Meeting Plato & Shakespeare at Breakfast

I find the phrase “vocation is mission” satisfyingly descriptive. What it means is that which I do every day is my personal mission. 

We are continuously changing people in an ever-changing world and we draw on tried-and-true instruments to form new experiences and things for us, and for people around us. 

That’s the inventive/creative power we have. 

 

I love the creative work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. 

 

NT Wright said well, “Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God’s new Temple. They are… places where heaven and earth meet.” -Simply Christian

The Holy Spirit works with us. He doesn’t come through our door with a signboard announcing his Presence, nor with a Tweet.

If you do a bit of spiritual self-care, rather like getting ready for the day for work. It may amaze you later on at creative God can be in your life.  

Perhaps you might surprise the person you see everyday. You show up and show them "another Shakespeare." - Not someone dressed in religious garb, but someone who lights up the universe by being who God already made them.

Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. 
Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with any more. 

But, imagine what it would be to live with such men still living,
to know that Plato might break out with an original lecture tomorrow or
that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song. 

The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church
is a man always expecting to meet
Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast.

 -   G K Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Leaping Forward By Going Backwards

I was reading an article that said we are in the midst of a sea change (hmmm…that’s been our continual state, hasn’t it?). The article suggested that that our current woes stem in the West stem from three causes: the “disestablishment” of legal authority in the 18th century, the subsequent disestablishment of civic authority in the 19th century, followed by the disestablishment of cultural authority in the 20th century. While this presents an interesting socio-political framework for thinking about systems, cultures and mores, it’s a sociological perspective, a filter. Perspectives are ways to look at things, but that’s it.
The cause of our woes is that from our origins, we’ve had sin problem at the root. We are off-track when we begin to think we can effectively treat our socio-political problems simply because we’ve identified them: identifying them is good but don’t confuse that with the rectifying the problem. Too we often we simply treat our toothache but not our rotten tooth so the pain always returns and never leaves us. I do believe while we can make progress (or change), but we mustn’t forget that we cannot fix the big root problem: our teeth are slowly rotting. Still, I agree with CS Lewis that progress can be accomplished, yet only if we start at the right end. Lewis stated that any progress required a stable core, and for that we need the Permanent–for the permanent is the root from which change takes place. Lewis asserted that with the changing demands of culture on morality and ethics, it is only an unchanging system of thoughts and values that can accommodate the continual increase in knowledge:
“A great Christian statesman [politician],considering the morality of a measure which will affect millions of lives, and which involves economic, geographical and political considerations of the utmost complexity, is in a different position from a boy first learning that one must not cheat or tell lies, or hurt innocent people.
But only in so far as that first knowledge of the great moral platitudes survives unimpaired in the statesman will his deliberation be moral at all.
[But] if that goes, then there has been no progress, but only mere change.
…change is not progress unless the core remains unchanged. A small oak grows into a big oak: if it become a beech [tree] that would not be growth, but mere change.”
It’s not possible to make effective change unless we know what to change—and we cannot know that until we understand what is intrinsically critical, necessary, and permanent to our existence prior enacting a change.
More simply put, without goal you can’t know where you should go; without a budget, you don’t know how much you can spend before going broke.
Just imagine the vagaries of the weather from one week to the next, or one year to the next—its affect on crops, roads, and even your attitude. But then, imagine that you awaken one day and to find that all that is critically necessary to life, (the permanent), let’s say, the sun and the moon, are obliterated. At this moment the day’s weather would be your least concern—you’d find yourself in a science-fiction horror film!
“…there is a great difference between counting apples and arriving at the mathematical formulae of modern physics. But the multiplication table is used in both and does not grow out of date.” Lewis elaborated:
“The possibility of progress demands that there should be an unchanging element. New bottles for new wine, by all means, but not new palates, throats and stomachs, for that would not be for us, ‘’wine” at all. …we find this sort of unchanging element in the simple rules of mathematics. I would add to these the primary principles of morality. And I would also add the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.
To put it in more technical language, the positive historical statements made by Christianity have the power, elsewhere found chiefly in formal principles, of receiving without intrinsic change, the increasing complexity of meaning which increasing knowledge puts into them.”
The truth and the necessity about Christ’s coming, the truth and necessity of His sacrifice, our redemption, and His transformative work in his disciples in so many people throughout millennia and cultures supports Lewis’ assertion in practice.
And, no, the world hasn’t progressed by accident, evolution, or government. When it has “progressed,” it has been because of the long, mostly laborious efforts of people who’ve grasped the big, permanent truths. Love chains us and binds us to seek improvement for our families and for others. GK Chesterton asserted: “Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.”
I have found no more biblical, no more permanent Christian “system” than the Creed. The Creed is only so because it is a comprehensive succinct expression of biblical truth of God, His work past, present and future, both in the world and in me. Stamped throughout out the Creed are expressions not simply of historical fact or theological assertions, but of supernatural and sacrificial love. It is out of the “permanent and fundamental principles” of faith that our lives can grow and bend as the seasons, times, cultures and environments. I can grow and change without losing my original God-ordained purpose, placement and end.
If you’re not familiar with a Christian creed, such as the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, here it is. And for readers unfamiliar with the biblical handprints all over the creed, I have placed some recommended scriptures after it. (The Apostles Creed is shorter, than the Nicene Creed).

