The essays in this file were first published between July and Dec. 2008. The topics I covered, as well as specific literature I referenced, are indexed in the file “July to December 2008 Index”. I have published the index to help readers look up items of particular interest.
Essay One
Arts! Shvarts!
by Teri Ong
I am going to be teaching a course next semester on Puritan literature and art (yes, there was some!). Knowing that about me would give you a clue that I am not heavily vested in the modern or post-modern eras in terms of art history and appreciation. I could probably be described as “an old dinosaur,” a Lewis-esque term, in regard to what I truly like in music, literature, and art.
I don’t subscribe to the “old is automatically better” school of thought, but it is probable that the better artworks have been preserved over many years or centuries, while a good percentage of the mediocre and mundane have been lost, forgotten, or destroyed. It is unlikely that some piece of abstract sculpture formed out of a movie star’s dryer lint will be preserved with the same vigor as the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. On a personal level, I assume my children and grandchildren will be more careful to preserve my grandmother’s “Scenes After Constable” china, than they will be to preserve my “Old Town Blue” Corningware. My point is that a higher percentage of the old works are better because they have already been through many years of evaluation and selection.
When I hear in an academic presentation, as I did last summer, that contemporary people don’t patronize traditional art museums because they don’t like all of those larger-than-life haughty, white, European males (or their wives and off-spring) looking down at them from the wall of the gallery, I dissent. For one thing, it has always seemed pretty crowded to me whenever I have taken a group of students to the National Gallery in London. An awful lot of people seem to be there appreciating a fair cross-section of the canon of western art– everything from Giotto to Picasso.
On the other hand, when the tour boat commentators on the Thames point out the Tate Modern gallery and joke about it being free because no one would pay to get in, I laugh along with everyone else on the boat. Who, indeed, would pay to see “sculpture” made of moldy bread or crumpled paper, or unmade beds, piles of litter, or moth-eaten suits? Most of us don’t need to go to a gallery event to see those kinds of things; all we have to do is clean out our garage, basement, or the back of the fridge.
At least, the suits of clothing one sees in the National Gallery will never be moth-eaten. And they are stunningly painted! Even if you don’t care a bit about the history of old Lord Whosits or Lady Whatsits, anyone with eyes that can see should be able to appreciate the individually painted pearls, the delicately shaded lace, the sumptuously textured velvets, and glistening brocades crafted by artists of incredible talent and skill with pigments in two dimensions on enormous pieces of canvas. Amazing! Then there’s the Canaletto room where the pictures of Venice are so detailed and so historically accurate that they have been used to calculate how much certain Venetian buildings have sunk in the last two hundred years. I have sat for long periods of time trying to absorb the brightness and beauty of those paintings– they are so vivacious and exude the joie de vivre and variety of everyday life.
Almost all of my experience with post-modern “performance” art has been vicarious– I feel safer that way. My personal moral space is less likely to be violated by the crass, crude, and downright obscene if I stick to reading reviews and critiques. For a masterful handling of one of the latest artistic atrocities, I thank World Magazine, which recently reported on the scandalous work of Aliza Shvarts.
Shvarts perpetrated her perverse performance as a student in the art department at Yale University. I will not defile you by describing her artwork in detail, but it involved supposed by-products of perverse sexual activities in a graphic multi-media presentation. She explained that her goal is to show that “normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist, and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are “meant” to do from their physical capability…” Such mythology is the source of oppression, according to the standard line from the skewed worldview she has been taught to believe. (See World Magazine references)
The real elitists in the art world are not those looking down on us from the walls in some traditional gallery, they are the ones winking and bumping elbows as they watch the “shock and awe” created by Shvarts’ artistic bomb. How bold! How meaningful! How original!
The man on the street may not understand the tenets of post-modern deconstructionism (1. Truth claims are fiction, 2. Totalizing discourses are to be rejected, 3. Liberation comes through rebellion), but he understands that Shvarts’ “art” is hideous and perverse. He understands that the nihilistic philosophy portrayed by it is about as original as mass produced floor tiles. He understands that the truly “bold” thing to do is to say that the post-modern art emperor has no clothes. He understands that even an Elvis on Black Velvet has more artistic merit, since not a few people actually enjoy looking at them.
Dorothy L. Sayers, in The Mind of the Maker, explains a Trinitarian model for artistry. She argues persuasively that true art requires an un-imaged idea or experience in the mind of the artist for which he must make up a design; the design must then be skillfully fleshed out or expressed in a concrete and creative way; through that concrete expression an audience will be able to recognize the truth of the artist’s idea. I see the three phases as design, craftsmanship, and communication.
Since the 1960’s, and with increasing intensity since the turn of the millennium, design has been replaced with “concept”, skilled craftsmanship has been replaced with staging and spectacle, and communication has turned into manipulation. Shvarts’ literal “bloody mess” is a prime example.
Many years ago the president of St. Benedictus College told an auditorium full of students, including this one, “If they tell you it’s art, and you don’t think it’s art, don’t believe them!” Notice, he didn’t say, “ if you don’t feel it’s art.” Valid evaluation requires a thought process. “I like it” or “I don’t like it” won’t hold up. There are probably some of those elitist winkers and bumpers who would at least say they like Shvarts’ work.
But think about it– Did her work require design? Hardly! Smearing blood on white plastic does not require a schematic or even a rough sketch. Does it evidence skilled craftsmanship? Crassly put, cats and dogs in heat make messes too. Does it communicate truth? It does communicate the depravity of the human heart and give evidence to the truth of what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:18-32. However, it doesn’t communicate that truth by the artist’s intent.
Perpetrations of supposed art are ubiquitous in today’s society. When you experience one, stop and think, before you believe!
References:
(1)“Sex & Lies,” World Magazine, May 17/24, 2008, p. 24.
(2)Veith, Gene Edward. “Art Lessens,” World Magazine, May 31/June 7, 2008, p. 37.
Essay Two
Name Calling
by Teri Ong
I have been incommunicado for about a month now because I have been away from home more than I have been at home, and my road duties precluded much writing. Just about the time we went on the road, a retired political science teacher from the University of Northern Colorado wrote a column in our local Greeley Tribune bemoaning how the conservatives in Colorado have made an epithet out of the term “Boulder Liberal.” He went on to explain that liberal was a badge of honor; after all, the founding fathers had all been liberals. Liberal is related to liberty, which we all know means freedom. The modern day liberal movement is all about freedom– the freedom for all of us to band together and make a better collective society.
After accusing conservative (i.e. Republicans) of vicious name-calling, he engaged in a little bit of it himself. He called conservatives “reactionaries” and described them as quintessentially selfish.
His piece demanded a response. I know a little bit about classical liberalism, and I also know that classical liberalism does not reside in the Democratic party or any other modern American political group that calls itself liberal. Liberalism has shape-shifted into something the founding fathers would have abhorred– moral libertine-ism and a god-like state that can take whatever it wants from you for the good of whoever promises the most loyal obeisance. What follows here is my response, which was published as a guest column in the Greeley Tribune on Sunday, June 22, on page AA7. I called it “Free to Be Conservative”; they called it
“Definition of Liberalism Seriously Outdated”
Until I looked it up the other day, I didn’t know that there are over 30 definitions given for the word “liberal” and all its derivatives down through “liberty.” No, “sinister” wasn’t among them. But it did strike me that some of the definitions more closely describe 21st century liberalism than others. These all come from Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary.
