My Top Ten List

Near the end of his life, C. S. Lewis was asked by The Christian Century, "What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?"

Not surprisingly, the list of ten books offered by Lewis is an eclectic mixture of philosophy, theology, poetry, biography, and social commentary.  The authors are Catholics, Protestants, pre-Christian pagans and post-Christian humanists...and one or two in a class all to themselves.  Like some of the early Christian saints, Lewis affirmed that "all truth is God's truth," and he read widely and deeply in order to absorb as much truth as possible.  You can find Lewis' "top ten list" here. 

You'll notice that the Bible is not in Lewis' list.  Lewis never gave a reason for this "omission," but to my mind, the reason is perfectly clear.  For Lewis, the Bible is not a book to shape his philosophy of life; it is a book to shape him.  The Main Character of the Bible does not call us to come and think about His ideas...He calls us to "come, follow Me." 

At any rate, the past few weeks I've issued myself a similar challenge to discern the books that most sharpened me and helped me to define my personal sense of life.  It was much more difficult than I thought, but here I offer ten books, all published in the last one hundred years, that have been foundational for my journey through this mess we call life. 

Like Lewis, and for the same reason, the Bible is not listed.  And like Lewis, my list includes a hodgepodge of philosophy, theology, history, literature, and drama, written by believers and nonbelievers.

• Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes.  We live in a world full of causes that try to create Jesus in their own image...to co-opt Jesus into serving their own particular ideologies.  The result is today's Religious Right Jesus, Socialist Jesus, Anti-Church Jesus, and Hipster Jesus.  This book is a needed remedy.  Having lived for fifty years in traditional Middle Eastern villages, Dr. Bailey is in a unique position to interpret the life and teachings of Jesus as they would have been experienced by His original disciples.  The result is a fresh look at the stunning, scandalous Man whose words reached right into the heart of every person He met.
  
• C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces.  While his Chronicles of Narnia and his Space Trilogy are much more popular, this is by far his best work of fiction.  It is a reworking of the pagan myth of Cupid and Psyche, and it delves deeply into the nature of human love.
  
• Anne Holm, I Am David.  A children's book written in the 1960's, this is a poignantly heroic tale of one little boy's escape from a Soviet gulag and his quest to find his mother.  Along the way he learns about courage, friendship, and grace, and perhaps most importantly, he learns to affirm his own unique identity.
  
• Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture.  This is a work of dense Thomist philosophy, but its message really is quite practical.  In a world full of noise, busyness, and productivity at all costs, Pieper calls us to reclaim a spirit of "leisure."  However, leisure (far from being laziness or boredom) is an intentional quieting of our internal and external lives so we can observe and listen to the deeper truths of life.  Only in such leisure can human culture genuinely flourish.
  
• Ayn Rand, Anthem.  Being a liberty-lover, I am a huge fan of Rand's much more substantive works such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.  However, this brief novella will always be my favorite.  It portrays one young man whose spirit cannot be crushed by the collectivist society in which he is held captive, and his quest to find the one word that will liberate him.
  
• T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party.  This thoroughly modern play illustrates the bungles of contemporary relationships...relationships defined by narcissism, half-truths, and manipulation.  Yet through a mixture of hilarious comedy and profound tragedy, Eliot adroitly hints at the kind of sacrificial love that is required for true reconciliation.
  
• Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.  I'm a history buff, and I have a particular love for early American history...a love that was first kindled by my grandfather and then fanned into a steady flame by two college professors.  By examining the writings of philosophers who influenced the American patriots, and also dissecting the pamphlets that helped spread their ideology, we are given a thorough elucidation of the Revolutionary spirit that created our nation.
  
• Richard Rubenstein, Aristotle's Children.  Another work of history, this book examines the oft forgotten dialogue among Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Middle Ages...a dialogue that centered on the writings of Ancient Greece's greatest philosopher.  Definitely relevant for today!
  
• Barry G. Webb, Five Festal Garments.  This work of biblical theology scrutinizes five books of the Old Testament known as the "Megilloth" (The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes).  While not often read today, these five books illuminate fundamental attitudes that every human being ought to cultivate in order to live a fulfilling and meaningful life.
  
• Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express.  Not really deep or anything, but a well crafted murder mystery and a detective, Hercule Poirot, who uses the "little grey cells" in his brain to find the killer.  I just read this one for pure enjoyment.

So that's my top ten.  What books would be on your list?

Real Power (Part 2)

Imagine with me an adolescent kid, maybe late teens or early twenties, whose mind is so obsessed with death that he literally spends all his time wandering around the local cemetery. 

Imagine this man who, while in the care of professionals, was so volatile that he needed to be restrained with handcuffs or straight-jackets.

Imagine him so inwardly disturbed that his only method of expressing raw emotion is to emit high-pitched wails, like a groupie at a screamo rock concert.

Imagine him so devoid of self-worth, so unable to affirm his self-image, that he regularly cuts himself.

In this second part of my series on Real Power, this describes the subject of the Gospel narrative in Mark 5:1-20.  This young man, resident of a Syrian city east of the Sea of Galilee, was utterly rejected by his community and written off as hopeless.

However, this is also a description of far too many young people in our world today.  I have known and worked with teenagers like this, first in my seminary days as a shift-supervisor at a juvenile detention center, and later in professional youth ministry. 

The man in Mark 5 was labeled "demon-possessed."  So are many young people today.  They are deeply tormented, and they often express their torment in ways that offend the sensibilities of "normal" people.

This man comes into the presence of Jesus and, ironically, begs Jesus not to torment him.  A life of torment has become so normal for this man that the presence of the true Healer feels like torment.

But Jesus engages with this young man and, once again, reveals His real power.  He literally spared no expense to drive the source of the torment out of the young man: He used a whole herd of pigs (the villagers' main source of wealth) in order to destroy the demons.  When the villagers later found him, he was completely "in his right mind."  (With another twist of irony, the villagers were so often used to seeing him in his demonic state that when they found him healed, they were afraid!)

In our last post, Jesus displayed power to bring order out of chaos.  In today's lesson, we see Jesus with power to bring sanity to torment.

In the past one hundred years, our understanding of mental illness has grown exponentially.  Many human phenomena once attributed to demons are now known to have natural causes.  Without ruling out the existence of the demonic, I concur that there are so many factors that combine to create unhealthy and destructive patterns of thought and behavior in a person: body chemistry, family history, personal upbringing, childhood trauma, etc. 

Diagnosis is multifaceted, and healing is a long process.  Truly no human being can bring about the kind of instantaneous and miraculous healing Jesus did.  But we can follow Jesus' model in another way. 

Too many individuals--and especially in the Church--tend to mimic the example of the villagers.  We seek to control or exclude the mental illness, to keep it at the margins where it will not upset our carefully staged happiness, where it will not exert its disruptive effects on our much-loved status quo. 

But Jesus does not use His power to control and exclude.  He engages mental illness, even to the extent that it is allowed to disrupt other aspects of life.  He expresses unreserved value for the person, regardless of the mental torment experienced, regardless of what other secondary values might need to be sacrificed.

I, for one, am grateful that Jesus models for us a better, healthier way to explore the very rough terrain of mental illness, and that He indeed has the power to bring sanity to torment.

Real Power (Part 1)

Over the next four weeks, I will share some thoughts about a section of the Gospel of Mark that has become for me a very meaningful portion of Scripture.

In Mark's gospel, Jesus reveals His divine identity more by what He does than by what He says about Himself.  In Mark 4:35-5:43, His divinity is on full display through four acts of unique power.

The first incident is described in 4:35-41.  It is a well-known story.  One evening, Jesus convinced His disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee in their small fishing boats.  In their crossing, a great windstorm arose, bringing with it violent waves that began to fill the boats.  While the disciples immediately catastrophized, believing that they were "perishing," Jesus slept soundly on a pillow in the stern of the boat.  When the disciples woke Him to the danger, Jesus simply spoke His words, "Peace!  Be still!" and the wind and the waves were calmed.

Full disclosure: I affirm the historical veracity of the Gospel narratives, including incidents of the miraculous like this one.  But I don't think it's necessary to believe as I do in order to benefit from the narrative, and rather than picking apart the details of this story, I'd like to look at the broader principle that I believe it teaches.

