Reflections On Internet Engagement

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Each day we wake, new opportunities face us. The most important opportunities, however, are the relational ones.

We roll out of bed with our spouses, what words pour out first? Loving words, spiteful words, grudging words? Or we hit school or the work place, each step through the door, another opportunity to bite and bicker, love and encourage. 

And what about the virtual relationships, the social media interactions, the rogue blog-commenter, the public figures we read about, their lives now oh-so-public?

It occurred to me that our culture encourages an observational approach to maintaining and engaging our relationships. We watch and react. We observe and respond. We read and comment. We skim and tweet.

It's the way of it.  

But another way exists. 

It does not begin on the outside looking in. Rather, it originates from within. The most intimate of positions.

In a short essay titled "Meditation in a Toolshed" C.S. Lewis described a dark toolshed in which he was standing. The sun poured through a crack at the top of the door and into the shed. From his position outside of the beam he could easily say something about the shaft of light entering the toolshed. 

But then something changed. 

Lewis moved from his position and stepped into the beam. 

Within the beam his perspective changed. Through the crack he saw leaves swaying, and beyond that the sun shining 90 million miles away.

"Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences."

You and I, we're creatures of observations. We enjoy looking at the beam. It's much safer, and the view is great for we can see everything; at least we like to think we can. We can make keen observations about the beam of light and the surroundings. 

From our outside view we, then, create theories and rules about everything we see. 

Lewis was not fond of theories.

He did not think general laws (theories) could explain human behavior. We can't understand one another from the outside looking in. We can't create theories and psychological laws about one another and think we've solved the human conundrum of we-ourselves. 

Rather, we must daily strive to understand why a person acts a certain way based upon their explanation. And we must do this from within the relational experience. 

You let the kettle boil but do not make the tea. I ask, "Why?" to which you reply, "Because I did't feel like it." This may lead to an argument, or it may not. What it does lead to is the fact that we give ad hoc reasons for actions based on personal desire. Those desires, in turn, may hurt or help another person. But this is way of it, and no theory can determine our random actions within relationships. 

We may also not do something another person was expecting us to do because we thought it was wrong. Here we give moral reasoning for our actions based on reflection of the situation. 

Each day, then, on and on we interact based on personal desires and moral reflections of situations. "Soon," writes philosopher Paul Holmer, "we are all caught up in a web of everyday explanations by which we understand human actions." (Holmer, 26)

We're caught in the ad hoc everyday whim of explanations, the inside view, the inside interaction of being in the muck of it with those whom we encounter. This is how we know, how we climb inside one another. 

Rules break and fail, and what do we have? 

We must rely on our understanding of the person. And how do we achieve such an understanding?

We must be close enough, within the beam of relationship, to discern when the web of the ad hoc everyday explanations make sense, when our stated motivations are true, when our love for one another is real and not pretense.

This is understanding, and understanding begets wisdom. 

I suppose today's ramble is more for me than anything; a thinking through, a reminder:

I must adjust my position if I seek truth and wisdom about others and situations. And that is no small feat. What do I know about the co-worker in front of me, the school mate next to me, the public figure who messed up? If the answer is, "Not much," then perhaps I should hold my tongue, my pen, my blog post, my news article, my ___________. 

"Ah, but Tim, it's all well and good to desire intimate knowledge before we speak, but the public square is different. Hoist up the poles and burn the heretics, for we now have new means of accountability!" 

Do we, now? Does not the word itself presuppose a relational foundation: of friend to friend, of student to teacher, of husband to wife (and vice versa), of pastor to church and so on? 

Accountability cannot be divorced from understanding, from wisdom.

And that is what we find within the beam; not only the wisdom to truly see those we encounter, but also the grace afforded to us from others.

For there we stand, exposed in the sunlight and yet it is only from within the beam we find the ability, the grace and humility to truly understand, to truly know.

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Take a few moments and listen to my friend Joy Eggerich's thoughts regarding our online engagement. 

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Unsafe God

Today's Pipe Series draws us into a place of worship. I often find myself looking around when I attend gatherings of The Family of God. I catch myself wondering how odd it must be for visitors witnessing several hundred, even thousands, of Christians singing their hearts out to a God they cannot see.  

It can feel so pagan at times; pagan in the raw sense of the word, ruddy and beautiful, haunting and mysterious. 

Last night at just such a gathering, my friend Mandy Joy Miller sang while her husband (and some friends) played. Caught in the moment I found myself staring out into the woods behind the house, remnants of day's last light filtering through. Mandy read from one of my favorite passages in Revelation, the one where the beasts with eyes all over their bodies cry out, "Different, different, different, is the Lord God Almighty." 

