Subscribe to Ailbe Newsletters
Sign up to receive our email newsletters and read columns about revival, renewal, and awakening built upon prayer, sharing, and mutual edification.
Sunday, 12/8/13
Literature
Peggy Rosenthal recounts her debt to the writings of Simone Weil in “An Apprenticeship in Affliction: Waiting with Simone Weil” (Image, Spring 2013). Weil presented Rosenthal with an austere Christian faith, challenging her to embrace suffering, hardship, and affliction as the place where she should most reasonably expect to encounter God and His grace. In the course of her narrative Rosenthal mentions various poets who have also been moved and taught by Weil – who died at age 34 – and seconds their views with her own. Her essay reminds me of the power of writing, of how one person’s words can, as Petrarch observed, impact people miles and years separated from the writer. I have such writers in my own life, as, I’m sure, many people do. To write like Simone Weil – boldly, honestly, and in ways that create new vision and new direction for readers – is surely a goal toward which all serious writers should aspire.
Spirituality
Rebecca Konyndyk DeJoung offers the defining article in the Baylor University Christian Reflection issue on acedia (Number 49). She explains that “sloth” is not really the best term for this “deadly sin.” Something more like “aversion” is appropriate, for those who are in the grip of acedia do not care about the things of the Lord and are averse to, and even resist, His efforts to transform them so as to reflect His love. She explains, “Acedia wants the security of Christianity without the sacrifice and struggle to be made anew.” She continues, “The battle here is not between body and soul, between the physical and the spiritual, but between the ‘old self’ and the ‘new self.’ Spiritual battles take place on many fronts, but in the worst cases, acedia describes a heart loving and clinging to the wrong things, so that we are divided against ourselves.” The powerful effects of this sin can be seen everywhere in the contemporary Church: a low view of disciplines and the Law, shallow and insipid worship, lack of love for the lost, unwillingness to sacrifice time or convenience for the Kingdom of God, and more. This, pastors should point out, is not an emotional affliction or cultural condition which we may only observe and tolerate; acedia is sin, because we fall into it by choosing not to obey the demands of discipleship and divine love. Like all sin acedia must be diagnosed, confessed, repented of, and laid aside, or it will surely destroy our delight in the Lord and joy in His salvation.
Monday, 12/9/13
Poetry
Sven Birkerts remembers Seamus Heaney, reflecting on his contribution against the backdrop of our digital age and its “ambient ubiquity” (“Last Words,” Aeon, 6 December 2013, http://aeon.co/magazine/altered-states/mourning-seamus-heaney-and-his-way-of-being-in-the-world/). He wrote of Heaney, “Heaney fused in his work a power of unmediated attentiveness, of focus, and an ear attuned to the highly nuanced layerings of language. If he was an etymologist, it was never as a scholar looking for derivations, but as a poet looking to expose the living pulses of the past through words.” Heaney made things real and palpable, whether it was the frog spawn sliming between his fingers and changing the direction of his life or the “squat pen” resting between his fingers by which he would “dig” into a moment, a thing, a memory and make it come alive as beautiful and real. He understood the power of imagination and trusted in verse as the medium to unlock and liberate its creative powers. He had no ax to grind, no mission to fulfill. It was enough that he explored and exploited the power of words to enable readers, amid the pulses and impulses of our ever more cyber age, to stop and feel the frog spawn. One who can do this, and do it for the sake of the Kingdom of God, may be able to make a lasting contribution to that realm’s progress.
American History
Tanya Basu wonders, “Have We Found the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island?” in today’s National Geographic Daily News (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131208-roanoke-lost-colony-discovery-history-raleigh/). The colony of over 100 settlers disappeared after 1587, and their demise has been a mystery to historians ever since. Following a newly discovered clue on an ancient map, researchers have returned to the site with ground penetrating radar and appear to have discovered evidence of an ancient settlement three feet below ground. Only subsequent digging and study will be able to determine whether the finds offer any insights to disposition of the lost colony. But what does it say about our ties to history, our sense of connectedness with tragic events, or the simple and unquenchable human hunger to know, that we continue to pursue answers concerning these early settlers?
