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Archive - December, 2010

what did you go into the wilderness to see?

December 30, 2010 in bits of theological ramblings, reflections with 5 Comments

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Gospel of St. Matthew lately, which I will admit is not at all my favorite. I’m a big fan of St. Luke and St. John, which may be covered in just as much black ink as they are red letters in my Bible, which I should probably set aside in favor of a new one to mark up, but I can’t bare to part with it. Not just yet.

It’s slow going, gleaning a love for Matthew. Funny, because it’s Christ and His teachings, so the natural compulsion should be simply to latch on and delight as I would with the other Gospels. Not so. Perhaps it’s the writing style, perhaps it’s the structure, but there’s just something not appealing to me about sitting down to read that particular part of the Word. Now, were I to be able to open up to another part of the Bible, I’d be rather delighted, but Matthew is a struggle. I have found myself every morning praying rather oddly before I engage the text. As opposed to normal prayer along the lines of seeing Him clearly and taking from the passages as He would desire me too, I’m actually praying to the Lord of Hosts to help me like that part of the Bible. To be able to make it through it, to not be so annoyed. I know this isn’t the “good Christian” response to any part of the Bible, but I also think it’s not the worst struggle I could be having.

monday muddlings: “pompeii and pimms in the last days”

December 27, 2010 in monday fiction with 1 Comment

I’ve endeavored to start bringing some fiction to the blog on Mondays and have not quite kept up with it for the past few weeks. Today I bring you something a little less complex than prose. Recently I was invited to present poetry at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor’s Writer’s Festival in February, based on a few snippets of work I have completed in the past. I’m now taking some time to draft a few new pieces to accompany my presentation. Here I submit to you, very humbly, something electronically inked out in the joyous betwixt between evening vigil and sleep. Refinements are forthcoming, to the poem and to my soul.

Note: If you’re not accustomed or fortunate enough to know what Pimms is, think of it as the taste of Britain in the summer. I was told it’s best served while watching the royals on parade.
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unto us a Child is born

December 24, 2010 in bits of theological ramblings, reflections with 0 Comments

It’s Christmas Eve and tomorrow we shall celebrate the birth of our Saviour. Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given. The beauty of this is overwhelming, perhaps even unbearable. I’m not a fan of the “Jesus is the reason for the Season” commentaries or the “Keep Christ in Christmas” onslaught, but I am aware and sensitive to the reality that Christmastime is often misunderstood, even by Christians. The beauty of it is lost; the miraculous is underscored. We take for granted what happened as if, perhaps by some clever logic, it is the most natural thing to have happened. We lose the Gift, the Otherness, the Strangeness, the Alleluia! of this odd, foreign blip in history that was to change, or perhaps fulfill would be a better word, everything.

My reflection today is centered on the ridiculousness of the Christmas story and narrative. Loosing myself from all the preconceived memories and recollections of “how it goes,” I’ve been thinking of it in its bare essentials. He, who in Him all things are held together, was held in a manger. Continue Reading…

parking Jesus

December 23, 2010 in bits of theological ramblings, reflections with 0 Comments

I was told once: God doesn’t care if you get a parking space. I’m fond of believing that is marvelously untrue, and try to live accordingly.

But exactly how does that work, per se? God is at once transcendent and enormous, looking upon Job and asking, “Where were you when I made the heavens?” and at the same time present and tangible, Jesus on the beach broiling fish for His disciples after He was resurrected. I’ve thought a lot about the need to keep God holy and Other as well as personal and Present.

When I was growing up, the temptation was to embrace the nearness of God over the holiness. The closeness of Christ was a temptation to make Him into my boyfriend, there when I needed Him and for me to chat to, but the undeniable reality of His Being that is apart from my own was not fully understood until later. I suppose that’s part of development, God on His throne in the clouds to my younger mind, as I aged being able to understand more that He was much more than that. That infinity was not a concept I could hold. As I grew in understanding, my appreciate for His eminence grew and I began to embrace His enormity, His Otherness, and to see the need to understand that He is holy. This in some ways coincided with my draw to liturgical works and saints and ultimately to the Anglican tradition and the portions of it I identify with. The temptation there was to emphasize too much the formality of written prayer and service, to make the formalized time the only time. I know that’s hardly what the Church would teach on the lectionary and its use, but nonetheless the temptation and thus the willingness to slip into it, was there. It was so easy to seem holy when it was routine and ritual. It was something else to have to be consistent.

being human again

December 21, 2010 in bits of theological ramblings, reflections with 0 Comments

The title may be a bit of an exaggeration, but in the microcosm of my experience it is rather fitting: finals are over, I’m returned home, and I’m starting to sleep again for more than five hours at a time. It’s not even Christmas yet, but next semester is already in sight. Amazon Prime means that the books for next term are already pilling up on my doorstep. Greek flashcards and notebook made the trip from school with me and will be getting a healthy amount of attention. There’s also a little matter that has to do with needing to have a command of Old French by May and a working knowledge of Latin that I’ll be trying to recover since it’s been a little over a year now. As always, there are things to do. Business is a seductive and profound snare. It catches me quickly and then does me the disservice of tossing me into the other extreme of laziness. Since I have been so busy, I should then be so lazy. I miss the reality of rest, that rest is a kind of productivity in itself. Stillness has a theological element to it. Quiet is a discipline.

Today I was reading the appointed My Upmost for His Highest text and reflecting on my need for stillness. I have spent so much time knowing that my prayer life was insufficient lately, but I wasn’t entirely sure how that was supposed to be corrected. Obviously I needed to talk to Him more, but I found that I would quickly run out of things to say or would become bored with the whole process. I would give up, toss up my hands, and go back to idleness and lethargy. Prayer was work and I was tired. Today’s reading, which emphasized His reality over my personal experience, was the gentle kick I needed to remind me that I was coming at the entire problem from the wrong angle.