Summit Semester wrap up...

We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming for this cop-out blog. I'm adventing by recapping Summit Semester on FB and posting it here, too. I am so grateful for S2 - what it taught me during the best three months of my life and what it continues to teach me now. I may be abusing this reference (I really need to re-read it!) but it reminds me of what CS Lewis talks about in Surprised by Joy - an intense longing that drives us toward what we should really be longing for - in this case, knowing and walking in the fellowship of the Spirit and looking toward our true Home.

I’ve now been home three weeks from Summit Semester. It’s taken me long enough, but I thought I’d post on what we did and learned and all of that. It’s hard to even know where to start, so bear with me…

Summit Semester is a three-month academic program that focuses on developing a Biblical worldview (learning to think Christianly about everything) in the context of living in community. We lived at Snow Wolf Lodge, which is outside of Pagosa Springs, CO. We were surrounded on three sides by national forests. We only had internet for a few hours in town on Sunday, and I had to hike up to the ridge behind the lodge to get cell phone service. It’s amazing what you can accomplish without so many distractions!

Weekly, we had an art and Bible survey class, in addition to 15 hours of instruction with Dr. Michael Bauman of Hillsdale College in Politics and Christianity, British Literature, and History of Christian Theology. The 40 of us living at Snow Wolf Lodge (28 students, 7 staff, and the director’s family) grew close – we became a family – as we did basically everything together: class, family-style meals, dish crews, chores, volleyball, deep and random discussions, field trips, work crews, campfires, games, and so much more.

Everything with Bauman was discussed in light of four diagnostic questions:

(Try to answer these – it’s a lot harder than you might think!)

What is a good life and what good is life?

What is a good death and what good is death?

What is a good love and what good is love?

What is a human being?

So what did I learn? Again, I’m not sure where to start…

- I’ve learned how much I don’t know. There is so much I need to read and learn and ask…

- I’ve learned I have an infinite, lifelong reading list.

- I’ve learned about questions – how answer them, how to ask them. Bauman’s now in my head forever, making question just about everything…

- I’ve learned what it means to live in community, how important it is to have deep friendships and accountability and mentoring.

- I’ve learning about calling. It’s really basic, but it was an important lesson for me. God calls each of us to specific things – I’m not called to fix every problem I see. Others are called to those things to which I am not called. It’s how the Body works.

I was truly taught how to think, not what to think.

I’ve been told that from my pictures, it looks like we only had fun. So here’s an abbreviated list of what we studied in class. (feel free to skip to the end if you don’t want to be intimidated…or if you’re bored already…)

Politics: basic principles; formulating public policy; liberalism, conservatives, liberals, historical pragmatists, and revolutionaries; terrorism; abortion; Civil Rights; libertarianism and John Stuart Mill; Machiavelli and The Prince, Edmond Burke, the just war theory, capitalism, socialism, Milton on censorship and education; Dante on monarchy and governments, the Constitution; Switzerland; and regular discussion of current events…

British Literature: An Experiment in Criticism by CS Lewis, the medieval worldview (habits, beliefs, education system, courtly love); Beowulf; the Pearl Poet and his four poems; Geoffrey Chaucer (Romance of the Rose, Book of the Duchess, House of Fame, Parliament of Fowls, Troilus and Creseyde, Legend of Good Women, and The Canterbury Tales); Sir Philip Sidney (Lady of May, Arcadia, Astrophil and Stella, Defense of Poesy); Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet; John Milton (sonnets, Lycidas, and Paradise Lost); Thomas Gray’s poetry; William Wordsworth’s poetry; Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poetry; Walter de la Mare’s poetry

History of Christian Theology: Jewish roots, Jesus, apostles, persecution and growth of the church; Apostolic Fathers – Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, and the Didache; the Trinity and the first four church councils; Second Century Church Fathers – Tertullian, Justin Martyr; Heretics – Gnostics, Montantus; the Pelagius vs. Augustine debate; Augustine vs. Donatists; the Medieval Roman Catholic Church – popes, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham); the mystics vs. scholastics; pre-reformation reformers – John Wycliffe, John Hus, Girolamo Savonarola; Francesco Petrarch (Ascent of Mt. Ventoux, The Secret, The Remedy, The Rest of the Religious); Thomas More (Dialogue of Comfort, Utopia); Erasmus; the Reformation; Martin Luther; Philip Melanchton; Ulrich Zwingli; John Calvin; Anabaptists, the Council of Trent; and random theology lectures – what is beauty, worship, church services, marriage/divorce…

A week with Dr. Don Williams of Toccoa Falls College, GA: theory of Christian study; higher education; theology of literature; poetry; the praise of Christ in British poetry; deconstructing deconstructionism; CS Lewis as a scholar; CS Lewis on Goodness, Truth, and Beauty; Edmund Spenser; Worldviews in literature; why evangelicals can’t write; speaking the truth in love

Dr. JP Moreland of Biola University: philosophy – types of knowledge, epistemology, brain/mind and body/soul,

Art with Charlie Pepiton: wrestled with the definition of art, the definition of beauty, the continuum of glory and suffering, breaking constructs, midrash interpretation, elements of design, theater basics, dramatic structure, semiotics, poetry, art history from 1850s to present…

Bible with Eric and God: understanding the overarching metanarrative of the Bible – seeing it as one Story rather than 66 different books; Creation, Fall, the Law, Israel’s history and kings, prophets, interlude, the Kingdom of God, redemption… read through major chunks of Scripture

It is impossible for any description of Semester to do it justice. I grew exponentially in so many ways - academically, spiritually, personally, relationally...the list goes on. I could not have spent those three months in a better way, and I am so grateful for the experience.

