grandfather, Edward A. Patton, was the last black to serve in the Texas legislature during reconstruction. His last speech was of sufficient persuasiveness to delay the institution of the poll tax for several decades. Never the less, he was defeated in 1892, shot at by the local sheriff, and in fear for his life, left Texas and his family, never to return. Throughout the book, Rogers does an enlightening job of describing the historical context into which Barbara was born, and the family context in which she was raised.
Of great interest to pastors, beyond the historical elements, is the way that Rogers comes to an understanding of Jordan’s thinking on religion and politics through two theologians: Howard Thurman and Reinhold Niebuhr. Rogers devotes 4 pages in the book to Thurman’s influence, more than any other one person (except perhaps Lyndon Johnson).
“Barbara Jordan also made time during her second year (at Boston University Law School) to attend Sunday Services at marsh Chapel, the religious center of Boston University. She was drawn to its preacher, Howard Thurman, who served as dean of the chapel and as a professor in the Boston University School of Theology. She heard in Thurman’s sermons a way to change how she thought about and experienced religion, a way to free herself from Ben Jordan’s harsh interpretation of the scriptures and his narrow path to living a Christian life.” (p. 68)
In fact, says Rogers, Jordan briefly considered pursuing a degree in theology. Rogers gives a synopsis of Thurman’s career, his association with Martin Luther King, Jr., and then returns to Jordan:
“Jordan was so taken with Thurman’s sermons that she literally preached them to herself. She would take the program from church services back to her dormitory and preach Thurman’s sermons anew to her roommates, ‘whether they wanted to hear them or not. I was making sure I had it all,’ she said. ‘If I could preach it again, I really did have it.’” (p. 71)
Niebuhr appears after Jordan has become a skilled politician, and it is not exactly clear from Rogers’ writing at what point Jordan actually discovered him.
“For Niebuhr, both political and moral realists understood the use of power, and the moral realist was willing to use political power to achieve some human ‘good.’ Jordan had become a Niebuhr-style moral realist, with an understanding that if she wanted to promote human good, then she had to have enough power to operate effectively.” (p.153/154)
There are, in fact, several places in the book where Rogers uses Niebuhr as a way to understand and explain Jordan.
Regarding Jordan, the thing that most amazed me was the almost natural astuteness she had, politically. Jordan served parts of three terms in the Texas Senate, and then three terms in Congress. But almost from the beginning, she was able to figure out ways to be an “effective” legislator. Those who are considering that ways that “outsiders” enter into “inner circles”, as well as those who are simply fascinated with politics, will both find treasure in Rogers’ description of Jordan’s legislative techniques.
Of great interest in the book are those pages that deal with segregation, the African American Church, Barbara’s experiences on her college debate team, and the research that she devoted to various issues (including impeachment). But two other things I found to be especially captivating, and the two are intertwined.
The first is the matter of Jordan’s “voice.” For Rogers, this is not simply a matter of timbre, or even cadence and rhythm. It had also to do with authenticity and passion. Speaking of Jordan’s speech during the impeachment hearings, Rogers writes: “Her passion conveyed the clarity of righteousness and justice.”
Many chapters later, Rogers considers Jordan the person, and writes: “Before Watergate, all she wanted was to be a politician- not a statesman, or a moral leader, or a guardian of government ethics, and certainly not a civil rights leader. After Watergate, Jordan added one more label to describe herself: patriot. She considered the U.S. Constitution her personal charter for freedom.” (p. 324)
By the force of destiny perhaps, Barbara had discovered her core beliefs. And the passion with which she believed them gave power to the voice that expressed them. Rogers book powerfully describes how that larger voice matured in the years after she left Congress.
I remember a great amount of mystery associated with her decision not to seek another term. Rogers’ explains in depth the combination of physical strain caused by multiple sclerosis, and the strain of disillusionment caused by differences with the Carter administration, and the explanation is helpful. But what is enlightening is Rogers’ study of Jordan’s return to private life, and her emergence as a voice of authority as a private citizen. And, Rogers’ develops a definition of patriot that defies old clichés and stereotypes. Having recently read David McCullough’s “John Adams,” Roger’s portrait of the citizen Jordan reminded me, in many ways, of the ideals of citizen Adams.
Quoting Jordan, “There is no reason why a country as large and powerful as we are should not occupy the highest moral position possible in relation to other countries…The core of morality is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you…I believe each individual should have a principled core of his or her being that cannot get negotiated out. That has served me well.” (p. 325/326)
And in our shallow post 911 way of defining patriotism, we ought to consider once again Jordan’s love of the rule of law, her belief in democracy, and her great sense of personal integrity. If we did, I believe they would point us to a much richer, nobler, definition of “patriot.”
George R. Pasley
January 7, 2003
AMERICAN CONGREGATIONS
AMERICAN CONGREGATIONS
Volume 2: New Perspectives in the study of congregations
James P. Wind and James W. Lewis, editors
University of Chicago Press, 1994
ISBN 0-226-90188-2
288 pages
The book itself consists of 8 essays, plus a brief afterword. Of the authors, I was familiar with only one, Martin Marty. But his particular essay, Public and Private: Congregation as Meeting Place, I found particularly difficult to read. Not so the other seven.
The book is divided into three parts. Part one contains the most essays, 4, and places congregations in their historical and sociological contexts. The Gilkey essay that I commented on earlier is located in part one, and it develops the theme of congregations as religious communities. I was further delighted with the closing pages of that essay, in which Gilkey ponders the loss of personal piety within the leadership of mainline congregations. He begins by describing his father (an American Baptist) theologically, and then proceeds by describing him spiritually:
“Like his friend Harry Emerson Fosdick, he was about as liberal theologically and religiously as you could get. Nevertheless he spent an hour each day on his knees at prayer, another hour reading the Bible, and each morning we had family prayers for twenty minutes.”
But Gilkey is not simply calling for a return to the old ways. First, he considers the curricula in our schools of divinity as lacking if they do not have reflection and guidance on spirituality (minister AND congregation) at the heart of their curriculum. But second, he considers an experience in which he presented a paper on ethics at a conference. There was also a paper presented from a Buddhist perspective:
“I exemplifies in a way a modern version of Augustine’s ‘faith finding its perfection in love,’ or of Luther’s ‘faith is the doer, love is the deed.’ The monk’s treatise reversed all this: all the ethical acts he referred to (the ‘steps on the way”) preceded and made possible the religious: the slow discipline of the self and its desires, ascetic practices, meditative techniques of all sorts, acts of charity and confession, and so on.” (p. 129)
The second part of the book consists of two essays that dealt with traditions. I found particularly insightful Dorothy C. Bass’ writing on Congregations and the Bearing of Traditions. She lays out a strong case for congregations not only as the bearers of tradition, but as the shapers of tradition. “The question of what any tradition means is part of that tradition itself, and as long as the tradition lives the question remains in dispute. Congregations, even without knowing it, are immersed in this argument. They do not simply inherit tradition; they contribute to it. A living congregation does not leave a living tradition unaffected.” (p. 185)
The third and final part of the book deals with congregational leadership. The first essay is a historical study of how leadership has evolved in various types of American congregations (the book is primarily Christian, and protestant, but it gives considerable thought to Catholic congregations, and consistent, if less substantial thought, to non-Christian traditions). The final essay of the book, however, deals with leadership in Black congregations- in ways that both critique AND offer possibilities for the rest of us to consider. Since I was so caught up in Gilkey’s earlier thoughts regarding congregations as “Places of rescue,” I was given a bit of practical example by Franklin’s words:
”In the black tradition, the altar prayer or pastoral prayer is a significant therapeutic moment. In the absence of a formal ritual of confession, this moment permits congregants to have their personal and collective sinfulness named and absolved by the pastor or prayer leader. Such moments are never rushed; people are given time, as Howard Thurman said, to “center down” and remove themselves from the turbulence and traffic of their lives. In addition to the time and space for intimate communion with God, emotional license is given to each praying person to experience God’s response of liberation. Persons may do grief work, weep, express vulnerability, and make moral resolutions to do the right thing in the future.
