The Feeder Project

This year I’ll be again reading from the lectionary during Lent.

Why do I do this? Isn’t this weird behavior, even for an ex-Catholic?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Sometimes I think reading from the lectionary every day gives one the impression of moving through the text too quickly. Keeping that kind of pace through the entire year can lead to a kind of burn-out.

But there are times – Advent and Lent specifically – when moving quickly to get a wide view is beneficial. I’ll still meditate over the one passage for a week at a time. I will, however, also add to my routine extra reading from the lectionary. The lectionary is only a device I use to my reading a bit of structure.

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and the soon to be published Free, is quoted in the December issue of Writer’s Digest:

“I don’t come from the book or media world; I’m trained as a computational physicist,” Anderson says. “We in the software world wrote our code in public. That’s what beta testing is all about. Doing things in public is the norm. I took the habits that were most conventional, just like getting peer reviews in science, and applied it to my books.”

Anderson’s quote reminds me of something I read about Bob Dylan:

Dylan said he needed to practice in front of people. He could not sit in a room by himself and play. For all intents and purposes, Dylan practiced in public. He said that what he was practicing was what he was becoming.

I like that. Blogging is like practicing in public. So is Christianity. What we are is what we will become.

Whether we are writers or musicians or Christians, when the thing is done in public, something special happens.

CCEL has just made Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief available on their website.

You may read online for free. You may also download a .pdf for a nominal charge.

For those with a philosophical bent, this is a great book.

Mondays are always difficult. I need to get up early and re-program myself to my work-week existence. My mind is still in relaxation mode. Last week’s work-week tension just left my body last evening while watching TV.

I suppose, in this day and age, any day can be Monday. I once worked on Saturdays and (sometimes) on Sundays. My weekend was Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was my Monday.

It doesn’t matter which day of the week Monday falls on, it still feels like Monday. I’m too far entrenched in the culture-wide hatred of Monday to quibble about whether it’s really Monday. Monday–to my way of thinking–is a generic term for the worst day of the week.

I know that’s bad. I’m working on it.

It’s time for a return to the archives and repost an entry first posted in May 2007. It seems more approriate today than it did then. If I ask myself whether I still feel this way, I might answer: Yes, even more so.

C. S. Lewis is said to have hated conversations about politics. There was no subject that bored him more.

I have great respect for C. S. Lewis; but this was one area where I disagreed with him. I thought that he was dead wrong about this.

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We had planned on attending the Good Friday Service this evening.

The snow, however, had started at 2:00 PM and was still going strong on into the evening.

It took more than an hour for me to drive home from work–a drive that normally takes only twenty minutes. The speed on the highway, because of the snow, was limited to 35 miles per hour. And accident at the 127 Interchange brought traffic to a standstill, as did an accident at the Okemos Road exit. Traffic was blocked on Dibie Road because two city buses crashed into each other at the railroad tracks. One bus was pitched off the road and was resting with its nose in the ditch. The other bus sat sideways across the road.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

I didn’t wear green today. I forgot, actually. I wasn’t the only one.

I’ve been composing most of my entries in a notebook. My intent, of course, is to post them later, although most of what I’m writing these days should be left in the notebook. It’s either too personal or lacks sufficient quality.

I’m letting these entries cook a bit. I like top-’o-the-head kind of thinking: It certainly has its value. But I also think a well-worded note as a summary of an entire day is worth more to the creative mind than a dump of every single detail. Time will tell, of course.

“Vision Reconciliation.”

Just testing…

Ernst Junger On writing in a journal:

“I would advise anybody who takes part in a war or any other unusual experience for a long period, to keep a consecutive diary, if it be only a succession of jottings which serve later on to give memory its clues. [...] They force the writer of them to seize upon the essence of his experiences and to get above – if only for a few minutes a day – the familiar surroundings and to put himself in the position of a spectator. The daily experience will appear in a new light, just as a well-known landscape changes as soon as you try to sketch it. [...] It takes more energy than one might think to put a few facts together day by day when it is not a matter of life and death. [...] In any case the effort to observe goes with the habit of making notes, and when a man is in a situation like this that only these few years can offer and that can never recur in the same form, he ought to keep his eyes open and try to seize its unique features.”

