tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25132265104155413162024-02-08T12:22:14.849-08:00eflectionseflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-41234895174420009712013-10-21T14:09:00.002-07:002013-10-22T08:48:20.090-07:00<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Only One Opinion Matters</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wendell
Berry. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Are People For?</i> Berkley:
Counterpoint, 2010.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The title of this collection of early essays of Wendell
Berry is taken from one small essay bemoaning the migration of country people
to the cities; the very places where unemployment is higher and the concomitant
social ills are compounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
course of these essays Berry provides his answer to the question, “what are
people for?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question is a deep
well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could be the metanarrative of
all literary traditions from time immemorial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Recently, as I was getting service at the local car wash I had this book
with me to read as I waited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
paying the attendant she noticed the title and offered some comment about the
profundity of the question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Yes,” I
replied, “it is a question that everyone has an opinion about.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I drove away in my nice clean 1992 Toyota Camry I thought
more deeply about the question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone
does surely have an opinion on it, even though most rarely address it in
explicit terms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few pontificate on the
question; probably more than we need or want, especially during major political
elections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of us, however, give
considered opinion on this most central of questions sooner or later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we choose a life partner or decide that
a partner is not really for life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
time at the bedside of a dying family member or friend may be hallowed or
haunted by the question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When attending
the arrival of our first born child we might be making our clearest statement
on the question even without speaking a word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Could it be that we even make our position on this question known
throughout life in the ordinary routine activities of daily living?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do I speak to it in the clothes I wear or the
car I drive?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will the pattern of my
daily work habits give commentary?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How
do my choices in food and drink belie my opinion?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In what ways are my daily interactions with
colleagues, neighbors, and family speaking to the question?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all my thoughts about various opinions on
this question I am left with one other question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whose opinion matters most?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The twin lyric essays that open this collection suggest
Berry’s opinion on the question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
speaks of his own craft as poet and how the conveyance of culture functions as
an archive of humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few selected
sentences from the first entitled, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Damage</i>,
illustrate.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">An art that heals and protects its subject
is a geography of scars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When the road of excess has reached the
place of wisdom it is a healed wound, a long scar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Culture preserves the map and the records
of past journeys so that no generation will permanently destroy the route.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But a man with a machine and inadequate culture….is a
pestilence.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">These lines hint of what Berry sees as the proper task of
the artist, whether poet or farmer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
alike are cataloging the “scars” of human technological progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One gets the impression from these essays
that for Berry only in the wisdom gained from protracted involvement with the community
of a local place can there be healing; a healing that comes through the
exercise of “good work.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To be creative is only to have health: to
keep oneself fully alive in the Creation, to keep the Creation fully alive in
oneself, to see the Creation anew, to welcome one’s part in it anew.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Throughout the remaining essays Berry illustrates these
ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He names the chief perpetrators
of the “scars” upon our good earth: power companies, industrial agriculture,
and human consumption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some individuals who
speak prophetically in the face of those who would do damage to the environment
are also named: Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, Harry Caudill, and “Nate
Shaw.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of all, the essays provide
Berry’s observations on how to “live fully.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A significant aspect of Berry's answer is what he defines
properly as "beloved community....common experience and common effort on a
common ground to which one willingly belongs."</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His essay entitled, “The Work of Local
Culture,” may stand as a précis of much of his work as a writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using the image of an old bucket hanging for
many years on a fence post where it collects fallen leaves, animal droppings,
periodic rain, and other of nature’s offerings which time turns to soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is for Berry a picture of the
community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A human community, too, must collect leaves and stories, and
turn them to account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must build
soil, and build that memory of itself—in lore and story and song—that will be
its culture.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That is as close to Berry’s answer as any I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An answer rooted in the theological
understanding that “God created all things for His pleasure….God’s pleasure in
all things must be respected by us in our use of things.”</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Steve Baker, Dean of Warren Library<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Palm Beach Atlantic University<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">October 21, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Wendell Berry, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Are People For?</i>
(Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2010), 7-8.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Are People For?</i>, 9.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Are People For?</i>, 85.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Are People For?</i>, 154.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2513226510415541316#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Are People For?</i>, 138-139.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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eflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-50064358592365251862013-09-24T13:57:00.000-07:002013-10-03T05:21:50.826-07:00Reflections on Life Together Under the WordHere are some reflections upon my first reading of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together.<br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong>"Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus
Christ." (21)</strong><br />
<br />
The experiment in Christian community at Bonhoeffer's Finkenwalde Seminary
was Christocentric to the core. For him there were three essential reasons for
this. Because justification rightly understood is in Christ alone, there is no
ground upon which to seek self-justification. It follows that the only hope for
genuine Christian community comes only through the work of Christ that has
bridged the chasm between God and humanity. This in turn makes
true reconciliation possible in every human interaction. Lastly, the incarnation
of God in Jesus opened the way for humanity to be fully in Christ. As Bonhoeffer
puts it, <strong>"Where he is, there we are too, in the incarnation, on the
Cross, and in his resurrection." (24)</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>"God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth."
