Reading Journal 2023: Legends and Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes byTravis Baldree
Just to set up my experience with this book. I first heard about it early last year when it started to show up in seemingly every think piece, podcast and online discourse. For a book that had seemingly muscled itself into these conversations though, it proved impossible fo find. It is what you might call an unknown “discovery’. A small book by an unknown author that explodes on to the scene via word of mouth. Unlike film, when a book experiences this phenomenon it means it sells out in a very short amount of time, and to print more generally takes a good while.
So here we are over 10 months later, the book finally getting a rerelease, this time with an added prequel attached at the end. The verdict? I get why it has been such a hit with a wide cross section of readers. It is high fantasy, but with a very grounded, down to earth and real world approach. Sure, the world might be populated with unfamiliar creatures such as elfs, dwarfs, orcs, gnomes, and weird spider like monsters called a scalvert queen. It even has a dire cat. But it also tells the simple story of one such Orc named Viv who, having tired of life as a constant adventurer lived by way of muscle and sword, desires to start afresh by relocating to a quiet, unassuming village and opening a coffee shop, a new drink she happened across while on one of her adventures.
The book is an easy, undemanding read (hence the low stakes), and for high fantasy avoids the complicated world building and details you sometimes find colouring the genre. This is the sort of book you can finish in a couple sittings, a feel good story meant to endear you to its characters and leave you with a smile befitting a well made latte. And I think it succeeds on this front. I won’t be surprised to see this made into a series or a film someday.
Reading Journal 2023: The Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson
At one point Robinson muses about the challenges of being both an academic and a Christian. She describes how when people discover she is a Christian it tends to result in shock and confusion.
In truth, the identifying feature that is probably more shocking is the fact that she is a Calvinist. Imagine my disillusionment then when I found myself being won over by some of her arguments for entertaining a Calvinist perspective on the givenness of things, a title which is essentially captured through a series of reflections which attempt to bridge the gap between meaning and reality. Robinson demonstrates a knack for pulling out the strengths of the system while simultaneously challenging some of its most maligned and controversial positions. Just as there is such a thing called a generous orthodoxy, it appears a generous Calvinism could apply just as well. Here we find her engaging what is typically an exclusivist and heavily dogmatic religious expression by reimagining it as a celebration of the goodness of humanity and of Gods creation. She exchanges an emphasis on depravity for a willingness to locate Evil external to what is the fundamental and given value of the human and the created world. She allows her religious convictions to assume and to evoke definite polarities- light and dark, good and evil- within her discussions of reality. And she trades a view of the cross, mired as it is in Gods death wielding ways, for a view of God’s determined involvement in the restoration of this given reality in the light of a common grace and an equal love for all people and all things.
To be clear, The Givenness of Things is not shy about its religious interests, but the book is geared towards both religious and non-religious readers. She has an interest in engaging academic discussions and intellectual discourse, and we see this woven naturally, and almost in a linear fashion, through the sciences, the humanities, and philosophy. It’s no mistake that she begins the book with an essay titled “Humanism” and ends with chapter titled “Realism”. Inbetween she offers compelling and formative discussions that interpret her humanist concern through a greater sense of what reality in fact is, expanding our views and challenging our presuppositions as she goes. Thus the final chapter on realism is able to reinterpret reality in a way that appeals to something both reasoned and mysterious, certain but also allusive, something able to be known through the sciences but something that also holds the power to reveal, thus the givenness of thing both observed and experienced.
No, she didn’t quite convince me towards calvinism, but she definitely did compel me towards meditating on the profound nature of her ideas. For as disorienting as it was to read something so intelligent and aware alongside quotes of Jonathan Edwards, this is a book I would have no problem handing to my non religious friends, to my Calvinist and my non calvinist friends. There is little doubt in my mind that it could lead to some rich discussion.
Film Journal 2023: The Territory, Retrograde, Wildcat
Caught up with three recently released documentaries, one cited by some pundits as vying for a nomination at this year’s Oscars (The Territory, now steaming on Disney+), one an intimate and harrowing look at the moments before and after the announcement that American troops would be leaving Afghanistan (Retrograde, now streaming on Disney+), and the last film an emotional and honest examination of the human struggle with relationship and depression by way of this rescue project involving a baby ocelot (Wildcat, now streaming on Amazon Prime).
The Territory leaves little doubt about its ambitions, establishing its desire to connect the particularities of the genocide it’s depicting with a very real global concern. We meet the individuals who make up the remaining population of this decimated tribe residing deep in the colonized and razed rainforests of Brazil, giving the issue of deforestation a human face. The films rich visuals and the dynamic sound design and score help to immerse us in a part of the world bound to be foreign to many viewers, celebrating its beauty while inspiring genuine anger over the devastating affects of power and ignorance. A vital message that helps shed light on both a people and a global reality.
Retrograde, in contrast, stumbles a bit by allowing it’s true concern (the Afghan people) to get clouded by a one dimensional and narrow emphasis on American patriotism. And yet, even where it fails to shed light on the true complexities of the situation in Afghanistan, it still manages to pull together some genuinely harrowing footage and a great looking and engaging doc at that.