I’ve seen and heard comments about the fact that I’m always writing in a notebook: “What, losing your memory for things?” they’d say.

I thought maybe I should quickly develop some talking points for myself:

1. Notetaking (or notemaking) keeps me engaged in a way that keeps me accountable, even if only to myself.
2. The act of ‘noting’ things keeps me as objective as possible, the primary goal being to capture the essence of waht is actually said or thought and not my opinion about what is said or thought. I try to avoid, whenever possible, rendering judgement on whether that thing is either good or bad. A premature judgement on such matters is usually wrong.
3. And, as a jogger of memory, the notebook does play a role. I have a written record to which I can refer. I suppose the criticism that we should remember things is valid enough–but as time passes and things happen, thinking gets replaced by more thinking.

 

Looking for some kind of rhythm-change after the 1^st of year forces one to make adjustments in the way things are done. Every transition brings a new pattern, a new rhythm. Putting the mind in the background becomes uncomfortable because all the markers have changed, all the landmarks have been re-painted. The body cannot just move because the mind must guide it. Looking and listening.

Attention to new markers takes time and energy away from the pen.

But necessary.

Here are some seasonal things written but never finished. Just cleaning out the notebook. The germs of finished-ness are contained within each piece:

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In case you watched the Buffalo-Pittsburgh game on New Year’s Day and couldn’t get enough of outdoor hockey, the U. P. Pond Hockey Championships will be held in St. Ignace in late February. Make plans now!

(What am I thinking? Most of my readers don’t watch hockey.)

MORE LATER….

[UPDATE]: Watching the game brought back memories of my youth, breaking into Mom’s linen closet to find extra pillows to tie to my shins so I could go out in back of the house and play hockey on the canal with the “big kids.” Detroit in those days was in a deep freeze from mid-November until the first pitch of the baseball season in April.

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Fajita posted this question on his blog:

“What innovative things are churches or ministries doing?”

His question got me to thinking about the church I attend. Like blogging about work, I’ve not blogged very much about my church. The “no blogging” policy is more to protect them from any kind of unsavory reaction to what I might say here. (As though I’m always saying outrageous things. Boring, maybe.)

I’m thinking, however, about changing the “little or no blogging about church” policy, at least for this one post.

As I sat down to answer Fajita’s question within the format he provided in his post, I was surprised and pleased by how much we’re doing. I’m sure everything is not innovative: But I know at least one thing definitely is. I’m not bragging or boasting. I didn’t have too much to do with most of the stuff on the list. When I say “we” I mean the group of people together known as Meridian Christian Church. I have been privileged to have a good seat as I’ve watched it all unfold. I am excited about the future of our ministry to our community.

Below are my answers (Fajita’s items are in bold-faced type):

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Before I wax poetic and dive headlong into a pool of bliss and sentimentality, I must say something:

Christmas sucks!

There, I’ve said it! I feel a bit guilty, but at the same time, liberated.

Maybe this statement amounts to nothing more than a good old-fashioned spleen cleaning, but you know what I’m saying, don’t you?

“Peace on earth, good will towards men.“

As long as the “good will” is wrapped in Best Buy paper.

Do you see why I need a Saviour?

The train tracks at the Ledges.

Who told Joseph Mary was pregnant? Was it Mary herself? Was it Heli, Mary’s father? Maybe a combination of the two?

I’m not sure it really matters. All we know is that Joseph learned of Mary’s condition and he took it hard, really hard. Think of the worst emotional moment of your life and you can understand how Joseph felt.

I remember how Gale and I felt after hearing that my daughter was pregnant before she was married. There was a tangle emotions: fear for the future, disappointment and sadness followed by anger, a blinding, seething anger, not so much at her (well, maybe a little), but at the situation, at the guy, at myself for my inability to raise her, to protect her, to keep her from mistakes. This is, of course, not how things are now; but I didn’t know what I know now at the time her condition was revealed to me.

