Time Out of Joint

Billed as Philip K. Dick’s “brilliant novel of reality displacement,” Time Out of Joint is a thoroughly postmodern story of paranoia, conspiracy and simulacra. With a 1959 copyright, the book represents SF’s struggle to press beyond “zap-gun” stories and political commentary into a fully mature literature asking questions about the basic nature of things. Here Dick wonders if we can be sure of what’s true and suggests that a right action is one that operates on the basis of intuition in the face of uncertainty. Or as the cover blurb puts it, “Dick dares to ask ‘What is a sane response to an insane world?’”

Dick’s command of language is less than masterful, but what he lacks in style he makes up for in narrative control. He skillfully uses anomaly (as opposed to action or mystery proper) to hook the reader. Things are just off enough to make you want to find out why. It ain’t pretty prose, but he pulls your eye down the page. Just know that the journey satisfies more than the destination.

Brevity in review prevents spoilers for a novel that teases you along like this one, but here are a few sights to look for along the way: shades of the coming sexual revolution, a nod to emerging hippie culture, and seeds of inspiration for the Wachowski brothers.

Mark 4:1-34

In chapter 3 of his Gospel, Mark, the consummated storyteller, uses a variety of groups as foils to get at what it means to have a right relationship with Jesus. Great crowds come from the farthest reaches of the Davidic kingdom to come see the guy working miracles by the Sea of Galilee (3:7-12). Contrast this group of spectacle-seekers with the twelve whom Jesus chooses, takes to himself to a quiet place and reaffirms with them his covenant relationship (3:13-19). The intimacy Jesus has with his disciples is contrasted with the way his own family considers him – “out of his mind” (3:20-21). Compare, then, Jesus’ family to the Pharisees who pronounce their final and utter rejection of him by accusing him, the Son of the most holy God, of colluding with Satan (3:22-30). Finally, Jesus’ biological relations enter the scene again, and Jesus openly declares what constitutes his true relations: those who are really in Jesus’ family are those who do the will of God (3:31-35).

Mark follows this declaration with a teaching section, as the context would imply, that those who belong to him might know God’s will and do it. In chapter 4:1-34 Mark records a series of parables, one concerning the Word (pictured as a seed sown in different types of soil), one about a hidden lamp made visible, and two describing the kingdom.

Thankfully we have an inspired interpretation of the first parable (4:1-20). Yet, we must still ask what we are to learn from it. Most obviously, the parable teaches us that not everyone who hears the call of the Gospel will respond with persevering faith. And of course, those who have “ears to hear” will hear the parable and desire to be good soil for the Word.

In many theological circles, when this passage is preached, the application point comes in the form of this question, “Which soil are you?” That question seems to reach beyond Jesus’ intention for the parable, and I consider it a pernicious question. I understand that zealous preachers ask it to strengthen a commitment, but all too often it presses tender hearts towards anxiety. If I’m honest about my own frailties, I must admit that I my heart is more likely to be rocky or thorny than fertile. If the parable directs me to examine my own heart, then it leads me to despair.

Instead, if my ears have heard the parable rightly, with humility and contrition, then I am stirred with a desire to be good soil. And if the parable has stirred that desire in me, then I ought not fret over the question “Which soil am I?” Rather, knowing that it is the Lord who brings the fruit, I ought to pray that he will cultivate the soil of my heart, tearing out the rocks and thorns, and increasing the yield in his time. Then, having prayed, I ought to trust him – boldly.

But this is only one lesson drawn from the parable, and not the primary one intended, I would suggest. For that lesson takes the parable on its own, and Jesus gives it together with three others.

Let’s skip briefly to the kingdom parables (4:26-32). The first pictures a farmer going about his daily business, scattering his seed, ignorant of the natural processes that grow the seed into grain. Nonetheless, he faithfully goes about his work, day in and day out, until the mature fruit is ready for harvest. The second of the pair likens the kingdom to a mustard seed that, though insignificant to the eye, when mature becomes a haven for the birds of air.

I offer this interpretation. If the mature mustard plant is the kingdom, then the birds of the air are the nations finding rest and refreshment in its branches. And how does the plant (the kingdom) grow? Primarily, according to mysterious processes, namely God’s providence. But together with God’s providence, is the work of the farmer, God’s people. As the servant of God goes about his daily business, the Lord himself grows the kingdom through the servant’s work.

Now we come to the second parable, the hidden lamp made visible. What does the hidden lamp figure? I would suggest that it figures Jesus. Four times already in Mark’s Gospel Jesus has instructed that his identity is to be kept secret (1:25, 34, 44; 3:12). Nothing is kept secret, however, but that it should eventually come to light (4:22). And Jesus’ identity will, of course, come to light; first in the transfiguration, then in the resurrection.

But what of the warning in verse 24?

The four parables seem to come together this way. God’s Word is sown and bears fruit in the hearts of his people. God’s people go about their daily lives making Jesus (the light, or lamp, of the world, John 9:5) visible to others. As they do, the kingdom grows and the nations of the earth find rest among its branches.

For those with ears to hear, the warning is an exhortation: Make Jesus visible in you as you go about your daily business. Show Christ-likeness to those around you. As you do, God’s Kingdom comes “on earth as it is in heaven.” Even those outside of the kingdom will be blessed by you, for Jesus is the vine and you are the branches (John 15:5). The nations find rest in the shade of the branches. As you bear fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, Gal 5:22-23), you will show Jesus to other people, and they will be blessed by you. Jesus is the Word (John 1:1-14). As you grow in Christ-likeness, you sow the Word, and God, in his providence, will direct it to good soil where it will take root in those with ears to hear, thus beginning the cycle anew.

This is how God's kingdom comes: as you go about your vocation in a Christianly manner and as others under in your sphere of influence see Jesus in you, in word and deed, and come to faith in him. This first means fulfills the Cultural Mandate (Gen 1:28), and the second fulfills the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20).

In short Christian, who is in Jesus’ family? Those who do God’s will (Mark 3:35). And what is God’s will? That those with ears to hear should grow in Christ-likeness and purposely make Jesus visible in their day-to-day lives. Pay attention, then, to what you hear, Christian; for as you follow in God’s will, his kingdom will grow and its leaves will be for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:2).

The Big "O"

Writer and regular contributor to World magazine, Andree Seu typically concentrates her articles on various aspects of Christian living. In this piece she offers rare commentary on politics and culture, specifically on President Obama's South American tour earlier this month, reflecting on the implications of the President's representation of the USA.

