IVP - Strangely Dim

The End of Two Eras

Today marks the end of two eras. My mother-in-law retires today after years of managing the office of a social service agency. She's the first of my parental units to retire--uncharted territory for our family.

Also today, longtime InterVarsity Press employee Andrew Craft leaves to concentrate on the crazy scope of personal projects he's launched over the last few years. Andrew, among other things, designed the InterVarsity Press website and the Strangely Dim weblog. That road sign was his idea.

Eras end with a lot of fanfare. There's a big party today at my office and another big party where my mother-in-law works. There will be shared memories and conversations about what the future holds. There will be jokes and teasing and food and drink and general revelry.

And then tomorrow comes, and with it the beginning of something new, with patterns that have yet to be established and connections that have yet to be made. Officially, the workplace is the place we work, but under the surface it's the place we most frequently gather, the relationships that are most consistent in our lives. What are Andrew and my mother-in-law giving up by moving on? They won't know till Wednesday.

Leaving a job is a scary proposition. I know one person who hopes to die at his desk, in part because he doesn't want to face the music at his retirement party. I'm drawn to the idea because without my job I'm forced to determine for myself who I am apart from what I do. Is the end of an era the end of days or the beginning of something new?

Ben Folds sees the end of an era, in the grand scheme of things, as relatively meaningless:

Today's just a day like the day that he started . . .

Cat Stevens looks at the end with relief:

If I ever lose my hands--lose my plow, lose my land . . . I won't have to work no more.

I'm not moved by the end as meaningless or the end as nothingness; the end as beginning is what appeals to me. Both before and after the end of an era we remain inherently relational people looking for something to do. When Samwise Gamgee parted from the Shire in The Lord of the Rings, he surrendered his comfortable present in order to embrace a new calling. It was hard, and the way forward was hard too, but one day he would hear songs sung about these later days, and he would know that the end of one era had marked the beginning of the next.

***

Read Pete's comment on "The Best Imitation of Myself" at Loud Time to see how the movies separate our workplace selves from our true selves.

I Need Thee Every Hour: The Devotional Journey of Jack Bauer

I am a Christian fan of 24--the television show that chronicles the activities of counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer in real time. I own four seasons of the show on DVD and three graphic novels based on the series. I enter contests and send e-mails to people associated with 24--some of whom have even written me back. My 24 superfan resume is nearly complete.

One thing I still lack: a book of devotional readings inspired by TV's 24.

Pop-culture-inspired Christian books are common currency in today's Christian publishing environment. Some such books address interesting questions: people everywhere are wondering what Jesus would say to Drew Barrymore, for example, and speculating what we would learn from a gospel according to McDonald's. There's also plenty of exploration going on to see how modern myths and fantasy tales--from the Chronicles of Narnia to Star Wars--correspond to the Christian story. Let's face it: my own book, Comic Book Character, cashes in on this curiosity.

But really, how many Christian books about The Matrix is one person willing to read? So the Christian publishing industry keeps casting the net wider. Recent entries into the world of pop-culture devotionals include meditations on Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Napoleon Dynamite. Not having read them, I won't comment on them except to say that they have super-cool covers. But the message behind this steady output of pop-culture Christian literature is essentially this: Anything goes.

"Anything goes" is, I suppose, a defensible notion. God told Moses to tell the Israelites to tell the Egyptians to give them all their stuff, and so the Israelites plundered the Egyptians, the argument goes. Why can't we plunder the treasures of pop culture for the glory and mission of God?

That may be true, but I'd like to test the theory (and, in the interest of full disclosure, feed my inner geek) by writing a devotional based on the anti-terrorist exploits of federal agent Jack Bauer. Consider what follows chapter one of my never-to-be-published, completely-tongue-in-cheek, utterly-at-odds-with-my-values I Need Thee Every Hour: The Devotional Journey of Jack Bauer:

Today Is the Longest Day of My Life

"Say it again, or I'll break your other wrist!" In pursuing the cause of justice and national security, Jack Bauer often has to resort to extreme measures. The willfulness of his opponents slows down Jack's progress without slowing down the clock. For Jack, every minute--every second--counts, and so he must count the cost of every delay.

