A Good Life: Longing

A friend of mine, Tim Keel, who pastors a church in Kansas City, has invited readers of his blog to join him in a Blog Book Club centered on Robert Benson's A Good Life: Benedict's Guide to Everyday Joy. I've decided to join his BBC, and rather than ramble away in the comments section on Tim's blog, I figure I'll use my own (nearly abandoned) blog for my rambles and confine my comments on Tim's blog to more focused responses generated in response to Tim and others. This way, I get back into the habit of thinking about my blog, and no one on Tim's blog will have to read my ramblings if they don't want to do so.

The BBC is structured around one chapter in Benson's book each week. Check out Tim's blog if you'd like to follow--or participate in--the larger discussion. What follows are some of my thoughts on Benson's chapter 1, titled "Longing."




The Big Picture:


I found myself really enjoying this first chapter, and I can tell that I'm soon going to have to come to a decision about whether I'm going to restrict myself to reading and digesting a chapter a week or go ahead and reading the whole book and then working back through it. (I'm leaning toward the latter, at this point.)


Benson begins the chapter by quoting a passage from the Rule of St. Benedict, including this key sentence: "Is there anyone who yearns for life and desires to see good days?" It's hard to imagine someone not answering that question with a hearty "yes." But a few pages later, where Benson articulates a number of questions connected with the focus of his retreats, he mentions the question of our practices and experiences being "dry and lifeless" (6). This past Sunday, I was talking with my wife about the fact that I just kind of felt "dry" at the moment--pulled in enough directions that I'm not really sure what I'm working towards. Oh, there's plenty to do, but I'm not sure I currently have anything but the most conventional and trite answers to Buechner's formulation of "a self to be, ... other selves to love, and ... work to do" (qtd. in Benson 4).

This season of dryness--and Benson's mention of it--prompted some thinking about longing, the title of this first chapter. And it causes me to reconsider that key sentence from St. Benedict: "Is there anyone who yearns for life and desires to see good days?" The answer, for me, is "yes," but I'm not sure my "yes" rises to a longing. Now, part of my situation is rooted, I think, in the fact that I'm just not one terribly inclined to longing. A tendency toward contentedness is in my nature--most days. I think. But perhaps I'm just reconciling my apathy, or some degree of acedia. At one point, I noted in the margins of the book that my "longing" seems more like a "welcome obligation." I could cite some other passages that generated similar responses for me, but I'll simply note that this first chapter has me attempting to map the distance between dryness and longing.


Apart from reflecting upon my own spiritual condition, I also found myself thinking about the whole emphasis on spiritual formation from a more institutional standpoint. In the excerpt from St. Benedict quoted at the beginning of Benson's chapter, St. Benedict notes that "We intend to establish a school for the Lord's service" (1). Since I teach at a school with a similar mission, the chapter has prompted a consideration of how the Benedictine rule might inform what I do as a teacher. Consider the following passage:

"We are asked by the communities of which we are a
part--our families, our neighborhoods, our churches, and all the rest--to do
more, not less. In the places where we work, we are asked to be more
productive, more efficient, to work longer and harder. We are seldom
encouraged to rest and we are seldom asked to slow down." (4)

Are there ways in which I, as a teacher, might--or ought to--ask my students to rest, to slow down? How might one ask students to embrace such rest in ways that are wise rather than foolish? How does one ask students to slow down while maintaining professional and pedagogical integrity?


Basically, after chapter one, I find I'm asking myself lots of meaningful questions, and I'm eager to dive into the reflection that will surely be generated as Benson addresses the four "pieces" of life: prayer, rest, community, and work (6).




Other Tidbits:

I have to acknowledge my annoyance over Benson's failure to provide any sort of bibliography for the works from which he is quoting. As a book person, I just find this practice terribly annoying and frustrating.

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Annie Dillard rocks. The passage that has stuck with me the most after reading chapter one comes (I think) from Dillard's The Writing Life:

"How we spend our day is, of course, how we spend our
lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are
doing. A schedule defends us from chaos and whim. It is a net for
catching days."

As one who struggles with schedules (less with construction, more with observance), this quotation just sort of resonates. Conviction and inspiration.

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Robert Benson: "I am also in search of enough good days to make a life, maybe even a good life."

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Potential T-Shirt: "Feed Your Inner Monk!"

"Over time, I realized that I was not called to live
in the monastery, but I learned that I could live the monastic life interiorly"
(10).

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I had to smile at a bit of verbal playfulness on Benson's part when he referenced Thomas More:

"Thomas More, a writer who lived in the monastic
world, said, 'In the midst of our lives we can live the spirit of this
rule.' More and more, I am coming to see that is true." (13)

Michael Vick & Finding Jesus

Those of you familiar with the online magazine Slate.com may already be aware that Slate has started a new video section titled Slate V. They use this part of the Slate.com site to distribute short video segments. They've done some good stuff.

