Thursday, February 17, 2011
Next Book: "The Celebration of Discipline" by Richard J Foster
We are winding down our reading of Annie Dillards "A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" and after having had our minds blown from her weaving together many stories of nature, insects, floods, horsehair worms, mantises, and spirituality (just to name a few topics from the top of my head), in a few weeks we will be moving on to: "Celebration of discipline: the path to spiritual growth" by Richard J. Foster.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
A Holiday Message from Mike: Why I’m Not an Atheist
I read a fantastic blog by comedic genius Ricky Gervais about why he is an Atheist (I suggest you read it too to make your own conclusions). I say fantastic not because I agree with his conclusions, for I am not an Atheist, but because I understand where he is coming from. Not only can I entirely appreciate why he is an atheist, but I think he raises an important question that any Christian should not be afraid of, but embrace: Why do you believe in God?
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday Night Book Club - Now on Wednesdays!
What we did over our Summer Vacation...and the fall too, I guess...
Lamb, by Christopher Moore
After spending much of the spring and summer “on vacation” from books, Monday Night Book Club started a new book: Lamb, by Christopher Moore. This book caught me off guard, at first, by how irreverently it treated all of the people surrounding “Joshua” (as Moore refers to Jesus). But once growing accustomed to, and mostly enjoying, Moore’s dirty humor, I enjoyed the story he weaved around the “forgotten years” of Jesus’ boyhood, teen and young adult years. It was imaginative, and I felt its strengths lay in the fact that it generally put a human face on mythic, inhumane characters from the Gospel stories. While not “Christ scholarship” (which it was not intended to be), it made the stories of Jesus’ ministry seem approachable and understandable - basically, it humanized them. I also appreciated that, he ultimately did not treat the character of Josh with the disrespect that he heaped upon some of the other characters (the apostles, for example, did not get off so easily). Finally, I was glad that he did not mess with any of the fundamental understandings of Jesus. I think it is effective as a work of comedic historical fiction, and it should be read as such.
Current Book:
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
Lamb, by Christopher Moore
After spending much of the spring and summer “on vacation” from books, Monday Night Book Club started a new book: Lamb, by Christopher Moore. This book caught me off guard, at first, by how irreverently it treated all of the people surrounding “Joshua” (as Moore refers to Jesus). But once growing accustomed to, and mostly enjoying, Moore’s dirty humor, I enjoyed the story he weaved around the “forgotten years” of Jesus’ boyhood, teen and young adult years. It was imaginative, and I felt its strengths lay in the fact that it generally put a human face on mythic, inhumane characters from the Gospel stories. While not “Christ scholarship” (which it was not intended to be), it made the stories of Jesus’ ministry seem approachable and understandable - basically, it humanized them. I also appreciated that, he ultimately did not treat the character of Josh with the disrespect that he heaped upon some of the other characters (the apostles, for example, did not get off so easily). Finally, I was glad that he did not mess with any of the fundamental understandings of Jesus. I think it is effective as a work of comedic historical fiction, and it should be read as such.
Current Book:
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
Friday, August 20, 2010
Deus Ex Machina
So, before I can talk about what kind of story I'd like to be living, let's talk about the story that I am already living. Or rather, the non-story I'm already living. Let's talk about deus ex machina, the god in the machine.
It's one of the oldest diagnoses of a poorly-written plot. An author places his hero into a seemingly impossible situation -- and then discovers that it is actually an impossible situation. He hasn't given his protagonist the tools needed to solve this problem. The author should go to rewrite, start reconstructing the architecture of his plot. But instead, the author uses his sorcerous powers to summon a new element from outside the story he's been telling, an element that will solve the hero's predicament for him.
It's pretty easy to why this is bad plot-writing. Take Don's definition of a story: "A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to
achieve it." It's all hiding in that word "overcome." When a god walks on stage and solves everything, the hero hasn't overcome anything. It's been overcome for him.
