Hmm, so even though we had extra time on the internet, I didn't write out blogs beforehand this week, so this will be a pathetic week for blogging. Check FB, though, cause there are pics and videos up. A picture's worth a thousand words, so that should satisfy, right?
Monday we had Bible class and small group, and on Tuesday we had two art classes, one in the morning with Charlie (we did skits again) and one in the evening with his wife on art history. She's a high school art teacher, and she ran through the major art movements of the past 160 ish years so we would be prepared for our art field trip to Sante Fe this weekend.
Wednesday through Friday we had Dr. JP Moreland, one of the most important Christian philosophers alive today. He's a great teacher, though I will say he's much more enjoyable in person than in books (don't get me wrong, I really like his books and need to read more of them). He was great, I just wish we had more time with him.
Yesterday, we drove down early to Sante Fe to look at various art galleries. We started with a postmodern gallery called Site Sante Fe, which was interesting. I learned I need to start coring concrete out of the floors and selling it for thousands and thousands of dollars.
We then hung out on Canyon Road for several hours. There are dozens upon dozens of galleries there, with all kinds of art. It was definitely interesting. We then came back to the hotel, hung out, had great Mexican food, talked about art, and then used the internet for hours on end. It was pretty amazing.
Happy All Saints Day!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
wRestling, Rights, and Remembering
Day 51, Summit Semester
Disclaimer: this is really long, but it’s really important. It’s what I’ve been wrestling with all Semester, and I’m now kind of maybe starting to get it…
(read the referenced blog first...for some reason, I don't think it posted last week, sorry)
So the “personal blog” I wrote last week was written Saturday night (10-17), and it was kind of coming from some of the frustration (and resignation) I’d been wrestling with for the past couple of weeks. Various things, those outside my control and those inspired by some of the Semester experience, have left me feeling less secure about my future plans than I was before coming here. (Perhaps, as Bauman asserts, I’ve been confused all along, and it just takes the right questions to make me realize it.) Seriously though, I felt to some degree that the rug had been pulled out from under me again, as far as my plans for the future.
And I really struggled with this. I struggled with not knowing. I struggled because I felt like I wasn’t trusting God like I should. I struggled because I felt I had, in some way, walked this path before (post-Implosion and college decision) and yet I was struggling with trusting God just as much now as then, though I have already seen Him work things out better than I could have planned or dreamed in a million years. It was frustrating because it felt like I had made no progress, that I was currently in an unstable spiritual state of not trusting God fully, and that I still really wanted to know what’s coming and I still have no idea.
I talked with Naomi, my mentor and small group leader, and she had some really helpful stuff to say. In a sense, she’s been in a place of not knowing any long term plans for the past six years, so she definitely understood what I was wrestling with. She said that sometimes the Christian life doesn’t seem so much like hills and valleys as it does this spiraling motion – often it seems we keep coming back to the same issue/problem/question time and time again, each time coming with a little more knowledge than we had before, which can inspire both hope (God got me through this once, we can do it again) and frustration (God why can’ t I learn this and move on?). There are times it just seems like I haven’t grown at all since the last time God tried to teach me this, and yet I know I have. Talking with her really gave me a better perspective, and I definitely had more peace after that, but it was still simmering at the back of my conscious for another week or two. Which led to Saturday’s blog of frustration.
And then came (last) Sunday morning, when God gave me exactly what I needed in church. It was amazing. The pastor is preaching through Philippians, and he was at the last part of Philippians 2, which is about Timothy and Epaphroditus…not exactly a passage obviously conducive to application. He talked about their example, how they didn’t look out for their own interests, but those of Jesus Christ, and how they were willing to and almost died for the Gospel. He talked about how far this is from our understanding of the Christian life today. We understand that if you join the Marines, you give up all rights – they own you and you do exactly what they tell you, even if you don’t like or understand it or consider it abusive. You signed up, and they own you. Yet we don’t carry this understanding over to our understanding of the God of the Universe, who created us and owns us more than the United States ever could.
He talked about how there’s no middle ground – we have “full devotion” or “no devotion.” There’s a straight narrow path, and an easy wide path – we’re not given the option of middle ground. We’re called to live holistically, and following Jesus costs me everything. We can’t have everything on our “middle road” and have Jesus. It just doesn’t work that way.
Going back to a theme of Bauman’s, I have no biblical rights, only responsibilities. I have no rights, only the obligation to remember and the responsibility to obey.