Wildcat is my favorite of the three. What elevates this deeply human story about the struggle with relationship and the realities of clinical depression is the way it uses the wildcat to frame this story within larger questions about the nature of life itself. There is a certain tension that exists between this endeavor to rescue and reabilitate “carnivores” back into the wild, and the way these human agents must appeal to something more than simply the laws of the nature when attending to the value of their lives. The film never finds a way to truly solve this tension, ultimately accepting blind sentiment without need for jusrification or rationalization. For me though this film functioned as a sort of meditation on one of life’s great contradictions. How do we perceive of such realities evident in nature, which hinges on survival of the fittest being necessary to life, coexisting with what is at its heart an act of compassion attempting to circumvent the rules of the jungle.
How do we justify such compassion for a wildcat. How do we justify such compassion for the human agents. What makes one life more valuable than another. What makes life itself valuable. These are the sorts of questions the film tables simply as a by-product of its raw but sentimental look at human and beast in proximity and in relationship. They are questions that might be easy to bypass with what ultimately is a very engaging and engrossing sentimental story, but they nevertheless linger for those willing, or perhaps compelled as I was, to dig beneath the surface.
Film Journal 2023: Broker (Directed By Hirokazu Kore-eda) Where to watch: Mcgilvary Cineplex, Cinemateque
If you are not yet familiar with the work of Kore-eda, one of the best living filmmakers of our present day, do yourself a favor and experience the sheer emotional and inspirational brevity of some of his most celebrated works. While the awards attention garnered by 2018’s Shoplifters helped with bringing his name into the spotlight of celebrated international works, films like Like Father, Like Son, After the Storm After Life, I Wish, and even the grossly underrated The Truth, his first foray into English language features, are films made to break you in all the right ways.
Thematic throughlines and touchpoints defined by moral complexity, along with storied scores and rich casts of characters defined in some way shape or form by the idea of family, found family on the margins being a favorite, seem to be the true mark of his cinematic presence, and true to form Broker delves deep into these different aspects by utilizing a fresh concept. The opening scene of the film is framed by the towering and luminous presence of a church tower before the camera drags our sight lines downwards to a box that occupies space beside the church doors. Visually this brings together the moral and social concern of the films basic premise. It’s a baby box, designed to encourage those unable or unwanting to care for their newborn to safely pass their child into the care of social services under the safety of anonymity.
What we quickly realize is that two of the church workers tasked with monitoring this box are engaged in a practice that could only be described as human trafficking. They take particular babies and, instead of bringing them into the care of social services, they erase video evidence and search for potential parents by way of desperate couples or individuals in positions where they are unable to afford traditional adoption costs and are unable to conceive. The film follows one particular child and the accidental relationship that transpires between the birth mother and the black market dealers after she returns to retrieve her child and stumbles upon their backroom enterprise.
If this sounds like a somehat shocking and disconcerting premise, rest assured that even with me outlining the opening moments of this film, everything about the way these scenes are constructed is designed to leave us unsettled and uncertain and confused. This is precisely where Kore-eda’s deeply formed penchant for writing moral ambiguity and nuance into his characters is able to take root. We know what they are doing is wrong, and yet at the same time Kore-eda challenges our potential and desire to judge these people out of hand. And the more time we spend with them the more compassion we are able to form, deftly shifting that unsettled feeling on to the system and the reality itself.
Cleverly positioned contrasts in the plot help connect these stories, each different and each intersecting in their own way, within this question of the inherent worth and value of life itself. Never far away from the question of this mother abandoning her baby, a question that in itself is submitted to the nuance of the films moral concern, is the question of these peope each feeling abandoned by the world in their own way. It is this juxtaposition that begins to break down some of the very real walls between their stories, gradually giving birth to this messy and complicated portrait of found family.
It’s worth noting that Kore-eda affords equal time to the two government workers who are tracking their endeavors, looking to capture evidence and charge them for illegal activity. It is actually through these two characters that we as viewers are able to find the permission to second guess what a right judgment of these people might be. What they are doing is wrong, and yet there are notes of grace and beauty that permeate the sheer reality of that which what they are doing ultimately serves- finding homes for babies with parents who desperately want one. Even the two agents, whom are used to structure the story as a kind of fun detective-criminal chase story, don’t quite seem to know what the right answer is, and this proves a powerful sentiment in what is a deep and profound exploration of what it is to be human in a complicated world. To hear the words “I’m glad you were born” is not something the film simply assumes or takes for granted, and yet the fact that it imagines that somewhere in the shadows this sentence holds a necessary power is part of the films deeply felt sense of hope.
Shout out as well to the films astute use of humor and the most charming and winsome child performance I’ve seen in a long while. For as heavy as these themes are the film proves a pure joy and delight.
Reading Journal 2023: The Silver Crown By Robert C. O Brien
I was made aware of this book after listening to a podcast episode discussing the film adaptation of The Secret of Nihm. The book being a childhood favorite, I decided to revisit it in 2022. Unaware of whether the author had penned other works I decided to do a search. The minute I saw The Silver Crown come up in my feed I knew I needed to buy it.
It’s a simple story with complex themes, which should come as no surprise to those familiar with the stark social commentary driving The Secret of Nihm. All the same characteristics are on display here with many parallels in plot and theme, beginning with trading a magic amulet for a magic crown. The journey itself, framed as it is by this young girls (Ellen) desperate attempt to find her aunt following the tragic events of a fire which open the story, leads her deep into an unfolding mystery of world shaping importance. Along the way she will learn important truths about both how the world works and her place in it. The ending (track down the version with the alternative British ending) cleverly tables some interesting moral questions as well, bringing together these larger themes regarding human nature.