Reflections on Brit Lit (and other things)

(Posts will be coming rapidly in the next few days/weeks. I'm waiting to post thoughts on Twilight til after I see the movie, and other thoughts on books will be coming soon. Finishing/procrastinating on my Brit Lit final spurred these thoughts.)

So I'm taking a sophomore Brit Lit class. It's definitely a survey – one day on her, a week on him, one passage from this major work, read three poems out of his hundreds, a dozen sonnets in total. I'm grateful for what I am learning, and I guess the point is to serve as an introduction. But really, its leaving me feeling all the more deprived. 

Most of my middle and high school English courses were pretty random – no unified approach to sytematically reading and studying the classics. A high turnover rate in teachers during those years mean that each teacher taught what they willed, and we never really got a thorough study of the classics in school. And because I wasn't really introduced to them or the value of reading old texts, I didn't pursue or read them on my own when I had the time to read. (Almost all my extracurricular reading was historical fiction, or modern Christian fiction. It truly has given me a better understanding and love for history than my peers have, but it's hurt my literary understanding.)

So now that I'm reading the greats, the literary foundation of the English language, I'm beginning to see how much I've missed. (Going even deeper is the context and foundation upon which they wrote – the foundation of Western civilization stemming from Greek and Roman tradition.) Exhibit A: John Donne. I've read maybe eight of his poems/sonnets (some outside of assigned reading) and just in those I've recognized three phrases that later writers have borrow and utilized for their own work (“for whom the bell tolls” and “the world's last night”) or have become common sayings (“No man is an island”). Exhibit B: reading just a few pages from Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, and Marlowe's Faustus. So much of culture's understanding of eternity and the spiritual realm comes from the interpretations/imaginations of these men. 

CS Lewis once described those who don't read the classics and old texts as guys who come in at dinner time and start arguing in a conservation that has been going on since early that morning. The newcomers are presumptuous, often confused, and sometimes just flat out wrong because they do not have the context needed to ably participate. 

It's kind of like those Christians who scream that they're under grace, not law, and therefore have no need of the Old Testament. But without the context of the old covenants, the new covenant much less significance in of itself. Without knowing the context of the Old Testament, the passion of the prophets, the lineage from Adam to David and beyond, the exile and return, the promise of coming redemption, the Law itself, the New Testament doesn't make much sense. And just as the foundation of Brit Lit is based on the foundation of Greek and Roman civilization and literature, so the power of the Old Testament is not in just knowing the law, but understanding it as the Hebrews did, knowing the significance of events and language as God revealed it in the context of Jewish language and culture and history. 

Context is everything. 

Looking for Hope and Home

hmm, I've got several posts floating around in my head, and I guess we'll see what comes out. Coming soon to a blog near you are posts on "Great books vs. Cultural Literacy," reviews of Twilight, thoughts on Advent, and some other random things.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. It doesn't seem to have the same commercialism as Christmas and everything else. This year just seemed different. Black Friday a year ago is when my grandmother went into the hospital for the beginning of the downward spiral that took her Home. I've really been grieving for her this week - sometimes really randomly. I guess that's kind of how it works. 

Today was the first Sunday of Advent, and it was my first time to really participate in Advent in a Methodist church. I've always kind of considered myself Methodist, and been around that tradition, but have spent the majority of my life in non-denominational churches. I've been aware of Advent and the candles and all that, especially when around my Methodist-pastor-uncle's house at Christmas, but it was really cool experiencing and participating in the ancient tradition of anticipating the HOPE of Christ's arrival. 

So I do not grieve as one without hope. I live because Christ lives in me, the Hope of Glory. 

I'm loving Brooke Fraser's "CS Lewis Song."

If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy

I can only conclude that I was not made for here

If the flesh that I fight is at best only light and momentary

Then of course I’ll feel nude when to where I’m destined I’m compared

CHORUS

Speak to me in the light of the dawn

Mercy comes with the morning

I will sigh and with all creation groan

As I wait for hope to come for me

Am I lost or just less found,

On the straight or on the roundabout of the wrong way?

Is this a soul that stirs in me,

Is it breaking free, wanting to come alive?

‘Cause my comfort would prefer for me to be numb

And avoid the impending birth

Of who I was born to become

For we, we are not long here

Our time is but a breath

So we better breathe it

And I, I was made to live

I was made to love

I was made to know you

Hope is coming for me

Perspective on Growth

Recently I reread Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis. I enjoy his overall story, but I love the short aside scenes that give detail and insight. One such scene grabbed my attention. Lucy has just returned to Narnia with her siblings, one year to them since their last visit, but during which Narnia has aged centuries. Lucy is the first to see Aslan and this transpires after her initial reaction:

"Welcome, child," he said.
"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."
"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

Every year you grow, you will find me bigger.

That struck me as being such an awesome promise. I thought about about large objects and how relatively they shrink as we grow. Hiding behind my parents' legs is not nearly as reassuring now as it was when I was a toddler. I remember being about 12 and sizing up a large pine tree standing next to my grandparents' cabin. Yes, it was no seedling, but hardly as impressive as it was to my young preschool mind when I could play in the gap between the low first level of branches and the ground, the tree seemingly rising above us forever.

Some would say god shrinks as one grows up, until he becomes nothing but a crutch for the weak and dying. Yet to those who know Him, He is ever-expansive and beyond all comprehension. Large problems, death, fear, doubt, and scientific 'fact' do not destroy God's credibiliy. They do not reduce Him to a LEGO minifigure in a grownup's hand. Problems do not shrink God; they create opportunities in which He manifests His power and increases His glory.

The more we see God, the more we can see His greatness. To our perspective, He is constantly growing - exponentially.

This is a new year in which I hope to experience much growth in many areas. But more than anything, I want my view of God to get bigger and more Biblical.

This year may I grow, that I would find You bigger.