In Joseph’s case, this tangled emotional reaction was complicated by something I didn’t really experience: He perceived that Mary betrayed him. They entered into an agreement! An engagement was as much a legal bond as it was an emotional bond. That agreement was broken when she became pregnant. He felt as though his name, as well as hers, was besmirched by scandal. Matthew tells us that Joseph considered his options for what he needed to do. He thought about this in a systematic fashion.

Joseph, it seems from Matthew’s account, was a just man and a tenderhearted man.

“But Joseph, her husband to be, being just, and not willing to make her a public example, he purposed to put her away secretly.”(Matthew 1:19)

He didn’t want her to be disgraced because he needed to write a bill of divorce. His intent was to end the arrangement quietly. This was in keeping with both the law and his conscience. Even so, Joseph only thought about two choices. It seems, there was another choice he did not consider.

“And as he thought upon these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take to you Mary as your wife. For that in her is fathered of the Holy Spirit.(Matthew 1:20)

An angel appeared to him in a dream to let him know, “Everything’s O.K!”

Now we don’t know, because of the compressed nature of the narrative, how long this took. We’ve all had dreams. Is this exactly what Joseph dreamed? Or is Matthew only summarizing the high points? And what about the angel? Who was he? How did Joseph know? Did they have a conversation? Or did Joseph only listen to what message the angel brought?

I think it odd that, out of the four gospel writers, Matthew is the only one anywhere to mention dreams. Five times (or six times, depending on how you count) Matthew mentions that someone had a dream. Angels appeared to Joseph three times in a dream, to the wise men to warn them to avoid Herod and return using different route and, many years later, to Pilate’s wife concerning Jesus. In every case, the dream concerned safety.

The angel told Joseph that his age-old dream, the dream he dreamed while awake, the dream for which he studied to be righteous, was going to happen soon and it would involve both him and Mary. What he heard about her pregnancy was not because she was unfaithful to him. On the contrary, it was because she was faithful to God. His range of choices now expanded by one. And he listened to and acted on what the angel told him.

Most people, I’ve noticed, begin their Advent meditations with Zechariah or Elizabeth. I’ve chosen—because the story so stokes my imagination—to begin my meditations with Joseph, the husband of Mary. His story is told in the opening lines of the Gospel of Matthew. My meditation does not proffer answers as much as raises possibilities.

The Biblical narrative in most places, but especially here in Matthew, is compressed. Truth be told, we don’t know much about Joseph. Matthew leaves much to the imagination. He doesn’t begin with Joseph; he begins with Joseph’s family history, a list of names in a genealogy. This would, of course, suit Matthew’s audience just fine. They would place some stock in the list of names. The lineage could be viewed as a form of proof as to the veracity of what followed.

Where did Matthew come by the list of names? I’m certain he didn’t make them up. That could easily be checked. Genealogies were important for the transfer of titles and property. Matthew’s account of Joseph’s family history, however, is an astounding list.

The list demonstrated that Joseph, and Joseph’s legal son, possessed the right to sit on the throne of David. The long held Jewish dream of a ruling King sits behind this list of names.

And, did Joseph dream? Was he aware of his lineage? Did he grow up and think, “Someday, I will be King, and, when I die, my son will be King?” What dreams did he entertain? What notions did he allow his imagination to bring to life? Matthew tells us that Joseph was a righteous man. How could any righteous Jew not think about the monarchy, the scepter of Judah, the Messiah?

It is true: we can’t be sure about the line of succession after the deportation into Babylon. Subsequent political actions may have changed the list, somewhat. But, God did not allow that to happen. By Joseph’s day, any number of people could have legally ascended to the throne if politics and the military could have beaten back the Roman occupiers. But, here again, did Joseph, or anyone else, for that matter, think that was possible? It was not likely, at least without God’s help.