I find it particularly interesting for two reasons. First, she references Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Secondly, her commentary (a bit more analytical than the conservative talk show "shouting points") mirrors comments I've heard as I've talked with friends who have spent signifigant time in Russia and other former Soviet Bloc countries.

President Obama has proven himself a master at utilizing the media (a lustily consensual media) to control his public image. In situations like this, when he acts in ways unbecoming of a national leader, he counts on a short news cycle and a short public memory, quickly shifting attention to issues that rate higher in polling data in order to polish his numbers.

Let us exercise discipline in generating long memories. Let us not allow ourselves to be distracted with carrots,but remain focused on the direction we are being led. Only by reading the times, not the headlines, will be able to cast responsible, well-informed ballots in 2010 and 2012.

Read Andree Seu's article "Head-to-head Flirtation" here.

In the Name of Jesus

For twenty years Henri Nouwen lectured on the Christian life and spirituality at Notre Dame and Harvard Divinity School. In 1986 he left academia to live among and care for adults with developmental disabilities. I may have disagreements with him theologically, but I have to admire a man who decides to stop merely talking about theology and spirituality (not to mention giving up the status and privilege of an Ivy League professorship) in order to serve “the least of these” in the name of Jesus.

If you’re familiar with Nouwen you’ll find this thin volume typical of his shoot-from-the-heart style. Reflecting on his transition from celebrated academic and author to live-in caregiver, he sketches out three core principles for Christian leadership, a servant-leadership offerd in a decidedly Christian manner (hence the title).

Using Jesus’ desert temptations as a framework, Nouwen sets Christian leadership apart from its secular doppelganger in that the Christian leader seeks to overcome, rather than embrace, these three temptations of the secular world: the desire to be important to others (to be relevant), the desire to be admired by others (to be "spectacular"), and the desire to have influence over others (to be powerful).

Nouwen is highly accessible in his writing, and his insights in this book are so plain and basic that seasoned Christian leaders may dismiss them as elementary. Such a dismissive response would prove a problem in the reader, however, not the thesis. Far from elementary, Nouwen’s principles are foundational. To ignore them would be to follow the path of secularization that leads away from Christ rather than toward him.

Henri Nouwen writes from a place deep in the heart, with a genuine love of people and an unwavering commitment to show Christ-likeness in his interactions with them. I am indebted to my friend Greg Goebel for passing the book on to me and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the formation of spiritual leadership.

A Decline in Courage . . . (IV)

. . . may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries, not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.

Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?
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KMB's comments:

In the words of Sen. Phil Gramm (the words that got him dismissed from the McCain campaign), "We're sort of a nation of whiners."

Gao Zhisheng

Click below for an example of how the People's Republic treats its people.

www.freegao.com

Convergence (III)

Solzhenitsyn goes on

But the blindness of superiority continues in spite of all and upholds the belief that vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present day Western systems which in theory are the best and in practice the most attractive. There is this belief that all those other worlds are only being temporarily prevented by wicked governments or by heavy crises or by their own barbarity or incomprehension from taking the way of Western pluralistic democracy and from adopting the Western way of life. Countries are judged on the merit of their progress in this direction. However, it is a conception which developed out of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, out of the mistake of measuring them all with a Western yardstick. The real picture of our planet's development is quite different.

Anguish about our divided world gave birth to the theory of convergence between leading Western countries and the Soviet Union. It is a soothing theory which overlooks the fact that these worlds are not at all developing into similarity; neither one can be transformed into the other without the use of violence. Besides, convergence inevitably means acceptance of the other side's defects, too, and this is hardly desirable.

If I were today addressing an audience in my country, examining the overall pattern of the world's rifts I would have concentrated on the East's calamities. But since my forced exile in the West has now lasted four years and since my audience is a Western one, I think it may be of greater interest to concentrate on certain aspects of the West in our days, such as I see them.
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KMB’s comments

The “soothing theory” continues to have play. Take the recent G-whatever trend. The West still seems to envision a convergence of governments that will hold together and create some sort of balance of harmony. The EU itself clings to the hope, though the converging policies of the intellectual elite in Brussels rarely gain popular support when put to a general election. The G-20 economic conference this week in London is only the latest iteration.

But can we really believe that China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela . . . all come to the table to give for the greater good? Pray we aren’t that naïve. The Mythic vision of each nation is driven by monolithic strength and a sense that the ends of national glory justify any means.

These governments (nearly a quarter of the G-20 already and who knows how many others like them) will keep their sheepskins snugly wrapped and maneuver for every opportunity to take advantage of “certain aspects of the West in our days.” Namely . . .

Called Out of Darkness

Subtitled A Spiritual Confession, author Anne Rice relates her growing up with, rejection of and return to God.

Rice made her mark in the vanguard of transgressive genre fiction, primarily vampire fiction. In typical postmodern fashion her work forgoes questions of morality, dealing with themes of spiritual and emotional alienation. Stylistically Called Out of Darkness draws you in with the same atmospheric, sensuous prose of her pagan corpus, but here, she who was once alienated from God has been reconciled by Christ’s physical body through death.

The book is fascinating and definitely worth the time to read if you like spiritual biography. But keep in mind, her conversion is recent and some of her views fall outside of what we consider evangelical orthodoxy. It’s difficult to know exactly how to relate to her.

On the one hand, we could say that she doesn’t seem to return to God so much as she seems to return to the Catholic Church. Her conceptions of Christian spirituality have much in common with the Medieval Catholic mystics – she has an admirable desire for intimacy with God, but also a near obsession with the Stigmata. (Catholic tradition holds that certain saints achieved such an intimate union with Christ that they were branded with the Stigmata, the five wounds of Jesus’ crucifixion.) Unfortunately, her worldview also holds a sharp secular / sacred divide, which isn’t really consistent with her otherwise firm commitment to conservative Roman Catholicism.

On the other hand, soon after her return to church she recognized that true conversion meant more than just faithful churchgoing. She knew that she was still holding something back from God and felt a deep need to be born again into a distinctively Christian life. Eventually she decided that she would never write another word unless it had to with Jesus. As a result, she steeped herself in the New Testament and NT scholarship and came out of it with a staunchly conservative view of Scripture. In her own words:

It isn't simply a matter of finding skeptical New Testament scholarship so poor, so shallow, so irresponsibly speculative, or so biased. That has indeed been the case. But something else, something infinitely more positive, has been at work in my spiritual journey since 2002 --

That "something else" is the profound implications that flow out of the Incarnation. Rice finds New Testament skeptics helpful in the questions that they ask, but she utterly rejects the idea that a projected mythos and church tradition grew up around a great teacher. Instead, she’s convinced that the Jesus of Scripture and the Jesus of history are one and the same.

