The Beaver Falls Manifesto: Part 1

One of my employees/friends the other day chided me on having too many dreams. He had been speaking about his cheese obsession (2lbs per week, if I remember correctly). One thing about this area is that because of the hilly terrain, we have a lot of dairies, but no local artisan cheese. In fact, the closest I've seen is either Kraft (who knows where that comes from) or Cabot (Vermont, not exactly across the street). Part of the reason, of course, is the current low demand for local creameries and the ridiculous government intolerance of raw milk. He didn't chide me for the dream of good, local, dependable, and healthy milk, cream, and cheese; I daresay he may even enjoy the thought. He chided me, rather, for having the dreams of a local, independent market (too complex to describe at this time); a local ceramics industry (like the former Beaver Falls/Mayer China company--PA soil is basically all clay as it is); a local, sustainable timber industry (complete with draft horses); more coffeeshops (each with complete microroasting capabilities); and many more things (I can't think of others because I'm tired, not for lack of ideas). The health of any society is it's lack of dependence for necessities (and luxuries) on places far away. A city (or set of cities placed along a river) should be able to provide food, shelter, companionship/recreation, and clothing (the four foundations of culture) from within itself and its surrounding rural areas. The rural areas should be able to receive plenty of manure nutrients, cultural opportunities, and companionship from their dependents, the cities. This sort of urbanist-agrarian thought is what leads to a placed idea for Beaver Falls. It is one thing to be jonesed about an idea, but the practice is where we see if being more concerned about neighbors we can see, rather than GDP, is what makes the world a better place. So, here is the start of the Beaver Falls Manifesto--something I hope to expand in the future as a groundwork for rejuvenation here at home. So far, it will seem a series of disjointed propositions. My apologies for that, I'll give it a slicker look and feel when I can.

I. Beaver Falls (and the surrounding area, it should be assumed from here on out) is worthy of care and pride. The land, sky, and river around it have been created by God who calls us to exercise culture in beautification, production, and conservation of that place. To that end (as well as humans do that task), the cultural expression of the city was founded and itself is worthy of care and pride. It is currently marred by human greed, sloth, and covetousness; but God has called his people, the Church, to be leaders is restoring this world (and all its parts) to their original created purpose and glory.

II. Beaver Falls will never have a chance to attain to that purpose and glory if it (that is, the people who live in/near it and the people who "govern" it) continues its self-destructive behavior of wasteful consumption; production of cheap, disposable goods; and economic/agricultural/cultural dependence on non-local sources. Many seem to view Beaver Falls as incapable of being "better" (whatever that means) than Chippewa, Cranberry, or Pittsburgh because of its present state. However, economic indicators can no longer be the primary means of judgement: health, both human and non-human, must be the deciding factor. Can the way we live here now be sustained into the indefinite future without giving up local independece, knowledge, neighborliness, and "crisis-nimbleness"? If not, why not?

III. A future-orientation is absolutely essential to the rebuilding of this area. If we continue to run by the short-term profit motive, we will exhaust our soil, our air, our water, our animals, and ourselves before future generations can receive the gifts of soil, air, water, animals, and selfhood that has been passed down to us by previous generations. A gift-outlook, one that recognizes that with anything not absolutely owned (and only God owns anything absolutely) responsible care and "acting worthy of the gift" (that is, gratitude in its full sense), is essential for both short-term and long-term prosperity.

IV. Ownership is also necessary. A sense that what we have been given with continue with us through multiple generations is necessary for proper care of anything. Nothing, in the end, is disposable; someone always cleans up. This is not absolute ownership, but neither is it mooching. The principle of usufruct (something should be more valuable health-wise after leaving our care) should be fully enforced as a cultural mandate (not a government one, for it is a cultural concern not definable by the powers that be). Home ownership should be especially encouraged, for it roots a family in a neighborhood where real change is possible. If neighbors are healthy (in the varied ways that can be understood--the word 'salvation' comes from a word meaning health), then we are healthy and safe. Also, the principle of neighborhood increases practical wisdom in ownership, plus adds the benefit of more hands to help in case of emergency and everyday issues that accompany any cultural, human product (such as decay and "human error").

More to Come...

Remembering Old Friends

The world is not the same as it was when I was in high school. It is strange to me to consider that some friends have departed forever, some have disappeared, some stay close--but none geographically, and some have started families.

I've never been good at communicating with those I see infrequently. My neighbors hear from me quite often, as do my geographically-close friends. However, my extended family, friends from Omaha, and others I've met along the way may hear sporadic news, but often there is nary a sound.

That world, the one that existed from 1996-2000, was assumed to be the world. However, as one friend who proceeded me to college said, when you go away you can never come back in the same way. So many close friendships around me disintegrated because people came back "different" from college. Disintegrated not in necessarily a dramatic or hurtful way, rather communication lines ceased and folks drifted apart. I was determined to not let that happen to me. But communication did fail and friends became out of sight, out of mind.

So it was especially poignant to me to see that one person I was extremely close to, but had lost all contact with, was married and had a child. This lady helped me through a dark passage of my life--a time in which my neediness outweighed my ability to give (all the time, though, considering myself to be very humble and self-sacrificial). It was years later that I realized my drain on her, and how unfair that was, but also how it has changed me and effected me in the years since. I am a stronger person because of that friendship, no matter how selfish I was in it. In many ways, the qualities that she brought to the friendship were ones that I found magnified in my wife (whom I'm didn't know at the time of this friendship). One of the difference, of course, is that Bethany is not afraid to give me a (metaphorical) swift kick in the butt so that my selfish tendencies don't overexert themselves. But my friend served as a prescient model for whom God had for me in marriage.

Those we consider indispensible may, in the end, be only momentary players in our lives.

The key, though, is to not let these moments become too inward focussed. In a way, it hurts that I have not been as important in old friends' lives as I thought I would be. But, the same is true I'm sure from their perspective. Life goes on. That is why it cannot be just about me, why my life has to have a broader perspective than my own horizon. That is why I need a story, which I didn't have in high school, to anchor me to reality. The story, as I've come to understand it, encompasses all the small and large things of individual lives and also the seemingly big "world-historical" movements and figures. It connects us to the past, the present, and the future, so that when I am gone awaiting resurrection, the life of the world and my friends and my family goes on. My part in this drama is small and seemingly insignificant, but rooted in the larger story of God's work in the world, it takes on meaning and significance that I could never have dreamed of when I was pouring my soul out (constantly) to my friend back in high school. That story, and all that it contains, is the only connection that will ultimately last between people.

The Church and Place

As can probably be seen from the last two posts, I think that the concept of place, or rootedness in a long-lasting local community, has not been sufficiently taken into account with our major abstract and abstracting institutions. Like higher education, the church too has made its identity (not to mention its money) on the belief that every place is the same and so none of them matter.

This has recently become especially poignant to me as my local assembly is losing its pastor of some seven years. His leaving, while completely justified, obviously will be somewhat of a shock to recover from. He has done a good job and is beloved by many. He will be greatly missed, but like all the pastors before him, will eventually be replaced by another. The difficulty is that, in many of the churches I have been a part of, the focus is not on the place where God has called us to live and work, but rather on "the preaching". I, and others in the congregation, am expecting a fairly significant drop-off in attendance numbers to happen following his departure. Many folks go to church to be "fed", but not to feed or learn to feed others outside of the faith. They may even travel far distances, even though many churches in their area could use their gifts and talents to bring healing to their places.

I have named it "The Cult of the Pastor". Part of growing up, whether physically or 'spiritually', is going past the point where you need a teacher. This does not mean that there is no learning going on, but the formal structures of education are meant for children. Part of educational history is that the time of "adolescence" was invented in recent history to prolong young adults from entering into full membership of their communities and society at large. Self-education is a dying art, even among people long out of school. This is especially true, it seems, in Christian circles. How many times has it been said, "My pastor says/believes/teaches thus and so..."? Very little critical thought is expended by many Christians, especially in how to apply God's Word to their everyday lives and their places. We attach ourselves to a teacher, who is supposed to do the learning for us and pour it into our empty heads. Just as that is the road to political tyranny, so religious tyranny cannot be far behind. Unwitting tyrants, often seeing that their "people need them," are worse than usurpers who aren't liked by the people they bully and oppress. Pastors leave or retire, places stay around.

This is not to denigrate the office of eldership or the pastorate. With the level of immaturity that the church suffers, these offices are necessary, but they need--more than ever--to be committed to what they are ordained for. These offices are to prepare the saints, that is the common Christian, for "the work of the ministry" (Ephesians 4). And our work is intimately connected to where we are.

In our attempt to escape earth, whether through the Rapture or the transmigration of the soul (otherwise known as "going to heaven when you die"), we have forgotten that God calls us to bring healing to his good-created world. Instead, ministry--pastoral and laity--has become almost exclusively about "salvation" (escape), with possible a little charity tacked on because it seems like the right thing to do. This has led to an empty evangelism, devoid of real, earthly help and real, earthy discipleship. Polishing the brass on a sinking ship has always been and always will be a stupid idea.

What, though, if we reclaimed a robust doctrine of creation and of covenant? One that postulates that God enjoys the world he has created and wishes to see it made whole again under the vice-gerency of humankind? Or that God called Abraham and his seed to set the world to rights? Since we can only act in a small-enough scale to actually effect healing instead of causing more problems (the deficiency of the industrial economy), we must act to set the world to rights in our own cities, neighborhoods, and communities. That the healing must start between the people of God is almost a no-brainer, but the pettiness and selfishness that infects the body of Christ (what a horrific thought) shows that we have a long way to go before we can pontificate on how the outside world should solve its problems.