I have no rights. I have no right to assume college or the pursuit of Master’s degree or a missions career or marriage. I have no right to know God’s plan or where I’ll be next year or five years down the road. I have no right to my next breath. Jesus is EVERYTHING, and nothing can be better than Him. To paraphrase CS Lewis, he who has _________ + God has nothing more than he who has God alone.
I forget so quickly. And God knows this.
In the Pentateuch, God commands us to “remember” 18 times. In the same space, God “remembers” 6 times. Based on the rest of Scripture and my personal experience, we don’t remember well often at all. That’s why it’s commanded so frequently.
This idea of remembrance isn’t new to me. Pastor Syvelle talked about it when I was 10 at the Garden Tomb. It came up again when I was 16, in India. Later that year I wrote a paper about the connection between those – see here. That year in chapel, Mr. Gregory went with the theme of the Hebrew word “zakar” – meaning to remember and therefore live - for chapel as we worked through the 10 Commandments. I then put that term on a leather bracelet I made that summer and have worn since. I’ve been journaling consistently for the past four or five years. It’s something I’m aware of, but that I fail to practice.
And when I forget what God has done, and how glorious He is, how perfect and faithful, I get in trouble really fast.
God commands us to remember, because we’re stupid humans and we forget the important things really, really fast.
So when I forget what God has done, and live in light of my forgetfulness – walking in worry or doubt or fear – I am sinning. I’m pretty good at this.
There’s a quote I stumbled across on a blog one time, and I love it, because I think it sums up what I’ve been wrestling with really well.
“I find I fall the hardest when I try the hardest to do in myself what God wants to do in me.”
I’m called to live. To die. To surrender. To jump. To trust. To love. To work out my salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who works in me to will in to act according to His good purpose.
His purpose is good. It is good, because He is good. It is safe to trust God.
I’m called to remember – remember what God has done in history and in my life, and to remember those who have gone before me, those who have given everything to follow Jesus. How can I not do the same, for Him who is always faithful even as I forget time and time again?
The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; Your love, O LORD, endures forever – do not abandon the works of Your hands!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Day 50, Summit Semester
Trip to Mesa Verde….see FB pics and postcards coming soon to an address near you.
After we got back from Mesa Verde, about eight of us had a campfire up on the ridge. It was fun just hanging out. The fire was beautiful. I still can’t get over the stars. There’s so many of them, more than I’ve ever seen before, and it blows my mind to realize how big the universe is, and how amazing the creation of God is. There are so many things here that make the entire Semester experience so brilliant and beautiful.
Trip to Mesa Verde….see FB pics and postcards coming soon to an address near you.
After we got back from Mesa Verde, about eight of us had a campfire up on the ridge. It was fun just hanging out. The fire was beautiful. I still can’t get over the stars. There’s so many of them, more than I’ve ever seen before, and it blows my mind to realize how big the universe is, and how amazing the creation of God is. There are so many things here that make the entire Semester experience so brilliant and beautiful.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Day 49, Summit Semester
Ludicrous, Lacking, or Logical? The Validity of Lewis’ Trilemma
Why Evangelicals Can’t Write
Speaking the Truth in Love
The last two lectures were by far my favorite. They both deserve a blog all of their own, which will be forthcoming, but a summary is necessary now.
The first one was basically about how evangelicals don’t understand the mystery of the Gospel, or the symbolic power of the sacraments, and therefore we don’t understand the fullness of the Story in which God has revealed Himself and placed us. Therefore, we don’t communicate our own story creations well. It was fascinating, and something I definitely need to spend more time on.
The last lecture was the most significant and possibly the most important lecture we’ve had thus far. Dr. Williams has taught all four classes of Semester, and he’s kept up with many of the students in past years. He understands the tension we experience really well. Semester is amazing. To quote Williams, it is the closest thing to Schaeffer’s L’Abri as exists today and a true community of what the church is supposed to be. Which sounds incredible, but it’s infinitely more amazing to be here. It’s not just the intellectual brilliance, but also the community – it really is a family. And as much as we joke about it, it really is hard for us to relate/understand with the outside world, just as it is for them to us.
And yet the reality is we will be back home in five short weeks, which is a seriously kind of depressing thought. And Williams was preparing us for the fact that it will be depressing in some ways going back home, leaving the family we’ve had here for three months and going back to people we love, but people who simply haven’t had the experience of this community for three months.
