The Hotel Balzaar

In March of that year, Marta and her mother arrived at Hotel Balzaar. They were given an attic room that contained a bed, a sink, and a battered chest of drawers. 

In her new "home" Marta is to be quiet as a mouse and disturb no one. But the insatiable curiosity of the young girl is stronger than her will to be silent. 

If that little snippet doesn't pique your interest, I feel sure the introduction to Norman Francis Binwithier (the sleeping bellman), or Alfonse (the exceedingly straight-edged desk clerk), or the flamboyant countess and her General-turned-parrot companion, just might. 

If those characters also fail to draw you in, well then you may be nigh hopeless.  But I'm certain no one can resist being mesmerized by Julia Sarda's exquisitely detailed illustrations, (my poor quality snapshot does not convey the full glory of her images)

The Puppets of SPELHORST

The Puppets of Spelhorst are filled with a longing they can’t name.  Each one has a unique characteristic by which they define themselves, but in the absence of purpose they can only boast of their uniqueness and downplay each other’s.  

• The Owl boasts of his real feathers.  His longing to pontificate wisely masks his truer longing to FLY.
• The King boasts of his crown.  His longing to command others masks his truer longing for MUSIC.
• The Wolf boasts of her sharp teeth.  Her longing to destroy masks her deeper longing for FREEDOM.
• The Boy boasts of his arrows.  His longing to do important deeds masks his truer longing for LOVE.

As their journey progresses, each gets a taste of The Thing they longed to do, but they end up abandoned and alone, missing one another and unsatisfied by their momentary experience.  Their true glory and the fulfillment of their deepest longing only comes when they experience The Thing in community with one another and for a greater purpose.

Kate has done it again.  She has woven a tale that captivates a child's imagination, while tapping deep into the soul of the adult reader. It is, as I've come to expect from her, both delightful and insightful.  

A Place on Earth

Wendell Berry's powers of observation and his ability to capture essence with unparalleled economy - of a person, an event, a landscape, a community, an experience, a photograph -  remains unmatched.  Here's a tiny sampling from the 300+ pages of A Place on Earth:

Jarrat Coulter - "It is a severe manhood that Jarrat has, that feeds on its loneliness, and will be governed by no head but its own."

Uncle Jack - "He relishes his ciphering.  The figures come into his mind smelling of barns and grain bins and tobacco and livestock.  His figures grunt and bleat and bray and bawl.  This is the passion that has worn him out and made him old, and is still a passion.  As he labor over it, the notebook becomes as substantial in his hands as a loaded shovel."

Mat Feltner - "This is the crisis of increase - what he was born to, and what he chose.  When he has done all that can be done, he is at peace with himself.   His labor has been his necessity and his desire."

Brother Preston - "The Word, in his speaking it, fails to be made flesh.  It is a failure particularized for him in the palm of every work-stiffened hand held out to him at the church door every Sunday morning - the hard dark hand taking his pale unworn one in a gesture of politeness without understanding."

Gideon Crop - "There is evidence everywhere of the presence of a strong, frugal intelligence, the sort of mind that can make do, not meagerly but skillfully and adequately, with scraps. He had the gifts of quiet endurance, of tolerance of rough work and poor tools, of makeshift, of neatness in patched clothes, of thrift."

Aunt Fanny - "That these things have grown out of the ground into their secret places apart from anybody's intention, and that she takes them familiarly and freely without attempting to take them all, that they are the harvest of a ramble and not a search or a labor, all this bespeaks a peaceableness between her and the world."

Roger - "Roger is lying on the big four-poster bed, wearing shirt and tie and coat and hat, generously covered with quilts, his head propped up against the bare headboard - sound asleep, his bottle propped beside him, a large briar pipe lying extinguished on his chest.  That he has escaped burning up is owed, according to some, only to the Lord's noted solicitude for drunkards and fools."

A Practiced Drunk

"They watch him pass in front of the most distant of the houses and come slowly down the row of them toward town, his walk a little unsteady but neither awkward nor faltering; he never strays out of his direction.  It is the gait of a man intricately skilled and practiced in being drunk. There is a ponderous grace about it like that of a trained elephant or a locomotive.  He sways heavily back and forth across the line of his direction, like a man carrying a barrel across a tightrope, his progress a sequence of fine distinctions between standing up and falling down.  His drunkenness has become precise."

