theology

Eyeballing It

February 1, 2012 By heather 4 Comments

I’m a big fan of eyeballing things. If God gave me two eyeballs, what other tools could I need? A leveler? Eyeball it. It’s straight enough. (This could explain why guests get seasick walking down my hallway where photos line the wall.) A teaspoon? Eyeball it (and if it’s vanilla, add another teaspoon or so). A ruler? Eyeball it. It’s long enough. (Or centered enough.)

My motto: close enough for jazz.

Just don’t open my closets. (Also, I once had a pie come out so, well, fluid-y that we had to serve it as a topping over ice cream. A problem? I think not.)

My husband, on the other hand, is a frustrated perfectionist. Which means his closet is empty, and his clothes are everywhere else. His filing cabinet is immaculate, but the papers are piled on our kitchen counter.

I feel like I should turn this post now toward a spiritual direction, how this amusing tidbit about my life leads to some sort of epiphany, or at least a small commentary on the culture at large and its relationship to something Jesus-y.

Be assured that this is exactly what it appears to be: a small, meaningless tidbit about my life simply because I felt like saying “eyeball it” and confessing to the fact that I view recipes as more of loose guides than strict instructions. Wanna come over for dinner?

But here’s a biblical metaphor that occurred to me while buying my new car last night (after poor Annie was totaled, sacrificing herself to protect my husband and son from the villain who rear-ended them; the new car’s name is Gustav, by the way). Gustav has one of those key-less starts. (Gustav also has three free months of XM radio, which means I’m enjoying all Broadway! all the time! but that’s neither here nor there.) As long as the key, which looks nothing like a key, is in the vicinity of the car, I can unlock my doors, start the car, and drive away. (In a few months, Eddie at Hyundai tells us, I’ll be able to start my car using my cell phone by proxy through their blue tooth technology.) Pay attention to the biblical metaphor lest you miss it:

It reminded me of the centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant by proxy. You don’t even have to come to the house, he said. Just send your bluetooth(y) authority, and I know that’ll take care of things.

So is Jesus’ power like blue tooth? And does that make the Holy Spirit blue tooth technology? I’ll leave you to ponder on that philosophical genius.

Filed Under: theology Tagged With: blue tooth, centurion story in Luke, giggles, Holy Spirit, philosophy, theology

In Which I Throw Chris Under the Bus and Go on a Christian Verbage Rant

January 12, 2012 By heather 12 Comments

A recent conversation:

Chris (to Keegan): You’re doing so good, my boy!

Me: So well.

Chris: Your mom doesn’t want me to teach you how to speak normal.

Me: Normally.

I realize I’m throwing Chris under the bus here, but it made me laugh, this and conversations like it in which I attempt to use correct grammar so that we may teach our son when to say “to whom” and when to say “who,” when to use “I” and “me,” the difference between an adverb and an adjective.

Not to use “literally” when he’s speaking metaphorically.

Lessons such as these may seem minor compared to big things like who God is and why Jesus came to earth, but I believe words matter.

For example: the phrase “make him Lord of my life.”

Right. I’m going to make the the one who has authority over life and death, the one through whom all things were created, the one who now sits at the right hand of God the Father, the one who sits on David’s throne eternally, I’m going to make this man Lord of my life.

Except that he’s already Lord of all creation. He’s already king of the eternal kingdom. My options: join his kingdom or oppose it. When I became a Christian, I became a citizen of his kingdom, which means he is Lord of my life. My life might reflect the culture of his kingdom, or at times it may reflect the culture from which I came–the culture over which Death reigns. But I do not choose through my actions whether or not Christ is Lord of my life.

How silly.

Every once in a while, I have to get these rants out of my system.

Filed Under: theology Tagged With: Christology, grammar, theology, words

The Master's Artist: Risky Business

November 9, 2010 By heather 1 Comment

Today’s post at The Master’s Artist reflects on my recent completion of my rough draft and my intention and work on the revisions.