“Generous and open handed”: I would have to say that this is very descriptive of American liberals. The catch, however, is that they are generous and openhanded with “government” money, rather than their own. Not very many seem to realize that the government doesn’t produce anything, so to get money it must take it from citizens. When the liberals are being generous with money they have liberated from my pocket, it doesn’t seem to me that they have given me more freedom to spend it the way I want. But perhaps they have given me freedom from money.
“Lacking moral restraint, not bound by traditional forms”: The liberal minds in the Colorado State Legislature were so concerned about the people who don’t know which restroom to use that they made a law allowing anyone to use any facility they want. Why be bound by traditional signs on doors? I guess they have given me freedom from using public facilities, since I don’t want to worry about who I’ll meet in one. [author’s note for out-of-state readers: S.B. 200 allows public restrooms and public locker rooms to be non-gender-specific, ostensibly so as not to discriminate against the trans-gendered population.]
“A theory in economics based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard”: This one doesn’t quite fit our modern liberal friends. In fact, we’d have to go all the way back to the Founding Fathers for this one– true classical liberalsཀ The last things 21st century liberals want are these things. Just in the 2008 legislative session we got more regulation of oil and gas (That will help free up supplyཀ), more freedom for unions to take money and spend it in ways workers may not want, and a plethora of bureaucratic fees liberally raised without regard to actual cost of services.
“A political theory based on the autonomy of the individual”: Sorry, this one doesn’t fit either. Modern liberalism is heavily invested in determining what is good for everyone and forcing everyone to be “good.” How many autonomous individuals at the Democratic National Convention this summer will be sipping their Cokes from disposable plastic cups or eating their burgers and trans-fatty fries? No, they will all, with one accord, be eating their multi-colored vegetables off of china plates that have to be washed with thousands of gallons of precious western water.
By the way– I looked up “conservative” too. “Reactionary” was not a listed meaning. Webster says a conservative “adheres to traditional norms of taste…methods or views…to keep in a sound state or condition.” I am a conservative– I still believe in freedom based on American traditions of self-determination and personal responsibility. Some things shouldn’t be changed.
A Final Note
There is nothing wrong with name calling as long as the name accurately reflects the character of the named. Even names spat out with abusive intent may be accurate, and may eventually come to be appreciated as such. For example, “Christian”, or “little Christs”, was first used derisively. Likewise, the term “puritan” was used against those Christians in England who stood, often at great personal cost, for the purity of Christ’s church.
We are told to ask God for things based on His name– that is, based on the character of God. We acknowledge that character when we refer to God Almighty or Holy Father. Things we ask for need to be in line with His might and his holiness.
Problems arise when name callers don’t understand the real significance of the name they are using. When that happens, we have an excellent opportunity to disabuse them of their erroneous ideas.
Caption
“One of my names is Conservative.”
Essay Three
The War of the Words
by Teri Ong
Researchers have determined that women need to generate 4 times as many words as men, on average. It is a good thing that I do not feel compelled to keep track and generate 4 times as many words as my husband. He– a preacher– has been given the spiritual “gift of the gab.” There would not be enough time or legitimate opportunity in 24 hours to quadruple his output. I do, however, get in my fair share. Freedom of conversation was one of the things that drew us to each other 30 years ago.
In conversation, there are three identified levels of concern: people, events, and ideas, with talk about people being the lowest form and talk about ideas being the highest. Some have mistaken me for being rather a cold fish because I am generally more interested in talking about ideas than I am in chatting about people and the circumstances of their lives. (As a mother of seven children and grandmother of two, I have plenty of involvement in the circumstances of life of certain people.) But on the whole, society is obsessed with gossip about people. Witness the popularity of People magazine, the tabloids, and gossip shows on TV. Why would so many magazines, even news magazines, have celebrities on their covers? (Because they sell!) Look at Oprah– identified as the number one culture maker in our country– her picture is on her magazine every single month.
As Americans have drifted away from reason toward emotion as the basis of evaluating truth, words have become less important and pictures and images have become more important. The implications and reasons for this shift can be debated, but few would deny that it has happened. [see notes in References below] Two examples in the culture war come to mind: MTV (based on sensual/sensate images designed to arouse feelings) and conservative talk radio (no images, only words about large scale political and social ideas designed to provoke thought).
Technology has increased the output of both words and pictures in society. Until the printing press, writers and artists were restricted to single copies produced by hand. With the invention of the printing press, multiple copies could be produced quickly and with less investment of time and money, but the cost was often prohibitive and printing was in the hands of skilled tradesmen who made large investments in equipment.
During the early 70’s, when I was in high school , our journalism department moved from contracting out the school newspaper to a specialized print shop every other week, to printing on “insty-print” offset presses in the school print shop twice a week. What we wouldn’t have done for all of the computerized E-quipment available for in-house newsletters today! We could have produced the school paper every day of the week! But today, news is not even daily– it’s minute-by-minute. And anybody can sit around in their jammies and post written pieces, photographs, films, music videos– anything they want– on the internet, and almost for free, have an expectation of world-wide distribution.
This is not the first time in history that an explosion in technology has had ramifications in a culture war. In the 1600’s, English society saw unparalleled upheavals as royalists and republicans slugged it out physically and metaphorically over whether their government was going to be top down (royalist) or bottom up (republican). Historian Nigel Smith wrote, “The sinews of communication made the [English] Civil War possible, and, beyond the level of brute force, communication and authority were fought over and disputed until the end of the century. Moreover, as the most fixed and daunting structures of the external world– monarchy, Lords, church– crumbled, so the internal pillars of thought crumbled.” (P.1)
In his book Literature and Revolution in England: 1640-1660, Smith argues, “It is my contention that literature was part of the crisis and the revolution, and was at its epicenter. Never before in English history had written and printed literature played such a predominant role in public affairs, and never before had it been felt by contemporaries to be of such importance: there had never before been anything to compare with this war of words. It was an information revolution.” (P. 1)
What Smith identifies as a “war of words” was so intense that the monarchy at various times sought to control certain types of communications. In the 1620’s and 1630’s James I and Charles I (“Big Government”!) tried to stifle means that were used to criticize their regimes. When the Commonwealth failed and the monarchy was reestablished in 1660, the “Act of Indemnity and Oblivion” was enacted as a method of forcing political unity. It stated, “Anyone who shall presume maliciously to call or allege of, or object against any other person or persons any name or names, or other words of reproach tending to revive the memory of the late differences or occasions thereof, shall be punished with fines.” (P. 1) Evidently too many people were engaging in what the king saw as “the politics of personal destruction.”
This is eerily similar to modern day American attempts to hush up one side or the other: witness, hate crimes legislation, the “Fairness” doctrine, campaign finance reform, and a host of attempts to regulate the internet.
Just today I read a column by Gene Policinski (executive director of the First Amendment Center) entitled, “More fences springing up to restrain the wild wild web”. He details a variety of diverse groups such as the US Supreme Court, the Missouri Legislature, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and their attempts to block certain kinds of e-mail and language on live broadcasts, to bring libel suits against bloggers and to restrict what bloggers can reproduce from news organizations. “Nostalgia and romantic notions didn’t stop the fencing in of the vision of a wild, open country. For good or bad, a combination of legislation, court decisions, self-imposed restrictions and private vendor rules are creating limits in and around the Web’s wide-open speech country in much the same fashion.”