Rice grew up in a blue-collar New Orleans neighborhood. The memories attached to her childhood make for the richest descriptions in the book, and clearly these early, unfiltered experiences of life with God cultivate her later spiritual conceptions. She remained faithful through her school years, though it was during this time that the seeds of her crisis were sown.

The edges began to crack as Rice entered college. In her interactions with people outside the church, outside the faith, she recognized that her sanitized, Catholic education left her far behind her peers. They were well-versed in the advances of the modern world, but having grown in a controlled environment that banned certain books and movies, that curtailed behavior with the threat of Hell -- She realized that the Catholic Church refused to enter into or interact with the world outside the church. Her upbringing hadn’t prepared her to live in the modern world. Her church, and therefore she, didn’t belong in the world they lived in.

Her abandoning of the church was not precipitated by a traumatic event or a spiritual or emotional crisis. Hers was an intellectual crisis. She says:

The church had become for me anti-art and anti-mind. No longer was there the blending of the aesthetic and the religious as there had been throughout my childhood. . . .

There just couldn't be a God. A God would never have made a church so unnatural and so narrow, and so seemingly fragile -- vulnerable to information, that is -- as the Catholic Church. People who believed in God believed in churches, and churches told you lies. Not only did they tell you lies, they made you tell lies. They taught you how to tell those lies when you were a little child.

I had grown up telling lies for the Catholic Church. Let me give one example. If those outside the church criticized the Inquisition and its torture of heretics or Jews, we had a standard Catholic answer, and it was this: The Inquisition was only going along with the times. Indeed the Inquisition never really executed anyone. It was the secular state that did the executing.

That, I think, is a first-rate Catholic lie.

But Catholics of my time were taught quite a number, and there goal was always the same -- to gloss over the failings or corruption of the church and bring the subject of the discussion back to the church's perfection.

As I lost faith in God and his church, these many lies seemed proof to me that I was moving away from falsehood and into truth.

Her Christian education failed to give her an honest assessment of history and served as a kind of ecclesial propaganda. As a result, she felt that athieism was more intellectually honest and a more courageous way to face the world.

Rice’s return to faith follows a path marked by the kinds of “coincidences” that could only have been Providentially ordered. The story itself is hers to tell so here I’ll only point out that her conversion resulted from a growing sense of estrangement, a deep sense of spiritual alienation (remember the themes of her work – 28 books’ worth) that came to a head 38 years after she left the church and God.

Finally, I’d mention that the last chapter of the book is the most disappointing. Here Rice illustrates her unfortunate commitment to a secular / sacred divide. When I closed the book I felt a great desire to write her a letter (and I still may) rejoicing with her in her new life in Christ, commending her for her courage to be so public with her faith, and gently asking her to reexamine the basis for this dichotomy that she supposes.

If God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1-2), if “heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it” belongs to God (Deut 10:14), if the Word that became flesh was with God and was God and all things were made through him (John 1:1-3, 14), if all the earth is his (Ex 19:5, Ps 24:1-3, Ps 50:10-12) and all things were created through him and for him (Col 1:16) and he is the heir of all things (Heb 1:2-4), if he is appointed judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42, 2 Tim 4:1, Heb 13:4, Rev 19:11), if every knee shall bow to him as sovereign Lord (Is 45:23, Rom 14:11, Phil 2:10) – if all this is true, does it not follow that the whole creation falls under the authority of its Creator? The witness of Scripture seems to indicate that there is no secular / sacred divide. If God created it, he has a claim on it, the right to define its purpose and the authority to pronounce judgment on its conformity to that purpose.

Notes on the Remainder of Mark 3

In Mark 3:7-35 we have four short sections that highlight the whirlwind of activity and confusion that has come to surround Jesus. At first glance, the vignettes seem to have little to do with one another: crowds swarm Jesus, a list of the twelve disciples, an encounter with the scribes, and Jesus’ enigmatic comment about his family relations. But looking deeper, a thread emerges that holds the four individual passages together to form a single unit and leads nicely into the teaching section that follows.


Verses 7-12 set the tone, a chaotic, threatening, circus-like atmosphere. Great crowds of people surround Jesus, some coming almost 100 miles to see him in Galilee. (Imagine walking from Columbia to Spartanburg for the chance of meeting a man.) Mark mentions that people come from Galilee, a region containing the northernmost reaches of Israel; he specifically mentions Judea (the Southern Kingdom) and Jerusalem, home of the Temple; and he names Idumea, a region containing the southernmost reaches of Israel. Galilee, Judea and Idumea are key locations that essentially mark out the borders of the land of Canaan promised to Abraham, occupied by Joshua’s generation and secured by David. Geographically, Mark shows us that people are coming from the farthest reaches of the Davidic Kingdom to see Jesus. They are even leaving Jerusalem, the Holy City on a Hill, the Temple Mount, to see him. Finally, we should note that Mark mentions Tyre and Sidon, two cities outside the boundaries of Israel. Mark is giving us a clue about Jesus’ broader mission. The true King has arrived on the scene, and his true Kingdom is too big for the old borders to contain it.

However, we also see something of the relationship between Jesus and the crowd. When they heard all that he was doing they came to him and pressed in on him, following him even as he withdrew with his disciples, pursuing him so closely that Jesus feared that he would be crushed by them. No doubt there are those in the crowd who come to Jesus in faith, but Mark’s language gives the sense that most of those who come do so while making demands of Jesus or to simply see the spectacle of his works.


Contrast 3:7-12 with verses 13-21. Finally Jesus is able to retreat from the crowds. Instead of being followed and pressed in upon, Jesus chooses “those whom he desired.” He takes hold of them and separates them from the crowd (the same way God takes hold of us and separates us from the crowds when he calls into a life of worship. Thus, our Sunday morning service begins with the call to worship.) He renames them (a kind of transformation), naming them “apostles”, apostelous in the Greek, derived from the verb aposteleo, meaning “I send.” In renaming them, Jesus transforms them into sent ones and consecrates them for a special task, “that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.”

(Likewise, through the process of conviction, confession, repentance, forgiveness and cleansing [1 John 1:9] we are transformed for the purpose of being with God. In our service we follow confession / assurance with ascension in the Lord’s presence, that is the bringing of an offering and talking with him in prayer. We are then further transformed through the preaching of the Word and consecrated by it with the task of going out and incorporating it into our day-to-day lives, sent ones from God that we may bear witness to his goodness, mercy and redemption.)

