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Wilson on Scientism

This is an old post, but someone brought to my attention that the link was broken. I am updating it with the video embedded. I’ve listened to the talk several times now and it is one of the best talks on C.S. Lewis, Scientism, and culture in general that I have ever heard.

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I’ve written a bit on Scientism on the blog. N.D. Wilson’s talk on Scientism at the Desiring God conference on C.S. Lewis is excellent. I am going to have to listen to it a few times to mull it over. Until then, you can watch or listen to it HERE. Note: Link is dead

Recent Reading: Death by Living, by N.D. Wilson (The Blessed Lash of Time)

I don’t do reviews, only reflections. So here’s my shot at it:

It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed; we are to spend and to be spent, not to lay ourselves up in lavender, and nurse our flesh. Such soul-travail as that of a faithful minister will bring on occasional seasons of exhaustion, when heart and flesh will fail. Moses’ hands grew heavy in intercession, and Paul cried out, “Who is sufficient for these things?”

-Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, pp. 156-157.

I read that line by Spurgeon years ago and it has always stuck with me. Our goal should not be preservation, but sacrifice. That theme is woven into the heart of the narrative of N.D. Wilson’s new book, Death by Living: Life is Meant to be Spent.

Wilson sees life, all life, not just his own, as a part of God’s story. We are all characters with our own little parts. How will we be involved in the plot? How will we exit the stage?

Chapter 8, ‘The (Blessed) Lash of Time,’ is the gem of the book from my perspective.  Wilson compellingly makes the case that death is a blessing, if we have eyes to see it as such. Revelation 14:13 records God’s declaration that those who die in the Lord are blessed:

  • Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write: The dead who die in the Lord from now on are blessed.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘let them rest from their labors, for their works follow them!’

We spend our lives fearing death, while, for the Christian, death is the final whistle, the buzz of the clock, that tells us our labors are over. He writes,

Time motivates us. Sure, time counts up, but it is also a game clock, counting down. It is urgent. It makes now matter.

‘Oh, we’ve got all the time in the world,’ says the man preparing to do nothing.

‘This is due tomorrow!’ says the woman suddenly finding focus.

Time is a kindness. We need it. We need loss to appreciate gift. We need the world chanting at us like a crowd counting down seconds at the end of a shot clock. Every day brings its own urgency. Every day has periods that expire, things that count down, and breaks to collect our thoughts, sip Gatorade, and draw up plays.

The sun is up! Get up, get up! Eat. Go, go, go! Eat again…

The grind, The wheel. The racing of rats.

Time, the ever-expiring resource. Time, the thief. Time, the motivator (p. 111).

Here is where the words started hitting me:

Imagine being your flawed self without time…Think about your temper. Your resentfulness. Your lust. Your lies. Your selfishness. Your despair. Think about all the trouble you have on the inside. Think about the weight of that burden…Now remove time.

There is no end to this race. There is no finish line. There is no final round to this brawl. There is no clock counting down.

You must struggle with your temper always. Forever. You will be seven hundred years old, sill a lusting lecher weeping with guilt. A thousand-year-old woman who can’t stop her poisonous tongue.

When young athletes train hard, a good coach is there. When they push themselves to dizziness, to vomiting, a coach is counting down.

You can do it. Just three more. Just five more minutes. Two more laps. You can do this.

And we find that we can. That we can push harder than we ever knew. Because once we have, we will be done.

Imagine running and running and running until your throat burns with welling acid from your gut and constricts with the sharp bursts of cold breaths that your screaming lungs grab an grab and grab to keep your body moving. Your coach is on the side. He shouts,

‘It won’t ever stop! You will never be done. Just keep going.’

Me? I drop right there. Without a finish line, I quit (pp. 111-113).

He continues,

Because of death, we can run the good race. We can fight the good fight. Completion exists…

Seventy years. Eighty if you’re strong. Less if you’re like the Messiah. Look to Him and receive more grace. Stagger on. You can do it. Only a decade more. Or two. Or four. But there is a finish line. There will be an end to the weight on your back and the ache in your skull…Even when we fell, when our first parents defied Him, the first thing He gave them was an end, mortality, a path to resurrection, and the promise of a Guide.

And then He clothed them (p. 113-114).

I appreciated many more things about this book, but I wanted to devote an entire post to this one. I would encourage those so inclined to pick up a copy.

We are living sacrifices whose lives are meant to be poured out. I want to die a worn out man – but a man who wore himself out for the joy set before him. She’s an unlikely source of quotations for me, but Marilyn Monroe (allegedly) once said, ‘I don’t stop when I’m tired. I only stop when I’m done.’ That’s not a bad thought. The good news is that our labors will be done, so we don’t have to stop when we’re tired. Wear yourself out for Jesus, for your husband or wife, for your children, for your church, for the poor, for whomever God puts in your path. The finish line is getting nearer. You’ll make it if you keep your eye on the prize. Your tired, but not done. You’ll be done soon enough. Keep working.

Isaac Watts offers his great paraphrase of Palm 90 in ‘O God, Our Help in Ages Past.’ He writes,

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.