Nicene Creed::
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation He came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

Deuteronomy 6:4, II Peter 1:17, Matthew 6:9 Job 4:17, 35:10, Isaiah 17:7, 54:5, Genesis1:1 Psalms 104:5, Jeremiah 51:15, Psalms 89:11-12, Amos 4:13, Revelation 3:5, Colossians 1:16, Ephesians 4:5,Romans 1:7, 5:1, I Corinthians 1:2, 6:11, II Corinthians. 1:2, 8:9, Galatians1:3, 6:14, Ephesians 1:2, 3:11, Philippians 1:2, 3:20, Colossians 1:3, 2:6, I Thessalonians 1:1, 5:9, II Thessalonians 1:1, 2:14, I Timothy 6:3, 14, I Timothy 1:2, Philemon 1:3, 25, Hebrews 13:20, James 1:1, 2:1, I Peter 1:3,3:15, II Peter 1:8, 14, Jude 17, 21, Revelation 22:20-21, John 1:18, Matthew3:17, John 3:16, Hebrews 1:5, John 1:1, Colossians 1:17, 1 John 1:1, Hebrews1:5, Micah 5:2, John 1:18, 17:5, John 10:30, John 14:9, I Corinthians 8:6,Colossians 1:16, Matthew 20:28, John 10:10 b, Matthew 1:21, Luke 19:10, Romans10:6, Ephesians 4:10, Colossians 2:9, Matthew 1:18, Luke 1:34-35, John 1:14,Matthew 20:19, John 19:18, Romans 5:6, 8, II Corinthians 13:4, Romans 5:8, I Corinthians. 5:15, Matthew 27:2, 26, I Timothy 6:13, I Peter 2:21, Hebrews 2:10, Mark 15:46, I Corinthians 15:4, Matthew 27:63, Matthew 28:1, I Corinthians 15:4, Mark 16:6,II Timothy 2:8, Psalms 16:10, Luke 24:25-27, I Corinthians 15:4, Luke 24:51,Acts 1:9, Mark 16:19, Acts 1:11, Psalms110:1, Ephesians 1: 20, Matthew 26:64, Hebrews 1:3, John 14:3, I Thessalonians4:16, Matthew 16:27, 24:30, 25:31, 26:64, Mark 8:38, Colossians 3:4, Matthew25:3146,Acts 10:42, 1 Peter 4:5, John 18:36, II Timothy 4:1, 18, Luke 1:33,Revelation 11:15, Psalms 145:13, Matthew 28:19, Acts 13:2, II Corinthians 3:17,John 6:63, Romans 7:6, 8:2, II Corinthians 3:6, John 14:16-17, John 15:26,Romans 8:9, Galatians 4:6, Luke 4:8, John 4:24, John 4:24, I Timothy 1:17, I Peter 1:10-11, II Peter 1:21, I Corinthians10:16-17, 12:12-13, Ephesians 3:16-17, 5:27, I Peter 2:9, I Corinthians 1:2,Ephesians 2:20, Revelation 21:14, Ephesians 1:22-23, Colossians 1:24, Hebrews12:23, I Peter 2:9, John 3:5, Romans 6:3, Ephesians 4:5, I Peter 3:21, Titus3:5, I Thessalonians 4:16, I Corinthians 15:12-13, 16, 52 and I Corinthians15:54-57, and Revelation 22:5

Is Christmas really necessary?

With less than a week before Christmas, some people wonder about the need for this religious holiday.  It doesn't take much reflection to agree with our very basic necessity: HELP.  We cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps; we've tried it—and failed.

“Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer realism, says that they are all fools.  Sometimes called the doctrine of original sin, it may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men.  [For] whatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect all men.  All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired.” – GK Chesterton

Thanks-Giving

Here lies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands,
And the great world around me;
And tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?
-GK Chesterton

Sin and Skinning a Cat

"...masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin—a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he [needed] washing. But ... [now we] not [only] deny the highly disputable water, but... the indisputable dirt. [Certain people dispute] original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. [And other people claim] sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams...they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street.
The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument.
If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions.
He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do.
The new theologians [who deny the sin] think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat."