Smith wrote, “When something as cataclysmic as the English Civil War and Revolution occurs, a massive destabilisation in the order of meaning is engendered. That there were so many words enhanced the sense of this, and it was a time which many acknowledged as a collective loss of reason.” (P. 362) In the current election cycle, we are seeing more clearly the cumulative effects of a similar collective loss of reason. Rush Limbaugh expresses it as “symbolism” (visual, emotional) over “substance” (ideological, rational). It goes back to that whole idea of people and events vs. ideas.
Star Parker, columnist for Scripps Howard News Service, points out that Republicans and Democrats alike are dissatisfied with “the state of their country”; 70% are unhappy with president and 90% unhappy with congress. That is pretty cataclysmic! “What also is happening is we are witnessing a phenomenon that, at least for the time being, is personal– not ideological.” She continues, “So the election is about change. It’s not ideology. It’s personal. And those who care about limited government and traditional values should be worried.” Our important presidential race is between Obama with 71% public visibility and McCain with 11% visibility.
Someone years ago uttered the truism, “One picture is worth a thousand words.” Pictures are, however, limited. One can photograph people and events, but one cannot photograph ideas. And pictures do need captions. When there is no caption, a picture may not be understood at all or may be misunderstood. It may evoke inappropriate emotions because it was not understood in context. So the need for words to go with our pictures is as great today as ever. During the English Civil War, Smith acknowledges, “As usual with governmental attempts to regulate language, the legislation did not work.” We should pray that attempts to regulate free speech, particularly political speech will be as ineffective today as they were 400 years ago. And we need to keep fighting hard and smart in the war of the words.
P.S. Our heart goes out to the family of Tony Snow, a fallen soldier in the War of the Words. May someone worthy step up to carry on the fight!
References:
(1)See: Hunt, Arthur W. III. The Vanishing Word: The Veneration of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2003.
(2)I personally attribute the shift from verbal to visual to two things:
1. Uncertainty of epistemology: post-modern relativism causes many to believe that there is no objective truth to be known rationally. Hence, we can only truly know how we feel. Visual images evoke feelings preeminently and are trusted as true.
2. Declining national character– i.e. laziness, selfish desire for ease. Studies have shown that alpha waves are produced in the brain during tv watching, making the brain more inactive watching tv than during sleep. We watch in a deep sleep with little ability to think critically about what we see.
(3)Smith, Nigel. Literature and Revolution in England: 1640-1660. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
(4) Parker, Star. “Change in party should have Republicans worried”. The Truth (Elkhart, Indiana), Monday, July 14, 2008, page A4, columns 4,5,6.
(5)Policinski, Gene. “More fences springing up to restrain wild wild web.” The Truth (Elkhart, Indiana), Tuesday, July 15, 2008, page A4, columns 1,2,3.
Essay Four
Dying to Live
by Teri Ong
Art theorist Calvin Seerveld has said, “An art object is the objectified presentation of certain other meanings which a subjective artist has crafted so that its very being-there is of a ‘symbolical’ quality– allusiveness permeates its whole existence.” 1 The best visual, literary, or musical art alludes to something deeper than what is on the surface. It draws us in, hopefully into some aspect of eternal truth.
I had occasion recently to write a letter to a student who tragically lost his mother to a fast, severe, and disfiguring cancer last March. His mother was a friend of mine. Revisiting her death made me revisit my own bout with cancer (and mortality) 20 years ago as well as the death of my father a couple years ago. As someone said, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die to get there.”
Back to my point about art being allusive– One of the most poignant and powerful truths that artists have alluded to over the centuries is the ultimacy of death. Many metaphors have been used. John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress concludes with Christian and his friends and family crossing the river with varying degrees of difficulty to reach the Celestial City. The metaphor of ending one’s journey on the other side of a river has been echoed by many poets and hymn writers as in “Deep River” or “I Won’t Have to Cross Jordan Alone.”
C. S. Lewis chose to have the beloved character Reepicheep sail off alone into the unknown seas at the world’s end to his final destiny. The scene is one of hopefulness tinged with the sadness of leaving loved ones behind. Lewis also used the metaphor of life after death being the beginning of the new story that no one has ever heard before in The Last Battle.
St. Paul and Jesus used the metaphor of sleep (I Corinthians 15:51 and John 11). The “metaphysical poets” (Donne, Herbert et al) explored the topic of death is a variety of ways that we will come back to at some later date.
Here are two other metaphors to ponder.
“New Birth”
A spiritual babe is conceived
In a womb of flesh: he believed.
Contained in a body, he grows,
Fed by what the Parent bestows.
Confined in dark obscurity,
Content in his security,
The Father’s voice, far off, he knows,
And always, and ever, he grows.
The time in the womb grows long;
Seventy years– more, if he’s strong.
Now movement, now pressure, now pain;
Not long in the womb to remain!
Labor; intense, uncertain, long!
He emerges more fit and strong.
From that small place, he is now free,
The larger to grow, clearer see.
The empty womb, does one mourn?
Not when a man is timely born!
Born from the womb in which confined,
Born to the life for which designed.
–Teri Ong January 2005
“Moving Day”
The curtains are drawn,
The lights are off,
The tenant is gone;
I know that.
I know where she went–
She owns a home;
While here she paid rent,
But not now.
I turn now to leave
The empty house.
She’s gone, I believe,
Not so far.
We knew when she said
The time had come,
She’d go on ahead
A short way.
Now come to my mind
Jobs yet to do;
I’ll follow behind
Tomorrow.
Teri Ong –2007
Reference
(1) Calvin Seerveld, “Human Responses to Art: Good, Bad, and Indifferent,” in Venster Op Die Kunste, B.J. van der Walt (ed.), Potchefstroom, Republic of South Africa: Instituut vir Reformatoriese Studie, 1994, p. 67.
Essay Five
Yard Work
by Teri Ong
We have been on the road a lot this year. We have made several long road trips to visit family and attend conferences. My husband says it is the irony of God that we are spending more time in the car during the time that gasoline is at its highest price! But we have also seen God provide in gracious ways.
While we have been perusing the countryside, another kind of irony has struck me. We have passed many beautiful homes, mostly scattered across “fly-over” country, that are surrounded by all sorts of unsightly junk and debris. I am not talking about ordinary farm equipment or even barns and sheds in close proximity to living quarters. My grandparents were farmers, and I understand that having things close at hand is good common sense.
I am talking about JUNK and DEBRIS of major proportions that swamp the effect of a beautiful house in an otherwise idyllic setting!
This set me to thinking.
A few years ago I had to speak on an assigned topic at a ladies’ retreat. All of us were assigned a particular “room” to discuss based on the devotional classic, “My Heart, Christ’s Home.” That experience led me to think, during all those long hours in the car, about an extension of that old metaphor.
Here are the results:
“Yard Work”
My heart is Christ’s home, I have no doubt.
He’s moved into each room and swept them all out.
He’s taken the cupboards, and even each drawer;
He’s searched them and cleaned them, then cleaned them some more.
Now all have a view (to say it is hard),
Of my beautiful house in a junk-filled yard.
I’ve got barns and sheds dilapidate,
And piles and bins innumerate,
Of stockpiled thoughts and habits of mind.
In long buried trunks, what more will I find?
A rusty old pile of recycled sin,
That’s been there so long, where do I begin?
The weight of the work I can’t contemplate!
