Scribbling with Crayons, Growing Up, and God

Life seems to take many twists and turns and new routes. I am not one to speak authoritatively on the activities and much less indeed the mind of God. However, as I have trekked through life (as short as it has been), it seems that God treats human folk analogous to adults' treating of preschoolers (please be not offended by this crude metaphor!).

If I hand a preschooler a crayon, the preschooler will likely fumble with it and eventually (ideally) scribble. It might strike us as strange if the preschooler looked up and said, “I am going to be a professional scribbler.” Naturally, it may be that the preschooler does indeed grow up to be an artist, but we all know that a great many doctors, teachers, and engineers also scribbled with crayons when they were preschoolers. Scribbling with a crayon was a task that led to a great many other things not necessarily professional artistry.

But it seems that many of us begin imagining that God wishes us to be professional scribblers, remaining in a particular discipline for the extent of our lives. We encounter a task, however pleasant or unpleasant, and think, “Ah, this is what I will do for the rest of my life. This is what God has called me to do. This is what God made me for!” Perhaps, some folks have this experience. In fact I am sure some folks do, but for the rest of us it’s more like a step-by-step discovery process.

(I am reminded of teenagers who build their entire futures on their fun experiences playing baseball or football; how many of them end up playing in the NFL? Later in life, how many would say that their time playing high school football was instrumental in shaping who they are today? I wager that almost none play in the NFL and most indicate those years playing high school sports as formative years)

I shall insert here some self-application. It would seem then that God does not expect me necessarily to envision every nook and cranny of the rest of my life, when God seems to direct me towards a particular task such as seminary. I am merely to focus on the task at hand and maximize the quality of time spent doing it. I am to pick up the crayon and do the best scribbling I can, knowing full well that though I may not grow up to be a professional scribbler scribbling is a step in the process of discovery and maturation.

The South is...

Sine moving to California, the South seems to have a different hue. I now see the South from a distance but as an insider. There are many other ways to perceive the South, but now I think the South is a fairyland teeming with magic and fairies.

At the beginning of the story there was a bad fairy who deceived some other fairies. Since then, there have been swarms of trouble, and there are legions of dangerous fairies and fairies who pretend not to be fairies at all. Some fairies have cut off their wings and explain fairyland according to “natural processes.” They reside in what is called the University. There was an ongoing battle between fairies even in the University. But nowadays the battle is different. It is different because the Universities have pervaded with a keen magic and so now most folks don’t even believe in fairies and magic anymore.

But everybody knows that fairies are still fairies and magic is still magic no matter what you call it.

It seems that folks in the South may not notice they live in a fairyland but that is not because they deny it (though they may deny the language but not the reality of it as indicated by their behavior). They may not notice because they are so accustom to living in it. They assume it. The aforementioned fairy stories are all a part of the Southern consciousness, often subconscious. “God willin’ and the creek don’t rise I’ll make it to work on time.” Some might interpret this to bespeak an imbued sense of the tragic in the Southern consciousness, but there is another way of understanding this. “‘God willin’ and the creek don’t rise I will get to work on time’ cause everybody knows you never know what might happen next in a fairyland.”

Folks living in New England and on the West coast seem to have been playing the pretend game that fairies and magic do not exist. And now they have begun to believe their game is actually true. When they were children the game was pretend, but since becoming adults they say it is actually the way things are. There is no magician, and so there cannot be any such magic. They assert that there is no magic and there are no fairies. So they say. But even the folks who say such things are merely under the influence of bad fairies or fairies who have since cut off their wings.

Growing up involves a lot of things. Sometimes it involves forgetting. When I was a child, I preferred fairy stories (I even wrote a few), but when I grew up something happened. I grew into a “greater appreciation for ‘realism.’” I forgot about the fairy stories. I didn’t want them anymore, so I pretended they weren’t true. And then my pretend game seemed to grow more and more true, until finally I was convinced that yes indeed it was true. There is no magician, no magic, nor fairies. All this while I still lived in the last (admittedly so) fairyland in the United States. Then one day, I moved away from fairyland, to a place where people said there wasn’t such a thing as fairyland or a magician. I thought without them life was real, but this was still part of my pretend game, though I lacked the acumen to realize it. And then I saw it, the magician, the magic, and the fairies: all before me doing what they always do, continuing to soar through the air and continuing to do what they were meant to do in the first place.

