3150/5738

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

2057/5738

I have a hard time with limits.

A couple months ago, when my little reading list idea came into being, I thought that a book a week would be a good, simple goal. I read quickly, and I love it deeply, so it'd be a good exercise. Well. Then I moved to a new city, where my social life now consists of Disney movie marathons with a 2 year old and a 3 year old - not something I'm complaining about. The observations of toddlers are endlessly amusing, to be honest. So my recreational activities became very limited, and I soon discovered that spending your days off watching Netflix gives you a headache and makes you feel like a slug. Consequently, I read. A lot. I've mostly knocked out the "fun" end of my list, and mostly have school books left (which haven't arrived yet, I'm not procrastinating!) and I haven't even been here a month.

Conclusion: I ordered more books; 5002 pages has become 5738; 17 books has become 20. And I'm going to a used bookstore tomorrow. Who knows how long this list is going to get. But I'm going to continue keeping a list, because now I've started. And I hate to leave something like this unfinished, even if no one but me will read these.

I already wrote a post about Andy Crouch's Culture Making - one more push, please read it! Christ Centered Worship by Bryan Chapell was good. Again, like Rhythms of Grace, it had plenty of good information, but not much I was blown away by, since it's something I've studied in other contexts. But it really did give me a good grasp of where my mentor is coming from as he and the other leaders structures the services here.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson was an impulse buy (shocking). Maureen Johnson is a nerdfighter related author, so when I saw her name at a thrift store, I couldn't say no. It was a sweet book. Parts were predictable, but not unpleasantly so. It was a relaxing read for a Friday afternoon.

Sneak peak, I'm starting Works of Love by Kierkegaard this week, and I've been assured it will be a game changer. Tune in again for more ramblings about things!


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

3:12:120

I've just finished a book that I've been meaning to read for a while. Almost two years ago I heard about it, a while later researched it on Amazon and added it to my wishlist, for my birthday a couple months ago I got it from my best friend (There's your mention LeClaire ;) ) and last week I started reading it. The anticipation had my expectations in the stratosphere. I was not disappointed.

Culture Making by Andy Crouch is a very thick book. Only 280 pages, but intensely researched and carefully practical. The idea of changing or influencing our culture is common place in our world, and exists in a unique way in Christian circles. We have tried to influence the culture, we've tried to change it, we've copied it, dismissed it, tried to create our own outside of "the world". Crouch makes the theoretical world of culture simultaneously concrete and fluid. He takes the world we live in, of a million cultures woven together, something we can begin to perceive and influence.

Please, if you have any understanding of how important Christianity's interaction with culture is, read this book. I can't even start to explain all the points Crouch makes, and if I did, I really don't think it would do them any sort of justice. So instead of summarizing the whole host of concepts he discusses, I'm just going to tell you to read the book. And now I'm gonna talk about a bit at the end, which sparked my particular interest, and I hope makes you think about your impact differently.

Crouch goes to great lengths to accurately reflect how the individual is influenced by and also influences culture - the immediate culture of their family unit rippling out to the global culture at large. He is realistic, noting that while all humans have the capacity and inclination to shape culture, often those impacts don't ripple much farther than their own homes. But at the tail end of the book, he offers hope - not just hope, but practical, realistic, and feasible application toward helping the individual make a cultural difference in the long term.

3:12:120

All a person needs, to make a difference, is an absolutely small group of about 3 people. A group that knows each other, realizes the strengths and weaknesses of each, and shares a passion and complimentary gifts. We all are a part of these intimately small groups. Not many, but at least one, and likely a few. Each individual is surrounded by more people, who encourage and help cultivate the new cultural good created by the small group. This circle amounts to about 12 people, give or take a few. These 12 are those willing to help, who can be extra hands and ears in moving from concept to reality. Outside those 12 are the 120, the people who are putting the good in motion, who immediately enact it and benefit from it. Crouch gives numerous examples, from books to political policies to movies to restaurants to technological innovations, all of which follow the pattern of 3:12:120. From an absolutely small group, to their circle of cultivators, to their enablers. This pattern allows for any and all of us to begin realizing our God-given potential as culture-makers.

Which starts me thinking about who my 3 would be. The title of the chapter in which Crouch discusses the 3:12:120 concept is Community - something I spend a good deal of my time thinking about. The longer I think about it, I realize, I have several "3s". They don't all number exactly three. They range from three to six, but all still quite small groups, who have the potential to create and cultivate culture in unique ways.

So how do I harness that? How have I already, possibly? I think back to those groups, and in fact, we have made changes. Many of those groups exist on my university's campus, and have impacted the culture of our campus home simply by making choices about how we spend our time together. We didn't do anything purposefully, we didn't change much, and likely our impact will fade once we and those we know there have moved on - but we did have an impact. I've seen this principle in church planting - the church I currently work with began with two or three men who had an idea of what church should look like and how it could impact this city. They, with their families, began ministering here; they reached out to people in the city and outside of it. 3:12:120. And the church grew.