"Art is discovery. In the rough draft, I work through the characters’
emotions (as well as my own). I answer the questions: How does my
character feel about and react to all these things? How do I feel about
these ideas? In the rough draft, I discover meanings and muck through
what it means to be human. But if I stop there, my work stays in the
realm of self-expression, of emotionalism, and possibly,
horror-of-horrors, sentimentalism. I might even attempt to manipulate
or stimulate the observer so that she feels the same way I do about all
this mess."

Read the rest of Risky Business.

Filed Under: art, artists, creation, creativity, theology

Grace in Cracked Pots

November 3, 2010 By heather 4 Comments

I had encountered the potter five months ago at an art festival in Dallas. He made everyday objects–bowls, dishwashing containers, mugs.

And monkey bread pans.

For those of you unfamiliar with monkey bread, let me enlighten you: monkey bread is similiar to cinnamon rolls with all the brown-sugary, raisiny, nutty mess. But it’s better. My family makes monkey bread on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas. At the bottom of a bundt pan ("You fixed it!"), you slop butter along with the aforementioned cinnamon, brown sugar, raisins and nuts, load the pan with rolls, then drizzle more butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, raisins and nuts, let the rolls rise overnight, bake in the morning, and voila! A gooey, yummy masterpiece.

So when I saw these crafted monkey bread pans, I had to buy one for my mom’s birthday.

Which, at the time, was five months away.

One problem–the size. The pans he made would make enough to feed one, maybe two people in our family.

"Do you have any larger ones?" I asked him.

"Ah, you have a big family?"

"We just really like our monkey bread."

The potter didn’t have any larger ones but graciously offered to make one for me to my specifications. I nearly cried.

A couple of weeks later, I picked up my new monkey bread pan and stored it for the next five months. This past weekend, my husband, along with my sister and her family, traveled to my parents’ home for a joint shower (my sister had her baby 6 weeks ago) and to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I packed the monkey bread pan.

Two hours into the drive, my back complained. Loudly. So I lowered my seat to lay down and stretch out. Shifting to find some semblance of comfortability, I heard a pop. It took a good five minutes to register the possibilities of that pop.

Sure enough, I had shattered the monkey bread pan, which had nestled behind the passenger’s side seat to keep it snug and safe from falling of the seat and breaking.

Cue the tears.

My husband pulled the car over to comfort me (c.f. previous tears and temper tantrums). I had ruined everything. Eventually, my husband resumed our journey, but I continued crying for the last hour of our drive. (Later, my brother-in-law asked if I would have cried that long had I not been pregnant. My husband silently nodded his head.)

The following day, locating an ounce or two of calm, I considered the matter. I considered it alongside my misplaced (but found!) student payment, my chocolate-chip-cookie-brownie-biscotti mess, and a dozen other mishaps. And I realized I could not show myself grace. Which means, one, I expect perfection from myself (a problem of pride), and two, without extending grace to myself, I cannot extend it to others. I have an easier time extending it to others (apparently, others don’t need to be as perfect as I am, a candidate for the next Mary Poppins opening), but it still takes me a moment. I don’t like disappointing myself; I don’t like disappointing others; and I don’t like others disappointing me.

Ugly, isn’t it?

I can only imagine it could get uglier in parenting.

Ah, the lessons of grace. Be gracious, Lord, in teaching me, please.

Filed Under: grace, theology

The Master's Artist: Feast or Fallow

October 26, 2010 By heather 2 Comments

What does it mean that I’m an artist? Does–and how so, then–does my art define me? And if it defines me, what framework do I use when I work in obscurity and when I work in fame?

A comment Sandra McCracken made at a recent Art House Dallas lunch got me thinking about this very thing. So, of course, I blogged about it.

"Our society, still in the haze of Romantic fallout, views artists as
"other-than," as specially inspired, bohemian, eccentric. Often, we
gladly take up this mantle. And often, aspects may fit. We may have
different schedules than, say, a lawyer. We don’t mind using the
descriptor "eccentric" as an excuse to wear or do what we want.

