Thoughts on The Tree of Life by Terence Malick

What happens when you’re world comes crashing down? You show up for work and the boss sends you and half the department home: laid off. Or you come face to face with a horrible darkness in your own heart that has and is damaging relationships all around you. Or your beloved family member dies suddenly, and you wonder if God even cares.

There are moments in life that change all the other moments in life. Suddenly the frailty of our world, our beliefs, our relationships stand in naked clarity, and we shudder. These moments of suffering, of mourning, of anguish can make time feel as though it has stopped.

Struggling through the grief of death and loss, memories flood our hearts in no particular order. Or we may find ourselves fixated on one singular memory that shuts out all other memories. It is difficult to move, to think, to find solace. Just moving through the day feels like we’re pushing through a thick, choking smog that blinds our sight and smothers our lungs. If you’ve ever felt grief or depression or deep anguish, you know some form of this struggle.

Just after the opening moments of the film, The Tree of Life by Terence Malick, we discover a death. The mother (Mrs. O’Brien) breaks down weeping after receiving a letter. Mr. O’Brien answers the phone at a landing strip and is overwhelmed by the news he hears. Their son Jack lights a candle and stares numbly forward. They all three have come face to face with the death of their son and brother.

This sudden death immerses them and us into one of those moments that impacts all other moments. The outer world of schedules and events and daily life moves into the background as the inner world of grieving and questioning and remembering takes the stage. Eugen Rosenstock Huessy calls this “lyrical time.”

Time is no longer chronological. Just like our memories and our feelings don’t follow some chronology. They move and drift in unexpected ways. A smell takes us back to fifth grade in an instant. Seeing an old picture may awaken a flood of memories. This films immerses us into lyrical time through the death of a son and brother, the encounter with personal darkness, and the loss of a job.

We experience the memories and life of a family but at the same time, we experience the deep questions that plague the human heart, “God are you there?” “Do you care about us?” “How could you let this happen?”

The opening shot of the film sets this stage for this questioning with God’s response to Job’s questioning of his suffering and God’s righteousness. As Job finishes his rant against God for allowing him to suffer so completely, he asks, “Does not he see my ways
and number all my steps?” (Job 31:4). After one of Job’s friends (Elihu) speaks on and on about Job’s failure and God’s righteousness, suddenly a whirlwind interrupts and God speaks. “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me” (Job 38:2-3). And then we hear the beginning of God’s response to Job, which Malick uses for his opening shot:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38:4)

If we read Job 38-41, we hear God challenging Job out of the whirlwind. He never answers Job’s complaint, but he challenges Job’s assumption that he could even understand the ways of God by asking Job about the creation of the world and all manner of mysteries throughout the cosmos. “The Tree of Life” draws from Job in the opening shot, in a scene from a church sermon and in a myriad of images from the creation of the world to all manner of mysteries throughout the cosmos. Malick does not explain that he is imaging Job.

But if we simply read Job, we simply a striking parallel to many of the images that Malick chooses to show. His visuals are breathtaking, beautiful and would seem disconnected if not for the questions at the heart of a family facing death. We are thrust into the story of Job through the O’Brien family. But we are also thrust into the heart of Eden.

The title of the film confronts us with another story, a story of a garden of innocence and a story of two tree: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and life. As Alexander Schmemman explained in the “For the Life of the World,” The tree of life is pure gift and humans receive and enjoy in the goodness of God. The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is not gift. Yet humans take it. They grasp what is not gift and human history becomes a story of human grasping.

This anguish is played out in the life of Jack. He says that his mother and father wrestle within him. As he remembers and reflects on her, he rehearses a life of grace, of gift, of love, of joy. The father on the other hand, models to Jack that he has to be tough and take what is his. The two trees struggle in Jack’s heart. At one point, he takes some lingerie from a women when she is not at home and it is as though Jack has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Suddenly, he is thrust out of the garden of Eden and comes face to face with his own darkness. He longs to return to innocence but instead mistreats his brothers, threatens his mother and tells his father that he knows the father wants to kill him. Jack is dying in his world of taking and of self hatred. He longs for a return to innocence.

He is not forsaken, but grace makes a way to restore him and his relations. As Jack’s memories of youth, of innocence and experience, of laughter and play flood his mind, we see a taste of the manifold memories from childhood that shape us, struggle within us, and resurface in the midst living.

This film is not to be watched like a puzzle to solve, but more like an unfolding encounter. We feel Jack’s joy and suffering. We lives inside the family. Yet we also encounter the mystery of a cosmos that is beyond our grasp and a Creator who is beyond that. This same Creator encircles us with grace, with wind and water and circles of love and joy and grace.

The great mourning that paralyzes Jack and his parents seems to resolve in worship. This is not a blind worship, but a letting go in trust. In series of images on a beach, we see some sort of family resolve and embrace. And then in a few images later, we see the mother opening her hands in release and possibly worship.

Malick does not try to fill in all the dots. Like the mystery of Job, he does not try to provide an answer for suffering, for death, for grieving. But he does reveal uplifted hands in apparent love and trust.

If you choose to watch this film. I would suggest approaching it like a poem. Let go of trying to solve or understand everything. Allow the images and sounds and clips of narrative to encounter you. And it may be that as you rehearse and revisit these images through memory, a richer story of life and love and trust will unfold within you.

Meeting in a Time of Tweets

Frederik de Klerk & Nelson Mandela (92) (photo by World Economic Forum va Creative Commons)

The other day I commented on Nicholas Carr’s article “The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains.” I mentioned a positive opportunity and a negative challenge inherent in emerging forms like the wired world of the web. One breathtaking aspect of this emergence is the possibility for connection people from all races, languages and countries.

Over the years, I’ve been blessed to form and sustain many lasting friendships across the web. My life has been enriched and challenged and expanded through conversations with people around the world. Some of whom I’ve never seen face to face.

While I see negatives in this webbed world, like the dark side of tribalism (with little patience to learn the language of other tribes) and the tendency to reduce real rhetoric and argumentation to the sloganeering of bumper stickers (which really helps no one), I also see great potential for learning how to talk, how to listen and how to connect across our “boundaries” in space and time.

In a time when we can shoot off pithy answers before thinking about the human recipient, I thought it might help to consider some folks who thought, spoke and modeled much about how humans should and could relate.

Some of the writers who deeply challenged me to think about conversation and dialogue and thinking and action are Martin Buber, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, TF Torrance and Eugen Rosenstock Huessy. While there are distinctions and disagreements in their thought, I see correspondences that might be helpful for us as we think about relationships or about moving through space and time in love.

I am going to summarize a few ideas from each man thought I recognize anything I write in such limited space is woefully incomplete. Today, I want to highlight a few thoughts from Hans Von Balthasar who focused on three essential properties of being: truth, goodness and beauty.

For now I am going to bypass his overall argument and simply focus on these three transcendentals in relationships. I confess that I am adapting his use of these in relation to God, and for now, I want to use them in relation to humans. Von Balthasar focuses on the types of knowledge I gain from truth, goodness and beauty in relation.

Truth – In one sense, truth is focused upon the credible and accurate witness. Truth focuses on both the observable and the logical. On a basic level, I meet another person and based on their appearance, I make instant decisions as to their gender, age range, possibly their status, and their race. I observe them speaking, acting, living before me.

So the knowledge I gain from truth is observable and thus objective. Other people should be able to make similar observations with similar conclusions. While this may not seem especially significant in relationship, it is deeply significant. For sadly, we break and lose relationships often on the basis of knowledge that is not credible from witnesses that cannot be trusted.

When I encounter another person, I listen, watch, observe. I must be cautious about information given me about another person. I might ask myself, “Do I trust this person as a credible witness?” “Is this person in fact the direct witness or are they relaying third hand information?” “Does this person have vested interest in my opinion the person in question?”

While I may not be able to answer these questions completely, it might help me to pause over indirect observations. Also, I might questions my own observations. When I have made a judgment about a word or action, I might ask myself self, “What did I actually observe?” “Is is possible there are multiple causes for the action I’ve observed?” These type of questions might help me to realize that even my own deductions can be suspect at times.

The danger of “truth” is that knowledge can be reduced to mere facts, categories, ideas, laws. Without the balance of “goodness” and “beauty,” truth flattens relations into mere formalism.

Goodness – In relationships, Von Balthasar understands “bonum” as the interior light I experience. In relation to God, he speaks of hearing the proclaimed/historical witness (truth) and then the inward response of faith (goodness). Whereas truth focuses upon outward sign (the observable person), goodness focuses upon the signified (the value of the person).

I hear about Jesus Christ (outward, physical life), and I believe he is my redeemer (inward response). I meet John and instantly I feel there is a connection. I believe this inward, subjective response is how Von Balthasar is using goodness. When I meet other people, I not only observe them outwardly, I make inward judgments: good, bad, nice, friend, foe, and many other much more subtle inferences.

This is why I am attracted to Kelly over Jane. This is why I make friends with Bill instead of Harry. This is why I instantly trust the words of Tim, but pause over the words of Robert. This intuitive knowledge is real knowledge that shapes my actions, but it is inward, subjective knowledge. This type of “Goodness” is present in all relationships. My value assessments may be wrong and later have to be corrected, but act of making those assessments is part of the processing in forming relationships.