At the end of the last chapter, Crouch makes an incredible statement:

"So, do you want to make culture? Find a community, a small group who can lovingly fuel your dreams and puncture your illusions. Find friends and form a family who are willing to see grace at work in one another's lives, who can discern together which gifts and which crosses each has been called to bear. Find people who have a holy respect for power alongside the powerless. Find some partners in the wild and wonderful world beyond church doors. And then, together, make something of the world."

One of the many brilliant beauties of this book is that Crouch turns our - at least my - ideas of culture on their heads. I have mostly thought about culture as something shared, yes, but still largely enjoyed and impacted by individuals who happen to make up a whole. We value the individual, and we see individuals change the world. But look a little closer, and those individual could not do what they did without the 3:12:120 in their own lives. The 3's in your life could impact the world in powerful ways, if cultivated well.

Why not explore the possibilities?

1159/5002

That last book post was so long. Kudos to anyone who actually read it, because it was a monster. In an effort to not write a forever long post every week when I do a book update, I'm posting mid-book. I finished two, and I'm still in the middle of two. So here we go!

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This was a recommendation from Craig (Hi!), since I'm constantly saying "You need to read ______!" he felt like he could make a suggestion for my list. So, Haruhi. I want to try and explain what this book was about, but I'm afraid I will just confuse you, since I was confused for the vast majority of the book. Suffice to say, Haruhi is a teenager who is in possession of extreme power that she's unaware of, and her unlikely friend Kyon is responsible for making sure she doesn't accidentally end life as they know it. I spent the first half of the book confused and a little scarred, but after finishing it and having a few days of distance from it, I liked it! It was weird. Really weird. But once I got to the end and saw where the author was trying to go with all the weirdness? It kind of worked. I might read the rest of them. All in all, not a bad book to spend an afternoon with.

Click. This was a book I picked up for a dollar at a thrift store because it had Eoin Colfer on the list of contributing authors (I could talk for days about Eoin Colfer and how much I love his books, but for now, just take my word for how brilliant he is, and go read Artemis Fowl). Click is a story written by ten different authors, each writing their own chapter, and almost every chapter having a different narrator (The exception being that the first and last chapters are both from Maggie's point of view). Click's main plot is the death of a photographer Gee Keane, and his grandchildren's journey to find out who he really was and in that process, figure out who they are going to be. I'd tell you more, but it would ruin some of the mystery that makes this book so delightful. It feels a bit like a choose your own adventure story, with unexpected twists and bizarre turns, ending up in a totally different place than you started out. Every character has a story, and every story is connected to Gee, and Gee is never quite what you expect him to be. It asks some really good questions about what makes each of us, well, us. What makes me different from you? Why are we unique? What makes us different from each other, but still connected? I really quite enjoyed this little novel, and will probably come back to it, and will definitely be passing it along.

1,159 down, 3,063 to go!

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

Depaysement

A more internship-centered post today.

Is it the nature of home that we don't fully appreciate it until we're not there? Now that's a sappy and unquestionably dramatic question. But it's what was on my mind last night, as I sat on the floor of the auditorium to rest my legs, watching the lights swirl as the band played and the students sang. The speakers had been brilliant, the music was excellent, and the atmosphere sparkled with energy despite the fact that most of the students had been working in the 90 degree heat since early that morning. I was exhausted. I hadn't slept well, and I'd been on my feet and surrounded by people for hours - not ideal for the introvert, as much as I'd enjoyed myself.

But suddenly, I realized I was comfortable.

Not physically. My legs ached and my head was pounding and that Sprite had not settled well in my empty stomach. But relationally, I suppose? I was leaning up against the back wall of the auditorium, between my fellow intern Matt and one of the pastors. We'd been joking about something a few minutes before. Matt leaned over to show me something on his phone. I rolled my eyes, but laughed anyway. My responsibility - getting the speakers set up with mics and notes, getting them from their seats to the stage, and making sure they knew how much time they had to speak - was over for the night, and I was just waiting for the night to be over so we could clean up and go home. I was finally relaxed in this space, for probably the first time since I'd arrived in Columbus. I knew what was expected of me and how to accomplish it. More surprisingly, I knew how to ask for help and how to interact with people I barely knew ten days ago. It was a weird feeling.

That comfort made me miss home.

It doesn't make sense to me. I had found my footing, and suddenly all I wanted to was to take this moment and bring it back with me. I wanted to be in my living room, rambling about it in a way that only made sense to us with my mom. I wanted to try and express it to my friends, knowing that even if my words didn't quite make sense, my excitement would bring them joy. I wanted to take this experience and use it somehow to make my homes a better place. Even in this beginning stage of my experience, I'm seeing the ways that being here will make me more effective there. Ways that I'll be a better daughter, a better friend, a better girlfriend, a better leader, a better mentor, a better theologian, a better servant. Already, I'm straining to be back because I have so much to share. Now that I'm here, I see how important and valuable and influential those places I love so much are.

I'm starting to like it here, and even that makes me eager to be home.



depaysement
n. when someone is taken out of their old world and put into a new one