More later...

College and Place

Residential education is near bankruptcy. This could be said for many areas, but especially economically. Many colleges, especially Christian ones, are finding it harder and harder to keep up with the demands of maintenance, room allocation, and rising utilities. To raise tuition much higher, though, would effectively kill any chance of solvency--especially for schools with small endowments, or poorly managed ones. With the onslaught of online education, residential collegiate experience may cease to exist. Many are beginning to see that they can get the career training/higher salaries that college offers for a fraction of the price--and can stay close to friends/family, plus start working on their futures right from their very own computers at home (which, invariably, have faster connection speeds) or the local library. Hence the pride that some institutions furtively take in being called "party schools". The residential experience, by itself, does not offer enough any more for many to justify a $100k+ investment that will take years to pay off. Debt, in other words, is killing traditional higher education.

Residential colleges need, quickly, to rethink their very foundations. Since more and more are choosing to stay closer to home, or to save their room/board fees to rent an apartment where they want to live/work, I think it would be wise for residential institutions to put their best foot forward in this very instance: place.

Residential colleges, part of the Enlightenment fabric, have bought whole-heartedly into the idea that place does not matter. There is very little study of the places where colleges are located, since every place has been (for a long time) assumed to be just like any other place. Some institutions even perpetuate a hatred (usually implicit, sometimes not) of the place they are located--religious institutions, with their dualistic hatred of Creation, are particularly prone to this. Many offer majors in fields that have no economic footing in the surrounding area (within, say, 50 miles), implicitly offering the opportunity to "escape" the surrounding landscape. Why?

Part of the American heritage, for better or worse, is that when the going gets tough, the tough leave. Whether for reasons of economic or religious oppression, many have left their long-established homes for an American restart. This, of course, is not a bad thing: immigration, legal or otherwise, has been an important and formative part of U.S. history. However, when transplanting places, the dominant attitude has been to scorn any thought of the older place--note the perennial efforts of career politicians to limit any other languages than English in public discourse, despite the fact that the United States has no official language. Immigrants are often looked down upon for bringing some of their customs and culture with them, being viewed as "un-American" or being asked why they didn't just stay where they were, the assumption being that the smaller, more familial aspects of their culture is what was the problem, instead of overbearing political and religious (that is to say, abstract) systems.

This translates, very easily, into our own hatred of the local. The grass is greener elsewhere, so why not go there? It creates a perpetual homelessness, physically and spiritually. So why go to school to learn how to bring wisdom (that is what education is after all, right?) and healing to your place, when you could much more easily learn how to run the system that brings immediate gratification, even if your children will have to pick up the bill? (On another note, this may be why our culture is in the sexual/abortion state it is in: sex is immediately gratifying, children run the risk of never being gratifying, but instead end up like ourselves.

Internet education, for all the positive possibilities I think it has, plays right into this culture. Place, ultimately, is an unnecessary inconvenience easily overcome by the application of technology. In fact, the place you want can be easily created by developing an avatar, or a persona as a blogger. Residential colleges, especially Christian ones, have the possibility, not yet explored, to resist this dangerous and deathly cultural trend. These colleges can be about the health, well-being, and prosperity of the communities that surround them, both human and non-human. The residence halls can become places where human life flourishes, instead of diminishes in a drunken and pseudo-erotic stupor. The town-and-gown clashes must cease, with the (often) arrogant institutions of "higher" learning not working in a top-down way to "improve" the locale, but instead working with and, most urgently, for the local population to give educated answers to pressing local questions, whether they are scientific, artistic, or cultural/religious. This does not mean, however, that institutions should change their century-long alliance with the federal government to a just-as-corrupt-or-corruptible local government. Instead it means working with the actual people to bring education to all those around who would make the own lawns greener, instead of always coveting their neighbors. Do this, and higher education will live and possibly flourish in ways that are mutually beneficial to their communities, refuse this and in ten years (or less) we will see residential higher education become a dusty footnote in the educational history of America, read online and usually skimmed over.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Liturgy

The American religious heritage, by and large, is anti-liturgical. Not just non-liturgical, but against it. As far as I can tell, this has deep roots not only in the (especially) Scots-Irish Presbyterian past of the nation, but also in the early political turmoil of secession from Britain. I think that this is why both Anglicans and Roman Catholics had a harder time finding acceptance in the "New World" than Presbyterians. The liturgy of both those "high" churches was indelibly linked to their politics. Anglicans = head of church is king of England, whom (as you might recall from history class) was not a favorite to early Americans. Catholics = head of church is Pope, another obvious connection due to the decidedly Protestant flavor of America (to this day even). Many Protestants reacted so strongly against these liturgical traditions as to deny any liturgy at all. However, just like the Campbellite movement, which claimed "No Creed but Christ" follows their own formalized statements of faith, non-liturgical Christians follow their own liturgies. A liturgy is technically nothing more than an order of service in a formalized worship setting. So whether it is the "Our Father" or "3 hymns and a sermon", it is still a liturgy. If we are going to meet together to worship, we are going to have a liturgy, implicitly or explicitly. Liturgy is an inescapable concept. In other words, it isn't a question of "liturgy or no liturgy", but what, or rather whose, liturgy it is. Here is where the political background of the Presbyterian reaction to liturgical traditions shines the strongest. It has to do with what exactly, apart from the technical understanding, liturgy is.

I've become more and more convinced over the past couple of years that humans attain knowledge through stories. I cannot here defend the idea, but there is plenty of good reading out about it nowadays. Our actions tell stories, have backgrounds that explain them, and subvert or clarify larger stories that others tell. This is what story-telling looks like at an individual level. However, once individuals come together as groups, they start to tell similar stories (or vice versa--I'm not intending to start a "chicken-egg paradox" here). These founding myths, or worldviews, color how people relate to each other. There are always those elders, who are well versed in the traditional stories, who have power in the community precisely because they tell the "authorized" versions of the stories. Hence the clash of Jesus with the scribes, Pharisees, and priests--an unaccredited upstart retelling Israel's story not centered around Torah, but around himself! The book of John basically seems to revolve around this story-telling clash, hence the judicial feel of the book. But to return to the point, the story-tellers of any group rule that group. Liturgy, conceived as the weekly (or preferably daily in the family setting) retelling of God's story, is intimately connected to power. What version of God's story are they telling? Is it the "authorized" version, the "orthodox" version? In other words, who is telling the story and why do they have the right to tell it (II Corinthians is taken up with whether Paul was an authorized story-teller)?

To return briefly to the political climate, if the American people, recently freed from British rule, submit to British liturgy, what does that say about this people? The British would still rule. If Protestant people, separated by the Reformation gulf, returned to Catholic liturgy, what does that say about this people? The Reformation would be over. Interestingly enough, because of the secularization of the American Protestant tradition, nationalist politics has controlled the liturgy ever since--the main mantra, of course, being "religion is a private affair, with no place in the public square" (it even rhymes).

However, this story, the story of God's dealings with the world, is too important to just be left in the hands of others, no matter how well intentioned they might be. Ephesians 4 has an interesting passage in which it says that some are called to be pastors, teachers, evangelists (traveling story-tellers), etc. so that the people of the church might do the ministry. "Ministry" has never been intended to be relegated to a professional class. It is the bread-and-butter of the everyday Christian, not just those who hold a "degree". What if the American political story was changed? What if someone were to say that the American Revolution was anti-Christian (and, therefore, morally wrong)? Wouldn't that person run the risk of being labelled as "un-American" (leniently) or even suffering physical harm (severely)? Why? Because they are messing with the founding story, what gives this country its legitimization, not just for existence, but to continue its course in the present and future.

How about if someone told the story of God that synthesized pagan philosophical beliefs with the very Jewish roots of Christianity? What if they changed the story from God saving his creation from ruin-by-sin to say that God's intention was to take his people out of created reality (presumably to become ontologically one with the uncreated) and destroy this creation? Needless to say, those who control the story control the Church.

Stories give meaning, purpose meaning, to our lives. Our communities live on stories, but what stories are they and who is telling them? More importantly, possibly, what legitimizes someone as being an "authorized" story-teller, whether you want to call them apostle, elder, pastor, evangelist, or heretic?

This is what gives liturgy its power. The story of God is retold weekly in worship services all across the world. It is a story that deals with very historical events, from the creation of the world through the call of Abraham and on to the death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Jesus. Even so, it has great applicability today and all Christians should be concerned with the story they are hearing. Is it the true story or an imitation? And how would we know the difference?

Pete Steen Festschrift

Pete Steen Festschrift Project Very intriguing. Thought all you neo-Cals might be interested.

Christological Confessions

I've been studying christology intensively for about 7 or 8 years now. It is a hard subject, since most statements made both by popular writers and even scholars are shallow, content-empty, or closetly heretical. Also, if the party line (whatever the individual heresy hunter defines that line as--it is frustratingly flexible) is not toed (or towed), then you are liable to come under some sort of judgement, whether personal or ecclesial. Thankfully, I've had good friends come along side me during this journey who have been patient and attentive, while still holding to their own views. To all of you, many thanks, especially as I went through the whole spectrum of both 'orthodox' and 'heretical' views (those words are especially tricky to define, and impossible to enforce).