Ironically, and fortunately, such intimate, private, personal spiritual work is done in the communal, public context so that one is discouraged from conceptualizing her or his prayer needs nonrelationally. Communal prayer challenges religious privatization as it gathers up the cares of the entire community and articulates them as the common existential expression of the people.” (p. 261)
I considered this book to be, for both theological and practical reasons, well worth the price of purchase and the time for reading.
George R. Pasley
Volume 2: New Perspectives in the study of congregations
James P. Wind and James W. Lewis, editors
University of Chicago Press, 1994
ISBN 0-226-90188-2
288 pages
The book itself consists of 8 essays, plus a brief afterword. Of the authors, I was familiar with only one, Martin Marty. But his particular essay, Public and Private: Congregation as Meeting Place, I found particularly difficult to read. Not so the other seven.
The book is divided into three parts. Part one contains the most essays, 4, and places congregations in their historical and sociological contexts. The Gilkey essay that I commented on earlier is located in part one, and it develops the theme of congregations as religious communities. I was further delighted with the closing pages of that essay, in which Gilkey ponders the loss of personal piety within the leadership of mainline congregations. He begins by describing his father (an American Baptist) theologically, and then proceeds by describing him spiritually:
“Like his friend Harry Emerson Fosdick, he was about as liberal theologically and religiously as you could get. Nevertheless he spent an hour each day on his knees at prayer, another hour reading the Bible, and each morning we had family prayers for twenty minutes.”
But Gilkey is not simply calling for a return to the old ways. First, he considers the curricula in our schools of divinity as lacking if they do not have reflection and guidance on spirituality (minister AND congregation) at the heart of their curriculum. But second, he considers an experience in which he presented a paper on ethics at a conference. There was also a paper presented from a Buddhist perspective:
“I exemplifies in a way a modern version of Augustine’s ‘faith finding its perfection in love,’ or of Luther’s ‘faith is the doer, love is the deed.’ The monk’s treatise reversed all this: all the ethical acts he referred to (the ‘steps on the way”) preceded and made possible the religious: the slow discipline of the self and its desires, ascetic practices, meditative techniques of all sorts, acts of charity and confession, and so on.” (p. 129)
The second part of the book consists of two essays that dealt with traditions. I found particularly insightful Dorothy C. Bass’ writing on Congregations and the Bearing of Traditions. She lays out a strong case for congregations not only as the bearers of tradition, but as the shapers of tradition. “The question of what any tradition means is part of that tradition itself, and as long as the tradition lives the question remains in dispute. Congregations, even without knowing it, are immersed in this argument. They do not simply inherit tradition; they contribute to it. A living congregation does not leave a living tradition unaffected.” (p. 185)
The third and final part of the book deals with congregational leadership. The first essay is a historical study of how leadership has evolved in various types of American congregations (the book is primarily Christian, and protestant, but it gives considerable thought to Catholic congregations, and consistent, if less substantial thought, to non-Christian traditions). The final essay of the book, however, deals with leadership in Black congregations- in ways that both critique AND offer possibilities for the rest of us to consider. Since I was so caught up in Gilkey’s earlier thoughts regarding congregations as “Places of rescue,” I was given a bit of practical example by Franklin’s words:
”In the black tradition, the altar prayer or pastoral prayer is a significant therapeutic moment. In the absence of a formal ritual of confession, this moment permits congregants to have their personal and collective sinfulness named and absolved by the pastor or prayer leader. Such moments are never rushed; people are given time, as Howard Thurman said, to “center down” and remove themselves from the turbulence and traffic of their lives. In addition to the time and space for intimate communion with God, emotional license is given to each praying person to experience God’s response of liberation. Persons may do grief work, weep, express vulnerability, and make moral resolutions to do the right thing in the future.
Ironically, and fortunately, such intimate, private, personal spiritual work is done in the communal, public context so that one is discouraged from conceptualizing her or his prayer needs nonrelationally. Communal prayer challenges religious privatization as it gathers up the cares of the entire community and articulates them as the common existential expression of the people.” (p. 261)
I considered this book to be, for both theological and practical reasons, well worth the price of purchase and the time for reading.
George R. Pasley
A YELLOW RAFT IN BLUE WATER
A YELLOW RAFT IN BLUE WATER
By Michael Dorris
1987, Warner Books
ISBN0-446-38787-8
372 pages
I loved this book. First, it is a well written story- actually, three stories. Second, it defies what seems (to me) to be the growing norm in literary art, which is stories that are frank in their observation of the awfulness of the human condition, but which make no attempt at finding redemption. This book does the first, and avoids the second.
This book came to me via the local library’s annual book discussion series. The idea is that a few dozen read a book, and then attend a public forum led by a scholar provided by the state library board. Unfortunately, I was ill and missed the discussion.
The book is the story of three generations of women, told first person. What amazed me is that the author achieved a level of authenticity many would deem impossible for a man. Of course, being a man myself, it may only seem that Dorris found an authentic female voice to write the stories. But when I raised this subject with a woman in my church that also read the book, she agreed.
The first story is told by the third generation, a 15 year-old girl, Rayona. Her particular burdens are three: her father has basically abandoned her, she is mixed race (African American father, Native American mother), and she is in constant tension with her mother. In this case, the mother seems not “unreasonable,” but irresponsible. Telling the story herself, she finds a teenaged picture of her mom. She studies it intensely, and then concludes that “Mom is still mom and I am still me.” (p. 36) Rayona’s particular burdens of poor self-esteem begin to find redemption and resolution when she enters a rodeo, is thrown of a bronco, and leaps back on.
The second story is the mother, Christine. Christine and her younger brother were raised without a father- they never even knew who he was. And their mother is never addressed as “Mom,” but instead, as “Aunt Ida”. They take this to mean that she is ashamed of them. Christine’s particular burdens begin when she is disillusioned with the church as a teenager (the world fails to come to its predicted end), a brother killed in Vietnam (she had almost forced hi into enlisting), a lifelong battle with her mother, a husband who abandons her, and a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Christine also suffers from self-esteem problems, though not in the same form as Rayona’s. More so than the other characters. Rayona always seems to be defending herself- to her daughter, to her mother, to the reader, and to society at large.
The third story is told by the grandmother, Ida. There is a very unique plot twist in Ida’s story that I do not want to reveal. Ida’s life comes across as one that is taken advantage of by the previous generation. It is also one that is not understood by the following generation, partly because of the mysteries of their births, and partly because Ida’s favorite technique of arguing is silence.
Both Christine and Ida come across as women intensely in love with their children. Christine, in particular, makes bad choices, but the choices are often inevitable. Both of them are proud women, despite the fact that their lives are in some ways “shameful.”
