It is common to imagine that Paul’s discussion with the Corinthians in this place is about spiritual gifts or even about glossolalia, the phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language.
It is not.
Paul’s intense concern to help the Corinthian church get the thing right is about selfishness over against a concern for the integrity and maturation of the community. ‘Speaking in tongues’ is merely the occasion. Continue Reading »
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When we agreed to foster Sammy, we were making a Faustian bargain with our own inclination toward loving dogs. We knew deep inside, though the unspoken pact required that the agreement never be mentioned in conversation, that we could never ‘give him back’. It was a clandestine adoption, an under-the-table bargain by which Sammy would instantly become a member of the family while we politely lied to ourselves that any such thing was happening. It was a rescue disguised as a holding pattern. He would be ours, but under the fiction that he was not. From time to time, the language of ‘returning him’ surfaced in a hypothetical way, though we both knew that there was not a them out there to whose company Sammy could be restored if things didn’t work out.
It was a most amenable fiction. It was the whitest of lies. Continue Reading »
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The conventional biblical wisdom found in the book of Proverbs entwines the thread of proximity with that of exertion. That is to say, one of the collection’s principal burdens is to persuade the young man or woman that wisdom is available. Indeed, personified as Lady Wisdom, she stands in the street and calls out to passersby. One need not sail over the horizon to find wisdom. It is right here, right now.
On the other hand, wisdom becomes the province of those who exert heroically constant efforts to acquire it. If it is near, it is not easy. If it is on offer, it is not cheap. To acquire wisdom—this indeed is the noblest of ambitions in the book’s purview—is to commit oneself to the a lifelong pursuit that takes its shape against formidable odds.
It is easy to be foolish. The law of moral entropy, though the Proverbs nowhere use this language, assures us that those who do not battle for wisdom will necessarily end up fools. Wisdom is sweet, but it is not humankind’s destiny. To get wisdom is to swim against the current every day, for a lifetime. There is no end to the effort. Indeed, one of the book’s energizing convictions is that the wise are set up not so much to remain in that status but to get still further wisdom. The book does not worry itself overmuch about the destination. It is far more concerned with wisdom’s path, with the listening, submitting, humbly aggressive practice that brings the prize within reach. Continue Reading »
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** a wedding gift for J.R. and Molly Friesen, married yesterday in Billings, Montana, USA
The rhythm of life with YHWH includes periods of silence and still others when the only audible sound is a groan. It is the good fortune of those whom YHWH accompanies that this unmelodious moment is, if not short-lived, then at least bound to its season. Despair’s silence and pain’s sigh are conceded their space on the enigmatic score, yet they are not intended to dominate the course from one movement to another nor to usurp the final one.
Rather, the biblical poets alert us to the ambitious, spontaneous eruption of a new song. The thrusting forth of this dance-able melody comes often when least expected and casts all subdominant grief in a new harmonic frame. What a moment ago sounded forth with tyrannical self-confidence is understood now to have been a foil, a prelude, the musical antechamber to ejaculative joy of the kind that no prior musical experience has quite prepared one to encounter. Continue Reading »
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* Dedicated to my friend Rev. Robert Eyman, Spokane, Washington, USA
One of the finest of the so-called ‘Hallelujah Psalms’, the one hundred forty-seventh speaks an encouraging word to the broken-hearted among us. The poet angles in on the appropriateness of praise, recognizing that a universe governed in the way this one is ruled has become a venue where gratitude is the fitting response.
How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. (Psalm 147:1 NRSV)
One does not arrive at such a response unreflectively. From every corner evidence presents itself that might well seem to render praise anything but the proper sound in a broken world where blood flows too freely and sorrow gathers in silent, menacing clumps. Yet the psalmist has fought his way to a hermeneutical angle from which his gaze takes in reasons for gratitude rather than resentment. He is convinced his angle is the proper one, not a cheap analgesic, no psychological trick crafted merely to dull the pain. Continue Reading »
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Freedom and self-restraint are not often seen walking hand-in-hand. Yet they make the most compelling couple.
When the apostle Paul turns to instructing the Corinthian Christians regarding the best path though the thorn-filled gardens into which they been summoned, he is clear on the matter of freedom. Seldom has a writer who cannot be described as libertine written so lucidly about liberty. One of the astonishing outrages of Christian history is that Paul has so often been fronted as the poster child and enforcer of complex moral hang-ups. In truth, he proves an outlandish failure at those roles. Continue Reading »
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Michael Bolton is in his element in tossing off this 2003 collection—a very short one, it must be said—of fine old bluesy-romantic pieces. Gone for the moment is the flamboyant wall of musicians that backs up his more anthemic rock and roll pieces. The music here is supplied by a diminutive assortment of soft-spoken instrumentalists. All that’s missing is a smoky stage and a cover charge. Continue Reading »
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The late David Halberstam’s insightful baseball writing has been a boon for fans with long memories. There are more of them attached to this odd American sport than any other. A penchant for statistics and scars that never heal are practically the calling card of those of us who are drawn, inexorably, to the diamond with every new Spring.
This 2003 tribute to four skinny kids on the 1946 Boston Red Sox is not so much about the game as about the uncommon friendship that linked four of its iconic players. Halberstam has helped us to understand the grace that made Bobby Doer a lifetime interpreter of the gifted, irascible, and troubled Ted Williams; about the fealty to the sports unwritten rules that moved Johnny Pesky to accept the blame for a ball he never held (at least according to Halberstam’s reconstruction) until ten years after the true culprit had gone to his grave; and about the tragedy of a season that came so close to glory but ended up heralding a generation (these are short in baseball time) of mediocrity in the precursor of what we have come to know as Red Sox Nation. Continue Reading »
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In the mid-1990s in Great Britain I purchased a Linguaphone French language learning package and, as a result, received this marvelous booklet and Karajan/Berliner Philharmoniker/Deutsche Grammophon/Michel Schwalbé recording of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Concerto ‘L’Amoroso’, Symphony ‘Al Santo Sepolcro’, and Concerto ‘Alla Rustica’.
Apart from a lone seller with a copy listed on Amazon, I have not been able to locate any sign that this recording—which plays on my sound system as I write this—actually exists. Continue Reading »
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Returning to the shed from a first sea kayaking experience on Alaska’s Inner Passage, I was greeted by the voice of Greg Brown, soon interpreted by the enthusiastic commentary of my kayaking guide. I resolved that I would come to know this singer as a living souvenir of the kayaking thing. `Soon as I could, I ordered The Poet Game rather at random from Brown’s prodigious menu of recordings.
Shades of the Man in Black come through in Brown’s the astonishing low range of Brown’s understated vocals. Better still, his song-writing is top-drawer stuff. It oozes authenticity, manouvers on the kind of observations a man can stand by, rings true. Continue Reading »
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Canter Bridge 