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I think maybe I'm reading wrong. In my last reading update I said I was starting Works of Love, implying that would be the topic of my next book post. I mislead you all. I am reading Works of Love, but slowly, one half a chapter at a time, and hardly understanding any of it. This is why I usually choose theology over philosophy I suppose. More about Kirkegaard in another post, when I've finally made it through, because I have many books to talk about and I am determined not to write pages this time!

Awake: One of the many benefits of having parents who love to read as much as I do is the delight of skimming the overflowing bookshelves in our house late at night. Some time ago I was looking for a late night read, and on my way to grabbing Magician's Nephew I came across a slim little book called Awake. The back cover was intriguing, and the tag line "doing a world of good one person at a time" really seemed to fit in my philosophy of ministry. It ended up coming to college with me, and since it hadn't been read when I left for PRIME, it ended up on the list. My general thoughts? Not really worth the months it spent on my shelf. Most likely because I was expecting a book on a relational philosophy of missions and ministry, but instead got an overview of all the places in the world that terrible things are happening, I was a little disappointed. A few weeks distanced from it, I think I get what Yeats was going for - a book of stories that force people to see the wretched things that happen daily around the world, in an effort to spur them into action. A good goal! However, there was nowhere to take action. Her book left me feeling saddened and rather hopelessly overwhelmed without any suggestion of how to help. All in all? An uncomfortable and unsettling way to spend an afternoon.

Silence: I already wrote a bit about this novel, but it was before I'd quite finished it. In the end, it was unexpected in so many different ways. For anyone with a heart for mission, I recommend Mr. Endo's work. He captures something very tender and personal, this feeling of warring sides within a person, and displays it through the story of a whole country. The whole story, I really thought I knew how it would end, and was really very surprised. That in and of itself is a recommendation, because the best authors always find a way to deliver the unexpected.

Space Trilogy: I had intended to write a review for each book in the trilogy before moving on to the next one, but after I'd finished Out of the Silent Planet I couldn't stop long enough to write before moving on to Perlandra. There are far more educated people than I who could tell you all the beautiful layers of this adventure, so I won't try and capture it all.
Out of the Silent Planet was such a brilliant surprise. I fell in love with the diverse peoples of Malacandra, the rich history of the planet, the surprising dexterity with which Lewis described creatures and plants and geography and language so it really felt as though I was encountering an entirely alien place. It was such a beautiful adventure, I didn't think it could get any better!
Then, Perelandra. I have rarely felt so much attachment to a place. My head spun, trying to follow the rhetoric of the Tempter and Ransom. My heart hurt when Ransom said goodbye to Tir and Tinidril. I desperately, for a moment, hoped that Ransom would stay, take part in this beautiful and unfallen world he had protected. I truly don't have words for how much Perelandra has become part of my soul.
Finally, That Hideous Strength. After the whirlwind of the first two stories, I admit, it took me a few tries to really dig into the third installment. The longest of the trilogy by a wide margin, That Hideous Strength begins with some very monotonous set up - not by accident. It felt as though Lewis was doing two things: lulling the reader into a sense of calm by reorienting them to the world we are accustomed to, as well as making it clear how the power of evil does not only exist in fantastical places, but in the commonplace as well. It took nearly half the book for any real 'action' to begin, but it was worth the wait. My largest criticism is not literary, but emotional, in that I dearly wanted to return to Perelandra and Malacandra in some fashion, and there really was very little interaction with the powers of the planets I had encountered until the very end of the book. They were not disappointing encounters, truly, and if they were, it was only that they were so beautiful that I wanted more of them.
The Space Trilogy answered a deep seeded question in me: I have often wondered why a God of such immense creativity only created one race to worship Him. I don't for a moment believe Lewis' story of the powers of the planets, the huorns, the sorns, the pfifltrigg, and the unnamed race of Perelandrians is a factual representation of the order of the universe. But it does fulfill a desire for a wider understanding, a way of seeing God that isn't tied to human cognition. I probably sound a bit heretical, and so be it, but it was almost a relief to know someone else had those desires too.

That wasn't too painful, was it? I didn't go overboard, even though I think I could have written another four pages on all the wonderful, beautiful bits of the Space Trilogy. Thank you, you few faithful readers, for sticking with me!




theList//
Spiritual Leadership: Henry and Richard Blackaby
Reaching Out: Henry Nouwen
Unceasing Worship: Harold Best
The Dangerous Act of Worship: Mark Labberton
Silence: Shucaku Endo 
Christ Centered Worship: Bryan Chapell 
Rhythms of Grace: Mike Cosper
Mere Christianity: CS Lewis
Culture Making: Andy Crouch 
Works of Love: Soren Kierkegaard
Awake: Noel Brewer Yeats
Fahrenheit 451: Ray Bradbury
Till We Have Faces: CS Lewis 
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Betty Smith
Beauty: Robin Mckinley
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Blue Like Jazz: Donald Miller
Click: Various Authors 
The Last Little Blue Envelope: Maureen Johnson
Out of the Silent Planet: CS Lewis
Perelandria: CS Lewis
That Hideous Strength: CS Lewis

Kalon

I love liturgy. I've been captivated by the rhythms of it since I started college. I love the feeling that words I'm speaking are tying me to the people speaking them with me, as well as believers throughout history, back through the centuries, back to the time of the Israelite wandering in the desert.