So Joseph lived his life as best he could. He looked and prayed and hoped for the future. But, for the present, he got up in the morning and went to work as a carpenter. He lived in relative obscurity. Matthew tells us, at the beginning of the narrative following the list of names, that Joseph entered into an arrangement to be married. Everything seems to be going well. Joseph is a righteous man according to the law, has a job, and a bright future in his little corner of the world. Secretly, he may have still harbored hopes for the Messiah. Publicly, he existed day-to-day like everyone else. Then one day he received news that blew his dreams and his world to bits. He discovers that Mary, his wife-to-be, a woman he’d never been with, was pregnant.

I haven’t posted here in a while. Not only that, I haven’t even touched a computer since late last week.

Thanksgiving went well, although it was very cold. When I woke up Thursday morning, it was only 11 degrees with a wind chill well below zero. As I write this today, the wind is still blowing but the temperature is about 60 degrees. I’m not sure I take too well to such drastic changes in the weather. The snow we got on Wednesday evening and then again on Friday evening is now completely gone.

My family ate Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s place. My parents drove in and stayed for the rest of the weekend.  It was a good visit. We rented a few movies. We sat around, talked and ate lots of food.

I didn’t do any writing during this time. Because I was finally relaxed, I had lots of ideas. When I get a chance, I’ll begin a new series for Advent. The opening chapter of the gospel of Matthew is where I’ll start.  

What’s today?

Tuesday. Two days before Thanksgiving.

Just getting my bearings.

It has been busy for me since last week. I’ll summarize:

Last Wednesday: I drove home from a meeting in Midland during the season’s first snowfall. Lots of cars in ditches along US 10, I 75 and I 69. I made it home safely, though it took some time for my hands to relax their grip from the steering wheel.

Thursday: I spent most of the day getting caught up with emails and phone calls because I was out of the office playing in the snow on Wednesday. We started meeting to develop the content for the video we’re producing for work. Home Group Meeting was a tremendous blessing. It was the first chance I got to breathe.

Friday: What did I do on Friday. Oh yeah! In training all day. A waste of time really. At work, we’re implementing some revised software. Boring database stuff mostly. I spent three months during the summer helping test the software, so training did not, for me, contain the joy of learning something new.

Saturday: All the home projects came due today. The cat was out of food. Needed to go to the store. Raked leaves. Moved stuff around in the basement. Raked leaves. Ate lunch. Raked leaves. My son said we need to find a way to turn leaves into gasoline. We’d be rich.

Sunday: Funny I should post first about what happened on Sunday in summary form. I will write more about the decision of the congregation of our church to buy land for a church building after my thoughts settle a bit. Also, we attended our nephew’s birthday party.

Monday: I conducted a videoconference to two locations in the Upper Peninsula. There were a number of technical glitches early in the meeting. But, when it came time to get into the substance of my presentation, all the equipment miraculously worked as it should have worked at the beginning. I hate intermittent problems! But, I guess, these intermittent problems were better than the kind of permanent problem that would have prevented me from conducting the meeting at all.

Tuesday: Today. We added almost forty meetings to our schedule in the past month. I made certain we had presenters assigned for each meeting. (This had already been done. I needed to make sure that I didn’t miss anything.) My biggest fear is that I get a call that some Intermediate School District has a room full of people and there’s no presenter there to conduct the meeting. How fast can I drive? It was a tedious job, but necessary, absolutely necessary.

Tomorrow’s Wednesday. I do believe the cycle’s complete.

We decided, in our Home Group meetings, to use Conrad Gempf’s book, Mealtime Habits of the Messiah as a discussion starter, a point of departure. We were discussing Gempf’s take on Matthew 5:48 where Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as you heavenly Father is perfect.”

This is a hard saying. Gempf’s idea is that, because it is hard, we should be spending time with it. We tried, for a bit, but still couldn’t quite reconcile this idea of perfection with what we think we know about God’s grace. Gempf says we should be leaning constantly toward “inwardly conforming to the character to which the laws have always pointed.”