I wish there was more from Ida- the story ahs a wonderful ending, but it is also abrupt. It does not deal with the death of her son- a huge event in Christine’s story- or with her visit to Christine when Rayona is a child, a trip that seems incredibly consequential after the first part of Ida’s story is told. But still, it is a book that is insightful, compelling, and helpful.
George R. PasleY
By Michael Dorris
1987, Warner Books
ISBN0-446-38787-8
372 pages
I loved this book. First, it is a well written story- actually, three stories. Second, it defies what seems (to me) to be the growing norm in literary art, which is stories that are frank in their observation of the awfulness of the human condition, but which make no attempt at finding redemption. This book does the first, and avoids the second.
This book came to me via the local library’s annual book discussion series. The idea is that a few dozen read a book, and then attend a public forum led by a scholar provided by the state library board. Unfortunately, I was ill and missed the discussion.
The book is the story of three generations of women, told first person. What amazed me is that the author achieved a level of authenticity many would deem impossible for a man. Of course, being a man myself, it may only seem that Dorris found an authentic female voice to write the stories. But when I raised this subject with a woman in my church that also read the book, she agreed.
The first story is told by the third generation, a 15 year-old girl, Rayona. Her particular burdens are three: her father has basically abandoned her, she is mixed race (African American father, Native American mother), and she is in constant tension with her mother. In this case, the mother seems not “unreasonable,” but irresponsible. Telling the story herself, she finds a teenaged picture of her mom. She studies it intensely, and then concludes that “Mom is still mom and I am still me.” (p. 36) Rayona’s particular burdens of poor self-esteem begin to find redemption and resolution when she enters a rodeo, is thrown of a bronco, and leaps back on.
The second story is the mother, Christine. Christine and her younger brother were raised without a father- they never even knew who he was. And their mother is never addressed as “Mom,” but instead, as “Aunt Ida”. They take this to mean that she is ashamed of them. Christine’s particular burdens begin when she is disillusioned with the church as a teenager (the world fails to come to its predicted end), a brother killed in Vietnam (she had almost forced hi into enlisting), a lifelong battle with her mother, a husband who abandons her, and a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Christine also suffers from self-esteem problems, though not in the same form as Rayona’s. More so than the other characters. Rayona always seems to be defending herself- to her daughter, to her mother, to the reader, and to society at large.
The third story is told by the grandmother, Ida. There is a very unique plot twist in Ida’s story that I do not want to reveal. Ida’s life comes across as one that is taken advantage of by the previous generation. It is also one that is not understood by the following generation, partly because of the mysteries of their births, and partly because Ida’s favorite technique of arguing is silence.
Both Christine and Ida come across as women intensely in love with their children. Christine, in particular, makes bad choices, but the choices are often inevitable. Both of them are proud women, despite the fact that their lives are in some ways “shameful.”
I wish there was more from Ida- the story ahs a wonderful ending, but it is also abrupt. It does not deal with the death of her son- a huge event in Christine’s story- or with her visit to Christine when Rayona is a child, a trip that seems incredibly consequential after the first part of Ida’s story is told. But still, it is a book that is insightful, compelling, and helpful.
George R. PasleY
DISCIPLINES OF THE SPIRIT
Disciplines of the Spirit
By Howard Thurman
African-American Howard Thurman (1900-1981), poet, mystic, philosopher, theologian, and Dean of Chapel at two major universities during his career, first published this book in 1963. Obviously it has become a classic, and aside from an occasional poem, it was my first real exposure to his work.
Thurman identifies 5 “disciplines” and discusses each one at length. Why he chose the term “discipline” to describe them I do not know- it implies to me that they are something one can take on and practice, like exercise. But that is not what he is getting at, which is best described in the opening sentences of his foreword:
“The purpose of this book is to examine certain specific aspects of human experience. These aspects are chosen because of their universality and BECAUSE OF THEIR SIGNIFICANCE FOR TUTORING THE HUMAN SPIRIT (emphasis added). There are five such areas included in the discussion: commitment, growth, suffering, prayer, and reconciliation.” (p. 9)
Each discipline (and now I am thinking he uses that term in the manner of “an area of study”) is well explored and articulated, but the discipline by which Thurman most struck me as suffering.
Suffering was a subject well discussed in my seminary classes- most notably in theology, but also in biblical studies. Yet Thurman found some points to consider that were either neglected or touched upon only lightly.
Suffering is both impersonal (“It humiliates and violates the person and very often the dignity of the human spirit,” p. 65) and personal. “Though suffering is a private encounter, and in the last analysis a man must deal with it in solitariness and isolation, it is ultimately reassuring if it can be placed in a frame of reference as universal and comprehensive as life itself.” (p. 66)
“Suffering is a form of physical pain.” (p. 66) Here Thurman probes some ethical consequences of that fact. Denying humanity, or personality, to our enemies makes it easier for us to choose to inflict pain- and even death- on them. In the modern era, we do this most often by demonizing them. Food for thought, there!
Thurman explores the summoning of spiritual resources by the sufferer. “Openings are made in life by suffering that are not made in any other way.” (p. 76) While there is nothing groundbreaking in that observation, Thurman takes one step further and explorers, if only briefly, the lives of those for whom suffering does not make “new openings.” Frankly, he has no answer to explain the dichotomy of experience, but he does have pastoral advice: “…the only thing is to wait it out, to affirm with avid recollection and present insistence that the contradictions of life are never final. All contradictions are held together in an almighty synthesis that gives them, ultimately a meaning and a context.” (p. 77)
Most helpful to me was Thurman’s exploration of the suffering of the innocent. Borrowing an idea from Margaret Kennedy’s novel “The Feast,” Thurman first explorers the idea “that mankind is protected and sustained by undeserved suffering- that swinging out beyond the logic of antecedent and consequence, of sowing and reaping, there is another power, another force, supplementing and restoring the ravages wrought in human life by punishment and reward. The innocent are always present when the payment falls due…Their presence in the world is a stabilizing factor, a precious ingredient maintaining the delicate balance that prevents humanity from p[lunging into the abyss.” (p. 79) This sort of thought was present in my OT 101 study of the suffering servant, but here is the first place I have seen it adequately explained.
Yet Thurman is not completely satisfied with that thought. “But what of those…whose lives are not girded by such a faith…Are these others abandoned by God and left to languish without a witness of His love?” (p. 80)
Thurman then probes the questions that suffering forces on the sufferer, foremost “Why?” Suffering “is part of the life contract that every living being signs at the entrance…To reject suffering is to reject life.” (p. 80) But how does suffering “pay” for its ride (what purpose does it serve?). One immediate conclusion is that without suffering there could be no freedom.
But Thurman has a greater idea. “The ultimate logic of suffering, of course, lies in the fact of death. The particular quality of death is found in what it says about the future. Death is a denial of the validity of the future. This is the logic of all suffering. It is what rallies the spirit and girds man to do battle. Suffering is the gauntlet that death throws down in the arena…Stripped of all cultural accretions and special limitations of specific historic situations, religion…says that life and death take place in a larger context, which religion calls Life. Life and death are the experience of living things, and here Life in some sense becomes identical with God…Death is seen as being an experience WITHIN Life, not happening TO Life (emphasis original).” (p. 81)
This is a thesis that Thurman developed wonderfully over several pages, and I do believe I will find myself referring to it again.