The danger of goodness is that it can become utilitarian and hedonistic. Outside the balance of “truth” and “beauty,” “goodness” can become pure narcissism as all relationships exist only to further my own goals and desires.

Beauty – The knowledge I gain from beauty is distinctly different from truth and goodness. I cannot grasp or take hold of this knowledge. Beauty is the mystery of unity between form and content. Content is not behind form but within it.

Let me put it this way. I mentioned this idea of “interior light” in goodness. Beauty is the interior light within the person in front of me. It is the realization of their depths as a person. Let me give a few examples.

At one-year-old, my niece already exhibited a will. I’ve watched her choose to allow my mom to pick her up while rejecting the advances of someone else. Of course, they could still pick her up, but they couldn’t change her will by physical force. Something unique and deeply mysterious about her cannot be controlled no matter how little she is.

Each person has an external, definable form. We can ask them a series of questions and might attach certain personality characteristics to them. And yet, there is untold mystery in every human being that cannot be forced out, seized, examined under a microscope or fully controlled.

As a person turns toward me and chooses to reveal themselves, suddenly a turn of the head, a look in the eyes, a handshake, a hug, a word, or simply a silence can reveal something about that person that simply cannot be seized or captured in a test tube. This something. This mystery. This uniqueness. This is beauty. In this revelation, there is a beauty that is independent of my desires, independent of my facts and figures, there is a beauty, wonder, a glory that simply is.

I cannot even seize the moment with a picture. It simply breaks forth in the very form of the person. And in this encounter, I step outside myself. I encounter someone who changes me in the encounter.

Von Balthasar writes that the beautiful makes the demand upon me to “be allowed to be what it is.” I let go of attempts to control and use. I simply rest in the presence of the beautiful other. Von Balthasar quotes Schiller, “Beauty is freedom in its appearing.”

This freedom is a freedom to enter into relation. It is the freedom of God to become man and reveal Himself in the particularity of Jesus Christ. I cannot force His revelation, but he can freely choose to reveal Himself to and in me.

In all my human relations, there is the possibly for a beautiful encounter. I’ll return to this idea of the beautiful encounter, as I reflect upon Martin Buber, TF Torrance and Eugen Rosenstock Huessy in future posts.

Poems to Live By in Troubling Times

A friend gave me a copy of Joan Murray’s, “Poems to Live By in Troubling Times” last December. So far I haven’t been able to get past the second poem.

That’s not an indictment on poor writing. Just the opposite. It is a voice of gratitude for words that “git way inside us” as Sterling Brown once wrote of “Ma Rainey.” Published in response to the bombing on 9/11/2001, Murray’s early words still resonate. Listen to her introductory remarks,

I was moved by people’s urgent and unembarrassed need for a poem–for words that cut through all the pages of reportage…

We live in an age of too much reporting and too little resonation. From the earthquake in Haiti to continuing economic problems in the US and throughout the world, we need to hear more than facts. Yes, reporting can be helpful and facts may convey aspects of specific events but we need to learn how to mourn, how to lament, how to rejoice. Eugen Rosenstock Huessy accused the modern man of losing his humanity in the constant bits of data that pound us daily, and he wrote this in the 40s. He suggested the modern man has forgotten how to wail and how to moan as well as how to shout and dance with all our hearts. Instead, we live muted lives somewhere in between.

Murray offers a collection of poems that help train us to lament. That call upon the wells of grief in our troubled souls. Shortly after 9/11, she was riding on a train with “six young men on their way to New York to dig at the wreckage site.” In this difficult time, she waas overcome by their willingness to face the task ahead. She writes, “Yet by coming forward to do this very difficult thing, they had stepped across the line and had become larger than themselves. They seemed to be lit from within.”

Responding to this encounter, Murray wrote the poem, “Survivors–Found.” She writes, “It was clearly an occasional poem, admittedly not a great poem. But it had to force of an inevitable poem, as if someone needed it.”

We need poems. We need poets. We need to set aside times for listening and responding to our world in ways that reach deeper than the competing facts dancing on the surface. In our soul starved age, we need more inevitable poems, and I am grateful for the heart and the gift of Joan Murray’s voice.

Learning to Think

This probably deserves more space, but I was talking with our group last night about the need to learn the habit of thinking. We live in times when we are bombarded with information, bits of data. From blogs like this to rss feeds to non-stop entertainment and 24 news cycles, we know lots and lots about little bits of stuff. But instead of helping us to think, this immersion into data seems to make everyone talk and act like robots that repeat the latest cliche.

