Just Wondering: 20th Century Witnesses to Christ

GKC wrote, "it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most." Who do you think stands as the greatest contradiction to this generation? Mother Teresa would certainly be a contender. Her compassion and sacrifice stand as a testimony to Christ against the world's self-absorption and greed.

Anyone else? Below are some suggestions:

Statues of 20th-century martyrs on the façade above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey. Those commemorated are Maximilian Kolbe, Manche Masemola, Janani Luwum, Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia, Martin Luther King, Jr., Óscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Esther John, Lucian Tapiedi, and Wang Zhiming.

What do you think?

Watch out, Vera Wang

Second place winner, 2006 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest : Hanah Kim. Incredible job, Hanah! But beware of storms. "The rains came down and the dress flushed away, the rains came down and the dress flushed away..."

Sadly, some people take their vows to be as disposable as these dresses.

GKC: St. Thomas and St. Francis

Here is G.K. Chesterton's masterful chapter comparing these two saints, courtesty of Ignatius Press. An extract:

"The Saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age. Yet each generation seeks its saint by instinct; and he is not what the people want, but rather what the people need. This is surely the very much mistaken meaning of those words to the first saints, "Ye are the salt of the earth," which caused the Ex-Kaiser to remark with all solemnity that his beefy Germans were the salt of the earth; meaning thereby merely that they were the earth's beefiest and therefore best. But salt seasons and preserves beef, not because it is like beef; but because it is very unlike it. Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people; and the text about the salt of the earth is really as sharp and shrewd and tart as the taste of salt. It is because they were the exceptional people, that they must not lose their exceptional quality. "If salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?" is a much more pointed question than any mere lament over the price of the best beef. If the world grows too worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows too worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldliness by the world.

Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most. St. Francis had a curious and almost uncanny attraction for the Victorians; for the nineteenth century English who seemed superficially to be most complacent about their commerce and their common sense. Not only a rather complacent Englishman like Matthew Arnold, but even the English Liberals whom he criticised for their complacency, began slowly to discover the mystery of the Middle Ages through the strange story told in feathers and flames in the hagiographical pictures of Giotto. There was something in the story of St. Francis that pierced through all those English qualities which are most famous and fatuous, to all those English qualities which are most hidden and human: the secret softness of heart; the poetical vagueness of mind; the love of landscape and of animals. St. Francis of Assisi was the only medieval Catholic who really became popular in England on his own merits. It was largely because of a subconscious feeling that the modern world had neglected those particular merits. The English middle classes found their only missionary in the figure, which of all types in the world they most despised; an Italian beggar.

So, as the nineteenth century clutched at the Franciscan romance, precisely because it had neglected romance, so the twentieth century is already clutching at the Thomist rational theology, because it has neglected reason. In a world that was too stolid, Christianity returned in the form of a vagabond; in a world that has grown a great deal too wild, Christianity has returned in the form of a teacher of logic. In the world of Herbert Spencer men wanted a cure for indigestion; in the world of Einstein they want a cure for vertigo. In the first case, they dimly perceived the fact that it was after a long fast that St. Francis sang the Song of the Sun and the praise of the fruitful earth. In the second case, they already dimly perceived that, even if they only want to understand Einstein, it is necessary first to understand the use of the understanding. They begin to see that, as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense.

....Yes; in spite of the contrasts that are as conspicuous and even comic as the comparison between the fat man and the thin man, the tall man and the short: in spite of the contrast between the vagabond and the student, between the apprentice and the aristocrat, between the book-hater and the book-lover, between the wildest of all missionaries and the mildest of all professors, the great fact of medieval history is that these two great men were doing the same great work; one in the study and the other in the street. They were not bringing something new into Christianity; in the sense of something heathen or heretical into Christianity; on the contrary, they were bringing Christianity into Christendom. But they were bringing it back against the pressure of certain historic tendencies, which had hardened into habits in many great schools and authorities in the Christian Church; and they were using tools and weapons which seemed to many people to be associated with heresy or heathenry. St. Francis used Nature much as St. Thomas used Aristotle; and to some they seemed to be using a Pagan goddess and a Pagan sage. What they were really doing, and especially what St. Thomas was really doing, will form the main matter of these pages; but it is convenient to be able to compare him from the first with a more popular saint; because we may thus sum up the substance of it in the most popular way. Perhaps it would sound too paradoxical to say that these two saints saved us from Spirituality; a dreadful doom. Perhaps it may be misunderstood if I say that St. Francis, for all his love of animals, saved us from being Buddhists; and that St. Thomas, for all his love of Greek philosophy, saved us from being Platonists. But it is best to say the truth in its simplest form; that they both reaffirmed the Incarnation, by bringing God back to earth.