But in all honestly, this mantle also burdens our spirituality.
Happily defined by our art, it engulfs us so that our identity, rather
than in Christ (a common identity to all believers), becomes in art.
Our hope, our persona, our self-presentation, even our view of our
meaning in the world is caught up by the success of our art. More than
this, we put ourselves into our work. Tread lightly, that’s me on the
page."

Read the rest at The Master’s Artist: Feast or Fallow.

Filed Under: art, artists, fame, identity, obscurity, roles, The Master's Artist, theology

The Master's Artist: The Glimmer of the Other

October 12, 2010 By heather Leave a Comment

I’m up at The Master’s Artist today reflecting on an artist’s work from an art festival my husband and I attended a couple of weekends ago.

A glimpse:

"The artist photographed mundane, even dead, objects–weeds, grass, dead
branches. He zoomed in until you could barely identify the original
subject. Before he printed his photographs, he prepared the canvas by
painting it with a glimmery, shining substance. When you viewed the
dead and mundane, the glimmer of the other shone through, giving the
ordinary something beautiful and extraordinary, imparting something of
the essence of life."

Read The Glimmer of the Other.

Filed Under: anthropology, art, humanity, mundane, ordinary, photography, theology

The Master's Artist: Red Wine or White?

September 14, 2010 By heather Leave a Comment

Today on The Master’s Artist, I get a little soap-boxy. (Sometimes you just have to get these things out of your system!)

An excerpt:

The waiter on stage rung the bell, and the action froze. The couple–on
their first date–had come to an impasse: red wine, which goes with
beef and seduction, or white wine, which pairs with chicken and
commitment? The audience, most of whom sat at tables around the stage,
voted. Numerous times during the show, the waiter stopped the action to
tally the audience. Slap him or kiss him? Should Jeffrey propose,
refuse to propose, or go to the bathroom? Occasionally, the waiter
asked for a volunteer and for a moment, an audience member would
traipse on stage and join the show.

Now, how does that get soap-boxy, you may ask? Because I then talk about how art teaches us presence, commitment, and interaction, something I fear we’re losing in our ADD Internet world.

Not that all Internet is bad (or Internet is all bad). I love my community here. But this can’t be all, and I’m still working through what it means to be here and there. So I decided to work through it a little via blog (to prove the impossibility of separating the two).

Plus, what is the Internet good for, if not a good diatribe now and then?

Read the entire rant here.

Filed Under: art, commitment, incarnation, interaction, presence, soap boxes, theater, theology

"Careful or I'll put you in my novel."

February 4, 2010 By heather 2 Comments

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve picked up Dante’s Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradise) to study for my WIP.

(Side note: thank you, Kindle, for making this selection available to me for free. We love you, Kindle, oh yes, we do.)

A couple of interesting observations from my study of the poem and the little I’ve read on it (mostly in order to understand the references):

The Roman Catholic concept of purgatory originated with this work, which is allegorical. Most likely, Dante intended Purgatorio to represent the Christian life. Some things never change when we take allegory too literally.
The arrangement of sins–which is worse, in other words–differs from how the evangelical church would today arrange sins. While Dante’s work isn’t divinely inspired (and therefore not the biblical standard for arrangement of sin), it provides an interesting anthropological study in how our cultures affect our view of sin. To clarify: this doesn’t imply that lust, for example, is a sin in one culture and not in another, or that the culture itself defines lust. It shows how we as human beings attempting to grapple with sin, its effects, and transformation from sin into life, do so differently in different ages. Dante’s culture, and the problems therein, affected which sins (while all worthy of punishment and separation from God) seem more harmful. It brought to light the sins we prefer to gloss over because of our situation.
Dante struggled with God’s justice and mercy. He reiterates that those in hell reside there because they denied Christ. And, above all, separation from God is a horrible thing. But you also see in Dante this hesitation to see good people in the hands of an angry God. So men like Virgil, Homer, Julius Caesar, Plato, and other great philosophers and thinkers, while apart from God (and quite upset to be so, to Dante’s credit) are not actively tortured as others are. These men reside in a meadow in hell, which wouldn’t seem so bad except for the complete lack of presence from God. Dante asks, "Is this eternal? Or will there be reprieve?"
This subject continues to bother us. What is hell? What is the gnashing of teeth? What about those who seemed so close to baptism?
Dante incorporated Greek and Roman mythology (popular during his day as mythology saw a resurgence in the Renaissance). He uses it almost sacramentally: everyday items infused with God’s grace to draw the unknowing to God.
Finally, an amusement: Dante had no quelms about putting real people in hell, men he admired, and men he blamed for the downfall of Florentine society. This is the writer’s ultimate retribution, is it not? Cross me, and I’ll put you in my novel. We may change the names (Dante didn’t bother to do even that!), but we carry out our ideas of justice and revenge in our own ways.