George R. Pasley
July 8, 2002
By Howard Thurman
African-American Howard Thurman (1900-1981), poet, mystic, philosopher, theologian, and Dean of Chapel at two major universities during his career, first published this book in 1963. Obviously it has become a classic, and aside from an occasional poem, it was my first real exposure to his work.
Thurman identifies 5 “disciplines” and discusses each one at length. Why he chose the term “discipline” to describe them I do not know- it implies to me that they are something one can take on and practice, like exercise. But that is not what he is getting at, which is best described in the opening sentences of his foreword:
“The purpose of this book is to examine certain specific aspects of human experience. These aspects are chosen because of their universality and BECAUSE OF THEIR SIGNIFICANCE FOR TUTORING THE HUMAN SPIRIT (emphasis added). There are five such areas included in the discussion: commitment, growth, suffering, prayer, and reconciliation.” (p. 9)
Each discipline (and now I am thinking he uses that term in the manner of “an area of study”) is well explored and articulated, but the discipline by which Thurman most struck me as suffering.
Suffering was a subject well discussed in my seminary classes- most notably in theology, but also in biblical studies. Yet Thurman found some points to consider that were either neglected or touched upon only lightly.
Suffering is both impersonal (“It humiliates and violates the person and very often the dignity of the human spirit,” p. 65) and personal. “Though suffering is a private encounter, and in the last analysis a man must deal with it in solitariness and isolation, it is ultimately reassuring if it can be placed in a frame of reference as universal and comprehensive as life itself.” (p. 66)
“Suffering is a form of physical pain.” (p. 66) Here Thurman probes some ethical consequences of that fact. Denying humanity, or personality, to our enemies makes it easier for us to choose to inflict pain- and even death- on them. In the modern era, we do this most often by demonizing them. Food for thought, there!
Thurman explores the summoning of spiritual resources by the sufferer. “Openings are made in life by suffering that are not made in any other way.” (p. 76) While there is nothing groundbreaking in that observation, Thurman takes one step further and explorers, if only briefly, the lives of those for whom suffering does not make “new openings.” Frankly, he has no answer to explain the dichotomy of experience, but he does have pastoral advice: “…the only thing is to wait it out, to affirm with avid recollection and present insistence that the contradictions of life are never final. All contradictions are held together in an almighty synthesis that gives them, ultimately a meaning and a context.” (p. 77)
Most helpful to me was Thurman’s exploration of the suffering of the innocent. Borrowing an idea from Margaret Kennedy’s novel “The Feast,” Thurman first explorers the idea “that mankind is protected and sustained by undeserved suffering- that swinging out beyond the logic of antecedent and consequence, of sowing and reaping, there is another power, another force, supplementing and restoring the ravages wrought in human life by punishment and reward. The innocent are always present when the payment falls due…Their presence in the world is a stabilizing factor, a precious ingredient maintaining the delicate balance that prevents humanity from p[lunging into the abyss.” (p. 79) This sort of thought was present in my OT 101 study of the suffering servant, but here is the first place I have seen it adequately explained.
Yet Thurman is not completely satisfied with that thought. “But what of those…whose lives are not girded by such a faith…Are these others abandoned by God and left to languish without a witness of His love?” (p. 80)
Thurman then probes the questions that suffering forces on the sufferer, foremost “Why?” Suffering “is part of the life contract that every living being signs at the entrance…To reject suffering is to reject life.” (p. 80) But how does suffering “pay” for its ride (what purpose does it serve?). One immediate conclusion is that without suffering there could be no freedom.
But Thurman has a greater idea. “The ultimate logic of suffering, of course, lies in the fact of death. The particular quality of death is found in what it says about the future. Death is a denial of the validity of the future. This is the logic of all suffering. It is what rallies the spirit and girds man to do battle. Suffering is the gauntlet that death throws down in the arena…Stripped of all cultural accretions and special limitations of specific historic situations, religion…says that life and death take place in a larger context, which religion calls Life. Life and death are the experience of living things, and here Life in some sense becomes identical with God…Death is seen as being an experience WITHIN Life, not happening TO Life (emphasis original).” (p. 81)
This is a thesis that Thurman developed wonderfully over several pages, and I do believe I will find myself referring to it again.
George R. Pasley
July 8, 2002
DRENCHED
Most years I go to Michigan sometime around Thanksgiving, to visit my friends Christian and Tiffany. Christian was a senior when I was a junior at seminary, and Tiffany was a middler that year. We became fast friends, and have been sharing a November holiday for 7 years now. For some reason, I am able to get into a real theological discussion with Christian easier than I do with anyone else, and that is one of the reasons I always look forward to our visit.
Earlier this fall, Christian attended a lecture by Eugene Peterson in Chicago, sponsored by The Christian Century Magazine. He is currently reading a book by Peterson, “The Contemplative Pastor,” and he invited me to read a few chapters while I was there.
Much of our discussion this year seemed to focus on the pros and cons of small churches verses large churches, and how churches (and pastors) can be focused on sharing the good tidings of Jesus Christ. Peterson has something to say about this, it seems to me (I heard him speak at Montreat 3 years ago), but he also has a lot to say about how pastors view and exercise their vocation. In fact, today I read the lecture that Peterson gave in Chicago, in the current edition (“Transparent Lives”, November 29, 2003) of The Christian Century.
The first portion of the article talked about congruence- “doing the Jesus truth in the Jesus way” is the way Peterson summarized it. He envisioned a way of being a pastor in which there is no dissonance between preaching and doing, between word and spirit, between theory and application. And he calls for a contemplative life- arguably, a term ripe for stereotyping, but one that I very much like.
In our discussions, my friend Christian described Peterson’s approach to preparing a sermon- on Sunday morning, the pastor is drenched in the scripture for the day. I thought about that notion as I read Peterson’s article, and I remembered something I had seen and heard when I went to Michigan this year.
On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Christian and I went to a concert by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Christian is an accomplished musician who currently plays in the Oakland (Michigan) Community Orchestra, while I have only been to two symphony concerts that I can remember- a performance of the Chicago Symphony with guest conductor Arthur Fiedler, in 1970, and a performance by the Ukraine Symphony at Princeton University, in 1996. So I was looking forward to the concert, especially to have a musician with me.
The symphony was guest conducted by Aldo Ceccato, and the second half of the concert featured The New World Symphony, by Antonin Dvorak. During the first half of the concert, I focused my attention on individual musicians, enjoying the way in which they worked at their craft- it seemed different to me, noticing that it was actual physical motion that produced sound, and seeing the intensity of their effort.
Christian told me that Dvorak composed the New World symphony while he was on a boat sailing to America, so during the second half of the concert I attempted to listen to the music and imagine what the composer was saying about America when he composed the symphony. But afterwards, Christian asked me if I had noticed the conductor did not use a score- he had it memorized. I had to admit I didn’t notice that, so we discussed it a bit.
Soloists- and there had been a piano solo in the first half- commonly memorize the pieces they are performing. But it is another caliber of skill for a conductor to memorize a piece, especially a whole symphony- obviously, that means they have to memorize the music of every instrument- oboes, bassoons, trumpets, clarinets, violins, violas, cellos, etc., and so it is very incredible to be there when a conductor does it.
But my friend Christian went on to say that conductors do not memorize just for show. Memorization frees them from worrying about turning pages- and they have more pages, which have to be turned more often, than the musicians. The freedom they gain allows them to focus entirely on the orchestra.
