“Authentic publishing is a lot like art collecting: You have to have a talent for it, and that talent shows in the outcome,” writes Frank Wilson.
All posts by Phil
Christmas Shopping for God
I’ve heard the call go out to concerned Christians recommending they avoid those retailers who refuse to wish them a very, merry Christmas. Certainly I would be annoyed as an employee if the word came down from Corporate that we must not let those words slip passed our lips. I would probably ignore it until provoking their wrath, and then I don’t know what I’d do. But you and I aren’t working their now; we’re shoppers. Should we avoid certain stores over this?
No. I suggest it would be far better to teach and encourage Christian shoppers to shop as an act of worship to the Lord who provides for them. Some will take that to mean they should buy a verse for their wall, but whatever the learning curve, leaders of the church should lay aside trivial squabbles like merry-christmas-wishing and teach their congregations, radio audiences, and subscribers how to worship the Lord God wholeheartedly in everything–including shopping. We should shop at places providing good products, ones that treat their people well and invest in their community, ones where people we know and trust work.
Postmoderns and The Great Books
This essay on reading The Great Books, or joining the Great Conversation, may be addressed to an audience other than the one typical of BwB, but Professor Peter Lawler makes many good points. He argues primarily against those who believe we, the people of the 21st century, are far superior to the people who came before us on many levels.
From my postmodern view, maybe the chief purpose of higher education, is then to counter the dominant view of who we are-–which is partly true and partly degrading prejudice—of our time. Our tendency is to view human beings as free and productive—as autonomous individuals with interests. This means that we don’t regard anyone as less than a being with interests—or as existing merely to serve others. We all have a right to look out for our own interests, and so to be treated as individuals and not merely as part of some larger whole. That means that it’s not really news to any of us that racism, sexism, classism, and so forth are wrong, and we usually think that it’s an affront to our dignity to be thought of as merely parents or citizens or creatures. We tend to be all about autonomy and self-definition.
But we’re weak—often very weak—in thinking of people as more than productive or self-interested beings. We tend to think that human distinctions that can’t be measured quantitatively aren’t real, just as we tend to think that a true meritocracy is based on productivity. We tend to think that because the great authors of the great books of the past must have been racists, sexists, and classists and, of couse, not as technologically advanced or as productive as we are, they have nothing real to say to us. So our prejudice is to study them critically—or condescendingly—as remnants of discredited prejudices.
Reading Over Your Head
Because by reading a book that is tough, you have an opportunity to grow. I don’t think anyone could argue against such good advice, but most of us have the obvious problem of not knowing which of the books we can identify as over our heads is worthwhile. Scads of folks praise Proust, for example, (sacred cow-tipping alert) but should I give a rat’s rearend about the man’s writing? Couldn’t I just read a couple essays on him and then work to read something better?
Actually, Proust is a bad author to question. The latest Booker winner would be a far better choice.
What Does Literary Studies Have To Do With Anything?
Academic literary studies apparently has little to do with the world in which living readers live. Bruce Fleming says, “It’s, well, academic, about syllabi and hiring decisions, how works relate to each other, and how the author is oppressing whomever through the work.”
The Apple Tree
My church’s choir is singing “Jesus Christ, The Apple Tree” this year. It’s a beautiful, traditional song. I can’t remember where I’ve heard it before, perhaps the same place you’ve heard but can’t remember too.
The apple has been used in many works of art as a symbol for sin or evil. I’m told the reason we think of the forbidden fruit, that unnamed fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as an apple is the fact apple and evil are spelled the same in Latin, malum. So Adam is shown with the apple of sin in his hand or at his feet as he is driven from the Garden of Eden. But in this song, Jesus Christ is called an apple tree (cf. Song of Solomon 2) in part because he is the second Adam, the one who is taking sin away from us, the one who is bearing the burden of our curse in order to save us from ourselves. That’s why we can sing:
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree. Continue reading The Apple Tree
Hitman Sells Story to Hollywood
John V. Martorano, who confessed to killing for the mob as a plea bargin, has reportedly sold his story to a Hollywood producer. Some of the good guys who worked against him aren’t too happy about it, and lawman is trying to pass a state law against criminals profiting from their no-doubt-dramatic stories.
“At Christmas Time” By Anton Chekhov
“WHAT shall I write?” asked Yegor, dipping his pen in the ink.
Vasilissa had not seen her daughter for four years. Efimia had gone away to St. Petersburg with her husband after her wedding, had written two letters, and then had vanished as if the earth had engulfed her, not a word nor a sound had come from her since. So now, whether the aged mother was milking the cow at daybreak, or lighting the stove, or dozing at night, the tenor of her thoughts was always the same: “How is Efimia? Is she alive and well?” She wanted to send her a letter, but the old father could not write, and there was no one whom they could ask to write it for them.
But now Christmas had come, and Vasilissa could endure the silence no longer. She went to the tavern to see Yegor, the innkeeper’s wife’s brother, who had done nothing but sit idly at home in the tavern since he had come back from military service, but of whom people said that he wrote the most beautiful letters, if only one paid him enough. Vasilissa talked with the cook at the tavern, and with the innkeeper’s wife, and finally with Yegor himself, and at last they agreed on a price of fifteen copecks.
So now, on the second day of the Christmas festival, Yegor was sitting at a table in the inn kitchen with a pen in his hand. Vasilissa was standing in front of him, plunged in thought, with a look of care and sorrow on her face. Her husband, Peter, a tall, gaunt old man with a bald, brown head, had accompanied her. He was staring steadily in front of him like a blind man; a pan of pork that was frying on the stove was sizzling and puffing, and seeming to say: “Hush, hush, hush!” The kitchen was hot and close.
“What shall I write?” Yegor asked again.
“What’s that?” asked Vasilissa, looking at him angrily and suspiciously. “Don’t hurry me! You are writing this letter for money, not for love! Now then, begin. To our esteemed son-in-law, Andrei Khrisanfltch, and our only and beloved daughter Efimia, we send greetings and love, and the everlasting blessing of their parents.”
“All right, fire away!”
“We wish them a happy Christmas. We are alive and well, and we wish the same for you in the name of God, our Father in heaven–our Father in heaven–”
Vasilissa stopped to think, and exchanged glances with the old man.
“We wish the same for you in the name of God, our Father in Heaven–” she repeated and burst into tears.
That was all she could say. . . . (read on)
The Friday Fight
Sword and axes
Is Silence Valuable?
Jared notes a post on silence by Mark Driscoll (posts the blogger while streaming talk radio). Driscoll says, “I remembered the words of missionary martyr Jim Elliot, who said, ‘I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds . . . Satan is quite aware of the power of silence.'”