A Love Story

Today A.'s husband H. had surgery on his neck. After two years of carrying A. up and down the stairs it seems a crack has developed in one of the bones of his vertebrae, causing him pain in his shoulder, numbness and tingling in his left arm and hand. So the plan was to graft donor bone onto one of his cervical vertebrae.

A.is now on uber-chemo, the last big gun they have. After this, there are no more bullets. She had a chemo two days ago but insisted on coming with H. this morning at 8 am, so weak she had to be in a wheel chair. She hasn't been able to eat or drink hardly anything for the last three weeks, and is constantly chilled. Huddled in the wheel chair, dressed in winter coat and cap, and bundled with warm blankets, she clutched her chemo drip bag and tried to keep its line to the port in her shoulder from getting tangled in the wheel.

H's operation was scheduled for 10 am; but 10 became 11 and 11 became 12. A. was scheduled for immunotherapy treatment at 1, so much to her disappointment and worry, I wheeled her over to the North building. They agreed to wheel her back to H. after the four hour therapy was complete, and I promised to pick her up this evening and bring her home.

Steve stopped by after confirmation expecting to visit H. after recovery but he STILL hadn't been operated on. Finally, they took him at 6:30. A. insisted she wanted to spend the night and refused our pleas to go home and rest.

If ever I were to paint a picture of the woman who annointed Jesus in Luke 7:36-50, I would use A. as my model. Before she left for her immunotherapy, she rose to embrace H., pouring what strength she had into rising and hugging her husband. But then she moved down the bed and kissed his feet, silently weeping. "She did what she could," as Mark observed, in his gospel. (14:8).

A. does not have an alabaster jar to break, only her heart. And H. doesn't have a jar to break, either; only his vertebra.

Yesterday the Mormons Came Wearing Skirts

Yesterday the Mormons made the rounds in our neighborhood. But this time they wore skirts, and I was taken aback. This is the first time I've ever seen female Mormon missionaries. Apparantly there has been another new revelation permitting women to go out, but they must be 21. (Males go on their two year mission when they are 18).

As is my practice with all door-to-door religious witnesses, I invited them in, but of course I didn't offer coffee! They did get some wonderful home-made baklava. It's my way of being hospitable and also keeping them occupied, so that at least for a brief period of time they aren't able to convert anyone.
I give Mormon missionaries lots of credit for making the cold calls and putting their beliefs out there; but when it comes to "giving a reason for the hope that is within them" it always boils down to the utterly sincere and overwhelming feeling that God has spoken in the Book of Mormon, and that Joseph Smith is His prophet. After small talk, we had the usual chat yesterday:

Me: So, what if I deeply and wholly feel that God has spoken in the Koran, and that Mohammed is His prophet? What reason should I have to consider becoming a Mormon?

Them: Well, you just have to open your heart and pray for the Holy Spirit to show you the truth.

Me: What if I was searching for some sort of faith, and when I did that and I felt God was calling me to Islam, instead of Mormonism? Feelings are important, but is that all there is?

Them: Oh no! There's God's word! The Bible, the Book of Mormon! Once you read it you'll see.

Me: I have read it, and I didn't see.

Them: That's because you weren't reading it the right way. You need to be open to the truth!

Me: This is rather circular reasoning, isn't it? What if I was sincerely open, asking God to lead me to the truth; and then I read both the Koran and the BoM. Then once I finished, I felt drawn to the Koran? Are you now saying I shouldn't trust my feelings?