(At the time of this writing, that commentary by my friend reminds me of the comments I got when I used to occasionally preach without notes- always praise, and it had to do with the attention I gave to the congregation, with my eyes. I’ve heard other preachers say the same thing. It was extremely difficult, though, and I worked way to hard to come up with just the right words to risk forgetting them on Sunday morning, so I came up with a compromise.)
On the way home from the symphony, I had a talk with Christian about orchestras, musicians, and conductors. One of the things I asked him was, “What makes a great conductor?”
His answer was A) a thorough (intimate) knowledge of the music, B) knowing each of the instruments in the orchestra and what they could do, and C) being able to get the best out of each musician.
And so when I read Peterson’s essay in The Christian Century, I thought about Christian’s answer: being drenched in scripture certainly sounds a lot like one of the traits being a true conductor. Let me quote a bit from Peterson’s essay:
“Two areas are conspicuously in need of attention these days regarding ways and means, areas in which we’re doing the right thing the wrong way…the two areas are our approaches to congregational life and scripture.” (p. 24)
Regarding congregational life, Peterson says, “The congregation is not about us (meaning pastors, I presume). It is about God.” That sounds a bit like knowing each instrument, and being able to get the best out of it- but Peterson says we do that the wrong way, trying to imagine how we will use each new member to attain our goals for the church. What Peterson points out is that God is the one who draws each member into what God is doing, and the pastor’s role ought to be leading the people to the point where they are willing to place themselves on the altar, and give themselves to God.
Peterson goes on to say, “Scripture is not about us either,” and he devotes more space to working out that proposition. Scripture is about God, not about us, although we are included. He says we to often look for answers, look for rules, look for secrets- “Too many of us read only for information, for know-how, to better ourselves…when we need a break from that, we read for entertainment.” (p. 25)
“So what is the way in regard to scripture? How do we receive this text? Here’s how: by listening and responding and submitting…our reading of this text is a personal listening to a personal God. We listen to God speak our lives into being. We listen to the story that provides a narrative shape and meaning to a life of following Jesus in the conditions of the world. It is prayerful, relational, obedient listening.” (p. 25)
Well, that sounded too me like a great conductor knowing- REALLY knowing, thoroughly and intimately- the music.
George R. Pasley
December 6, 2003
Earlier this fall, Christian attended a lecture by Eugene Peterson in Chicago, sponsored by The Christian Century Magazine. He is currently reading a book by Peterson, “The Contemplative Pastor,” and he invited me to read a few chapters while I was there.
Much of our discussion this year seemed to focus on the pros and cons of small churches verses large churches, and how churches (and pastors) can be focused on sharing the good tidings of Jesus Christ. Peterson has something to say about this, it seems to me (I heard him speak at Montreat 3 years ago), but he also has a lot to say about how pastors view and exercise their vocation. In fact, today I read the lecture that Peterson gave in Chicago, in the current edition (“Transparent Lives”, November 29, 2003) of The Christian Century.
The first portion of the article talked about congruence- “doing the Jesus truth in the Jesus way” is the way Peterson summarized it. He envisioned a way of being a pastor in which there is no dissonance between preaching and doing, between word and spirit, between theory and application. And he calls for a contemplative life- arguably, a term ripe for stereotyping, but one that I very much like.
In our discussions, my friend Christian described Peterson’s approach to preparing a sermon- on Sunday morning, the pastor is drenched in the scripture for the day. I thought about that notion as I read Peterson’s article, and I remembered something I had seen and heard when I went to Michigan this year.
On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Christian and I went to a concert by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Christian is an accomplished musician who currently plays in the Oakland (Michigan) Community Orchestra, while I have only been to two symphony concerts that I can remember- a performance of the Chicago Symphony with guest conductor Arthur Fiedler, in 1970, and a performance by the Ukraine Symphony at Princeton University, in 1996. So I was looking forward to the concert, especially to have a musician with me.
The symphony was guest conducted by Aldo Ceccato, and the second half of the concert featured The New World Symphony, by Antonin Dvorak. During the first half of the concert, I focused my attention on individual musicians, enjoying the way in which they worked at their craft- it seemed different to me, noticing that it was actual physical motion that produced sound, and seeing the intensity of their effort.
Christian told me that Dvorak composed the New World symphony while he was on a boat sailing to America, so during the second half of the concert I attempted to listen to the music and imagine what the composer was saying about America when he composed the symphony. But afterwards, Christian asked me if I had noticed the conductor did not use a score- he had it memorized. I had to admit I didn’t notice that, so we discussed it a bit.
Soloists- and there had been a piano solo in the first half- commonly memorize the pieces they are performing. But it is another caliber of skill for a conductor to memorize a piece, especially a whole symphony- obviously, that means they have to memorize the music of every instrument- oboes, bassoons, trumpets, clarinets, violins, violas, cellos, etc., and so it is very incredible to be there when a conductor does it.
But my friend Christian went on to say that conductors do not memorize just for show. Memorization frees them from worrying about turning pages- and they have more pages, which have to be turned more often, than the musicians. The freedom they gain allows them to focus entirely on the orchestra.
(At the time of this writing, that commentary by my friend reminds me of the comments I got when I used to occasionally preach without notes- always praise, and it had to do with the attention I gave to the congregation, with my eyes. I’ve heard other preachers say the same thing. It was extremely difficult, though, and I worked way to hard to come up with just the right words to risk forgetting them on Sunday morning, so I came up with a compromise.)
On the way home from the symphony, I had a talk with Christian about orchestras, musicians, and conductors. One of the things I asked him was, “What makes a great conductor?”
His answer was A) a thorough (intimate) knowledge of the music, B) knowing each of the instruments in the orchestra and what they could do, and C) being able to get the best out of each musician.
And so when I read Peterson’s essay in The Christian Century, I thought about Christian’s answer: being drenched in scripture certainly sounds a lot like one of the traits being a true conductor. Let me quote a bit from Peterson’s essay:
“Two areas are conspicuously in need of attention these days regarding ways and means, areas in which we’re doing the right thing the wrong way…the two areas are our approaches to congregational life and scripture.” (p. 24)
Regarding congregational life, Peterson says, “The congregation is not about us (meaning pastors, I presume). It is about God.” That sounds a bit like knowing each instrument, and being able to get the best out of it- but Peterson says we do that the wrong way, trying to imagine how we will use each new member to attain our goals for the church. What Peterson points out is that God is the one who draws each member into what God is doing, and the pastor’s role ought to be leading the people to the point where they are willing to place themselves on the altar, and give themselves to God.
Peterson goes on to say, “Scripture is not about us either,” and he devotes more space to working out that proposition. Scripture is about God, not about us, although we are included. He says we to often look for answers, look for rules, look for secrets- “Too many of us read only for information, for know-how, to better ourselves…when we need a break from that, we read for entertainment.” (p. 25)
“So what is the way in regard to scripture? How do we receive this text? Here’s how: by listening and responding and submitting…our reading of this text is a personal listening to a personal God. We listen to God speak our lives into being. We listen to the story that provides a narrative shape and meaning to a life of following Jesus in the conditions of the world. It is prayerful, relational, obedient listening.” (p. 25)
Well, that sounded too me like a great conductor knowing- REALLY knowing, thoroughly and intimately- the music.