Tuesday, 12/10/13
Culture
Curiosity has a curious history among Western culture lovers. James Delbourgo uses a review of a new book on curiosities and oddities of various types to point out the Western penchant for strange, weird, hapax legomena sorts of things to deck out a curiosity cabinet or museum, showing that these reveal a dark and sinister aspect of curiosity which, as we know, killed the cat (“Triumph of the Strange,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 9, 2013). Over the years curiosities have been used to showcase personal quirkiness, political power, cultural supremacy, or just plain stupidity. The Internet today has become the ultimate curio cabinet, a place where government, in collusion with big business, wants to make a thing to own and examine of all our private communications and lives. Curiosity, “is a way of knowing that looks askance. It draws attention to the unexplained or overlooked fragment, to invite us, if possible, to look sideways and look closely at the same time. As such, its promise of knowledge is ambiguous.” Curiosity wants to survey everything in order to know as much as it can. It strives to collect more than to categorize, to own more than to understand. Curiosity “suspends judgment about value” so that it “possesses a singular capacity to make even the most controversial objects public, creating possibilities for political intervention in the process...” He points to NSA’s “Prism” project as a prime example of the dark and sinister potential of curiosity. But it doesn’t seem to me as though curiosity is an inherent evil. If Proverbs 25.2 is correct, God applauds our curiosity when we apply it to the task of knowing Him and engaging His glory in the things He has made. Let us be curious, then, for that which is glorious, and that which is nefarious will hardly be able to harm us. http://m.chronicle.com/article/Triumph-of-the-Strange/143365/
Music
It would be hard to overstate the importance of music and song as these are presented and employed in Scripture. The insipid state of music and singing in evangelical churches today does not reflect the priority and value that God places on these disciplines. Aaron Ridley explains that music has value because it is able to move us emotionally, leading to reflection and creating value for music and everything we associate with it (Music, Value & the Passions, Cornell 1995). We discover the value of music as it engages us intellectually and affectively, through all its various devices of instrumentation, voice, timbre, tone, mood, melody, and so forth. Since the affections matter so much to the course of human life, as Solomon and Jesus and Augustine and Edwards, among many others, explained, whatever engages or shapes affections, or is important for nurturing them, should be important to us. It certainly is to God. There is no excuse for our having allowed the disciplines of music and singing to fall upon such hard times in the community of faith. It is a simple matter of unbelief and disobedience, and leaves us vulnerable to the charms of music through its expression, primarily, in pop, advertising, and entertainment. These, however, do not ennoble the affections; they enslave them.
Wednesday, 12/11/13
Poetry
What is a poem, and what is its purpose? Mark Yakich ruminates on these questions at The Atlantic Weekly (“What Is a Poem?”, Nov 25, 2013). He explains, following the word’s Greek origins, that a poem is a “thing made” and therefore must have some purpose that inheres both in its creation and its form. Not all poets succeed in making their “made things” intelligible or meaningful to readers. Most people probably think poetry is useless. What poetry does well, he thinks, is convey ambiguity. It is a good thing when people argue over the nature of poetry or the meaning of any particular poem. Doing so can “change the machine or wild animal of your mind.” But is this poetry’s only or even primary value? As a conversation starter or stimulant to thinking? These, of course, are not bad things, and it is well that a poet should keep them in mind as he composes. But a poem needs to have a Jack in its box, the promise to readers that, if they just keep turning the handle slowly and attentively – wherever they can begin to grip the thing – sooner or later the pent-up power and hidden truth of it will spring up before their eyes.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/what-is-a-poem/281835/
Thursday, 12/12/13
Government
Francis Fukuyama reports that American government has been taken captive by interest groups, political parties, and the courts (“The Decay of American Political Institutions,” The American Interest, December 8, 2013). He writes, “the problem with American government is less an unaccountable bureaucracy than an overall system that allocates what should properly be administrative powers to courts and political parties.” This is news? He bemoans what he regards as the diminished powers of executive bureaucracies to administer the best interests of government and the people. Has he been following the present administration? Mr. Fukuyama hankers for a more European style parliamentary system, but the problem with American government is not so much the system as the dislodging of the system from the virtues and values of its Biblical foundations. There is no permanent solution to government corruption and dysfunction, no matter the system by which we are governed. The objective must at all times be to maximize vigilance, participation, and accountability on the part of those who understand and embrace the Biblical view of government.
Work
Americans are increasingly captive to a cult of “productivity” in which working is seen to be the most important activity in which anyone can be engaged (Steven Poole, “Why the cult of hard work is counter-productive,” NewStatesman, 11December 2013). Everyone needs at least to appear busy and to be making some sort of measurable contribution to himself or the economy or whatever. Efficiency experts, productivity gurus, gimmicks, and gadgets, strategies and short-cuts, and websites and apps abound to enable us to increase productivity. Poole believes this is dehumanizing, and I agree, to a point. Advancing the Kingdom of God requires work, but the work we’ve been given to do is greater than the job at which we work; and the outcomes we seek are more important and more enduring than mere economic gain. Moreover, as surely as the Kingdom requires that we work, it requires that we rest, meditate, commune, create, converse, and play. We are the image-bearers of God, after all, and not mere cogs in an economic machine. Tell your local school board.
