Every Moment Holy

Posted on by albrooke

Block printI was not aware of Every Moment Holy until a few days ago, but would like to do my belated part to praise what is praiseworthy. Douglas McKelvey has written some very nice liturgies which the low church among us can experience as poems and prayers,* and published them as an illustrated book. The illustrations, including the one at right, are by Ned Bustard.

This one seems particularly appropriate, though I will quote only part:

In a world so wired and interconnected,
our anxious hearts are pummeled by
an endless barrage of troubling news.
We are daily aware of more grief, O Lord,
than we can rightly consider,
of more suffering and scandal
than we can respond to, of more
hostility, hatred, horror, and injustice
than we can engage with compassion.

But you, O Jesus, are not disquieted
by such news of cruelty and terror and war.
You are neither anxious nor overwhelmed.
You carried the full weight of the suffering
of a broken world when you hung upon
the cross, and you carry it still.

From “A Liturgy for those Flooded by Too Much Information” Several, including “LfTFbTMI” are available for free download. [link]. Why download them? Because they are beautifully designed (and we all read better on paper).

*The book seems very beautiful, and you can read more about the author, illustrator and background at everymomentholy.com.

Myths

Posted on by albrooke

Sam Allberry (@SamAllberry) has written a slender book called 7 Myths about Singleness (Crossway 2019) [amazon], and the only thing I didn’t like about it was the cover.

7 mythsAllberry, a single pastor and speaker at RZIM, deals winsomely about the church’s various misconceptions about singleness (not all of which are consistent with each other): 1. Singleness is too hard; 2. Singleness requires a special calling; 3. Singleness means no intimacy; 4. Singleness means no family; 5. Singleness hinders ministry; 6. Singleness wastes your sexuality; and 7. Singleness is easy.

What I liked most about this book was that it wasn’t particularly directed at single people. The target audience is believers who want to think about biblical teaching on the subject and includes married and unmarried believers. It would seem to me that the topic is pretty relevant to readers of the New Testament given that Jesus (certainly) and Paul (probably) were single. How can we be so quick to see marriage as a virtual requirement for ministers and the “highest calling” for others?

Allberry says, in his conclusion:

When I started this project, my initial aim was to write about the goodness of singleness . . . . But through it all I have been increasingly preoccupied with something else – not the goodness of singleness but the goodness of God. The issue is not whether this path or that path is better, whether singleness or marriage would bring me more good. The issue is God and whether I will plunge myself into him, trusting him every day.

P. 149. If that’s not relevant to us all, I don’t know what is.

Highly recommended.

LFW

Posted on by albrooke

current reading 2Lore Ferguson Wilbert, “This is Your Body Today,” sayable (Jan. 14, 2020) [link]:

Your body is not good as it is because of what you have done or left undone with it. Your body is good as it is because God called it good. Very good, actually. And it is still very good with its cavernous wrinkles and silver stretch marks. It is still very good with its creaking joints and the litany of scars that tell your story. It is still very good with the weight you can’t shed and the weight you can’t help but shed. It is still very good just as it is. But it is also growing old and that is very good too, but also very hard. And it is okay that it’s very hard.

*   *   *

. . . This is the great exchange we make in life on this earth: we lose our bodies and find our souls, and as we find our souls we find our bodies again too.

Also, LFW’s book Handle with Care will be released in early February [link]. I’m looking forward to it.

On honest uncertainty at a funeral

Posted on by albrooke

Between the stirrup

James Boswell attributes this near quotation of William Camden (originally “Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, Mercy I ask’d; mercy I found.”) to Samuel Johnson, and goes on to report that Johnson said “Sir, we are not to judge [with certainty] the state in which a man leaves this life. He may in a moment have repented effectually, and it is possible may have been accepted of God.” James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson 543 (1830) [link].*

We can never know the depth of God’s grace or the end of his persistent pursuit of each human heart. Let us resolve to speak the gospel of grace whenever we can.

*In the novel Brighton Rock (1938), Graham Greene has his character Pinkie rely on this quotation as a basis for rejecting grace on the assumption that he will be able to repent at the last moment. But in a moment in which his death seems imminent, he finds that he has hardened himself against repentance.

Aftermaths & Alternates

Posted on by albrooke

current reading 2Alan Jacobs is doing something fun on Snakes and Ladders:

Unscoured (July 1) [link]

Chapter 43 (July 2) [link]

this sickness is not unto death (July 5) [link]

Enjoy!

Sarah Willard had two nice posts last month “Shepherd My People” (June 17) [link], and “Here is your War” (June 6) [link], both (of course) at Blind Mule Blog.

Mockingbird always has a nice selection of thoughtful articles, essays and reviews, including “Just another Late Night in Washington (Review of movie Late Night)” (July 3) [link].

Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion in Box v. Planned Parenthood is a fascinating historical piece on eugenics and abortion. The opinion is available in full at the always well-curated SCOTUSblog (through casetext.com) [link] and is edited to look like a free-standing essay in First Things [link].