We need time to pause and wait and think. A.W. Tozer once suggested that books should starting the thinking process but reading is not a replacement for thinking.

As I was reflecting on the story of King David, I thought about how his time as a shepherd gave him time to think. From the psalms he composed, it is clear that he spent time thinking, reflecting and contemplating upon the law, the creation around him, relationships and even statecraft. We talk about David the warrior and David the psalmist but I would also think of him as David the thinker.

Thinking is not about using large words that exclude most people and only allow specialists to enter a dialogue. Nor is it about forming other kinds of exclusive clubs that exalt one set of ideas or one group over another. It is the habit of regular reflection. The habit of using our imagination and reason together. And in the Bible, it is about training the mind and heart to focus on the Word, soak in the Word, reflect on the Word and reflect upon the world around me through the lens of the Word. And thinking is not simply silent ideas swirling in my head. It is speaking and singing thought.

The Psalms and poetry (as well as Eugen Rosenstock Huessy) have taught me about speech-thinking. The poet focuses upon the particular, the common, the thing right in front of him. As he reflects and speaks about the “thingyness” of the thing before him, his ideas explode outward, opening the particular thing into a vision of the universal.

Here is a poem by the Welsh poet Bobi Jones (translated by Joseph Clancy). Imagine Bobi enjoying a warm home with his family. As he sits before the hearth and thinks about the heat circulating through the house, he sees the grace of God afresh. He redefines fire and heat and hearth for us as we live thorugh his eyes.

As I read this poem yet again, I pray for eyes to see the world around me, and the discipline to pause and think about all the great gifts that fill my world.

Hearth

Hell is fire; then there’s a fire that’s Heaven
In a grate amidst the children. We draw close around it
And listen to the beating of its orange wings
Against the breeze that’s gathered the invisible
Confidential cooking of the hearth.
The fire from the sky, it broke through the rain
And alighted like a bird upon the kitchen altar.
And the mother caught it like Noah’s dove
Between her two hands and offered it becomingly.

Which of us who listen to it can help but hear
The warm melody of the kettleful of family?
In bed, between mother and myself,
God is warm; and His place at the table’s filled.
He is the Musician we hear coming
From room to room in secret.
It is His music heats the house
Gurgling through feet and blood, to rise,
Smokeless, to our half drunk heads.

Only those who know the sunshine know the beauty
That breaks across the mat between door and cupboard.
It pierces to the marrow of all laughter patiently
Like a tune that lingers round the edges of the mind
Or a cat curling up. Our song’s purring, the love
That’s been composed so cunningly, that’s been performed
On the harpstrings of the family fires through Him.

by Bobi Jones (translated by Joseph Clancy)

Worth Thinking About

In his reflections on Eugen Rosenstock Huessy, Jeffrey Hart cites an ERH quote worth thinking about, “Our choices project us forward in our own histories. We make judgments, we may be prudent, but we act on faith. We create actualities that did not exist before.”

Stories upon Stories upon Story

Last weekend Rick Doughty, Brad Getz and I did a retreat on story. This was the second retreat in my series of retreats on wisdom. We started with Meditation upon the 10 Commandments, followed by The Wisdom of Stories (last weekend), then we’ll do “Acting Wisely: the Translation of Wisdom into our Active Life,” and finally we’ll conclude with “Creating the Future with Words of Wisdom.” These four retreats follow Eugen Rosenstock Huessy’s “Cross of Reality,” moving from inward (meditation) to backward (storytelling) to outward (active life) to forward (wise words).

A few thoughts recapping The Wisdom of Stories may follow in future blog posts. I’ll focus what I write primarily on the notes that I used in preparation although I may reference Rick and Brad’s thoughts as they come to mind.

Each person’s life is filled with stories. When asked to tell my life story, the answer might actually be, “Which one?” For I am moving and have moved in multiple stories. Whatever I tell you will be an extraction from the wide web of stories. My wide-ranging stories are within a context of a storied world. And then there are many contexts for stories. For instance, if I consider setting as the basis for context, my stories are set within the context of family and friends’ stories that are set withing the context of a communities’ stories set within the context of a culture’s stories set within the context of the stories of the Western World set within the context of The Story (of stories) – The Word of God.

Stories pivot on multiple points some of which include setting, characters, plots, words and lines, action, symbols and images, tone/mood and pace. Each of these pivots reveals a particular dynamic to a story. Some writers capture the essence of certain pivots better than others. Charles Dickens certainly masters characters and settings. While his plots are often intricate and delightful, I think his real genius lay in creating characters within settings.

