“…the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left.” (C.S. Lewis, “The Grand Miracle,” God in the Dock)

Yesterday, on the Christian liturgical calendar, a new year began: it was the first Sunday of Advent. Sadly, Sophia, for the first time ever, so overslept that we missed Sunday morning worship. (Yes, we’ve missed for several other reasons as well; but she’s at least been the reliable alarm clock, until now.)

Every year I hope for this season to be full of life-transforming meaning, and every year, I feel like I barely grasp hold of some fleeting thoughts about the season before we’re suddenly unwrapping presents, shouting Happy New Year, and back to work.

What I’m hoping for, what I’ve missed year after year, is an Advent and Christmas season which is “eye-opening.” St. John said Jesus’ coming into the world “enlightens everyone.” Jesus himself said that our eye is the lamp of the body; a good eye results in a body filled with light.

In other words, we have a vision problem. We don’t see the God, ourselves, or the world rightly. The Pharisees didn’t see it rightly. Herod didn’t see it rightly. We don’t either. Philip Doddridge recognized the need for a transformed vision when he penned his Advent hymn, “Hark the Glad Sound, the Savior Comes”:

He comes from thickest films of vice
To clear the mental ray,
And on the eyes oppressed with night
To pour celestial day.

Advent is remembering the darkness that preceded the light, the oppressive night that preceded the celestial day. It’s about the gaining of a transformed vision – the kind of thing that turns upside down the way we look at the world and the way we live in it. I’m praying this is not another Advent that goes by in a blur, for blurred vision is all that will result.

Once a unifying Logos or belief in a reason outside ourselves is abandoned, all we have left are feelings and desires. If we cannot let the world or our place and meaning in the world be defined by the Logos, then we will define it entirely within the context of our own desire.

And this is where we get the modern and postmodern foundations for reality – not in a reality that exists without us, but in a reality that is defined by what I feel and desire. So we no longer speak of ourselves and human beings with sexual desires to be brought into accordance with who we really, objectively are. We are not human beings with sexual desires; instead, we are straight or we are gay or we are bisexual. Something we feel strongly, something we desire, has become the very definition of our existence.

Because we all now agree that this is how reality is defined, any argument can be dismissed or any criticism deflected with a very simple combination of words: “You don’t even know me.”

I think my dog Moses just had his first experience chewing tobacco.

I was trying to put together thoughts for a lecture I’m giving on Harry Potter in a couple of days at the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, and I decided to go outside, smoke a cigar (Oliva Serie V), and hope to catch a few earlier Leonid meteors from the limited view I have on the front porch of my house here in the city. No such luck with meteors, but several ideas for Friday’s talk came to mind.

Moses was sitting with me on the porch, and about halfway through my cigar, I heard him chewing on something. It was dark, but I’m pretty sure it was the end of the cigar that I’d snipped off.

It’s been almost a decade since the last time I waited up for meteors. I’m thinking about what would have happened if a soothsayer had approached me at that time and said, “A decade from now, you’ll be smoking a cigar and watching this same meteor shower from the front porch of your city street.” I’d have shouted “False prophet!” I’m sure.

Here’s the deceptive thing about the Fallen human condition. I’m no longer the legalist I was then. But the pride that serves as a foundation for legalism doesn’t go away when the pharisaical rules are stripped away. Instead, I can be proud that I’m smoking and drinking and cussing, and thanking God I’m not like those Pharisees, who think they’ll be accepted for their rule keeping. And so, paradoxically, I’m being just like the Pharisee in my quest not to be like the Pharisee.

What was Jeremiah saying about the deceitfulness of the heart?

Moses – the OT one, not my dog – is an interesting character. A decade ago, under that meteor shower in my parents’ backyard, if you’d asked me about Moses, I’d have told you all about how he’s an example of what might happen if you sin. Well sure, he’s that. He got all the way to the Promised Land, and then botched it with anger and disobedience. The funny thing about the New Testament, though, is that when it retells the story of Moses, it doesn’t mention that incident. It seems like that’s a pretty defining incident in Moses’ life, but that’s not how the NT talks about Moses.

