To have discovered Robert Penn Warren this late in life is like seeing a glacier for the first time at 40 years old. Warren has to rank among the top five American fiction writers of all time, and I haven't even read any of his poetry yet. Three pulitzer's, the national book award, the national medal for literature and America's first poet laureate. How come no one talks about this author??? Anyway, I just saw a trailer for the movie "All The King's Men". Do yourself a favor and read the book before you see the movie.

"'He is a romantic, and he has a picture of the world in his head, and when the world doesn't conform in any respect to the picture, he wants to throw the world away. Even if it means throwing the baby out with the bath. 'Which,' I added, 'it always does mean.'"

-----Robert Penn Warren, "All The King's Men"

"[Radical Postmodernists] insist that there is no 'text' external to the interpretive traditions and practices of particular reading communities.. . .this position--if rigorously and consistently articulated--is true neither to the actual function of Scripture in the theological discourse of classic Christianity nor to the general human conviction that texts have determinate ranges of meaning. It is, of course, true that all interpreters are embedded in cultural contexts and traditions, but to acknowledge that is very different from saying that there is no text or that the text itself has no power to generate or constrain interpretations. Historically the church has looked to Scripture as a word extra nos, a voice that can correct or even challenge tradition; such a view of Scripture was foundational to the Reformation. One may, of course, repudiate this construal of Scripture's role in the church, but not without far reaching theological consequences. At the same time, those who have immersed themselves deeply in Scripture repeatedly bear witness to the experience of hearing the text say things that they did not know or expect, things not borne to them in the ecclesiastical traditions in which they were raised, things that they perhaps did not want to hear. How are such experiences to be explained? Self-deception? The revelatory power of the Word of God? Or--more modestly--the commonsense acknowledgement that texts do have determinate ranges of semantic possibility and that a text's world of signification can be meaningfully distinguished from the tradition's construal of it?"

-----Richard B. Hays, "The Moral Vision of the New Testament"

"What should a Jewish Christian write on if not the Law? But notice that the choice of subject [the ten commandments] means no relapse into mere Judaism, not that need alarm the most Pauline of us. The author knows quite as well as any of us that Mr. Legality will never bring us to the Celestial City and had got over the fallacies of Moralism fairly early in life. She had good opportunities for studying it at close quarters. She knows that only love can fulfil the Law. That, I think, is the answer to a criticism which someone is sure to make of this book; that in most of its chapters we have much more about diagnosis than about cure. In reality , of course, a 'cure' in the sense of some recipe added at the end of each chapter--some 'law to be a fence about the Law' and inveitably breeding more Law--is not really being offered at all. The author is not a quack with a nostrum. She can only point, as in her concluding chapter she does point, to the true Cure; a person, not a set of instructions. Pending that, she is no more inhibited than her ancestors about diagnosis; one might frankly say, about denunciation. A Jeremiad? But should we never read Jeremiads? If it comes to that, should we never read Jeremiah himself? The Canon judges otherwise."

-----C.S. Lewis, from his introduction to "Smoke on the Mountain" by Joy Davidman, his then friend, and sometime later wife.

"The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it, would save him. There's the cold in your stomach, but you open the envelope, you have to open the envelope, for the end of man is to know."

-----Robert Penn Warren, excerpt from "All The King's Men"

"Viewing people from the perspective of who God is making them into in Christ transforms our entire attitude. And focusing on our interdependence as the body of Christ transforms our commitment. Scripture doesn't envision Christians apart from a local church, nor the local body apart from the entire church."

-----Notes on 1 Corinthians 1:4-9, from the Faith in Action Study Bible (World Vision)


"I don't want God to accept me the way I am. I want God to transform me, to make me perfect. Of course, the church rightly says to people, 'We want you to know the joy of the life of what it means to worship God.' But you're going to need a lot of transformation to be part of this kind of community because your life cannot remain the same when you become a member of the church of Jesus Christ. All your desires and loyalties must be directed to the worship of God, and that means, for example, you're not going to be a good American anymore. You're not going to believe that church and flag go easily together. And it may well change your friendships. You may not be able to be friends with some because their way of life is corrupting.

I don't believe in the 'you are accepted' ideology. It is a way of our escaping the necessity of judgment on ourselves and a way to ensure we will have shallow souls. I'm not for accepting people the way they are. As Mark Twain observed, 'About the worst advice you can give anyone is to be themselves.'"

-----Stanley Hauerwas

"For Leigh Fermor, literature is not something simply to conjure with, still less something to theorize about; it is both incantatory music and a body of accumulated wisdom, and one can live by its ordinances, or on its wealth of suggestion, much as a minister lives by the Scriptures."