Jack is an extreme disciple of justice--by any means necessary. Ultimately, Jack wins every contest of the wills because he is willing to do more, to his enemy and even to himself, than anybody else. Jack has submitted himself to prison, torture, even death in the pursuit of justice, and in the end his sacrifice is always vindicated.

As we attempt to live lives of personal virtue and righteousness, can the same be said of us? How far are we willing to go to be right with God? How much are we willing to sacrifice?

Sometimes, if we're honest, we'll recognize that too often we are like the terrorists Jack battles. Our will gets in the way of righteousness, and so our will must be broken. Once broken, it needs to be cast with a stronger mold so that we will what is right rather than what is wrong.

Once our will is rightly set, our story, and the story we find ourselves in, can continue to be told.

"Do not be like a horse or a mule,
without understanding,
whose temper must be curbed
with bit and bridle."
--Psalm 32:9

Once again--and please hear me on this--it's a JOKE! This is categorically NOT what I would want to read first thing in the morning. It would almost certainly guarantee the longest day of my life. Nevertheless, I welcome your comments.

***

For more meditations on why we love Jack Bauer, listen to the February 22 entry at Lin's Bin.

I Gotta Question

Hey, everybody, I've got a question. I'm so interested in this question that I'm going to post it here and at my personal blog Loud Time (yo! check me out!):

What would help American Christianity to be more thoughtful?

You can interpret thoughtful in whatever sense you prefer, and you may think about Christianity as one big collection of people or as a demographic of individuals or anywhere in between. My only stipulation, I suppose, is that I'd like you to at least think about how you would answer if "American Christianity" were replaced by "me" or "us." Spread the word, too; I'd like to get a good cross-section of people involved in this.

I don't know the answer, myself, so I choose not to respond but rather to make comments about your responses. So there.

Thanks! Have fun--play nice.

Bowling Lessons

I thought bowling was supposed to be fun. I was in a league once with two other guys. We named our team Carpe Hoc (very rough Latin for “Seize this”). We made ourselves t-shirts. We lost every competition of the summer. But we had fun.

Around the same time a friend of mine was taking a bowling class. He saw his average score drop considerably at the beginning of the class, but by the end it had jumped considerably higher. He had bought his own custom-made bowling ball and gloves. He had become a bowling Jedi. And he was no longer any fun to bowl with.

Perhaps it’s a reflection of my profoundly noncompetitive nature, which is itself a coping mechanism for my persistent inability to compete, but I don’t bowl to win; I bowl for kicks. My friend bowls for kicks too, incidentally. He’s certainly not in it for the money. But he sees the opportunity to bowl as an opportunity for self-improvement. For him, competition is great fun. For me, it’s a giant buzzkill.

There’s something to be said for going out with friends, borrowing a bowling ball, settin’ em up and knockin’ em down. We laugh at each other’s errors, we cheer each other’s successes, we granny-bowl, we strike bowling poses, we have fun. Bowling—a sport in the most technical sense—is a great communal activity.

On the flip side are competitive bowlers. I have some in my extended family, and I’ve met some middle- and high-school would-be Olympic bowlers who are deadly serious about it. They don’t want a peep out of you while they stand on one leg and perfect their follow-through. They try to hug the gutter and attempt to earn a turkey. They knock down eight pins intentionally just to practice picking up the seven-ten split. Bowling in this sense is an epic, a conquest.

Somewhere in the middle is the love of the game: the meeting point of the linear progression toward the final frame and the harmonic experience of each thrown ball. The thrill of victory is rightly matched by the thrill of play, of enjoying the company of one another for a set time. In bowling, as in life, we are inclined to celebrate victory, which requires both a sense of competition and a sense of camaraderie: there may be only one winner, but there must be many players.

***

Care to share a bowling memory? Post a comment below.

Check out my personal weblog: Loud Time.

All About the Bunnies

I keep running into rabbits. Not literally--relax!--but in the last few days I've seen bunnies on the road, at a friend's house and on the Internet. They're cute and oh so cuddly, even though they eat everything I plant. Last summer a rabbit had nested in my dirt garden, and when the baby bunnies were born they were oh so cute that all the neighbor kids came over to see. Rabbits are intriguing; on a good day, rabbits are darn near wondrous.

Such is the case with the link that follows, where wonderful rabbits tell a wonderful story about a wonderful life--all in thirty seconds. Enjoy.