Mandy then spoke of her prayers lately, and how she'd been overwhelmed with a vision of a great lion; the kind of lion that is "strong and loving." (Psalm 62:11-12) 

I love the scene in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe where Lucy says of Aslan being a lion, "Then, he isn't safe?"

"'Course he isn't safe," replies Mr. Beaver. "But he is good."  

Lewis here appears to draw from Rudolf Ottos's theological classic The Idea of the Holy  in which Otto describes the numinous. The  numinous is the experience that underlies all religious experience, it's that something "wholly other" than experienced in ordinary life. It's made up of three parts: mysterium (evoking a sense of silence), tremendum (overwhelming power), et fascinans (attractiveness in spite of fear). 

In The Problem of Pain Lewis describes the numinous like this: 

Suppose you were told thee was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told 'There is a ghost in the next room,' and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is 'uncanny' rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread.

With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous.

Now suppose that you were told simply 'There is a mighty spirit in the room,' and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking—a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of prostration before it. ...

This feeling may be described as awe, and the object which excites it as the Numinous.  

Last night, in our little gathering space, I felt what Lewis and Otto describe as numinous. I also felt it Sunday morning while singing songs of worship. 

But there are times when I don't feel it. I know I'm speaking a lot about feelings. And I know I need to guard myself from emotionalism, but I stand with Jonathan Edwards in espousing a religion that is based on positive affections for God. I want to be caught up in him; I want to dangle my heart over the chasm of his love and feel the gulping fear that accompanies.  

So it is, when my spiritual affections lack I then reflect on how my actions reveal their absence. I can feign true religious affections, but that veneer will invade my every day and draw me away into haughtiness, pride and fear. 

I find my spiritual affections grow when they stem from organic action, like frequent gatherings of free worship through song, discussion and testimony.

I remember one morning this past winter I was visiting my friends Josh and Lacey Sturm in Pittsburgh. We were finishing a project on a Sunday morning when Josh hit the pause button, picked up his guitar and began to lead us in a time of worship through song. I stood across from Lacey and just listened as she sang soft notes of praise. The quiet time of whisper-worship dangled me over the chasm of Christ's love. 

At once I was struck with a different fear; a wholly other kind of feeling that prompted tears, adoration and thanksgiving. We ended our time of song with lingering silence. I could almost feel the holy breeze of the Spirit passing through the chasm. 

I wanted, like Lucy, to throw myself into God's massive fury neck and cling to him while trembling. Indeed, Lucy, he is not safe. But oh, is he good.  

So give yourself permission to feel a bit more today. Expose yourself to the chasm of his glory and see if it doesn't just scare you further into his love. Let go of the cynicism that so defines our culture (even our Christian culture!) and clothe yourself in numinous. See what the great eyed-creatures saw and shout, "Oh God, how different you are! And oh, how I love you!"  

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Three Pathways To Mystery

If you've lost your sense of mystery, then do what you must to retrieve it. Mystery emerges in the most simple of places. Most often it manifests itself in reaction to the beauty and goodness encountered in our everyday life—through feelings of awe and wonder, events that elicit thanksgiving. 

The late German theologian and writer Hans Urs Von Balthasar wrote: ​

All things can be considered in two ways: as fact and as mystery. Simple people, farmers for instance, can often integrate both ways in a lovely harmony. In children it would for the most part be easy to develop a sense of mystery; but teachers and parents can seldom generate enough humility to speak of it.

Keeping and cultivating a sense of mystery protects against pride and keeps us as children before the Lord. As I think through how to keep mystery in my life, three pathways emerge. ​

Pace of Life - ​Evaluate your everyday—your context. Mystery reveals itself to the simple because their pace of life allows them to encounter more. The to and fro of busy-ness can too often blind us with a false sense of efficiency and success. 

Slow down. and see  ​life. If you do, mystery will blindside you daily and in the most uncommon ways. 

Offering of Praise - ​Celebrate the simple things. Celebrate the beautiful things. "Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him (Psalm 33:1)." 

As God's children it makes sense to celebrate hm for all that he's done and will do. "By praising something," writes C.S. Lewis, "you complete it's enjoyment." ​

A Thankful Heart - ​Thankfulness marks the contented heart. Not so the prideful heart. Pride desires more, and even more—it bears the insatiable marke of avarice. When we say "Thank you" to God, we live in the contentment of his grace-blessing. 

This week I found several dahlia blossoms collected in the crook of one of our little Sweet Gum ​trees in the back yard. My girls leave little faerie offerings like that all over the landscape; I love finding them while I'm pruning and weeding.