--A Place on Earth, Wendell Berry

He Knows Our Frame

Originally published December 30, 2010:

Are you ever tempted to think how much easier it would be for us to put our faith into full practice if only Christ were here with us?  Not just in our hearts or by His Spirit, but visibly, audibly, tangibly present.  If that were the case, how could we possibly fail to trust, love and obey Him?

A stroll through the first few chapters of The Gospels should quickly cure us of that delusion - that is, unless we somehow set ourselves above the disciples.  Take Peter, for example.  You know...that world-renowned rock on which the apostolic church is built...yeah, that Peter.  He had Christ's literal, physical presence.  He heard His voice, felt His touch, looked in His eyes, and was an eyewitness of all manner of miracles - the casting out of demons; the healing of the lame, blind, deaf, mute, and leprous; the stilling of the storm; the RAISING OF THE DEAD!!  Well no wonder he had faith!  Unfaltering, unwavering faith!!

Well...there was this one time...

Peter had just witnessed His Lord feed a crowd of more than 5,000 with a mere pittance of fish and bread.  He must have been on an emotional high after such a spectacular experience!  In fact, he was so filled with faith that, a few hours later when Christ came walking across the water toward the disciples, Peter asked to join Him!  By faith, and at Christ's bidding, Peter climbed out of the boat and walked toward his Master.  HE WAS WALKING ON WATER, PEOPLE!  With his whole mind, heart, and senses, he was observing and participating in a tangible miracle! 

Yet, in the very midst of this experience, he saw a wave coming and was filled with terror.  Christ was right there with him...in the flesh...and he was overcome with doubt and fear!  How can this be?!  I suppose you and I would be foolish to imagine we would have done anything differently than Peter did.  Apparently, a clay vessel is a clay vessel.

But you know what the BEST part of this story is?  When Peter, filled with doubt, began to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"  And how did Christ respond?

"Where is your faith, Peter?  You had it just a moment ago!"

"C'mon, Peter!  I'm RIGHT HERE!  Pull yourself together, son!"

"Aw, Peter.  I'm disappointed.  After all you have seen and experienced, you still don't trust me?  What's it gonna take?"

No.  Christ could have lambasted or skewered him with any number of honest and well-deserved rebukes, but He didn't.  He didn't shame him or lecture him for his lack of faith. 

Instead...He immediately reached out and took hold of Peter and brought him to the safety of the boat.  Even then Peter received only the gentle rebuke of a compassionate parent, "Little Faith, why did you doubt?"

When we find our own faith is small...smaller than we thought it was...smaller than it ought to be based on our knowledge and experience, we can lose heart, or we can remember this: the Triune God has revealed Himself to us in the person of Christ.  This is what our God is like!  Compassionate.  Longsuffering.  Ready and anxious to take hold of us as soon as we call out for deliverance!  Even when our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts. He knows our frame and remembers that we are dust.  By His grace He will keep us calling out, "Lord, save me!" and confessing, "Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!" 

Believe this and be at rest. 

SaveSave

"I Will Never"

Originally published July 9, 2014: 

We resist humility.  

As Christians, we prefer to face life armed with moral certitude.  After all, we believe strongly in Good Things: marriage, Christian education, liturgy, personal and societal morals, and countless exacting points of theology which we have labored to fine-tune to precision.  And we have the authority of Scripture, Confessions, Catechisms, and Ecclesiastical Tradition on our side…not to mention intellectual acuity and eloquence!  

We like certainty.  It feels safe to be certain.  Of our beliefs.  Of our rightness.  Of our staunch resistance to the decay we see around us and our unwillingness to compromise.  Our faith is strong and secure.  Therefore…we declare.  Some of us declare silently within ourselves.  Others of us declare out loud…via conversation, sermons, social media, or even…blogs!

The problem is that all too often, those declarations have much to do with our own faithfulness and little to do with the faithfulness of Christ.  It easily translates into pride and superiority, making our voice repulsive to our hearers.

We become like Peter who, I imagine, was entirely persuaded when he declared, "Even if all of these fall away because of you, I will never fall away.  Even if I have to DIE with you, I will never deny you!"  We all know how that turned out.

Peter, like us, had the wisdom of the Proverbs at his disposal: "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall."  

But humility is a hard-won virtue that often comes to fruition only after we have "declared" and subsequently found ourselves on our knees weeping bitterly and pleading for mercy because we, like Peter, have done the very thing about which we proclaimed, "I will never…!"