Is compassion human?

Posted on by albrooke

As I often do, at the end of the day, I repaired to Snakes and Ladders (blog.ayjay.org), to see what Alan Jacobs was keeping up with that I had missed. (I am coming to the conclusion after many years that “Alan Jacobs” must be a consortium of at least four or five people — no way this is just one guy.)

Here’s what I saw today:

small quotes blueI admire David French because he tries to live out his Christian convictions as consistently as possible. Those convictions led him and his wife Nancy, who are white, to adopt a girl from Ethiopia . . . .

“On David French” (May 30, 2019) [link].

Frankly, I had never heard of David French (because I am obviously completely illiterate), but when I read that first line, I though of my many friends who adopted cross-racially and/or cross-culturally (the Bs, the Hs, the other Hs, the Ms, the Ps, the Ss, the Ws, the other Ws, etc.) all out of a Christian conviction that to love and care for those in need is proper work for the followers of Jesus even when it is incredibly hard, whether it is popular or not.

Read Jacobs’ post, but even more importantly, go read David French, “America Soured on My Multiracial Family,” The Atlantic (Aug, 18, 2018) [link], where you will find:

small quotes blueThere are three fundamental, complicating truths about adoption. First, every single adoption begins with profound loss. Through death, abandonment, or even loving surrender, a child suffers the loss of his or her mother and father. Second, the demographics of those in need of loving homes do not precisely match the demographics of those seeking a new child. Adoptive parents are disproportionately white. Adopted children are not. Thus, multiracial families are a natural and inevitable consequence of the adoption process. Third, American culture has long been obsessed with questions of race and identity.

Read the whole article, please.

I still don’t know anything about David French, but when Alan Jacobs says “I believe that if you could demonstrate to David French that positions he holds are inconsistent with the Christian Gospel, he would change those positions accordingly,” I hear high praise indeed.

Pastoral prayer

Posted on by albrooke

NEHIn Nehemiah 9, there is an account of a huge corporate prayer as the faithful people of Israel have been returned to the land by God’s mercy. They gather, and pray together.

Let’s do the same, today, using Nehemiah 9 as a model.

96 You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

7 You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land . . . .

And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.

9 And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea. . . . 11 And you divided the sea before them, . . . .

You led them, you instructed them, you provided for them. (from vv. 11b-15)

But they did not submit to your leading, they did not obey your instruction and they rejected your provision. (from vv. 16-17a)

17b [Nevertheless] you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.

Through many years and many rebellions, you patiently worked in the nation to bring about your purposes, and because of this we will serve you. (from vv. 18-38)

And Lord, like Israel in Nehemiah’s time, we have seen rebellion — our own rebellion — and tragedy and hardships, and we have seen your work to restore your creation and to save us.

Unlike Israel, we have also seen the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Messiah.

As we come before you today, we too desire to serve you.

[Y]ou are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and [you do] not forsake [us].

We ask that you would be as real to us as you were to the people of Nehemiah’s day, that you would be as present in our lives, that you would be our only strength.

We ask that you would increase our devotion to you,

that you would lead us to repentance,

that you would strengthen our marriages,

that you would release our anxieties,

that you would heal our sicknesses,

that you would hear our fervent prayers.

For we are indeed your people, and we desire to worship you in Spirit and in truth.

Amen.

If the salt has lost its savor . . .

Posted on by albrooke

current reading 2An interesting take on the expected reconstruction of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris:

small quotes blueYou can’t understand the current rebuilding project without understanding the crowning of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III, in St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Day of the year 800; and Pope Gregory VII’s role [in] the Investiture Controversy, with its culmination in the humiliation of Henry IV in the snow at Canossa; and the emergence of the Cuius regio, eius religio principle in the Reformation era; and the violent dechristianizing of France during the Revolution; and the vain struggle of Pio Nono against the unification of Italy, ending in the elimination of the Papal States and the loss of all secular power for the Papacy; and the emergence of the Deutsche Christen in the Nazi era, when German pastors competed with one another to defend the celebrate the subservience of (especially but not only) the Lutherans to Hitler.

Alan Jacobs, “The building on the Île de la Cité,” Snakes and Ladders (April 17, 2019) [link].

A convert reflects on how the emptiness of secularism . . . and Christian practice:

small quotes blueI had plenty of opportunities to engage with orthodox Christians, and I sincerely wanted Christianity to be true. It was clear to me that what the authorities in my world celebrated—the collapse of family life, the slaughter of the unborn, the deterioration of high culture—were, in truth, social evils that followed from the decline of the Church. Christianity seemed the natural alternative to secularity.

Jacob Williams, “Why I became Muslim,” First Things (May 2019) [link]. Rod Dreher comments on the First Things piece in The American Conservative: “Why convert to Islam?” (April 15, 2019) [link].

Good Friday

Posted on by albrooke

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind us of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

 T.S. Eliot, “East Coker, pt. IV,” Four Quartets (1940).