Hello all,
Sorry, no weather report this week, except to say that if you haven’t ever seen the 90’s movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray, you should absolutely change that. It’s not really about weather or even groundhogs. In our house, it’s known as a modern take on the book of Ecclesiastes. Yes, really. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.
The Part Where There’s an Essay.
Last fall I dropped by the church office to drop something off. After a few minutes of chatting with the staff, I picked up my keys to go home. One of our interns then asked me the question, “what would you say to someone who thinks it’s not valuable spiritually to read fiction?” I put down my keys. An hour later, I actually went home, and he went back to his seminary homework. This series is inspired by that conversation.
On Christians Reading Fiction: Beauty for Beauty’s Sake (or, You Are Not a Brain)
In my particular branch of Christianity, we have overdeveloped brains. This statement is not meant as a compliment. We want to reason; we want to know; we memorize, study, preach, teach, diagram, and read. Obviously, I’m not opposed to such things — you’re reading an essay I wrote you. I like to banter about theological topics and reason through my faith. This is a good and praiseworthy endeavor, and it’s part of how we work out our faith with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12).
I fear that the side effect of all that intense reasoning is big brains and little hearts. We Christians often admit that we have no problem with head knowledge, but it’s the heart belief and application that we struggle with. I willingly say it because I am a chief offender in this department. One of my old pastors used to say that “the longest distance in the universe is the twelve inches between the human head and the heart.”
God created us with yes, a brain, but also five senses — the avenues by which we enjoy, notice, and savor. He gave us the ability to love people and things; to form attachments and to have broken hearts. He planted desire at the core of our being so that we would long for Him and our true home. When we spend most of our time in reason, logic, and argument, we rob the Gospel of its power: the heart.
This inclination toward desire and story is why, even if your pastor preaches the most well-reasoned sermon in the world, you probably remember the illustration he used more than the bullet points. If he told you a story to paint a word picture of the idea he was communicating, or if he spent time pondering the narrative passage he was preaching, it probably took hold in your heart at a different level than the bits for your brain did. It’s not wrong — it’s how you’re made.
That’s not to say that exposition isn’t important; both stories and sermons have a role to play in our spiritual development. But in my little corner of Evangelicalism, quite frankly, we’re really good with one and terrible at the other.
When we slow down to enjoy the beauty of a story, we feed our hearts and souls in a different way. We also push back against the world’s pressure to prove ourselves — to be maximized, to be efficient, to be competitive. As Christians, secure in this life and the next, we can slow down and enjoy God’s goodness. As Alan Noble explains in his excellent book You Are Not Your Own:
…to act prodigally1 is to make decisions based on love, goodness, and beauty rather than efficiency or productivity or profit.…From our contemporary society’s perspective, there is something wasteful about these actions. We want to know that there is a clear, provable benefit — otherwise, like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), or like Judas when Mary broke her expensive jar of perfume and bathed Jesus’ feet in it (John 12:1-8), we grow bitter at the waste…. But if we are not our own but belong to Christ, things can just be good. And that’s enough. (p. 153)
So I encourage you, Christian, to read a good story. Read a story that reminds you of the beauty of human relationships. Read a funny story about quirky neighbors. Read a redemption story that reminds you of hope. Enjoy words and the pictures that come when you read. Lean into the fullness of your whole being — not just for efficiency. Not just for your brain. For your whole person.
For the Anglophiles
Confession: I sometimes tune into the goings-on in the House of Commons on YouTube. I just find it amusing that a culture so revered for its politeness turns into a noisy shouting match inside its house of government. Due to the recent scandal in Boris Johnson’s administration dubbed “PartyGate,” the HOC has been a rager lately. But nothing can rival the greatest hits from when John Bercow was Speaker of the House:
Reads & Listens of the Week
I enjoyed this post-mortem with Mike Cosper about The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. David French asked lots of good questions.
There was a two-part episode from This American Life over the past two weeks: “A Couple Walks Into a House,” and ”A City Walks Into an Investigation.” The series recounts what happens when a couple tours a house with their real-estate agent and sees a framed KKK application on the wall. Then it becomes apparent that the house belongs to one of the city’s police officers.
What If We Just Stopped Being So Available? “I would like to retract all of my other previous apologies. I am not sorry for my delay, and I don’t expect you to be either.”
If you, like me, are a person who likes to read and learn about The Inklings, I give my highest recommendation to the podcast from the good folks at The Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College. David and Crystal are a husband-wife team who manage the center, and they record together. Fun fact: Crystal was my English prof in college. She was the best kind of English teacher: slightly eccentric, passionate, and funny. We all wanted to be like her. Well, at least I did.
Closer to Home
In keeping with the encouragement above to “live prodigally,” I encourage you to Do Nothing, as recommended by Winnie-the-Pooh.
The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.
― CS Lewis, Till We Have Faces
prodigally: “The Christian alternative to technique is prodigality, which requires the faith to be still, to depend on God for your future. We live prodigally when we act according to love or goodness or beauty rather than primarily efficiency.” (You Are Not Your Own, p.151)