Their pagan delight reminds me of the importance of spiritual mystery in my life. It slows me down so I can feel the cool spring air yet lingering on the late May breeze. It reopens my eyes to behold his glory I so often miss because of a godless frantic pace.

And in that time of glory and easeful stride I am able to catch my breath and whisper, "Thank you, Jesus." 

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Freedom From The Inner Ring

You and I cannot escape the pull toward self-promotion. It invades each day through various mediums. And the very culture that tells us to hoist up our personal banners everywhere is the same culture that empowers us to act as our own judge and jury. It tells us that permissive behavior is the norm.

But though we cannot escape the cultural pull, we need not give in to it.

On Wednesday I wrote about the lost art of reflection. I discussed how, if we wait and reflect instead of reacting to situations, people and "news," we should find a most helpful friend: discernment. This friend draws a hard line, one our pride finds stark and uninviting.

Today, as we ready our hearts and minds for the coming Sunday gathering let's consider how we might join the practice of quiet reflection with true Christian freedom.

They seem opposed, restraining from reaction yet exercising freedom. But they are, in fact, kindred.

The Apostle Peter reminds his readers: “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor (1 Peter 2:16–17 ESV).”

Christian freedom means we are free to follow God's will. We are, like Paul, slaves to the Gospel. As such we do not live as permissive agents of cheap grace and license.

Rather, we adhere to a specific code: every person is to be shown respect, our Christian brothers and sisters are to be loved, God is to be approached in reverent fear and our authorities are to be respected.

Actions Reveal Motives

It's easy to forget this Christian Code. In the pursuit to build leadership platforms, influence, personal brands, secure a raise, or position we pounce on opportunity.

I often see this in the world of blogs and writing. In the name of "being prophetic," or "holding some Christian leader accountable," or "just because I can" writers and talking heads wield their words as battle-axes. They scramble to be heard and seen and, of course, followed.

At some level we all of us desire to exist and be seen as a person of the inner circle of our chosen professions.

But why?

In his address titled "The Inner Ring" C.S. Lewis exhorts his listeners to beware of pursuing such an inner ring. Such a pursuit often demands character compromises. Because we desire exclusivity, to be "in the know," to be cool, to be accepted, to be viewed as exceptional, we disregard our Christian code. We offer convenient excuses for our selfish actions.

Lewis offers this bit of wisdom that I find helpful as a daily reminder (pardon its length):

The quest for the inner ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters.

You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know.

But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain.

And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside, that you are indeed sung and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring.

But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric, for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things they like. This is frienship.

If we set out each day to work, to hone our craft—whatever it may be—then we create a culture that cares little for the pull of self-promotion and permissive behavior. We, in fact, create a safe place where respect and love and reverence flourish.

We will find ourselves free in Christ, yet bound to the hard and beautiful words of his Gospel. We will find ourselves caring less for the Inner Ring and more for those we should be caring for anyway: our true friends.

Lord, grow us in your patience. Strengthen us as we strive to live in the freedom of your Way.

The Lost Art of Reflection

I remember the daffodils, a beauty not astonishing. How they waved to me from a textbook page. How they bobbed in tetrametric dance. All week my thought rested on these daffodils as I tried to remember my first encounter with beauty. A beauty that I recognized as different; as referent to something other than what I was beholding.

It was in Wordsworth's poem, "I Wondered Lonely As A Cloud" I encountered an image I would not soon forget:

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

In Till We Have Faces Lewis describes Psyche's beauty by saying, "It was beauty that did not astonish you till afterwards when you had gone out of sight of her and reflected on it."

I find resonance with Lewis's description of beauty with how Wordsworth defines poetry: "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings arising from emotion recollected in tranquility."

Interesting how beauty and poetry find their origins in reflection. How the astonishment was not immediate, but expanded and grew as time tooled the image or thought into something transcendent.

A few weeks back I started The Faerie Queen, a classic poem of enormous proportions. This poem influenced Lewis's imaginative shaping, and I can see why.

Only a few pages in, I stumbled upon a description of trees that demanded I reread, over and over. Each tree—the oak, laurel, pine and poplar all—was given human paint as they drifted beneath the stormy sky, dancing like the daffodils.

The faerie scene of growing tension not only demands several readings, but invites the whimsy of thought. I fall asleep to these scenes of waving daffodils and the swaying kings of the forest (oaks). Beauty absconds with our hearts but also rifles our intellect, holding it at melodic gunpoint.

What Beauty Demands

Our encounters of beauty turn us to certain realities we cannot neglect. In thinking upon the daffodils I faced a knowledge of something else beyond my capacity to explain. It drew desire from me, it resonated with what I understood to be a kind of goodness upon the earth, though I could not and still cannot articulate it.