It’s a charming and wholly compelling literary work that fits nicely alongside the great childhood adventure stories of years past.
Film Journal 2023: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Directed by Peter Baynton and Charlie Mackesy) Where to watch: Apple TV+
“Life is difficult, but you are loved.” This beautifully animated film, based on the book by the same name, follows a simple cast of characters who happen to find each other as a small boy searches for home. As the four of them form an unlikely bond, they discover what it means to exist in this world together. The dialgue is intentionally sparse, uncluttered by the noise of uneccessary words. Each phrasing, each truth that emerges with the inevitable knowing that comes from journeying together rings clear and true, with a wonderful score serving as its compliment. It’s a concise 40 minute run time, but it’s got more on its mind then many 2 hour animated films.
Over Christmas I found myself meditating on and reflecting on the Gospel of Luke, specifically the parallel stories of Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph. I came across an interesting thesis titled The Blessed Mother Sarah: The Figure of Sarah in Genesis Rabbah in Light of Christian Exegesis and the Rise of the Virgin Mary by Rami Schwartz.
One of the things the paper explores is the development of the figure of Sarah in the midrashic tradition and second temple Judaism. It then parallels this with the development of Sarah in relationship to Mary in the NT texts and later christian traditions (specifically Origen). There are a couple key observations that emerge from this:
As the thesis points out, one of the challenges of locating this within the NT text is that it was written in a world where Jew and Christian did not yet represent a separation and divide. At the same time however, to quote, “often the Christian Bible presents a unique worldview or containsexegetical developments without precedent in the Jewish world.”
Here in lies the challenge for engaging such questions like- who was Sarah, how did the early texts see her, how does later midrash see her, how does the NT text see her, how does later rabbinic and Christian tradtions see her (especially in light of the then divide). This is never as simple as saying that Sarah develops from this to that.
As a Christ follower there do arise some interesting questions when it comes to paralleling Sarah with Mary, especially when it comes to locating the miraculous birth story in Luke and Matthew (and I would argue John). Even for those who simply reject the miraculous birth out of hand, they must still contend with the question of where the story came from, what it’s doing, and why it’s included.
Perhaps the most interesting question, which the thesis fleshes out, is how when we arrive at the Gospel narratives what seems clear in the way those stories are constructed is that they are deliberately paralleling the Abraham-Sarah story as it fleshes out Zechariah and Elizabeth/Mary and Joseph. Why do those stories, which place Elizabeth and Mary at the center, clearly raise up the figure of Sarah rather than Abraham? Further, if it seems clear that the literary design of Zechariah and Elizabeth is structured to parallel Abraham and Sarah (which I would argue the evidence shows), where do we then position Mary within the story alongside Sarah as the seemingly “mother” of the faith? Is it that the early texts represent Sarah this way in a patriarchal society that goes on to assume an emphasize on Abraham, and later writers are pulling out what is already there? Is it that later midrash reclaims Sarah from the shadows? Reformats Sarah? And then the Gospel writers use this to write the story of Jesus through a Mary centric lens? One interesting aspect of the early texts is that not only does Sarah fit within a thread of many women that often get glossed over in modern readings, but it is no small thing that Sarah is afforded the same covenantal words as Abraham.
The other challenge that surfaces here is how the Gospels present Zechariah and Elizabeth as precursers, as a type of the one who is to come (which of course brings in discussions of Elijah’s messianic figure and the Moses-Joshua paradigm- and not coincidentally close readings of the Moses text also seem to place key women figures at the center). Thus Sarah becomes both a type (Elizabeth) amd the true expression (Mary). This grapples with early evidence of Sarah being positioned as the mother of Israel in the same way Mary is the mother of Jesus. From this flows the seeds of the miraculous birth which forms their stories according to the shared promise, with later iterations actually articulating Sarah’s story as both one of old age (Elizabeth) and virgin (Mary).
Anyways, it’s interesting to think over especially when one is reflecting on the Gospels and the arrival of Jesus. There’s a lot going on there to be sure, and it reflects important conversations that can shed light on a text that features a strong and intentional literary design. This is part of, for me, being able to hear what the text is wanting to say both to them in their world and to me today by way of the shared spirit. One thing I am compelled by, which comes from the conviction that the Gospels were being practiced liturgicaly already at the time when Paul was writing, is that one of the key defining points of the Jewish and Christian texts is its appeal to positioning women throughout the larger narrative as the key movers and shakers within God’s ongoing faithfulness to the covenant promise. It is no small thing that the Gospel writers are so well positioned to place these women front and center at the heart of the Gospels arrival in the person and work of Jesus
A couple observations on Luke 15:11-32 (The Parable of the Prodigal and His Brother) for discussion:
The context for the passage is found in 15:1 “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
What follows is a set of three parables. What this should tell us is that all three figures will appear in the parables, as parables are designed so that the audience will see themselves in it. When it comes to the parable then we should see it in this way- the prodigal son is the tax collectors and sinners, the eldest son is the religious leaders, and the Father is Jesus.