Do I clean up the junk, or evacuate?
Not having the time to evaluate,
Makes me happy to hedge and procrastinate.
Then Christ comes and says, “I’ll clean the yard too.
There’s a simple solution– easy to do.
“My fire can burn your wood, hay, and stubble,
As well as your trash and worthless rubble.”
Lord, pile it up– I’ll stand here and watch,
As you douse it with Oil and strike the match.
TLO- 2008
Remember– after the spring housecleaning comes the summer yard work! Then, hopefully, in the fall comes the harvest!
(caption) A motivational picture!
Essay Six
A Summer Ramble
by Teri Ong
Lately I have had a lot of time to think about things and no time to write about things. Someone wrote a book for people “who think too much.” That probably describes me. But there is just so much time to think when you are scrubbing the shower or folding the wash.
One of my thought provoking summer reads was a book by one of C. S. Lewis’ god-sons, who described how his father delighted in going on long walking tours with Lewis and other friends. Sometimes the walking parties ended up where they set out to go and sometimes they did not. It didn’t really matter– the journey in their case was more important than the destination.
If you will permit, I will take you on a summer ramble for a bit. You will have to decide if it is a walk through the forest or a walk through the trees. Hopefully it will not be a walk through the briar patch. Or, since I am writing this from Colorado, a bike ride through the goat head thorns.
Generally, when I read a book, I read it thoroughly from front to back including all prefaces and forewords, and even the table of contents. I think my practice is rather like reading through the Mapquest instructions before leaving the driveway. But I have most recently been reading a delightful book that really doesn’t need a map to get me from point A to point B. It is more like a delicious sampler box of chocolates that has the diagram showing you what’s what, but you can just grab anything out of the box without looking because they are all good. That book is The Quotable Oswald Chambers compiled and edited by our friend David McCasland. He has done a wonderful job of filling the beautiful and inviting box with delectable bites.
I was particularly delighted to read, “It is a striking indication of the trend and shallowness of the modern reading public that George MacDonald’s books have been so neglected.” (P.33) I have spent a lot of time with MacDonald this summer, since I was privileged to present a paper on the parabolic nature of MacDonald’s writing at the International Institute for Christian Studies’ annual conference in July. If it was true, as Chambers said, that MacDonald, a best-selling author in his day, was neglected a mere 10 years after his death, how much more so today, 103 years hence! And I agree with Chambers– it is regrettable that few know of him or read his books. But it is not mysterious.
One of my literature students tackled the topic, “Why has MacDonald disappeared from the canon of western (and even British) literature?” She astutely theorized that a reader can only fully appreciate MacDonald if he or she has a basic understanding of the Bible because his writing is full of allusive material and Christian principles, even though MacDonald didn’t set out to write for a Christian niche market. There really wasn’t such a thing in the Victorian era, but society in general was less secularized than it is today. The only books that get much attention today are his fantasies and fairy tales. I theorize that this is so for two primary reasons: 1) because they are highly valued and praised by C. S. Lewis, who is still a best selling author, and 2) because people will more readily accept an aura of spirituality in the context of a non-realistic story. But even in the fairy tales, MacDonald is able to make you think about eternal things, whether or not you set out to do so.
A third one of my summer reads is a 2008 book called George MacDonald: Literary Heritage and Heirs. I was happy to see it, and also to talk to a professor from Bryan College who is interested in MacDonald, because more people reading MacDonald translates into more people challenged to call Jesus Lord and to do the things He commanded us to do. But the book of critical essays went a little overboard trying to source MacDonald to all sorts of bizarre mythologies and obscure historical references. Most of MacDonald’s works can be understood by reading him broadly and thus being immersed in his passion to present a loving Father who wants to burn away all of the things in our life that are not in conformity to the beautiful image of His Son.
In a crucial letter to his father, written April 11, 1847, he expresses the heart concerns that would be the fundamental theme of all of his later works. To not understand this about him, will be to miss the point.
“…I trust however God has been leading me in His own mercy– incomprehensible; and I feel as if I could be of use in his vineyard, from the difficult paths in which I have been led. I love my Bible more. I am always finding out something new in it. I seem to have has everything to learn over again from the beginning. All my teaching in youth seems to be useless to me. I must get it all from the Bible again and yet how often am I impatient with it as if it were a task and anxious to get to something else. I have of late seen more of a necessity of studying Christ’s character, and I am in the habit of reading the gospels every day. That seems the only thing that helps me to overcome my temper, and be patient. This seems to give a ground work for the Epistles tp build upon. If the gospel of Jesus be not true, I can only pray my maker to annihilate me, for nothing else is worth living for– and if that be true, everything in the universe is glorious, except sin.”
I include here the pictures I used in my presentation that will perhaps inspire you to pick up some MacDonald.
If you like fairy tales, I would suggest beginning with The Princess and Curdie or The Golden Key. If your taste runs more to realistic novels, I suggest beginning with an edited version of Thomas Wingfold, Curate called The Curate’s Awakening (edited by Michael Phillips) or with Sir Gibbie.
MacDonald was not without some serious theological quirks, even Lewis admits to theological disagreement, but says that when he looked back from a vantage point in Christian maturity on MacDonald’s influence he realized he had been with MacDonald all the way along. When reading MacDonald, it is sometimes necessary to eat the meat and spit out the bones. Some literary critics have denounced the “sanitized” edited versions (mostly produced in the 1980’s), but if the modern editors are “butchers,” perhaps they have served to remove the bones and leave us the best part of the meat. It is the meat, after all, that nourishes!
Please look for the full text of my paper on George MacDonald’s symbolism on my site or on the IICS site– “The Parabolic Symbolism of George MacDonald” (presented July 19, 2008 at the International Institute for Christian Studies conference in Kansas City)
Photos:
A frosty morning with a highland sheep.
Highbury Park– site of Highbury Theological College where MacDonald studied
The Congregational church in Arundel, England where MacDonald pastored
Arundel Castle overlooking the town of Arundel
References:
(1)MacCasland, David. The Quotable Oswald Chambers. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Discovery House Publishers, 2008.
(2)McGillis, Roderick (ed.). George MacDonald: Literary Heritage and Heirs. Wayne, Pennsylvania: Zossima Press, 2008.
(3)Sadler, Glenn Edward (ed.). An Expression of Character: The Letters of George MacDonald. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1994.
Essay Seven
Remind Me!
A Letter to Homeschooling Parents (and others who need courage)
by Teri Ong
“Roll back the curtain of memory now and then;
Show me where You brought me from,
And where I could have been…”
Those words by the gospel singer Dottie Rambo are a good prayer to pray every once in awhile. It is so easy for us to get mired down in the cares of the day that we forget how far we’ve already come, and maybe even lose sight of the final destination as well. I believe that this type of spiritual amnesia is one of the main causes of becoming “weary in well doing.”
One of God’s attributes is memory. Memory is a subset of omniscience. Obviously, if you know everything at all times, you remember everything at all times. The only things God says that He forgets are our forgiven sins. He forgets those by an act of His will. Everything else– He remembers!
We are made in His image, and He has given us a capacity to remember things as well. God even put in place certain procedures to help us remember the things He wants us to remember. The Old Testament feast days, memorial stones, and even phylacteries were designed to help Israel remember who they were, what they were, and what God had done for them. In the New Testament God gave us weekly meetings with the body of Christ, baptisms, and the Lord’s Supper for the same reasons.