In all beauty, it seems, we face a healthy bit of morality. And, as a Christian, this makes sense to me since I believe God to be the originator of all things good and true. Beauty resonates in us all and demands not only our attention but also the soulish side of our beings.

Am I hoisting up beauty as a proof for God? Maybe, I wouldn't be the first. But at a more popular level I think what we can learn from beauty (and poetry) is an art form lost in this world of instant publishing, opinions and hoo-ha. And that art form is reflection.

Reflection encourages a morality of heart and mind. If we simmer on something long enough, we will find what we did not want to find: our opinions laid waste. For reflection can house the grandest of notions and the deepest of beauties.

But, if we do in fact surrender our hearts and minds to God, reflection will show us how prideful our pens and thoughts can be—how lazy our opinions are formed. Lewis touched on this idea in his essay "The Seeing Eye." He writes:

Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully, but you’d be safer to stick to the papers. You’ll find the advertisements helpful; especially those with a sexy or snobbish appeal.

 ​In today's world, it pays to be astonishing or provocative. But a holy beauty demands more from us. It demands the rights to our pride and our weak discernment; it demands we wait. It demands we sift through our reactions and realize our point of view can be selfish and wrong.

Let us, as Christians, strive to write pieces of beauty; pieces that demand reflection to produce and pieces that demand our readers to reflect as well. So much of what gets passed around in the blogsophere demands little from us.

Provocation and astonishment might garner large followings for a time, but in the long run they wither and are easily deleted.

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His Leaking Brilliance

On Tuesday night I sat with several friends in a basement. Musicians and worship leaders all, we spent the evening in quiet prayer and song-giving-to-God. Spontaneous prayers emanated as several players picked and keyed. I sat with eyes closed and listened. 

I didn't want to leave. It was as if Jesus had walked among us, sat down and picked up a guitar just to be ​with us. I find my soul yearning for times like this more and more. I'd rather sit with friends in quiet worship than imbibe in entertainment. I'd rather walk in the woods with him, than busy myself with, well, busy-ness. 

And do not think I am describing an experience brought on by emotion. Yes emotion was part of it, God evokes our deepest emotions when we draw close to him. It is a by-product of standing in his presence. We fall down as dead like John standing before the Shining One. But what draws me to God, to the worship of God, is God himself. ​

Worship, Our Omnibus

Worship acts as a vehicle. We close our eyes and at once our imaginations transport us into the presence of God. If we're somehow able to cut through the noise of the morning, the noise of stress and the noise of our own thoughts we can, in our mind's eyes, stand before God.

If we define worship as giving worth to God, then worship can mirror the gospel in that we proclaim God's worth through music and song and we live it daily in acts of service and love. And God is the center of that worth giving.

Think about what you sing to God when you worship him in song. Think about what you do during your day to ascribe glory to him. Why these words and songs? Why these acts?

His Being, Our Center

Because God is true. Truth, as J.I. Packer puts it, “… is the quality of a person[s]”[1] before it is something that can be proved or disproved. Packer, of course, is speaking of God’s qualities. We inherit truth from God because he is truth. Augustine says, “And ‘your law is truth’ (Ps. 118:142) and truth is you (John 14:6).”[2] We receive God's moral stamp of truth when we enter the world and live as ambassadors of his truth, which is rooted in his very being. It's that shard of moral purity stuck in our souls that frustrates us so much. It wars inside of us our whole lives.

Because God is good. When we say God is good we describe his being; "in him we live and move and have our being. The early church apologist Athenagoras says, "Goodness is so much a part of God that, without it, he could not exist."[3] His goodness creates for us a moral origin—it is this perfect morality that pain and suffering shatter against. For no matter how much they rise to conquer us God overwhelms them, causing good to come from even the blackest of circumstances. This is who we worship, our good God.

Because God is beautiful. The concept of beauty vexes even the greatest minds among us. From Aristotle to Aquinas to Lewis, we all of us fall at the feet of the beautiful. Some say beauty demands form first—that we must behold something in order to know beauty exists at all. Others, like C.S. Lewis, remind us that the forms of beauty we behold point to something else, the thing behind the thing. It's not really the thing we desire at all. We see beauty, and we long for God.[4]

His Leaking Brilliance

When we close our eyes and find ourselves transported during our church gatherings to the throne room of God, this is the God we worship. He is altogether true. He is altogether good. He is altogether beautiful.

When we step from the church building and into our everyday, when we begin our day in quiet, then move to serve our friends, our spouse or our co-workers, when we sit down for coffee with one of our friends in order to work through a problem that demands forgiveness, these are our spiritual acts of worship.

This is the God we worship. He is altogether true. He is altogether good. He is altogether beautiful.