In the ancient world, the sea was the symbol of chaos.  Unlike the firmness and stability of land, the sea was often unpredictable, temperamental, and turbulent.  At night, many people believed the sea was haunted by ghosts and demons hovering just above the surface. 

In the midst of the windstorm, surely the disciples' fear was exacerbated by their belief that demons and ghosts might be lingering about their ship, waiting to steal them away to the underworld.  And even though these guys were professional fishermen who knew how to navigate in the sea, the chaos of the moment caused them to doubt their own skills and their own judgment.

We should have empathy with them.  I'm sure each of us can remember a time when we allowed our own irrational beliefs--our own false narratives--to create additional stress, to bring greater turmoil to our lives?  I'm sure we all can remember a time when the unexpected chaos of life caused us to doubt our own abilities and our own judgment?

Yet there was Jesus, utterly calm in the midst of the chaos, to the point that He was able to sleep through it.  He had no fear of demonic forces haunting the waters.  He was unshaken by the turbid sea and the ferocious winds.  And to calm the fears of His friends, He exhibited His power to transform chaos into order.  That is indeed real power.

On a smaller (but no less real) scale, I believe we human beings possess that same power to transform chaos into order.  We can bring peace into situations of discord and disharmony.  But we can do it only when we, like Jesus, do two things:

We must first challenge all the irrational beliefs that immobilize us.

And we must learn to stand in the chaos of life without being shaken. 

I'm still learning this.  And I won't have it mastered this side of heaven.  But I am grateful that occasionally I am graced to be able to speak those words with authentic conviction:  "Peace!  Be still!"

"Enjoy the Silence"

After nearly three years of inaction on this blog, I've decided it's time once again for me to engage my creative self and my passion for writing, and hopefully bless a few people in the process.  Ironically, after these three years of "silence" in the blogosphere, my first post is about the significance of not saying anything.

Yesterday, the topic of the need for silence came up in three separate conversations: with my spiritual director, with a friend, and with my colleague.  In all three conversations, I was reminded of just how counterintuitive it is for me simply to be still--especially when others are present--and allow for silence to exist.

I'm sure part of this is due to the current state of our culture, in which chaos and noise rule.  Never mind radio, TV, and computers.  Smart phones (or I-phones) bring the constant distraction, the constant engagement with a cacophony of media, right to our fingertips. 

But I shouldn't blame our culture.  The reality is that when my life becomes overwhelmed with emotional triggers and internal noise, I feel a compulsive (or perhaps defensive) desire to speak when I really should be silent.  In those moments, what comes out of my mouth is rarely grace-filled and almost never edifying to others.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I should have bit my tongue...

Even when my own internal life is not turbulent and overwhelmed, I wonder if I give full credence to the role that silence plays in forming us as human beings.  Silence can bring amazing healing not only to our emotional lives but to our physical lives as well.  It can lower our heart rates, calm our nervous system, and ease tension in our muscles.  It can, if we allow it, bring a holistic sense of well-being that is absolutely essential for genuine human flourishing.

Years ago, Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel wrote a penetrating spiritual work entitled The Sabbath.  He highlights the fact that after six days of creation, Scripture tells us that "God rested on the seventh day." 

However, Heschel follows many ancient rabbis who maintain that God's rest does not mean that He was inactive on the seventh day.  He still created, and what he created was menuha -- a rich Hebrew word that means tranquility, peace, rest, and silence. 

What this profound thought says to me is that silence does not merely happen.  

Silence is something that must be created intentionally. 

Silence is not simply the absence of noise, chaos, and work. 

It is the presence of peace and tranquility.

In fact, I would go further and state that silence is Presence itself.  It is simply and solely the acknowledgement that you are who you are, and that you are receptive to whatever the world (and even Someone beyond the world) might offer to you. 

May we all have the wisdom to follow God's example and create menuha in our lives.  And as Depeche Mode once intoned, "Enjoy the silence..."

Wild and Unsafe Again???