The South seems to be one of the few places in the United States that still remains content with living in the world of the text, in the world of Scripture’s story, a world filled with real magic and real fairies. It may seem strange to speak of a magician, magic, and fairies, but I can think of nothing more germane. We have a propensity to be so modern, so enlightened that we begin describing everything according to sterile laws and banal philosophies. For those of us who often refrain from living in the magical world of the text, fairy stories are just what the doctor ordered, for “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy.”

Death, Life, and Faithfulness

Over the past few decades my dad has made frequent trips to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The past several years have been especially tumultuous for Haiti, and yet my dad has continued to make trips and work alongside his Christian brothers and sisters in ministry there. I am one among many others who have considered it reckless on my dad’s part to make some of the trips. On one particular occasion, I confronted him about this. I asked him if it was truly wise for him to make the trips. I asked him if there were not other means through which he could help. He responded by mentioning the importance of “just being there for people,” and he continued with explaining that he will continue to do what God seems to have set out before him to do. And in doing so, he will rest in "the sovereignty of God." Being a prudent son, I continued to prod him, asking him if he might not simply wait a few months until things cool off a bit in Haiti. My dad has a habit of making trips to Haiti while placid things such as national revolution and headhunting swarm the countryside, so I continued to prod and to urge him to rethink his trips to Haiti. And he continued to try to explain to his wise son that he rests in the sovereignty of God.

I cannot say that I have matured much since this particular occasion. However, I may be able to say that I am beginning to understand what it is to rest in the sovereignty of God, to rest in the knowledge that death may be my next step but my next step is held in the hands of God. Be it an earthquake, a car wreck, a mud puddle, or a cheerio, death may be my next step, but death and the means of death are not to be the focus. I think if we each continually pondered death, we may never get out of bed and even that may seem dangerous. The focus then is to live, to live out a calling faithfully. And then if death is the next step, it will be while trekking faithfully. And in that knowledge a person may truly find rest. This is not a stoic’s response. It is purely a Christian response, to live faithfully striving to live as a vital participant in God’s purposes. And then a person may rest in the knowledge that it is God’s purposes after all, and the result is in God’s hands, albeit the next step may involve death by a cheerio. Oh, to hear the words, “well done, good and faithful servant.”

Narrative, Reduction, and Recovery

Complex systems theory suggests that a whole is more than the sum of its parts (or something of the like). Perhaps similarly, a narrative is more than the sum of its parts. A narrative may be “more” in so far as the narrative is distinct from being merely a grouping of its parts, distinct from being merely an unwoven string of people and events. Like an intricately woven tapestry being something other than threads lain side by side on a table, a narrative is “more.” This may be close to the truth, but the past two hundred years of critical hermeneutics suggests otherwise.

Operating in accord with an atomistic perception of language, the past few hundred years of critical method have considered the meaning of a given text to depend upon individual parts. The meaning of a text relies entirely on individual words and the grammar, syntax, etc. Thus, the synergy of the narrative is ignored and is reduced to individual parts. This ignores the possibility that the whole may “more” or something other than a mere disconnected grouping of its parts. This sort of reduction of a narrative is tantamount to the vivisection of what I have previously referred to as “synthetic philosophy.”

Hans Frei does more to explain the effects pre-critical and critical methods have had on narrative than I suspect I will ever do. But I shall offer an egregiously brief summary here. Pre-critical methods accepted the narrative and its world, and critical methods judged the narrative and its world according to how we presently perceive the world. This change in method raised as many new questions as it answered previous questions. To answer the new questions, a sort of polarization ensued. Some asserted that the language in Scripture referred to actual historical objects (and the actual meaning of referents could be determined according to grammar, as mentioned above), while others asserted that the religious language found in Scripture narrative is merely time-conditioned consciousness which does not necessarily refer to historical objects, people and events and geographical places. This polarization disregarded the nature of narrative and its world. In both cases, narrative was lost.