The problem is that we are especially good at remembering the things we are supposed to forget, and at forgetting the things we are supposed to remember!
Just before the beginning of the new school year, our local community of homeschoolers had a sometimes heated discussion of whether is was good, or right, or wise for homeschoolers to get involved with government-funded and government supervised home education programs. Some such programs are managed directly through local public schools, while others are in the form of classes held at neutral sites (community buildings and sometimes even churches). What makes these programs attractive is the price of admission– FREE! The government funded, sponsoring schools get their share of “per pupil” funding, but parents are still doing most of the work at home. Why shouldn’t this make everyone happy?
Some parents look at government-sponsored programs and think, “Free help!” Other parents look on nervously, and think back on how hard it was to get out of the government programs in the first place. Garrison Keillor once quipped about the Scandinavian families who settled in cold, snowy Minnesota– “They said, ‘Look! It’s just like the Old Country!’ However, they had forgotten why it was they left the Old Country.” Some old time homeschoolers worry that this new homeschool country looks too similar to the old public school country for comfort.
It isn’t wrong for some families to get involved with government programs. After all, not all families are called to educate their children at home in the first place. Biblically, all parents are accountable to God for the education of their children, but God doesn’t call all families to one particular methodology.
It may be that (to paraphrase) “many homeschool, but few are called.” What I mean is, there are many families who teach their children at home who are doing so for pragmatic reasons rather than spiritual ones. For such families, if their practical needs change, they reevaluate their chosen mode of education. If the government offers some sort of “compromise package”, maybe they could “make it work.” But even though making the government sponsored program “work” may not be sinful for a particular family, there might be attendant dangers that make a “free” program not worth the spiritual risks.
We did not choose home schooling for pragmatic reasons. In fact, if we had made a “practical” choice, we would have put our children in some institutional program so that we could have had more time for “the ministry.” It so happens that our family was called by God to homeschool and to minister to others with the same calling. We have been homeschooling for 23 years, and we have at least 4 ½ to go. It has never been easy, and a lot of days it hasn’t even been fun. But there is great reward in doing God’s will – that is, what He calls you to do. For our family, our mode of education cannot change because God has not given us a new or different calling. Even when our day-to-day circumstances have changed for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, we have continued to obey God’s will for our family’s education.
God used many factors in our family life to make His calling sure. In 1984, when our oldest child was just three, we began exploring the very new idea called homeschooling. In those days, to be “legal” in Colorado you had to use a state approved curriculum or be a state certified teacher. I had a degree in music education, but no certification. So I went back to school to finish the courses I would need to assure that we could homeschool without state oversight or state regulation. While doing my practicums and clinical courses in a state funded “lab” school, I was appalled at the teaching practices of some of my “colleagues” who were only a semester or two from being out in public classrooms all over the state. I thought then,”There is no way I want to turn over my babies to these people!” Every once I awhile I have a reason to go visit my alma mater, and my long-held opinion is further reinforced. If anything, the intellectual, social, and spiritual climate at the renowned teaching university I attended is worse now than it was 25 years ago.
Another factor was a strengthening movement toward radical secularism, often expressed as an intolerance of all things Christian. It was in 1983 that John Dunphy wrote an article entitled “A Religion for a New Age” (in The Humanist, Jan./Feb. 1983, pp. 23-6). He concluded his tirade against Christianity with the following words,
I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level– preschool daycare or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new– the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of ‘love thy neighbor’ will finally be achieved. (p. 26)
Has this corrupt, unbiblical ideal for public education gone away in the 25 years since this was written? The answer obviously is no. If anything, the desire of the author to purge Christianity from schools (and ultimately from society) has come closer to being realized year by year.
Another factor in our original decision was our desire to protect our own little fools from coming to ruin until we could drive the foolishness out of their hearts and bring them to some level of maturity. Proverbs 22:15 teaches us that foolishness is bound in the heart of children. Proverbs 13:20 tells us that the companion of fools will come to destruction. We realized very early that there had to be a better way to educate our children than in that pooling of foolishness called a public school classroom.
Not many years ago, however, we saw an even more frightening connection. “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1) Many of the teachers in government-funded classrooms have been trained in atheistic public universities to present an atheistic curriculum (a curriculum with no God allowed) in their classrooms. It doesn’t matter what the personal beliefs of the teacher may be; by definition, a curriculum with no God allowed is a-theistic. The curriculum, at least, is foolish, and many of the teachers are as well. The “fool factor” has not changed in 25 years either.
All the factors that God used to confirm our calling to homeschool are still present– so, too, is our call. I have been reminded recently of all these things because I was an editorial consultant for a documentary project for Chambers College called The Rock from Which We Were Hewn: a History of Home Education. The film puts home education in a broader educational context, but focuses on the basically 25 years of modern homeschooling. It was good for me to be reminded about why we do things the way we do as a family.
Some of the “heavy hitters” that were interviewed for the film expressed growing misgivings about the potential consequences to families who forget that Rock from which we were hewn, and the trickle-down effects that forgetfulness could have on others. Here are a few quotations:
Chris Klicka (Home School Legal Defense Association)
“ There’s one thing I’m most fearful of– not the state trying to turn back the clock through legislation or court cases but…the most scariest thing is the “carrot” which the government is now offering to the homeschool community. I think the government’s attitude is ‘if we can’t beat them, lets join them.’ So the government is creating government homeschool programs.”
Wade Hulcy (founder KONOS)
“One of the the things we think is important and scary is that a lot of moms at the kitchen tables today…are not aware of the struggles of the past, and as a result, it’s too easy for them with a stroke of a pen to lose those freedoms.”
Gregg Harris (early pioneer and conference speaker)
“Parents are too quick to take freebies from the state. They are willing to sell homeschool rights that were purchased at great cost in courtroom after courtroom across the country. And now new homeschool families are willing to take state money for computers and textbooks and other benefits, not realizing that they’re creating an environment in which the legislatures could easily be convinced by the teachers’ unions this should be mandatory for all homeschoolers, that you have to homeschool through the state.”
Let’s get back to our original question: Is involvement in government-sponsored education programs wrong? Not necessarily (though it would be for our family). Is it good? Is it wise? My opinion is that nothing atheistic (like a curriculum with God purposely omitted) can be good or wise since God is the source of goodness and wisdom. But for some overburdened parents, the availability free help is a strong temptation. But as they teach at the University of Chicago, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Sooner or later, someone has to pay.
In reality, parents who believe they are called but feel inadequate to the task of educating their children have a greater opportunity to experience God’s grace, because “His strength is made perfect in weakness.” (II Cor. 12:9) God has infinite resources available to and through His people for those who need them. He offers us more “freebies” in life than any human government could dream up, and with no attendant risks to our souls.