And it is this "all of him" that we encounter in the everyday, that constitutes his brilliance (glory). When we center our lives around him, his glory follows. It shapes us and with it, we shape the world. 

It's a kind of magic, this worship of ours. Give worth to him today and watch his brilliance grow and compel you toward heaven itself. ​

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[1] J.I. Packer, Knowing God. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 113.

[2] Saint Augustine, The Confessions. (Publisher: City, year), p. 61

[3] “APOLOGISTS,” New Dictionary of Theology, 38.

[4] For more on the perplexing concept of beauty see: The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis, Rainbows For a Fallen World, Cal Seerveld, The Glory of the Lord, Hans Urs von Balthasar

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Ridiculous Lunatics

​This picture was taken when me and two of my best friends quit our jobs to play music all over the country circa 1998. For me, it is a reminder of the beauty of our ridiculous faith. And yes, that is a 1963 Leprechaun. 

To be a Christian means to believe in the ridiculous. Of course one who is a Christian does not see belief like this. They view the ridiculous as normalcy and, in turn, the world views them with contempt for their sheer lunacy.

Abraham, that champion of faith, was chief of the ridiculous lunatics.

"… he stood there, the old man with his only hope! But he did not doubt, he did not look in anguish to the left or right, he did not challenge heaven with his prayers. He knew it was God the Almighty that tried him, he knew it was the hardest sacrifice that could be demanded of him; but he also knew that no sacrifice was too hard when God demanded it—and he drew his knife."

We stand daily in the light of certain ridiculousness—a paradoxical combination of certitude and unknowing. The writer of Hebrews spells it out for us.

"The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see." (Hebrews 11:1, The Message)

As one on the inside of ridiculousness, I view belief and faith in the same light. The world, however, views belief as separate from faith. Faith to the world is radical adherence to religious dogma and belief is that aspect of faith, which moves a person from onlooker to participant. The world views the holding of beliefs as helpful, but not as true.

How do you view belief? Faith? Is your Christian perspective founded upon what Kierkegaard refers to as a "remote possibility?"

Or do you live daily like Abraham, drawing your knife?

Our daily vision for work and life will either soar or flail depending on the veracity of your belief. Do you live like it is true, or merely helpful—a crutch to get you through the muck of life?

Once you and I pass over into the land of belief, action predicated on doubt is no longer an option. "Abraham had faith and did not doubt. He believed the ridiculous."

*Exerpts and ideas from this piece were drawn from Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and C.S. Lewis's essay "Man or Rabbit," which you can find in the collection God In The Dock. I'd also like to thank the mystery writer of Hebrews for writing one of my favorites books of Holy Scripture. 

We March Unaware

If you read C.S. Lewis's collection of essays God In The Dock you'll find Lewis's final interview conducted in 1963 at Magdalene College, Cambridge University with Mr. Wirt from the Billy Graham Association. These exchanges stuck out to me and I think apropos for this short piece.

Mr. Wirt: What is your opinion of the kind of writing being done within the Christian church today?

Lewis: A great deal of what is being published by writers in the religious tradition is a scandal and is actually turning people away from the church. The liberal writers who are continually accommodating and whittling down the truth of the Gospel are responsible.

Further on in the conversation Mr. Wirt asks Lewis about the use of the profane within writing as a means to make writing seem more authentic.

Mr. Wirt: Do you think filth and obscenity is necessary in order to establish a realistic atmosphere in contemporary literature?

Lewis: I do not. I treat this development as a symptom, a sign of a culture that has lost its faith. Moral collapse follows upon spiritual collapse. I look upon the immediate future with great apprehension.

Mr. Wirt follows up Lewis's response by asking if the culture has been de-Christianized. Rather than commenting on the greater culture, Lewis looks directly at the church.

Lewis: I have some definite views about the de-Christianizing of the church. I believe that there are many accommodating preachers, and too many practitioners in the church who are not believers. Jesus Christ did not say 'Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right.' The Gospel is something completely different. In fact, it is directly opposed to the world.

I find Lewis's ideas on ecclesial accommodation, spiritual collapse and feigned authenticity poignant even now, fifty years later. We live in the age of the marketing-savvy provocateur pastor, the liberated speech of the blogosphere and the land where the obscene and profane point to shame and mock.

"The 'frankness' of people sunk below shame is a very cheap frankness." 

Perhaps most surprising is our general lack of humility. Here I take Richard Fosters definition of humility as being aware of the truth of things: I am aware of the truth of others and myself and of the situation in which I find myself.

Humility demands we understand our position before God. Without him we are raging rebels bent on destroying. With him we become Christ himself—the archetype of the humble servant.