Knowing these figures becomes important to hearing the parable as a response to 15:1
There is a natural progression to be found within the parables of 100-10-1, and in each case it is one that is lost. 100 is a common number to indicate fullness or wholeness, but one interesting insight might be found within certain midrash which find a sort of parallel with Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomrroah. One question that surfaces in that story is why Abraham stops at 10. Plenty have weighed in on this question with lots of interesting results. Middleton in his book Abrahams Silence suggests that the one is actually found in the story of the binding of Isaac where Abraham fails to plead for the life of his son over and against a perception about who God must be according to ancient paradigms. Which is to say, God wanted Abraham to push back on a characteristic of God that would have been common in the culture he was called out of. God is in fact demonstrating Himself to be different.
This might or might not be an intentional parallel here where the 10 gets whittled down to 1, but the progression itself does feel intentional and important. Here is something I would wager- in the first two parables Jesus is representing his audience by leading with “Which one of you” and “what woman having ten silver coins”. This implies the religious leaders and would have evoked a tantalizing image regarding their relationship to the “sinners”. If the sheep and coins is Israel in the first parable, then the first two are contrasting this picture of how they might act to “Just so, I tell you”, this is how it is in the Kingdom of God. These first two parables then are the set up for the final one which breaks from the pattern of “which one of you” and switches perspectives from the you to the Father. As in to say, if this is how you would act when it comes to your own, then let’s now place you in this picture as God’s own and see where this places the tax collectors and sinners.
The true protagonist of the Prodigal story then is not the son but the Father. This story is being told from the Father’s perspective with the point of the passage being about the Father’s action towards. This is about establishing how the Kingdom of God operates.
So what do we see in the Father’s (Jesus’) actions? First, we see faithfulness to the promise in the stories use of OT law codes regarding inheritance. This inheritance is placed in the context of the kingdom and played out in terms of the rights of the younger and older sibling. That this inheritance is given of course sets up the given reality that asking for the inheritance assumes the death of the father or functions as though the father were dead. I don’t think it’s a stretch to find in that an appeal to the coming death of Jesus. I could flesh this out more with appeal to exrernal sources, but if the grace gift of the Father (God) is the work of Jesus (God’s self taken on flesh), then this gift says something about their expectation of the Messiah and the Gift of their renewal in covenantal terms which evoke elsewhere this notion of being ratified upon the death of the faithful one.
Its no small thing then for the parable to assume and even impose from the perspective of the Father that there is no distinguishing between the one (the tax collector and sinner) and the 99. This is how it works in the kingdom of God- all are God’s and God’s view of the one does not change
Gods view of the one does not change even as the one moves to wander in the symbolic wilderness squandering that which has been given. Again, I see a clever double inference there in saying using this wandering image in a way that would have easily evoked the story of the religious leaders as Israel. This is the same sort of role reversal that we find in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In fact, the image of younger and older here becomes significant in terms of hearing the voice of Judea here, playing the you of the first two parables as a divided Israel awaiting its restoration (the scattered tribes being brought back together) alongside the bringing in of the gentiles that the arrival of the kingdom would usher in.
It’s clear, as is in the entirety of the Gospels, that Jesus came to a divided Israel calling the religious leaders to repentance and reform in light of what was upon them- the arrival of the messiah and the full restoration. It is because of this that I have become compelled to see that, as the parable goes on, the younger son is being paralleled with the story of Israel all the more, allowing the religious leaders to see themsleves both as the older and younger son, something again that we see in the good Samaritan. This is as much demonstrating Gods heart and kingdom to the religious leaders (Israel) as it is calling them to image this to the world.
From that angle, much has been made of the final phrasing in the passage, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” It has been used to justify everything from reformed assurance and repentance salvation often playing the dead to life movement as spiritual death and life. I would challenge some common protestant readings on a couple fronts.
I think making it about that shifts the focus from the Father to the Son and wrongly shifts the message from being about the Father’s action to being about our action. This overplays the sons repentance and underplays the fathers right to lay claim to the son as His
I think even if one wants to make a play on the sons movement from death to life as the necessary progression in the story, the most logical inference, especially if you consider that it is telling the story of Israel, is to read death to life as comprehensive realities apart from God and with God. Or even better, apart from Jesus’ work and in light of it. There is nothing in the passage that evokes a spiritual death, and nothing pointing to some sort of action that proclaims such son dead in the Father’s eyes. Rather, the most natural reading is that the death comes from the sons own predication towards living as though the Father is dead. This is a reality he occupies apart from the kingdom, one that can only promise death. It is through repentance, a turning and moving back into the kingdom, something that does not change his status in the Father’s eyes, that life is declared, indicating not that he has earned something by way of his actions but that he is now occupying a new and different reality that is able to declare his true sonship to him.
personally I’m open to that, but even with that reading I think it overplays the phrasing. I think the most natural reading is simply to appeal to the natural implication- the lost and found language of the previous stories. It is the older son who presumes him dead and gone, and given that in the previous stories it is the religious leaders looking for the lost one, here they are not. The older son operates as though he is dead. The proclamation of the Father is that he has returned and thus the one thought dead is alive, which is what the religious leaders are supposed to hear when it comes to the Father’s heart and the way of the kingdom. The older son says why is he back eating with us. The parable plays that back into Israel’s own wilderness wanderings and covenant failure.
This walk through the majority of my nonfiction reads is something of an experiment. I tried to walk through my reads and track through my experiences of these books as a kind of story that defines the major themes of my year. I note the unintentional bookends that frame my first and final reads. I note questions that inspire me to read certain books, and subsequent questions that surface through specific reads. I note some key learnings relating to Christian Ethics, the biblical world and history, and particular readings of history. I note an appeal to Beauty.