At its base, who Jesus is is simple. Jesus is the human being anointed by God to be the means by which he would set the world to rights. However, from here either speculation or nuance usually takes over. I remember when I first started this study how I balked at speculation (and still do). I read in a premier church history that the Fathers had based their doctrine of the Logos (the 'word' from John 1) on a Greek, mostly Platonic, understanding. In other words, due to what I surmised as the anti-semitism of the post-apostolic church, the Fathers effectively threw out the Old Testament in order to co-opt pagan Plato (this is a gross oversimplification, I realize). I opted to go the way of nuance instead, even though I didn't know it.

Christology becomes nuanced when the themes and images of the Bible start to be allowed to play through the interpretations of Jesus offered by the apostles and other New Testament writers. You have Incarnational imagery, which is a broad category, encompassing Logos ("the word became flesh"), Torah ("I am the way..." see my second post on this blog), and Temple ("dwelt/tabernacled among us" "the fulness of God dwelling in him", etc.). You have Davidic imagery ("Son of David" and "Son of God"--meaning the king of Israel, the one who represents Israel, who early in Exodus is called the "son of God"), this encompasses the Messianic themes ("Son of Man", the Servant from Isaiah). You have, as NT Wright points out in his The Climax of the Covenant, Incorporative themes: (Jesus sums up Israel's destiny by taking the Torah's curse, the new people of God--made up of Jews and Gentiles--act as the resurrection body of Jesus on earth, so to speak of them is to speak of what "Jesus continued to do and teach", also note how Temple themes work so well with ecclesiology). Lastly, you have Agency themes: Jesus having the role of God himself, which is what led to later developments in Trinitarian thought. Jesus did what God said he himself would do. All of these things are interconnected. It is difficult for me to separate them into these "neat" categories. It is much like a tapestry, beautifully woven to lead to worship and imitation.

Which brings me to what I think is the biggest christological insight: what God did in Jesus, he intends to do in the renewed human race. The glorified man Jesus is the prototype, or new Adam, of what the human race is supposed to become. I think you can go so far and say that this was God's plan all along, but that might be more speculative. That is the genius of Incorporative christology: Jesus was filled with the Spirit, so should/will we. Jesus was delivered from the clutch of death, same eventually for us. Jesus glorified in his physicality, so also we. Obviously, though, as the book of Hebrews might point out: he is preeminent because he is the pathbreaker, the author and finisher, and great high priest. The renewed humanity is "of the Messiah" and will always be known that way. In other words, even Incorporative christology allows for demarcation. The many (the people of God) are not collapsed into the one (Jesus), even though the link between them is hard to fully define. Same with classical trinitarian thought according to the council of Chalcedon.

"I believe in Jesus of Nazareth, God's Son..."

The End of History

The end of history has been the end-goal for the Christian Church almost since its inception. I say 'almost' because neither Jesus nor any of the apostles believed in it in the way we do. All that rich, eschatological language is metaphoric for very this-worldly events. I can't say more about that here, but there is plenty of good scholarly work about apocalyptic language and how the proper meaning of it has often been left behind.

When the Bible speaks of the "new age" or the "new heavens and new earth" it isn't imagining a place where there is no time. Being time-bound is part of our creatureliness, to transcend time (which doesn't make much sense anyway) would mean to no longer be human, but instead to be God (who has never been bound by time). Ah, here's the rub! Athanasius said it best in his On the Incarnation of the Word of God: "God became man, so that man might become God." Under the influence of pagan thought, as the Church steadily came under once the apostles were out of the way, the Church gradually lost touch of what the New Creation was to be about and why it is important that we are, and remain, human. Nowadays this translates to popular preachers and laity hoping for the end of existence as we know it--becoming disembodied souls who are eternal. In other words, to be as God.

However, being time-bound is a good part of being a creature. Our finiteness allows us to develop and mature, to become more conformed to the image of the Son of God. We need the ability to look back upon the past and not know all the details of the future. Otherwise, we are not human. The point of the incarnation, the resurrection, the ascension, and the parousia is to make us more, not less, human. What, then, does the Bible look forward to when this age fully ends and the next one finally supercedes it?

Not the end of history, the end of time, but the end of death. The structure of time is not corrupted by the Rebellion, but rather the direction that it takes. Instead of time being a blessing to mankind, time in which to laugh, love, build, plant, and harvest; it is instead a curse, a looking forward to its end in our individual lives. Instead of growth, there is decay. Is this time's fault? No, it is the curse of death. Death is the ultimate dehumanizer. When we die, we effectively become sub-human. That is why there is so much emphasis on resurrection in Scripture. Not the transcending of time or finitude, but instead transcending the ultimate limit of death, so that our humanness can flourish and God's good created world can finally prosper.

--To Anna and Paul--

College and Calling

One of the great unanswered questions of our time:

What is college for?

Students, being that they don't have years of experience thinking deeply about what their education actually does for them, usually don't have the opportunity to answer this with hindsight. Educators, being that they do have those supposed years of experience, never answer it clearly or anywhere near satisfactorily. For that, education is hard. What education, at the end of the day, does for one person it may not do for another. I remember an instance, early in my Master's program of Higher Education, having a particularly astute teacher facilitate this exercise:

He asked us if we enjoyed college. Most everyone did, enthusiastically so. He asked us what part of college was the best overall. Most everyone answered the relationships or community or activities. Not one person in memory answered academics. Lastly, he asked us whether or not everyone should go to college. Unanimously, no one said college was for everyone. I hope you notice the disconnect here.

College is good, especially for the development of lasting relationships. But not everyone should go to college. I ruminate on this experience constantly. Especially since $85,000+ is a lot to pay for developing relationships (which, interestingly enough, can also be done for free, just like learning).

My dream for higher education, probably never to be realized, is that it would be used for two things:
1) A student who knows (with job prospects already found) what general field they want/need to study for their specific career and goes after that training full force.
2) A student who has been doing their calling for some time and wants further advanced and up-to-date training in that field.

One caveat and two important things to note. Caveat: calling does not equal occupation. Two things: (1) college as it is today isn't necessary for either of these two things and (2) 'liberal arts' education isn't necessarily part of the curriculum.

The first thing noted has to do with the fact that all formal education isn't necessarily about learning, but about certification. That is what a degree is: a publicly attested certification of some level of skill, whether learned or BSed. The second thing noted may seem a little strange. I am a believer in a well-rounded, liberal (freedom-giving) education. If careerism is all that we train/educate for, then we are denying the essential humanness of ourselves and our students.

The reason that higher education does not necessarily need a 'liberal arts' component is two-fold. (1) Whether teachers admit it or not, all learning, even the technical stuff is interdisciplinary. If your teachers don't teach their discipline listening to other fields such as the hard sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, and business, they have failed you as teachers. Switch to different professors or different schools. (2) If your education hasn't prepared you for living as a free human being by the time you are 18, then a liberal arts education is going to do very little for you. Needless to say, a bulk of responsibility is on the student to use their education, not just believe everything teacher says (I did mention that 'liberal' education is about freedom, didn't I?)

Part of being a free human being, from my point of view, is having a purpose. I've seen too many students coming into and leaving college with no real sense of what they are about, and I don't mean just career-wise. Many of them have no real connection to a place or a tradition or a home. Without that, no sense of calling, real yes-it-includes-occupation-but-is-so-much-more-than-that, Steve Garberian calling can happen. It is ridiculous for parents and students to spend so much money and time on certification when the student doesn't have a clear sense of calling. It is ridiculous to assume that you will find your calling in the strict bubble of the educational system (how many people outside of your age group do you have real, genuine interaction with each week?), separated from family, home, work, and place?

Part of this train of thought is brought on by a conversation I had earlier today with a friend who went to school with me. We both, for all intents and purposes, are outside of academe. Neither of us totally, but most of our lives is not spent as teachers, but as independent business people and regular folks. Neither of us regret our studies, but neither of us are in the fields in which we spent so much labor, sweat, time, and money. With a little foresight, and maybe some guidance from the informal teachers in our lives who really know us, could have saved us much time and energy. An internship here, a book to read there, a heart-to-heart about what is really important in life. Someone to tell us that being in college is much more about status than education (if you don't believe that, it is because the fact is taken for granted in middle class America).

Honestly, I want to go back to college now. Not because I need to, but because with my callings in urban renewal, business, the interdisciplinary work of coffee (surprisingly so), I have much to learn. However, I'll be doing most of that learning through independent reading and by having conversations with people who are living their lives, who are passionate about what they are doing, whether that is educating, laboring, running a business, raising a family, caring for those in need, or just relaxing a bit by biking the country.

In the end, I think that our educational system is fundamentally flawed. Why is it that we keep students in school for more and more years to learn less and less? Longer hours, more homework, longer school years haven't produced the social salvation that has been promised for decades. It is time that we rethink how and why we do schooling and why it is so disconnected from learning.

Religious Individualism

I wrote, not too long ago, about change. As it is a persistent question bearing directly upon spirituality, I have wanted to address it further.

I consider myself to be a modified individualist, that is, I believe that I am created as an individual and have a divinely-created sphere in which I have been given authority. I am self-governed, where most of the importance governance of my life happens. There are areas within that sphere in which the State and Church cannot legislate, prosecute, or ban. This does not mean, though, that I believe myself to be autonomous or atomistic. I can never be autonomous, because I am a creature under the authority of God--nothing can change that and I do not wish for it to be changed anyway. Also, I am a communitied individual (here's the modified part): I live in a genetic family, with my wife, in a neighborhood, within a nation, part of creation. All of these things bear down on the questions I can ask and the answers that are possible. However, this does not make me parochial, part of being an individual in the midst of other individuals is that if I want peace and prosperity, I must look outside myself to the wisdom, idiosyncracies, and faults of others. Humans are both one and many, both being equally created, equally ultimate, and equally good. Throwing them out of balance by being atomistic or borg-ish perverts God's good creation. However, I don't believe them to be in dialectic tension; instead they are to work together in harmony, which I believe only happens as individuals are joined to the body of Christ (the metaphor itself being a wonderful example of the one-and-many).