Grace is a pretty radical thing, and it tears down our pride, whether that pride is a foundation for our moralism or our celebration of liberty from legalism. At the end of Moses’ life, despite all the lessons he’d learned, he screwed up, and he’s accepted and loved. At the end of my life, having traded legalism most likely for other, more subtle forms of prideful behavior, I’ll probably screw up like Moses did. I’ll be accepted, too. That, and only that, is the antidote for pride and the prescription for humility.

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Just don’t be prideful about it. We need grace every bit as much as the Pharisee.

John Gardner, from On Moral Fiction:

[E]ven at its best, criticism – including the criticism set down by poets and novelists, composers, pinters, sculptors, dancers, and photographers – is easier than authentic art to grasp and treat as immutable doctrine. Depending as it does on logic and scheme, on arguments well argued, criticism uses parts of the mind that are more readily available to us than are the faculties required by art.

Quoted by @JaredCWilson on Twitter today:

“We trust not because ‘a God’ exists, but because this God exists.” — C.S. Lewis

“We must not try to decide what is God’s will by prying into His secret counsel, when He has made it plain to us by external signs.” (John Calvin on 1 Timothy 2)

“Whenever there is any question of forgiveness of sins, we must flee to Baptism and from it seek a confirmation of forgiveness. For as God reconciles us to himself by the daily promises of the Gospel, so the belief and certainty of this reconciliation, which is daily repeated even to the end of life, he seals to us by Baptism.” (John Calvin, Antidote to the Council of Trent)

(HT to Mark Traphagen via Twitter)

Last night, I watched, for the first time, the film 28 Days Later. An incurable infection spreads causing a rabid, inhuman rage within 10-20 seconds of exposure. One small pocket of the uninfected exists, consisting of a few military men and the story’s three main characters.

The military commander gives an interesting speech at one point, in which he explains that this current situation – infected humans killing everyone who remains – is as “normal” as the world has ever been. All he ever saw 28 days before, and 28 days before that, and 28 days before that, was “people killing people.”

And this military commander, who spoke such wise words, was about to give the two female protagonists over to his men to rape.

It’s a stark and ugly picture of humanity. The “uninfected” are just as awful as the infected, ready and willing to commit evil on the very few human survivors that exist. We don’t like these pictures, but I’m of the opinion that it’s better to face reality than ignore it (hence my love for fantasy, fairy tales, and the Gothic, where reality is explored better than in much “realistic” fiction).

While I have some theological disagreement with an All Saints vs. All Souls day (look – if the Corinthians were saints, we all are), there is something theologically powerful about the Hallowe’en —> All Saints and Souls Days progression. Hallowe’en gives us the Gothic picture of the Fallen world as it is – the imagination’s grappling with a world that we all know is a big mess. And after facing our fears on All Hallows’ Eve, we recall the departed and the life to come on Novembers 1 and 2.

Derek Webb’s new CD is out, and it’s all sorts of controversial. I’ve only listened to the song where he swears a couple times, and I’m not so offended. That’s probably because I swear a couple times, too.

Anyway, I want to revisit some old DW, because I think Christians still need to get good and offended by these lyrics long before they get offended by a couple of swear words. And by “offended,” I mean, “Offended enough to take a good look at ourselves and change.”

poverty is so hard to see
when it’s only on your tv and twenty miles across town
where we’re all living so good
that we moved out of Jesus’ neighborhood
where he’s hungry and not feeling so good
from going through our trash [...]

so what must we do
here in the west we want to follow you
we speak the language and we keep all the rules
even a few we made up
come on and follow me
but sell your house, sell your suv
sell your stocks, sell your security
and give it to the poor (”Rich Young Ruler”)

i repent, i repent of my pursuit of america’s dream
i repent, i repent of living like i deserve anything
of my house, my fence, my kids, my wife
in our suburb where we’re safe and white
i am wrong and of these things i repent (”I Repent”)

I remember hearing Derek sing the latter song, as well as the scandalous “Wedding Dress,” at a local suburban evangelical church a few years ago. When he sang the words, “So could you love this bastard child?”, the man sitting in front of us was visibly offended.