The Good News is, that though God resists the proud, he gives grace to the humble.  Christ waits for us in that place and looks on us with understanding and compassion.  Our failure…our denial…are not the final words.  The Final Word is the Word of Life who raises us from our knees, declares his constancy in spite of our inconstancy, and then sends us out as witnesses with a new and faithful declaration: the Forgiveness of Sins. 

Though we resist humility, our Lord will see it formed in us so that when we declare His Truth, it will be sweet as honey to our hearers.  We will be heard…and believed.

Put Up Your Sword

Originally published July 6, 2014:

One of his close and trusted friends betrayed him…gave him over to the violent mob standing by with intent to take his life. Peter knew the injustice of it.  The betrayal.  The wrongness. The sheer wickedness of it.  Any True Friend would have done the same!  Grab the sword and defend him!  Fend off the enemies of this Innocent Man! 

But the One who was betrayed and who knew he was being led to his death spoke, "Put up your sword, Peter.  Don't you know that all I have to do is call out to my Father and he would send more than 72,000 angels to my defense?"  

He was The Omnipotent One.  All the power of the universe was at his disposal!  But he refused to summon that power.  Not only that…he had the audacity to use that power to HEAL and RESTORE that self-righteous man who was bent on killing  him!

When we experience betrayal and injustice, how desperately we want to summon every means at our disposal to displace the betrayers…to expose and defeat the malicious intent of our enemies!  And our means are paltry means.  As likely to fall back on our own heads as to achieve our desired end.   Yet we rise up to full height and draw our swords.  

But if we listen, we will hear the unmistakable call to follow in our Master's footsteps and his command to put up our swords.  The only way we can do that is by believing what Christ himself believed in that moment.  

He TRUSTED his Father.  Not to keep him from the agony of suffering and the ensuing death…but after that death to raise him to life again, to exalt him, and to bring Life to the World through it.  When Christ went to his death and the grave, he actually died you know.  His lifeless body lost its power…lost its ability to call on his Father for legions to come and deliver him.  Christ had to submit himself to that place of darkness and powerlessness…that death…with full belief that his Father was trustworthy.  That he would keep his word.  That he would be faithful.  Christ couldn't raise himself from the dead.  He had to BE raised by the Father.  

This too must be our confidence…our hope…our trust…our firm belief.  That when we refuse to draw our sword and exact justice, when we give ourselves over to betrayal and injustice, when that leads to powerlessness and death (both figurative and literal) as it inevitably does, that our Father will be faithful to raise us to new life.  Just as Peter's sword would have been insufficient to quell the mob, our swords too are ineffective.  They may inflict damage, but they don't bring life.  

May we learn to entrust ourselves to the One who judges righteously and will raise us up in the Last Day!

The Peace of Wild Things

 The Peace of Wild Things

by: Wendell Berry 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Anesthetized Life of the Metaverse

The advent of analgesics in the late 19th century made it possible for most of us to quell ordinary daily physical pain...and sometimes even extraordinary physical pain. In time, a broad range of psychotropics brought us options to reduce or numb our mental and emotional pain as well.  This age of pharmaceuticals is a blessing, is it not?  

Yet I can't help but wonder...what have we lost in this era of accessible, easy relief?   When these substance interventions fail us - which they sometimes do - when the pain remains, do we even know how to live?  Do we have the Resilience, Grit, or Perseverance to endure?  Do we know how to bear up under that which seems unbearable? 

Our modern experience of death is somewhat similar in that we remove the reality from ourselves as quickly as possible.  We scurry the body off to a morgue where we don't have to see it.   We hide it.   We distance ourselves from it.  We sterilize it.  We clean  the dead body, apply makeup, dress it up, to make it as pretty and realistic as possible before putting it on display.  I recognize that, for some, these rituals carry symbolism of respect and dignity, or may represent an important step for others on the road to "closure" (if such a thing even exists), and for some, it even instills a sense of hope.  I get it.  But I wonder about the long term effects of beautifying the grotesque.   Death is hideous. Generations who came before us knew this.  They didn't have the option to escape the raw realities of death.  The sight and smells of decay permeated their world, making it somewhat absurd to spin it as the gateway to a "better place."  It isn't. It is creation coming undone.  It's the wrenching apart of personhood - body and soul - which was created to be whole.   It's not something to beautify, make clean, or soften with platitudes...like a ring in a pig's snout, none of this changes the filth, the coldness, the darkness, the stench.