Acknowledging that I have a sphere of self-governance is a good thing. There are aspects of my being that, from my human point of view, are under my control. I have chosen to ask Bethany to marry me (her choice, at this point, of course bears upon the questions I could ask and the answers that could be received). I have chosen to write this blog post. In other words, no immediately coercive force has determined my life. One of those aspects, if you read the Torah, is my choice of sin or not sin. However, I've noticed that when I try and excise certain sins out of my life, they persist and even get worse. The two questions that invariably pop into my head are: do I really want to not sin [and] am I one of God's people after all? Both, however, while not being bad self-reflective questions in-and-of-themselves, are missing the point.

One of the difficulties of being a Reformed Christian is that, by and large, we don't believe in the Holy Spirit. Beside believe in God's absolute sovereignty, we often work that "Protestant Work Ethic" into what is classically called sanctification. In other words, we don't work for our salvation, but we sure as hell make ourselves morally pure. Or we get the State to do it for us (Prohibition, anyone?). However, this religious individualism always ends up in a bad conscience. Just as in salvation, we cannot change our spots or the color of our skin, nor can we change the way we act. However, unlike salvation, God isn't the only actor. In our change towards being more human, God's Holy Spirit gives us the ability and power to change, sometimes seemingly in spite of us.

Not only the Holy Spirit, though, but also the rest of the body of Christ. If a part is sick, the whole body is affected and the whole body is needing to administer the cure. Does a member of the body sin? Confession to other members, rebuke (if necessary), and reconciliation through others is necessary for any long term change. Yes, the change starts between God and myself, but others are a part of my long-term growth into true humanity.

That is why I've grown impatient lately with my own attempts to change (and my public vows to do so). If I'm going to be public, it needs to be as one who is seeking restoration, not as a lone-gunner for Jesus who doesn't need anyone else on this road. Unfortunately, in a religious tradition nourished on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, it is hard to get around the inherent (and dangerous) atomism of the Protestant heritage.

Silencio!

He who has knowledge spares his words: a man of understanding is of a calm breath. Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace: he shuts his lips, "Perceptive!" (Proverbs 17:27-28, WAV)

...let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' 'no'. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. (Matthew 5:37, NKJV)

One of the classic Christian disciplines is silence. By far, it is the hardest to practice for me. Fasting, relatively easy--just stop eating (doesn't mean it happens much). Study, never stops. Prayer, strangely connected to silence, is probably the next hardest but I find myself praying much more than not talking.

I've been meditating on silence for quite some time. The connection in Scripture between control of the tongue and righteousness/justice has always intrigued me, but not just in an intellectual way; it has touched the very core of my being. There is a saying of Jesus where he speaks about every idle word coming under the judgement of God. As usual, Jesus means something a little bit deeper (but not esoteric): if idle words come under judgement, how much more those words spoken intentionally. In other words, let your 'yes' mean 'yes' and your 'no' mean 'no.' There was a time in my life when I was known for eloquent, lengthy prayers, especially in public. However, as I've grown more knowledgeable of the way language works and is used, I've come to see that most folks (including myself) who are verbose, whether politician or preacher, layman or lawyer, usually mean half of what they say and don't understand the other half. That is why, as of late, I've become so disillusioned with religious language. Too many people have used the language of God-is-on-our-side for rational assent. I've longed many times to hear our leaders, both political and spiritual, to just shut up. That is why the 'yes' and 'no' passage is so important: every word we speak should be treated as a vow. How do we know if God is on our side?

Add to this the times that the Bible speaks about not taking rash vows. All the more reason to drop the dressing from words and speak plainly. However, there is power in language, especially if you can make someone believe something and help them create a symbolic universe based on words (linguists and sociologists agree that this is the formative-normative nature of language). "Us v. Them" is the most powerful set of words that I know of, and also the most dangerous.

But, what am I saying? That is exactly the question. I can complain about those in power till I'm blue in the face, but the log will remain in my own eye. In other words, until I'm silent, who can I expect anyone else to be--especially those whose job it is to talk!
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There is a passage in Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline in which he speaks about justifying our actions. Really, it is the reason that I wanted to write this post. It is amazing how often I try and give my actions a little different spin with words because the action is either ambiguous or may really reveal my intentions. Silence disciplines, then, not only the tongue, but the whole body, as James says. If I were to let my actions speak for themselves, Francis of Assisi-style, I would need to be much more intentional with how I act. Silence leads not only to purity and clarity of words, but purity and clarity of action.

Such is the discipline of silence.

The Narcissism of Hate

Currently Reading: Blue Like Jazz

As I said to a friend the other day, I'm theologically arrogant. It comes with being a junkie. I read big, important books with lots of footnotes. I rarely read fiction and even more rarely do I read the more "popular-level" books like Blue Like Jazz. However, strangely enough, I've always enjoyed and learned a lot from books like Jazz, or Ragamuffin Gospel, or (gasp) Sacred Romance, or even (double-gasp-don't-tell-Byron-Borger) Wild at Heart.

Jazz itself is a particularly insightful book for me. Don Miller and I seem to share some of the same concerns about religion and the Church and about ourselves. Both of us are "influential" people in our circles, but neither of us feel particularly comfortable with the role, possibly for different reasons. He is, in many ways, a contrarian, which I can identify with (although not too much, otherwise it wouldn't be very contrarian of me).

Anyway, Miller points out something of great significance to me. The greatest lie that he used to believe is that life was a story about him. It is ridiculous how profound that is. If only I, for a second, would stop living life for myself (with a thin veneer of altruism), what could be different? Or, better yet, what couldn't be different? I expect to wrestle with this for some time. Hopefully for the better. The thing I've noticed today, though, is how insufferably selfish I have been (and my wife can corroborate that, especially after my silly, childish temper tantrum earlier). Why is it that when a sin is pointed out, the ability to not do that thing diminishes, at least initially? But that isn't the point today.

The most obvious response to my selfishness is humility. Humility before God, before my family and friends, and before anyone else that I have dealings with. The easiest way to do this, it seems, is to be self-deprecative or self-hating. Blaming myself for everything, making fun of myself, beating myself up for things that aren't my concern or my fault or even remotely my responsibility...and doing it publicly. What I'm realizing (even though this is an old realization, that doesn't mean I've applied it) is that this form of "humility" is another, more insidious form of pride and narcissism. When I become focussed on myself in hate or bitterness or whatever, nothing about my selfishness changes. I haven't become humble before God or others or even myself. I've become so certain that the problems of the world rest so solely on my shoulders that I've forgotten about that Jesus fellow or God's sovereign love or even other human beings in this world. I'm focussed on me and how irredeemable I am. Publicly. Here's the real catch.

Repentance, the few times that I've actually had a true form of it, was mostly private. If I needed to repent of something that I did to someone other than God, then it was public, but in a limited fashion (I make it a point to try and not offend large groups of people). Most of the time, though, it is spent in actual silence before God--not just lip silence, but mind silence. Job put his finger over his lips when he repented, a sign of absolute silence. True repentance, for me, involves the same. It does no good to flaunt repentance, to talk about it publicly. When that happens, it is all show and nothing has really changed about me, except that I very selfishly believe I'm less selfish.

This hateful Narcissism, strangely, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even though I'm not feeling particularly self-hating at this moment, I'd like to keep the next set of things in the first person. I believe I am unlovable for whatever reason (I've done something terrible, I'm not attractive, I'm a failure at this-that-or-the-other-thing). This changes the way I think, speak, and act. I think, speak, and act in unlovable ways: maybe I act completely (and obnoxiously) dependent on others, maybe I act like a spoiled child, maybe I turn into a hollow, angry shell, and the list could go on. This irritates people and they start to not love me (for which, as a self-hater, I don't blame them, but secretly hate them for it). I end up believing that I am unloved. If I am unloved, if must be because I'm unlovable. And so on.

I don't think that this attitude is a product necessarily of the theological tradition I'm a part of. However, when the first tenet of your religious system is that you are total depraved (even after redemption), it is hard to not be down on yourself. It led me to question, along with another book I was reading--Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross by Hans Boersma--the concept of the sin nature. The phrase itself isn't in the Bible, instead it is a translation of the Greek word for flesh. Paul, the main user of the term it seems, doesn't mean to separate the physical body out as evil (otherwise he would have used the term 'body'), but "flesh" sort of as the total system of sin that currently comprises a part of our being. So, you may be thinking, I believe in sin nature. Yes and no. I don't have a problem with the 'sin' part, but the 'nature' part. Saying something is 'natural' is tantamount to saying it is inevitable. There is no way to escape nature. I could no more stop being a male than I could change my skin color (I realize that there is surgery for the former, but being physically a male through a scalpel doesn't really make you male, it makes you deviant). In Christian thought, something natural is the way God created it. In other words, if we have a sin nature, we cannot ever escape sin, for to be human is to be sinful. What a terrifying thought. If such is the case, even the traditional interpretation of the virgin birth (having a body specially created outside of the normal sexual union keeps Christ free from original sin) doesn't do it. Just being a human makes Jesus sinful. Well, the ancient heresy of docetism isn't far behind...and if you look at mainstream Christology, it is alive and well on planet earth. Once again, a terrifying thought.