Education
Sarah Sparks reports on studies which seem to indicate that music education can improve cognitive development and brain function (“Music Training Sharpens Brain Pathways, Studies Say,” Education Week, Nov 25, 2013). Ms. Sparks explains, “New research suggests that the complexity involved in practicing and performing music may help students’ cognitive development. Studies released last month at the Society for Neuroscience meeting here find that music training may increase the neural connections in regions of the brain associated with creativity, decisionmaking, and complex memory, and they may improve a student’s ability to process conflicting information from many senses at once. Research also found that starting music education early can be even more helpful.” We might think public educators would perk up at this and consider restoring a measure of music education – along with, say, art, ethics, and religion? – to the curriculum. But to think this way would be to indulge the naive belief that public education is about personal formation when, in fact, it’s merely about economic tooling. Schools do not care about cognitive development, only about passing students along to the economy with some modicum of preparation so that they won’t be a drag on the rest of us. Music training in the schools? Dream on.
Friday, 12/13/13
Science
All is not well in the world of science, at least, in the world of science publishing. According to Nobel Prize winner Randy Schekman, publication in big name journals – “luxury-journals” - like Science and Nature has become so much a part of university search committees and grant-makers that the rush is on to be published there, whatever it takes. This means many good papers don’t come to light and some bad ones do. Research in certain fields is slighted or slowed while speculative papers with questionable research find their way into print. Retractions in the luxury-journals are increasing. New open-access online journals offer a viable alternative, but they have a long way to go before they will overtake the luxury-journals. All that ego, cutting corners, padding resumes, and preserving brands – and we thought science, merely by definition, was about the search for truth.
Education
Rebecca Schumann believes colleges should stop requiring students to write papers. The students have become so bad at this discipline that their work – shallow, often plagiarized from the web, produced at light speed the morning before they’re due – drives professors to distraction. They hate to read the papers more than the students hate to write them. Schumann explains, “Sure, this quashes the shallow pretense of expecting undergraduates to engage in thoughtful analysis, but they have already proven that they will go to any lengths to avoid doing this. Call me a defeatist, but honestly I’d be happy if a plurality of American college students could discern even the skeletal plot of anything they were assigned. With more exams and no papers, they’ll at least have a shot at retaining, just for a short while, the basic facts of some of the greatest stories ever recorded. In that short while, they may even develop the tiniest inkling of what Martha Nussbaum calls ‘sympathetic imagination’—the cultivation of our own humanity, and something that unfolds when we’re touched by stories of people who are very much unlike us. And that, frankly, is more than any essay will ever do for them.” Now there’s an education strategy: stop requiring that which conduces to and tests for true learning and teach to the state of mind of students as they come to you, without expecting them to improve. But wait, haven’t we been doing this for at least a generation now? (“The End of the College Essay,” Slate, December 13, 2013).
Saturday, 12/14/13
Christianity and Culture
Judge Ken Starr, President and Chancellor of Baylor University, raises the concern about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, a situation the American government has all but ignored (“No tolerance without Christianity,” USAToday, December 13, 2013). Citing a speech at the National Cathedral by a British MP who is also a Muslim, Starr explains the role of Christianity in the promotion of freedom, including religious freedom, from the third century to the present. Much more could be said about the invaluable contributions of the faith to culture and human wellbeing (see for example Rodney Stark’s, The Victory of Reason). As unjust – even mendacious – as it is for the American government to turn a blind eye to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere, it is not only unwise but foolish and dangerous for Christians to ignore or neglect their persecuted brethren, or their theological and cultural heritage, which is a far greater menace to the wellbeing of the faith.
Morality
The fact that human beings act altruistically has always been a problem for those who espouse the theory of evolution. Attempts to account for this very common phenomenon usually end up explaining that altruism evolved as a social or communal activity designed to preserve the group or tribe against other groups or tribes, or other dangers, as Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell, explain in “Beyond the paleo” (Aeon, December 12, 2013). They write, “the evo-conservative argument has some attractions. Human altruism does tend to be parochial, and people do often act as if they ascribe significantly greater moral worth to kin, kith and countryman. The trouble with this understanding of morality is that it cannot be the whole picture, or even most of it. After all, these evolutionary accounts are incapable of explaining a large swath of contemporary moral behaviour that we call the ‘inclusivist anomaly’.” They continue, “Evolutionary accounts of morality do a reasonably good job of explaining the morality of the Pleistocene’s small hunting bands, but they fare much worse in explaining this post-Enlightenment trend toward increasing inclusivity.” A philosophy or worldview is only to be relied upon to the extent that it can make sense of things, especially big, important, everywhere-present things, like the tendency of human beings to show compassion toward sufferers, whether or not they are members of their own “group.” A common gene pool which, as evolutionists insist, is bent toward survival of the individual does not answer the question of altruism. The fact that human beings are made in the image of God, have the works of God’s Law written on their hearts, and – at least at some deep level –know God and understand their duty to Him and one another, this is a far better explanation.
http://aeon.co/magazine/living-together/morality-may-have-evolved-but-it-isnt-fixed/