Edgar Allen Poe and Nathanial Hawthorne captured mood. For me, the feeling captured in Young Goodman Brown is one of the richest aspects of Hawthorne’s dark tale. I personally think this is particular genius of M. Night Shymalan. His stories create a mood that overarches the story. Some critique the story or the characters but the mood is his real gift.

Pace is the tempo of the story. Some recent films have played with pace both increasing pace or decreasing pace to almost a motionless state (Into the Great Silence). Andrei Tarkovsky films slow down pace, which make his films almost unbearable for some people. At the retreat someone mentioned “Napoleon Dynamite” as a great example of a movie tinkering with pace. Good observation! This may be why the movie seems for some to have no point or no action. It’s capturing an almost suspended state of time. “Run Lola Run” is a great example of a film that goes the oppositie direction and is breathless in it’s movement forward. The Bourne films (like many action films) speeds pace to a blinding fury.

Pace makes me think of Louie Armstrong. I once heard Wynton Marsalis say that Louie’s great genius was in capturing the changing pace of the American life. America was moving from an industrial nation to a communications nations where life is non stop 24/7. Louie’s phrasing both with his coronet and his voice plays with pace.

Sometimes setting is the driving force. Gormenghast tells the tale of a castle with endless halls and twists and turns. The story cannot be extracted from the setting. E.M. Forrestor’s Howard’s End plays with setting (both social and physical) in his fateful tale of a house in the country where two women are connected by being joined to the place.

Think of the power of words and line in stories. They can leave the story and take on a life of their own. “I’ll Be Baaack!” or “Go Ahead, Make My Day” became cultural catch phrases used in everyday life to create new meanings. These trendy phrase might be contrasted with the genius of Shakespeare who gave the world words and lines that continue to drive the way we think and talk. Just consider a few of the following (with thanks to Absolute Shakespeare):

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
“This above all: to thine own self be true”.
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.”.
“Brevity is the soul of wit”.
“To be, or not to be: that is the question.”
“All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts”
“Can one desire too much of a good thing?”
“For ever and a day.”
“Now is the winter of our discontent”
“A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!”
“Off with his head!”
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

And the list of familar quotes goes on and on and on. We’ve used his quotes verbatim and we’ve altered them to create new meanings or new contexts, but the the quotes appear on the mouths of many people who’ve never read one line of Shakespeare. His words live on and shape the way we frame our world.

Sometimes an image becomes so striking within a story that the image like the lines above takes a life of it’s own. We speak of a “scarlett letter” as a public disgrace. Hitchcock took common everyday images and turned them into images of terror. Aladdin gives us the “magic carpet.” Pinochio gives us a nose that grows and grows. These images are extracted from stories and used on our everyday discourse to convey meaning and ideas. Sometimes is less than honest and we mention that their nose might be growing.

All the elements I’ve mentioend thus far (plots, settings, characters, words, lines, images, tone/mood, pace) are conveyed in stories and may be the pivotal element in a story that connects with us or speaks to us. We may not remember anything else from a story but the element that moved us. In fact, we can dislike a story while loving a single element that impacts us.

This impact may be called inspiration. Stories and their elements “in-spire” us. We breathe in their influence. We are in “spired” or in “spirited” by the power of the story. Just as we breathe in oxygen and it keeps us alive, we breathe in these elements and they shape the way we understand and communicate and act in our world. The “inspired” stories become a source of wisdom that shapes us and gives us insight in the midst of living.

In the past, I’ve written about Memory and Vision as the life span of a person. I think stories fundamentally capture the movement between memory and vision, extending from our own story to the stories around us to The Story (the Word of God). I contend like Chesterton that the Bible tells The Story and all other stories are subsets of this story. There is a movement of energy, of vitality, of spirit that moves between these stories. As I consider this movement, this conversation of stories, I might begin to think more deeply of the “Holy Spirit” breathing upon creation, but more on this later.

In Praise of School Teachers

Bobi Jones lifts up an anthem of praises to school teachers. Drawing from a rich reserve of past Welsh icons, he compares them to the ploughman, the soldier, a preacher, and Orpheus.

As warrior people, the ancient Celts wrote warrior poems in praise of battles, great fighters, kings and triumphs. In the middle ages, a Welsh poet used to the warrior epic to write a poem of praise the ploughman. The ploughman is worthy of praise for his faithful tilling of the land that produces food for a nation and provides the very stuff of the Eucharist. So the ploughman ultimately unites the people together under God by his faithful labor.

Bobi draws from both images to write a warrior poem in praise of the exploits of teachers:

Ploughman of the daily children! Solider of a nation!
I will praise the chalk of your hair while I have breath.