In the words (or book title) of one of the Plantingas, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. If we believe the Bible, then it isn't until at least a day after man is created that he becomes a sinner. He wasn't created that way. It wasn't until after God finished creating man (that is, after he created both man and woman, androgeny wasn't the intention) that he and she decided to rebel. Man wasn't created with a sin nature, nor is it 'natural' for him to sin. Sin is an historical aberration from God's intention. That doesn't mean I believe in perfectionism, though.

I am an American. I was born in America, I live in America, and I will probably die in America. A formative part of my identity is guided by the history, geography, and worldview of America. I could not, tomorrow, wake up and say "I am now a citizen of Poland." (Not just because I don't look Polish, either). It isn't my choice to be American, I was born that way. However, that doesn't make it 'natural' that I am American. It is an historical thing. If I went through the proper processi, red-tape, and cultural emigration I could become Polish. Even though I was born American, I could live Polish. Sin is the same way (note: I'm not saying that being American is the same as being a sinner, all analogies break down eventually).

I was born is the status of sin, sometimes called being 'in Adam'. It wasn't my choice, but that doesn't mean I'm not responsible for it (just like I was born a Warren, not by choice, but I still have responsibilities to that name and family). Being born in something, or having the status of something, gives guidelines as to what questions can be asked, what answers can be given, and what ways are acceptable (or possible) to live. Being in the status of 'sin' questions, answers, and dictates certain things. If I stay in that status, I will more and more conform to the questions, answers, and dictates of that status. I will become epistemologically self-conscious. This is part of maturation. Have you ever noticed how children ask questions that our thought-systems cannot even handle, but seem decidedly profound? I think that is because they are not epistemologically self-conscious. Their thought process has not been fully formed, so they don't know what rules to follow intellectually. Maybe that is why Jesus told us to be 'like children'?

So, the more and more I stay in the status of 'sin', the more and more of a sinner I become. I think sin, I speak sin, I act sin. It isn't till I'm transported/emigrate to another status, another kingdom (if you will) that the status changes. Instead of being 'in Adam', I can be 'in Christ'. If I am in Christ, then I cannot be in Adam at the same time. If this is true, then the very defining characteristic of being 'in Adam', sin, no longer holds status power over me. I have a new status, that of righteous. However, since I didn't get my membership transferred until late in the game, as it were, I still have a lot of habits and thought-processi that are epistemologically closer to sin than to Christ. In other words, I still sin...often.

However, to get back to my original point, just because I sin while being a Christian does not mean it is 'natural'. It means that I haven't become epistemologically self-conscious as a Christian (known classically as sanctification leading to glorification). I still sin because sin is what I know, the status-kingdom of sin surrounds me and calls to me constantly to not remember the bad things about it and revel in all the 'good' things about it. Just because I am a Christian doesn't mean that I'm not constantly under the influence of sin. However, I am in a community of other ex-sinners who want to be more in Christ than in Adam (most of the time, at least).

Here, in some ways at least, is the antidote to self-hating narcissism (is there really any other form of narcissism?). Evil is not the way I am created, even if I act that way and others around me act that way. I, instead, was created in the image of God and am being restored to that status after a long absence. Only through Jesus, though, can this restoration happen, since I need my transferring papers, which he secured on the cross. Otherwise, I never would have even known about any other status than sin. The most comforting thing about this is that even if I do continue to think, speak, and act as in sin, Jesus is patient to help me, mould me, and change me more and more into his image.

Espresso Culture in Beaver County

When many folks think of espresso, the first thing that comes to mind may be the sterilized, middle-class, faux third place atmosphere of a St*rbucks or just a bunch of snarky, "artist-types"--either behind the bar or at the tables--who may talk a big game about their own liberally-minded activities, but are really just the same ol' stereotypical Seattle yuppies that have, effectively, defined espresso culture in America. That is why, reading Seth Godin's blog recently, I began to ponder comments made to me about my work here in Beaver Falls, Beaver County, PA. Seth says:

Craig writes in with a story about a Dyson vacuum:

I have a question for you about buying decisions.

A while back I upgraded my Dyson vacuum cleaner when I got a great deal on the latest model. I had been using my old one for about 5 years or so but it was still in perfect working order. I had even replaced a couple of attachments for it via the Dyson website.
I gave my old Dyson to a friend. She had never used a Dyson before and she loved it. So much so that the very next day her own vacuum cleaner was put outside ready for the refuge collection!

But here’s the thing: a few months later the Dyson I gave her stopped working (not sure why, that thing was indestructible) so she decided to buy a new vacuum. Even though the vacuum I gave her was the best she had ever used, she didn’t buy a Dyson.

I was amazed how someone could love a product so much but replace it with an inferior product. I don’t think it was about cost because I told her where she could get an excellent deal on a new Dyson.

This just doesn’t make sense to me so I thought I’d ask if you had any thoughts as to why this happens?

My take: Craig’s friend didn’t see herself as the kind of person who would buy a Dyson. Sure, she might use one, especially if it was free. But buying a weird, fancy-looking vacuum is an act of self-expression as much as it’s a way to clean your floors. And the act of buying one didn’t match the way his friend saw herself.

So many of the products and services we use are now about our identity. Many small businesses, for example, won’t hire a coach or a consultant because, “that’s not the kind of organization we are.” Wineries understand that the pricing of a bottle of wine is more important than its label or the wine inside. The price is the first thing that most people consider when they order or shop for wine. Not because of perceived value, but because of identity.

Other than the fact that I've had nasty experiences with Dyson (never, ever buy their handheld vacuum), the post intrigues me. Many folks that I've talked to, both from and outside of the area, are always surprised by the presence of a coffeeshop in Beaver Falls (except, they say, because of the college). Things such as "The people there wouldn't care about espresso, just a cup of coffee" or "You're going to have a hard time talking people there into caring about quality". Maybe these things are true, but I don't think so in the end. Yes, Beaver County, and especially Beaver Falls, are blue-collar places. However, that is exactly the sort of fertile soil that an artisan-based culture can thrive in, along with a vibrant, re-thought espresso culture.

First, some un-education:

1) Espresso is not synonymous with yuppies or the consumerist culture. Espresso originated in Italy, where many folks in Beaver County can, with great joy, trace their roots. Espresso in Italy is associated not with the up-and-up, but with everyday life, whether you are a baker, a factory-worker, or a cubicle-dweller. Espresso, instead of being a symbol of the bourgeois, is a symbol of the varied and diverse sorts of people that make up every place.

2) Coffeeshops are not synonymous with those either. A coffeeshop, if being true to its historical roots, is a leveler--and has been persecuted throughout history as being too "democratic". Coffeeshops are places of relaxation, debate, bravado, humility, and artistry. Coffeeshops are places of humanity. And they smell great too.

With that in mind, it is easy for me to see why espresso culture, rightly conceived, can be so successful in this place. We want to be a welcoming, hospitable place where collegiate, businesser, laborer, home-maker, retired, and young can meet, mingle, and become a strong, democratic local community. All of the problems that people see within Beaver County, could be addressed by that sort of community. But this is another topic for another day.

A place with the mindset of hard work, thrift, and a history of (somewhat suppressed) artisanry is ripe for a full-orbed, healthy espresso culture. A culture that encourages hard work, thrift, quality, humanness, scale, and community. I'll drink to that.

Change

A recurring question in my life, ever since (at least) high school:

Why, when we know of personality issues that need to change, do we not change them?

A related question:

Why, when we know that God has freed us from sin by the death and resurrection of Jesus, do we continue to sin?

Customer Service is Dead

Two incidents from today:

1) I received a shipment from one of our suppliers today. Noticing that the product was not the right size, I called the company. The woman on the phone told me it would be at least a week before it could be rectified (even though their company driver had just left). She then proceeded to tell me that I agreed on two separate occasions to the smaller size, in an angry and aggressive voice. I tried my best to calm her down, admitting that possibly the mistake was mine (I learned later that they had called to verify the size change the day before but were greeted with questions marks from my employees--so much for "double-checking"). Even if the problem was my fault, the way that it was handled on their end left a sour taste in my mouth. Customer satisfaction is the most important part of business. Even if it is the customer's fault, trying to maintain a relationship is much more important than pride-of-being-right. Her pride has, quite possibly, lost her a potentially lucrative account. Not to mention that if something is wrong, you should go out of your way to make it right, not "It'll be a week" for it to travel 25 minutes from the warehouse. What that says to me is: "You are not important as a customer. Our system is much more important." However, without customers nobody pays for the system.

2) I called a newly opening banquest facility to try and get our catering side of business on their rolodex. Allow me to write out the entire conversation.

"Welcome to ... Food Service and ... Banquet Center. Please press "1" for an alphabetical list of employees or "2" to dial their extension directly."

I have no idea who I am calling. There is no contact information past the initial phone number. I press "1".

"Dial "1" for John, "2" for Larry, "3" for Monica"

Names have been changed to protect the forgetful. I press "1".

"Hello, this is John, what can I do for you today?"
"Hi, my name is Russ Warren and I'm looking for a way to get in contact with the ... Banquet Facility."
"Let me see if I can get them to help you."

At this point, I'm put on hold, wondering who exactly "them" is, because if "them" was option 2 or 3, I would have the ability to call back later if they weren't there. But what if, horror, it wasn't someone on the automated list? I couldn't only wait and hope.