After this brief retreat with his friends, Jesus returns to his family, who promptly questions his sanity.


In verses 22-30 the scribes’ accusation sounds remarkably similar to that of Jesus’ family, if not in the particular charge, at least in the general sense that both parties betray that they know exactly nothing about who Jesus really is. On the one hand it’s amazing that either should be so off. Had Joseph and Mary never spoken about those incredible events that surrounded Jesus’ birth? Shouldn’t his family, upon seeing his miracles and power, say with wonder, “It’s true!” And the scribes – they were teachers of the Law, people who were trained and accepted as authorities in what the Scriptures say. But they had obscured what the Scriptures say. Hidden it and distorted it with self-made religion and tradition. Those Scriptures that they prided themselves in knowing so well were pointing them to Jesus; and now, when they come face-to-face with him, instead of hailing him as the Messiah from God, they accuse him of colluding with Satan. They weren’t simply confused. They weren’t just off the mark, misinformed, or mistaken. They looked God in the face and told him that he belongs in Hell.

More precisely, they saw the work of the Holy Spirit and called it the work of Satan. It wasn’t only that they blasphemed, made a rash statement out of sinful anger and malice. It was that, with that 180° perversion of the truth - a truth that they had tasted a hundred times over in their studies – they declared their final, unequivocal, irreversible rejection of Christ. As scribes they had tasted the goodness of the word of God, they had drunk the rain and they had born only thorns and thistles (Heb 6:4-8).

Jesus points out the foolishness of their assertion and then pronounces judgment on them.


Now we get to verses 31-35, the end of the thread that runs through these passages and binds them to the teaching section that opens chapter 4. If we were going to toss out the divisions and section headings that come in our study Bibles and replace them with our own, we might title Mark 3:7-30 “The Different Relationships People Have to Jesus.” Mark has masterfully given us the feel of what Jesus’ life was like at this point in his ministry: crowded, harried, somewhat chaotic and threatening. To paint the picture, Mark uses events that center around people and their relations to Jesus. He then anchors the unit with an incident involving Jesus’ actual relations, begging the question, “What is it that marks a person as one who is in a right relationship with Jesus?”

“Whoever does the will of God,” that person is in Jesus’ family.

And then Jesus began to teach.

Closing Thoughts on Mark 2:1-3:6

In Mark 2:18-22, Jesus is confronted about fasting and he gives (explicitly) two reasons why his disciples don’t fast: 1) They don’t fast like John’s disciples because everything represented by John (the Old Covenant types and shadows) is fulfilled in Jesus (the substance); and 2) They don’t fast like John’s disciples because those forms represented by John (Old Covenant ceremonies, rites, rituals) are inadequate for “containing” New Covenant realities. If the Pharisees represent merit based religiosity, I think Jesus essentially ignores that part of the question, implying that what the Pharisees do is so far off the mark that it’s not even a legitimate part of the equation.

Obviously Jesus is answering a specific question at a given time and his answer is meant to press his hearers to follow this transition from Old to New. So in one manner, being Christian rather than a Jewish proselyte is itself an application of Jesus’ teaching.

To draw the Old forms / New reality principle out a little further, it is also inappropriate to carry on with a system of sacrifice, either atoning or penitential. That may go without saying for some, but others still feel a need to “do penance,” or to devote themselves to spiritual exercise as “extra sacrifice.” We often object to such ideas from a systematic theology perspective: Jesus was the once-for-all sacrifice, which of course is true.

Here in Mark, Jesus gives us another way to think of it. The Old forms of the sacrificial system were ritualistic rather than relational. Animal sacrifice, as well as personal sacrifice, is too impersonal to adequately accommodate the New Covenant reality, namely, that we have a direct, intimate relationship with God the Father. Certainly we should be sorry for our sin. Certainly we should repent. And spiritual exercise may do well to help us more fully embrace our relationship with God. But we don’t need to “make things right” with our Father. That’s already been done “by Christ’s physical body through death” (Col 1:22).

Rather than paying penance, we already have the freedom to walk away from our mistress (repent from the sin into which we were tempted) and enjoy the intimate companionship of our Beloved. The Old Covenant forms pointed to this reality, but now the reality is here.

And so, in our ceremony, our order of worship at Covenant Presbyterian Church (Columbia, SC), we have the call to come to God followed by the confession of sin and assurance of grace. We respond to grace by acknowledging that we belong to God: Our offering given as a token of ourselves reminds us that we belong to God, not as property, but in a familial way. Then we receive instruction from our Father (think of Proverbs chapters 1-10 and the deep concern the father shows for his son in giving instruction). And finally, we, like Jesus’ disciples, commune with our Beloved, the Bridegroom present with us in a special way in the Lord’s Supper. Hence, our New Covenant forms carry with them an intimacy and joy that the Old forms only pointed to.

The pattern of our worship service is meant also to be the pattern of our lives the other 167 hours of the week. Following Jesus’ teaching in Mark 2:18-22, while there may be appropriate times for sorrow, in general the Christian life is not one of fasting but of feasting, every day.

May the remainder of your week be one of feasting with our Father and our truest Love, our Lord Jesus.

Notes on Mark 2:1-3:6

In chapter 1 Mark established a plethora of rich facts about Jesus’ identity. Here in chapter 2 we’ll begin to see the inevitable tension between Jesus and the religious elite of his day. Mark carries this tension into the first section of chapter 3 where it culminates in the Pharisees’ decision to destroy Jesus.

An Annotated Outline:

I. Jesus has power over the individual condition, both physical and spiritual (vv. 1-12)
A. Jesus forgives sins, claiming power over the individual spiritual condition. As an aside, we see here an early allusion to Jesus’ role as sacrificial lamb. Jesus forgives the man’s sins, but there is no forgiveness for sin without the shedding of blood (Heb 9:22).
B. Jesus heals the body, demonstrating in an observable way that, if he says it, he can do it, an obvious indication that he is the God who makes things happen with a Word.
C. The men lowered their friend through the roof. Remember that Middle-eastern dwellings were typically built so that the flat roof was like another room in the house. Families slept there during the hottest weather, they worked there, etc. This was no flimsy construction, nor was it an easy task. They were desperate to get their friend near Jesus.

II. Jesus came to call sinners (which is awful good news to those who feel the weight of their sin, 13-17)
A. Jesus called Levi
B. Levi followed Jesus
C. Jesus fellowshipped with Levi at table
D. Note Jesus’ pointed dig, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Spiritually speaking, is anybody really well? Jesus is challenging the Pharisees to examine themselves and have the humility to be honest about their need. The big question is this: Will they admit that they are sick, repent from their prescribed, self-invented religious formulas / ideals and come to Jesus? Will they continue to assert their own spiritual wellness and remain enemies of God, or will they scramble to be near Jesus like those guys who came through the roof? Certainly they are near him in proximity, but their hearts are far from him. They want nothing to do with him.

III. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Covenant and initiates a new paradigm (18-22)
A. John represents the old paradigm – longing for God’s salvation
B. The Pharisees represent self-made religious formulas – “deserving” God’s salvation
C. Jesus is God’s salvation, and so his disciples celebrate.
D. The old forms are inadequate for the New Covenant life. Or to put it another way, the shadow can’t contain the substance. A question about fasting provokes Jesus' wineskin illustration. OT fasting came in two basic modes: 1) abstaining from food in the midst of intense emotion (see Hannah's response to her barenness and her tormentor, 1 Samuel 1); 2) religious fasting, the primary fast prescribed as part of the Day of Atonement ritual (Lev 16), but there are also examples of unprescibed fasting with religious significance (see 2 Sam 12). During the inter-testamental period, fasting became a way to acquire spiritual merit. The Pharisaical tradition grows out of this inter-testamental scheme. Jesus is asked, Why don't your disciples fast like those of John, and why not like those of the Pharisees? I think Jesus ignores the question regarding the Pharisees: Jesus' disciples don't need to score spiritual points with him. He answers the question about John's disciples with two reasons. "Why don't my disciples fast like John's? For two reasons. 1) everything John represents, the Old Covenant promises about a coming Messiah has come true. I am the Messiah, the Bridegroom. Now is not the time for mourning, but for celebration. 2) Everything John represents, the Old Covenant religious forms, were only foreshadowing elements, now that the real thing is here, those forms are no longer sufficient.

IV. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath (23-28)
A. Jesus was with his disciples; they were nourished with grain (an image of broken bread?)
B. The Sabbath is made for man, not to burden him with regulations, but to refresh him (Ex 20:12).
V. Jesus brings life where self-made religion brings death (3:1-6)
A. This incident takes place in the synagogue, the local place for spiritual instruction and corporate worship apart from the Temple. At the synagogue people gathered to hear the Scriptures read and expounded. In other words, they came here to encounter the Word of Life. On this day, they gather with Jesus, the Living Word, the Word made flesh.
B. Note the contrasts:
Jesus v. Pharisees
To save life v. to kill
Compassion v. hardness of heart

Mark Chapter 1

In my small group at church we've begun reading through and discussing Mark's Gospel. Below you'll find an annotated outline of Mark 1 that I worked up following our first meeting. I thought I might include these and subsequent notes because I believe that it's only in a right relationship with God (the Maker of humanity, not a divine light within humanity) that we come into the fullness of what it means to be human.

Hopefully the formatting isn't too cumbersome and text dense. And hopefully these entries will provoke a broader conversation that will lead to richer experiences with Scripture as well as with the God who is revealed in it.


Notes on Mark 1, an annotated outline:

I. Introduction: Jesus is the Anointed One (Christ) from God (vv. 1-8)
A. Jesus’ present arrival is linked to OT prophecy

B. John is an OT prophet in the manner of Elijah (indicated by dress and diet)

C. The OT (testament / covenant) events “prepare the way” for the New (“one is coming after me . . .”)


II. Jesus is the fulfillment of the OT (9-15)
A. Just as Elijah anointed Elisha who received a “double portion” of the former’s spirit (2 Kings 2), so John anoints Jesus; from the lesser / the shadow (John) emerges the greater / the reality (Jesus).

B. Heaven was torn open, the Spirit descended and “a voice came from heaven . . .” Foreshadows Mark 15:38-39 (making for a nice pair of bookends, or an inclusio, for the book). The Spirit coming down is the fulfillment of the core promise of the covenant – “I will be their God and they will be my people:” God (the Spirit) is coming to be with His people in an intimate way, beginning with the Firstborn (se Col 1:15, Ro 8:29).

C. Jesus is the new (true) Israel – driven into the wilderness by God the Spirit, just as God drove the people of Israel from the edge of Canaan back into the wilderness. Jesus stays one day for each year.

D. John is arrested: the OT era, the era of types, fades. Jesus makes the kingdom proclamation: the NT era, the era of fulfillment, is initiated. That may sound awfully Dispensational, but here’s the primary difference. In the Covenantal view, the Old gives way to the New; the New overtakes the Old. The types and shadows give way for their fulfillment. Think of the stars and the sun. The stars give light at night, but when the sun rises they “give way” to its greater light. They don’t go away; their lesser light is overtaken by the greater light. The Dispensationalist (who might use the same illustration differently) sees the Old as being interrupted by the New, not necessarily overtaken by it. Pointing primarily to Romans 11 (along with other key texts), they typically see a coming time when the Old will resume, the Temple rebuilt and the reinstitution of the OT sacrificial system (that’s typical of Dispensationalists, but not necessarily universal). Thus, they typically speak of God’s OT people and God’s NT people. Both Dispensationalists and Covenantalists see a change from Old to New; however, we disagree about the nature of that change. Lastly, we should remember that there is a great deal of variety within both views, which can allow for greater or lesser degrees of common ground dependent upon the particulars in each position.


III. Jesus is the God of the Covenant, establishing the Covenant relationship (16-20)
A. Jesus calls Simon and Andrew, then James and John, and tells them to leave their kinsman and way of life. He sets them apart for a purpose, promising them that they will mediate blessings to others, and he begins the process of reshaping them to fulfill that purpose (cf. Gen 12ff.)

B. Like Abraham, those who are called go.


IV. Jesus is the God of Power: Power over both the supernatural and the natural (21-39)
A. Jesus teaches with palpable authority.

B. Jesus exercises supreme power over demonic forces (the supernatural)

C. Jesus exercises supreme power over the physical body (the natural)

D. Some (Peter’s mother-in-law, in this case) will receive from Jesus and serve him, that is, enter into a properly ordered love relationship with him.


V. Jesus’ power restores us to God (40-45)
A. Leprosy barred a person from both the Temple (where one communed with God) and the nation (where one communed with his people -- see Levitical law, esp. Lev 13). Though it may not apply for this particular leper, the event itself indicates Jesus’ mission - to cleanse people from the blight of sin (the outward disease symbolizes the inward condition) so that they may be able to commune with God and his people.

B. Some will receive from Jesus and remain separate from him (contrast to IV.D., above). The cleansed leper disobeyed Jesus, and Mark gives no indication that he actually went to the Temple to be restored to worship.



