Sunday, 1/19/14

 Art as Calling
Francisco X. Stork writes about his work as a novelist and lawyer (“Meditations on Writing and Lawyering,” Image, Fall, 2013). He pursues lawyering in order to support what he considers to be his true calling as a writer. He is honest about his writing, wishing it could be better but determined to press on at it a little bit every day and to be as good at it as he can: “There is deep gladness in the acceptance that what I do, poor as it is, will be my best.” He would like to have a sense of calling – of being deeply glad in a work that meets the deep needs of the world in the service of Jesus – about his work as a lawyer, and sometimes he does. But his primary gladness come from his writing, a calling he embraced only gradually, as circumstances led him to begin writing. He believes that art can help both the artist and those who benefit from his art to learn something about themselves and their place in the world: “How does art do that? How does it awaken us? For me, it seems, the creation of that art involves tapping into the raw materials of my life, the losses and the joys, taking all that and ‘frosting’ it with carefully and patiently constructed craft so that the end product has my flesh and blood, but it is also something more than me. It is art now, a mixture of my experience and of invention, of reality and imagination, of truth and beauty.” He offers all his work, “poor as it is”, to Jesus at the end of each day. Here are some useful thoughts concerning the notion of calling. 

Church Music
Steven R. Guthrie reviews the book, From Memory to Imagination: Reforming the Church’s Music, and the author, C. Randall Bradley, replies in the Summer, 2013, issue of Christian Scholar’s Review. The title tells the tale: the way churches presently do music is mired in the past, has become culturally myopic, and fails to address the realities of a postmodern world. Music should have a more contributing role to the church’s mission, and not just her worship. Music can address issues and problems, engage the world beyond the walls of the church, and create opportunities for hospitality and discussion with people from different worldviews. But this will take a stronger commitment to and emphasis on music than most church leaders and members presently demonstrate. Mr. Guthrie fears that the author is too willing to leave the Church’s musical heritage behind, and the author did not entirely dispel that fear. I think the point of the book is good, as far as I understand it, but I would have preferred the first part of the title to have been, Memory and Imagination. We always need new songs to the Lord, and it is a good idea to use music for engaging and serving others beyond the family of faith; however, there is no need to leave our musical heritage behind in so doing. Music can create unity, not only among churches and Christians from different cultures, but with our forebears in the faith as well. We should not neglect their contribution as we consider ways of reforming the music of the Church for today.

Monday, 1/20/14

Humanities
They humanities are in trouble, at least in the academy. Heather MacDonald provides an overview of the narcissism and political correctness that are destroying the study of Western literature, art, and music (“The Humanities and Us,” City Journal, Winter 2014). Professors are dropping study of the classic sources of the humanities and re-organizing instruction to reflect their own peculiar political and sexual preferences. Happily, states and museums are still holding the line, yet students are learning nothing and their ability to employ and appreciate language is being eroded. How easily even the best of the human heritage can be hi-jacked for political and merely personal purposes. And when we remember that much of this heritage of literature, art, and music is grounded in and saturated with a Christian worldview, we should be all the more urgent to preserve the cultural heritage of the past against the political and moral aspirations of the present. All the more reason to study a poem today, don’t you think?

http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_1_urb-humanities.html

Tuesday, 1/21/24

Paul and the Angels
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels, to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality. 1 Timothy 5.21

The phrase, των εκλεκτων αγγελων, “the elect angels,” is the focus here. Does Paul mean the angels who are constantly attending to the people of God, that we should be mindful of their presence and powers, so that we do nothing that might find them bringing the displeasure or discipline of the Lord against us? Or is he referencing the messengers chosen to bear this epistle to Timothy, who would have been privy to its contents? If the latter, then Paul can be seen to be following the Old Testament teaching regarding the need for witnesses when charges are being adjudicated, thus again indicating his trust in the Law as a resource for order and love in the churches. If the former, then we get some sense of the way unseen things factored into Paul’s understanding of the normal life of faith and, in particular, the work of ministers. Calvin prefers this interpretation: “He adds to Christ the angels, not that they are judges, but as future witnesses of carelessness or rashness or self-seeking or bad faith. They are present as spectators, for they have been given charge to care for the Church. And indeed the man who is not shaken out of his carelessness and laziness by the thought that the government of the Church is conducted under the eye of God and His angels must be worse than stupid, and have a heart harder than stone” (Commentary on 1Timothy). ESV Study Bible concurs.

Saturday, 1/25/14

Time
Human beings can’t seem to go fast enough. Tom Vanderbilt reports that people are forever looking for ways to increase the amount of activity they can compress into a moment of time (“The Pleasure and Pain of Speed,” Nautilus, January 25, 2014). A moment of time, as humans experience it, is about a quarter of a second. Studies of film-watching and game-playing indicate that we want our action and activities compressed into smaller and smaller periods of time – more activity per moment. We create technologies that allow us to do this more efficiently, then we work to increase the speed at which they perform. We do not always remember the things that happen in these moments, that is, our experience of our actions is not always permanent or even conscious.  Still, we keep pressing toward more speed, as if something within us were driving us on in this frenetic quest to do more in the time available to us. Vanderbilt observes, “But it may be that the most salient feature of accelerating time is not pleasure or pain, but that it is useful, and that we are willing to go a long way for a little bit of extra utility.” Time plus activity equals productivity. Imagine how much activity, productivity, and usefulness God is able to compress into a moment of time. Our passion for speed suggests that we are rather like Him, an observation that will surprise no one who understands that people are the image-bearers of God.

http://nautil.us/issue/9/time/the-pleasure-and-pain-of-speed

Happiness
Mari Ruti opines that the quest for happiness may not be all that good for us (“Happiness and Its Discontents,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 20, 2014). A little anxiety and uncertainty are necessary, if only to enable us to appreciate the sporadic moments of happiness and peace we are able to enjoy. More than that, however, Ms. Ruti considers that the quest for happiness suppresses something within us, which she calls character, which is unruly, unpredictable, awkward, and can erupt suddenly into clumsy gestures and what many might regard as impolitic or unwise choices. Our culture tells us that happiness is the desired state, and whatever is contrary to that is to be avoided or, if necessary, drugged. She believes human beings are inherently insecure and don’t know how to live with this fact. So we embrace a happiness-seeking persona and simply strive to deny our true essence and character. She concludes, “This is why there is something quite hollow about the ideal of a happy, balanced life—a life unruffled by anxiety. It’s why I think that underneath our quest for vibrant health lurks a tragic kind of discreet death: the demise of everything that is eccentric and messy about human life. Our society sells us the quick fix: If you get a cold, take some decongestants; if you get depressed, take some antidepressants; and if you get anxious, take those tranquilizers. But what are we supposed to take when we lose our character?” The art of being a Christian involves learning to live with both these realities – the desire for happiness and the reality of anxiety - in a way that forms our inner character increasingly into the image of Jesus Christ, the Man of Sorrows Who lived and died and rose again in and for the joy set down before Him in the presence of His Father and ours.

http://chronicle.com/article/HappinessIts-Discontents/144019/

T. M. Moore, Principal