How might narrative and for that matter its meaning be recovered? This is a loaded question, which requires thorough attention. For now just a tidbit will do. First, narrative’s distinctiveness from its parts must be acknowledged. Perhaps, an example will offer some further assistance. If we consider, the opening sentence of Flannery O’Connor’s “Green Leaf,” we might see the synergy of parts forming a narrative distinct from its parts. “Mrs. May’s bedroom window was low and faced on the east and the bull, silvered in the moonlight, stood under it, his head raised as if he listened – like some patient god come down to woo her – for a stir inside the room.” For the sake of brief analogy (and omitting the philosophy of language in which she is operating), let us pretend that each word represents a sentence or even a paragraph in a larger narrative. “Bedroom window,” floating apart from the whole may be interpreted to mean a myriad of different of things. Ah, but it is “Mrs. May’s bedroom window,” etc. In conjunction with its narrative, “bedroom window” has a specific meaning or use. This may seem to be a rather rudimentary observation, but this observation is distinct from saying only it has a referent or time conditioned consciousness. Allowing the narrative to shape and provide its own meaning is something rather different, and it is not simply giving preference to context (for that would atomistic). Letting the narrative retain its own world of meaning requires that we consider the narrative to be its own complex system, which has its own particular uses and meanings of words but also whose uses and meanings of words must be considered in light of the synthetic whole instead of its parts lest the meaning of the whole be lost. But alas this is only the beginning. However, at least, acknowledging narrative and its distinctiveness from its parts is a start. More of this later.

A Winepress

Good writing seems to come most naturally to a few eccentrics every generation or so. This is likely the case for a multiplicity of reasons. One reason may be that many good writers lived lives just off the beaten trail and lived a few inches off kilter. They did not always tread on paved roads but on thorny and shadowy courses. Their paths contributed to who they would become as writers.

I doubt Fyodor Dostoevsky wished to face a firing squad. I doubt he wished to be sent to Siberia, but Siberia granted him torments that would shape the rest of his career as a writer. Of course, he published a few mediocre books previous to his time in Siberia, but he wrote his greatest and most existentially profound books after his sufferings in Siberia.

Flannery O’Connor suffered from lupus and died when she was only thirty-nine, but her pain seemed to have contributed to what she believed to be her calling, writing. For two hours each morning she sat in front of her typewriter in order to write, but she could not sit there any longer because the pain was too great. She did this in her twenties and thirties. Even on her deathbed she faithfully toiled over “Parker’s Back,” one of her many short stories. She did not choose this suffering or early death, but she persevered and let it shape her and let its intensity bleed into her writing.

These are just a few people who lived rather eccentric lives, lives just off the beaten trail, lives full of various torments, though there are many other torments I have left unmentioned. And it was these torments that shaped them and their writing. It was these torments that contributed to shaping what we now consider treasure, good writing filled to the brim with insight, horror, and wit.

It may be the case that the American Dream, if realized, cultivates poor writers with shallow content. Nobody desires to spend years in Siberia or to be essentially housebound in the prime of life. But such has been the case with some of the greatest writers ever to have lived. The American Dream, on the other hand, seems to quell potential hidden deep within.

Here I say that suffering can be a sort of winepress. This does not mean that all sorts of suffering are in this way a wine press. There are some sorts of suffering that seem absolutely unredeemable, that seem to be consequences of sheer brokenness. But here I note only that not all suffering is undesirable. Some suffering is the road to the highest quality wine. Some suffering is truly a winepress.

Many Books on Doubt and Ambiguity

Needless to say much ink has been spilt for thousands of years regarding the issues of doubt and ambiguity. Job curses the day of his birth. The psalmist says his bones are in agony. Hamlet’s many soliloquies bespeak the gnawing inside of him. Raskolnikov grows physically sick toiling over matters of murder and meaning. As Prince Andrei lies mortally wounded on the battlefield, he stares up at the sky and contemplates existence and thoughts of home flood his consciousness. Roquentin is surrounded by people yet he feels sick with loneliness among other things. There are numerous other fictional people to add to the list, but what do all these fictional people indicate about the nonfictional world of people? Of course, a glance at historical contexts and myriads of reasons and causes will surface. It might be said that books grieving over existential doubt and ambiguity are induced by a trifling interest. It might be said that many people continue reading such books out of curiosity. However, generally speaking, I think there are other reasons.