One regular feature--and one that I tend to find rather annoying--is the collaboration with MediaCurves.com. MediaCurves takes video segments (e.g., political advertisements and speeches, news segments, press conferences, etc.) and shows them to a group of viewers who rate the believability (or some other criteria) of the segment while it plays. They then overlay a graph of the viewer feedback onto the video segment. Slate V features some of the these videos.

The latest is MediaCurves viedo on Slate V is one featuring Michael Vick's apology. The apology and the viewer response are mostly what one would expect. What caught my attention is the very end of the video clip, when Vick states:

Through this situation, I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness. And have turned my life over to God. I think that’s the right thing to do as of right now.

There's a lot to be considered simply in terms of rhetoric. One has to wonder if Vick and/or the writer of the apology thought the viewing public would respond positively to this statement of new-found faith. And, if they did, one has to wonder about the choice of "as of right now" as a qualifier.

In any event, the viewer reaction from MediaCurves is intriguing.

gad

Winner at Jacob's Well

I keep tabs from time to time on the web site for Jacob’s Well, a church in Kansas City planted by an acquaintance of mine, Tim Keel. In perusing the MP3 files on the Jacob’s Well site, I noticed that earlier this year they hosted Lauren Winner, whose three public speaking engagements were included in the MP3s. While each of Winner’s three talks are well worth listening to, I was particularly struck by the one on “Sex, Marriage, and Singleness.”

In discussing Matthew 22:23-33 , Winner notes that the passage rankles and confuses happily married people:

This passage is to my mind on of the most revealing moments in the gospel about the radical nature of Jesus’s call to us, because it suggests not that married people won’t see their spouse again, it suggests that marriage is not the defining relationship of even a marital relationship, and that the defining relationship between all of us, the relationship that will obtain throughout time and beyond time into eternity is the relationship of brother and sister in Christ. […] If that confuses what you think about marriage, just try to think about what it means for parenting. […] It would be pretty wild and radical to think that what my job was as a parent would be to raise my sister or brother in Christ, and that that would be my fundamental relationship. Weird.

More generally, the talk focuses on both marriage and singleness and the lessons each has to teach the church. It concludes with a quotation from an Eastern Orthodox theologian, Paul Avdokomov (sp?). The quotation is about marriage and singleness, but—more interesting to me—it’s also about calling and vocation more generally.

We should think of vocation as an invitation, a call from the friend. I accept it today in the contours of my present situation, until the time when I will perhaps see more clearly. One’s vocation is found exactly on the crest between necessity and creative freedom, along the line of faith which reveals the direction as its free and strong confession grows. One’s entire vocation, whether to marriage or singleness, is an option. It is an answer to a call that has been heard. It can simply be the present condition. It is never a voice that clarifies everything. The dimness inherence in the life of faith never leaves us. There is one thing we can be sure of, that every vocation is accompanied by a renunciation. One who is married renounced monastic heroism. A monk renounced the married life. The rich young man of the gospel is not invited either to marry or to enter a monastery. He had to renounce his wealth, his having, his preferences, in order to follow the Lord. However, in all cases of deprivation that scripture speaks of, grace offers a gift, and out of a negative renunciation it creates a positive vocation.

Folks interested in listening to the entire MP3 can find it here.

Naked In the Pulpit

Let me throw out another link to some stuff by Tim Keel. This time, it's an article titled "Naked in the Pulpit," published in Leadership Journal. The article reflects on Tim's movement from a more planned, scripted, didactic manner of preaching toward a more personal, intimate, relational approach. As I'm not a preacher, I find the article interesting mostly for the potential parallels to be drawn between Tim's reflection on preaching and my own manner as a teacher.

For example, consider the following:

If the only kind of speech we use is speech that deals with comprehension, then we will only talk about that which we understand. As a preacher, I am invited to describe a reality that I am just beginning to get the hint of. That means being willing not to know, to stumble over language so I might tell a story. I'm not so interested in merely providing comprehension; I'm interested in describing reality, even if that leaves room for confusion.

In many ways, this same interest is what most motivates me as a teacher. It is this interest that pulled me back to graduate school to begin with. On the good days, this goal comes close to being realized--at least for me. (You'd have to ask my students whether or not I ever really come close from their perspective.) On the not-so-good days, this goal seems miles away. I find myself wondering about my ability to pursue such a goal, to overcome the various forces--cultural and personal--that can inhibit the pursuit (e.g., the assessment culture, NCLB, etc.).

Self Split

Now, in my fifth year at USF, I'm finally getting to do something that I thought I'd be able to do when I first accepted my position--namely, take advantage of the opportunity to sit in on classes that feed my whims and questions-of-the-moment. My wife regularly comments--half-jokingly--that if we hadn't gotten married, I'd still be in school somewhere, pursuing a degree in something. She's probably right.

This semester, I'm sitting in on Dr. Kirby Wilcoxson's course titled Spirituality, Calling, & Service. In tonight's class, we engaged in something called "class splits," where Kirby presents the class with certain choices, and each individual in the room indicates his or her choice by moving to one side of the room or the other. The final question of the night was something like the following: "Those of you would like to hear audibly God's account of what will happen in the next ten years of your life, move to this side of the room. Those who wouldn't want to know, move to that side."