Them: No, no!! Maybe you could make your decision on character...look at the kind of persons Mormons compared to the kind of persons Moslems are.

Me: Hmmm. That's promising. But right now I know a Moslem fellow, a Sayed, whose wife is dying of cancer. He is the most compassionate, sacrificial, loving person I think I may have ever met. I hate to admit it, but honestly, he is putting me and other Christians to shame. Does that mean I should convert to Islam?

Them: No, no! But don't you want to be with your family for all eternity?

Me: Sure, but I don't have to be a Mormon for that to happen. In fact, when I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I was born into a much larger family than just the Bilynskyj or Tichacek clan. Now anyone, from any time, who trusts Jesus Christ as Lord and lives in relationship with Him is my brother and my sister, my mother and my father.

Them: But don't you want to be with your family?

Me: Of course I do...but I don't want to be with my family only. I want to be with God--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--because if I have Him, I have everything; what more could I desire?

Them: But if you want that you have to be in the celestial kingdom, and to do that you have to accept the teachings of the book of Mormon and live faithfully according to them!

Me: And what is this "celestial kingdom?" Where is that written?

Them: It is part of the revelation given to Joseph Smith--

Me: Aha. So we are back to accepting his revelation in order to accept his revelation. No thanks, I'll stick with what revelation I've already got.

Them: Oh dear, it's five o'clock, and we have an appointment we need to be at...

Me: That's too bad. Thanks so much for coming! Here, have some baklava to take with you. Can I pray for you before you leave?
Later on, Steve said, "I wonder what mark they've put on the sidewalk to warn others not to come near this place." Funny. I thought the baklava was wonderful. ; )

Podcast or print? Aural vs. visual learning

There is a lot of stuff I'd love to be exposed to, but I'm a visual learner, and I don't multitask very well when it comes to learning. If something is on a podcast, then I'm pretty well excluded from it. I don't have an I-pod, and even if I did, I don't have the time to devote to listening to a talk, or the multitasking skills to be able to pay attention to it and something else at once.

If something is in print, I can skim it in no time, and take in the salient points. I can slow down and chew on meaty ideas. I even have enough of a visual memory to be able to somewhat "copy" it so that I can eventually access it. ("Hmm, I think it was on the righthand top page, where he was talking about X...")

Now I can appreciate what it must have been like for those kids I was with in school who couldn't read. Podcasting and YouTube are reducing me to a kind of illiteracy when it comes to gaining information. What I need is a kind of reverse talking books program, that will take aural material and put it into print!

Crossing the Technological Rubicon

Our daughter, Joanna, is a high school sophomore here in Eugene, OR. This year, after issuing textbooks, her teachers told her she didn't need to bring them back and forth to class. Almost all her assignments are online now, so she can just look online for what is due the next day. But she came home angry and troubled at this state of affairs.

Now you must understand that Joanna is my personal tech support, guiding me through every glitch and new update that descends from Redmond on High. She has a confidence with computers that is unusual for most young women, perhaps because she has grown up in a family where each person has his/her own PC and/or laptop.

But Joanna is also sensitive to the fact that the balance has swung against those who are not as privileged, kids who are her classmates. "It isn't fair," she fumed. "Some kids don't have computers, or they only have one in their household, and they have to share it with others in their family. You can't just come home and do your homework anymore. Those kids who don't have their own computers have to sign up for a slot, either at school or at the public library, and pray they can get it done during that time. That can mean you have to choose between participating in sports or other after school activities, or doing your homework. It isn't fair!"

Brad recently mentioned the One Laptop per Child program. What a wonderful idea! We'll need to get them for some of Joanna's friends as well as for kids in developing nations.

Parable of the Soils for Christian Instructors

This is a keeper.

Bumper stickers

Eugene is a great place for bumper stickers. Here's one I found today:

"God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts."

And one I especially appreciate:

"It is a great poverty to decide that a child must die so that you might live as you wish" --Mother Teresa.