Two years ago, I left Arlington, Virginia, to head off to a theological grad school in Vancouver, British Columbia. I'd been planning on doing it for years but I hadn't felt ready yet. But God started leaning on me to get going. So I quit my job, put my furniture and stuff into storage, and gave up my apartment. There was one problem: I didn't actually have the money together to get to Vancouver. But hey, this was God's idea -- I believed that He was going to provide. After all, He'd done it before. (Ask me sometime how I got my apartment at 25% below market rate.)
So I came home to Detroit, Michigan, to stay with my parents for a few weeks while I waited for my miracle. Two years later, I'm still waiting.
I've been living with my life on pause (my driver's liscence still says "Virginia"). I'm just waiting, waiting for my own /deus ex machina/.
It's a pretty terrible plot to be living -- that level of passivity is not normally seen this side of Waiting for Godot. Even the sort of writers who find themselves resorting to deus ex usually have their heroes fumbling around, trying something -- anything -- to solve the problem themselves before the deus steps in, recognizing that even if the hero doesn't "overcome", he should at least "attempt to overcome".
But instead I'm waiting -- waiting for someone else to come and fix my story. In "Million Miles", Don mentions that "when when stop expecting God to end all of your troubles, you'd be surprised at how much you like spending time with God." I've definitely found the inverse to be true. When you're expecting God to step in, and He doesn't, it's pretty easy to stop liking Him.
I've only recently been confronted by the depths of my passivity. I used to have a fig leaf of a story for the past two years: "I'm taking care of my grandparents." And I was. They're homebound, and the rest of the family was too busy, and I had the time and willingness to do so. But Grandma passed away a few months ago. And as hard as the deep relational loss of her passing has been, I often think that the loss of my fig leaf has been even harder. When I came out of the shock period of the grieving, I suddenly felt the weight of two years' worth of purposelessness. I still take care of Grandpa, but every visit to his house echoes not just with Grandma's lost love but with my lost time.
And the worst part is, with all of that, I'm still not wholly convinced that I'm wrong to be waiting.
For me, Scripture reverberates with deus ex. The ram that saved Issac, the parting of the Red Sea, the gift of mana, the fall of Jericho, the triumph of Gideon, so many more. When his people need him, God is the one who rescues. Even the gospel itself is deus ex. None of us can save ourselves. That's the role of the true hero, the good king of all creation.
Take Scripture's oldest story: Job. Job is a wealthy man who loses everything to catastrophe. He, his wife, and his friends spend chapters and chapters debating what is going on, what has Job done to deserve such a story, and what should he do in the face of it. And if Job was the actual hero, that might have been the correct discussion. But at the end, God shows up and asks, in essence, "Why do you think that you're the hero of this story? Why do you think that you're the one who has lost the plot and needs to set it to right?". And after Job recognizes that God is the hero, his story is restored.
But can that really be it? Can the greatest story being told really rely on hack plot gimmick? And if so, if the true hero seems to be offstage somewhere,what does the bit player do in the meantime? Put on a perfomance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? Or maybe, just maybe, he decides to try to be a real character after all.
So, step one: want something.
In "Million Miles", Don spends a lot of time mocking the guy whose story revolves around wanting a new car. But frankly, compared to the non-story of waiting for deus ex, that's a downright scintillating story. So there's any number of mini-stories that would a good change for the next year or so: retrieving my stuff out from storage in Virginia, finding a job (even if it's the boringest job ever), getting my own place again.
Ultimately, I want to start a think-tank to help spread the word that the gospel is bigger than getting into heaven and that the church is supposed to be more than an institution to perpetuate a certain form of middle-class American suburban culture. Before that, I'm still longing for grad school -- I need the training and I want the credential.
And from the standpoint of literary structure, that's probably what I should cycle back around to here. I started with my plans for school getting interrupted, the story I propose for the future should probably involve getting back to that. Unfortunately, my sense of story is currently atrophied. I still can't there from here. Any plan I propose would have an Underpants-Gnome-esque "??????????" somewhere in the middle. Even the mini-stories, the one about getting practicalities in order, are a bit of stretch.