The image of ploughman, soldier and preacher combine in the teacher as one who tills the soil of the young hearts, wars with ignorance and the threat of losing the Welsh language and identity, and the preacher who connects the student of the present with the great communion of saints in the Welsh past. By telling the stories, by remembering, the teacher keeps alive a people who survive as distinctly Welsh against the onslaught of the surrounding culture.

…The clichés of education
Are charmed into adventure by your modest cherishing,
Our country’s past turned into the following day.

In this beautiful poem of praise, I encounter the exalted role of the teacher who fights daily in the rich battle of the Welsh people to preserve their story, their language, their life-blood from generation to generation. The teacher’s words create the future through the children. Creating the future may mean change but it also means connecting the generations.

The teacher is connecting the students to the soil of their being that will inspire them to move forward with the vision of their people in new challenges and contexts:

A land’s in a man; and through it he opens out lands
Like dawn reaching a pageant of fingers toward them.
You’re the river across their ears as well; the waterfall that carries them,
Sparks for a sun, earth and water of their searchings.

In a world where the pressure of homogeneity constantly threaten the identity of the faithful, the poem resounds as a clarion call to keep the vital life of memory alive in our stories, in our classrooms, in our children. It reminds me of Eugen Rosenstock Huessy’s exclamation that our present action is created by looking back to the past and forward to the future.

We are a forgetful people. We forget our names, our landmarks, our stories, our heritage. Without the stories of our past, we face a storyless future or a future filled with stories that submit to the demands of the trends that drive our culture from moment to moment. We need the bards to come forth and sing us awake into the memory of our heritage and our call forward:

A wraith’s in a river; you are Orpheus, rippling
Before each little life, bubbling up
Towards a free world of men, leading them from the dark
Without once looking back to their empty well-spring.

Creating the Future

I live in a world of discussions about “long tail” planning. We think we create the future through spreadsheets and programs, but I’m not so sure. We cannot even guarantee our next breath.

Here’s a provocative quote from a 1953 Dartmouth lecture by Eugen Rosenstock Huessy. He points out that the future doesn’t come because we plan it. It comes through those who chose to sacrifice the present.

The Dark Ages are not the Middle Ages, gentlemen. The Dark Ages are the ages of no women’s rights, of no real love between the sexes, of endless war. These 158 cities of which Aristotle has given us the constitutions, they were at eternal war with each other, and the Greeks never expected these wars ever to end. You had a caste system. You had warriors, eternal warriors as in India, to this day, you see. India has pre- served some of the features of antiquity as a warning.

Modern man in New York says, “We can do with cocktail parties instead of Paul, and go on to Aristotle, and Plato, and Socrates. We are witty. We are factual. And we are utopians. We found associations for the abolition of evil.” And I mean, if you think of what — Americans have tried over the last 100 years, you see, by willful association, they have really tried to — to exterminate every evil just by willpower.

It has never borne fruit. After 30 years, it was all forgotten — forgotten, all these wonderful improvement societies. We have reform governments, city government every eight years, you see. Then something is done for two years, and then six years of corruption, then we get another drive and people always believe in the ultimate good here, it seems, you see.

They always say, “Now we will be settled forever,” because they have no memory of the past. And they’ll never use anything that people could know for the last 2,000 years already. What does Paul remind the college community of, gentlemen? He enjoins on the college community the simple knowledge that in serious life, a road into the future is only open by sacrifice. You only create a new era if somebody asks for less than he can get.

That’s the deed of Jesus, that He asks — got less than He could have — had the right to ask for. Very simple, gentlemen. You try to get something for nothing. So you get stuck in the past. Anybody who tries to get something for nothing overemphasizes his given rights that he was already qualified to get. And he of course outbuys the future.

There is then less good to be had, because you have gotten too much. Jesus said — and said, “This is the way of life which all the pagans, all the Gentiles lead, and therefore I have to show that somebody asks for less than he can get, and thereby creates a surplus,” what the Catholic Church calls the {opus super erogatum}. Have you — do we have here a Roman Catholic? Who is? Have you heard of the — {opus super erogatum}, of the grace stored up in Heaven by the saints? Well, gentlemen, that’s true. That’s not just something you learn — we learned in Church. That is something for everyday use, my dear man.

If you have not in every family, and in every community some self-sacrificing people who give more of their time, their money, and even their reputation — because that’s the hardest to give, you see, in order to perform a service — if there is no unrecognized service in a community, this — community has no future. It runs down by gravity. It exhausts its resources, because the — most of the people do ask for more than they deserve.

Building Altars, Digging Wells

Abraham lives life en route.

He lives in between.

In between the encounters with the Lord.
In between the encounters with kings.
In between the promise of the son and the arrival of the son.

Life is mostly waiting in between.