Fine print: Title quote from a T-shirt my sister gave me.

Filed Under: books, Dante, Divine Comedy, theology, writing

Why Avatar Ultimately Fails

January 7, 2010 By heather 11 Comments

First things first: The story would make Christopher Vogler proud, but it’s predictable in every way. The computer graphics are amazing, especially with how they work with the real life film. At times, I couldn’t tell which was which. And I applaud Cameron’s imagination to create this amazing world with the animal and plant life. That imagination testifies to God’s creativity implanted in us.

But (spoiler alert!) the ending fails.

In the beginning, the scientists talk about their desire to coexist with the Na’vi on Pandora. Yet, in the end, this does not happen. Not really. One guy becomes a Na’vi through spiritual intervention, and the Na’vi choose a couple of humans to remain on Pandora. But Cameron gives us no reason to believe that humans and Na’vi will attempt to live together peacefully, bringing together their two different cultures.

We all cheer when the military fails to destory the sacred place of the Na’vi. We did not want the U.S. military to conquer and dominate. But I’m not sure the Na’vi kicking out the military completely is a satisfying ending either. Where’s the peace and harmony in this?

Also, Avatar offers no real redemption. They lost a great opportunity to do so with Parker Selfridge’s character (nice name, huh?). Jake Sully warned Parker that he did not want that kind of blood on his hands. And Parker seems to show hints of regret. They could have developed that more–his remorse and repentance. Instead, they focus on the Na’vi, with guns and arrows pointed at the military, kicking them all out.

I’m not saying I’m on the side of the military. Clearly, the military were wrong and selfish and consumerist-driven. This calls for justice. But justice doesn’t exclude redemption.

One last complaint: Cameron created straw men. Is there truth embedded in the characters he created–in this innocent native group and imperialistic military group? Yes. Of course. But he took this to the extreme. The innocent natives are only innocent and the imperialistic military and corporate guys are only impirialistic. The only type of redemption, then, available in this system is to become a native. In other words, to be saved, you have to leave your culture and enter into another culture rather than work with Christ to change the culture in which you live so that every culture will bow at the name of Christ.

No real redemption. No peace and harmony between people groups. That’s why Avatar fails.

Filed Under: Avatar, movies, theology

Why I Don't Hold to Inerrancy, Part II

September 23, 2009 By heather 7 Comments

Yesterday, I ended Part I wondering what questions we ask of the Biblical narrative. And this leads me to the essence of why I no longer hold to inerrancy: the doctrine of inerrancy asks the wrong questions.

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (vol. 2) says, "Those who speak of inerrancy usually mean freedom from any kind of error–scientific, historical, chronological, etc." (p. 821). But is this how the human writers of the Bible approached truth?

Let me make one side note here: those who believe in inerrancy and those who believe in infallibity both have an equal amount of respect and honor for God’s word. Both camps believe God’s word to be inspired (or God-breathed) and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). Both believe that Scripture reveals God’s character (as, for example, omniscient, omnipotent, unfailing, etc.) and the creation, fall, and redemption of the world and humanity. Both take Scipture seriously.