And wait and hope.

And wait and hope.

And wait.

And wait.

And, after almost 10 minutes on a muzak-less hold (not even a reassuring voice telling me that my call was very important but obviously ignorable) I hung up. Obviously, the banquet facility has no desire to have anyone rent it. They had no idea what I was going to ask for, so I may have, for all they knew, wanted to rent it out every Thursday for a year. That would have been a great contract. However, such was not the case. They didn't care about me or any other potential customer. Any business that doesn't have a human initially pick up the phone to talk to me already has shown me contempt. The difficulty here, though, is different from incident 1. They will get by just fine without my catering services (although they need to redo their phones so that folks can get in touch with them in the first place), however I am out of a potentially profitable rolodex because they don't care to take care of people.

Customer service, RIP 2007.

All I can say is...

My new site, yet to be built--work is a little hectic right now, will be located at:

http://www.artisanalculture.com

Artisanal Culture. What a beautiful idea to me.

Time for a Change

Well, all good things must end. Plus some bad ones too. I'm hoping to do a complete site makeover, once I figure it all out. I'm realizing my need for a professional image, especially here at my flagship.

As inspiration, I look to Gideon's redone hub. It is a truly beautiful piece of work. Also, I'm glad that he has come back online, as it were.

The questions I'm asking as I consider redesign are not, "what image do I want", but instead "what are my deepest commitments and concerns" and "who am I". I'm learning that if you want to build a "brand", whether as a company or as a virtual persona, you cannot create authenticity--you just have to be authentic.

Here's to the future!

The War Has Begun

I usually don't write overly personal posts, but this is one. My family is at war. More specifically, my daughter and I are at war. The war is over the rights to the milk (wonderful, delicious whole milk) and the Cheerios. She takes them separately, I take them together.

This really should be an easy war. I'm bigger than her. However, as every parent knows, children always get their way...always (they are much like Wal-Mart in that regard). We only get one gallon of whole milk a week, so the supply is scare. However, I think we are coming to a truce: it seems that I can squeeze out two bowls of Cheerios and still leave enough milk for her. The problem now is that I finished the box of Cheerios while she was asleep this morning (lucky for me that I wake before her--victory is mine!). Thankfully, she has these star puffs of various unintelligible flavors.

War is hell.

Gesundheit

I've been reading a few marketing books by Seth Godin as of late. I highly recommend them for his "intuitive" marketing approach, I've found it helpful and fruitful, as I've written elsewhere. One of the concept that he has termed is the "ideavirus" or how something (whether an idea or a product) spreads from one person to another. Interesting way of putting it, memorable if nothing else (which, I believe, is the point). He calls the folks who spread this communicable idea "sneezers". I am a sneezer.

I love talking about things I like. I've recommended Seth's stuff at least twice today, not counting the above paragraph. I try and give friends leads on good blogging, good websites, good businesses, and good people within businesses. One of the best experiences business-wise I've had lately is with Everything Coffee & Tea, one of our wholesalers. I emailed them about a novel tea brewing concept I had heard about and their reply was prompt and detailed. The tried the concept in store because of my idea. That is fantastic service. The company will go far because of it.

At the same time, though, sneezers like me are easily put-off and hard (oh so hard) to win back. There are places I won't go, people I'll try and interact with as little as possible, and businesses I won't patronize because they have been off-putting. Of course, I'm willing to try again, but it takes a lot to convince people like me to actually take the step to try again.

Understanding this, to me, is very important. I want as many positive sneezes as I can get for Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea. The possibility of making a bad drink, then, becomes downright terrifying. However, drinks aren't the only thing that make sneezers here sneeze. If it is a bad drink, more likely than not, they will tell me. In that case, my employees and I have the opportunity to make a great sneezer: we can win them over with our customer service and our desire to listen. Since sneezers like me like to talk, we also love to be listened to. If we are listened to by an establishment, even if the product needs work, we will positively sneeze all over the place.

Gesundheit.

Is Gideon Gone?

I, along with others, have noticed that Gideon Strauss' blog has been password protected for a week or so. I haven't been able to figure out what was going on until I looked at another blog of his. Here's what he says:

Sadly, the server that hosts my blog seems to have crashed. With unexpected, quick, thorough help from John Barach I have salvaged the content. The plan is to relocate my blog on the Comment server. But it will take a month, since everyone is very busy on other projects. Thank you to Jeff S. for suggesting I mention the problem here - I was at a loss as to how I might notify people of this situation. Even this note will only reach some of my readers, I suppose ....

This is my attempt to further promulgate the news. Hope to see you back soon, Gideon.

New Life the City Shall Attain

That is the title of the Sunday school class I hope to develop and lead within the next year or so: a class on the local church's role in the revivification of a down-and-out city. Specifically, though, it is meant to be an action plan of how my church (and other likeminded ones in my area) can work in/learn from Beaver Falls. This weekend has been very fruitful for my thought process, since I was blessed with a large amount of time to think and no real resposibilites (past baby care).

I remember being asked a number of years ago, by the then college chaplain, why I wanted to stay in Beaver Falls. Thinking of the psalm verse that became the title of this post, I said because God loves Beaver Falls (one of the few times I've used a phrase such as "God loves..." in any context, I have a problem of not knowing who or what God loves on any consistent basis). The chaplain, being the good Reformed man that he is, responded, "How do you know God loves Beaver Falls, He could very well hate it and hold it under a curse." My response to that remark has been forgotten in the foggy mists of history, but my further reflections on it I can tell here.

(By way of necessary introduction...)

I do not believe that God saves us to go to heaven when we die. At best, that is a naive way of reading Scripture, at worst, it is pagan inspired heresy. Instead, as I told a Bible class recently, we are saved to a purpose: salvation is always accompanied by calling. Romans 8 vividly lays this out, we are saved to respond to the groaning of creation-under-bondage and bring it liberty, if only in part now. Sin has affected the whole of creation, including sociological aspects such as dwelling together in cities, and redemption is just as total. Redemption has as much to do with us loving God as with us loving our neighbors (who are in the image of God and, potentially at least, possibly remade in that same image). The place of heaven in all of this is slightly different than we've been traditionally led to believe: "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

If our prayer (and therefore our vow) is to have heaven break forth onto the earth (see Revelation 20-22), then our place matters very significantly. In fact, part of the Christian failure is that our articulation of the "good life" (or, in Matthew's terms "heaven on earth") lays precisely on our insistence of the abstract as the proper realm of theology. The abstract is applicable anywhere, which is to say it is homeless. Abstractions, for all their necessity (and they are both necessary and unavoidable and created with equal ultimacy to specificity), tend to make everywhere the same. Wendell Berry, one of my favorite writers, speaks about this with his onus: industrial agriculture has made an abstraction out of the specific places of agriculture and instead of leading to helpful agricultural norms, has destroyed every place it touched. Theology is the same way. There are norms, good and pleasing and helpful norms, but if they stay abstract the tendency will be towards violence: others must always and everywhere believe what I (or we) believe, otherwise they are worse enemies of the faith than pagans. Homeless theology has produced homeless Christians. No vision of the "good life", though, can be separated from a specific place of a small enough scale to allow proper human care to flourish.

Each part of this is important and cries out for explication.

Firstly, Christianity is so much more than theology, taken in the abstract (some think that a Reformed person saying this is an oxymoron, I assure you, it is not). Christianity is itself a halaka, a way-of-being-in-the-world. It is a vision and an action plan to see the "good life" or "heaven on earth" take shape in the here-and-now, always looking to the future when God will vindicate and perfect our actions and always looking to the past to see where others have succeeded and others have failed. Being a Christian, above all else, is an allegiance to continue the work of Jesus in bringing God's light to the world. It takes the specificity of Jesus' work in Israel and expands it to the whole world by making it specific to each culture and area that it influences.

So, secondly, Christianity must have a specific place. Each place is different, having different needs at different times. The halaka must be adaptable to that place. A revival of the parish system, where the local church is concerned most of all with local (that is, the neighborhood in which it is situated) needs makes the most sense, instead of the cookie-cutter churches we have rising up today that trying to help everyone everywhere and end up helping no one nowhere.

Thirdly, this leads to the idea of scale. Our society, our culture, has lost the idea of proper human scale. Admittedly, it is a nebulous, sort of amorphous concept. What is proper scale for one may be hubristic to another. Granted. However, there are limits that can be discernable (isn't this what the work of the arts and sciences is supposed to help us figure out?): no one human can care for an infinity of anything--that's why there is the division of labor. To do so is the supreme act of arrogance, akin to the rebellion of Adam. The strange thing is, as we have lost any sense of scale, we also have lost the ability to take care of those things within our scale. We may be able to track, understand, and internalize news international, national, and celebrity, but we lack the ability to cook our own food, make our own clothes, or repair anything we own. It is nothing but a form of slavery; we trade the mess of pottage in the present for future rewards that currently are intangible.

Lastly, flourishing. This is another word for the "good life". In Hebrew it would be shalom, brought on by our tseddaqah, our faithfulness to God's way of seeing "[His] will be done on earth as it is in heaven".

It may well be that the place I am called to be, that is to work, play, learn, love, and probably die, is under a curse. In fact, I know it is (Genesis 3). However, I am an agent of the conquering king who has set me to work. His people are here to do their predestined work, to bring shalom through tseddaqah. Now it is all about brainstorming how to accomplish that out of the realm of the abstract.