Oh, for the lifestyle convenience of being able to get all offended at the word “bastard.” The reason so many “safe” Christians spend all our time being offended is that our lives have become so comfortable – like the rich young ruler’s – that we’re not able to sell our made-up rules and our expensive comforts and go where Jesus is sick on the street.

There’d be nothing wrong with suburban Christianity if it weren’t so damn suburban. But there’s little that is counter-cultural about it. It’s cozy and easy. It’s just like lots of urban ministry, which completely abandons the gospel for some sort of liberal political agenda. If the gospel ain’t rattling people, it ain’t the gospel.

I am tired – very tired – of how quickly we evangelicals justify our absurd wealth (I’m including myself here) with reminders that it’s the love of money, not money itself, that is evil; or that Abraham was rich; or whatever other thing makes us feel better about not giving to the poor. If you’re wealthy and truly giving sacrificially – let’s put flesh and bones on that: giving up the new car, the pool, the GAP or Banana Republic clothes, the unneeded new stylish jacket – and giving to people who are drugged out, out of hope, selling their bodies because they can’t pay for food for their kids, selling drugs for the same reason, robbing people’s houses in desperation, or living on the street in the dead chill of a Rochester winter, then you can make all those true, qualifying statement about wealth. I, for one, am done reciting those things for a while.

The challenge still comes directly from Jesus: sell all you have and give to the poor. It is impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Rich Young Ruler needs to repent. And I need to remember that I am that Rich Young Ruler in more ways than I probably realize.

If your theology causes you to think you’ve got it all wrapped up and well-understood, it’s bad theology.  Theology should produce wonder.  Not that theology should be hard to understand, abstract, unclear, or embrace a false humility that claims we can’t possibly know anything.  Theology is as clear and easy to understand as sheep, water, bread, fig trees, and vineyards.

And it produces wonder.

The fact that we don’t think these things are filled with wonder demonstrates just how far we have gotten off the path of the truth. G.K. Chesterton wrote,

Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales — because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. (Orthodoxy, Chapter IV)

True, when we grow old we are to “put away childish things,” but sinners have a tendency to mis-understand what is childish and what is not.  Paradoxically, we fallen people are described well in Rich Mullin’s song, “Growing Young” – “We are children no more, we have sinned and grown old.”

Or, as Chesterton wrote,

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

We grow old, lose our wonder, and become theologians who have it all figured out.

This is one of the many concepts that draws me to the importance of rootedness in place; and, conversely, rootedness in place teaches me these concepts.  Fighting weeds while trying to restore a backyard that’s suffered 15 years of neglect puts me in a place and makes me have to do one of two things: get bitter that I don’t have more time for sitting in front of a computer debating theology with people dumber than me, or find the wonder in creation, consider the tragedy of the fall, and find even greater wonder in redemption.

Most people are bored with the monotony of one place, and we’ve become very transient people.  I’ve written about this before.  I think that boredom is a weakness which plagues us, and I’m fighting hard against it.  I wrote recently at The Rabbit Room,

Lately, I’ve been trying to gather the strength to “do it again” as many times as Sophia requests it, and I’ve been trying to summon the wisdom to find joy in the repetition.

It is much more often foolishness, not wisdom, that makes people want to move away from family and community for ideas of finding a “better life.”  We’re bored with the monotony.  We’re thinking we’re better than this place.  We’re weak. We’ve sinned and grown old.

Theology and place – they’re interconnected and full of wonder.