In his famous Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis' Christ-figure is Aslan, the kingly lion who oozes with mystery, adventure and ferocity as well as tenderness, strength, and love.  Who can forget that incredible quote in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in which Mr. Beaver, speaking of Aslan, says, "Safe?  Of course He isn't safe!  But He's good!"  In Lewis' mind, there is an arresting quality about Christ that is far removed from the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" of our overly sentimentalized evangelicalism.

Lewis' fellow Britishers seemed to share this view of Christ.  In his popular work Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton wrote, "People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy [that is, authentic Christian faith] as something heavy, humdrum, and safe.  But there was never anything so perilous and exciting as orthodoxy."

Likewise, Dorothy L. Sayers issues this scathing reminder about the One we Christians supposedly follow:  "Somehow or other, and with the best intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore--and this in the Name of One who assuredly never bored a soul in those thirty-three years during which He passed through this world like a flame."

These are salutary reminders from Christian masters of the last century.  And yet sometimes I wonder: how exactly are we American Christians to communicate the stunning, stalwart features of Christ that so scandalized and confounded His contemporaries...not to mention the legions of believers in the centuries since?

The modern church has tried to "repackage" the faith by almost shamelessly exploiting mass media, technology, and contemporary art forms...and in the process watering down the message.  Mega-churches, and their less-mega imitators, seem to be more enamored by the latest leadership books out of Harvard Business School, the latest musical styles out of Nashville or Detroit, and the latest communication methods from Hollywood.

Some Christians feel the need to reassert the traditional "hard edges" of traditional Christian belief and morality, directly confronting the world in its error and rebellion.  Yet the very uniqueness of our current cultural moment is the tendency we all have to simply shut off any message that comes across as threatening or critical to our own individual sensibilities.

Other Christians seek to re-ignite the flame of faith with praxis -- proclaiming and living (almost to a fault) a radical type of compassion that they see reflected in the human life of Jesus.  But once again, I see our society as almost sick of compassion.  Our liberal elites, in my opinion, have taken the life out of genuine compassion by bureaucratizing and depersonalizing it.

Don't misunderstand me...I am not trying to be cynical here.  But I am trying to understand a genuine challenge that we Christians face as we try to communicate the Gospel with the kind of perilous excitement that Lewis, Chesterton and Sayers rightly request.  Obviously, any presentation of our faith must be saturated with prayer and informed exclusively by the Biblical witness.   And obviously only the Holy Spirit can provide the real passion.  But we Christians must make sure that, from our human perspective, we do not cling too tightly to any of the "methods" that I have outlined above. 

So what am I saying here?  Maybe nothing.  I don't think I'm offering an answer to anything.  I think I'm joining Lewis and his friends in asking a very pertinent question:  How can we American Christians once again present the wild and unsafe Jesus in a way that truly evokes wonder in the minds and hearts of people living in a seriously jaded world?

I'd love to hear your thoughts....

Spring Clean Your Minds!

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.  Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” – Philippians 4:8

                You can’t live in our world today without at least being tempted to cynicism, discouragement, and negativity.  Our televisions are full of violence, filthy language, and immorality.  The media seem only to report on tragedies and scandals because they think that’ll get our attention.  Our political leaders seem more interested in telling us how bad life is and blaming their opponents for it, rather than inspiring us to take responsibility and make life better for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

                When St. Paul penned that verse from Philippians, he was living in a very similar cultural environment.  The “good old days” of the virtuous Roman Republic were coming to an end.  Violence, sexual immorality, and petty greed were destroying communities, and corrupt politicians were creating more problems than solutions.

                Yet St. Paul tells his readers not to dwell on the negative.  Instead they should think about what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.  In Romans he tells his readers that they should “be transformed by the renewing of their minds” (Romans 12:2) and that they should “take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).  God is not just concerned about our behavior.  He is concerned that we are thinking about the right things, that we not allow negativity, violence, impurity, and evil to take control of our minds.

                I think all of us struggle with this in some way.  In my case (and maybe yours too), I sometimes allow too much negative “self-talk” and negative emotions to build up.  For others, it’s a case of being too negative, critical, and judgmental of other people.  Or we might have a specific struggle in our thought-life: lust/pornography, passive-aggression, or self-destructive thoughts.