But there are many more of these around:












I'm fond of these:










What bumper stickers have you seen that you enjoy?

Bee-attitudes and Beatitude

We launched Cornerstone (our middle school/high school Sunday school class, kids from 6th grade to 12th) this morning. What with the transition in youth ministry, we hadn't expected a very large crowd; so Jill didn't make a lot of breakfast and we had the dividers up so that everyone would fit in the one room with sofas. But by 9:45 there were 32 of us crowded in, so many that we had to open things up. God is good!

Reed (our interim youth pastor) wants us to study the Sermon on the Mount this fall. This NT study will make a nice counterpoint to the OT character survey we did all last year. To kick it off, we looked at Matthew 5:1-12, and contrasted the beatitude that Christ offers with "Bee-attitudes." We used this as a way of referring to the Seven Deadly Sins; vices that characterize us when we are turned away from Christ. They come with a deadly sting (1 Corinthians 15: 56-57, "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.")

We had seven Bees portraying each of these sinful spiritual conditions:

Pride (Rob R.)
Envy (Kelsey W.)
Anger (Reed W.)
Sloth (Susan B.)
Greed (Mary N.)
Lust (Judy E.)
Gluttony (Emma J.)

Judy went to three different Targets (in Eugene, Springfield and Albany) and got some fantastic adult Halloween bee costumes. They were made of soft yellow and black velour with a definite pooched-pear shape, and hood with antennae.
Shades of SNL! Then she cut out the name of each Deadly Sin and ironed it on in black on the back yoke of the costume, similar to an athlete's shirt. Finally, each bee got a black artificial cattail to hold as their "stinger." ("I tried to figure out how to attach the cattails to their rears," Judy confessed,"but they kept looking like the bees were eliminating sharp objects.")

Judy had a special challenge as she was the one who portrayed Lust. How to do this without being vulgar? She found a brilliant solution: use a Mae West voice, wear black fishnet stockings, carry a bottle of toilet water (her pheremones) and spray it liberally, while waving a floral lei and trying to snag people with it. Bravo, Judy!

Each Bee took a turn describing himself/herself, after which I referred to the scriptures, describing the new, better way we can be, once we turn toward, follow and allow Jesus to begin to his work of deliverance and transformation in us. We used Peter Kreeft's taxonomy, from his book, Back to Virtue

Pride can be overcome by Poverty of Spirit (Matt. 5:3)
Envy can be was overcome by mourning (Matt. 5:4)
Anger can be overcome by meekness/peacemaking (Matt. 5:5; 5:9)
Sloth can be overcome by hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6)
Greed can be overcome by mercy (Matt. 5:7)
Lust can be overcome by purity of heart (Matt. 5:8)
Gluttony can be overcome by bearing persecution (Matt. 5:10)

I deliberately underscored Kreeft's distinction
between attitude but beatitude. That is, this new life Christ is working out in us is not about happiness (a subjective feeling, temporary and dependent on fortune) but about blessedness (an objective , permanent state dependent on God's grace and our choice). Makarios is properly translated as "blessed," not as "happy." Proof of this is that we can be blessed even when we are unhappy.

As each bee was confronted with their respective beatitude from Jesus' sermon, their stinger was plucked. They then slouched out the door, removed their costume, and rejoined the class. (Thanks, Rob, for that fine idea!) We sought in this way to visually underscore the inner transformation that Christ is working in us.

All in all, I think it worked beautifully for our kids (though in all honesty we had several visitors who, not being used to our highjinks, may have concluded we are absolutely crazy). I hope it didn't scare anyone away, and that it has whetted our kids' appetite for studying the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

For more fun, see the Sept. 16, 2007 "Riddle" on The Happening.

Garrison Keillor on Pavarotti

Here is part of Keillor's remembrance:

"....In fact, the times I've wanted to plant my feet and sing in my upper register and sob in Italian have all been for the exquisite grief of being a dad. Romantic turmoil is a picnic compared to the emotional turmoil of parenting -- the load of guilt, the sense of incompetence and failure, the night thoughts, the terrible scenarios that come to mind, the agony of watching your child perform in public, the fear of your bright young thing entangled with brainless self-destructive people -- O God! God! God, save my child! From me and from other idiots. My little girl shoots baskets in the driveway and I get tears in my eyes, thinking of her deprived of my protection, as someday she will be. O my darling.