George R. Pasley
December 6, 2003
DOING VERBAL JUSTICE TO LIFE
DOING VERBAL JUSTICE TO LIFE
Last week, while I was on an errand, a man I scarcely know sat down, looked at me, and asked, “What are you reading these days?”
I was a bit startled by this. Yes, I read in public and I probably have become a local oddity, but I’m not sure that HE knows that. But I told him what I was reading lately, “Coming Home to Eat,” by Gary Paul Nabhan. It’s about the politics of food and contains some themes that relate to rural justice issues.
And then he told me what he was reading, “Gettysburg,” by Kent Gramm. And all of a sudden, I knew that he knew I was a reader because if a letter to the editor I wrote that made mention of “Lincoln‘s Greatest Speech,’ by Ronald C. White.
But we ended up trading books- he lent me Gramm’s, and I lent him a book I read the week before, “Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation 1861-1865” (by William Klingaman, a colleague from the congregation in Maryland that sent me to seminary). Trading books is not something I have done before- I ruin mine by making countless notes in them, and then guard them jealously- but somehow this seemed right. I may need to write a poem, or even an essay on the experience.
I have made notes about the book I borrowed, but I’ve had to discipline myself to make them on a scrap of paper I tore from the placemat at the restaurant where I normally eat my breakfast. The book is fascinating, if difficult, to read. It is not so much history as it is philosophy, and it kind of drives me crazy when Gramm drops a promising historical paragraph to pursue his philosophy. And he kind of goes around and around with his philosophy, but I’m getting the hang of it and like it more the further I read.
The book cover offers very scant clues to Gramm’s background, but his writing makes it obvious that he is very familiar with theology. So, I did an Internet search, and found out that yes, one of his degrees is an MDiv from Princeton (as is one of Ronald C. White’s). But one of my notes is what I want to share with you. It concerns a line of Gramm’s from page 125.
I have been fascinated with some of the recent recovery of the language and importance of lament in modern theology, and some of my poems have been an attempt to express honest lament, and “create room” where we are free to explore its possibilities.
Gramm was not really talking about lament when he described Union General Andrew Humphreys. But he was talking about the need to express our anger and consternation with the world as it is, and this is how he described a peculiar gift of Humphreys’:
“Best of all, he was known for his ‘distinguished and brilliant profanity,’ and was a prodigiously loud swearer. Sometimes what you want most of all is someone to do honest verbal justice to life.”
Well, there is more to the paragraph, but I thought that line particularly powerful.
George R. Pasley
November 19, 2002
Last week, while I was on an errand, a man I scarcely know sat down, looked at me, and asked, “What are you reading these days?”
I was a bit startled by this. Yes, I read in public and I probably have become a local oddity, but I’m not sure that HE knows that. But I told him what I was reading lately, “Coming Home to Eat,” by Gary Paul Nabhan. It’s about the politics of food and contains some themes that relate to rural justice issues.
And then he told me what he was reading, “Gettysburg,” by Kent Gramm. And all of a sudden, I knew that he knew I was a reader because if a letter to the editor I wrote that made mention of “Lincoln‘s Greatest Speech,’ by Ronald C. White.
But we ended up trading books- he lent me Gramm’s, and I lent him a book I read the week before, “Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation 1861-1865” (by William Klingaman, a colleague from the congregation in Maryland that sent me to seminary). Trading books is not something I have done before- I ruin mine by making countless notes in them, and then guard them jealously- but somehow this seemed right. I may need to write a poem, or even an essay on the experience.
I have made notes about the book I borrowed, but I’ve had to discipline myself to make them on a scrap of paper I tore from the placemat at the restaurant where I normally eat my breakfast. The book is fascinating, if difficult, to read. It is not so much history as it is philosophy, and it kind of drives me crazy when Gramm drops a promising historical paragraph to pursue his philosophy. And he kind of goes around and around with his philosophy, but I’m getting the hang of it and like it more the further I read.
The book cover offers very scant clues to Gramm’s background, but his writing makes it obvious that he is very familiar with theology. So, I did an Internet search, and found out that yes, one of his degrees is an MDiv from Princeton (as is one of Ronald C. White’s). But one of my notes is what I want to share with you. It concerns a line of Gramm’s from page 125.
I have been fascinated with some of the recent recovery of the language and importance of lament in modern theology, and some of my poems have been an attempt to express honest lament, and “create room” where we are free to explore its possibilities.
Gramm was not really talking about lament when he described Union General Andrew Humphreys. But he was talking about the need to express our anger and consternation with the world as it is, and this is how he described a peculiar gift of Humphreys’:
“Best of all, he was known for his ‘distinguished and brilliant profanity,’ and was a prodigiously loud swearer. Sometimes what you want most of all is someone to do honest verbal justice to life.”
Well, there is more to the paragraph, but I thought that line particularly powerful.
George R. Pasley
November 19, 2002
HOW TO PREACH A PARABLE
HOW TO PREACH A PARABLE
By Eugene L. Lowry
Abingdon Press, 1989, 173 pages
ISBN 0-687-17924-6
If you are going to read one book on preaching, read “How To Preach a Parable”, by Eugene Lowry, and wear it out reading it over and over again. Granted, I have not read a great many preaching books, but it is hard to imagine how one could top this one.
The format of the book is most helpful. There is a short section that either introduces, or reminds the reader (depending on their prior experience), of Lowry’s narrative method. Narrative preaching, in Lowry’s fashion, is not merely “telling a story”. There are many possible variables, but the theory is that a good sermon will have a plot that works like a story from beginning to end. After the preliminary issues are dealt with, Lowry offers four sermons from four preachers, and analyzes each one. Within the entire book there are a great many pearls, and I shall try to pick out a few to whet your appetite.
Lowry first encourages the preacher to slow down. “Our intention to plan a sermon (emphasis original) is commendable- and inevitable, for Sunday is fast approaching. Yet our task at this early moment in the preparation process should be to set aside our intentionality in favor of the possibility of inadvertent surprise.” (p. 32) what Lowry is arguing against is imposing our agenda on scripture, and he offers a few ways to avoid it. 1) Read the text out loud, several translations. 2) Look for trouble- what doesn’t seem to fit? What raises your eyebrows? What seems “weird”? This places the preacher in the position of investigator rather than explainer.
The four “designs” that Lowry goes on to analyze are: Running the Story, Delaying the Story, Suspending the Story, and Alternating the Story. Each section features a sermon that illustrates the method, and then Lowry helps the reader to see how the sermon achieved its goal, and how to possibly begin doing that yourself.
Running the Story featured a great sermon by Dennis Willis, “Noah was a Good Man.” I liked this sermon so much that I wanted to find out who Willis was (Lowry tells us that he is deceased), so I searched on the Internet for him, but only found a few references to this sermon in this book. Presumably, he preached other great sermons, somewhere. This sermon is as close as the book comes to the stereotypical narrative sermon, one story from beginning to end, but even this story steps out of that mold at one point, briefly. I like how Lowry describes Willis as a “painter” who leads listener to a spot where he is free to paint what he (the preacher) wants to paint “Because art of all kinds has the potential of grasping us rather than being grasped as ideational material.” (p. 62) Now you see that the point of being open to “inadvertent surprise” early on the process is carried out from beginning to end, so it is always the gospel that grasps us, and not the other way around. Perhaps, though, the most important point that Lowry draws form this sermon is the movement from indicative to imperative. In Lowry’s understanding throughout the book, the imperative (what WE need to do) is always made possible by the indicative (what the gospel has made POSSIBLE for us to do). All the examples, beginning with Willis, do this quickly and by surprise, grasping the hearer.
