think hard, think well

I’ve just started a new blog, entitled, “Threni.” From the ‘About’ page:

This blog is a public notepad as I pursue deep academic and personal study of the biblical Book of Lamentations. Readers and comments are welcome; however, the content will not be explicitly aimed at attracting and keeping a regular readership.

I’ll still be posting as regularly as possible here at ThinkHardThinkWell.  I appreciate your continued support.

Several months back, Fred Putnam recommended to me A.G. Sertillanges’ excellent little book, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions and Methods. After some initial frustration over the pronunciation of this Dominican priest’s name (help with French, anyone?), I settled into what has been a very unsettling and stimulating read.

Sertillanges’ book is translated, and someday I would like to learn French and read it in the original. Sertillanges’ prose must be even more elegant and beautiful than this excellent translation. I am content for now, however, with the English.

The book contains many quotable nuggets, and I thought I would share the one that convicted me most recently:

Study has been called a prayer to truth. Now prayer, the Gospel tells us, must be uninterrupted: “We ought always to pray and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). I know that this text is capable of a modified interpretation; the sense would then be: do not spend a day, a week, any long period, without speaking to God. But our masters have taken good care not so to narrow down words of such great import; they have taken them literally, and have drawn a profound doctrine from them.

Prayer is the expression of desire; its value comes from our inward aspirations, from their tenor and their strength. Take away desire, the prayer ceases; alter it, the prayer changes; increase or diminish its intensity, the prayer soars upward or has no wings. Inversely, take away the expression while leaving the desire, and the prayer in many ways remains intact. Has a child who says nothing but looks longingly at a toy in a shop window, and then at his smiling mother not formulated the most moving prayer? And even if he had not seen the toy, is not the desire for play, innate in the child as is the thirst for movement, in the eyes of his parents a standing prayer which they grant?

We ought always to pray is the same as saying: we must always desire eternal things, the temporal things which serve the eternal, our daily bread of every kind and for every need, life in all its fullness earthly and heavenly. (pp. 69-70)

Now, Sertillanges’ point pertains to the perpetuity of study, of learning, of thought. But the point is equally valid for prayers to God as for “prayers to truth.” To “pray without ceasing” is to live with an attitude of prayer, a continual longing to know God. I confess that too often too many other longings crowd out that desire.

Brett McCracken of CT has written an excellent article about the relationship between the American Reformed folk and Tom Wright: "Wrightians and the Neo-Reformed: ‘All One in Christ Jesus.’"

(HT: Joe Hesh)

Video of the latest song from The No Longer, April 10 at Solid Rock Cafe:

Some of you will remember that several months ago Yahoo! shut down Geocities.com. It was a sentimental moment for those of us whose first forays into the online world include a Geocities page, composed either in HTML or with a basic tool like Word. Several years ago I realized that a blog was much better suited to my online self-aggrandizement desires than a small, hodge-podge site like Geocities. After I little while on a languishing Xanga site in college, I think I’ve found a happy, hospitable home here on WordPress.

In the early online era, my father was particularly wary of any personal information about the family being exposed on the Internet. One time I put up some page that mentioned my mom’s and sisters’ names, and he was so worried that he made me take it down. I think he was concerned about stalkers–this was before Law & Order: SVU, but he had a vivid imagination.

Now, we live in a world vastly different. My brother is about the same age as I was when I entered my first chess chat room, and he and Deb Facebook several times a day. If you wanted to stalk my sister or any one of thousands of other 19-year-old girls, it would be fairly easy. You could find out where she lives and goes to school, and track her school schedule from her Tweets and status updates. You would know what she looks like and who her BFsF are. It’s easier than ever to find out too much about a stranger.

And yet, I’m not terribly worried. Good grief–my parents are borderline technophobes–they have never gotten EZPass, for fear that Big Brother will track them. I’m not that bad–my bittersweet solace is that the government could most certainly find me whether I used EZPass or not.

I just wonder how public–exposed–a life my currently in utero son will live when he is a teen/young adult. Who knows what information folks will post on the social networking successor to Facebook’s successor? Maybe a map of his DNA, a full-body scan, his financial information and a tracking device in his surgically implanted mobile device? I’ll be the overprotective father, worrying about his safety, and he’ll eschew my warnings.

And, he will probably grow up just fine…

On Friday, March 26, my sister and I presented papers at the Eastern Regional meeting of ETS. I had mixed feelings about this meeting; the theme–Amish forgiveness–looked interesting, but not really up my academic alley. I had decided to give this paper at the last minute, and I wasn’t sure even heading into the week before the conference that I had something worth presenting.

But, Bekah was presenting and had no ride, so I was committed to going. The rest of our carpool bailed early in the week (homework and family reasons–pshaw!). I received the last of my PhD rejection letters on Monday. But by Thursday, I finished my paper and felt fairly confident to present it first thing Friday morning. I knew that several friends would be at the conference, so I was looking forward to an encouraging day.

Amish Forgiveness

We learned a ton about the Amish from Dr. Donald Kraybill, a professor at Elizabethtown College and Anabaptist expert. I was acquainted with the story of the Nickel Mines school shootings several years ago, but Dr. Kraybill expounded on the story and the tradition of grace and forgiveness in the Amish communities.