In any case, I found this helpful in mapping where, and in some sense who i was at the beginning of 2022 and where/who I am at the end. The one thing I left out here was my journey through Pauls letter to the Romans. I did a deep dive around the summer and finished 17 commentaries and books. I hope to compile my learnings from that elsewhere . It was a very eye opening process relating to how we understand Biblical justice.
Beauty: The Invisible Embrace By John O’ Donohue, Where The Light Fell: A Memoir By Phillip Yancey
The very first book I finished in 2022 was Phillip Yancey’s wonderful Memoir Where The Light Fell. In it he unfolds his personal journey through struggle and doubt towards a new sort of faith in God and life that is able to leave room for mystery and questions while also retaining a conviction in the most important facets of that faith- love, hope, grace and beauty. Rooting this in his childhood experiences and his upbringing, complicated family dynamics and all, really helps to personalize his journey and give the evolution of his larger body of work some real and important context.
Beginning the new year in 2022, looking back on my own writings and reflections, found me occupying a place of longing to turn certain insecurities and exhaustion with the world at large found into an opportunity to recover some sense of those key facets in my own engagement with the world. Having this book as a light to sort of navigate a helpful way forward was a blessing, and as I fast forward to the last book I read in 2022, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace By John O’ Donohue, a book I now have desperate plans to purchase, own, and revisit often, I found myself struck by this full circle movement back to beauty, hope, love and grace. O Donohues book has quickly cemented itself as an all timer, and it has reignited a passion for the imagination in a big way.
Introducing Christian Ethics: Core Convictions for Christians Today By David Gushee
It wouldn’t be too long after finishing Yancy’s book when one of the perennial hosts of the Fear of God Podcast released a sort of passion project by way of a set of two interviews with David Gushee (Here and Here) which discusses the release of his older book (After Evangelicalism) and his new book (Christian Ethics). It wouldn’t be until later in the year that I would be able to devote the necessary time to finishing the newer book (it is an academic work), but the conversation planted the seeds for what would inevitably follow. The necessary reenchantment I sought in Yancy and later fully experienced in Donohue was continued in Gushee, someone who offered such longings a real world and highly practical tool and a boots on the ground/hands on approach to fleshing out such core tenants of the Christian imagination by way of proper Christ centered justice. This would go on to shape an important and key learning in my next book as I transitioned into lent. What better time to imagine the practical and life giving way of justice making as a Jesus centered ethic.
Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace Throughout Holy Week By Jason Porterfield, The Serpent in Samuel: A Messianic Motif By Brian A. Verrett
A book with the title Fight Like Jesus isn’t exactly something I would pick up on a whim. Questionable marketing to be sure, but thankfully an interview with the author compelled me to pick it up as an accompanying source to help me engage with Lent, and inparticular appraising Holy Week. The book functions somewhat as a week long devotion, although dense chapter long devotionals actually might be better suited to the weeks leading up to Holy Week, perhaps doing two at a time culminating in the final chapter of the 7 day journey of Holy Week itself. In truth, I have come to recommend this book to everyone I can as it has the power to reform one’s engagement with Holy Week. You will never look at it the same way again, and far more than a simple appeal to pacifism, irony of the title duly noted, it’s an intelligent, accessible and deeply researched walk through what Holy Week is, what it means, and what it can teach us about embracing a Jesus centered justice making ethic.
Reaching somewhat broader in terms of its interest in biblical motifs, the other book I read during this period was Verett’s meticulously drawn and argued thesis on the Serpent motif. While his thesis is rooted in Samuel, part of his purpose is helping to break open the ways this motif relates to the whole of the scriptural narrative. What we find in the opening pages of Genesis can help us make sense of how the biblical writers understood and made sense of Jesus. Rooting Jesus’ justice making ways depends much on being able to locate Evil as an oppressive and enslaving agency in the world. This allows us to locate Jesus as a contrasting agency in the world rather than seeing the Christian fight as being between Jesus and humanity or Jesus and creation. These are not the Evils that God opposes, rather they are the Evil that God in Jesus frees creation from. This is the inference of the promise of the seed to crush the Serpents head, which lies at the heart of the covenantal interest of the text. This is what frees us then to participate as image bearers, witnessing to a different way of being in this world as image bearers and as part of God’s good creation.
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity By David Graeber , How Iceland Changed The World: The Big History of a Small Island by Egill Bjarnason
In the book The Dawn of Everything Graeber builds a case for a new understanding of the history of humanity, one that flies in the face of some of the common assumptions we find in voices like Pinker and Harari. Rather than seeing humanities development, and therefore evolution, as a linear movement from less civilized to more, less intelligent to more, less moral to more, etc, etc, the overwhelming consensus of the evidence is of a history of humanity that is not linear but contextual. Why does this matter? Because, as the book points out, many of the problems we face in society are rooted in the sort of othering that comes from believing we as modern society are better than the ancients. Translate that into the different relationships operative today, be it between East and West, country versus country, politics versus politics, immigrants versus residents, etc etc, and we can see how this interpretation of history translates as an operative way of thinking and acting in the world. Assumptions do matter, and as I was reading this book I was seeing all sorts of parallels between religious assumptions regarding human depravity and the assumptions and Pinkers assumptions regarding the depravity of the ancients.