These fictional people were squeezed out of their authors as if squeezed out of grapes in a wine press. The grapes endured great suffering but for great result. Stanley Hauerwas said that we would lose something if Dostoevsky had lived today and we made him a psychologically “well adjusted person.” So perhaps doubt and ambiguity are not thoroughly evil.

A rudimentary observation will likely note that doubt and ambiguity are described with rather vague metaphors. This seems true and with good reason. Metaphors seem to capture what plain language cannot. Dark-grey clouds hang low overhead, and they suggest an imminent storm. The air grows thick and bursts of light flash through the sky. With a smile and a nod, the trapdoor falls and the rope grows taunt. Choking and kicking of feet. Then calm. The feeling of existential doubt may be vague, but it is certain. This is a reason for the use of metaphor. The metaphor may be slippery and difficult to pinpoint, but it is apt.

Again, why the fascination with such existential wallowing as doubt and ambiguity? As of yet, I have only mentioned these issues as expounded by the ink on innumerable pages. It may be that many have tasted the bitterness and then read Dostoevsky, and said, “Is it true? I am not the only one who has tasted this fruit?” I will wager a guess that so much ink has been spilt on the same issues because these issues are not merely interesting but they are unshakable and intrinsic. For these reasons, at least in part, much ink has been spilt and will continue to be spilt. As long as we humans continue to live outside the garden, we will continue to spill ink and to wallow and to groan and to read the ink that has been spilt.

A Grateful Heart and a Careful Eye

As I have experienced more of life bit by bit, I have realized that yes indeed I am my parents’ son. My inadvertent habits and mannerisms seem to fall not from the tree. I speak about important and unimportant matters as indirectly as possible. I mince words when I have the chance almost as if I am an Ent in the bloodline of the great Treebeard. This often ironic tendency seems akin to my dad, who has a way of making requests and assertions in a rather indirect way. One particular day in my teenage years, my dad called the house from his office.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Sam.”
“Hey, Dad.”
From this point I do not remember much save the following nugget of hilarity.
“Sam, do you think you could get someone to mow the lawn? The grass is starting to look a bit high.”
“Okay,” quickly looking around the house I had an epiphany, “but Dad I’m the only one here.”
“Yeah, okay, well if you could just get someone to do it that’d be great.”
And thus my dad has a tendency for the indirect, which I have unashamedly inherited and employ on a regular basis, though I like to think that I appreciate directness. My wife, Esther, can attest to this point. However, she has caught on, and now she likes to do it too. “Sam, could you get someone to take out the trash?” Of course, no one else is living with us.

I have inherited of few of my mom’s foibles too. She is what most people would consider a perfectionist. I think in that case “most people” are in the right. She has a propensity for reading, rereading, and rerereading etc. what she has been writing, be it a play, a paper, or a book. After rereading whatever it is for the umpteenth time, she remains dissatisfied, for she knows something is out of place or needs some subtle adjusting. I have inherited this proclivity with unmitigated enthusiasm. Whatever it is that I so happen to be working on, I check and recheck until I am seeing double. I know Esther laughs to herself about this. I often let my mom read what I have been writing (though she does not read these silly blogs, for then I would likely never get around to posting a blog!). One particular instance I let her read a piece of fiction I had been crafting, and the following ensued.
“Wow, Sam, this is great!”
“Thanks, Mom. So what’s wrong with it?”
She listed a whole host of things. I chuckled to myself knowing that I would have it no other way. After completing her laundry list, I showed it to her again.
“Is it ready do you think?”
“Well, Sam, I don’t know if I would say it’s finished yet. Just let it sit awhile, and then after you have developed some more as a writer perhaps you can go back to it and finish it.”

This could be taken poorly, but I enjoy her keen eye and perfectionism, knowing that I have indubitably partly inherited it, though I would not flatter myself to think that I have her same perspicacious eye. There are numerous other habits and mannerisms my parents have passed on to me, more than I care to mention here.

With these thoughts, I have come to realize that I am unavoidably not self-made. I have been and am shaped by others, most notably my parents. This reality has brought to my attention the fact that I will be doing something analogous to my children. It’s a scary thought. My goodness! To think that there will be a few little human beings walking around in the wide world having inherited some of my silly foibles. Fortunately, they will have inherited some of Esther’s too. Parents have the potential to bless the world or to curse it. And which they choose the world will see on display through their children.