G K Chesterton, "Orthodoxy"

Family: Not a A Character Flaw, An Opportunity for Adventure

I am not writing about my mother or mothers even though Sunday is Mother’s Day, but I am writing about family—and how they form you. It’s likely not what you think. This week marks the end of two years of mentoring young (32-34 years old) professional women (more of a spiritual director). Over these two years I made a point of listening closely when they talked about their families: their parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, half-siblings, step-siblings, step-parents. I listened to both what they said and how they approached the topic because the mentee’s attitude towards her family is a pretty accurate sketch of her general attitude towards life.
GK Chesterton has written a chapter on family in “Heretics” in which he suggests that the family–in its unvarnished, unsanitized version–is really the best thing for coming to grips with humanity in so many ways. Family is where we find real adventure. Chesterton asserts that the family is a ‘kingdom’ and, like real kingdoms, spend much of the time in ‘anarchy.’ He contends it’s a fantastic adventure, and I agree, but find many people think imperfect families is due to a character flaw. Chesterton’s analogy of family does not remotely resemble this one give by an American pastor: “It ought to be a place where love rules. [ok] It ought to be beautiful, bright, joyous…a place in which all are growing happier and better each day.” That sounds more like Disneyworld than Real World. Below are Chesterton’s assertions-I have liberally trimmed away the excess, and updated some of the language, but I think you’ll get his main point:
“The institution of the family is to be commended for the same reasons that the institution of the nation, or the institution of the city, are to be commended: They all force him to realize that life is not a thing from outside, but a thing from inside. They all insist upon the fact that life, if it be a truly stimulating and fascinating life, is a thing which, of its nature, exists in spite of ourselves. The modern[s ]…have suggested… that the family is a bad institution, that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. [Yet]…the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties. It is…like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy.
It is exactly because our brother George is not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested in the Trocadero Restaurant that the family has some of the bracing qualities of the commonwealth. It is precisely because our uncle Henry does not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity. The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind. Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.
Those who wish, rightly or wrongly, to step out of all this do wish to step into a narrower world. They are dismayed and terrified by the largeness and variety of the family. Sarah wishes to find a world wholly consisting of private theatricals; George wishes to think the Trocadero [Restaurant] a cosmos. …not that the flight to this narrower life may not be the right thing for the individual. But, [it] is bad and artificial which tends to make these people succumb to the strange delusion that they are stepping into a world which is actually larger and more varied than their own.
The best way [to] test [ones] readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born. This is, indeed, the sublime and special romance of the family. It is romantic because it is a toss-up…it is arbitrary…because it is there. [Here] the element of adventure begins to exist; for an adventure is, by its nature, a thing that comes to us, a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose.
Falling in love has been often regarded as the supreme adventure, the supreme romantic accident. [Although] love does take us and transfigure and torture us. But in so far as we have certainly something to do with the matter, [we are] prepared to fall in love and. in some sense, jump into it; in so far as we do, to some extent, choose and, to some extent, even judge—in all this, falling in love is not truly romantic, is not truly adventurous at all. In this degree, the supreme adventure is not falling in love. The supreme adventure is being born.
There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap. There we do see something of which we have not dreamed before. Our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us, like brigands [bandits] from a bush. Our uncle is a surprise. Our aunt is a bolt from the blue. When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale. This colour, as a wonderful narrative, ought to cling to the family and to our relation[ship] with it throughout life. …These are circumstances over which we have no control [and so] remain god-like…
People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature…The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are. But life is always a novel. Our existence may cease to be a song; it may cease even to be a beautiful lament. Our existence may not be an intelligible justice, or even a recognizable wrong. But our existence is still a story. In the fiery alphabet of every sunset is written, “to be continued in our next.”
If we have sufficient intellect, we can finish a philosophical deduction and be certain that we are finishing it right. With the adequate brain-power we could finish any scientific discovery and be certain that we were finishing it right.
But not with the most gigantic intellect could we finish the simplest or silliest story, and be certain that we were finishing it right. A story has behind it, not merely intellect which is partly mechanical, but will, which is in its essence, divine.
But in order that life should be a story it is necessary that a great part of it should be settled for us without our permission. A man has control over many things in his life; he has control over enough things to be the hero of a novel. But if he had control over everything, there would be so much [of the] hero that there would be no novel.
The thing which keeps life full of fiery possibilities is the existence of great plain limitations which force all of us to meet the things we do not like or do not expect. Of all these great limitations and frameworks which fashion and create the poetry and variety of life, the family is the most definite and important.”

GK Chesterton, Heretics

Trash or Treasure?