It certainly will involve a lot of risk and a lot of failure, but our God is the God of Resurrection. In that confidence, we can sing, "New life the city shall attain..."

The Name of the Rose

Way back when (meaning a couple of posts ago), I asked you, the faithful reader, to suggest what fiction book I should read. Since I have wanted to read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco for a long time, it was the easy winner. What a beautiful and frustrating book. Beautiful in that, even though it is a translation from the Italian original, its prose is crisp and every word is full of meaning and import for the story. No surprise considering the author is a professor of semiotics, the study of symbols and signs. The plot of the book revolves around a series of strange, almost apocalyptic, murders at a 14th century Northern Italian Benedictine monastery. The story takes seven days (reminiscent of the seven trumpets, bowls, etc. of Revelation), all broken down according to Benedictine time (matins, compline, etc.). The narrator, Adso of Melk, is a novice monk assigned to William of Baskerville (a Franciscan monk). They travel to the unnamed monastery on the Emperor's business: to facilitate a meeting between the Franciscans (who claim that Christ was, of necessity, poor and the church should follow him in this) and the Papal legations (all about the Benjamins), which is really a cover reason to debate how much temporal power the church should have. In the midst of this is the murders, the inquisitions, the Song of Songs peasant girl love, and debates as to whether the world has any order. While the book can be slow at points, it keeps the reader riveted with its discourses about the meaning of the arts (especially comedy and laughter), love (carnal and spiritual), and meaning in a breaking-down world.

The frustrating part about the book is the postmodern bent at the end, when William denies any meaning to the universe except what man gives it. There is, in the end (as Adso so insightfully points out), no God to give meaning since to say there is an order in the universe limits God's absolute sovereignty (at this point, Dooyeweerdians and VanTillians should cringe, but the book is written in the middle ages when the Philosopher reigned supreme). Even the book, such a wonderful chronicle, ends with a depressing "I don't know why I'm even writing this." It does, however, bring up the question that every humanistic philosophy must deal with: if man is not transcendent, how can he apply lasting meaning to any part of reality? Eco, himself not a Christian (as far as I can tell), answers it by correctly saying, "He can't." All man has is signs, but they don't point to any true order, intepretations change and signs can point in many different directions at once. In other words, without some human standard, mankind is lost in translation.

Another interesting thing is how this movie is juxtaposed with its cinema rendition. While the ultimate meaning of the book is meaningless, the movie tends to say that love--even sinful love--conquers all the narrow-mindedness of the world, especially the religious world. This is shown in the love story between Adso and the peasant girl and the story of William and his love of rationality. Concerning Adso and the girl, the juxtaposition is most extreme. In the book, their carnal encounter is beautifully and tastefully narrated with direct quotations and allusions to the Song of Songs, whereas in the movie it borders on the pornographic. In the book, the peasant girl says to Adso that he is "young and handsome", in her vernacular, whereas in the movie all she can do is grunt like an ape. In the special features section of the DVD, Eco is interviewed and grants interpretive license to the movie makers (how delightfully postmodern), which in essence changes the book's content and message. The develops a sense of irony that Eco elaborates in the appendix to the book's revised version: there is no innocence, what we can say has already been said and we now know it.

This Eschatological Tension

Sometimes the tension is too much. Sometimes it doesn't make sense. Sometimes justice is injustice and mercy is cruelty. The wicked prosper and the righteous lack. The evil are exalted and the pure are humiliated.

How long, O Lord?

Reflections on Twenty and Five Years

Yesterday was my 25th birthday. There has been one thing going through my mind almost constantly since I acknowledged its existence, something my father said to me awhile ago. He told me that 25 was his most depressing birthday, since it marked the official end of our culture's prolonged adolescence and the finality of adulthood. He said that 40 or 50 didn't bother him, but 25 did. Needless to say, this has caused me to be doubly reflective about this day.

A lot has happened in 25 years. The question that I'm faced with is: what is the truly important stuff? What is it that I would like to tell my children, both as tales of virtue and tales of tragedy? The difficulty of self-reflection, of course, is that I concentrate too much on myself, as if to say, "Mine own hand has gotten these things for me." Really though, 25 years is as much, and arguably more, the celebration of the communities that have nurtured and rightly-directed me than the celebration of my self (space intentional).

For example, after I shaved today I noticed in the mirror that one of my primary descriptors has changed. My whole life I have been described as the spittin' image of my mother. Looking in the glass, however, I noticed that my visage look surprisingly more like my dad's. The whole history of the Warrens and the Schaefers has a part in who I am, from looks to the way I act. Whole communities of people I will never know had a part of producing me the way I am today.

Which, really, is a very important part of human life that I couldn't have understood until yesterday. One of the sobering realities of birthdays is not just that I have survived another year, but I am another year closer to my physical death. This could lead to much hand-wringing and despair, but instead it has made me thankful. The things that I am doing, the teaching and business owning and the child-rearing and whatnot, are not, ultimately, for myself. They are for a generation newly born (my daughter's first birthday being a week and a half ago) and generations yet unborn. Having a selfish attitude about what I am doing would only undercut what people will say of the Warrens 1000 years from now (if even Warren is how it will be spelled or pronounced). My daughter's inheritance, which I pray she will preserve and pass on to her descendants (isn't that a thought!), is being made in the everyday nitty-gritty in which I live. No matter how one tries to live for the here-and-now, one is always living for the future.

In this light, the question of what will my family think of me 50, 100 or 250 years from now becomes important. Not as a question of pride, since I won't be living to hear them say it, but as a question of shalom. Will I have left a mark on this world that confirms my belief that everything is created by YHWH, redeemed by Jesus the Messiah, and being implemented by the church? Will my place, where God has set me to work and live, be better and more life-affirming because of my life or work? I pray so.

Being a tried-and-true Protestant, it is with some irony that I realize that I am engaged in the work of cultural tradition building. I have received gifts from those who have gone before me with their hands to the plow and hearts to the task and I will, in turn, be required to pass those gifts, hopefully with useful and beautiful additions, to the next generation of plowsmen and women. Undoubtedly, some chaff will be in the midst of the wheat, but maybe less chaff will be present.

So, really, this day has no need to be depressing or despairing to me. Instead, it is filled with hope: the hope that all of life, even mine, matters to God and His plan. I am a small part of the drama, but sometimes the smallest characters have a large impact. Whatever the case, God be praised for His mercy on me these wonderful 25 years.

On Being Graceful

Jesus said: "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more that others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?"

Usually, I have no problem being nice or gracious to those I don't know. It was something instilled into me from a young age and further reinforced by my faith. I've always thought that I had this passage down pat.

However...

I'm finding my problem is that it is easier to be kind to stranger than to those close to you. I'm not sure if it is because I know them better (and so know their faults) or if it is that I'm known better by them (and they know my faults). Whatever the reason, I find myself much more harsh towards those closest to me, whether it is my wife, my friends, or my employees. There is so much less to lose by being gracious and loving towards strangers, but so much vulnerability to be humble and caring towards your closest companions.

I should, at the very least, be treating those closest to me as tax collectors.

Reflections on the End of Movements

Being labeled can be a dangerous thing. However, distinctions (which are always accompanied by labels) can be a helpful, even beneficial, thing. The older I get, the more I realize that the labels (or badges, one might say in good Wrightian style) need to be held loosely, never as a true identity marker--apart from faith in Jesus as Messiah. This faith is the only badge worth retaining, since it makes the only distinction worth making. Often times, though, the further distinctions we make within that distinction ("I'm of Paul" or "I'm of Cephas" or "I'm of the Scottish Reformation" or "I'm of the Dutch Reformation") can be dangerous and unnecessarily divisive. Especially when the labels are held on tightly to.

I used to be a part of two different, only tangentially related labeled movements: theonomy and preterism. While I consider myself to still be at least a "moderate" theonomist (whatever, exactly, that means), I have broken off most ties to the preterist world. I would, I guess, consider myself a cautious partial preterist, but no where near the "full" preterism I held in my (earlier) youth.

I think that this is a good thing.

When RJ Rushdoony, the grandpapa of theonomy, died, the movement ended. One of his students, Andrew Sandlin, declared the end of it (although I don't have the article in my archives). It was a good thing to declare. Fewer movements have been so striken with dissession, in-fighting, and arrogant out-fighting as theonomy. What could have led to fruitful exegesis and thoughtful engagement with the wider world devolved into bickering internally and rudeness to the outsiders. It is no wonder that when I tell people I'm a theonomist that they look at me askew, especially if they know anything about me before I say that (largely) four-letter word. Maybe, just maybe, with the end of a movement devoted to much leader worship (the big three, especially: Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen), exegetical theonomy can make some contributions to the Church. I'm hoping so.

Preterism, however, is a different story. I remember some of the things that initially made me wary, while I was in the midst of being groomed as a future leader of the movement: sloppy exegesis and dependence on pagan thought for proof (one writer proved that the resurrection body was non-material by referencing, of all people, Plato...shudder). The fruits of that, I am finding out, are now becoming ever apparent. Universalism, the doctrine that all people are saved--whether just by existing or through the remedial means of post-mortem purgatory--is becoming popular and widespread amongst preterists. The equation seems to be "no final judgement = no judgement at all historically :. no judgement at all". This, and the fact that some non-universalist preterists claim that a "secret Rapture" occurred in AD 70, seals the coffin lid for me. Most preterists either end up here, or so "spiritualizing" (that is, exegetically destroying and fuzzying) scripture as to be almost laughable. I don't laugh, though, since I have many friends and even some relatives that are a part of this movement. The end, one might say, is near.