We seem to forget who we are or worse, fabricate a humility and authenticity by way of our crassness and snark, writing it off to the gods of the hip and the real. And in the midst of our forgetfulness we ramshackle shame and stand blind to the notion and importance of hiddenness.

Part of our awareness of self lies not in our pathological need to expose everything in our lives in the name of "being brave" and "getting it all out" but in the realization that shame helps us see ourselves as we truly are. It helps us stay humble.

"When men attempt to be Christians without this preliminary consciousness of sin," writes Lewis in The Problem of Pain, "the result is almost bound to be a certain resentment against God as to one who is always making impossible demands and always inexplicably angry."

Lewis does not claim to be a 'worm theologian.' On the contrary, he does not even believe in total depravity. He does not think we should be afraid of our true selves. He suggests that in order to know our true selves we must learn through the lens of shame and right position before God.

The Alter of Self promoted by our culture looks inviting. It says that shame is a dangerous game—liberate yourself and find your true voice.

But Christ says something completely different. He says, "If you lose your life, you will find it." Perhaps it is time we return to lostness. A lostness in Him and in so doing, finding the trueness of ourselves.

The Prayer Series // Cutting Your Own Path

I bumped around the corners of the kitchen, wheeling my bike through the back door and onto the deck. With my peanut butter and honey sandwich, my mini Moleskine and my riding gloves I set out on my rise-ride.

I arrived at the trailhead just before dawn. The woods, empty. Normally I'd ride in the quiet of the morning. But all week I had been listening to The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis. I continued listening to the audio book. After I plugged in my headphones, I tore off into the trees.

John, the main character in Lewis's allegory, is on a journey. He hopes to find an island far to the west. But the journey winds it's way through allegorical valleys and side-trails and rough roads and cities—all representing varying philosophical influences of the times.

I descended Hare Trail with a "Woohoo!" and some whoopdeedoos. When I started climbing again, after the creek crossing, my mind wondered.

Like John we all of us journey onward. I suppose for most of us we too seek the shining island of heaven—experiencing it now already a bit, perhaps, and still not yet. And, like John we each must confront the Spirit of the Age. We must contemplate Wisdom and make decisions: Which path will lead me to the island?

But I wonder how many of us create our own pathways—also called bushwhacking. Are bushwhacking our way through this life? What about our jobs? Do we seek to leverage our way to the top? Beat the system by manipulating it for our own success?

John's problem was he was unconvinced in his own mind. His journey was a path to belief. But as brothers and sisters in Christ, belief is behind us really, and always before us. Our actions, the paths we take, the ones we create stretch out ever before us.

I flew down Fly Squirrel and looped back to White Tail Loop. I crossed the big stream and stood by the waterfall for a few moments. I Am the Way. The verse jumps out at me often. Yes, Christ is the way to salvation, to the island, but what does that imply regarding my business ethics? My family ethics? My political ethics?

As I loaded my bike on my Subaru my thoughts fluttered to prayer …

Jesus, help me on the trail. Strengthen me over the logs and obstacles and through the rivers and all the hard junk. Keep me on your path and forgive my bushwhacking ways.

Onward! 

Introducing // The Pipe Series

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Hello Friends, 

Today I'd like to invite you to step into, well, a wardrobe of goodness. Many of you receive The Prayer Series each Friday(ish), and for that I thank you and pray that it continues to encourage you.

Today, I'm adding a new series: The Pipe Series. 

The Pipe Series will deal with all things C.S. Lewis. So many of us love his writings, are intrigued by his theology and admire is honest original mind.

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The Pipe Series will be bi-monthly, and will post on Wednesdays. It'll contain random facts, interesting quotes and maybe even a bit of commentary or myth busting. 

So get out your pipes and sign up for The Pipe Series today! Look for the first one next Wednesday. 

SIGN UP FOR THE PIPE SERIES BELOW

The Pipe Series // Imagination Man

Editor's Note
Greetings, and welcome to The Pipe Series. Pack your pipe and settle in for a bi-monthly endeavor into the world of one of Christianity's most beloved storytellers, hack-theologians, apologists and all around jocund fellows: C.S. Lewis.

Expect most posts to center on a theme, offer an off-the-beaten-path quote and some random facts that don't surface in the popular feed. I'm not quite sure Professor Lewis would approve of such an email. He'd probably dismiss the mere notion that we'd waste our time climbing up and down his words. Or, perhaps he'd get a kick out of it. Either way, let's get on with it.

Imagination Man

Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898. He was Irish. Yes, Irish. In fact, he loved Ireland—Northern Ireland to be more precise and County Down was his favorite. He and Joy Davidman spent their honeymoon in Ireland in 1958.