Delaying the Story features a sermon by Leander Keck, Academic Dean at Yale, from the time when he was a professor at Candler. It is a sermon on Mark’s account of the feeding of 5,000, delivered in a seminary chapel. As with all four of the sermons, Lowry asks the reader to read it aloud. Thus, one can “hear” the sermon the way it really WOULD be heard. Since I do most of my reading in the local café, I did not do this (but maybe I should have!). One of the points, though, is that reading something on print enables us to go back and check things that we can’t do when we are listening to something said. We need to write sermons so that they will work for listening, not for reading.
Keck actually delays the reading of the text until part way through the sermon, and by that time he has already taken the position of the protagonists in the text (something that is often a great technique), the flabbergasted disciples. Keck’s sermon gives some tiny but powerful examples of dealing with exegetical questions- “and now he takes those loaves and fishes and says the blessing and divides them just as any Jewish father would do at home…” Lowry notes how Keck “fits (contextual information) into the sweep of the action” (p. 97). But more importantly, Keck leads the listeners AWAY from another exegetical question. I’ll quote Keck, preceded and followed by Lowry’s comment:
“More important, he doesn’t actually say the crowd was fed. He knows we will say it to ourselves. But in the next paragraph it will be assumed, as he asks, ‘How?’
‘Now our curiosity is strained. We want to know how Jesus did it. But curiosity goes hungry while the crowd is fed. Mark wants us to see the people, not the loaves. The crowd has more than enough to eat, and there were twelve baskets of leftovers. And don’t ask where they got the baskets either!’
Once again Keck is faced with the same old question…about miracle. Again, he doesn’t want us to go on a detour…he utilizes the story’s own imagery in noting that ‘curiosity goes hungry.” (p. 97)
The other thing that was helpful in Lowry’s commentary is that he points out how Keck used other examples from scripture to show how God’s transforming power is always at work. The feeding of the 5000 was not an isolated case. But the sermon ends in such a way those those who walk away would not overtly be praising the preacher, but rather, the God who was proclaimed. Says Lowry, “The point is that our inadequacies, if solved by the evocation of the sermon, are solved by the power of Christ’s blessing. Nothing less can be any sermon’s purpose.” (p. 113)
Suspending the Story featured one of Lowry’s own sermons, a sermon on the laborers in the vineyard. Lowry introduces the chapter this way: “This sermon will begin inside the text, run into a problem, and hence require the telling of the story to be suspended while another text provides a way out of the dilemma. Once accomplished, the sermonic process moves back to the central text for the completion of the message.” (p. 115) There were some really good suggestions here regarding lateral moves within the sermon, but perhaps the most helpful thing that Lowry offered was not uniquely connected to this form, and that was the issue of questioning the text.
“…There comes great relief for many people when a preacher ‘dares’ to ask what they have always wanted to ask. Moreover, there are many in most congregations who are close to illiterate about the Bible who can be helped by this procedure. Certainly, one defense against having to ever read the Bible is the presumed attitude that people who have read it are precisely those who do not question it. This misplaced ‘respect’ has contributed to the next generation’s ignorance- at least I have found it so in some congregations I have served. After all, if you don’t read it, you won’t know what you ought to believe and don’t. My experience is that sermons that include such questioning are the ones that tend to draw the greatest amount of substantive comments after the service.” (p. 137)
But back to the sermon, questioning the text in the sermon serves the purpose of helping the listener investigate along with the preacher. It should be noted, however, that Lowry insists that if the preacher cannot find a way out of his questions, he or she should not use the text. “The sermon must find a way out of the apparent dilemma.” (p. 138)
In the weeks since I read this book, I have tried several of its techniques. My attempts have been rather crude, compared to the examples Lowry supplied, especially so my “questioning” of the text. But, like Lowry, I found it was appreciated.
The final form, Alternating the Story, begins with a sermon by Fred Craddock. And it was here that, in my opinion, Lowry is at his pedagogical best. Craddock is a genius, and Lowry knows it. He knows that we are likely to read Craddock, say, “I wish I could preach like that,” and then go back to preaching the way we do. But Lowry offers ways to LEARN to do what Craddock does.
One of the most prominent features of Craddock sermons are freely created stories. Lowry talks about how this technique serves the sermon, but “There is another, perhaps more important, purpose for preachers attempting such freely invented stories. Such recreations will open the mind of the preacher. I suggest their use even if the final result is not good enough to be included in the finished sermon. Before the shock of recognition can occur for listeners, it needs to occur for the preacher. Freely invented stories often promote that shock.” (p. 167)
In another section, Lowry marvels at Craddock’s choice of words, in this case “rearranging the dust” (referring to a struggling farmer in a bad year). First, he notes that adjectives and adverbs are modifiers, and “most of us are not greatly impacted by an alteration. We are impacted by a radically new and different image. To do that, one needs the power of nouns and verbs” (p. 163). With regard to Craddock’s genius, Lowry says, “We may think the result of our efforts a bit feeble in comparison. But the proper comparison is not with anyone else; the proper comparison is between how we do things now and how we might do things…Find another term for the usual one, then find another context for the new term, and then find a phrase associated with that other context” (p. 164)
But I would like to add a thought, and I add it because Lowry was so enamored with “rearranging the dust”. I don’t know much about Lowry’s background, but I do know that some of Craddock’s early preaching was in Oklahoma. So I suggest that Craddock may be a good listener. Not in the east, but In Kansas, during times when crops AND prices were good (a long time ago), I heard farmers repeat the phrase “playing in the dirt”. Listen to what people are saying. We have a way of coining our own phrases. Listen, and it is not too hard to move from “playing in the dirt” in good times, to “rearranging the dust” in bad times.
“When listeners begin to believe the preacher knows them better than they know themselves, a kind of communion emerges…when (Craddock) said: ‘Let me tell you a story.’ Who would say no?” (p. 170).
Not me!
George R. Pasley
September 23, 2002
By Eugene L. Lowry
Abingdon Press, 1989, 173 pages
ISBN 0-687-17924-6
If you are going to read one book on preaching, read “How To Preach a Parable”, by Eugene Lowry, and wear it out reading it over and over again. Granted, I have not read a great many preaching books, but it is hard to imagine how one could top this one.
The format of the book is most helpful. There is a short section that either introduces, or reminds the reader (depending on their prior experience), of Lowry’s narrative method. Narrative preaching, in Lowry’s fashion, is not merely “telling a story”. There are many possible variables, but the theory is that a good sermon will have a plot that works like a story from beginning to end. After the preliminary issues are dealt with, Lowry offers four sermons from four preachers, and analyzes each one. Within the entire book there are a great many pearls, and I shall try to pick out a few to whet your appetite.
Lowry first encourages the preacher to slow down. “Our intention to plan a sermon (emphasis original) is commendable- and inevitable, for Sunday is fast approaching. Yet our task at this early moment in the preparation process should be to set aside our intentionality in favor of the possibility of inadvertent surprise.” (p. 32) what Lowry is arguing against is imposing our agenda on scripture, and he offers a few ways to avoid it. 1) Read the text out loud, several translations. 2) Look for trouble- what doesn’t seem to fit? What raises your eyebrows? What seems “weird”? This places the preacher in the position of investigator rather than explainer.