Wanted: An Authentic Spirituality

The word "spiritual" chafes me. In my lectures at Geneva, I try my best to avoid the word, or if I must use it, add the proviso that it doesn't mean some nebulous, ecstatic experience of unknown quality, origin, or duration. The word is overused to mean anything mystical or mysterious or supernatural. It shouldn't be so. The word "spiritual," in the Christian tradition (however those who aren't Christians want to use the word is fine by me, I'm speaking of how the followers of Christ need to be careful about their language, as I've written before), means "of the Spirit", that is, from the holy Spirit of God.

In other words, to be truly "spiritual" means that we follow the Spirit. The Christian tradition, however, has not necessary agreed with my definition of the word, instead often opting for a more mystical and (frankly) dualistic meaning of ontological/metaphysical oneness with the "divine". So the great masters of spirituality become the Desert Fathers, folks like Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart, and modern day teachers such as Richard Foster. Not all go to the lengths of outright Neoplatonism that mystics are famous for, but the language they use often leads down that road. The dualism between body and mind or body and soul that Neoplatonism often produces is firmly rejected (albeit indirectly) in the Bible. Elevating contemplation of God above earthly work is the hallmark of the monastic tradition and has, in my opinion, caused much harm to the work of the Church throughout the centuries. Not that the faith and hard thinking of these folks is without warrant or inauthentic; I consider it on the right road, but going in the wrong direction.

This isn't to say that I don't find much good in these writers either. The extreme devotion to God found in monasticism and contemporary practioners of the spiritual disciplines is something worthy to be emulated, even if the end result needs to be different. If the end result isn't to be some mystical/metaphysical union with God, what should it be?

The ancient debate was always whether man was more god-like or animal-like. Different philosophies held different views and all had vast social consequences. The debate has never, to my understanding, been resolved. The question that I have, however, is why the testimony of Genesis 1 has consistently been ignored: man was not created metaphysically like God, nor was he created as an animal; he was created as a human being--a totally separate category. He is under God metaphysically and ethically and over the animals royally. Authentic spirituality, it would seem, would be to make man not more like God ontologically, as this is impossible, but to make him more truly human, more in the image of God ethically than he was before. Since Jesus is the true human, the point of spirituality is to become more like him (such as is found classically in Romans 8).

Jesus' whole life was guided by the Spirit. He was conceived by the Spirit in his mother's womb (Luke 1:35), baptized and filled by the Spirit at his baptism (John 1:14), cast out demons (an ancient word, I'm finding out, for pagan deities) by the Spirit (Matt. 12), and was raised in a Spirit-animated body (I Cor. 15). An authentic spirituality, one with teeth for the (post)modern world would follow this Spirit-filled man's teaching concerning how we can be truly human, starting (most likely) with the Sermon on the Mount, which is an elaboration and realigning of the ignored and maligned (by the people of God no less!) Torah given through Moses.

The question, though, really isn't "what" of spirituality, since the answer has always been there. The question is "how". Here is where I've found the most help from the "classics" of spiritual devotion. They often developed elaborate and complicated "rules" of spirituality, such as the famous Rule of Saint Benedict. He divided the day up into seven sections, based on Psalm 119:164, "Seven times a day have I praised you," in which the monks would stop their work and join for prayer and the chanting of the Psalter (if only those of us who are Reformed Presbyterians had such a devotion to the Psalms!). The idea of "rule" for life is powerful and seem like a suitable idea to building an authentic spirituality: one that connects the devotee to God, not in transcending humanness, but by using our humanity--which is time-bound--to honor Him. Another reference, found in Deuteronomy 6, seems to lay out a rule for life:

"You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up."

The day, here, is broken up into 5 sections, each with a community involvement (whether familial or in the larger, reconstituted family of the Church) and each involving, significantly enough for us silent moderns, speaking. Silent prayer, while having a Scriptural place, is not the main way used. This does not, however, complete the "how" of spirituality, but it is a step in the right direction, I think.

Mmm Tasty

I miss Chi-Chis.

Sigh.

My Own Contribution

I really don't consider myself an expert in anything. As I've said before, I dabble. There have been periods in my life when I have concentrated more on one thing than another, but that hardly makes me an expert. Over the past year or so, one of the subjects that I have had the pleasure of reading up further on (syntactical nightmare, that was) is sociology. The way that we humans interact with each other, whether at the skating rink or with more techie means, fascinates me. Sometimes none of it seems rational, until I realize that "rationality" is a slippery word. As Alasdair McIntyre asks, "Whose Rationality?"

Anyway, my own little contribution to sociology, which I'm sure is one of the first things you learn in SOC 101 (which I've not taken), is this: to create lasting local prosperity, you must have a vibrant artisan class. Too many thinkers and nothing gets done. Too many merchants and junk is the end product. However, a healthy, creative class that must both think and sell to their neighbors on the small scale can help bring beauty to a place. What if the local carpenters had the expertise for beautiful, long-lasting (meaning more than 150 years at the least) buildings? Or the local baker was able to introduce exotic and nutritious staples for the health of the community?

Teaching a unit on cultural criticism really has gotten me to think about this. What are the foundations of culture? Henry Van Til argues, rightly I believe, that culture is the externalization of religion. Religion in this context, however, doesn't mean what you do on Sundays, but what guides your thought, actions, and words at the deepest level (it is unfortunate that "religion" equals "external, institutional worship"). On top of that religious underpinning, though, are a few basic things: shelter, food, clothing (a form of shelter), and companionship. Just as shelter and clothing are similar, so is food and companionship. The obvious examples in the past of friends/equals eating at table together comes to mind. Also, what holy communion should be, but don't get me started. At a more metaphorical level (and all our thinking is in metaphors), companionship literally means "to eat bread with". The artisan class makes these basic things: farmers, builders, designers, clothiers, restaurantiers, baristas, bartenders, bakers, butchers, etc.

Having been a part of the now largely defunct theonomy movement, I believe(d) in the Christian reconstruction of culture. One of the large downfalls of that movement, however, was that the jump from exegesis to policy was too quick. The long term, start-at-the-bottom attitude of many of the leaders (and yes, if you can get past the bravado, it is there) was quickly jettisoned in favor of the Religious Right. However, if Christians want to make a long term impact on society, maybe we should stop trying to legislate our religion and train our children to bake or build or pull fine shots of espresso. Maybe we have forgotten the weighter matters of the faith and law: justice, mercy, peace. Hospitality has fallen on hard times, so has our idea of communion (don't get me started). Cultural change from the top-down is the way of violent empire and the violence in unavoidable. The recalcitrant always look different from oneself, who is seen as the epitome of the imago Dei. Bottom-up, however, can be peaceful and lasting. It is not always, especially when it is co-opted by empire, but it at least has the possibility. Change your world, learn a trade.

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A word from your friendly professor.

On the joys of amateurism

Amateur: A person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science as to music or painting; esp. one who cultivates any study or art, from taste or attachment, without pursuing it professionally.

I've spent the last decade of my life figuring out what to do professionally. Early on, I had a set idea of what was going to happen. I planned my education and dreams on that. Unfortunately, my life-aspirations were shattered very quickly. I have, though, held on to similar dreams and worked hard to make them happen. In some respects, those early aspirations have come true. I currently (for at least this semester, anyway) teach Bible at the collegiate level. And I love doing it. However, I'm beginning to realize that I will always be an amateur at it. My love of God and how I have pursued that have led me to certain conclusions that will always keep me happy as an amateur and uncomfortable as a theological professional.

My model for this is the Jewish teaching style found in some circles: every man a teacher, every man a learner. My desire to teach does not need to be tied down to any particular institution, although sometimes it takes that form. I am always at the feet of the theological masters and someday I will teach a young man or woman to follow the Scriptures by imparting my (admittedly small) learning. I enjoy this thought.

It is strange when your calling appears in a place that you never expected. No test could have told me that I would find such a love in the business world. However, here I've found a place where all my varied interests find some fulfillment and expression, including my theological withdrawals. None, of course, finds exhaustive expression, but that is for the better. The strong inclination in me to find wholeness and harmony has always been somewhat uncomfortable in the highly specialized world of academia. I need to be able to dabble in sociology, psychology, theology, economics, business, art, physics, chemistry, biology, and the like. Otherwise, I feel restless. This isn't to say I'm promiscuous academically, though. I'm a through and through generalist, committed to seeing that no one aspect of creation is more important or fundamental than another. Working as I do know allows me to see some expression of every part of creation in my work and also allows me the freedom to study widely and broadly.

I do not know what the future holds. Callings mature as people do and I'm sure my role in my company will be different five or ten years from now, not to mention 30 or 40. Maybe I'll be called to something different. But, for now, I'm perfectly content where I'm at.

Reading: You Decide

I read a lot of non-fiction. My wife thinks too much*. Theology, sociology, ethics, and many more topics might cross my eyes throughout the week. Every once in awhile, though, I feel the need to connect with my humanity again--I'll pick up a good story, a fictional story. I've always found it funny that I get my feet on the ground by entering imaginary worlds.

Anyway.

What fiction book should I read? I'm so out of touch that I thought I'd ask you, the faithful reader. Thanks in advance for your help.

What shall it be?

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*Update:

The first two sentences of the post sound like a dig against my wife. Such is not so. Please read them as "I read a lot of non-fiction. My wife believes that I should broaden my horizons with books of various sorts." Thank you.