I moved to the "wouldn't-want-to-know" side. As we discussed our reasons for choosing to know or not to know, we quickly saw that part of the issue may have been the way the question was worded. Would it have made a difference if God were revealing merely the destination, rather than the entirety of the next ten years? Then, one of the individuals on the "want-to-know" side asked why we wouldn't want to know? Afterwards, I sat half listening to the rest of the discussion, trying to clarify my own thinking.

As best as I can recall, my first thoughts in reaction to the question centered on the joy of discovery, and the avoidance of limits. There is something in me that cherishes the ability to learn and discover, the freedom to drop one subject and follow another if my interests dictate. I think this is one reason why I was drawn to an emphasis in creative writing throughout graduate school. Rather than being an end in and of itself, the study of creative writing was, for me, the study of a means--the means to explore ideas, experiences, memories, emotions, and discover what might be learned, to discover what I think. To arrive, in short, at what Robert Frost calls "a momentary stay against confusion."

Somewhere within all of that reflection, I found myself moving (albeit metaphorically) to the other side of the room. I thought back to Matthew 7:9: "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone." God's design for my life would presumably reflect, develop, and utilize my personality traits, habits of mind, strengths, weaknesses, dispositions. Given that assumption, I suspect that if God spoke his 10-year plan to me--especially if it focused on the larger goal rather than the specific path--it would be necessarily vague, allowing me to follow my passions and retain those joys of discovery and whimsy. Emphases might shift. Specific behaviors might need to change. Motivations would certainly be called into question. But, for the most part, I suspect an audible expression of God's plan would address--and perhaps even highlight--those longings that moved me toward the "wouldn't-want-to-know" side of the room.

Practice

For the next Aslan's Forum at Oak Hills Baptist Church, we're discussing Lauren Winner's Mudhouse Sabbath. Having grown up Jewish and converted to Christianity in her college years, Winner reflects upon Jewish practices that she misses, "places where Christians have some things to learn"(ix). The following passage convicts me every time I read this book.

Jews do these things with more attention and wisdom not because they are more righteous nor because God likes them better, but rather because doing, because action, sits at the center of Judaism. Practice is to Judaism what belief is to Christianity.(ix)

Certainly, I'm thankful that my ability to have a relationship with Christ is based upon faith rather than works. And, certainly, in a mature Christianity the dichotomy between belief and practice becomes almost a false one, as the two undergird and support one another. I do think, however, that perhaps the pendulum has swung a bit too far in one direction. I fear that most of us--myself included--too easily dismiss the spiritual disciplines meant to enrich and deepen our faith and steady us in those times when belief lags or wavers. Combine this tendency with R. R. Reno's discussion of acedia (see previous post), and we risk cultivating a faith that remains incredibly abstract and qualified.

As an academic, I believe in critical distance. I sometimes wonder, however, if our embrace of critical distance is pursued as a corrective to an un-practiced belief. I suspect the conviction I feel from Winner's passage is sparked by the likelihood that critical distance (which comes fairly easily) must be combined with spritiual discipline (much more difficult) if our belief is to purposeful, tangible, and vital.

Acedia

The following post was written a while back in the context of a group blog that never took off. I thought I would go ahead and repost it here, since the issue continues to linger.

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A recent thread on the ChristLit discussion list lead me to the following article: "Fighting the Noonday Devil," by R. R. Reno. Given the goals of USF and LAR, I found the article to be both convicting and fascinating. It focuses on the danger of acedia--"a lassitude and despair that overwhelms spiritual striving"--and explores the manner in which the modern academy, with its emphasis on critical distance, might be inflicting acedia upon students. Reno cites Dante's Purgatorio several times, and has prompted me to take a closer look. I ended up buying Merwin's translation not long ago.

In any event, the article is an intriguing read, and one that generates some questions in terms of LAR goals (particularly the search-for-truth aspect of the Christian liberal arts) and how LAR functions in the larger scheme of USF. Some quotations:

There are no intellectual solutions to spiritual problems. Like each of the seven deadly sins, acedia must be fought with spiritual discipline. Such discipline is profoundly alien to our culture, not because we have alternatives, but because we entertain the fantasy of life without spiritual demands. This fantasy is the most important legacy of modernity. For the great innovation of modern culture was the promise of progress without spiritual discipline.

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We should rush toward our Lord, for we can never become too intimate, and we should wait patiently with Him, for He always has something more to give. To do so, we must place the pedagogy of critical distance and the dictates of conscience within a larger vision of journey toward the truth, a journey in which the warm and enduring embrace of love is to be cherished rather than mocked or feared.

How--at USF, in LAR, or in the academy generally--do we place our instruction of critical distance into this larger context? Or, do we handle the critical distance stuff and let other parts of campus handle the larger vision?

gad