It's a sweet part of growing old to see your own child grow up and take on these sorrows. My boy was a big Van Halen and Mötley Crüe fan and liked other hair bands and then he fell in love with a good woman and they begat two little boys and now he tunes in to Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard and George Jones. Metal bands say not much at all about daddyhood and country singers say a lot; you can hear it in their voices, just like in Pavarotti's. He died at 71, leaving one small child. This was his tragedy at the end. All that money and acclaim and a great career to look back on, but what he really wanted was 10 more years to see that kid grow up. Dear God, give us more time. The heart weeps at the thought."

Meditation for worship, Sept. 16, 2007

Almighty God,
---trinity in unity, unity in trinity,---

We come today to receive your Word; our Lord Jesus Christ.

• To a hear His truth declared, so that we might share it with others;
• To trust in His gift of new life, so that we might be models of reconciliation;
• To embrace His cross, so that we might help others bear theirs;
• To advance His kingdom, so that Your will might be done on earth.
  

In so doing, we witness to His presence in our lives.

Father, we live in a culture that seeks self-affirmation, so
Today we come seeking Your affirmation.

And having received that, Lord,
help us then to affirm You
through our beliefs,
love
and obedience.

The Eschatology Quiz

What's your eschatology?

I scored as a Moltmannian Eschatology

"Jürgen Moltmann is one of the key eschatological thinkers of the 20th Century. Eschatology is not only about heaven and hell, but God's plan to make all things new. This should spur us on to political and social action in the present."

Hmm. Well, I certainly do affirm hope in Christ, as the tie that binds faith in Him to the love He has for us, and that we are growing to have for Him...and I'm an infuser not a imputer, holding a trinitarian hermeneutic...but I'm not ready to ditch Thomistic metaphysics. Guess I have some reading to do!

Moltmannian Eschatology 90%
Amillenialist 75%
Premillenialist 35%
Dispensationalist 25%
Preterist 20%
Left Behind 20%
Postmillenialist 20%

Keith Drury, "Why I like Catholics"

(via Brad)
I couldn't agree more with Drury!

Thanks, Keith, for verbalizing all the things that I've felt for over 40 years. My Dad was Catholic and my mom was Southern Baptist; they married before Vatican II and they each loved their church and attended faithfully. We kids were brought up Baptist.

I have fond memories of mealtimes reminisicent of Acts 2, where simultaneously the Lord was beseeched: "Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, Our Lord, Amen” and "Come Lord Jesus Be our Guest May our daily food be blest Amen." No wonder I grew up to be Evangelical Covenant. I thank God to have experienced the best of both worlds.

"Here are seven things I like about you:

1." I appreciate how you preserved Christianity

....Thanks for keeping the Christian torch burning for all those years, even if it flickered at times. We Protestants have been around only half that long and frankly, the torch were carrying today is flickering too.... "

2. "I like how you stand firm

... You don’t set church policy by taking a poll or having a vote of “the people,” pandering to the common denominator of the masses’ desires..."

3. "I like how politically balanced your pope is

...We Protestants always seem to wind up on one side or the other politically. Your pope scolds conservatives and liberals alike..."

4. "I like how you emphasize the Lord’s Supper

...Many Protestants treat Communion like it is a pain in the rear and something to get over with quickly so we can fill up the service with our own words. You Catholics really take this Sacrament seriously and I admire that..."

5. "I like how you kneel in worship

....When I was a kid we “holiness people” were always kneeling in worship too, but we don’t do that anymore since we moved to the suburbs...."

6. "I like how you emphasize confession

...You’ve kept the idea of sin and confession in your worship all the time we Protestants have been manufacturing a sinless religion which has no sins at all to confess or we lightly dismiss our daily habitual sins through “spiritual breathing.” I respect how you treat sin seriously..."