Raising children is a life-long commitment. Raising children for God’s glory requires even more vigilance and dedication. And the task does seem downright burdensome at times if raising our children for God’s glory includes home educating. Two things can help us persevere when life gets hard. 1) Looking back will help us remember why we originally chose to do what we do, and will help us understand that the reasons for our choice still exist. 2) Looking ahead to our ultimate destination will reveal the “joy set before us.” That forward look should enable us to “fix our eyes on Jesus” and run the rest of the race with endurance. (Hebrews 12:1-2)
Perhaps, if you have been making all of life’s choices based on pragmatic thinking, you need to look to the Rock and start afresh on a firmer spiritual foundation so you won’t be tossed about by the circumstances of life. In the same passage where we are told to look to the rock (Isaiah 51:1), we are exhorted:
Lift up your eyes to the sky, then look to the earth beneath; for the sky will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die in like manner, But My salvation shall be forever, And My righteousness shall not wane. Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, A people in whose heart is My law; do not fear the reproach of man, neither be dismayed at their revilings, for the moth will eat them like a garment, and the grub will eat them like wool. But my righteousness shall be forever, and My salvation to all generations. (Isaiah 51:6-8)
“Forever” is a long time. The stakes for our children are high. For my part, I do not want to waste any time or risk my children’s future with moth-eaten and “grubby” government give-aways.
Notes about the documentary:
The Rock From Which We Were Hewn was entered in the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival sponsored by Vision Forum. The hour long documentary will soon be available for purchase through Chambers College Press. The local premier will be at Reformation Baptist Church, 1300 9th St., Greeley, Colorado on November 1 (“Reformation Day”!). Call 970-346-1133 or e-mail chamberscollege@msn.com for more information if you would like to attend the premier.
Essay Eight
Neo-Orwellianism:
Religious Tenets of the Democratic National Convention
by Teri Ong
We who live in Colorado about had a craw full of news about the Democratic National Convention before it was even held in Denver the last week of August. For months we heard about fundraising efforts, and failed fundraising efforts, and underfunded fundraising, and funds that would be made up by national groups when everything has been squeezed out of the locals.
Then we started hearing about law enforcement gearing up to handle all of the protestors, and protestors protesting law enforcement, and protestors suing law enforcement, and law enforcement protesting the suits, etc., etc. One thing that came out the week before the convention was that the regulations and requirements for protestors at the DNC in Denver were much more restrictive than the requirements at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. Perhaps that is because the city fathers in Minneapolis knew that the media would make Republicans look bad if things got out of hand in Minneapolis, but the city fathers in Denver understood that the same media would make the city look bad if things got out of hand for the Democrats.
We heard a lot about the anarchist group “Recreate ‘68.” They proposed and posted on websites all sorts of creative ways, legal and non-legal, violent and non-violent, to draw attention to themselves. Their goal ostensibly was some sort of spurious liberation, though I don’t think they have liberation from liberalism in mind. A little over a month later, their efforts (which ended up being a non-event) have almost faded entirely from public memory.
But after seeing the requirements for catering services that served the convention delegates, I think the anarchists might have been more effective, or at least more memorable, called “Recreate steak-n-shake.” The DNC requirements were very stringent– no transfatty acids, no fried foods, locally grown organics (mostly), five (count them!) color groups of veggies in every meal, no plastic water bottles, no disposable dishes or cups… And let’s not forget to stock up on carbon credits (which just happen to be sold by some of the biggest players in the Party).
All of that can sound pretty scary– especially to those of us who think carbon banking has something to do with charbroiling an extra steak so you can eat it tomorrow. Just picture all of the “Recreate steak-n-shake” protestors lined up at the official “picket” fence, ready to go to jail for throwing French fries at the starving delegates!
Liberals have worked very hard over the last fifty years to push traditional Christianity out of the public arena. They have pushed for “Separation of God and Just About Everything”. But humankind will be religious about something. When we chuck out one set of moral values, we fill the vacuum with another set. We must have a sense of our own goodness, so we will make up our own standards by which to measure ourselves and others.
The Apostle Paul described how things progress when men fill the void with “self-made religion” in Colossians chapter two. He writes about people who will want to judge us “in regard to food and drink” (v. 16). They will want to control how we celebrate holy-days (v. 16). They will issue decrees in accord with current worldly wisdom (v. 20). In regard to things that are going to be consumed anyway, they say, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (v. 21) And this level of control causes them to be inflated with pride (v. 18).
Paul concludes his discussion saying, “These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
Does this ring true with you? As a case in point, think of the massive footprint of John Edwards’ estate and his massive moral failures of adultery and cover-up when you think about how self-indulgent some of these proud people are.
The Democrats hope that their convention will be the first of many high holy days for their green religion. They are already framing their Ten Commandments– The first three are 1. Do not handle the red meat, 2. Do not taste the fried foods, 3. Do not touch any disposables.
If the Democrats win in November, beware! The Democratic theocracy is coming, and it will be Orwellian in scope. Only in the 21st century we’ll all being living on Vegetable Farm.
P.S. KOA newscaster Steffan Tubbs got a photograph of Jesse Jackson Jr. eating a Whopper at a local Burger King at midnight the night the DNC ended. He had probably already paid for an “indulgence.” If he hadn’t, he probably paid later!
caption– “The new unpardonable sin”
Essay Nine
Give Yourself a Hand
by Teri Ong
We have been getting (and occasionally even reading) the New York Times, through no fault of our own. It is passed on to us by a friend. Some of you may say, “What kind of a friend would do that to you? Friends don’t let friends read junk!” I’m just kidding, David! It has been good for us to see first hand how the other half lives –the liberal New Yorker half.
Aside from the 40 or 50 pages of paid political ads for the Democrats, I have been intrigued to read about the New York art world and high fashion, things largely irrelevant and ignored in inner city Greeley, Colorado. On Thursday, September 25, the fashion section ran an article called “The Fountain of Youth at Your Fingertips” by Anna Jane Grossman (p. E3) The gist of the article was that old looking hands can give away your true age even if your face looks great. Much of the article was devoted to insights from a “hand model” named Ellen Sirot.
Sirot detailed all of the lifestyle sacrifices she had to make just to keep her hands presentable. Her regimen is a “full time commitment. She said she hasn’t cooked, cleaned or held her husband’s hand in a decade… She also moisturizes at least once an hour, soaks her nail tips in lemon juice to keep them white and has several hundred pairs of gloves in various styles and wears them almost constantly… Around the house, she lets her husband do pretty much everything– including wiping smudges from her various hand unguents off doorknobs. Typing is allowed, but in an effort to avoid any kind of callous buildup or muscle strain, she keeps pen use to a minimum.”
This does not sound like a fountain of youth to me: it sounds like a ball and chain attached to the end of your wrists. At any rate, Sirot would never make it as the heroine in any kind of novel. Maybe as an anti-heroine– you know the kind– the one who sits in the drawing room issuing orders to the servants, never lifting a finger for herself or the good of others. On the other hand (ha!ha!), I thought of heroines like Lizzie in Our Mutual Friend who worked her hands to the bone so her brother could attend school and better his lot in life, or Esther in Bleak House who sacrificed her physical beauty to care for a street urchin with small pox. They were certainly not motivated by self-protection or self-preservation; if they had been, their heroic achievements would have been few– dull heroines indeed!
It is not that I am totally unsympathetic to hand care. I have played violin for almost 50 years. My hands are so sensitive that on those occasions that I have injured a hand I have nearly passed out. The summer before last, I hit a finger with a small sledge hammer while trying to put a stake in my garden. I had to go in the house and lie down! Musicianship has not lent itself to picturesque hands, however. Violin playing and long, elegant fingernails do not mix. And as for callouses and muscle strain!
Not only is there little literary merit in making all your decisions based on what something will do to your hands, there is little artistic merit in it. Unless, of course, you consider commercials to be an art form (which is the bulk of what hand models DO with their hands). Masterpieces of art that do focus on the hands tend to emphasize the worn and gnarly character of hands that have worked hard,
like Durer’s world famous “praying hands”.