But pharmaceuticals and embalming aren't the only ways we anesthetize and soften the reality of life.  We have grown accustomed to cleanliness, to whitewashing, to ease, in many facets of life.  We hop in our cars for an effortless journey to the grocery store where very little exertion lands us a cart full of fresh and already-prepared food.  We cook that food over a fire we summon with the push of a button, then tidy up with clean water that streams into the very room where the mess is. Our most foul excretions are immediately spirited away to the underground depths as if they never existed.  Our facial blemishes are magically masked with any number of cosmetics.  Clothes show up ready-to-wear in boxes dropped conveniently near our front door.  When we soil them, machines clean them with little effort on our part. 

Don't misunderstand...I am not glorifying the past or the way things used to be. No rose-colored-glasses here.  Hardship and difficulty can forge character, reveal courage, instill strength...but they also produce fatigue, pain, sickness, and discouragement.   Progress - and I believe modern plumbing and cars and gas stoves and washing machines are examples of creative progress - has brought us many good gifts.  But when we move forward without consideration of the impact on the body, soul, and psyche, we may do ourselves and our posterity a disservice by over-distancing ourselves from reality. 

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have moved further and further from SOURCES of things.  We are distanced from the land that produces our food.  We are distanced from the bodies of water that keep us clean and hydrated.  We are distanced from the mechanics of our machines. Indeed, as technology advances, more and more specialization is needed to understand the physical world we interact with. But as we abandon the source, we lose understanding of how our world works (see Matthew Crawford's wonderful philosophical musings on this in Shop Craft as Soul Craft and The World Beyond Your Head.).  This distancing breeds unfamiliarity.  We're losing connection with the created world.  We are out of touch with the materiality, the physicality of our lives.

I suppose these shifts may allow us to embrace Meta as a natural next step.  Zuckerberg, its creator, describes the Metaverse as the "embodied internet" where you're "in the experience."  Ironically, the very nature of this universe is a DISEMBODIED one...or perhaps it's a world of "embodied" ISOLATION.  Here you can experience one another in an anesthetized environment where you won't have to smell another's sweat or stale breath, where you won't be confronted with real flaws of others or have yours exposed. You will never truly know or be known in Metaverse because you will always inhabit a fictionalized version of yourself alongside the fictionalized versions of another being, all staged in a fictionalized world.  You can leave an interaction without explanation and blame a bad internet connection.  You can project a feigned presence while remaining wholly distracted by a device or the real presence of another (sure we can do that now, but when we are physically present with another, they can at least SEE our distraction b/c we inhabit the same real space).  The Meta experience claims that your avatar presence - which is an entirely fabricated idealized version of "you" - will allow a more "natural and vivid" experience with "the feeling of presence" made possible through "living 3D representations of you."  

Here's the thing.  So much of what we can do with new technology is SUPER cool. I'm blown away by what is being discovered, learned, built, and added to the world of our experiences.  There are some amazing, redemptive, and FUN applications for these innovations!  But I can't shake my discomfort with the language of "embodiment."  As humans made in the image of a Trinitarian God (communal by nature) who took on flesh (embodied presence), we are designed to live and experience life in and through our flesh and bone bodies, not through a curated ethereal disembodied experience.  In REAL life, being physically present with someone experiencing deep physical pain is gut-wrenching.  It doesn't need "vivifying."  It can't be escaped.  The person in pain doesn't need the "feeling of presence" but ACTUAL presence.  In a 3D universe, I can be "present" with you while you suffer and not FEEL your suffering.  I can pretend to share in it without any consequence to my own person.  And without the benefit of helping you bear that burden.  

I'm reminded of this quote from Buechner's The Hungering Dark:

'No man is an island,' wrote Dr. Donne...'for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.'  ...any man's death reminds us of our common destiny...our lives are linked together.  But there is another truth...that every man IS an island.  ...we speak not to reveal who we are but to CONCEAL who we are.  Instead of showing ourselves as we truly are, we show ourselves as we believe others want us to be.  We wear masks, and with practice we do it better and better, and they serve us well--except that it gets very lonely inside the mask, because inside the mask there is a person who both longs to be known and fears to be known.

The Metaverse has the potential to enlarge our islands and allow us to hide even more easily behind well-designed masks, entrenching us in our fear of being truly known.  

There is no stopping the momentum of this innovation train. I simply hope we pause often to consider how we might be unintentionally swept away by transformative technologies without understanding their soul-impact.  I hope we find courage, when necessary, to brace ourselves against the swelling tide of pressure to live as a counterfeit self in a counterfeit world, and to embrace the raw, gritty, dirty world of created matter and humans as the flawed flesh and bone humans we are.