Later that evening, just before I turned in for the night, I picked up and dipped into Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. This is a portion of what I read:

Perfectionism is one of the scariest words I know. It is a marked characteristic of contemporary American culture, a serious psychological affliction that makes people too timid to take necessary risks and causes them to suffer when, although they’ve done the best they can, their efforts fall short of some imaginary, and usually unattainable, standard. Internally, it functions as a form of myopia, a preoccupation with self-image that can stunt emotional growth…

…The good news about the word “perfect” as used in the New Testament is that it is not a scary word, so much as a scary translation. The word that has been translated as “perfect” does not mean to set forth an impossible goal, or the perfectionism that would have me strive for it at any cost. It is taken from a Latin word meaning complete, entire, full-grown. To those who originally heard it, the word would convey “mature” rather than what we mean today by “perfect.”

To “be perfect” in the sense that Jesus means it, is to make room for growth, for the changes that bring us to maturity, to ripeness. To mature is is to lose adolescent self-consciousness so as to be able to make a gift of oneself, as a parent, as teacher, friend, spouse.

I like this way of looking at this verse. We should be, as Gempf says, “inwardly conforming” ourselves to the character of God. And that means, as Norris said, that we “make a gift of ourselves” as we move towards maturity. I think stumbling around attempting to keep score against the law as the measure of perfection does more harm than good because, then, the focus is not on God or others, but on ourselves.

I think the fiction writing exercise over the past couple of days has produced, at least, something of value. The pages generated are trash: there’s no doubt of that.

Long story short: I don’t think the movie will ever happen nor will the book upon which it was based. It’s not that I don’t have any faith in encouragement offered through comments. It has more to do with my lack of confidence that the plot is worth the time it would take to write both the novel and script.

That said, however, I think the foray into the foolishness of fiction generated further thoughts in my own mind about things worth thinking about. I’ll start with the disturbing thought first.

Brian McLaren not long ago and he talked a bit about the idea that people, specifically Americans, entertain what he calls “violence fantasy.” You don’t need to go far demonstrate this theory. Look at the movies that are getting produced or the television shows that are on the air. Even a cursory look shows a society enamored of sex and violence. The evidence piles up a week after week.

I bring this up only to say that it seems that I am not immune to this “violence fantasy.” What did I do when I became depressed about the lack of progress of a fictional story I was writing? I decided to become unstuck by (fictionally) killing someone, my main character. It’s not that I killed him, per se, but I did allow the murder to happen on the page. Not only did I allow the death of the main character, he died for no discernable reason, neither in the story nor in my mind. His death was random. Not only this, I decided that I might as well allow everyone else in the world to die by writing a meteor into the story. The meteor was allowed to crash into the earth, killing all of its inhabitants.

I am not so naive as to think that stories both worth telling and worth reading should never contain violence. The part that disturbs me is about choosing to add violence to a story that did not previously require violence for the sole reason of making the story more interesting. And this was done not so much to please the reader, but to save the writer from boredom.

My “out” might be that this is what is considered “comic violence.” Comic violence to my way of thinking seems OK. My theory here is that, because the violence is based in humor, then it is not the same as depicting violence in a realistic fashion. The effect on the reader, then, is softer, gentler, not quite as prone to drive the reader away in disgust before an explanation or justification for the use of violence is made. The blow is softened because it is absurd.

I took the story to the edge of absurdity to break loose ideas lurking under some ponderous subconscious rock. In that sense, I succeeded in finding some ideas and revealed something about imaginary violence and myself that needs to be explored further.

I might think, “Ray, you are being too hard on yourself. It was a story on a page that will never see the light of day.” I might agree with myself if it were not for just a glimpse into my mind that reveals that sometimes, I dwell in the violence fantasy. It’s not that I’m a violent man; I’m not. I’ve only gotten into two fights in my life and lost them both. No, I’m thinking violence, dwelling on the idea if not the fact. Clever theological thinking which states that I can’t sin what I think runs contrary to what Jesus taught:

“I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ’stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.” (Matthew 5:22 The Message)

And words are what fiction is made of.