I was moved almost to tears when Dr. Kraybill explained that that same day some Amish, even the families who had lost daughters in the shootings, visited the parents and widow of the gunman, Charles Roberts. He said, "Those of you who are parents: imagine that your son had done something like that. The burden you would carry would be even worse than that of the parents of the victims." As an expectant father, this hit me hard. The idea of losing my son is hard enough, and I have never even held him or spoken to him. To imagine him killing someone else in cold blood–it sent chills down my spine. I think that parenthood is going to compound any emotions I experience tenfold: the highs will be higher than ever because I’ll be proud of him, and the lows will be a snake’s belly in the Grand Canyon when he fails. I think I’m just beginning to understand.

Also had some thoughts about the Amish generally that I didn’t get to run by Dr. Kraybill, but I want your thoughts. In the early days of the church (pre-313 CE), Christians largely found their identity in persecution, which makes sense given that they worshiped a crucified Messiah. After Christianity was legalized, Christians had to develop a new way of proving their fidelity. Since the government wasn’t making them suffer anymore, self-suffering–asceticism–arose. The Anabaptists were likewise persecuted in the early days of the Reformation by Catholic and Protestant alike; persecution was an integral part of community identity. When they migrated to America (mostly PA) in the 18th century, the institutional persecution ceased, so they had to find a new way of self-affliction: neo-asceticism, separation from the outside world. Do you think that this narrative have any truth to it?

Papers

Back to the conference…

When we received a final e-mail about the schedule, Bekah’s and my papers were marked on the roster as "entries, student paper competition." We hadn’t realized until then that it was a competition; we joked that we hoped neither of us would win, because the other would lose.

Both our presentations went well, with good questions and stimulating conversation. At the closing meeting, Dr. Yoder encouraged us not to jet right away. The chair announced that the region would be giving out "First Prize" and "Honorable Mention" awards in both undergraduate and graduate paper categories. We were surprised and pleased that each of us took first prize ($150) in his/her category. What a blessing and an encouragement!

I’m very proud of Bekah–I told the chairman, Matt Blackmon, that I am trying to stay one degree ahead of her at all times, and we both agreed that this would be a difficult task. Congrats, Bekah–I love you.

If you’d like to see the paper, I’ve posted it in the "Papers and Presentations" section. I still consider it a work in progress, so I would appreciate your comments, as always.

Last time, I discussed my helpful, yet less than ideal, experience at the SBL regional meeting. This update will be more personal.

The next year will involve many changes for me and Corrie.

This is the first online announcement, and the three of you who read ThinkHardThinkWell get to be the first e-recipients of the good news: we are expecting our first child, a son, in July. I am as happy as a tornado in a trailer park, as are our families (first grandchild, first great-grandchild, etc.).

We are also moving. I finished my master’s in December, and we’ve been praying about the next step. I applied to several fully funded PhD programs, and received rejection letters from all schools. The logic was that we planned to do Bible translation with Wycliffe, but if I could get a funded PhD in the short term, that would help me in my work and give me something to work with when we come back from the field (in 20 years, or whenever).

But God obviously shut that door. I’ll admit it was hard, but I’m not taking it too personally. I didn’t have my hopes too high, because I really had no sense of my qualifications relative to other applicants. It’s also just a hard year for funding–many schools took only one or two candidates because of finances.

So, the plan is to have the baby and move to Dallas sometime in the fall. In January, we will begin studies at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, on our way to becoming fully supported members of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Our studies will take about 2 years, depending on how much I have to work. We will probably be sending out letters from time to time, so let me know if you’d like to be on our e-mail list.

Please keep us in your prayers–baby, move, missions, money, insurance.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I’m come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

Next: ETS Conference with Bekah

Two weeks ago, I presented a paper on the biblical acrostics at the Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. I was very excited to attend this meeting; there were some good papers being presented, I wanted feedback on my paper, and I hoped to finally have my oft-thwarted coffee appointment with Art.

The meeting was largely a disappointment, for several reasons. The most important factor was that I obtained a pretty severe head-cold on Tuesday, and was home sick Wednesday and Thursday. Most of the papers I was interested in hearing were on Thursday, including Art’s. I was home asleep, trying desperately to recuperate enough to give my paper on Friday afternoon.

I did muster the strength to go on Friday. The plenary session with Kent Sparks was excellent, and I ran into Gary Schnittjer. Gary was encouraging as always, but wasn’t able to stay for my session–some lame excuse about having to pick up his daughter. 🙂 My dad came, which was fun, and he took me out to lunch. But I was blowing my nose every ten seconds, couldn’t shake any hands, and didn’t really want to meet anyone or have conversations.

By the time 3:15 rolled around, I was ready to head home, but still had to give my paper in the last session. I tried to save my incredibly explosive nose-blowing for the rounds of applause before and after each presenter. Everyone was very kind and gracious to me, but no one had much feedback on my paper–I think hearing it was like drinking from the fire hose. Oh well.

The conference wasn’t nearly as well-attended as I had thought it would be. I guess the national SBL meetings are a bigger deal–I’ve never been.

I got home that evening feeling grateful to God that I had been able to present, but disappointed thinking of how things could have been different.

Next update: Two big announcements

I realize it’s been a few weeks since I’ve written here. A lot has happened in that time, so I have quite a few things to write about over the next few days. I’ll give it to you in small bite-sized chunks though.

Coming soon:
* SBL Conference
* ETS Conference
* Two big personal announcements

Check back soon!