Tag Archives: postaday2011

February 27, 2011

Sabbath Reflections: Week 8

By Bo

It was a fun experiment, to be sure, but after two full months of posting everyday on this blog, the time has come to cool the jets, if only a little bit. To scale back. The 26th came and went with no original post, but it wasn’t because there wasn’t time – rather, I sat in front of the screen and could not think of anything to write. What I’ve discovered over these past two months is that while there is a sense of freedom that comes from writing every day, there are some afternoons or evenings when the words just aren’t there. It has nothing to do with a want for an inspirational prompt (the entire site is dedicated to an aspect of life I believe is new and captivating each day), nor with a paucity of time or a struggle with laziness. I’ve found that what happens when I attempt to post everyday – in addition to doing my own prose writing as well – is that the writing itself suffers.

I believe that this world is charged with mystery and wonder, what Hopkins called the “grandeur of God.” I believe that when we spend too much time maintaining lives that “keep it real” at all costs, we lose something very important. I believe people of this modern/postmodern world have misplaced an ability to be comfortable with the unexplained, the ambiguous, and the surreptitious. We have relegated such things to outlandish encounters in bad rom-coms and supernatural oddities in fantasy paperbacks. But the truth is, this world is infused with mystery and wonder because it has been created by a God who is at home in these things. To quote Hopkins again, “Christ plays in ten thousand places.”

That said, I must do justice to this mystery and not force what isn’t there. Or, at least, I should not give myself half-heartedly to daily blogging about something that continually warms my whole heart. When I sit down to chronicle the manner in which I have glimpsed this God at work and at play in our world, I want my words to be genuine, not coerced through obedience to some quotidian ritual.

So, if you are a reader, I hope you will understand my reasoning. I am certainly not hanging up the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign on this blog. However, like the businesses here in Germany that observe a “Ruhetag,” that is, a day of rest, I, too, would like the freedom to sometimes let the words simmer a while longer. I will continue to post rather frequently, but I hope that what follows will not be contrived or strained in any way.

So, until the next post (sooner rather than later, I hope), may we breathe our days in deeply, and open our eyes to all that dances around us. May we spurn the cut-and-dried negativity of a world afraid of mystery, and remind ourselves to live as people who see more than the bare minimum of life. Of such is the kingdom of God…

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Devotions

February 26, 2011

Friday Films: Western Double-Feature

By Bo

"That'll be the day."

We stopped off at Mr. Chicken first, ordering our roasted half-chickens with pommes. We came back and chowed down to the bones, bared the wall and plugged the laptop into the projector. Up went the Duke, with a blaring soundtrack at his back, riding toward us alone across a vast southwestern prairie. We were on the porch with the rest of the Edwards family, waiting for Ethan to climb down from his horse and amble in for his close-up, all stoic and macho and lionhearted.

For all the fun we poked at it, it’s hard to deny that The Searchers is a classic of classics.

We took a bathroom break and then sat back down for a classic Eastwood flick, Unforgiven, choosing arguably one of that icon’s best as well. I’ve already written plenty about that one here.

It was a good time to be men, and to realize how different we “men” are from the men in these films. I’ve always wondered if I could make it in the late 1800′s, with all its stark frontierism, horses and guns – a place and time so devoid of entertainment opportunities that the whole family is abuzz with exhilaration at the arrival of a poorly written letter. Passing the days slogging through mud to separate feverish pigs, digging holes for fence posts and gathering firewood so the family won’t freeze to death is a far cry from my list of chores growing up (mow the yard, skim the pool, recycle the cans, etc.).

One thing that I do recognize as remaining constant is the desire to sit and… be. In Unforgiven, Gene Hackman’s dream is to build his little house with a porch where he can sit out in the evenings and smoke his pipe and watch the sunset. In The Searchers, John Wayne relaxes on the porch steps of his brother’s house and muses upon his travels while the sky turns from yellow and blue to orange and indigo. All the Tivo’s, DVR’s, high-speed Internet connections, and Netflix envelopes in the world don’t hold up in comparison to the desire I have to enjoy the same. To sit out on a porch of my own, smoke my pipe and watch the same sun that set in 1868 set over me… That’ll be the day.

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February 24, 2011

Some Thoughts on Christian Atheism

By Bo

Some people would think that I would not encounter much rejection of God while teaching at a Christian school, but those people tend to believe that atheism is only an overt spurning of belief, a specific and active form of rejection. However, if we are true to ourselves, we might recognize how much of our lives are marked by disbelief rather than belief, both in supernatural and corporeal realities. I’m not calling professed believers atheists, but I will be bold enough to say that atheism exists within us like a lump in a bowl of mashed potatoes – we can’t see it, no one can be certain it is there, and everything looks fine; however, once we begin to dig around inside ourselves, we find that our capacity for belief is not wholly dominant.

I’m not referring to doubt. Doubt is an element of faith. Without doubt, faith cannot flourish.

Balloons really hammer the point home, don't they?

I’m speaking of a posturing of our lives in a manner that aligns itself against belief. This is the covert nature of atheism – people of faith certainly would not profess unbelief, but they may very well go on living like there is nothing beyond their own dreams, their own desires, their own bodies. They believe in God as a concept, but there are days (or weeks or months or years) where that concept is disconnected from actual living and breathing reality. They may testify to the reality of God, but day by day they show allegiance solely to the law of man. Thus, there seems to be no point to this recognition of God, at least in the sense of altering one’s life. Instead, it’s more like citing a documented source in a research paper – an acknowledgement of God in a deistic sense.

I see this kind of hypocrisy in myself every once in a while. I can claim and speak about my faith, but, in the drudgery of the day, all I’m really thinking about is myself. Awareness of a greater reality is the furthest thing from my mind. As the writer Frederick Buechner has written, some people who claim there is no God may be living as if there is, and some who claim that there most certainly is a God may still live as if there is not.

I think that our shortcomings often stem from this particular problem. It is no easy thing to cultivate an awareness of the Other – one that remains powerful and persuasive throughout our days. However, until we can do this – until we can truly practice this presence of God in the here and now of our spinning world – we will find that the words of our mouths and even the work of our hands do not always match the inclinations of our hearts.

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