This connection struck me in a much more sobering way today.

One of my books for school is a novel called Silence, by Shusaku Endo, the story of a Portuguese priest in 17th century Japan. In the latter part of the book, Sebastian Rodrigues - the fictional characterization of the real Father Giuseppe Chiara - is imprisoned by the Japanese government. He is allowed to minister to the other imprisoned Christians, but when they refuse to forfeit their faith, they are killed. Again and again, the peasant Japanese die, and the officials push Rodrigues to apostatize. After the death of a young woman who had fed him on his first day in the prison, the priest sits alone in his cell, whispering prayers to himself. He quotes a Psalm he had loved as a child: "My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody! Awake my soul! Awake O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn."

I read those phrases, and couldn't go any farther. We prayed those words a few Sundays ago. I'd chosen them, picked that Psalm as a call to worship on our last week of the Summer in the Psalms series. It was almost painful to imagine the words so joyfully proclaimed by a free gathering of believers having been murmured through parched lips by a man who had the weight of imminent death on his heart. It almost felt wrong, for us in our uninhibited worship to speak the same words of the broken believers in persecuted Japan.

Maybe that was part of the beauty of liturgy, and more importantly Scripture, that I had been missing. It's not only a connection to the joyous and beautiful of our history. It is a link the the despondent, the broken, the abused. It reminds me of something from Mike Cosper's Rhythms of Grace:

The song of the patriarchs is a song born of weeping, of too much drink, of long suffering, of hopeless sojourns and agonizing compromise. It's not a song of affluence and triumph. It's not the song of the saintly, sung in white robes and accompanied by choirs of angels and pitch-perfect orchestration. It sounds far more like drunken sailors, wailing a hazy lament in a land far from home who look to the stars and feel the haunting presence of the promise, clinging to that twilit hope in spite of the curse, in spite of themselves. 

God has made us promises, but in the middle of despair... We cannot see them. Like Rodrigues, we question God's plan and sometimes, even His existence. So we cling to hope, to grace, to the words of those who have gone before, the ones who have faced our same trials and far worse. It's not pretty. It's not shiny. It hurts. It is dark. There is a very real chance that we don't get to see the joy that will come. Like Rodrigues, like the Japanese Christians, we might not live to enjoy the good that will come from our pain. Our trials are smaller, in light of the priest lying prostrate in his dirt cell. But no less real.

I suppose what I'm saying is I need to be reminded that my Psalms of joy and praise are also the Psalms of barely surviving hope in the consuming dark. There is a place for both in the life of the church and of the Christian; and the Scriptures of one may very well belong to the other as well.


kalon
n a beauty that is more than skin deep

From Hypophrenia to Ataraxia

I have officially hit the wall.

My first month in Columbus was hard some days, but when I got to the 1st of July and could cross a whole month off, I felt a huge rush of joy and accomplishment. It hadn't been as scary as I thought! I love my placement - Veritas is really just the right fit for me. God had this place picked out long before I started stressing about PRIME. My host family is delightful - they genuinely want me to spend time with them, and living with toddlers has not been nearly as weird as I thought; I'm even learning sign language from the smallest one. I get to talk to my family often - I think I call Mom more now than when I'm at school. My day to day work is comfortable and rewarding, and I'm encouraged to read, write, journal, and pray during my work day. My boss is present and helpful, always appreciative, but also gives me plenty of space and responsibility - most days I only see him as he stops at my cubicle on his way to one meeting or another and asks if I need anything. I still feel connected to the people I love from HU - particularly Anne and Craig, you've both been so incredibly supportive!

Then comes the first of July.

I woke up crabby, it took me forty five minutes to get to work instead of twenty, I set off the burglar alarm, I had a list of things to get done but not quite the right resources to accomplish them, and to top it all off I got in my first car accident on my way home. Its been almost a week, and I can't shake that one crummy day. Loads of brilliant things have happened since then! Independence Day (one of my very favorite holidays), my first time singing with a band at Veritas, my family came to visit, my host mom treated me to my first pedicure before they leave on vacation, I got to Skype with my friends also on PRIME - so many wonderful things. Why then do I still feel so... fragile? In the middle of all the good things, I feel weighted by the smaller hard things, like I might just break under them.

On my drive into work this morning, I was reminded of a conversation at community group last week. In discussing a major life change and some of the struggles they were going through, another group member pointed out to the couple "When it starts to get hard, it probably means you're doing the right thing."

I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I have no doubt in my mind that God has been preparing me for this, and He has more in store than I know even now. The only thing the enemy can do is cloud my view of that. He can't stop it, he knows he can't make me leave or keep the great things God has planned from happening. All he can do is make sure I don't see them and can't enjoy them or be enriched by them.

I hit the wall. Now its time to climb over.

I can't keep the small hard stuff from happening. I'll still miss my friends and family. I'll still have days when the list of tasks is long and the resources are few. I will get stuck in traffic. I will feel like there's no way I can keep hoping the funds will show up. But no one can keep the great things from happening either. Friends and family will visit. I will get great chances to minister to this city. I will strengthen the relationships that are blossoming here. The money will always come when I need it. I will read and learn and grow and connect, and God will do amazing things. There is always hope, and more than that, there is assurance because our God is greater than I can comprehend.



hypophrenia
n. a feeling of sadness without a cause

ataraxia
n. a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety