A few days ago I ran into a couple of books by Martin Buber at the thrift store. To top it off, they were 60% off! So I purchased both, along with a small library of fiction books, and yesterday finished Buber's short work, The Way of Man. Buber is, of course, most well known (and rightfully so) for his monumental I and Thou. The issue with his popularity being based specifically on one (fantastic) book is that we forget his other works, which turn out to often be just as, or nearly as, brilliant. And we forget Buber's Zionist beliefs, as well as never even hearing his extrapolations on earlier Hasidic practitioners. The Way of Man is a brief entrance into that world.
In The Way of Man, Buber uses six short essays, each starting with stories and teachings from great Hasidic rabbis of the past, to give a framework for the way man should live according to Hasidism (or at least, his definition of Hasidism).
A (far less profound than the book) summary: living the Hasidic lifestyle starts with self reflection, to realize that one has hidden himself (I use "he" following Buber) from God and must admit and repent of this to begin. It is subjective, involving a realization of who one is, where one is at, and living out one's faith in a way specific to the individual. In other words, there is no universal way to live the Hasidic life, but it depends on the individual, his relationship to God, and the place and personality he has been given. Although this is the starting point, it is not the endpoint. The endpoint is to let go of not only past sins, but past repentances, and to move forward into doing good. In his specific context, both in time and place, the specific individual who has his own relationship with his Lord and his own personhood which sets him apart from any other person, a man lives the Hasidic life right where he is located.
Perhaps it is only because I just reread the last four chapters of MacIntyre's monumental work this morning, but The Way of Man truly reminded me, and even seems to proceed, After Virtue. It involves a continuity with the past and its moral and lifestyle teachings. Although Buber begins with the individual, part of his goal is to rediscover tradition and a form of community-living that can be practiced healthily. In its own way, it calls a specific group of people back to a morality (virtues) that works for them in a time when morality has/had become a joke.
As a Christian, I read this book with a sense of awe and wonder. There is so much in Buber that I commend and am challenged by. So much of it sounds like the teachings of the early desert Christians, not to mention the Acts church itself, that I would declare we are simply saying the same thing, if only Jesus were a part of Buber's thought. Buber writes of living out the way. Maybe this is a good reminder to myself (and perhaps you as well), that there is a way that seems right to a man, but Christ is the way. Do you live in such a way that shows you believe this to be true?
One final quote from the book, which I shall not expand upon, but leave you to wrestle with:
"One of the main points in which Christianity differs from Judaism is that it makes each man's salvation his highest aim. Judaism regards each man's soul as a serving member of God's Creation which, by man's work, is to become the Kingdom of God; thus no soul has its object in itself, in its own salvation. True, each is to know itself, purify itself, perfect itself, but not for its own sake-neither for the sake of its temporal happiness nor for that of its eternal bliss-but for the sake of the work which it is destined to perform upon the world."
Peace,
Matt
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Book Review: The Luminous Dusk
I am an obsessive reader and have decided to finally start writing reviews of some of the books I read. Today, we start with Dale C. Allison Jr.'s The Luminous Dusk.
The Luminous Dusk is, in many ways, a lament. Allison laments the modern way of living, along with Modernity as a whole. He points out how we have lost contact with our true nature, not just our spiritual nature but our human nature, which of course has a drastic effect on our spirituality. This book smells of great thinkers like Wendell Berry (getting away from technology and its grasp on our lives), Eugene Peterson (finding God in the everyday) and Richard Foster (in about every way possible). I see this book as divided into two halves, with the first half being more of a lament than the second, which brings up some ideas and thoughts to move us towards more holistic, healthy ways of living out faith. Although both sections contain both lament and remedy, Allison seems to move toward a more hopeful tone as the Dusk moves towards its conclusion..
The first two chapters, along with the introduction, are gems. I was pleasantly shocked to read a New Testament scholar who sounded more like a poet than a scholar. Allison decries our world and ways of living; our noisy world that leaves us out of touch with nature and ultimately with our true selves. As he writes, "Christians may claim that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But the rest of us are not." We are, he claims, being changed to fit the environment that we have created for ourselves. We stay indoors more and more often, causing us to ask less cosmological questions (pondering the stars, nature, etc). We live in unnatural worlds full of artificial light and noise. In all of this, not surprisingly, our senses of awe and wonder are diminished, if not eliminated. Allison, again not surprisingly, suggests that we seek out silence, our natural rhythms, and even darkness. As he says it, "the way to achieve this, as we instinctively know, is to dampen the senses and quiet thoughts, treating everything as a diversion to be avoided." Although there was little that I would consider profoundly new in these three chapters, these were well-written, thought-provoking, soul-shaping chapters.
Chapter three, The Ascetic Imagination, is a fitting chapter for Allison to write, as it feels much like a defense of the early Christian mystics, especially the desert fathers. It is in many ways the centerpiece of Dusk. He argues that men like Origen, Anthony and Simeon "write a still-valid prescription for fortifying the imagination. It has" he goes on, "three parts: (1) extended reflection upon transcendent realities, (2) prolonged experience of the natural world, and (3) stillness without and within." Although we are not asked to follow these men literally, Allison is telling us to learn from these men (and women, I hope) and follow their wise guidance, which challenges our easy ways of living that leave us not needing God or even being in places where we may see or hear him. Their choice in living with ascetic imaginations caused them to grow closer to God and bring others into similar ways of living. They were strange to many, but we could also say that they were too good for this world. They chose to remake their environments and ways of life to bring themselves into deeper relationship with the Lord. He writes, "but if the desert Christians wisely remade their environments so as to free their internal senses, we seem foolishly to be doing just the opposite." We remake our environment as they did, only our remaking, though not intentional, is done to get us away from those things that would bring us closer to God.
Allison spends the last third of the book prescribing remedies to our Modernistic maladies. These come with further dissections of our modern world, but they are well spoken and too true for me to complain that he is being overly critical of Western culture. To begin to find wholeness we need to (besides finding quiet, darkness, and an ascetic imagination), rediscover reading, heroes and saints, and the transforming power of prayer.
Allison calls us back to the Bible, saying, "when I push its pages apart, I lay my finger on God's heart." He laments the way we have substituted reading with radio, TV and internet. He challenges us to find heroes to emulate rather than celebrities; to know more about Athanasius that Angelina Jolie (my example, not his). And he challenges us to pray in ways that are Biblical rather than treating God like Santa Claus. By imitating the heroes of the faith that have gone before us (think of Hebrews 11), both Biblical and beyond, by letting scripture speak into our lives and transform us, and by praying to YHWH in ways that really are saying "your will be done," we can begin to contend against the false gods and idols that Modernity has set us up to worship.
The Luminous Dusk is a great, thought-provoking read. There were times where Allison seemed to offer a lot of critique with little in the way of alternatives. And his complete lack of footnotes/citations was bothersome throughout. Nevertheless, I celebrate Allison's call for us to rediscover natural rhythms as well as nature in general. I love his challenge to our modern ways of living. He may be a voice calling in the wilderness, but, as we learn from the desert Christians, some, if not many, will come out to the desert when the hear that voice.
The Luminous Dusk is, in many ways, a lament. Allison laments the modern way of living, along with Modernity as a whole. He points out how we have lost contact with our true nature, not just our spiritual nature but our human nature, which of course has a drastic effect on our spirituality. This book smells of great thinkers like Wendell Berry (getting away from technology and its grasp on our lives), Eugene Peterson (finding God in the everyday) and Richard Foster (in about every way possible). I see this book as divided into two halves, with the first half being more of a lament than the second, which brings up some ideas and thoughts to move us towards more holistic, healthy ways of living out faith. Although both sections contain both lament and remedy, Allison seems to move toward a more hopeful tone as the Dusk moves towards its conclusion..
The first two chapters, along with the introduction, are gems. I was pleasantly shocked to read a New Testament scholar who sounded more like a poet than a scholar. Allison decries our world and ways of living; our noisy world that leaves us out of touch with nature and ultimately with our true selves. As he writes, "Christians may claim that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But the rest of us are not." We are, he claims, being changed to fit the environment that we have created for ourselves. We stay indoors more and more often, causing us to ask less cosmological questions (pondering the stars, nature, etc). We live in unnatural worlds full of artificial light and noise. In all of this, not surprisingly, our senses of awe and wonder are diminished, if not eliminated. Allison, again not surprisingly, suggests that we seek out silence, our natural rhythms, and even darkness. As he says it, "the way to achieve this, as we instinctively know, is to dampen the senses and quiet thoughts, treating everything as a diversion to be avoided." Although there was little that I would consider profoundly new in these three chapters, these were well-written, thought-provoking, soul-shaping chapters.
Chapter three, The Ascetic Imagination, is a fitting chapter for Allison to write, as it feels much like a defense of the early Christian mystics, especially the desert fathers. It is in many ways the centerpiece of Dusk. He argues that men like Origen, Anthony and Simeon "write a still-valid prescription for fortifying the imagination. It has" he goes on, "three parts: (1) extended reflection upon transcendent realities, (2) prolonged experience of the natural world, and (3) stillness without and within." Although we are not asked to follow these men literally, Allison is telling us to learn from these men (and women, I hope) and follow their wise guidance, which challenges our easy ways of living that leave us not needing God or even being in places where we may see or hear him. Their choice in living with ascetic imaginations caused them to grow closer to God and bring others into similar ways of living. They were strange to many, but we could also say that they were too good for this world. They chose to remake their environments and ways of life to bring themselves into deeper relationship with the Lord. He writes, "but if the desert Christians wisely remade their environments so as to free their internal senses, we seem foolishly to be doing just the opposite." We remake our environment as they did, only our remaking, though not intentional, is done to get us away from those things that would bring us closer to God.
Allison spends the last third of the book prescribing remedies to our Modernistic maladies. These come with further dissections of our modern world, but they are well spoken and too true for me to complain that he is being overly critical of Western culture. To begin to find wholeness we need to (besides finding quiet, darkness, and an ascetic imagination), rediscover reading, heroes and saints, and the transforming power of prayer.
Allison calls us back to the Bible, saying, "when I push its pages apart, I lay my finger on God's heart." He laments the way we have substituted reading with radio, TV and internet. He challenges us to find heroes to emulate rather than celebrities; to know more about Athanasius that Angelina Jolie (my example, not his). And he challenges us to pray in ways that are Biblical rather than treating God like Santa Claus. By imitating the heroes of the faith that have gone before us (think of Hebrews 11), both Biblical and beyond, by letting scripture speak into our lives and transform us, and by praying to YHWH in ways that really are saying "your will be done," we can begin to contend against the false gods and idols that Modernity has set us up to worship.
The Luminous Dusk is a great, thought-provoking read. There were times where Allison seemed to offer a lot of critique with little in the way of alternatives. And his complete lack of footnotes/citations was bothersome throughout. Nevertheless, I celebrate Allison's call for us to rediscover natural rhythms as well as nature in general. I love his challenge to our modern ways of living. He may be a voice calling in the wilderness, but, as we learn from the desert Christians, some, if not many, will come out to the desert when the hear that voice.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
A Letter
For those of you who read my last post, I simply cannot get my computer to let me put up a PDF file that works, so I have decided to just put my whole letter to my dad in this one. It's long, but I'm glad to share. Read it if you want...
Dad,
For months I have struggled to come up with what I could ever possibly write to you. My actions typically show my heart more than my words, which is something I believe I learned from you. Nonetheless, I have tried to put down on paper some of the stories and thoughts that will hopefully show what you mean to me.
For most of my life, you have been like a mythic hero. You were like the men from old tales, half man and half god. Like Hercules invading Troy or even Paul Bunyon chopping down trees with one swing of his axe. To this day, you are still that man to me.
I remember the first time I ever went up Norse Peak. You woke us up early and I sat in sleepy silence as you drove us up to the mountains. When I emerged from the car, my eyes still blurry with the last night’s dreams, I recall looking up Norse Peak and wondering if maybe I had made a mistake. After all, we may have some Norwegian in us, but this Norse thing sounded like the real deal. Not to mention that anything with the word “peak” in its title is probably not messing around. I mean, the name alone has some very intimidating qualities. The unwarned hiker with a loose imagination could easily find himself trudging up the long switchbacks with nothing in his head but fearful curiosity, wondering whether or not bloodthirsty Vikings are waiting at the top.
It was a fitting place for you to take us, I suppose. That hike turned out to be as mythic as you have always been for me. As we ascended the mountain, I was continually given new views of the places you had raised us in. Crystal Mountain, the cabin area, Mount Rainier, they were all there as usual, only different. I was looking from a different direction, but it was more than that; it was the first time in my life I was able to start seeing things from your angle. Those old stories you had told me growing up were becoming my own. I was entering into the mythic land and tales in which I could never tell where fact ended and fiction began.
The mythology my mind had created around you only grew when we came over the crest and onto Norse Peak. You had taken us into a hidden Eden, where deer, elk and mountain goats run through the forests and camp robbers will eat from your hands! I half expected you to begin jumping from peak to peak or chase an elk down on foot. After all, I had no notion of your limits. You had carried more on your back than the rest of us, but it didn’t seem to faze you. You had taken us into a foreign wilderness, yet you could continually point out all the sights; Government Meadow, where the Tin Shack was, the Crow’s Nest, the old man on the hill, Martinson Gap. I had trespassed onto Mount Olympus, but the gods would not send their lightening bolts down when one of their own was my guide. So we pressed on.
That night we stayed at the Crow’s Nest. Who would have imagined our family having a hidden cabin in the middle of a wilderness area? You showed us the enormous claw marks from when a bear had gotten inside one winter. You told us stories of friends shooting mice from their bunks. And that night we walked down to the outskirts of the meadow and watched an enormous bull elk graze. How is it that you could always find elk? I began to wonder if the animals knew you by name. I half-expected you to sneak out and have a talk with them later in the evening.
Maybe you did.
The imaginary world I created around you began early. Your cement business, with all of its big rigs and big talking employees, sealed the deal for me at a young age. Don’t think for one second I will ever forget the days you would pay me to come “work for you for the day.” As I recall, this “work” consisted in me sitting around outside, breaking apart rocks with a hammer to see if there were fossils inside. I loved it. But I loved riding in the trucks even more.
As a child, especially a young child, anything that sets you apart and draws attention to you feels good. Take, for instance, the occurrence when I was in preschool and you dropped me off in your cement truck. I remember to this day all of those little hands and faces pushed up against the glass, looking at us. I was glad for the attention, as most kids would be. But I was even more thrilled with the knowledge that other kids were able to see my dad. They were getting a small glimpse of something that I was able to experience every day; a dad who could continually make you stop and press your dirty little face and hands to the window and say “Wow”. That’s what heroes cause us to do. When they show up, everyone stops to take notice.
Loving the Lord your God…
The worst moment of my life took place on a dark, rainy night in Marysville. I called Mom right after she found out you had cancer. That word. I never imagined we would say it in our household. It was never even on the radar. It’s for smokers and drinkers, or people who breathe in bad chemicals at work. It’s for people, not demi-gods and heroes. You don’t read of one of Zeus’ children needing to drive down to the nearest city for radiation treatments. It doesn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen.
But it did.
Everything we had taken for granted was now going to be put to the test. Even more frightening was the realization that you were going to be pushed like never before, and we were going to see who you really were. The strongest man I have ever known was about to be challenged in ways that Norse Peak could not begin to measure up to.
Ten days later, it was Easter. You were supposed to come up to Bellingham, but were just too tired, so we came down. They had given you your first dose of chemo, a wonderful drug that would simultaneously kill you and the cancer, but hopefully the cancer would go quicker. What a terrible day. It was Resurrection Day, but death’s sting was everywhere. When you weren’t upstairs in bed, you sat outside with your head in your hands, too tired to even lift your head and talk.
How could Easter ever be the same again?
Not long before the original Easter occurred, Jesus was asked a question often asked of religious leaders of his time; “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment.” The text makes it seem as if Jesus doesn’t hesitate before answering, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, will all your mind, and with all your soul.” I have to be honest here; I never really got this passage. I mean, does he really need to stretch this out, or could he have cut a couple of these different ways of loving?
Slowly, coming out of your bad Easter, you began to show me the truth of this passage, and why Jesus needed to include four different ways of loving God.
They gave you chemotherapy for a short amount of time, just to make sure it would work. Then they cut. And they cut big. A long, deep slice down your chest. Along with a massive tumor and a chunk of lung, they took some of your heart. How could you continue to love the Lord your God with all your heart when you no longer had all your heart? Not to sound greedy, but how could you love me with all your heart when it was not all there anymore? Yes, I know love does not literally come from the organ we call the heart, yet it’s hard not to believe that our metaphorical heart will be changed when a surgeon is cutting up our literal heart like a Thanksgiving turkey.
When you went in for your first appointment after being found cancer-free, for some reason I wasn’t worried. And everything turned out fine. But that second time, nothing felt right. I didn’t sleep right for days. I worried too much, and didn’t pray enough. Sure enough, the cancer was back. And it was, among other places, in your brain. Soon, they were shaving your head, cutting into your scalp and skull. Brain surgery; on a different day, under a different set of circumstances, it might have been humorous. Actually, with the way our family works, we still made it humorous. But it was different. We still found joy in strange places like only our family can, but now it had an edge to it. I wondered how you could love the Lord your God with all your mind, when they had sliced into your brain and tried to steal some of it from you.
I began to long for you to just have peace. My secret desire had been to escape with you up Norse Peak and to hide out at Martinson Gap, where they couldn’t give you any more bad news and things could just go back to the way they were. It still is.
Instead, they took away your strength. I like to say “they” as if doctors and nurses did all this bad stuff to you. Yes, it was the cancer, along with chemo and radiation, but it just feels better to have people to blame rather than something inside of you. I have watched you get skinnier as muscles are replaced with skin and bone. I’ve seen you get frustrated over all of it. I would gladly give you every ounce of muscle and fat in my body, but instead I get to helplessly watch you and only wish to have something adequate to offer. And I wonder if my dad can love the Lord with all his strength, when he no longer has all of his strength.
And I get mad. And sad. And I go for weeks refusing to pray because I hate all of this and don’t feel like it is too much to ask for health and life and for a good man to be restored to all of us. But I can’t stay angry. I can’t be angry, because you aren’t angry.
The truth is, for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m seeing your soul. I never knew how great it was until now. Your soul is kind and generous. It was your soul that made the meadows and hills of the Norse Peak wilderness magical for me. The way you spoke and looked and loved made it something greater than it would have been without you there. It is your soul that would cause you to seek out people who have recently been diagnosed with cancer so you can encourage them to not give up. It is your soul that causes you to look to God when so many would choose to be bitter with Him. When I began to understand this, everything else started falling into place.
I realize now that no surgeon’s scalpel could ever diminish the love in your heart. You came out of that surgery talkative and smiling and being kind to all the nurses, doctors and family member you saw. Watching you hobble around that hospital to play with your brother right after your surgery brought to light just how amazing your heart really is. You brought joy to a sad place. Christ’s love shines through you in ways that no average person could create without Him living within them.
The Bible describes God’s love like a refining fire. When we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, as Paul writes, this happens because God helps us along through the refining process of transformation. In other words, God has to lead us through that rough road because there is no way we would choose to go down it on our own. I’ve seen evidence of your journey down that road in the way your mind now works. All of the same stuff was there before, but now it’s more obvious; the way you love your family, how much you care and are thankful for the people who stop by to visit you. It’s as if when they cut into your brain, they left it open so your mind would be on display for all of us to see. You have a mind for others, a desire to follow Jesus’ second command to love your neighbor as yourself.
Which brings me back to your strength; a good way to end, since I had this all wrong for most of my life. You see, the truth is that you were a mythic being to me because of your strength. You could hike for hours, work long weeks, ride the Ramrod race, bench press the entire stack of weights on the machine while Adam stood on them. I thought this proved that you were strong. I was wrong. You are strong, but it turns out your physical strength has nothing to do with any of it. You have shown your strength in your courage. You have shown it in the way you never give up. You have shown it in the way you continue to fight back; going for walks, doing small exercises, forcing yourself to get up rather than have somebody get something for you. Most of all, though, it is in the way you have let Christ be strong where you are weak. That is what makes you stronger than any man I have ever met.
Since I shared my worst life moment in this letter, I’ll end by sharing one of the best moments of my life. It was Christmas of last year. As usual Mom had made a massive Christmas breakfast. The tree was packed with gifts, but not even your grandkids seemed to notice. This was a time for all of us as a family to be together. It felt hopeful and happy.
Do you remember what happened next? You tried to pray for our meal, but you couldn’t do it. At that moment I learned many things. It suddenly felt okay for my tears to be my prayers. What else can I say to God these days? It was also the first time when all of this started coming together for me and I could see just what God has used these trials to shape you into. Not that I believe He wanted you to go through all of this, but I think that He did want you to grow closer to Him during these terrible times. And you have.
On that Christmas day, the day we celebrate the greatest gift of all, I saw how blessed I have been. You are a gift to my life. You have loved the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, will all your mind, and with all your soul. And that love has spilled out into your life, making your love for the rest of us so obvious. As it turns out, that is what makes you my hero.
I love you Dad. Thank-you for the gift that is you.
Your Son,
Matt
Dad,
For months I have struggled to come up with what I could ever possibly write to you. My actions typically show my heart more than my words, which is something I believe I learned from you. Nonetheless, I have tried to put down on paper some of the stories and thoughts that will hopefully show what you mean to me.
For most of my life, you have been like a mythic hero. You were like the men from old tales, half man and half god. Like Hercules invading Troy or even Paul Bunyon chopping down trees with one swing of his axe. To this day, you are still that man to me.
I remember the first time I ever went up Norse Peak. You woke us up early and I sat in sleepy silence as you drove us up to the mountains. When I emerged from the car, my eyes still blurry with the last night’s dreams, I recall looking up Norse Peak and wondering if maybe I had made a mistake. After all, we may have some Norwegian in us, but this Norse thing sounded like the real deal. Not to mention that anything with the word “peak” in its title is probably not messing around. I mean, the name alone has some very intimidating qualities. The unwarned hiker with a loose imagination could easily find himself trudging up the long switchbacks with nothing in his head but fearful curiosity, wondering whether or not bloodthirsty Vikings are waiting at the top.
It was a fitting place for you to take us, I suppose. That hike turned out to be as mythic as you have always been for me. As we ascended the mountain, I was continually given new views of the places you had raised us in. Crystal Mountain, the cabin area, Mount Rainier, they were all there as usual, only different. I was looking from a different direction, but it was more than that; it was the first time in my life I was able to start seeing things from your angle. Those old stories you had told me growing up were becoming my own. I was entering into the mythic land and tales in which I could never tell where fact ended and fiction began.
The mythology my mind had created around you only grew when we came over the crest and onto Norse Peak. You had taken us into a hidden Eden, where deer, elk and mountain goats run through the forests and camp robbers will eat from your hands! I half expected you to begin jumping from peak to peak or chase an elk down on foot. After all, I had no notion of your limits. You had carried more on your back than the rest of us, but it didn’t seem to faze you. You had taken us into a foreign wilderness, yet you could continually point out all the sights; Government Meadow, where the Tin Shack was, the Crow’s Nest, the old man on the hill, Martinson Gap. I had trespassed onto Mount Olympus, but the gods would not send their lightening bolts down when one of their own was my guide. So we pressed on.
That night we stayed at the Crow’s Nest. Who would have imagined our family having a hidden cabin in the middle of a wilderness area? You showed us the enormous claw marks from when a bear had gotten inside one winter. You told us stories of friends shooting mice from their bunks. And that night we walked down to the outskirts of the meadow and watched an enormous bull elk graze. How is it that you could always find elk? I began to wonder if the animals knew you by name. I half-expected you to sneak out and have a talk with them later in the evening.
Maybe you did.
The imaginary world I created around you began early. Your cement business, with all of its big rigs and big talking employees, sealed the deal for me at a young age. Don’t think for one second I will ever forget the days you would pay me to come “work for you for the day.” As I recall, this “work” consisted in me sitting around outside, breaking apart rocks with a hammer to see if there were fossils inside. I loved it. But I loved riding in the trucks even more.
As a child, especially a young child, anything that sets you apart and draws attention to you feels good. Take, for instance, the occurrence when I was in preschool and you dropped me off in your cement truck. I remember to this day all of those little hands and faces pushed up against the glass, looking at us. I was glad for the attention, as most kids would be. But I was even more thrilled with the knowledge that other kids were able to see my dad. They were getting a small glimpse of something that I was able to experience every day; a dad who could continually make you stop and press your dirty little face and hands to the window and say “Wow”. That’s what heroes cause us to do. When they show up, everyone stops to take notice.
Loving the Lord your God…
The worst moment of my life took place on a dark, rainy night in Marysville. I called Mom right after she found out you had cancer. That word. I never imagined we would say it in our household. It was never even on the radar. It’s for smokers and drinkers, or people who breathe in bad chemicals at work. It’s for people, not demi-gods and heroes. You don’t read of one of Zeus’ children needing to drive down to the nearest city for radiation treatments. It doesn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen.
But it did.
Everything we had taken for granted was now going to be put to the test. Even more frightening was the realization that you were going to be pushed like never before, and we were going to see who you really were. The strongest man I have ever known was about to be challenged in ways that Norse Peak could not begin to measure up to.
Ten days later, it was Easter. You were supposed to come up to Bellingham, but were just too tired, so we came down. They had given you your first dose of chemo, a wonderful drug that would simultaneously kill you and the cancer, but hopefully the cancer would go quicker. What a terrible day. It was Resurrection Day, but death’s sting was everywhere. When you weren’t upstairs in bed, you sat outside with your head in your hands, too tired to even lift your head and talk.
How could Easter ever be the same again?
Not long before the original Easter occurred, Jesus was asked a question often asked of religious leaders of his time; “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment.” The text makes it seem as if Jesus doesn’t hesitate before answering, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, will all your mind, and with all your soul.” I have to be honest here; I never really got this passage. I mean, does he really need to stretch this out, or could he have cut a couple of these different ways of loving?
Slowly, coming out of your bad Easter, you began to show me the truth of this passage, and why Jesus needed to include four different ways of loving God.
They gave you chemotherapy for a short amount of time, just to make sure it would work. Then they cut. And they cut big. A long, deep slice down your chest. Along with a massive tumor and a chunk of lung, they took some of your heart. How could you continue to love the Lord your God with all your heart when you no longer had all your heart? Not to sound greedy, but how could you love me with all your heart when it was not all there anymore? Yes, I know love does not literally come from the organ we call the heart, yet it’s hard not to believe that our metaphorical heart will be changed when a surgeon is cutting up our literal heart like a Thanksgiving turkey.
When you went in for your first appointment after being found cancer-free, for some reason I wasn’t worried. And everything turned out fine. But that second time, nothing felt right. I didn’t sleep right for days. I worried too much, and didn’t pray enough. Sure enough, the cancer was back. And it was, among other places, in your brain. Soon, they were shaving your head, cutting into your scalp and skull. Brain surgery; on a different day, under a different set of circumstances, it might have been humorous. Actually, with the way our family works, we still made it humorous. But it was different. We still found joy in strange places like only our family can, but now it had an edge to it. I wondered how you could love the Lord your God with all your mind, when they had sliced into your brain and tried to steal some of it from you.
I began to long for you to just have peace. My secret desire had been to escape with you up Norse Peak and to hide out at Martinson Gap, where they couldn’t give you any more bad news and things could just go back to the way they were. It still is.
Instead, they took away your strength. I like to say “they” as if doctors and nurses did all this bad stuff to you. Yes, it was the cancer, along with chemo and radiation, but it just feels better to have people to blame rather than something inside of you. I have watched you get skinnier as muscles are replaced with skin and bone. I’ve seen you get frustrated over all of it. I would gladly give you every ounce of muscle and fat in my body, but instead I get to helplessly watch you and only wish to have something adequate to offer. And I wonder if my dad can love the Lord with all his strength, when he no longer has all of his strength.
And I get mad. And sad. And I go for weeks refusing to pray because I hate all of this and don’t feel like it is too much to ask for health and life and for a good man to be restored to all of us. But I can’t stay angry. I can’t be angry, because you aren’t angry.
The truth is, for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m seeing your soul. I never knew how great it was until now. Your soul is kind and generous. It was your soul that made the meadows and hills of the Norse Peak wilderness magical for me. The way you spoke and looked and loved made it something greater than it would have been without you there. It is your soul that would cause you to seek out people who have recently been diagnosed with cancer so you can encourage them to not give up. It is your soul that causes you to look to God when so many would choose to be bitter with Him. When I began to understand this, everything else started falling into place.
I realize now that no surgeon’s scalpel could ever diminish the love in your heart. You came out of that surgery talkative and smiling and being kind to all the nurses, doctors and family member you saw. Watching you hobble around that hospital to play with your brother right after your surgery brought to light just how amazing your heart really is. You brought joy to a sad place. Christ’s love shines through you in ways that no average person could create without Him living within them.
The Bible describes God’s love like a refining fire. When we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, as Paul writes, this happens because God helps us along through the refining process of transformation. In other words, God has to lead us through that rough road because there is no way we would choose to go down it on our own. I’ve seen evidence of your journey down that road in the way your mind now works. All of the same stuff was there before, but now it’s more obvious; the way you love your family, how much you care and are thankful for the people who stop by to visit you. It’s as if when they cut into your brain, they left it open so your mind would be on display for all of us to see. You have a mind for others, a desire to follow Jesus’ second command to love your neighbor as yourself.
Which brings me back to your strength; a good way to end, since I had this all wrong for most of my life. You see, the truth is that you were a mythic being to me because of your strength. You could hike for hours, work long weeks, ride the Ramrod race, bench press the entire stack of weights on the machine while Adam stood on them. I thought this proved that you were strong. I was wrong. You are strong, but it turns out your physical strength has nothing to do with any of it. You have shown your strength in your courage. You have shown it in the way you never give up. You have shown it in the way you continue to fight back; going for walks, doing small exercises, forcing yourself to get up rather than have somebody get something for you. Most of all, though, it is in the way you have let Christ be strong where you are weak. That is what makes you stronger than any man I have ever met.
Since I shared my worst life moment in this letter, I’ll end by sharing one of the best moments of my life. It was Christmas of last year. As usual Mom had made a massive Christmas breakfast. The tree was packed with gifts, but not even your grandkids seemed to notice. This was a time for all of us as a family to be together. It felt hopeful and happy.
Do you remember what happened next? You tried to pray for our meal, but you couldn’t do it. At that moment I learned many things. It suddenly felt okay for my tears to be my prayers. What else can I say to God these days? It was also the first time when all of this started coming together for me and I could see just what God has used these trials to shape you into. Not that I believe He wanted you to go through all of this, but I think that He did want you to grow closer to Him during these terrible times. And you have.
On that Christmas day, the day we celebrate the greatest gift of all, I saw how blessed I have been. You are a gift to my life. You have loved the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, will all your mind, and with all your soul. And that love has spilled out into your life, making your love for the rest of us so obvious. As it turns out, that is what makes you my hero.
I love you Dad. Thank-you for the gift that is you.
Your Son,
Matt
Monday, September 17, 2007
Losing My Dad
My dad passed away four days ago, on September 13th. It is an awe-inspiring event to be on the family side of a memorial and see how many people have come to remember and pay their respects to your father.
Thank-you to all of you who have offerred your prayers and support over the past few years as he fought and fought some more against cancer. He never gave up and fought until the end. I hope I can become that good of a man.
.
Some friends and family asked, so I have attached a letter I had written to him just a day before he passed. It sums him up rather well. You can read it here. And below is the video I made with my brothers for the memorial service.
Peace,
Matt
Monday, September 10, 2007
Madeleine L'Engle Dies
I just read this morning that Madeleine L'Engle passed away last Friday, September 7th. Her book, Walking on Water was not only life changing for me, but is probably the main reason why I remain in youth ministry. She wrote things like this:
"God is constantly creating, in us, through us, with us, and to co-create with God is our human calling."
"All life is story, story unravelling and revealing meaning."
"When I am grappling with ideas which are radical enough to upset grown-ups, then I am likely to put these ideas into a story which will be marketed for children, because children understand what their parents have rejected and forgotten."
"Each time an unexpected discovery is made in the world of knowledge, it shakes the religious establishment of the day. Now, we are often taught that it is unfaithful to question traditional religious beliefs, but I believe that we must question them continually - not God, not Christ, who are at the center of our lives as believers and creators - but what human beings say about God and about Christ; otherwise, like those of the church establishment of Galileo's day, we truly become God's frozen people. Galileo's discoveries did nothing whatsoever to change the nature of God; they threatened only man's rigid ideas of the nature of God. We must constantly be open to new revelation, which is another way of hearing God, with loving obedience."
"Success is one of the dirtiest temptations of the devil."
"Despite all our technology there is far more that we do not know than that we know, and the most terrible defect is our inability to tell right from wrong, to do horrible things for all the right reasons, and then to blunder inadvertently into doing something which turns out to be good. We try to make the loving, the creative decision, but we cannot know whether or not we are right."
What most inpired me in this particular book, but does not lend itself to a direct quote, is L'Engle describing how she wrote A Wrinkle in Time: to write her "children's book" she had to learn quantum physics and a load of theology. For a children's book? Yes. Because, as she wrote, a good children's book takes these very real, very deep realities and without boiling them down, puts them into a child's language. Yes! So this is what I try to do with youth ministry. I share what I'm learning with them. Kids have been changed and challenged by Miroslav Volf, NT Wright, Walter Brueggemann and more. The get it and want more of it! How great is that?
Thank-you Madeleine L'Engele for your contribution to our world and to my life and faith.
Peace,
Matt
"God is constantly creating, in us, through us, with us, and to co-create with God is our human calling."
"All life is story, story unravelling and revealing meaning."
"When I am grappling with ideas which are radical enough to upset grown-ups, then I am likely to put these ideas into a story which will be marketed for children, because children understand what their parents have rejected and forgotten."
"Each time an unexpected discovery is made in the world of knowledge, it shakes the religious establishment of the day. Now, we are often taught that it is unfaithful to question traditional religious beliefs, but I believe that we must question them continually - not God, not Christ, who are at the center of our lives as believers and creators - but what human beings say about God and about Christ; otherwise, like those of the church establishment of Galileo's day, we truly become God's frozen people. Galileo's discoveries did nothing whatsoever to change the nature of God; they threatened only man's rigid ideas of the nature of God. We must constantly be open to new revelation, which is another way of hearing God, with loving obedience."
"Success is one of the dirtiest temptations of the devil."
"Despite all our technology there is far more that we do not know than that we know, and the most terrible defect is our inability to tell right from wrong, to do horrible things for all the right reasons, and then to blunder inadvertently into doing something which turns out to be good. We try to make the loving, the creative decision, but we cannot know whether or not we are right."
What most inpired me in this particular book, but does not lend itself to a direct quote, is L'Engle describing how she wrote A Wrinkle in Time: to write her "children's book" she had to learn quantum physics and a load of theology. For a children's book? Yes. Because, as she wrote, a good children's book takes these very real, very deep realities and without boiling them down, puts them into a child's language. Yes! So this is what I try to do with youth ministry. I share what I'm learning with them. Kids have been changed and challenged by Miroslav Volf, NT Wright, Walter Brueggemann and more. The get it and want more of it! How great is that?
Thank-you Madeleine L'Engele for your contribution to our world and to my life and faith.
Peace,
Matt
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Read My Article at Relevant!
Relevant just published an article I wrote on their website. It's not that amazing, but it's the first time anybody has ever taken an interest in my writing, so I'm excited. Anyways, if you want to check it out, go here.
Show me the love!
Sidenote: first, it's lame to see that they misspelled my name. Seriously, who has the last name "Martinso"? Second, when I read it online yesterday, I realized that it could have definitely used a little polishing-up. Note to self; have somebody proof read what you write.
Peace,
Matt
Show me the love!
Sidenote: first, it's lame to see that they misspelled my name. Seriously, who has the last name "Martinso"? Second, when I read it online yesterday, I realized that it could have definitely used a little polishing-up. Note to self; have somebody proof read what you write.
Peace,
Matt
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Roommates for a Married Couple
Three days ago my sister-in-law moved in with us. She definitely isn't our first roommate. In fact, she's our fifth. Which doesn't seem like much to me, but I have begun to realize that this seems strange to some people. So I thought today would be as good of time as any to explain why we consistently have people living in our home.
First, it is a justice issue for me. The people who live with us are always in their early twenties, in that strange place where they are no longer kids but not making enough money to feel like an adult in American culture. In other words, they are struggling to keep their car running, afford health care, and figure out who they are while doing everything in their power to only have to work one job. So we try to help by offering extremely low rent and roommates that treat them like family rather than an annoying roommate.
Which brings me to the second reason; hospitality. My understanding of hospitality is that it is an opening of oneself. I believe this involves both the physical (a room to stay in) as well as the metaphysical (letting them into my family and my life). I believe our culture has led us to close ourselves off in ways that make scripture's call to hospitality nearly unintelligible. In her book High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver tells the story of her time in Spain, where strangers never act like strangers. If your child fell in the playground, they would come pick up the child and comfort it as if it were their own (Try doing this at your local playground and see what happens). We are moving into a hell of our own making, similar to the Hell painted by C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce, in which everybody lives in self-inflicted isolation, continually striving to move further and further away from one another. But there is another way. This is what hospitality leads us against. We are trying to paint our marriage in the image of God. How cool is that?
Third, having a roommate changes me. It holds me accountable for what I say when I'm at home. It brings different perspectives into our house that I don't hear as often (my last roommate, for instance, was engaged to a nice guy who is also in the National Guard). I get the opportunity to speak into another persons life, and the opportunity to have them speak into mine. It is honestly a great opportunity.
And lastly, I am a homeowner. I struggled long and hard with this theologically. I still do, actually. But the one thing I knew right away was that if we were going to own something this expensive, it had better be used for the glory of God. This has turned us into constant hosts (when we're home, which is not too often, our house very often has guests), as well as an ever-expanding family with each new roommate.
It is great, and I highly recommend it.
Peace,
Matt
First, it is a justice issue for me. The people who live with us are always in their early twenties, in that strange place where they are no longer kids but not making enough money to feel like an adult in American culture. In other words, they are struggling to keep their car running, afford health care, and figure out who they are while doing everything in their power to only have to work one job. So we try to help by offering extremely low rent and roommates that treat them like family rather than an annoying roommate.
Which brings me to the second reason; hospitality. My understanding of hospitality is that it is an opening of oneself. I believe this involves both the physical (a room to stay in) as well as the metaphysical (letting them into my family and my life). I believe our culture has led us to close ourselves off in ways that make scripture's call to hospitality nearly unintelligible. In her book High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver tells the story of her time in Spain, where strangers never act like strangers. If your child fell in the playground, they would come pick up the child and comfort it as if it were their own (Try doing this at your local playground and see what happens). We are moving into a hell of our own making, similar to the Hell painted by C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce, in which everybody lives in self-inflicted isolation, continually striving to move further and further away from one another. But there is another way. This is what hospitality leads us against. We are trying to paint our marriage in the image of God. How cool is that?
Third, having a roommate changes me. It holds me accountable for what I say when I'm at home. It brings different perspectives into our house that I don't hear as often (my last roommate, for instance, was engaged to a nice guy who is also in the National Guard). I get the opportunity to speak into another persons life, and the opportunity to have them speak into mine. It is honestly a great opportunity.
And lastly, I am a homeowner. I struggled long and hard with this theologically. I still do, actually. But the one thing I knew right away was that if we were going to own something this expensive, it had better be used for the glory of God. This has turned us into constant hosts (when we're home, which is not too often, our house very often has guests), as well as an ever-expanding family with each new roommate.
It is great, and I highly recommend it.
Peace,
Matt
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