(27)</strong><br />
<br />
This is just one of Bonhoeffer's statements that struck me as somewhat
provocative. I suppose this is partly due to the nature of today's
American evangelical church movement. This Christian movement of which I'm
intimately familiar is prone to expressions of passion, if not outright
emotion. So much is made of the "experience" of Christian faith that it is
easily forgotten that at its core it is first and foremost the acceptance of
the divine truth that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. It is
adherence, or more appropriately, being adhered to the Gospel. As this truth
pervades our being it certainly will turn our emotions, our will, our heart, our
mind, everything about us toward the Cross and the Resurrection. However, the
truth of the Gospel remains even in the times when the emotions are a arid
wasteland or our will is less than fully engaged.<br />
<br />
<strong>"Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is
rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate."
(30)</strong><br />
<br />
Wow!! What a relief it is that Christian community is not dependent on us.
There is no set established human norm of practice that, if followed precisely,
results in the achievement of perfect union with others in a corporate body of
believers. Christian community has already once for all been established by God
through Christ's appearance, sacrifice, and resurrection. We are only invited
into this brotherhood and sisterhood as disciples of Jesus to share in what God
has already created. So Bonhoeffer states that, <strong>"It is not the
experience of Christian brotherhood, but solid and certain faith in brotherhood
that holds us together....We are bound together by faith, not by experience."
(39)</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>"<em>Let him who cannot be alone beware of community</em>....You
cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out....<em>Let him who is
not in community beware of being alone</em>. Into the community you were
called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you
bear your cross, you struggle, you pray." (77)</strong><br />
<br />
My observation of human nature leads me to the conclusion that some
people appear to be loners while others seem to be social in makeup. I know
from experience that my wife is much more sociable than I could ever hope to
be. But these may only be appearances. Even in her extensive web of social
interactions my wife keeps her personal time of enjoyments that are
somewhat guarded. Within my own preferred personal space I too grow hungry for
human interaction. It is precisely here that Bonhoeffer makes one of his most
profound statements about building Christian community. Yes, we are as Christ
followers "singled out." God will not allow us to hide from who we really are,
sinners saved by grace alone. We ought to grow accustomed to this aloneness
with God. Neither will God allow us as Christians to go long into a
self-indulgence of such solitude. We were saved for life together in the
fellowship of other believers. It is our calling to bear our cross in the
community of discipleship marked by pain and supplication.<br />
<br />
<strong>"The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody
must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be
sinners....But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to
understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a
great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves
you....You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you
were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner." (110-111)</strong><br />
<br />
Few things in church life are as detached from reality than the facade of
pious Christianity that exists in self denial of the human condition. Those of
us who have seen it firsthand know well the sort of sham faith such hypocrisy
breeds. Bonhoeffer apparently had witnessed it all too often. In the
experiment in Christian community that was Finkenwalde Seminary he sought to
insure it would not be the case in their fellowship. One of the principle ways
this was done was through confession. This was a distinctive expression of the
community's accountability to one another. Confession of one Christian to
another affords the unique opportunity to "dare to be a sinner;" that is, to be
real as a follower of Christ, to be authentic as a person of faith.<br />
<br />
These are just a few of my reflections on Bonhoeffer's description of the Christian community he and others experimented with in the Finkenwalde Seminary. What he himself characterized as "Life Together under the Word."<br />
<br />
Steven Baker, Dean of Warren Library<br />
Palm Beach Atlantic Universityeflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-76797197321345745142011-09-15T13:08:00.000-07:002011-09-19T07:31:54.251-07:00On Becoming a Reader at Whim<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Alan Jacobs. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction</i>. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 162 pp.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I distinctly remember the occasion at which I learned to read. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many warm summer evenings between the 3<sup>rd</sup> and 4<sup>th</sup> grade were spent sitting on the back porch of the farmhouse with my mother, meticulously going over the words of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poky Little Puppy</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously, not a very challenging book in terms of reading level or story line. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a strange and wondrous thing what a parent can do with such meager resources when motivated by a teacher’s warning that her child is not ready for the next grade.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That a reading of Alan Jacobs’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction</i> would take me back to that experience was alone a joy worth celebrating its appearance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, there is so much more here that evokes memories of reading experience both pleasurable and painful. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I first cracked open this slim volume I was somewhat taken back by what it lacked. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no table of contents and no index. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought, “How is a reviewer to find her way around such a work?” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not even a forward or prologue that might offer some clue to the author’s thesis and pattern of argument. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t take long to realize that these appendages so typical to academic narrative were missing entirely by design. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jacobs’ purpose in writing this book is to encourage reading for the sheer pleasure of the experience; something he calls “reading at whim.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such reading for Jacobs is best experienced free from some self-imposed habit of routine examination of the mechanics or an over dependence on external guidance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the title of his book led me to assume something erroneous about the contents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first I imagined this to be yet another lament about the state of reading in contemporary society with all of its raucous technological distractions. How surprised I was to learn Jacobs’ testimony that it was the Kindle that re-connected him with the distinct pleasure of reading for itself. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Even as I was slow to learn to read, I also have been a “slow” reader all of my life. This has been a source of some embarrassment and guilt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, I am a librarian by trade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is a person who is slow at reading doing in a line of work so organically connected to the book?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That has been a question that had haunted me for quite some time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recall upon entering Northfield Junior High being assigned to Mrs. Fansler’s developmental reading class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here I was every day in a sterile lab of special machines with 20 or so other “slow readers” reading boiler plate texts by following the light that was cast upon the page by the machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it wasn’t embarrassing enough being in the class itself, it was doubly so attempting to keep up with the light as it invariably would fail to stay with my own innate pattern of reading. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t that I couldn’t read or read without comprehension. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was that my reading style was not suited to the conventional patterns of pedagogy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In today’s schools I would probably be diagnosed with some sort of learning disorder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some ways Mrs. Fansler was too determined to increase the speed of her young readers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can imagine my sense of relief to read Jacobs' chagrin over society’s obsession with speed, especially speed reading.</span></div><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">If the best reading is reading at whim then Jacobs offers some wisdom from experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reading at whim involves slowing down, re-reading, attention, and humility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book was a pleasure to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s admonition to read what you enjoy and enjoy what you read is like unto the thought of a cool breeze on a hot summer evening with someone you love.</span>eflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-56046130933176929552011-08-31T05:28:00.000-07:002011-08-31T05:28:51.050-07:00Christ-First Intellectual Discipleship<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark A. Noll. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind</i>. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011. 180 pp.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mark Noll is easily recognizable among the intellectual evangelical community as one of its most accomplished historians and profound thinkers. Even though he is so regarded in that community some have felt he was too heavy handed with his charges of anti-intellectualism among the larger evangelical community that appeared in his earlier work, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scandal of the Evangelical Mind</i>. His new book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind</i>, is unlikely to alter either of these opinions. Noll shows again his ability to wrestle with complex philosophical and theological concepts in a way that sheds new light on the path of intellectual endeavor; making the way clearer for others to follow. The brightness of the light may well be unsettling to some in the community as it exposes weaknesses in their own thinking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The heart of Noll’s argument here is that the reality of Christ’s incarnation and work of redemption is the linchpin for all intellectual efforts that are authentically Christian. For Noll, the best guidance for such “Christ-first” intellectual discipleship is the careful explication of the classic creeds of the faith. Chapters 1-4 explicate the meaning of three major ancient creeds for clues about how to proceed with serious learning that is truly Christian. He proposes four basic methodological stances, drawn from the classical expressions of Christology, that serve as guides to all intellectual work that is genuinely Christian: doubleness, contingency, particularity, and self-denial. In chapters 5-7 Noll provides three illustrations of how this type of study might look in the fields of history, science, and biblical study. He concludes with a short chapter which is something of a doxology and an extended postscript that reflects on hopeful signs of intellectual life in the evangelical community. This book should be required reading for the faculty of any academic institution seeking to support authentically Christian intellectual engagement across the disciplines.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scandal of the Evangelical Mind</i> was largely motivated by the need to illuminate the impoverished state of intellectual thought in the evangelical community twenty years ago. Noll’s analysis of Peter Enns arguments as a model for authentic Christological hermeneutics reveals that he still senses a need to speak to that historical reality. Having served 30+ years at three different evangelical institutions of higher learning I can attest that the need is still apparent, even if with less intensity. The beauty of this offering from Noll is that it offers such a clear way forward for those willing to take up the call to follow his Christological paradigm for serious study in any discipline. If done from such an authentically orthodoxy stance, it may well lead to refreshing insights for both the practitioner and the larger evangelical community.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Steven L. Baker, Dean of the Warren Library</span></div><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Palm Beach Atlantic University</span>eflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-56656044336637857122011-07-14T07:52:00.000-07:002011-07-14T07:52:45.091-07:00Keeping People in TouchMaurice Coleman at SEFLIN: http://j.mp/seflin11eflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-15619019405665978192011-07-14T07:18:00.000-07:002011-07-14T07:18:51.744-07:00Maurice Coleman....the Bald Geekhttp://baldgeek.wordpress.com/<br />
Sitting in the Bald Geek presentation at SEFLIN conference.eflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-22482198482396783822011-07-09T19:33:00.000-07:002011-07-09T19:33:38.629-07:00Dog attacks & fear of dogs....Linda & I know about it. Son #3 Phillip has this fear. He was attacked at 7 or 8. About the same age as Lydia, she is going to be okay physically. Hoping she doesn't suffer with too much canine phobia.eflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-58696888665118777542011-07-09T17:32:00.000-07:002011-07-09T17:32:59.133-07:00Prayer call...Grand daughter #1, Lydia, on way to doctor after being attacked by a dog.eflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513226510415541316.post-14884083017558693122011-07-09T10:05:00.000-07:002011-07-09T10:23:23.227-07:00steve's eflectionsHi,<br />
I'm just starting to share my "eflections" with blogger. Watch for my thoughts and posts on discoveries that I happen upon in the course of work and play.<br />
Steveeflectionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08827689560804924667noreply@blogger.com0