Right now, I just want to complete this contest entry. Actually winning and getting to go to the conference would be an excellent bonus, getting a chance to be immersed in life-as-good story-telling. But actually wanting to do something, starting it, and finishing it would be a great micro-story. As for overcoming conflict, Web browsers and video games aren't the most epic of foes, but the vicious little time bandits are pretty powerful after being reinforced by two years of lethargy.
Tomorrow, I need to want to prepare for a presentation I'm giving to a Stephen Ministry group I'm involved in. And I'll need to fight off the same time bandits again.
Sunday gets to be a Sabbath, and it should be a great one. Some of my friends and I have decided to start a house church, unaffiliated and uncredentialed. Sunday's our first meeting. We're still working out our overall vision, let alone our actual plans. But I want it to succeed. And I'm sure we'll have to overcome conflict to get there.
Come Monday, I need to want to find a job. I need to want to send out resumes, to rifle through classifieds. And the conflict is still the same: fight off the bonds of my own passivity. Once I get a job, I need to save up $600 or so to get and retrieve my stuff from Virginia. And then I'll need to do it again to put together the deposit on an apartment.
And so, step by step, day by day, I'll learn how to live life where I am, rather than where I was or where I wish I could be.
--
The above is an entry in Donald Miller's contest for Living a Better Story Seminar. See below:
It's one of the oldest diagnoses of a poorly-written plot. An author places his hero into a seemingly impossible situation -- and then discovers that it is actually an impossible situation. He hasn't given his protagonist the tools needed to solve this problem. The author should go to rewrite, start reconstructing the architecture of his plot. But instead, the author uses his sorcerous powers to summon a new element from outside the story he's been telling, an element that will solve the hero's predicament for him.
It's pretty easy to why this is bad plot-writing. Take Don's definition of a story: "A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to
achieve it." It's all hiding in that word "overcome." When a god walks on stage and solves everything, the hero hasn't overcome anything. It's been overcome for him.
Two years ago, I left Arlington, Virginia, to head off to a theological grad school in Vancouver, British Columbia. I'd been planning on doing it for years but I hadn't felt ready yet. But God started leaning on me to get going. So I quit my job, put my furniture and stuff into storage, and gave up my apartment. There was one problem: I didn't actually have the money together to get to Vancouver. But hey, this was God's idea -- I believed that He was going to provide. After all, He'd done it before. (Ask me sometime how I got my apartment at 25% below market rate.)
So I came home to Detroit, Michigan, to stay with my parents for a few weeks while I waited for my miracle. Two years later, I'm still waiting.
I've been living with my life on pause (my driver's liscence still says "Virginia"). I'm just waiting, waiting for my own /deus ex machina/.
It's a pretty terrible plot to be living -- that level of passivity is not normally seen this side of Waiting for Godot. Even the sort of writers who find themselves resorting to deus ex usually have their heroes fumbling around, trying something -- anything -- to solve the problem themselves before the deus steps in, recognizing that even if the hero doesn't "overcome", he should at least "attempt to overcome".
But instead I'm waiting -- waiting for someone else to come and fix my story. In "Million Miles", Don mentions that "when when stop expecting God to end all of your troubles, you'd be surprised at how much you like spending time with God." I've definitely found the inverse to be true. When you're expecting God to step in, and He doesn't, it's pretty easy to stop liking Him.
I've only recently been confronted by the depths of my passivity. I used to have a fig leaf of a story for the past two years: "I'm taking care of my grandparents." And I was. They're homebound, and the rest of the family was too busy, and I had the time and willingness to do so. But Grandma passed away a few months ago. And as hard as the deep relational loss of her passing has been, I often think that the loss of my fig leaf has been even harder. When I came out of the shock period of the grieving, I suddenly felt the weight of two years' worth of purposelessness. I still take care of Grandpa, but every visit to his house echoes not just with Grandma's lost love but with my lost time.