His life is a travel journal. Always moving. Looking. Searching. Longing for a city, for the place of promise.

Just around the next corner. And the next. And the next. The holy city of God is always just out of reach. Just beyond humanity’s grasp.

He wanders and waits.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy once said of his time served in World War 1 that most people don’t realize the single greatest struggle of the soldier: boredom. In the war to end all wars, Huessy says vast amounts of time waiting. Waiting for orders. Waiting to move forward. Waiting.

What to do?

Remember back to the hot August summer days of childhood when the neighbors were gone on vacation. No one to play. A long hot day of waiting.

Life sometimes feels like that long hot day.

In the soul-sucking heat of that day, Abraham does what he has to do to survive. He builds altars and digs wells.

When life is stretched so very thin and human frailty becomes so very real, Abraham builds altars. He worships the One who took him from beyond the river. Worship is like breathing.

For the good God sustains his beloved people, and all we can do is lift up hands and offer thanksgiving.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Every breath is gift.

Breath in, breathe out.

The way may be unclear. The days may seem long and hot. The promise may seem long in coming. But the simple gift of breath continues.

Breathe in, breathe out.

In the waiting, in the long pause, Abraham worships. He becomes living song unto the One God who rescued him from the world that was collapsing under its own decadent blindness.

Abraham, the friend of God, believes, trusts, awaits the coming of the faithful One. While he waits, he digs wells.

Come and drink.

Beneath the desert runs a river of life. Abraham drinks the sweet water of that river and refreshes all those who live under his care.

Come and drink.

In the soul choking dryness of stark landscapes, water is life. So the people gather at the wells. The well becomes the center of the community.

Come and drink.

Long before his three guests, Father Abraham plays host to many a thirsty wayfaring one.

Come and drink

He wanders. He worships. He waters the dry land and the dry people.

We are Abraham’s children. We’ve been caught up into Christ. And yet, we still wander across fierce landscapes.

When the heat burns deep into our soul, let us not grow faint, but fall back into Love. Let us breathe the fresh air of praise and drink the sweet cup of communion.

Thoughts on My Trip to London

Some of you have asked me about the recent trip to London. Here is a rough snapshot of my response to St. Paul’s Theological Centre.

Last week I enjoyed the opportunity to observe an emerging theological training program. Several ministers from the United States visited St Paul’s Theological Centre in London, England. Our little group consisted of pastors of large and small churches, counselors, church planters, a Bible college president, a missiologist, and a chaplain.

For five days we observed and participated in the life and culture of Holy Trinity Brompton and their college, St. Paul’s Theological Centre (SPTC). Along the way, we ate our share of fish-n-chips, toured a few museums, visited Churchill’s war room, talked in pubs and enjoyed several delightful meals.

I was personally enriched by walking the streets of London, conversing with old and new friends, and worshipping at Holy Trinity Brompton. The visit was marked by blue skies and warm, windy days. It was also marked by our desire to watch and learn ways that each of us might personally and collectively work toward renewing theological training here in the United States and in our local communities.

Our main focus was to visit with the staff of SPTC and to observe the sessions. As a quick summary, SPTC is a theological training school integrated within the local church. Students attending SPTC are typically persons training for ministry, church leaders seeking further studies, and professionals seeking to learn more about Christian faith while remaining in their chosen vocations.

Several things make SPTC unique: it’s focus on training while serving local ministry; it’s connection to the larger church; it’s commitment to intellectual and theological rigor; and it’s integrated missional model.

I’ve attempted to summarize what I observed for my own processing as well as the discussions I am continuing to have with other ministers in the region. I realize my own observations are colored by my own values and longings, but I hope this will be helpful as a summary of what stirred within me:

Hospitality
I felt welcomed into this mission-centered community but even more deeply I sensed a “generosity of spirit” that infused every aspect of the faith community.

This same church developed and exports the evangelistic Alpha Course to over 169 nations. The Alpha Course introduces the gospel to those who want to learn more about Christian faith in a friendly, relaxed setting. Hospitality seems to pulse within the Alpha Course and it makes sense that the community reflects embodied service and love through their acts and attitudes of hospitality.

Integration
When I was in college and considering a seminary education, my pastor warned me, “Be careful, you may lose your faith while training for ministry.” This disintegration between academic pursuit in the university and the devotional life of the church community created deep-rooted conflicts, dis-ease and dis-integration within the community of faith.

SPTC represents a large move throughout the Body of Christ to restore training within the context of the local body. Localized training (in contrast to university or seminary training) doesn’t have to compromise intellectual rigor, but rather needs to integrate that rigor within the context of the lived faithfulness of serving within local faith communities. In fact, SPTC represents a way that local faith communities can dialogue with seminaries and university divinity programs.