With all we’ve learned and lived, seeing the vision of a Biblical worldview lived out in community, we’re going to want to go back and change the world, teach everybody everything we’ve learned. But it doesn’t work that way, and at a smaller level, that’s something we’re already realizing in our connection with the outside world. And Summit is training us to change the world, but we have to go about it in the right way. We have to speak the truth in love, earning the right to be heard by serving, not immediately assuming that we have all the answers that those in the outside world haven’t had the opportunity to learn. While that may be true, we can’t be frustrated with them for not having experienced what we’ve experienced.
And this is a genuine struggle. To a small degree, we already realize it, and it’s something I’ve struggled with on a much smaller scale coming home from missions trips or camps. And while we’re all looking forward to being home in one sense, we are definitely already dreading our departure in a little over a month. It’s a really weird tension, and while I’m not explaining it well, he and some of the other graduates here say it’s a lot easier to deal with if you communicate as much as possible with the people back home. So thus ends my feeble attempt to do such….
Ludicrous, Lacking, or Logical? The Validity of Lewis’ Trilemma
Why Evangelicals Can’t Write
Speaking the Truth in Love
The last two lectures were by far my favorite. They both deserve a blog all of their own, which will be forthcoming, but a summary is necessary now.
The first one was basically about how evangelicals don’t understand the mystery of the Gospel, or the symbolic power of the sacraments, and therefore we don’t understand the fullness of the Story in which God has revealed Himself and placed us. Therefore, we don’t communicate our own story creations well. It was fascinating, and something I definitely need to spend more time on.
The last lecture was the most significant and possibly the most important lecture we’ve had thus far. Dr. Williams has taught all four classes of Semester, and he’s kept up with many of the students in past years. He understands the tension we experience really well. Semester is amazing. To quote Williams, it is the closest thing to Schaeffer’s L’Abri as exists today and a true community of what the church is supposed to be. Which sounds incredible, but it’s infinitely more amazing to be here. It’s not just the intellectual brilliance, but also the community – it really is a family. And as much as we joke about it, it really is hard for us to relate/understand with the outside world, just as it is for them to us.
And yet the reality is we will be back home in five short weeks, which is a seriously kind of depressing thought. And Williams was preparing us for the fact that it will be depressing in some ways going back home, leaving the family we’ve had here for three months and going back to people we love, but people who simply haven’t had the experience of this community for three months.
With all we’ve learned and lived, seeing the vision of a Biblical worldview lived out in community, we’re going to want to go back and change the world, teach everybody everything we’ve learned. But it doesn’t work that way, and at a smaller level, that’s something we’re already realizing in our connection with the outside world. And Summit is training us to change the world, but we have to go about it in the right way. We have to speak the truth in love, earning the right to be heard by serving, not immediately assuming that we have all the answers that those in the outside world haven’t had the opportunity to learn. While that may be true, we can’t be frustrated with them for not having experienced what we’ve experienced.
And this is a genuine struggle. To a small degree, we already realize it, and it’s something I’ve struggled with on a much smaller scale coming home from missions trips or camps. And while we’re all looking forward to being home in one sense, we are definitely already dreading our departure in a little over a month. It’s a really weird tension, and while I’m not explaining it well, he and some of the other graduates here say it’s a lot easier to deal with if you communicate as much as possible with the people back home. So thus ends my feeble attempt to do such….
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Day 48, Summit Semester
CS Lewis on Goodness, Truth, and Beauty (Continued)
A Christian Role Model: Edmund Spenser
Deconstructing Deconstructionism
Tonight was the performance of “Revenge of the DWEMs,” a one-act play/ Socratic tetralogue Dr. Williams wrote about the interaction of Socrates, Erasmus (a Renaissance scholar), a New Critic (the dominant literary view of the past century) professor, and a postmodern professor. DWEM stands for Dead White European Males, the “source of all evil in the world” according to the postmodernist. The other three prove her to be a fool, though, and it’s a great and funny way to understand the conflict of literary criticism today.
I ran lights and did the program, both of which were fun. Those might show up somewhere later.
CS Lewis on Goodness, Truth, and Beauty (Continued)
A Christian Role Model: Edmund Spenser
Deconstructing Deconstructionism
Tonight was the performance of “Revenge of the DWEMs,” a one-act play/ Socratic tetralogue Dr. Williams wrote about the interaction of Socrates, Erasmus (a Renaissance scholar), a New Critic (the dominant literary view of the past century) professor, and a postmodern professor. DWEM stands for Dead White European Males, the “source of all evil in the world” according to the postmodernist. The other three prove her to be a fool, though, and it’s a great and funny way to understand the conflict of literary criticism today.