And the worst part is, with all of that, I'm still not wholly convinced that I'm wrong to be waiting.
For me, Scripture reverberates with deus ex. The ram that saved Issac, the parting of the Red Sea, the gift of mana, the fall of Jericho, the triumph of Gideon, so many more. When his people need him, God is the one who rescues. Even the gospel itself is deus ex. None of us can save ourselves. That's the role of the true hero, the good king of all creation.
Take Scripture's oldest story: Job. Job is a wealthy man who loses everything to catastrophe. He, his wife, and his friends spend chapters and chapters debating what is going on, what has Job done to deserve such a story, and what should he do in the face of it. And if Job was the actual hero, that might have been the correct discussion. But at the end, God shows up and asks, in essence, "Why do you think that you're the hero of this story? Why do you think that you're the one who has lost the plot and needs to set it to right?". And after Job recognizes that God is the hero, his story is restored.
But can that really be it? Can the greatest story being told really rely on hack plot gimmick? And if so, if the true hero seems to be offstage somewhere,what does the bit player do in the meantime? Put on a perfomance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? Or maybe, just maybe, he decides to try to be a real character after all.
So, step one: want something.
In "Million Miles", Don spends a lot of time mocking the guy whose story revolves around wanting a new car. But frankly, compared to the non-story of waiting for deus ex, that's a downright scintillating story. So there's any number of mini-stories that would a good change for the next year or so: retrieving my stuff out from storage in Virginia, finding a job (even if it's the boringest job ever), getting my own place again.
Ultimately, I want to start a think-tank to help spread the word that the gospel is bigger than getting into heaven and that the church is supposed to be more than an institution to perpetuate a certain form of middle-class American suburban culture. Before that, I'm still longing for grad school -- I need the training and I want the credential.
And from the standpoint of literary structure, that's probably what I should cycle back around to here. I started with my plans for school getting interrupted, the story I propose for the future should probably involve getting back to that. Unfortunately, my sense of story is currently atrophied. I still can't there from here. Any plan I propose would have an Underpants-Gnome-esque "??????????" somewhere in the middle. Even the mini-stories, the one about getting practicalities in order, are a bit of stretch.
Right now, I just want to complete this contest entry. Actually winning and getting to go to the conference would be an excellent bonus, getting a chance to be immersed in life-as-good story-telling. But actually wanting to do something, starting it, and finishing it would be a great micro-story. As for overcoming conflict, Web browsers and video games aren't the most epic of foes, but the vicious little time bandits are pretty powerful after being reinforced by two years of lethargy.
Tomorrow, I need to want to prepare for a presentation I'm giving to a Stephen Ministry group I'm involved in. And I'll need to fight off the same time bandits again.
Sunday gets to be a Sabbath, and it should be a great one. Some of my friends and I have decided to start a house church, unaffiliated and uncredentialed. Sunday's our first meeting. We're still working out our overall vision, let alone our actual plans. But I want it to succeed. And I'm sure we'll have to overcome conflict to get there.
Come Monday, I need to want to find a job. I need to want to send out resumes, to rifle through classifieds. And the conflict is still the same: fight off the bonds of my own passivity. Once I get a job, I need to save up $600 or so to get and retrieve my stuff from Virginia. And then I'll need to do it again to put together the deposit on an apartment.
And so, step by step, day by day, I'll learn how to live life where I am, rather than where I was or where I wish I could be.
--
The above is an entry in Donald Miller's contest for Living a Better Story Seminar. See below:
Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Why we gave up on the Truth Project
Was it because we rejected Truth??? No, just "truthiness".
Straw man arguments, inconsistency and gross generalizations all to support very simple conclusions: Truth is good, post-modern is bad, Conservative is good, Liberal is bad, philosophy is misleading, etc.
Come on Molly, Mark, Corey and Alison - I know you have something to say about this!
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