I wonder how this might challenge certain religious expressions that see the emergence of humanity built on depravity rather than an internet goodness, and how that might help define the way we see a christlike justice making ethic? Later on in the year, a book I tpuch on below, I would take a similar journey with a book called The Bright Ages, which challenges given assumptions about the Dark Ages on a similar premise (taken together it would seem that viewing the Dark Ages as dark flows from wrong understandings of early humanity as less than).
In keeping with this theme, I also read another reinterpretation of history, this time through the lens of Iceland. How Iceland Changed The World: The Big History of a Small Island by Egill Bjarnason helps us to imagine world history as being shaped in a particular direction the moment an ancient Viking ran “aground” this north Atlantic island all those years ago. We can play a similar line from almost anything of course, but given the strictly contextualized nature of history and humanity these sorts of stories provide an important window into how certain geographical and political realities come to be. It’s a fascinating exercise that helps in growing one’s understanding of the shape of this world and its challenges.
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics By Tim Marshall, How Art Made the World: A Journey to the Origins of Human Creativity By Nigel Spivey
Little more broke my understanding of the cyclical nature of human history wide open than this perspective shaping look at geopolitics and the role borders and calculated international relations play in the never ending drive for wealth and power. The book demonstrates how looking at international realities, especially when it comes to defining the enemy, is often shaped by our own limiting context and fostered by narratives which serve greater political interests lying underneath the surface. The rise and fall and constant jostling for the position of Empire is as real today as it was thought ancient history, proving that this cyclical reality remains its own beast,, especially with the rise of globalism
If this sounds dire and helpless (it kind of is), while the political powers that be do their thing How Art Made The World reminded me of the essential humanity that persists underneath that. It sheds light on how the need to create and to express through art has shaped history as much, if not more, as borders and geopolitical powers. In fact, the former is what allows us to converse with the latter, making sense of things we can’t control and perhaps living differently in the face of it. If geopolitics tells history as one kind of story, art tells the story of history from the light of the person’s who occupy it.
We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland By Fintan O’ Toole, Maeve Binchy: A Biograohy By Piers Dudgeon
Along the same lines, my next reads would take that perspective shaping window and turn it towards Ireland. Following a deep rooted interest in Ukraine, given the present struggles and the fact that the summer celebrates the different anniversaries of our adoption journey (we left for Ukraine in August). A chance to visit Jen’s family village and connect with extended family while in Ukraine inspired me to start thinking more deeply about my own Irish roots. If I see the world from my own particular context, then that context owes itself to certain Irish particularities. While my readings on Ireland included more than this, these two books started what was a bit of a reflective process on how my life is shaped by history. We Don’t Know Ourselves was particularly poignant given the way it locates a certain crisis of identity. Knowing what it means to be Irish feels as important as knowing what it means to be human, as these realities are interconnected
Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention By Ben Wilson, Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age By Dennis Duncan, Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern By Jing Tsu
It was fascinating then for me to read in these three books about the connection between language and the voice of the City as a conduit or bridge between these two realities- the geopolitical and the art. It’s within the Metropolis that these stories are embedded, contained as they are within language, and further, as the history of the index would show, ordered language. From order comes the inevitable organizing movements of language and culture, and through the rise of the index language becomes information. The way we process and organize this information might look different today, and if modern society demonstrates anything its a deeply rooted problem of information detached from and operating apart from story (the ultimate expression of language). It also becomes a way into a larger discussion of why story matters. And there is no better space through which to understand this then the ultimate organizing principle of modern humans- the city.
Father of Route 66: The Story of Cy Avery By Susan C. Kelly, The Women Who Built Omaha: A Bold and Remarkable History By Eileen Wirth
Speaking of the city, over the waning days of summer my wife and I had a chance to get away and visit some new cities and hear their stories. Both of these books were excellent opportunities to engage the world from a slightly different perspective than our own. Avery’s role in shaping the landscape of America becomes crucial for understanding the organizing principle of American society, something we were able to imagine while exploring the historic route 66, while reading about the women of Omaha, an unassuming Midwest city of modest size, became a way to know its own creative voice. We would carry this with us into the particularities of Oklahoma City as a boomtown and Tulsas racial history.
Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God By J, Richard Middleton, The Sacrifice of Jesus: Understanding Atonement Biblically By Christian A Eberhart
Moving out of summer and into the fall I found myself involved in certain conversations about the nature of sacrifice in the Bible, or within the Biblical story. These two books have since become formative for me on this topic, with Middleton breaking down one of the most difficult and highly charged (read: divisive) passages in scripture (Abrahams sacrifice of Isaac) and Eberhart digging deep into the sacrificial system of Israel and later Jewish expressions. Both of these things become important for understanding the language NT author employ in order to make sense of Jesus, and these books helped me when it comes to understanding the ways this language is used to tell a story, and ways certain segments of Christianity have perhaps misunderstood and misapplied it, a story that becomes a hugely important part of the larger conversation between the creative forces (art) and the Powers (geopolitics)m especially relatimg to the hopeof the Gospel. Hearing the language of sacrifice expressed in their world and seeing how it invites them to see their world differently than the one which the Powers and their cycles hold enslaved, goes a long way in helping to shed light on the true nature of God, humanity and creation.
As Middleton supposes, if God revealed His true name (meaning Gods true image revealed through the way God acts in and for the world) by breaking into history and dwelling with and within His creation, then we should expect that such a God would be understood within the limiting parameters of language, At the same time, language is the very thing that transcends such limited capacities by setting us in conversation with a greater story. Thus it is by constantly asking how the revealed name might relate to our context that our language can begin to be shaped within our context towards a greater and truer story.
