Solemnibus

Why is it that eastern-style religion is so attractive to those whose first faith is me-first capitalism?

It’s been something of a relief not to blog for a while. The original reason was that work got too busy.  (more…)

I’m starting to understand why and how young people are so impatient. Maybe this means I’m getting old.

Good things have components laid over years and decades. Only patience and perseverance in doing right builds them.

Young people expect that good things come about with the speed of their own self-awareness. And that their self-awareness exhausts what should be known. On both counts they’re wrong.

On both counts I’ve been wrong.

Absorbing foolishness is one of the best gifts a friend can give another.

This gift must be crafted from both humility and wisdom. Humility is self-aware before God, and therefore judges with the appropriate measure. Wisdom knows the safety and grace of God’s hand, and therefore leaves friends to rest there. With, perhaps, a wryly amused chuckle.

I thank God for the humility and wisdom of my friends.

Someone asked me last night – if I like the girl who strides out ahead of the pedestrian crowd, where am I on that intersection?

Good question, I thought.

For supposedly rational creatures, it’s strange how often we are inspired more by the elegance and beauty of a thing than its utility.

But we are God’s creatures.

[last posted: Feb 18, 2005]

There is a hint in the account of King David’s adultery that he began the process long before he actually slept with Bathsheba. In spring, when other kings were off to war (as were his own armies), this king was not. Why not? The text doesn’t say; perhaps it was ‘read in’ that he fancied a certain neighbour.

And then – surprise! When Bathsheba was taking her bath, just what was David doing up on his own roof? Getting an eyeful. Certainly not turning away.

Your mother was teaching you something very important when she said, in response to your being hurt, “well, if you’d been behaving, that wouldn’t have happened”. Your mother was a wise prophet.

David was definitely not behaving. Well before Bathsheba was between his sheets, he’d set up the situation, step by step. There’s a lesson here. Big events, like sleeping with someone else’s wife, do not come along out of the blue, all big and shockingly bold, easily resisted on that account. No, we set them up until the final act is just one more tiny and o-so-natural step.

It is possible to imitate David in the Wellington of 2005. It is possible to be a fool. Thankfully, though, not all misbehaviour leads where it might. A mother’s love sometimes judges it better to turn the situation away from your hurt, rather that letting you learn the hard way. But a wise son would know what could have happened.

(First published on my old blog, Jan 2004)

In other news, I have resolved to clean up my language.

It’s not as if I think there’s a cosmic list of ‘Disapproved Words’. But there are markers of self-control. And one marker which reflects on the way I respond to frustration is my use of (and it sounds kind of quaint, doesn’t it) ’swear words’.

I’ve said before that I’d like to be an old man of a particular sort of character. Graciousness in speech will reflect that, and discipline in speaking will shape it.

So, here’s to controlling the tounge.

(I commend James’ thoughts and Solomon’s reflections for your consideration)

It’s amazing what you learn from dealing with different people.

We all have a tendency to blameshift. Like, when I’m misunderstood, it’s Hans’ fault. Every time.

However, when someone continually avoids responsibility (even when matters really aren’t their fault), they quickly appear useless.

“I had nothing to do with that (so don’t blame me)” means “I had/have no power.” To which the response is, “Well, get me someone who does, then.”

To accept responsibility is to accept the attribution of power. And if you solve the problem, you’ve become a trustworthy and valuable person.

Isn’t it interesting! We live in a broken world, in which failure of one sort or another is everywhere. This is a Christian truth. To flee from that, as if one shouldn’t be tainted with it, is actually to diminish oneself in the eyes of others.

Reality always rebukes the fool.

never pleasant at the time, but baptism by fire is one of the few ways to grow real fast.

Just now I had my first moment of doubt. Not “will it work” doubt, but “should I care” doubt. Visionary doubt.

Why? Because I noticed that Matthew Bartlett is Daniel Silliman’s top link in the philosophy/theology section.

“Ha!” you’re all thinking, “what a twit you are Aaron.” (probably with justice).

But let me explain. My dream is to build a business. Not just a small wee thing, but something that makes a difference – in my life, the life of my friends, and maybe even (yes, this is part of it) the life of many people I don’t even know yet.

My dream is also to live Christianly. I am captured by the Christian faith-story, by history, by…well, ultimately by the Spirit. And what do I want to do with this? Why, make a difference, of course!

I’m a talker; I’m a thinker. (It seems like “I’m a lover” should fit there, but alas.) I dream dreams of enterprise, and try to weld it from the material of words (and stubborness) into solid reality. I dream dreams of Christ and the world made anew, and I try to weld it into solid reality. From words. Each is a poor attempt; but it’s a poor attempt that I make, and where so many don’t even try, even a poor attempt is good.