Though he was, no doubt, born with a unique imagination, it was fueled by a life of books. When he was seven years old his family moved to a new home on the edge of Belfast, in "Leaboro." Piles and piles of books filled this new house and Lewis was granted free reign to read what he liked. Like any child with open space, books and free time, Lewis' imagination grew in the halls of his youth.*

Imagination doesn't follow a rigid set of laws. It operates according to the unique make-up of each person. And, not all imaginations are equal. Our environments affect how our imaginations fire. Alister McGrath suggests the emerald green of County Down and other parts of Northern Ireland shaped the wonderment of Lewis' imagination.

Makes me wonder how he wrote his stories?

"With me the process is much like bird-watching than like either talking or building. I see pictures. Some of the pictures have a common flavour, almost a common smell, which groups them together. Keep quiet and watch and they will begin joining themselves up. If you were very lucky (I have never been so lucky as all that) a whole group might join themselves so consistently that there you had a complete story; without doing anything yourself. But more often (in my experience always) there are gaps. Then at last you have to do some deliberate inventing …"**

Lewis paid little heed, from what I can tell, to what people thought of his stories. First reviews of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe did not offer praise. And yet the floodgates opened the next two years as Lewis hammered out the series.

Lewis encourages me to seek originality; to stay away from what's popular and to cling to what's waiting to erupt out of my imagination. Today, it's all about audience awareness and psychographics and market. But what directs the market? That one book or writer brave enough to "keep quiet and watch" and follow their imagination.

Nuggets

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was written in just two months.

The Silver Chair was written in about three months.

Quote

"Writing is like a 'lust' or like scratching when you itch." —God In The Dock

Question

Which Lewis book was his least favorite to write?

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Youn Man Follow Prt.2 // An Interview with Eric Owyoung

Eric Owyoung is a great example of a person chasing that God-echo within. You know, they sense God’s desire for their lives and they wake up each morning, have a cup of coffee and work. Hard. The life of a musician is often viewed through rose-colored lenses. But, like anything worth doing in this life, there’s a rigor to it.

Eric’s band Future of Forestry has made a name for itself since 2006, with it’s nine studio recordings (original and collections) and Christmas DVD, Solstice. Eric has garnered a reputation for creating awe-inspiring music with a live concert experience that is beautiful and almost otherworldly.

I spoke with Eric in the early morning hours to discuss the rigor of doing the work that you love, the beauty that comes from pain, and how the church can get behind its artists. In Part II of my interview Eric talks about the reality and rigor of the musician's life and our "treeless" culture. 

Tim: Describe your “everyday” and the inspiration that you receive from it. How we can find beauty in the everyday?

Eric: My everyday is filled with the mundane, sitting at a computer answering emails. It’s about doing the most boring, non-musician things anyone would ever have to do. But that’s real life. I think if you’re looking for those “awe” moments constantly and that’s the only thing that’s going to fulfill you, you’re going to be very unfulfilled.

The older I get the more I realize the beauty of life is found in those mundane things, such as being around the people you love and having a family. I would say those moments of beauty, they are seldom those “awe” moments, but when I do have them, whether it’s listening to someone else’s music or watching a movie or just realizing something beautiful or seeing a sunset, I realize how blessed I am to be alive and to have the life that I have.

It’s that one moment that takes all of the crap that happened that day and washes it all away and puts value and meaning into my life. So even though my day may be filled with the mundane, those very, very short moments tend to overpower the length and hours of my mundaneness.

Tim: Let me tell you what I hear you saying. It’s a beautiful thing, I think. You just finished telling me about the shadow part of life and coming out of it in the twilight and then growing into life. Then you explained the misconceptions about the artistic life. I always tell people there’s a rigor to the writing life and I know there’s a rigor to the musician’s life as well. You said it perfectly; there aren’t these constant “awe” moments. It’s the little moments.

What I heard in your thought-thread here is you went from this place of pain and into realizing who you were as just a fragile human in light of who God is. And then you became content, filled with gratitude for where you are in life. And now, when you talk about beauty and about what you do, you’re overwhelmed with the awe of gratitude and contentment and the Lord. Even that little journey you’ve talked through looks beautiful to me.

Eric: You finished exactly my feeling and my story. You filled in the blanks and you’re exactly right.

Tim: What do you think of our culture—we’re not a contented culture, we tend to be always wanting more and more. And yet, people are having “awe” moments at your shows, so you must give them a breathing space to say, “Man, God is great.”

Eric: Don’t get me started on the generation thing—it’s very sad to me where we’ve come with all of our iPhones and computers and what our lives look like. When we talk about shows—people won’t go to shows now, which is very sad, too, because it’s a lot harder to get people to go to concerts. Why would they do that when they can just click on a YouTube video by themselves for free?