If time is like an ever-rolling stream, then Wilson says, ‘May you leave a wake’:

Drink your wine. Laugh from your gut. Burden your moments with thankfulness. Be as empty as you can be when that clock winds down. Spend your life. And if time is a river, may you leave a wake (p. 117).

This chapter, for the first time in my life, made me genuinely feel ready to die. But more than that, to live to die. I found myself praying, ‘God, thank you that death is coming. I needed to see death as a finish line. Now I know that I can keep going.’ I’ve already found such rest in Christ. I’ve found him to bear the burden of the Law, I found his yoke to be easy. Yet my body wears out. That’s just a reminder that the whistle is in sight: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on…that they may rest from their labor.’ Amen.

I started the post with Spurgeon, so let me end with him. Here’s a little quote from John Piper about Spurgeon:

He often worked 18 hours in a day. The missionary David Livingstone, asked him once, ‘How do you manage to do two men’s work in a single day?’ Spurgeon replied, ‘You have forgotten there are two of us.’ I think he meant the presence of Christ’s energizing power that we read about in Colossians 1:29. Paul says, ‘I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.’ ‘There are two of us.’

If We Knew the History of Water

N.D. Wilson meditating upon a stream in connection with the God who created it and its history:

Does God shape each water molecule with the care He puts into His snowflakes? He needs no shortcuts to name them, no broad categories. He knows them each, every last one. He knows where they have been and where they are going. He knows their uniqueness and which of the holiest ancient drops are now in relationships that would appall any human sensibilities. If I could know the complete history of one cubic foot of this stream, then I could know the history of the world.

As for God, His Son turned water into wine. And so we end the story before He turned that wine into urine. (Should we deny that He did?) (Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, pp. 46-47).

Recent Reading: Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, by N.D. Wilson

Frankly, I don’t read a lot of stuff by people who are still alive. N.D. Wilson is an exception. I’ve wanted to read this book for a while. It was on my Christmas list. My wife gave it to me as a gift. It was a good one.

I’ve read the 100 Cupboards Trilogy, and the things I said about it ring true with this book as well. With Wilson’s books, at least for me, it’s all about atmosphere. That’s the very thing I griped about with the Harry Potter books. It’s the thing I love in Wilson’s.

It’s not that you read this book and come a way with a bunch of quotes (though there are lots of good ones), or a bunch of precise arguments about the Christian faith (though there are some of those as well). It’s that you come away with Christian emotions – awe for God, wonder at his creation.

I finished reading the book yesterday and, my wife will testify to this, I was miserable. I was miserable because it was a cold, rainy day. I finished the book and immediately wanted to go outside and explore. I wanted to go for a walk. To look at some ants. To look at the stars. He almost made me want to see a tornado (but not quite). I was tempted to just go outside and stand in the rain with my eyes and mouth open so that I could absorb as much of it as possible. But I didn’t really want to catch the cold that would have immediately ensued. So I just stared at my kids all day. That wasn’t bad.

Mission accomplished. I know this is what the author wants.

My mission with these recent readings is always to record immediate impressions and noteworthy points I want to talk away. So much for the impression, now for some points. Here are some memory-worthy quotes:

  • I live on a near perfect sphere hurtling through space at around 67,000 miles per hour. Mac 86 to pilots. Of course, this sphere of mine is also spinning while it hurtles, so tack on an extra 1,000 miles per hour at the fat parts. And it’s all tucked into this giant hurricane of stars. Yes, it can be freaky. Once a month or so, my wife will find me lying in the lawn, burrowing white knuckles into the grass, trying not to fly away. But most of the time I manage to keep my balance despite the speed, and I don’t have to hold on with anything more than my toes (p. 2).
  • Before Emo, before the existentialists, there was Aeschylus, preaching. He didn’t fuss about meaninglessness, because he wasn’t a white, middle-class kid with a comfortable life, no butt, and tight pants (p. 95).
  • I see craft in the world. I cannot watch dust swirl on the sidewalk without seeing God drag His finger, or listen to spring rain running in the streets without hearing him roll his Rs (p. 98).
  • This universe is a portrait in motion, a compressed portrait in motion, a miniature, inevitably stylized, for it is trying to capture the Infinite. The galaxies are each one fraction of a syllable in a haiku of the Ultimate. On the human level, art is all recompression, attempts at taking a sunset from the small frame of the horizon and putting it on a postcard; taking a blues riff, the rhythmic vibration of strings, and capturing a sense of loss; marble, chiseled and shaped until it shows nobility; a cartoonist’s frame, simple ink, grabbing at six-year-old boyness, grabbing at laughter (p. 108).
  • But a creative God, a God without whom none of this would be, a God who spoke reality into being and shapes it even now, He has authority. This world is His. You are His the way my words are mine (p. 133).
  • Why do Christians think of purity, holiness, and even divinity as something with big eyes and soft fur? Why do we so often ignore the beautiful in exchange for the cute? (p. 145).
  • When Christ rose, He rose in the flesh. He was no ghost, and yet He walked through walls. The walls were the ghosts, and so are we (p. 150).
  • Use your body like a tool meant to be used up, discarded, and replaced (p. 154).
  • Things have changed. A great sheet was lowered in Peter’s dream. Eat. Have sushi. Try a snake. Prawns are a treat wrapped in bacon with a spacy barbecue sauce.
    Food is holy when you eat it, when it is used to strengthen a body used to strengthen the world (p. 155).