What is true wealth? How is it defined?
Gold?
Bonds?
Currencies?
Possessions?
Real estate? If you’ve been alive in the past four years, you have some idea of how difficult it is to hold on to what is defined as wealth. Since economic uncertainty hit the world in 2008, gold has been looking more precious to a great many people. And, as a result, its “value” has increased.
But, what is the real value of gold? It's only that which has been assigned to it--which begs the question, by whom or by what: there has to be an assigner--an agent who has the authority and ability to make that decison. 
In this case I am speakng of worldly (and necessary) exchanges; but that does not address spiritual and eternal exchanges. What is important there?
When we inventory that particular issue, we eventually realize we need to consider what value we assign to Christ. And, there are “real and objective” ways to do that, which we will do in another post. At the outset we need to address what obscures or clouds our thoughts regarding Christ. What does this are the norms: the social, the subjective ideas regarding the value of Christ to a society, to the world.
GK Chesterton puts it this way:
 “…the Church from its beginnings, and perhaps especially in its beginnings, was not so much a principality as a revolution against the prince of the world…
[At the time] Olympus still occupied the sky like a motionless cloud molded into many forms; philosophy still sat in the high places and even on the thrones of the kings,
when Christ was born in the cave and Christianity in the catacombs.
In both cases, [there is] the same paradox of revolution; …. of something despised; of something feared.
The cave in one aspect is only a hole or corner into which the outcasts are swept like rubbish; yet in the other aspect it is a hiding-place of something valuable which the tyrants are seeking like treasure."

• GK Chesterton (I recommend reading: “The Man Who Was Thursday” with this idea in mind)

Terrible Theatre!

According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free.
God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.

•  G.K. Chesterton Orthodoxy

Thanks-Giving

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands,
And the great world around me;
And with tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?

• Chesterton, on gratefulness

Simple Steps to an Exciting Life

God never wrought a miracle to convince atheism, because His ordinary works convince it. - Lord Bacon


The apostle Paul wrote to young Timothy, in the first century of the Christian church, giving him some simple instructions that are key in “taking ownership” of one’s spiritual life. Unless Christian individuals pay attention to the condition of their own self-care (spiritually-speaking), the Christian church (the body of believers) will become run-down.


“Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
… give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
Do not neglect the gift that is in you…
Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.
Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” (I Timothy 4:12-16)


While this may seem overwhelming, it’s less onerous than it looks if it is contextualized within the framework of the living Spirit of God. That Spirit is continually at work, as long as we keep maintain our part of the bargain. 
According to the promise of Christ before his crucifixion and resurrection, the Spirit (or Helper) would be with us to help us become the kind of people who God had always sought for—people with a heart of flesh, and not stone. God cannot manufacture our will to conform to His, but He can send extraordinary, even miraculous, help by the Spirit when our wills are bent towards Him.


“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:15-17)
(“But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” – John 7:39
"When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” – John 15:26)


Imagine this, that Christ, the Son of the Living God and Father, Creator of the universe and beyond, has sent us what He was when He was physically walking the Earth: the Spirit. And imagine, also, that this Spirit is not here to confuse, confound or mystify, but to clarify, and to settle.
Once the Christian understands that Life in the Spirit is ongoing and continual, then, the Christian should come to expect a gradual unfolding of his own originality within a life of being a disciple (not a monk). Indeed, the Christian is to become so intimate with the Spirit, that he will see that there is infinite originality when God made humans-and it crops up over and over in his life.

“Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead.
Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with any more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men still living, to know that Plato might break out with an original lecture tomorrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song. The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast.”

• G K Chesterton in Orthodoxy

Looking for love? Looking for truth?

God is a full-service God. Christianity (according to GK Chesterton) satisfies fundamental human longings by doing what no other religion has ever done:

"It met the mythological search for romance by being a story and the philosophical search for truth by being a true story."

• Chesterton in Everlasting Man

From "The Man Who Was Thursday"

“We will eat and drink later," he said.
"Let us remain together a little, we who have loved each other so sadly, 
and have fought so long. 
I seem to remember only centuries of heroic war, in which you were always heroes -- 
epic on epic, iliad on iliad, and you always brothers in arms. 
Whether it was but recently (for time is nothing), or at the beginning of the world, 
I sent you out to war.

I sat in the darkness, where there is not any created thing, and to you I was only a voice commanding valour and unnatural virtue.
You heard the voice in the dark, and you never heard it again. (Still) the sun in heaven denied it, the earth and sky denied it, all human wisdom denied it…
But you acted like men. You did not forget your secret honour, though the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you.
I knew how near you were to hell.
I know how you, Thursday, crossed swords with King Satan, and how you, Wednesday, named me in the hour without hope."
"I am the Sabbath," (he) said. "I am the peace of God."

• G.K. Chesterton, from The Man Who Was Thursday