Matthew has poured countless hours into dreaming of Christ in a way that I have not. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s read and listened to mutitudes of Christian thinkers and speakers – all the while trying, I suppose, to get to grips with how Christ & following him really makes a difference to us and our world. He now has a grasp of the literature and thoughts of modern Christianity (and of much besides) that leaves me for dead.

And the thing is that he’s able to pull out truly insightful and inspiring things from those efforts. When he puts in the time, he’s articulate and penetrating in a way that I struggle to be.

So here I was, on Dan Silliman’s blog, and Matt’s name is right there. Top link! Making a difference. Silliman obviously appreciates Matthew – and I appreciate Silliman. And I thought,

“damn, son, you’ve focused on the wrong thing. What’s all this grubbing for money about?”

Some people who provide product or service do so with a good attitude and are genuinely interested in serving needs. When they make a mistake or overlook something, their response is to remedy it. And their disposition is one of helpfulness.

Others don’t care. Worse, some actually wish they were elsewhere, doing something else. They are the ones who make the client feel as if everything is an imposition; who make getting what you want seem like extracting blood from stones. They make you feel stupid and burdensome.

Manliness is learning to recognise these two types of situation, and to deal with them appropriately.

I have mislaid my copy of Lord of the Rings, but Tolkien’s description of Gollum’s ruin, told by Gandalf, came to mind today. After being driven from his family for murder and other shameful acts, Gollum begins looking always downward, peering into deep and dark places, exploring the roots of things. He goes underground, and eventually comes to hate and to be hurt by the sun – even the moon is unpleasant to him.

That process of acclimatisation to darkness is also what Paul describes, in reverse:

At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

Useful, I think.

Being a man is dealing with the world decisively: facing and taking tough decisions.

Being a man is being willing to stand on one’s own feet: to back yourself.

Being a man is striving. To reach, and stretch, and reach again.

Sometimes it’s hard to have the wisdom (and humilty?) to grasp progress that doesn’t come the way I expect. I get what I want, but not in the way I wanted it.

Someone might grant me room to go in a particular direction, for instance, but not because they’re committed to it also. I too easily get annoyed at that lack of perfection.

I might be reduced to an interim compromise that (just barely) retains a minimum of what I want, but the overall agreement is still unmade. I too easily get frustrated at that lack of completion.

I’m a big-vision guy, someone who goes for the full package all at once. And I want others to be big-vision folk too, to see it as I do, to be enthusiastic for the full dream so that we can march forward in confidenence and conviction.

It’s a real discipline for me to work with half measures and bitsy achievements – to keep going for the long haul on the fuel of the dream, trying to cajole everything and everyone into place.

And the most recalcitrant, immovable, stubborn obstacle is me. I may be able to dream, but I am hardly one. And so it is mostly my own imperfections and incompleteness that, when overcome in small and tiny steps, I have to learn to be thankful for.

Winning wars means finding humility in the progress God grants.

At the moment I am finding the process of living life much more interesting than blogging.

Mainly, I am totally stimulated and excited with the progress of my company, which is finally (and without the large revenue) in the sort of state that I imagined it would be by Christmas 2000. Foolish me!

Realising dreams is, like, totally awwwwesome, man. Yeah.

Plus, I am disheartened with the project of reformed theology, which I have to admit is normally a big driver. I recently read Philip Benedict’s Christ’s Church Purely Reformed: A social history of Calvinism (Yale University Press, 2002), and I’m dismayed at the extent to which socio-political realities seemed to drive the creation of particular, recognisably ‘Reformed’ positions – ones that we still tend to hold today as markers of orthodoxy (a non-hierarchical session-and-synod system, for instance).

While remaining impressed at the first generation of Reformers (although Luther was pretty obnoxious toward his brethren) I’m worried that the subsequent generations narrowed and hardened their positions, in the process losing the mutual respect and love that marked their predecesssors. In addition, they seem to have turned to a form of neo-scolasticism in order to create a coherant theological ’system’ that could be used to defeat Rome by logic. Theology became more like algebra than the story of history. And of course, any ‘wrong variable’ anywhere in the system can create a whole new system once it’s worked out consistently, and so every wee tiny point became crucial to maintaining ‘the Truth’.

Today, we’re left with a church hopelessly divided, and terribly weakened by the loss of fellowship and unity in Christ’s body. Though having a legitimate rebuke to offer Rome, the reformation ended by unecessarily blowing apart divisions that should have remained subject to the requirements of mutual love, familial identity and an eye to God’s own judgment. Unfortunately, I think the wrong matters became touchstones of orthodoxy.

This is not to say that blogging and theology will not reclaim a place.