Essentially, in chapter 1 Mark establishes Jesus’ link to former revelation; he presents Jesus as the God of Power, the Ruler or King over creation; he indicates that the King is on a rescue mission; and he defines the mission, to restore people to a right relationship to God. At our last meeting I said that Mark 1 gives the whole movement of Mark’s Gospel. I might go so far as to say that, if you’ve read Mark 1 then you have read Mark’s Gospel. Obviously the remainder of the text gives important details, but in chapter 1 Mark hits all his major themes.

Born Standing Up

A recent road trip afforded me the opportunity to listen to the audio-book version of Steve Martin’s memoir reflecting on his career in stand-up comedy. Nurtured by his mathematical mind and his college forays into philosophy, Martin’s innovations in stand-up are a case study in the shift from the Modern to the Postmodern.

In his analysis of the craft, Martin detected a formulaic relationship between the comic and the audience. The art of stand-up was found in the comic’s ability to build a sense of tension and then release it with the punch line. An audience almost instinctively fell into this rhythm of build-and-release, and successful comics were those who instinctively tapped into it – that mysterious stage quality known as “comedic timing.”

By studying the stage habits of successful performers, Martin further noted that each had a signature gesture, almost imperceptibly subtle, that accompanied the delivery of the punch line. On one occasion in particular, he watched a well-known, aged comic on the Tonight Show who patted his belly with each punch line. In his old-age, the comedian slurred his speech such that punch line was often unintelligible. Nonetheless, the audience always laughed on cue. Martin concluded that in the current state of stand-up, audiences had essentially been trained to recognize a punch line and respond appropriately, an almost Pavlovian arrangement.

Here’s the Postmodern shift. Martin wanted to create a comedic style that disrupted the automatic build-and-release rhythm, allowing the audience to choose when to laugh – a more democratic, participatory stand-up. The release (punch line) was the key. The release simultaneously served two functions: it cued the audience as to when they ought to laugh, but it also restricted them to laughing at times dtermined by the comic. Martin wanted to take a top down paradigm and make it bottom up – grassroots comedy.

So he asked the question, “What if there’s no release, no punch line?” Martin’s comedy developed around the idea that he would perpetually build up a joke or gag and never complete it. He would offer no resolution. While the audience waited for the release, he moved to the next build up of tension. If the audience got the gag, they laughed right then. But if some people didn’t get it until later (even the next day, perhaps) they were free to laugh then, too. The product was a more spontaneous, natural experience for the audience.

It’s interesting to see that Steve Martin’s frenetic, unstructured, “wild-and-crazy-guy” routines of the 70’s were actually highly structured and precisely choreographed, the product of near scientific analysis and application of philosophical theory. Despite the overly silly antics, a certain amount of genius was a work.

Then again, given the smart wit and technical virtuosity of Martin’s later work, it’s not that surprising.

Unfortunately, for all his technical virtuosity, both Martin’s narrative and the life he narrates are emotionally arid. His descent into non-sequitur absurdism and unrestrained sarcasm seems to leave him without the capacity for sincerity or depth of heart. And in that, Martin exemplifies Postmodernism’s organic connection to Modernism’s dehumanizing bent toward fragmentary compartmentalism.

The Reagan I Knew

An insider’s view of the ascension and denouement of our country’s 40th president, told with the warmth of personal reflection and correspondence.

In this, the 55th and final piece that he wrote before his death, William F. Buckley traces his relationship with Reagan from their first meeting (a speech WFB delivered in the gymnasium of a Beverly Hills school) to their last (Reagan’s final appearance on Firing Line). Buckley shares memories and letters that sketch the growth of a true friendship amid the political circumstances and historical context that marks the “golden age” of modern American conservatism. In their time, Buckley and Reagan were giants of public life. It is refreshing to see political allies with such admiration, love and respect for one another privately, as well.

The final paragraph merits quoting in full:

The Reagan years accustomed us to a mood about life and about
government. There were always the interruptions, the potholes of life. But Reagan had strategic vision. He told us that most of our civic problems were problems brought on or exacerbated by government, not problems that could be solved by government. That of course is enduringly true. Only government can cause inflation, preserve monopoly, and punish enterprise. On the other hand it is only a government leader who can put a stamp on the national mood. One refers not to the period of Shakespeare but to the period of Elizabeth. Reagan’s period was brief, but he did indeed put his stamp on it. He did this in part because he was scornful of the claims of omnipotent government, in part because he felt, and expressed, the buoyancy of the American Republic.

Who, oh! who will once again feel and express the “the buoyancy of the American Republic?”

The Reagan I Knew is an inspiring and edifying read for those disparaged by the usual muck and pessimism of political discourse.

Contemporary Worlds (II)

Solzhenitsyn continues:


There is the concept of the Third World: thus, we already have three worlds. Undoubtedly, however, the number is even greater; we are just too far away to see. Any ancient deeply rooted autonomous culture, especially if it is spread on a wide part of the earth's surface, constitutes an autonomous world, full of riddles and surprises to Western thinking. As a minimum, we must include in this category China, India, the Muslim world and Africa, if indeed we accept the approximation of viewing the latter two as compact units. For one thousand years Russia has belonged to such a category, although Western thinking systematically committed the mistake of denying its autonomous character and therefore never understood it, just as today the West does not understand Russia in communist captivity. It may be that in the past years Japan has increasingly become a distant part of the West, I am no judge here; but as to Israel, for instance, it seems to me that it stands apart from the Western world in that its state system is fundamentally linked to religion.

How short a time ago, relatively, the small new European world was easily seizing colonies everywhere, not only without anticipating any real resistance, but also usually despising any possible values in the conquered peoples' approach to life. On the face of it, it was an overwhelming success, there were no geographic frontiers to it. Western society expanded in a triumph of human independence and power. And all of a sudden in the twentieth century came the discovery of its fragility and friability. We now see that the conquests proved to be short lived and precarious, and this in turn points to defects in the Western view of the world which led to these conquests. Relations with the former colonial world now have turned into their opposite and the Western world often goes to extremes of obsequiousness, but it is difficult yet to estimate the total size of the bill which former colonial countries will present to the West, and it is difficult to predict whether the surrender not only of its last colonies, but of everything it owns will be sufficient for the West to foot the bill.
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KMB's comments:

Solzhenitsyn continues to draw out his basic theme: that the Western worldview is essentially flawed, especially in how it prevents the West from realizing the depth and complexity of world cultures. I have described this flaw as the lack of a “Mythic” or “Epic”-view which other cultures retain, a grand vision that lends the culture / nation / people an identity of cosmic significance. Using Israel as an example, he hints here at the core point that drives his argumentation – a state system fundamentally linked to religion.