The four “designs” that Lowry goes on to analyze are: Running the Story, Delaying the Story, Suspending the Story, and Alternating the Story. Each section features a sermon that illustrates the method, and then Lowry helps the reader to see how the sermon achieved its goal, and how to possibly begin doing that yourself.
Running the Story featured a great sermon by Dennis Willis, “Noah was a Good Man.” I liked this sermon so much that I wanted to find out who Willis was (Lowry tells us that he is deceased), so I searched on the Internet for him, but only found a few references to this sermon in this book. Presumably, he preached other great sermons, somewhere. This sermon is as close as the book comes to the stereotypical narrative sermon, one story from beginning to end, but even this story steps out of that mold at one point, briefly. I like how Lowry describes Willis as a “painter” who leads listener to a spot where he is free to paint what he (the preacher) wants to paint “Because art of all kinds has the potential of grasping us rather than being grasped as ideational material.” (p. 62) Now you see that the point of being open to “inadvertent surprise” early on the process is carried out from beginning to end, so it is always the gospel that grasps us, and not the other way around. Perhaps, though, the most important point that Lowry draws form this sermon is the movement from indicative to imperative. In Lowry’s understanding throughout the book, the imperative (what WE need to do) is always made possible by the indicative (what the gospel has made POSSIBLE for us to do). All the examples, beginning with Willis, do this quickly and by surprise, grasping the hearer.
Delaying the Story features a sermon by Leander Keck, Academic Dean at Yale, from the time when he was a professor at Candler. It is a sermon on Mark’s account of the feeding of 5,000, delivered in a seminary chapel. As with all four of the sermons, Lowry asks the reader to read it aloud. Thus, one can “hear” the sermon the way it really WOULD be heard. Since I do most of my reading in the local café, I did not do this (but maybe I should have!). One of the points, though, is that reading something on print enables us to go back and check things that we can’t do when we are listening to something said. We need to write sermons so that they will work for listening, not for reading.
Keck actually delays the reading of the text until part way through the sermon, and by that time he has already taken the position of the protagonists in the text (something that is often a great technique), the flabbergasted disciples. Keck’s sermon gives some tiny but powerful examples of dealing with exegetical questions- “and now he takes those loaves and fishes and says the blessing and divides them just as any Jewish father would do at home…” Lowry notes how Keck “fits (contextual information) into the sweep of the action” (p. 97). But more importantly, Keck leads the listeners AWAY from another exegetical question. I’ll quote Keck, preceded and followed by Lowry’s comment:
“More important, he doesn’t actually say the crowd was fed. He knows we will say it to ourselves. But in the next paragraph it will be assumed, as he asks, ‘How?’
‘Now our curiosity is strained. We want to know how Jesus did it. But curiosity goes hungry while the crowd is fed. Mark wants us to see the people, not the loaves. The crowd has more than enough to eat, and there were twelve baskets of leftovers. And don’t ask where they got the baskets either!’
Once again Keck is faced with the same old question…about miracle. Again, he doesn’t want us to go on a detour…he utilizes the story’s own imagery in noting that ‘curiosity goes hungry.” (p. 97)
The other thing that was helpful in Lowry’s commentary is that he points out how Keck used other examples from scripture to show how God’s transforming power is always at work. The feeding of the 5000 was not an isolated case. But the sermon ends in such a way those those who walk away would not overtly be praising the preacher, but rather, the God who was proclaimed. Says Lowry, “The point is that our inadequacies, if solved by the evocation of the sermon, are solved by the power of Christ’s blessing. Nothing less can be any sermon’s purpose.” (p. 113)
Suspending the Story featured one of Lowry’s own sermons, a sermon on the laborers in the vineyard. Lowry introduces the chapter this way: “This sermon will begin inside the text, run into a problem, and hence require the telling of the story to be suspended while another text provides a way out of the dilemma. Once accomplished, the sermonic process moves back to the central text for the completion of the message.” (p. 115) There were some really good suggestions here regarding lateral moves within the sermon, but perhaps the most helpful thing that Lowry offered was not uniquely connected to this form, and that was the issue of questioning the text.
“…There comes great relief for many people when a preacher ‘dares’ to ask what they have always wanted to ask. Moreover, there are many in most congregations who are close to illiterate about the Bible who can be helped by this procedure. Certainly, one defense against having to ever read the Bible is the presumed attitude that people who have read it are precisely those who do not question it. This misplaced ‘respect’ has contributed to the next generation’s ignorance- at least I have found it so in some congregations I have served. After all, if you don’t read it, you won’t know what you ought to believe and don’t. My experience is that sermons that include such questioning are the ones that tend to draw the greatest amount of substantive comments after the service.” (p. 137)
But back to the sermon, questioning the text in the sermon serves the purpose of helping the listener investigate along with the preacher. It should be noted, however, that Lowry insists that if the preacher cannot find a way out of his questions, he or she should not use the text. “The sermon must find a way out of the apparent dilemma.” (p. 138)
In the weeks since I read this book, I have tried several of its techniques. My attempts have been rather crude, compared to the examples Lowry supplied, especially so my “questioning” of the text. But, like Lowry, I found it was appreciated.
The final form, Alternating the Story, begins with a sermon by Fred Craddock. And it was here that, in my opinion, Lowry is at his pedagogical best. Craddock is a genius, and Lowry knows it. He knows that we are likely to read Craddock, say, “I wish I could preach like that,” and then go back to preaching the way we do. But Lowry offers ways to LEARN to do what Craddock does.
One of the most prominent features of Craddock sermons are freely created stories. Lowry talks about how this technique serves the sermon, but “There is another, perhaps more important, purpose for preachers attempting such freely invented stories. Such recreations will open the mind of the preacher. I suggest their use even if the final result is not good enough to be included in the finished sermon. Before the shock of recognition can occur for listeners, it needs to occur for the preacher. Freely invented stories often promote that shock.” (p. 167)
In another section, Lowry marvels at Craddock’s choice of words, in this case “rearranging the dust” (referring to a struggling farmer in a bad year). First, he notes that adjectives and adverbs are modifiers, and “most of us are not greatly impacted by an alteration. We are impacted by a radically new and different image. To do that, one needs the power of nouns and verbs” (p. 163). With regard to Craddock’s genius, Lowry says, “We may think the result of our efforts a bit feeble in comparison. But the proper comparison is not with anyone else; the proper comparison is between how we do things now and how we might do things…Find another term for the usual one, then find another context for the new term, and then find a phrase associated with that other context” (p. 164)
But I would like to add a thought, and I add it because Lowry was so enamored with “rearranging the dust”. I don’t know much about Lowry’s background, but I do know that some of Craddock’s early preaching was in Oklahoma. So I suggest that Craddock may be a good listener. Not in the east, but In Kansas, during times when crops AND prices were good (a long time ago), I heard farmers repeat the phrase “playing in the dirt”. Listen to what people are saying. We have a way of coining our own phrases. Listen, and it is not too hard to move from “playing in the dirt” in good times, to “rearranging the dust” in bad times.
“When listeners begin to believe the preacher knows them better than they know themselves, a kind of communion emerges…when (Craddock) said: ‘Let me tell you a story.’ Who would say no?” (p. 170).
Not me!
George R. Pasley
September 23, 2002
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