I ran lights and did the program, both of which were fun. Those might show up somewhere later.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Day 45, Summit Semester
We had Dr. Donald T. Williams with us this week for a really broad course entitled “Literature: A Christian Approach.” I don’t know how it’s physically possible, but our lectures here just keep getting better and better! Seriously, it’s hard to comprehend how amazing Semester is and what a tremendous privilege and opportunity we have.
I really don’t have time to go into all of the lectures, but I will post the schedule here so you can be jealous. Dr. Williams definitely has a different style of teaching than Bauman – he claims Bauman is the best professor of the Socratic method alive today, and he won’t attempt to rival that. Dr. Williams presented his lectures as if reading an academic paper – so there was tons of great information, so much so that it was hard to keep up and take notes. It was great though – l loved it. (Not gonna lie though, I was seriously mad that the two lectures I wanted recorded the most were the ones my computer decided to lose – grrr.) I can’t say this was my favorite week, because everything else is so good too (!!!) but it was definitely incredible.
He gave three lectures every morning for 50-ish minutes each:
Monday
The Place of Study in the Christian Life
Repairing the Ruins: Thoughts On Christian Higher Education
The Necessity of Narrative: A Theology of Literature
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Day 46, Summit Semester
Worldviews in Literature
Poetry
The Expression of Emotion in Poetry
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Day 47, Summit Semester
The Praise of Christ in English Poetry
CS Lewis as a Literary Scholar
CS Lewis on Goodness, Truth, and Beauty
We had Dr. Donald T. Williams with us this week for a really broad course entitled “Literature: A Christian Approach.” I don’t know how it’s physically possible, but our lectures here just keep getting better and better! Seriously, it’s hard to comprehend how amazing Semester is and what a tremendous privilege and opportunity we have.
I really don’t have time to go into all of the lectures, but I will post the schedule here so you can be jealous. Dr. Williams definitely has a different style of teaching than Bauman – he claims Bauman is the best professor of the Socratic method alive today, and he won’t attempt to rival that. Dr. Williams presented his lectures as if reading an academic paper – so there was tons of great information, so much so that it was hard to keep up and take notes. It was great though – l loved it. (Not gonna lie though, I was seriously mad that the two lectures I wanted recorded the most were the ones my computer decided to lose – grrr.) I can’t say this was my favorite week, because everything else is so good too (!!!) but it was definitely incredible.
He gave three lectures every morning for 50-ish minutes each:
Monday
The Place of Study in the Christian Life
Repairing the Ruins: Thoughts On Christian Higher Education
The Necessity of Narrative: A Theology of Literature
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Day 46, Summit Semester
Worldviews in Literature
Poetry
The Expression of Emotion in Poetry
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Day 47, Summit Semester
The Praise of Christ in English Poetry
CS Lewis as a Literary Scholar
CS Lewis on Goodness, Truth, and Beauty
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Day 43, Summit Semester
And now for a blog of a more personal nature:
Yo no se nada.
Seriously, it’s kind of overwhelming how much I don’t know. About everything. And I guess that’s kind of the point. I’m a (very) finite creature, still relatively young and inexperienced, and this is how the world works.
God knows. He knows what I do not know. He knows what I want to know. He knows what I think I need to know right now, and He knows the perfect timing in which He will reveal that.
As Ecclesiastes says, “Of the making of books there is no end.” There is always more to learn, more to study, and while this is good, this is not ultimate. The pursuit of knowledge is only good insofar as it leads to Him who is Truth.
As I so often need to be reminded, we’re called to seek the face of God, not His hand, nor His plan. Those are not ultimate. Knowing Jesus is.
Psalm 27:8. My heart says of You, “Seek His face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.
And now for a blog of a more personal nature:
Yo no se nada.
Seriously, it’s kind of overwhelming how much I don’t know. About everything. And I guess that’s kind of the point. I’m a (very) finite creature, still relatively young and inexperienced, and this is how the world works.
God knows. He knows what I do not know. He knows what I want to know. He knows what I think I need to know right now, and He knows the perfect timing in which He will reveal that.
As Ecclesiastes says, “Of the making of books there is no end.” There is always more to learn, more to study, and while this is good, this is not ultimate. The pursuit of knowledge is only good insofar as it leads to Him who is Truth.
As I so often need to be reminded, we’re called to seek the face of God, not His hand, nor His plan. Those are not ultimate. Knowing Jesus is.
Psalm 27:8. My heart says of You, “Seek His face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.
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