Last year Tabletalk magazine asked me to write a little something on the ninth-century missionaries to the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius. That essay was published this month, and if you are curious you can read it online here. You can read it even if you aren’t curious.
You should note that it may appear that I am posing as a pastor, since they published the essay in their monthly column called the “Pastor’s Perspective,” which they describe thus: “Pastor’s Perspective is an opportunity each month for a different seasoned pastor to apply the themes discussed in Tabletalk more directly to the life of the layperson and equip the saints for service in the local congregation.” I’m no pastor, but I am different and even seasoned (after a fashion), and I didn’t know my words would be applied to this column till after it was published.
Over the weekend I had a few hours to myself to lounge around my room in the castle, so I plunged into a new book by Dick Keyes called Seeing through Cynicism: A Reconsideration of the Power of Suspicion. It is a sober-minded analysis of the cynical spirit of our age, where it came from, what is good about it, and why it ultimately fails. But Keyes, the director of L’Abri in Massachusetts, doesn’t leave us empty-handed: he presents an honest alternative, and takes a redemptive approach to his critique.
I have to confess that he exposed some faithless cynicism of my own that has embedded itself into my psyche from my experience and through the cultural air that I breathe. I’m glad he did, and I think many of you will be surprised to find how deeply you have been affected as well. So consider yourself warned – but also consider yourself encouraged to read it anyway. (more…)
A friend asked me to review Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved when I finished reading it. I’m done, and here are my thoughts.
Nouwen wrote this book in response to his friend Fred’s request for something about the spiritual life, but addressed to secular people like Fred and his friends. So Nouwen set out to write a book that wasn’t couched in the language and symbols familiar to religious people with a church or synagogue context to their lives, yet still a book that touched the central yearnings of the human heart. I wanted to read it precisely because of its goal – because I’d like to learn how to do the same (if it is possible).
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The phrase “blessed to be a blessing” caught my attention earlier this year, and I was happy to see it pop up as a major emphasis in a chapter of Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved. As you read this tiny excerpt, think about how you might bless one person today. Be specific – get down to the concrete actions you would take, or the words you would say. Then, if you get the chance, go bless them.
The blessed one always blesses. And people want to be blessed! This is so apparent wherever you go. No one is brought to life through curses, gossip, accusations, or blaming. There is so much of that taking place around us all the time. And it calls forth only darkness, destruction and death. As the “blessed ones,” we can walk through this world and offer blessings. It doesn’t require much effort.
Hmmm… What do you think? Is it really so easy? How do you bless others?
Another quotation from Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved that makes me squirm:
Our brokenness is often so frightening to face because we live it under the curse. Living our brokenness under the curse means that we experience our pain as a confirmation of our negative feelings about ourselves. It is like saying, “I always suspected that I was useless or worthless, and now I am sure of it because of what is happening to me.” (more…)
Some dear old friends sent me a book: Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved. I’ve only just begun it, so I won’t declare my approval or disapproval any more than simply to report this searching passage, and ask whether you recognize yourself here or not:
Beneath all my seemingly strong self-confidence there remained the question: “If all those who shower me with so much attention could see me and know me in my innermost self, would they still love me?” That agonizing question, rooted in my inner shadow, kept persecuting me and made me run away from the very place where that quiet voice calling me the Beloved could be heard. (more…)
Since we are packing our stuff to move to Slovakia, we have to go through lots of memorabilia in order to figure out what to keep and what to throw away. I get distracted sometimes by what I discover. For example, consider the drawing of Francis Schaeffer I did in 1984 when I discovered the Schaeffers, their writings, and their lives. I found many journal entries about the Schaeffers from those months before Nicholas (our first child) was born. And I was particularly taken by the drama and romance of their lives recorded by Edith in The Tapestry.
As you can tell from some of my recent blog entries, I’ve been reading more Schaeffer lately. One theme that has gripped me is expressed by Francis in these comments from The God Who Is There:
The world has a right to look upon us and make a judgment…. The final apologetic, along with the rational, logical defense and presentation, is what the world sees in the individual Christian and in our corporate relationships together…. What the world cannot explain away will be a substantial, corporate exhibition of the logical conclusions of Christianity.
What Francis states as a proposition, Edith describes in their story, as she says in her introduction to L’Abri:
The story which follows is one in which the author has attempted to show the reality of the fact that God exists, and that He is the One who has, time after time, answered prayer in the midst of well-nigh impossible circumstances to bring about something out of nothing.
Their lives together demonstrated in remarkable ways that “God is there, and he is not silent.” And of course I wonder what my life demonstrates about God, and how I can live in such a way that others will be certain that I live in the presence of God.
How then will you live?
Here’s another gem from Francis Schaeffer, which I record as a note to myself:
The problem which confronts us as we approach modern man today is not how we are to change Christian teaching in order to make it more palatable, for to do that would mean throwing away any chance of giving the real answer to the man in despair; rather, it is the problem of how to communicate the gospel so that it is understood.
The God Who Is There, section four, chapter three