I’ve been thinking much lately about the gift of friendship and God’s purposes in it. Community. Accountability. Encouragement. I’ve been thinking about David and Jonathon. Paul and Timothy. Ridley and Latimer. Inevitably, thinking on friendship will lead to reminiscence and, at least for me, reminiscence will lead to sadness and even regret. We reminisce about that which is no longer.

But then I remembered this poem — the first poem I ever memorized — by Bill the bard.

Sonnet XXX by William Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

It’s amazing what can be wrought in our lives by such friends.

So then I think of Abraham, “the friend of God,” who undoubtedly left behind friends when he was called by God to a disposition of faith and to embark on a journey to a land which God had not yet identified. Had I been called to sacrifice my son as Abraham was called, my journey up the mountain would be filled with regret at all that I did wrong as a father. Could it be that the thought of friendship with God was enough to restore the losses and end the sorrows? James 2:23

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In 1944, C. S. Lewis was invited to speak to the Oxford Socratic Club on the assigned question of whether theology is poetry. He did not seem to care much for question, and so after briefly answering “that for me at any rate, if Theology is Poetry, it is not very good poetry” in that “the whole cosmic story though full of tragic elements yet fails of being a tragedy.”

He then attempts to describe the nevertheless superior aesthetic value of Theology by comparing it to its chief contemporary rival, the “Scientific Outlook.” His comparison near the end of the essay is fascinating. The spelling is British.

When I accept Theology I may find difficulties, at this point or that, in harmonising it with some particular truths which are imbedded in the mythical cosmology derived from science. But I can get in, or allow for, science as a whole… If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. …And this is to me the final test. This is how I distinguish dreaming and waking. When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream. That dragon that pursued me last night can be fitted into my waking world. I know that there are such things as dreams: I know that I had eaten an indigestible dinner: I know that a man of my reading might be expected to dream of dragons. But while in the nightmare I could not have fitted in my waking experience. The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world: the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else. — C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?” in They Asked for a Paper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962) 164-165.

Hmmm. Your thoughts?

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More new titles of interest in the library:

Michael D. Bush, This Incomplete One: Words Occasioned by the Death of a Young Person (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). A moving compilation of funeral and grave-side messages given on the occasion of the untimely death of a younger person, this short work includes contributions by sixteen different authors ranging from Karl Barth (upon the death of his own son) to Jonathan Edwards. Nicholas Wolterstorff’s foreword commends the editors choices in saying,

Michael Bush, the editor, could have found many sermons preached by Christian pastors at the funeral of a child that are not authentically Christian — sub-Christian sermons, pseudo-Christian, barely Christian. He has done a great service by culling out these authentically Christian, grief-laden hope-affirming sermons. [p. x.]

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Paul Johnson, Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney (New York: HarperCollins, 2006). If you have a taste for art, music, or literature, then you may find this book of interest. It describes the creative genius in the life and work of people such as Albrecht Durer, J. S. Bach, and Jane Austen, and concludes by saying, “All creators agree that [creating] is a painful and often a terrifying experience, to be endured rather than relished, and preferable only to not being a creator at all.” [p. 286] While not a Christian work, this book provokes reflection on the imago Dei in the human’s ability to create, whether by visual art or written expression. Plus, I just plain like Durer. The art in this blog’s header is by Durer.

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William E. Mann, ed., The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion (Malden, MA / Oxford, UK: 2005). All the topics you would expect to discuss in a typical philosophy of religion class at a typical university are addressed here. From Part I: The Concept of God, which covers omniscience, time, freedom, eternality and immutability, among others), through Part II: The Existence of God, which covers the ontological, cosmological, and design arguments as well as in introduction to theodicy, Part III: Religious Belief, and Part IV: Religion and Life, this book is clear and a relatively easy-to-read representation of the contemporary discussions of these issues. Just ask Wolterstorff. He loves it (see blurb on back cover).

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I noticed the first leaves beginning to change on a maple near my home yesterday. In honor of this annual event, I give you a poem by Scott Schuleit, a student at Knox Theological Seminary. This poem was recently published in Pepperdine University’s Christianity and Literature (Spring 2006, 55:3). At first I did not think much on this, but on second and third readings I began to really appreciate how he sees reminders of Christ’s atoning act in something as common as a leaf and have found myself coming back to it. A very Christlike thing to do, don’t you think — finding opportunity to reflect on God by using an object common to the experience of the reader?

Oak Leaf

A poor outline of parched lips.
A blunt spearhead, blood-rusty and brittle with age,
long past its ripeness to pierce someone’s side.
The slender fragment of an old map
printed with the topography
of a far, famine-smitten country,
one ancient riverbed running its length
with branching, thread-veined tributaries dry,
brownish-red runnels brittle, blocked
with the petrified dust of sap.

It still retained a dull luster,
embalmed — the glaze of death
over the lineaments of surface,
the underbelly grainy,
lacking in the gift to grasp light.

Stem like a heart, darkened–
a channel drained and withered,
choked with plaque.
Blackish spots like tumors blossoming,
furthering its flowering into decay.