Delivered Out of Empire: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Exodus Part 1By WalterBruegemman; Moses: A Human Life By Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
The place to begin with shaping the Christian story in its world is with its Jewish roots. One cannot understand the story of Jesus without understanding the story of the Exodus, and for that matter the “righteous” figure of Moses. Not only do the Gospel writers write Jesus’ story as a new exodus, they place Him within the story of Moses, raising Him up then as the essential Mediator between heaven and earth. Bruegemman does a masterful job locating the essential force of the Exodus story as a clash of kingdoms, and Zoenberg is simply wonderful in unpacking such an enigmatic figure from within his own Jewish context.
For The Love of All Creatures: The Story of Grace in Genesis By William Greenway, Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters By Carmen Joy Imes
Suffice then to say that Carmen’s newest work, Bearing Gods Name, helped to flesh out this story even more, moving us from the Exodus to Sinai by way of the sacred story of the Torah. This is attached to the pivotal moment- the revealing of God’s true name as He comes down the mountain to dwell in the Creation, establishing the covenant that the continued sharing of this moment through the story of the Torah would hold on to as the formative image of their hope in God making all things new. The book For The Love of All Creatures served as a welcome compliment to Carmen’s articulated plea to keep Sinai at the center of the Gospel, as it fleshes out this covenant as a cosmic concern for the whole of creation, with Sinai’s call to faithful participation setting us in relationship to this truth,
What Saint Paul Really Said By N.T. Wright, Acts By Scott McKnight
If the Exodus and Sinai, framed as they are by the language of the NT writers, operate as a way of telling Jesus’ own story, then understanding how Paul understood Jesus in these terms becomes crucially important to knowing what these stories are trying to say, given how much of the NT is compromised of Pual’s voice. Two prominent academics in the field of Pauline studies are Wright and McKnight, with McKnight taking a more pastoral approach. Both are really helpful in shaping the voice and letters of Paul according to his very Jewish convictions, fleshing out the larger story of New creation and covenant promise within that. If a christ centered justice making ethic is concerned with both the Powers of Sin and Death as a real, oppressive agency, and subsequently the Powers of this world, or the oppressive realty of Empire at the same time, then this picture that Paul presents of heaven coming to earth becomes palpable in its real world concern for social issues and a practical Christian Ethic. Seeing this in Paul can help to counteract the harmful tendencies that come from spiritualizjng Pauls words into some progression of salvation happening within an individual, and it can help open us up to the true force of the covenant promise for the whole of creation.
It’s worth noting here that along with these two books I also did a deep dive into Paul’s letter to the Romans, reading 17 commentaries and books. I hope to reflect on those learnings in this space elsewhere.
When Everything’s On Fire: Faith Forged From The Ashes by Brian Zahnd, Wholehearted Faith By Rachel Held Evans
As with any rethinking and challenging of older paradigms, such ideas can at times present a point of crisis. A crisis of faith. A crisis of belief. A crisis of hope. A crisis of meaning. I have been there, and in many ways will continue to be there as I seek a more honest and robust faith built on hearimg the Biblical story in its world rather than from the world I create for it, and then allowing that to be recontextualized into my own.
Two wonderful and wise voices who have navigated this space as dedicated Christ followers are Zahnd and the recently departed Evans. Both understand the difference between questioning the viability of God because it failed to attend to me, and questioning the viability of God because it failed to attend to the world around us. The first sense flows from what is often the first thing to get sacrificed in an interest towards reconstruction- the self, or the individual. The second is where our genuine crisis of faith should get fleshed out. For as long as that is where our uncertainties and our questions are pointed, our struggles will pull us in this same direction. This is, not inconsequentially, where we are most likely to encounter Christ as well. This reminds me of those earlier reads above which point out that how we see creation and humanity matters a lot. If we are to find Christ in these things we will need to learn to see it in the light of Christ’s image, recognizing the Evil instead as the systems which oppress and cloud this image. These two books gave me the freedom to do that while reclaiming a more hopeful imagination in the biblical story as my primary conviction,
How and How Not To Be Happy By J. Budziszewski, The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe By Matthew Gabriele
I have already noted the Bright Ages above, a complimentary read to some of my earlier endeavors. What is slightly unconventional for me is picking up a book that feels even remotely connected to self help. I did so with How To Be Happy based on a recommendation, and I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It might seem like such a book would take the grander story that has been shaping me above and shift it to a heavy focus on the individual, but the author goes to great lengths to tie true happiness to our life in the world. Who and what we are is shaped by these external realities, thus finding happiness, which gets defined through the multiple uses of the word (such as contentment or joy), is something we should expect to find in relationship to the external. In its own way then this becomes helpful in building a Christ-centered justice making ethic. To see this in light of a renewed sense of the darkness at play in history and the light that often gets obscured by ways of our thinking about humanity and creation, becomes a way of reclaiming beauty and hope as a healing agency in the world.
Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us about Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength By Kat Armas, A Hermeneutic of Wisdom: Recovering the Formative Agency of Scripture By J. De Waal Dryden
Nearing the end of the year I decided to pair a couple books on the subject of wisdom, one which challenges conventional approaches by broadening definitions of what wisdom literature is and what qualifies as wisdom, literature, and then affording it a proper hermeneutic. The other locates wisdom in the voices of those whom have played a role in seeding, growing, and encouraging our faith, and further uses a cultural touchpoint to locate the women who play such roles in our world and in our lives, moving then to uncover the wisdom of such women’s stories prevalent throughout Scripture. One is about the formative voice of wisdom in scripture, the other is about the formative voices that we find carrying such wisdom in scripture, and further in our world as marginalized voices. If we are to think about what it looks like to embody a better story, this wisdom becomes important in fleshing that out in an embodied fashion. Wisdom and ethics are closely entwined.
Two seminal voices of our present age, two of its most vital artists. These two books provided a perfect pathway towards my (unintentional) full circle reading of Yancys Where The Light Falls and Donohue’s Beauty. They both tell the stories of their respective journeys from the lens of their personal experiences as successful musicians. Both carry and describe a very particular spiritual outlook and experience of this world and existence I relationship to God.. Both use art as a way to speak about problems in the world and both image Christ by allowing their own struggles to move them out into the world. Equally fascinating and illuminating and inspiring .
A few years ago I began a New Years Resolution Plan called Rosebud. I heard about it on one of the travel podcasts that I follow. The process essentially looks like this: Step 1: List Three Roses- This is the stuff that I would consider the greatest strengths, successes or accomplishments of the past year, the stuff that has managed to blossom into a Rose. Step 2: List One Thorn This would reflect my greatest personal struggle of the past year. Step 3: List Three Buds Based on my “thorn”, this is a list of what I would like to “bud” into potential Roses in the coming year. Step 4: Come up with a word for the year This should be a single word that can help reflect the direction I want to head in the coming year, a single word that can give my year a theme or a recognizable focus and narrative.
So, why Rosebud? I have been asked in the past, why three Roses but only one Thorn? Most of us don’t realize it, but it is often much more diffciult to come up with roses than it is thorns. Also difficult is learning how to speak about thorns in a way that imagines forward movement, seeing it in light of one’s potential for growth. It’s kind of like that old piece of advice that says when you are in an interview for a new job and they ask you about your weaknesses, always give a weakness that you can do something about.
The great part of the Rosebud system is that it allows one to document their struggles and their growth year by year as a kind of working and interactive diary. You can build on the previous year and form an ongoing narrative out of the successes, struggles and hopes. This is not about resolutions persay, at least not in the traditional sense, it is about making space for introspection and observation and forming that into perspective and potential. And it allows one to not just make goals, but to examine what those goals are actual about, the why of our goals. With that in mind…
A look back at ROSEBUD 2022:
My Three Roses were:
1. Research Project/Book
2. The Fear of God
3. Buddy
My Thorn was:
Avoidance
My Buds:
1. Reinvest in relationships at home
2. Take my record breaking year in film and books and funnel that time into greater investments
3. Make progress on my book
My Word For the Year: Process
One of the things that I noted in my Roses was potential. New potential when it came to writing and new potential when it came to the biggest change in our lives- welcoming Buddy into our home. When I consider how the Buds were meant to sort of supplement and build on my Roses, I have to confess that this was not my best year. I failed to make progress on my book, and perhaps at this point consider it a regression, and in the latter half of the year the onset of depression and some other barriers relating to life led me to neglect doing much writing at all, both for the Fear of God and on my personal page. The further downside of this is that I don’t feel like I was able to reinvest the time that I did have from dialing back on some of reading and watching the previous year well.
Rosebud 2023
Three Roses:
1. Buddy
While the rest of my 2022 year seemed to fall off the wagon as things went along, Buddy was there to ensure that something remained on track. He arrived with more than a few challenges, and many of those remain. Those who know me well know that a dog is never just a dog, and so ensuring that the Budster has a safe and loving home where he can figure some of this stuff out in grace and with family is hugely important for me. I do feel like I had the necessary grace, patience and time to give. I feel like some of this too has provided good opportunity for dialogue with Sasha as well as he has been able to observe and participate in the process
2. Conversations
I feel like 2022 has been marked by key conversations which have represented important transition points in my life. This includes family, work, friends, and Church. Without fleshing out the context, suffice to say while these conversations didn’t always go well or continue the way they needed, I feel like starting points are always positive.
3, Reprioritize
Related to those conversations, I do feel like there were small ways in which I was able to reprioritze some key facets of my life. I feel like I’m positioned well towards certain potentials in that regard at the very least. It just needs a greater imagination.
One Thorn:Failed Potential
I feel like this is the logical weakness to list here even if it stretches the unspoken rule of this slot by spreading things too broadly. Given my Roses and my reflections on last year this seems like an important foundation to build on in 2023
Three Buds:
1. Get back on the horse
Let’s keep this simple- get back to writing, get back to reimaging how to utilize some of my reallocated time
2. Establish further community
If conversations have been started, and if this relates to key points of transition, perhaps the logical step is to allow this to formulate into some important investments in community (relationships). What this means exactly seems less clear, but it is something to at least table and begin to flesh out
3. England
This will seem somewhat superficial, but this is meant to build on one failed potential from 2022. It has been a good long while since we have done a more extensive trip, and having landed earlier this year on planning to try and ultimately failing to make it to England, a place which holds perhaps the most bucket list items for me personally, being more intentional this year might help bear that out and make it a reality
The Stories of my Life 