7. "I like your confidence

...We Protestants are always running around like the church is about to go out of existence if we don’t hurry up and adapt to the culture. You guys don’t seem to worry about being “kewl.” Your cardinals wear those pointy hats and bright red get-ups and march around like you are the kewlest folk of all and it is the world that is out of touch. I admire you for ignoring the world and having confidence in the supremacy of Christ’s church over the world’s styles and values. You guys even act like sooner or later all we Protestants will realize you’ve been right all along and we’ll all come home into the mother church. That’s confidence!"

John Collier, Artist and Sculptor

I have just discovered the work of John Collier. I want you to do so, as well.

From Episcopal Artists:
"When Roman Catholics from St. Peter’s and its mission parish, St. Joseph’s, in lower Manhattan, wanted to create a memorial to those who died Sept. 11, 2001, they turned to a Texas sculptor who is an Episcopalian....(more)



Biography

another bio

paintings

sculptures

more

Waiting for Another Annunciation

It looks like my teaching career will soon be ending. I have always received highest marks on my evaluations (from both students and administrators) but the pool of students wanting to take non-required philosophy classes has been shrinking over the past two decades, and colleges are responding to market pressures. Teaching the liberal arts has become a luxury our family cannot afford, and not enough Christians are seeing it as a genuine ministry option worthy of support.

I am depressed but not surprised. As our culture increasingly has grown more and more experiential, pragmatic, and less interested in the reality of truth, beauty and goodness, philosophy has become more and more marginalized. Now only first-tier institutions can afford to offer it as a major. Besides technology and the sciences, education, business and psychology are the breadwinners for higher education. There are still a few English and History majors around--they have always outnumbered the philosophers--but (with great sadness) I predict even their days are numbered.

John W. Garder was president of the Carnegie Foundation, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under LBJ, and helped create the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In his book, Excellence (Norton, 1984, p.102), Gardner points out that the society that scorns excellence in plumbing and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy will find that “neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.” In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man may be king; but if the blind think they can get along just fine thank you without sight, then the one-eyed man will be seen as a freak and left to starve.

Every once in a while there are articles in newsmagazines that challenge my cynicism and tempt me to hope that I am mistaken. But as long as 65% of med school applicants major in biology or another physical science it seems like it will be a while before I can take their reassurances seriously.

So I will begin searching for a job. At my age (53) and without accounting or medical skills, there will be fewer options. I may have to bite the bullet, admit that "if you can't fight 'em you gotta join 'em," and go get an M.B.A. After all, I brought this on myself. No one forced me to teach, muchless teach philosophy. It was my own choice, in response to what I understood the Lord to be calling me to do. So it will be interesting to see what God has in store for me, personally. Again, I want my prayer to be the same as Mary's:

"I am the Lord's servant; May it be to me as You have said."

(Credit: The illustration above is by John Collier)

"YMVT:" Why We Love Valley Covenant Church

Luke Johnson, our former youth pastor, is now at North Park Seminary (and loving it, from what I hear!) The YMVT (Youth Ministry Vision Team) has been formed to survey the congregation and to discern what direction the Lord would next have us go. Rob Rudeen (left) cooked up this wonderful song and dance number to accompany the survey distribution this past Sunday. His son, Torin (center), and friend Merlin (right) assisted, with backup signers Joanna, Larissa, Gabe and Aaron. Great job, everyone!

Obituaries and appraisals

In his NYT obit/appraisal of Luciano Pavarotti, Andrew Tommasini wrote:

"Yet ultimately, for all that Mr. Pavarotti gave to opera, it’s hard to avoid feeling that he never completely fulfilled his potential, that he squandered some of his awesome talent by letting his enablers turn him from a hard-working artist into an overindulged and sometimes clownish superstar"

Someday it will be our Lord, and not Andrew Tommasini, who judges us. That will both be good and bad! What if this is His appraisal of me?