In my fist I grind it to dust,
rubbing it between my fingers,
sifting the chaff,
culling the grist,
then scattering it
as if seeds to be sown
over the thistle-rich earth.

Scott Schuleit

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Lament.

Weep, weep for those
Who do the work of the Lord
with a high look
And a proud heart.
Their voice is lifted up
In the streets, and their cry is heard.
The bruised reed they break
By their great strength, and the smoking flax
They trample.

Weep not for the quenched
(For their God will hear their cry
And the Lord will come to save them)
But weep, weep for the quenchers

For when the Day of the Lord
Is come, and the vales sing
And the hills clap their hands
And the light shines
Then their eyes shall be opened
On a waste place,
Smouldering,
The smoke of the flax bitter
In their nostrils,
Their feet pierced
By broken reed-stems…
Wood, hay, and stubble,
And no grass springing,
And all the birds flown.

Weep, weep for those
Who have made a desert
In the name of the Lord.

–Evangeline Paterson.

Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian View of the Church, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, vol. 4 (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1982), p.205.

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Wyman Richardson over at Communio Sanctorum recently posted Calvin Miller’s poem “My Easy Christ Has Left the Church” from Miller’s The Unfinished Soul.

I’m not sure what I think of it. Some of the indictments ring true, but to say that Christ has left the church? Read it for yourself: 

My easy Christ has left the church.
Who can say why?
Maybe it’s because His video-logged apostles all
read diet-books, travel agency brochures
and Christian fiction thrillers
on how the world should end
But none read books on what the starving ignorant
should do until it does.
He left the church so disappointed that Americans
could all spell “user friendly”
but none of them could spell “Gethsemane”

Can we say for sure he’s quit?
Oh yes, it’s definite, I’m afraid:
He’s canceled his pledge card.
I passed him on the way out of the recreation building
near the incinerator where we burn
the leftover religious quarterlies
and the stained paper doilies
from our Valentine banquets.
“Quo Vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

My easy Christ has left the church,
walking out of town past seminaries where
student scholars could all parse the ancient verbs
but few of them were sure why they had learned the art.
He shook his head counfounded that many
had studied all his ancient words
without much caring why he said them.
He seemed confused that so many
studied to be smart, but so few prayed to be holy.

Some say he left the church
because the part-time missionaries were mostly tourists
on short-term camera safaris,
photographing destitution to show the
pictures to their missionary clubs back home.
I cannot say what all his motives were.
I only know I saw him rummaging through dumpsters
in Djakarta looking for a scrap of bread
that he could multiply.
“Quo vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

He’s gone – the melancholy Messiah’s gone.
I saw him passing by the beltway mega-temple
circled by its multi-acred asphalt lawn,
blanketed with imports and huge fat vehicles
nourished on the hydrocarbons of distant oil fields
where the poor dry rice on public roads
and die without a requiem, in unmarked graves.

Is it certain he is gone?

It is.

We saw him in the slums of Recife,
telling stories of old fools
who kept on building bigger barns,
oddly idealistic tales of widows with small coins
who outgave the richer deacons of the church.

I saw him sitting alone in a fast-food franchise
drinking only bottled water and sorting through
a stack of world-hunger posters.
He couldn’t stay long.
He was on his way to sell his
old books on Calvin and
Arminius to buy a bag of rice for Bangledesh.

My easy Christ has left the church.
I remember now where I last saw him.
He was sitting in one of those new
square, crossless mega-churches
singing 2x choruses and playing bongos
amid the music stands and amplifiers
with anonymous Larrie and Sherrie.
He turned to them in church and said
“I am He! Follow me!”
But they told him not to be so confrontational
and reminded him that they
had only come for the music and the drama,
and frankly were offended that he would dare
to talk to them out loud in church.
After all, they were only seekers, with a right to privacy.

I followed him out through the seven-acre vestibule,
where he passed the tape-duplicating machine
where people could buy the “how to” sermons
of the world’s most famous lecturers.

He left the church and threaded his way
across the crowded parking lot,
laying down those whips and cords
he’d once used to cleanse the temple,
and looked as though he wanted to make
key-scrapes on Lexi and huge white Audis
and family buses filled with infant seats.

He stooped and shed a tear after
and wrote “Ichabod” in the sand.
In a sudden moment I was face to face with him.
“Quo vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

My easy Christ has left the church,
abandoning his all-star role in Easter pageants
to live incognito in a patchwork culture,
weeping for all those people who
cannot afford the pageant tickets.

He picked up an old junk cross,
lugging it into the bookstore
after the great religious rally,
and stood dumfounded
among the towering stacks of books
on how to grow a church.
“Are you conservative or liberal,” I asked him.
But he only mumbled, “Oh Jerusalem…”
and said the oddest thing about a hen
gathering her vicious, selfish chicks under her wings.
He left the room as I yelled out after him,
“Lord, is it true you’ve quit the church?
Quo vadis, Domine?”
“Somewhere else,” he said.

Your thoughts?

 

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