With that in mind, I believe the argument for infallibility is stronger than the argument for inerrancy.

First, while God is all-knowing, sovereign, and full of truth, he works within limited humanity. Both camps believe this, but let me flesh it out. In working within humanity, he works within understanding and cultures in order to communicate. On the scientific level, the most obvious example is how the biblical authors reference the sun as rising and setting, which we today would acknowledge as a misunderstanding to the scientific workings of the cosmos. Even those in the camp of inerrancy acknowledge this.

But what about other aspects? For example, until Isaiah, the biblical authors wrote stories and poetry that affirms God as being more powerful than other gods. (Isaiah clarifies in tongue-and-cheek manner that these so-called gods are figments of our imaginations and craft.)

Or the Genesis account talks about God creating the sea creatures, a word used in other places to reference the mythological leviathan (Job 7:12; Isaiah 27:1; Psalm 74:13). In the culture of the biblical authors, the sea was a scary place filled with uncontrollable creatures called leviathan. In the creation account, God affirms his omnipotence over even these sea creatures. We see this theme carried through the Psalms and Isaiah and again in Revelation when John, picking up on passages such as Psalm 74 and Isaiah 27, notes especially that God destroyed the sea, which is the house of these sea creatures. In light of this, what do we do if these sea creatures (sometimes translated as dragon or sea monster) don’t actually exist?

This brings me to the area of genres. As God communicates within cultures, he does so with the genres of these cultures. So back to our Genesis creation account. our evolution v. Intelligent Design wars ask the wrong questions of the passage. The writer of the account (I’m refusing to name any names or go into this because I don’t want to get side-tracked with that discussion) framed the story with a common genre of Ugaritic creation accounts. Genesis 1 shares plot points with other Mesopotamian accounts. But it also has key differences (regarding the nature of God and the nature of humanity), and these differences would have stuck out to those familiar with the genre. (Augustine also speaks of the literary nature of the creation account.)

Does this mean that we can’t believe in a six-day creation? No, but it means that’s not the point. Perhaps that’s how God created the world. But perhaps it’s not. (For those of you interested in this issue, you can go here, here, and here.) The doctrine of inerrancy focuses on the wrong question.

Second, the Church creeds employ the term "infallibilty" but do not use the term "inerrancy." They use it to describe a sureness or certainty or faith in God’s word in matters relating to salvation and life. Scriptures are reliable, trustworthy, and meaningful to contemporary life. But that doesn’t mean they have to have the same types of standards (notice I said types, not levels) created in this scientific era. I take you again to Medieval days. Storytellers told and retold the account of King Arthur. With each telling, minute details changed over time. The tellers embellished or omitted certain things. They may have changed the order of events. But to the people at the time, this did not make the stories any less true or reliable. I don’t say this to intimidate that we need to adopt the Medieval mindset. I say this as a reminder that the current mindset, preoccupied with scientific and chronological details, does not need to be imposed on the mindset of the biblical writers in order to prove the reliability of Scriptures. God does not lie, but he limits himself in order to communicate to us. And as any exegete knows, in order to understand what God is communicating, we must understand how and why he does so.

One final note before you have at me. I don’t believe this means that we kowtow to science. (In fact, if you click on the last "here" link above, you’ll see that while I don’t think we have to necessarily hold to a six-day creation, I think there are theological and philosophical issues with evolution [on the macro level] to consider.) If inerrancy requires the Bible to be scientifically accurate, it opens the door for science to be the standard for truth, meaning things are only true if scientifically proven by humans. If science is the standard for truth, then a false dichotomy arises between science and the Bible. God uses science (as he does art and other facets) to continue to communicate to us (although in different ways than his biblical communication). We submit everything to God, knowing that our knowledge has always been and will always be limited but also knowing that these endeavors are part of fulfilling what it means to be human. And how fun is it that we have an eternity to learn, discover, and explore scientifically and artistically?

Filed Under: bible, inerrancy, infallibility, Scripture, theology