But, as Solzhenitsyn further articulates his big idea, we’ll see that by “religion” he means something more than the typical Western view of religion. Not an atomistic unit of belief that can be generalized, personalized and added in as a discrete, exchangeable component of life, but a formative force that constitutes the core of life itself. Take away the religion and the people become shallow, anemic and aimless. Discount the formative role of the religion (as the West does) and you utterly fail to understand the underlying principles that drive the life-task/focus of the people.

It’s worth noting that, even in 1978, Solzhenitsyn includes the Muslim world among the “worlds” that the West cannot adequately comprehend. We arrogantly and ignorantly (though “stupidly” might be a better descriptive) presume to deal with the Muslim world at a political level alone (the level of empty diplomacy and mercurial violence, according to Solzhenitsyn), but those assumptions that seed the Muslim heart and feed its intents are inaccessible to us, “riddles and surprises to Western thinking.” Primarily because we discount the depth and complexity of the formative core.

The Muslim Mythic-view in a nutshell: “Where do we come from? We are born out of the sheer, all powerful will of Allah. What are we about? Submission to and propagation of the will of Allah which is Islam. What is our destiny? To bring all the peoples of the Earth under subjugation to Allah through Islam.” This rubric forms the core of Muslim identity.

But the West doesn’t get that. Instead, we misunderstand it as a political ideology and ascribe it to “radicals.” That basic misunderstanding has infected every aspect of Western relations with the Muslim world, including everything that led up to and everything that has followed the events of 11 September 2001. And all indications portend that it will continue to do so.

The Thin Man

Daschell Hammet established the hard-boiled detective as a fixture in the American imagination. The Thin Man, together with The Maltese Falcon, stands out as representative of Hammet’s novels (originally printed in serial format) and remains an exemplar of the mystery / thriller genre.

The “noire” aspects are surprisingly unsurprising – or perhaps, unsurprisingly so considering how thoroughly the motif has imbedded itself in our popular consciousness. Hammet’s New York is all posh hotel apartments and speak-easies peopled with crusty coppers, sad-sack snitches and leisure-rich lushes. His protagonist Nick Charles married wealth and retired early from the sleuthing racket. He plays the markets with his young wife’s money and routinely requests a cocktail with his breakfast, “just a little something to cut the phlegm.” All nearly too commonplace to capture any attention.

But let not familiarity breed contempt. The Thin Man displays the kind of power and artistry that characterizes the rich beginnings of genre fiction. Hammet begins the narrative in medias res and ends just as abruptly. As the mystery unfolds, the laconic Charles tries as hard as he can to stay out of it, despite the fact that the players in the drama are his friends. Hammet off-sets Charles’ world-weary reticence with the exuberant curiosity of his wife Nora. The tension between the foils plays well to draw out Hammet’s big idea – that life doesn’t come with any real resolution, just theories and guesswork.

On one level, The Thin Man is a fun, easy read and a good entry point into the world of suspense fiction. On another, it shows us how the highborn notions of philosophy are filtered into the popular psyche, in this case, the relativistic vision that forms the framework for postmodern multiculturalism. And with a 1933 copyright, it also shows how long the idea has been settling in with us.

A World Split Apart (I)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
at Harvard Class Day Afternoon Exercises,
Thursday, June 8, 1978

I am sincerely happy to be here with you on this occasion and to become personally acquainted with this old and most prestigious University. My congratulations and very best wishes to all of today's graduates.

Harvard's motto is "Veritas." Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. But I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary but from a friend.

Three years ago in the United States I said certain things which at that time appeared unacceptable. Today, however, many people agree with what I then said...

A World Split Apart
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The split in today's world is perceptible even to a hasty glance. Any of our contemporaries readily identifies two world powers, each of them already capable of entirely destroying the other. However, understanding of the split often is limited to this political conception, to the illusion that danger may be abolished through successful diplomatic negotiations or by achieving a balance of armed forces. The truth is that the split is a much profounder and a more alienating one, that the rifts are more than one can see at first glance. This deep manifold split bears the danger of manifold disaster for all of us, in accordance with the ancient truth that a Kingdom -- in this case, our Earth -- divided against itself cannot stand.
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KMB's comments:


Solzhenitsyn develops this point more in the next section, but let’s begin here with what I think is a key component (though not the entirety) of what he is driving towards. We’re familiar with the concept of worldview. I want to expand the way we think about the concept so I’m going to trade the term for another that I hope more precisely gets to the heart of things: Mythic-view.

“Worldview” is too small a term (in one sense) to get at what Solzhenitsyn means because the nature of the split involves cosmic universals. Likewise, the term “meta-narrative” seems too small because “narrative” sounds academic and bland. “Meta-Epic” might be better, emphasizing the grand importance into which it ties the society it owns. Solzhenitsyn’s divide has to do with a Mythic or Epic view of a people’s origins, destiny, and power / history. Or to put it a different way, it has to do with the way a people answer the questions: “Who are we and where did we come from?” “Where are we going?” and, “What are we about and what do we do while we’re here?”

What Solzhenitsyn saw in 1978 (earlier, in fact) was a West that had rejected the Mythic-view that drove its ascendency, and with it, rejected the idea of Mythic-view itself. Without a Mythic-view the West was (and is) steeped in the material and relativistic. As such, the West also dismisses or ignores the Mythic-view within other major cultures and relates to them in purely material, relativistic terms. Thus “the split is a much profounder and much more alienating one.” As a result, the West interprets world events in primarily political terms, and responds with either diplomacy or arms proliferation.

Here’s a sketchbook example:

Beginning with the “Lost Generation” and continuing on through the Beatniks, Hippies, Slackers, GenXers, etc, Westerners have been on a quest to “find themselves.” In other words, the West is chiefly characterized by confusion about origins, destiny and power: “Who am I, where am I going and what am I about? I don’t know.”

That hasn’t happened elsewhere. Russians, for example, have a strong Mythic-view that shapes their lives. “Who are we? We are Russians, an ancient, glorious people. Where are we going? Towards further greatness. What are we about? Furthering Russian greatness.”

I may be oversimplifying somewhat, but generally speaking, strength, fortitude and the unrelenting march toward greatness pervade the Russian consciousness and the majority of Russians give themselves over to those things that promote actualization of that Mythic-view.