It’s interesting because I picked the name Future of Forestry from a C.S. Lewis poem called “The Future of Forestry.” The concept of that poem is about a treeless world that exists because all of the trees have been cut down. Lewis is looking at our lives as being treeless and wondering what our concept of beauty will be if we don’t have “trees” in our lives. He was using the idea of trees metaphorically.

I think he was being literal in some sense, but I think for the most part he was talking about the state of our minds and souls. He had no idea what things would be like or how bad it would be.

I hardly have anybody I can hang out with that isn’t going to pull out their iPhone while we’re talking and be doing something on Facebook. Some of my friends, especially the younger ones, don’t get it. They wonder why I don’t care about Facebook and how can I know stuff if I’m not on it. I say, “Why would I do that? You’re right here. I don’t want to talk to anybody else, I want to talk to you.”

Anyway, the meaning of the band was really rooted in that. I don’t think I knew how relevant that subject would be, but it is. I struggle with it too. I can be at the table and suddenly feel the urgency to pull out my iPhone, and I don’t even know why. And then I think, What should I do on my iPhone right now? I don’t even know what I’m doing with it.

I do believe that we feel connected through that and it is a connection. A lot of the guys I tour with keep up with each other that way and they know what’s going on. In some ways, that’s cool because we know what’s going on in that person’s life, but when it comes down to it they don’t really know what’s going on because you don’t ever post what’s really going on in your life on your Facebook page.

If you do, you’re an idiot. You don’t want to give all your secrets away and tell people all the real things you’re dealing with. So it’s been a struggle of mine to figure out what to do with my life in this day and age, and what to do with other people who are feeling the same way about technology.

Tim: I read an interview where you mentioned that you work “quick and fast and intense,” talk about that. Why do you think that’s good? And then talk about your process.

Eric: The reason why I think that creativity comes from working fast is looking at the opposite of that would be doing something painstakingly long and slow. For example, if I sit down and think I have to make something absolutely beautiful and I have ten years to do it, I’m just going to sit there and beat my head over concrete to try to make something beautiful because I’m trying too hard and not letting it be an outflow of something.

I think a lot of it has to do with expectations.

When we feel a high level of expectation on ourselves and the pressure of that, we unfortunately don’t allow it to be us anymore, because we tend to not see ourselves as containing that kind of “perfection.”

So when someone says, “Just make some music, it doesn’t even have to sound good,” you start making all this music and you listen to it later and it sounds pretty cool. But if it has to be perfect, it warps. We don’t see ourselves as perfect and flawless, and so when we try to do something like that we are actually attempting to make something that is outside of who we are as people.

When I sit down and just throw some stuff out there, whatever sticks sticks, whatever doesn’t I just throw away. With that attitude, I just speed through creating. Instead of thinking here’s my one idea for a chorus, I’ll write 20 choruses within just a few minutes.

I’ll hit record and sing a chorus, throw it out, try another one. I just keep doing that and later I’ll think, These three are good, or They all stink, and I’ll just try again tomorrow. With that attitude, it relieves me of the pressure.

Tim: Do you ever get caught over-editing yourself?

Eric: Oh yeah, and that’s the problem. The more I grow in music, the less I get stuck in that process. I used to record something, spending hours on this one tiny part. I’ve tried to mature as much as I can and step back from it as much as possible.

“The Future of Forestry”
by C.S. Lewis (first published in 1938 under the pseudonym Nat Whilk)

How will the legend of the age of trees
Feel, when the last tree falls in England?
When the concrete spreads and the town conquers
The country’s heart; when contraceptive
Tarmac’s laid where farm has faded,
Tramline flows where slept a hamlet,
And shop-fronts, blazing without a stop from
Dover to Wrath, have glazed us over?
Simplest tales will then bewilder
The questioning children, “What was a chestnut?
Say what it means to climb a Beanstalk,
Tell me, grandfather, what an elm is.
What was Autumn? They never taught us.”
Then, told by teachers how once from mould
Came growing creatures of lower nature
Able to live and die, though neither
Beast nor man, and around them wreathing
Excellent clothing, breathing sunlight –
Half understanding, their ill-acquainted
Fancy will tint their wonder-paintings
Trees as men walking, wood-romances
Of goblins stalking in silky green,
Of milk-sheen froth upon the lace of hawthorn’s

***

This interview will be printed and distributed in its entirety at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta next week in the Review of Leadership Thought & Practice, of which I am the editor. All content here used by permission.

If you haven't purchased Future of Forestry's latest release Young Man Follow, do so here.

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