My daughter and I have recently been involved in a service club called Ruby Daughters. Part of the purpose is for moms to teach their daughters various types of useful “hand” crafts. I have been teaching crocheting. We have been collaborating as a group in making baby afghans for our local crisis pregnancy center. Every time I pick up a crochet hook I visualize the hands of a woman in our first church. She had rheumatoid arthritis, but continued to crochet pillow tops to give as gifts to family and friends. Her hands were so twisted and deformed by her disease that no one would have blamed her if she never lifted another finger for any reason. Her hand-made gifts were especially cherished because of her sacrifice in creating them.
Dorcas in the book of Acts was a true heroine. She used her hands to make garments for widows and others in the “poor and needy” category. When she suddenly died, those who had benefitted from her love and sacrifice were grief-stricken to the point that they entreated the Apostle Peter to travel from Joppa to Lydda with the hope that he could raise her back to life. When he arrived, “all the widows stood beside him weeping, and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them.” (Acts 9:39) God did see fit to answer their prayers and the prayers of Peter and raise her again to usefulness in His kingdom.
“What goes around, comes around” is a scriptural principle. Whoever digs a pit will fall into it; if you don’t forgive others, God will not forgive you; do unto others what you would have them do to you. How does this apply to hands? Proverbs 31:31 says, “Give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.” The earlier part of the chapter describes a woman of strong (virtuous) character who spends her time gardening and preparing food for her family, spinning and weaving to make garments for sale, for her family, and for the poor, and who doesn’t sit around idly. The product of her hands is the praise and thankfulness of those around her whom she has helped in a variety of ways.
What product will the woman have who works only to preserve the youthfulness of her hands? In the end, time takes its rightful toll on all of us, then what will she have left? She gave no one a hand, and it is likely that no one will give her a hand in return– unless it is a hand to push her away one last time.
When the blind poet Fanny Crosby died, her epitaph read, “She hath done what she could.” I would rather have that said of me than, “She died with perfect hands.”
(Caption) Durer’s Praying Hands
Essay Ten
The Audacity of Despair
by Teri Ong
We have just passed through an election cycle that featured most prominently two words: hope and change. One of the words had a clear meaning attached, but the other was ill-defined. Webster’s defines “hope” as “to long for with expectation of obtainment.” Media images and interviews clearly communicated the longings and expectations of the voting public.
“Change” is more problematic. Webster’s gives the following possibilities:
a. to make different in some particular
b. to make radically different
c. to make a shift from one to another
d. to replace with another
e. to undergo a loss or modification
Obviously, the old president was going to be replaced with another. Change in that sense was inevitable. But many people were (and still are) longing with expectation for more change than that, some even for things to be made radically different. It remains to be seen whether those expectations will be fulfilled or dashed on the rocks of reality. We could hope that the change that will inevitably come to us will not mean that we have to undergo loss along with the modification.
During the Thanksgiving season, our family read about a courageous band of people who longed for change as well. Life for them was oppressive to the point of being nearly unbearable. They were harried by government officials, dogged by the archbishop’s spies, had their goods and properties confiscated, suffered unjust imprisonments. Were they seditious trouble makers? No, they were the Pilgrim Fathers, whose greatest desire was to be left alone so they could worship God according to their own consciences.
At one point, their only hope of freedom was to move their families to Holland. The move did not go well. The group was betrayed to governmental officials by the sea captain that had agreed to take them across the channel. On another occasion, part of their group made it out to a waiting ship and part were captured waiting on shore for the tide to come in. One group was at sea for fourteen days in one of the worst storms imaginable, while the other group was thrown in “gaol..” Eventually, the pilgrim band was reunited in Holland, but after several years of raising their families in a foreign land, the devout and devoted parents realized that their children were being drawn away into the morally loose culture of the Dutch.
If that were not enough, the Dutch treaty with Spain that gave Holland a greater measure of religious freedom was close to expiration. There was a reasonable expectation that Catholicism would be imposed once again on the Dutch people. The Pilgrims knew first hand that the Church of Rome was even more restrictive and oppressive at that time than the Church of England.
The Pilgrims had no hope or expectation that life would get better for them in Holland or in England. Perhaps they could get a fresh start in a new land. But this prospect had difficulties of its own. The Pilgrims had few financial resources to fund a trip to America, and besides that, they needed official governmental approval to charter a settlement. Can you imagine the band of refugees slinking back to their native England after 11 years in Holland so they could present a proposal for a charter to the king they had fled from in the first place?!
When they did get permission to go, matters only became worse. Their own ship, the Speedwell, was craftily rigged to leak by a crew that did not want to spend the winter in America. The passengers on the Speedwell had to make a decision to either stay behind in England or be crammed onto the Mayflower, which was already overloaded. One hundred and two Pilgrims did set sail in the fall of 1620 only to be out on the North Atlantic for nine weeks during a rough storm season. Upon arriving in North America, the Pilgrims discovered they had landed much to the north of where they had originally planned, but they had to get settled before the worst of the winter set in.
Physical weakness from the long voyage, malnutrition, and bad weather became their new enemies. Add to that the uncertainty of the friendliness of the native tribes that inhabited New England. Three months after they landed, only half of them were still alive.
During the first year, they had to build their settlement from scratch and defend it from a variety of tribes of natives that were frequently at war with each other and didn’t mind if the Pilgrims were caught in the crossfire. They had to struggle to find food when they did not have the proper size hooks for fishing and had left harpoons in England because of the overcrowding of the ship. They struggled because their financial backers in England failed to send promised supplies. They struggled because shipments of goods they sent to England to pay their backers were commandeered, and so were never received in payment of their debt. But at least they were free to live their lives, worship their God, and raise their children the way they wanted.
Did they have hope or despair? They had hope that life could be better, but they despaired that it would be better if they trusted themselves to the status quo. They had no hope that fundamental change could come from the governmental authorities. It was their despair that motivated them to take decisive action, and it was their hope in God that enabled them to survive the hardships of their actions.
In modern day America, we have despair because of our perceived hardships: a distant war against forces we don’t understand, economic hardships brought on by market forces we can’t control and by consumer debt we chose not to control, 6.8% unemployment, and on top of it all–spiraling entertainment costs! But we have hope that our government, in general, and our newly elected president, in particular, can and will change our uncomfortable circumstances back into comfortable ones. And in the process, we don’t mind if we are less free to live our lives, to worship our God, and to raise our children.
Hope and change are only good if our hope is not misplaced and if the change we desire is truly good for us. Looking to human sources of help for material comforts will often bring disappointment, and King Solomon warns us that “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” I fear that many in our society are going to become heart-sick very soon when their expectations are disappointed– when they still have to pay their own mortgages and put gas in their own cars and bail out their own credit card accounts.
We need to follow the example of Christ; he would not trust himself to man “because he, himself, knew what was in man.” (John 2:25) King David warned,
Put not your trust in princes,
In a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
On that very day his plans perish.
When we understand the desperate nature and condition of humanity, we will put our hope elsewhere. David continues:
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God,
Who made heaven and earth,
The sea and all that is in them,
Who keeps faith forever;
Who executes justice for the oppressed,
Who give food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
The Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the sojourners;
He upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
That is where we can put our HOPE; and we can be sure He will never CHANGE!
The Lord will reign forever,
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!