The Soviets leveraged that aspect of the Russian psyche to amass power and were successful until everyone inside Russia, even some who had ascended in the Party, realized the exploitation. Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher galvanized Western resistance in a way that challenged the Soviets at that fundamental level, the Mythic level. They did use a combination of diplomatic, economic and militaristic means as tools, but the focal point of the resistance was moral. At a time when the West in general had rejected a Mythic-view, Reagan and Thatcher personally retained a deep Mythic sense and rallied the West around it by drawing us into their grand (Mythic / Epic) vision of the Evil Empire behind the Iron Curtain in mortal conflict with the Shining City on a Hill.

To recap: The Soviets ascended to power by exploiting the Russian Myth and then, when history had moved such that they could no longer credibly prop themselves up on it, they collapsed under pressure from a source that drew its strength from a another Mythic-view.

However, though the Russians dealt periodically with exploitation of their Mythic-view by losing confidence in it, they never gave it up. In the last ten years, strong leaders have risen in Russia that have bolstered in the national Myth; hence, recent tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Russia and Europe.

In the eyes of the West where the Mythic is rejected, these recent plays are misinterpreted as being about political power. Some see it as primarily a problem surrounding natural resources, namely oil and natural gas. Others see it as a play to rebuild the Soviet Union. But I would submit that both views grow out of the split Solzhenitsyn identifies. Russia’s actions are only superficially about political power. Fundamentally, they are driven by the Mythic-view that Russians hold of themselves.

Juno

A quirky comedy set in the off-beat world of upper Midwestern teenagers – but it has more plot then Napoleon Dynamite.

Sixteen year old Juno gets pregnant and, after considering an abortion, decides to carry the baby to term and give the baby up for adoption. The high-energy, wise-cracking teenager spouts allusions and one-liners that flow more naturally from the pen of a twenty-something scriptwriter than from the mouth of a 16 year old punk rocker, but actress Ellen Page carries it well, giving the film wit and intelligence, as well as an airy freshness.

Two interesting points in the film:

First, Juno’s experience at a women’s clinic suggests that the rising generation wants to re-open the question that has been closed by nearly all but a shrinking religious minority – When is a fetus a human life? The film never asks the question directly, but Juno’s dilemma and resulting choice gives us hope that she (and others of her generation if she is representative) are more willing to view an unborn child as a person rather than a mere coagulation of cells.

Second (and this question is asked far more openly) Juno practically begs for assurance that a relationship can “last forever.” Apparently exhausted by the tickle down effects from two generations of disposable relationships, Juno speaks for her tribe in her longing for permanence. Unfortunately, the film offers only a superficial answer.

The movie sports a PG-13 rating, and for those who may be content-sensitive, the dialogue is well-laced with casual cursing and sexual frankness. That said, I think the film is worth watching. If, as I said earlier, the character Juno is representative and the rising generation is asking serious questions about the sanctity of life and marriage, then we bear a responsibility to be prepared to offer answers that are both deeply rooted in Truth and savvy to the way they receive and process information.

Introduction

While serving the Soviet Army during WWII, Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote a personal letter to a friend in which he criticized Stalin’s war strategy and referred to him as “the whiskered one.” For that offense Solzhenitsyn spent eight years in the Gulag.


That experience, together with his subsequent exile, forms the core of his work. In 1970 he won the Noble Prize for literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature."

When Solzhenitsyn died last August (‘08) I was reminded of his infamous Harvard address, the first – and last – invitation he received to speak at the school. In rereading it, I was shaken by the near prescience of his leveling criticisms.

That’s not to say that he forecast events like a modern-day Nostradamus. Rather, the view from here, some 30 years later, suggests that the cultural trends that Solzhenitsyn analyzed in 1978 have, in many ways, developed along the lines he traced in this speech. He was wrong on some of the details: He didn’t anticipate the collapse of the Soviet Union, for example. Perhaps Reagan and Thatcher were examples of the kind of trend-changing leaders that Solzhenitsyn had hoped would emerge from that Harvard graduating class.

That blind-spot notwithstanding (and who can criticize such a blind-spot; in 1978 no one foresaw the Soviet collapse), Solzhenitsyn’s speech echoes back to us with a growing tag line: “I told you so.”

On this label, I will post sections of Solzhenitsyn’s speech along with my own limited commentary. Feel free to add your own, for the intention is to solicit discussion of Solzhenitsyn’s themes and their implications. Perhaps his echoing voice will ripple out into our social consciousness and inspire the personal courage and fortitude that he had hoped to stir in those Harvard graduates.

You can find a transcript of Solzhenitsyn's Harvard adress here:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html

About the Title

Philip K. Dick wrote science-fiction. One of his most well-known novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, inspired the cult classic film Blade Runner. Dick challenged traditional ontological assumptions, using androids as a foil for exploring what it means to be human.

The Dick Van Dyke Show featured Rob and Laura Petrie, a young couple living in the New Rochelle suburb of New York. Rob (Van Dyke) was a comedy writer with wacky co-writers as his best friends. Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) was the quintessential housewife. The show featured one of the first iterations of the affluent, suburbanite "starter-family" format that would become a staple for the contemporary sitcom.


Elements in these divergent stories come together, I think, to describe the particular tension in the rising generation, namely ontological confusion (questions concerning origins, history and destiny) and the stabilty of traditional structures.

On the one hand, twentysomethings are skeptical about their parents' basic assumptions about reality and self; they are almost haunted by the questions "Who am I?" "Where did I come from?" "Where am I going?" and "What do I do on my way there?" and their parents' answers don't prove satisfying. As a result, they seek a different lifestyle, usually urban and experimental.

On the other hand, ask most of these same twentysomethings where they hope to be in 10-15 years and they seem to want a stable family (a life-partner and one or two children) and the kind of personal peace and affluence that characterizes their own upbringing. In other words, they are both skeptical of and desirous for those structures that shaped them.

They navigate a tension between Philip K. Dick and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Remains of the Day

A friend first mentioned Kazou Ishiguro to me about a year ago but it was only recently (after several more recommendations) that I picked him up. He wites beautifully and commands masterful control over his narrative. To quote a friend, "Even when absolutely nothing's happening in the story, it's still a pleasure to read."

Remains of the Day is told in the voice of a proper English butler on a "motoring holiday." In journal format he reflects on his profession and the qualities that make a great gentleman's gentleman. As he does, he shows us the predicament of his own psyche, a predicament of which even he is unaware.

Ishiguro delights in humanity and colors his characters with rich complexity. His themes (in what I've read of him) explore the tragedy of humans caught up in structures that threaten to dehumanize them. Remains of the Day criticizes the subtle caste system in British society.

A good read, engaging and thought provoking.