A Few Recommendations

Jesus and the Victory of God. This book was placed in my hands, and before that moment I had not seriously considered reading it though I had heard of it. I am very thankful for “accidentally” reading this book. It’s long, but it’s quite readable. Whether or not you have an interest in any of the quests for the historical Jesus, this is an edifying book. If you are interested in Jesus academically, this is a good book. If you desire most of all to meet Jesus again for the first time, this is a good book. A lot of attention is aptly paid to Jesus' death and resurrection. But what about his life? Wright’s discussion is thorough, keen, and speaks on a variety of levels.










The Resurrection of the Son of God. I was spurred on to read this book after finishing Jesus and the Victory of God. I was not disappointed. This is a rather exhaustive discussion of resurrection language, its uses, and significance in the pagan world, the Jewish world, and especially in the early Christian communities. It was absolutely exhilarating to consider the early Christians' valuing of Jesus' resurrection and of their own future resurrection. I hope this book contributes to altering many of the current interpretations of resurrection language.







The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. After having heard professors from different fields refer to this book as illuminating, I decided it was likely a good idea to read through it. I have not read anything that comes close to this book regarding hermeneutics. As indicated by the subtitle, this book is an overview of critical methods over the past few hundred years. Again and again, I located myself in the discussion and realized why I naturally make certain inferences. This is a valuable book, if for no other reason than engendering a reevaluation of critical method.










Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism. I read this for a class, and I am glad I did. For Christians and non-Christians this neat little book offers some insights into what on earth theological liberals and conservatives are fussing about. It turns out that the two camps may be merely in two separate spheres of reasoning and argumentation necessitated largely by modernity. Something’s gotta give. This is a rather brief book, but it is quite focused and offers some clarity regarding the water-and-oil relationship of liberals and conservatives.









Evangelism in the Early Church. This was an unlikely book to make this list. However, I think this is an important book to read for anyone who is involved in church. Green says, “evangelism was the lifeblood of the early church.” That may have been the case, but what does that mean anyway? And if that was the case, how does that compare to the contemporary church?

Ontological Quibbles: Postscript

The last entry was quite fragmented, as my entries are usually. As of late, I have felt unable to think to the contrary. However, I thought it would be appropriate to give the previous entry a postscript aimed at the issue of ontological distinction and development. But this will be no more thorough than any other entry, in fact less so.

Picking up where I left off…

If relationship has ontological significance and epistemology is a grammar for ontological nexuses, then the ontological difference between the pastor and the Hindu is with whom they each have relationship. The pastor allegedly has relationship with God. This relationship has profound ontological significance, and this may or may not be physically indicated by the community in which the pastor participates. Something analogous may be said of the Hindu, though I imagine it would look and sound much different. And in the pastor’s terms, the Hindu’s ontology would be without relationship with God, thus ontologically in the negative, which then ontologically distinguishes the pastor from the Hindu.

As a side note, which cannot and should not be omitted, praxis is a consequence of ontology. A nonreligious person may have certain practices, which seem rather similar to those of someone with a particular religious ontology. However, this nonreligious person, though he or she has certain practices, lacks the particular religious relationship which alters ontology (a horse may walk on its two back legs, but it is no more a human than when it walks on all four legs (a flippant example)). On the other hand, the person, whose ontology has been altered in accord with a relationship with God, shall begin a certain practice as evidence and as a consequence of the new relationship. Henceforth, this person’s ontology and praxis shall mutually inform each other as the person grows more fluent in relationship and proper praxis.

It may be said, for example, that the church is full of terrible people. This is a sound observation. Then it may be said, “how can it be that such a people have been ontologically altered due to their alleged relationship with God and consequent new praxis? If this is so, then God is a terrible one.” The last inference goes astray, for though the people may be a ragged group of deceitful egoists this is not evidence of God’s not existing or of God’s being a rather nasty brat. The last inference should be inverted. Instead of concluding that God must not exist or that God is nasty because God’s people are so. It may be concluded that God is one of mercy and grace that God should bestow such gifts upon even these such sordid people. Perhaps, God does so with the hope that the ontological alteration due to relationship will not be stagnant but will continue along with praxis to mold the people into something less ragged and nasty. Thus, ontological alteration due to relationship with God may be a reality, though socially it may seem as if nothing much has happened.