Disaster and Delight

            Perhaps ordering one’s day according to the criterion, “What’s the next disaster I have to prevent?” is not the most constructive approach to life.  It does, however, loom large in my own choice of activity.

            Getting out of bed prevents being fired for not showing up.  One’s morning ablutions prevent being fired (or worse, rejected) for having a disgusting appearance.  Picking up groceries prevents death by starvation, at least for now.  Having a job at all prevents being thrown out onto the street, at least until my credit cards completely max out:  when that happens, who knows?

            Of the myriad of other looming, but less imminent, disasters swirling about, I occasionally grab one and mitigate it while it chews on my soul.  A quick piece of calligraphy here, playing the ‘cello there, writing a document, translating some German—each activity quiets another accusing voice somewhere in the choir, while still letting me know it wasn’t enough, I didn’t finish, the work really wasn’t great, and there’s always more.

            But to leave the description there paints a false picture.  Every day is full of delights straight from God’s hand to my heart. 

            A friend referred on Facebook to an article posted by Fuller Seminary that spoke of Advent as a time of lament and longing for the not-yet second coming of Christ to set all this crooked world straight.  This opened up for me a whole new aspect in which to celebrate Advent, namely, by joining God in lamenting the world’s fallenness, my fallenness, and knowing that I’m not alone in it.  A gift of liverwurst and rye from a friend, and having an abundance of tea to drink with it, bring a foretaste of eternal joy and peace.  Clever jokes on “The Simpsons” make me laugh.

            Pursuing delight in the necessities of life changes them.  They, also, are God’s gifts, after all.  And in his hand is glorious delight forever.

Book Review

What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Rob Bell (New York: 2013, Harper One)

            Rob Bell continues to write about God more like a journalist for National Geographic reporting on his travels to an exotic and seldom-explored land than like a philosophical academic piecing together an exposition of difficult but important concepts.  Readers expecting a theology of boundaries and rigid structures will be disappointed or annoyed.  Readers who are open to seeing Bell’s portrait of a dear friend, painted in broad strokes, will find here a record of love and joy.  This is a faithful and true record of walking with God rather than dissecting him.

            To read this book as objective theology can lead to at least two errors:  rejecting it as a sloppy amalgam of sentimental heresies or accepting it as a rejection of careful orthodoxy.

            Bell’s service to academic theology here is at least twofold:  1) he puts the reader back into the position of walking with God rather than examining him under a microscope; and 2) he describes dynamics of God’s action that more academic theologies often ignore.  Indeed, the central thesis of the book asserts and expounds this gap in the usual treatments of God’s character.  That God is with us, for us, and ahead of us (the theses of the three central chapters) forms the basis of his case that many both inside and outside the church have badly misunderstood God.

            His target is not standard orthodox Christian theology, but the distorted impressions of it that non-Christians or burned-out Christians often have.  One could complain that he is attacking a straw man, but he gives us reason to believe that this particular straw man is very powerful in our culture.

            Read Rob Bell’s work for what it is, not for what it isn’t.  Listen to what he intends to do, imperfect as it is, for he has a heart for God and for God’s people.