References:
(1)Psalm 146:1-10
(2)Johnson, Henry. From Scrooby to Plymouth Rock. London: The Religious Tract Society, 1896.
Essay Eleven
Stabs of Joy
by Teri Ong
Our bunny is back! Last year I wrote about a bunny living in our yard that we had affectionately named “Utopia.” When we would see our bunny frolicking in the shadows near the fringes of our yard, we would think, “All is right with the world.” There is something serene about sitting so quietly that you can enjoy the company of a wild bunny.
Then our bunny disappeared.
We weren’t sure exactly why. We did see another larger bunny in our yard visiting Utopia on a few occasions. Perhaps Utopia had been convinced to relocate. But then again, we do live right down town where there are numerous potential threats to bunny health and safety– dogs, largish stray cats, cars…
But just in the last few weeks a brownish wild bunny has again been seen on a regular basis in our yard and has taken up residency under the same shed. I’m not sure if it is Utopia, or if it might be Utopia II. Nonetheless, bunny sightings again give us that momentary stab of joy (a C. S. Lewis phrase) that make us feel all is peaceful in our little world.
I experienced another stab of joy a few days ago looking up at the dark sky just after sunset. The planets have been particularly bright– “reach out and touch me” bright. And I have just finished re-reading Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis. Out of the Silent Planet is the first book in Lewis’s “Space Trilogy.” In it, we are introduced to Edwin Ransom, who is kidnaped by a misguided scientist and a greedy entrepreneur. They have plans to offer him as a human sacrifice to a race of Martians called “Sorns.” In reality, the trio of humans has been summoned to Mars, known as Malacandra, by the chief spirit being, or Oyarsa, who is in charge of planetary life on Malacandra. The Oyarsa has nothing but benign purposes, but the spiritual and moral flaws of the three earthlings become apparent as the plot unfolds.
Lewis was known for using different literary genres to tell intriguing tales with more than a little “smuggled theology.” Many wonderful themes are explored through the story: unity in diversity (Ephesians 1:10), thinking the right way in difficult situations (II Corinthians 10:5), looking more than skin deep (II Corinthians 10:7), seeing oneself through the eyes of others (Romans 12:3,16), recognizing and hating evil (Romans 12:9), recognizing cosmic and universal issues (Ephesians 6:12).
The physical representations of life on another planet are recognizable as symbolic of life in “the realm of the spirit”: a life unseen or unrecognized by a large percentage of the population. Lewis, as the story teller, says:
“…we have evidence– increasing almost daily– that ‘Weston’ [the evil earthling], or the force or forces behind Weston, will play a very important part in the next few centuries… The dangers to be feared are not planetary but cosmic, or at least solar, and they are not temporal but eternal.” (p. 153)
Ransom, upon returning to earth, was not able to fully communicate his adventures on Malacandra, because there were few people who would give credence to encounters with creatures they couldn’t see; most would only think him crazy. Lewis writes, “It was Dr. Ransom who first saw that our only chance was to publish in the form of fiction what would certainly not be listened to as fact.” Lewis’s own purpose comes through in Ransom’s statement, “If we could even effect in one percent of our readers a change-over from the conception of Space to the conception of Heaven, we should have made a beginning.” (p. 154)
Once Ransom was back on earth, the sight of the red planet in the sky would give him a longing to be back in that other-worldly realm. As I looked up the other night, the sight of the “evening star” gave me a stab of longing for the heavenly realm, the ultimate utopia where all will be well. I think that it will from now on.
Reference:
(1)Lewis, C. S. Out of the Silent Planet. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1996.
Essay 12
Christmas Colors
by Teri Ong
At this time of year we are used to seeing a lot of red and green– traditional colors of Christmas. But this year I heard a lot about red and black, as in businesses getting out of the red and into the black. Usually “Black Friday” is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day– the day when holiday shoppers push retail businesses into the black on their financial ledgers. This year retailers were hoping that on the Friday after Christmas we would fork over enough green so they could get rid of the red.
I even heard radio commentators urging people to “get out there and spend” in order to get our economy back on track. At the same time, however, a charitable foundation was urging people to avoid giving meaningless material items and donate to charity in the name of their loved ones. No doubt the weak economy has caused a surge in the number of “poor and needy” as well as a downturn in contributions with which to help them. The avoidance of tawdry materialism is touted by this group as a way to meet needs while “going green.” We can help the environment as well as our fellow man.
Not being an economist, my evaluation of Christmas economics is undoubtedly faulty. But if over 71% of our economy is based on retail and service industries, it is tempting to think that we could somehow spend ourselves out of trouble. Donating money so organizations can buy wholesale food products to give away to the nameless and faceless seems not so much like putting a bandaid on the economic wound, as like rubbing salt in it. What about all the grocery store clerks that will be put out of work by organizations giving away groceries?! But as a pastor’s wife in a “blighted neighborhood”, I have been on the giving end as well as the receiving end of charitable donations, and I know that sometimes salt is necessary to keep economic “infections” down.
As a mother of seven children and grandmother of two, I am also keenly aware that “charity begins at home.” None of my seven would have felt particularly loved if I had made “charitable donations” in their names. My older children are all working class folks who are happier to get a pair of socks to wear than to learn that a turkey has been given to someone else on their behalf. And besides, I am a “gift giver.”
Gary Chapman, in The Five Love Languages, identifies different styles in which people prefer to give and receive love. I am definitely a gift giver. One of my chief joys is to identify people’s needs, likes, hobbies, personality traits, etc., so that I can find (and give) the perfect gift. My type of gift giving is based more on personal relationships than on tawdry materialism. When I do “go green”, it is because I found the absolutely perfect gift (usually in the book section) at a thrift store. (No, I know that doesn’t do much for the economy either!)
A term that I heard more this year than any other time is “gifting.” Perhaps in the spirit of the downsized economy we have also downsized our verbiage– instead of giving gifts, we “gift.” One of the most famous Christmas stories about “gifting” is O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.” The young couple in the story are so in love that they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifices for the sake of the other. The wife sells her exquisite hair to buy a gold chain for her husband’s watch. The husband, of course, sells his prized pocket watch in order to buy an expensive brush for his wife’s once lovely hair.
Some readers will revel in the beauty of the sacrifice; other readers wince at a masochistic exercise in pointless giving. The best gifts work on two levels: they reflect loving sacrifice, and they meet a specific need. The sacrifice is not always material. Expenditures of time, effort, and energy are sometimes more meaningful. Needs, as well, may be emotional, spiritual, or social– beyond mere material requirements.
Christmas is about gift giving– giving based on relationships and needs. God knew that what we needed most was a relationship to Him. The only way for us to get that was for Him to give us His Son so that we could get rid of what was standing in the way of that relationship. He gave freely and graciously so that the blackness of our sin could be removed by the red of Christ’s blood, so that some day we may stand before Him in white! This is all poignantly described by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 9:2-7.
In our very strange day and age, we may feel cowed into doing or saying what is politically correct. We may be afraid of what our neighbors will think about our carbon footprints based on the plastic bags we carry in from some “big box” store or the amount of wrapping paper we put in the dumpster. But fear not! God gave graciously and freely to meet the biggest need we had. He invited an odd assortment of guests, threw an angelic party, and gave us all a Baby, gift-wrapped in swaddling clothes. As His children, we can do some good giving too– meeting needs and building relationships with those around us. ‘Tis the season!