"Yet ultimately, for all that Beth Bilynskyj gave to Me, it’s hard to avoid feeling that she never completely fulfilled her potential, that she squandered some of her gifts by letting her enablers turn her from a hard-working Christian into an overindulged and sometimes clownish woman."

As Paul would say, Me genoito!

Lord,
Forgive me for playing fast and loose with gifts you have given me. Give me the discipline to develop them for You.

Forgive me for enabling others not to be all You intended. Help me to recognize their gifts, and if I cannot be part of their development, get myself out of Your way.

Form me so that I will no longer be stinkingly self-indulgent, but a sweet-smelling sacrifice to you.

May the world consider me a fool, but help me to discover and live your Wisdom."

In Jesus' name, and for His kingdom,

Amen.

Required Reading:

• James


• Revelation 2-3


• "Leaf by Niggle," a short story by J.R.R. Tolkien


• John Donne, "A Hymn to God the Father'
  
  

Then there were two...tenors

So Luciano Pavarotti is gone.

I have seen Placido Domingo several times, in Chicago and in Omaha; as Ramses, Don Jose, Hoffman, and Samson. We would have seen Pavarotti at the Chicago Lyric, but "The King of Cancellations" lived up to his name. So I never saw him perform and from what some are saying, that may be just as well. It would have been hard to accept him visually as a romantic lead. On that score, Domingo and Carreras had him beat hands down. But that voice! At its prime, it was the aural equivalent of extra virgin olive oil.

"There were tenors, and then there was Pavarotti," Franco Zeffirelli said. Pavarotti once hit nine high Cs in a row during a 1972 Met performance of Fille du Régiment. To my mind, that, and not "Nessun Dorma" is his signature piece.

No one will ever top Franco Corelli as tenor god in my operatic pantheon; and no one can top Placido Domingo for sheer joy of singing, good humor and all around humanity. But I will remember Pavarotti for those high C's, for his Christmas concerts singing "Gesù Bambino" surrounded by boy sopranos, and for "Una Furtiva Lagrima." That was one of my father's favorite arias. May Luciano sing it for him tonight among the angels.

See also Andrew Tomassini's appraisal

Patenting Snow

Used by permission of the
artist

Stackhouse on inclusivism

Here's an excellent discussion of inclusivism, exclusivism ("restrictionism") and pluralism by John Stackhouse

An excerpt:

In orthodox Christian terms, inclusivists share with restrictivists the exclusivistic belief in the central and necessary place of Christ’s work on behalf of humanity. Orthodox inclusivists, then, are those who believe that God applies the salvific benefits of the work of Christ to those who have not heard the gospel, but who nonetheless are granted the gift of saving faith as they respond to what light of the Holy Spirit they have been granted–which may or may not include information about Jesus.

Inclusivists point to Old Testament saints as examples of people who did not know of Jesus but did know of God and responded to him with saving faith (Hebrews 11). So too, they say, might people elsewhere in the world who do not (yet) know of Jesus nonetheless have knowledge of the true God, however hazy it might be, and respond (by God’s grace) to that knowledge with saving faith.

It is worth noting in passing, however, that there are at least two unorthodox versions of Christian inclusivism available as well. The first is the pattern set out by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, John Hick, and other ostensible “pluralists.” These theorists suggest that there are multiple paths to human fulfilment, many of them having nothing to do with Jesus Christ, explicitly or implicitly. In Hick’s formulation, one can be rightly oriented toward the Ultimately Real with or without the assistance of Jesus. Such a view, however, rests on the fundamental conviction that there is only one basis upon which people can reach their summum bonum. Smith, Hick and their ilk say that this basis is not the person and work of Jesus Christ, but instead is the revelation of God abroad in the world, the correct response to which is “other-mindedness,” charity, and moral rectitude. There are not really multiple paths, but multiple versions of the same path to the same end.

So, too, does mysticism offer multiple versions of the same path to the same end: union with the divine. Whether the Christian mysticism of Meister Eckhart or the Society of Friends, or the non-Christian mysticism of Sufi Muslims or bhakti Hindus, mysticism around the world is understood to have the same basic ethos and trajectory, which are expressed in multiple forms.