I appreciate that SPTC has developed it’s training within and through the support of church leaders while also drawing upon leading thinkers like Alistair McGrath, David Ford, Jane Williams, Richard Bauckham, and others.

At the same time, SPTC is training students in context. The context of relationships with other students, the context of local church communities and the context of serving in local congregations.

So I see multiple “integrations” at work in SPTC such as local/global, intellectual/devotional, and the possibility for cross-cultural integration as other churches establish training centers and share resources across cultures.

Relationships
My observation of integration is directly connected to the high value placed on relationship. By relationship I mean person-to-person relationships, church to church relationships, and even church to culture relationships. How do we learn in a way that enfleshes Jesus command to “love one another as I have loved you?”

Conversation
I observed a model of training that values dialogue. The student training happened within the context of worship and within the context of fellowship, so I saw the dual emphasis on speaking/listening to God and one another.

While I observed a conversation with tradition, I didn’t have an opportunity to observe the conversation with living members of the older generation. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy once observed that history changes when three generations come into agreement. When the baby Jesus was presented in the Temple: three generations joined together. Mary and Joseph as parents offered their son to the aged generation of Simeon and Anna.

I’ve observed SPTC’s commitment to the youth and their commitment to ancient tradition, I hope that there is also a corresponding commitment to connect youth with the wisdom and engagement of living elders (parents/grandparents).

Translation
For students seeking ordination, SPTC seeks to place the students in church planting or ministry roles within local faith communities. As I observed the congregation associated with Holy Trinity Brompton, I saw services that offered “high church liturgical worship,” charismatic worship, youth worship and more.

The opportunity to learn and then apply that learning within distinctive settings seems to me to be the work of translation. How do we translate Gospel in differing cultures? On one level I think translating Gospel within these varied worshipping communities represents an important aspect of translation, but I also look to the commitment of SPTC to train professionals who come from business, art, healthcare and other fields. The opportunity for translating Gospel in these settings offers a great possibility for the church, and I believe there is potential within SPTC to see this work of translation enfleshed in students learning how to live/speak this proclamation in distinct settings.

Mission
This need for translation connects back to the Alpha Course. Our hosts Graham Tomlin and others helped us all to see how the vision of SPTC is directly connected to the vision of the Alpha Course. The church is on mission to proclaim Gospel. The Alpha Course provides a context for proclamation and invitation to new believers. SPTC provides the training for believers who want enter into the mission of church planting, church serving, and Gospel proclaiming throughout culture.

I appreciate the holistic vision that integrates evangelism, church community, and theology into one community.

Submission
Even as mission for the kingdom of God drives the heart of SPTC and Holy Trinity Brompton, I sensed an even great submission to the King of the kingdom.

I end with the observation that most inspired me during our stay. At one point, Nickey Gumbel told our group that the goal is not to see how big you can be but how small you can be. A moment later he said that if the ministry dies, it dies.

These two statements captured for me a “spirit of submission” to the true Authority, our Lord and King, Jesus Christ. We follow Christ into mission but there are times of danger when mission can trump personal relationship (to Christ and others). This attitude of submission toward God and one another shined in every team member we met.

This humility touched me profoundly. I have observed and known all to well the power of ambition in ministry. To see a spirit of humility pervade the work of a church that is touching millions of people around the world, stirred and continues to stir me.

As I process my time in England and with the kind people at SPTC, I am struck that what they showed us was not simply a technique or a model but a culture that has been cultivated in time and space. As we seek to learn how their work might fit into our communities, I think we can appreciate this culture of hospitality, mission and humility that seems to permeate much of their work.

It certainly stirs me to seek to learn and emulate. If there had been a model like this when I was in school, I might have stayed in the academic setting. I wanted to teach, but I wanted to teach people in a more holistic, relational setting that reflected the true content of the message.

It makes me think of story from the start of my ministry. In 1988, my new wife and I moved onto a drug and alcohol ranch. My primary function was to lead the men in a daily Bible study. At some point during the year, we began to explore the book of Romans together. I would usually introduce a passage, offers a few reflections and invite conversation. One day, a man who was deeply struggling with cocaine addiction offered a response to Paul’s message of grace. He looked up and said, “So Billy Graham needs the grace of God just as deeply as me?”

Through this broken man, I encountered a depth of God’s grace that provided redemption for us all: the righteous and the sinner. His comment changed my whole ministry. In him, I learned that ministry was about listening and speaking, about call and response between God and man as well as between man and man.

What I observed at SPTC gives me hope that churches can help people grow in faith, and ministry, becoming people who live in the rhythm of call and response, of listening and speaking.