I watched a documentary program discussing the ‘big bang’ not too long ago. I marveled that scientists postulate that the entire shape and destiny of all matter took form from an invisible nothing (energy), less than the size of a pin-point, (how energy can have size is beyond me) in planck time – something like 10-57 (that’s 10 to the negative 57th) of a second. But, of course, no God was involved. I’d go outside right now and put my face in the grass and hold on for dear life if it wasn’t so cold and wet. Maybe I’ll try the carpet.

I recommend the book, and taking hold of the nearest grounded object.

N.D. Wilson on Trouble

This is a first for the blog. This site is usually dedicated to things I read and theological reflections, but I’ve decided to share a video.  I found N.D. Wilson’s biblical-theological study of ‘trouble’ to be thought-provoking, helpful, and moving. It’s a bit more than an hour long, so I probably need to motivate you a bit.

This talk is a prime example of why biblical-theology is a worthwhile enterprise. It would take a book-length work to truly unpack an idea like ‘trouble’ as it is conveyed in the Bible. But in a relatively short time Wilson manages to weave quite a narrative, and make some powerful, dead on applications along the way.

I had Ray Lamontagne’s song, Trouble, in my head for a couple of days after watching this video. Why does trouble dog us from the day we’re born? Is it all our fault? Is God to blame? Where did all this trouble come from and what’s the point of it? Watch the video for answers.

P.S. He writes some pretty good books as well. My daughter and I are back into the 100 Cupboards Trilogy reading the Chestnut King.

Stories are…Catechisms for Your Impulses

In a recent post of mine titled, Anthropomorphism, Unlikeness, and Reality in Fiction: Opening the Eyes of the Blind I write this:

I often reference C.S. Lewis’ statement to the effect that fantasy literature does not make children (and I would say adults as well, so long as they’re not prone to pure escapism) forget, or despise, the real world. He said basically that a child who reads of an enchanted forest does not thereby begin to hate real forests. Instead all forests take on some of this enchantment. For instance, I’ve never thought of forests in the same way since reading the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I’ve never looked at peaceful walks the same since I read the Princess and the Goblin (I’m always ready to sing a goblin song should the proper situation arise). I’ve never looked at lions the same since reading the Chronicles of Narnia. I could go on, but I won’t.

For the past month or so I have been immersed in N.D. Wilson’s 100 Cupboards trilogy. I posted my initial thoughts on the first book HERE. I have a lot more to add to that original post at this point, but I won’t – the whole point of my ‘recent reading’ series is to give initial impressions and applications. The series certainly gets more weighty as you go on and some of the philosophical (though I’m sure Wilson would call them Christian, not philosophical) undercurrents are emerging more clearly. But, actually, that’s beside the point.

I came across a YouTube video (watch it HERE) of an interview with N.D. Wilson a while back. I have now watched it twice in its entirety. He’s a pretty sharp guy and it is taking time to process some of the things he said. One of those things hit home yesterday in a conversation with my family about Wilson’s book Dandelion Fire. I won’t get into that now, but I want to record the relevant quote from the interview (transcript courtesy of WORLD):

Q: You’ve said you learned more philosophy, maybe even theology, from C.S. Lewis and Tolkien than from anything you studied in college. Is that one reason you write fiction rather than theological tomes?
A. Christians have sometimes been suspicious of stories, because they really can influence you. If you read the Twilight novels once a month for a year, I think you’d be a different human afterward—and not a sparkly one. Stories are like catechisms, but they’re catechisms for your impulses, they’re catechisms with flesh on.

This is precisely the point I was making (and I was only echoing C.S. Lewis) in my own post quoted above. Stories are catechisms for the impulses, fixing the questions and answers as to how you will view the world in which you live, how you will respond. To use the Lewis idea I often paraphrase (see above), the fairy story, or supernatural story, or whatever you want to call it, asks us, ‘Can our world be enchanted?’ And, if it’s a good one, we’re left saying, ‘Perhaps. Just maybe. Yes, actually, I think it is after all.’  And thus we act accordingly, however that may be.  Bad stories have an effect as well. But that’s a topic in itself. Let’s not go there presently.

I really just wanted to record that quote. It’s worth putting in the old computer, as they(or maybe just I) say. But let me also say, hats off to Mr. Wilson for coining (I assume) a phrase that I think will be quite helpful (he’s rather wordsmithy). Hats off to him for boggling my mind and forcing me to meditate hard and heavy on the concept of a word-made world (more on that to come, when I finish Dandelion Fire). I’m appreciating his work, consider checking him out if you haven’t.