                As Christians, we need to acknowledge that these kinds of thoughts are simply not what God wants for us.  He wants us to take responsibility for the thoughts and feelings that we allow in our minds, and He wants us to focus on the kinds of things that will build us up and challenge us to obey Christ’s law of love and His gospel of forgiveness. 

                As we enter the month of March, we are in the midst of Lent.  Many of us “give up something” for Lent, and in my case, I am giving up negative thoughts.  It’s a discipline I need, and quite frankly, it’s a discipline that our world needs as well.

                To put it another way: in March we begin the season of Spring cleaning.  I’ve never been much of a “cleaner.”  (For evidence, see my office…)  But this year, I plan on “spring cleaning my mind!”  Will you join me?

Books for Kids

C. S. Lewis begins his book The Abolition of Man by bemoaning the fact that too many intellectuals are unaware of the importance of children's books.  We usually think of children's literature as mere stories without any long-term consequences for the kids who read.  We see their main purpose as merely to entertain kids and inspire in them a general love of reading so they'll be ready to tackle the really important stuff in high school and college.

I agree with Lewis that the kind of reading we do as children will implicitly aid in the formation of our intellectual and moral character.  Every story is about people of certain character (either good or bad) who make choices (either right or wrong) that form the basis for the story's plot.  And quite frankly, there are many children's books out there today that actually celebrate characters with questionable personal qualities, making choices of dubious merit.  They certainly are not the kind of stories to which I want my young son Cyrus exposed. 

Thankfully, my wife is something of an expert in the field of children's literature.  She owns over one thousand children's books, and she shares my concern for exposing our son to good, uplifting stories that can inspire him to be a man of intelligence, integrity, and moral courage.  Here are just a few of the books that I personally evaluate as good literature for children.

[It should be assumed that The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit are not mentioned in this particular list because those books are in a class unto themselves.]

• Anne Holm, I Am David.  An inspiring story of self-discovery, depicting a young boy who escapes from a Communist gulag in Eastern Europe and heroically navigates through dangerous country in an attempt to find his mother. 
• Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time.  An intriguing fantasy/science fiction story about three children who are transported to another galaxy by three mysterious ladies.  Meg, the main character, is on a quest to find her lost father...but in the process she is called upon to fight a great evil that threatens to overtake the entire universe.
• Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain.  This is historical fiction at its finest, set in Boston during the onset of the Revolutionary War.  Johnny, an independent and daring young man, gets caught up in the conflict between the Bostonians and the British, and he learns how to put his courage in the service of a great cause.
• Marguerite de Angeli, The Door in the Wall.  This story is set in late-medieval England.  The main character is a young boy named Robin who had dreams of being a knight, but during the Black Plague he became permanently handicapped.  With the help of a pious monk named Brother Luke, Robin learned that studying can take you places that your legs can't, and that you don't have to be a knight to display true courage and strength.
• E. L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.  A young girl named Claudia feels unappreciated by her parents and decides to run away, joined by her younger brother Jamie.  She ends up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and takes an interesting walk through history, learning that she needs to do some appreciating of her own!
• Any of the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or Encyclopedia Brown mystery stories.  I'm a huge fan of mysteries, and I grew up loving these stories.  As an adult, I can see why they are such great stories.  The main characters are presented as heroes not because they are cool, popular with their peers, or athletic.  Rather, they are heroes because they use their intelligence and skill to solve problems and help others; they display moral courage and have a real sense of right and wrong; and they earn the respect of their parents and other adult figures by acting mature and responsible. 

These are just a few.  But here are three common themes that I find in all of these novels:

• They are well-written stories.  They use language artfully and tell a story in an exciting, inspiring way.
• They present a view of the world as a benevolent place: while the characters have problems, they learn that they can overcome those problems and that life basically makes sense.  They are not victims of a fate beyond their control.
• The main characters model for the readers the values of honesty, intelligence, compassion, courage, self-discipline, and maturity.

Thanks to my beautiful wife for reminding me of the joy of reading children's books!  Happy reading!