-----Anthony Lane, from the New Yorker. May 22, 2006: "An Englishman Abroad: Patrick Leigh Fermor's journey through the twentieth century."

"Quite often [he] would not speak at all, not out of any hostility but simply because the capacity for random conversation seemed to him less a grace than a certain expression of a weak mind. . ."

-----Joan Didion, "Run River"

Sorry for the lack of posts. I just got married and went to Tahiti. Here are a couple pics.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose."

Tom Fox

“Why is God landing in this enemy occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying: He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely….God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on the stage the play is over.”

-----C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity”

"All your dissatisfaction with the Church seems to me to come from an incomplete understanding of sin. What you seem actually to demand is that the Church put the kingdom of heaven on earth right here now, that the Holy Ghost be translated at once into all flesh. The Holy Spirit rarely shows Himself on the surface of anything. You are asking that man return at once to the state God created him in, you are leaving out the terrible radical human pride that causes death. Christ was crucified on earth and the Church crucified in time. . . The Church is founded on Peter who denied Christ three times and who couldn't walk on the water by himself. You are expecting his successors to walk on the water. All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. Priests resist it as well as others. To have the Church be what you want it to be would require the continuous miraculous meddling of God in human affairs."

-----Flannery O'Connor, from a letter to a fan who was complaining about the church

"If we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy...We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so."

-----C.S. Lewis, from "The Weight of Glory"

Notes on Isaiah 58 and the book of Micah from the Spiritual Formation Bible:

Isaiah 58:5-7
the fast that I choose...Here the prophetic tradition advocates an understanding of religion that is focused primarily on neighbor love. A fast is a religious discipline, but the kind of "fast"--religious discipline--God would like to see has to do with the breaking of oppression and with concern for the suffering of those who lack food, clothing, and shelter. Indeed, the last phrase of verse 7, in Hebrew, goes beyond calling the poor and the homeless "your own kin," as in English, to calling them "your own flesh." That is, the ones addressed by the poetry must stand in profound solidarity with the needy. This imagined scenario of true religion (echoed in James 1:27) is contrasted by the preceding verses (vv 1-4), in which a phony kind of religion is punctilious about liturgical and pious practices, but at the same time is economically exploitive of workers who work for low pay and are gouged by high interest charges. Thus the negative critique of verses 1-4 and the positive alternative of verses 5-7 articulate a profound either/or that is at the heart of prophetic understandings of the covenantal faith. It is clear that this either/or is still on the table for men and women of faith in the Christian tradition, for there is a great temptation to make religion a nice, sweet thing that is detached from economic reality. The sentiment of this poem would find that scandalous and unacceptable.

Isaiah 58:9
the Lord will answer. ...The consequence of true religion as it is detailed in verses 5-7 is the immediate attentiveness and presence of God. The implication of verses 5-9, taken all together, is that neighbor love is a precondition of the attentiveness of God, who will hear prayers and intervene according to the practice of the faithful.


Micah "Fundamentals of a Redeemed Life"
Against the backdrop of endemic evil, Micah outlines the essentials of a righteous life. The Lord is a God of Mercy (7:18), compassion (7:19), and faithfulness (7:20). On his side, God forgives sins (7:18-19); redeems from spiritual bondage (4:10; 6:4); bestows righteousness, or right standing with Himself (7:9); and blesses with peace (5:5). On the human side, one must exercise continual faith (7:7-9), remember God's mighty deeds (6:5), devote oneself to prayer (7:7), and bless others as the dew graces the grass (5:7). Perfecting holiness and godliness is the stuff of spiritual formation.

"For their part, God's people must uphold the rights of the poor and downtrodden in society, embody good-heartedness and mercy in relations to others, and live in close communion with God. Christian spiritual formation ought not and, indeed, cannot be divorced from compassionate social engagement."

Bono gave a prophetic speech at the annual prayer breakfast in Washington yesterday. It's nice to hear someone speaking truth to power.

Find the full text here: Bono's Speech

"All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see something that isn't even visible."

-----Norman Maclean, from "A River Runs Through It"

[How do you stay calm about events in Washington?] "I don't. I go out and kick trees. I don't just hug them, I kick them."

-----Former Senator Gary Hart when asked about the current administration in the NYT Magazine

The best resolution I've read so far:

-Live my own life. For every child Angelina Jolie adopts, I'll donate a hundred dollars to the Red Cross. For every celebrity marriage that I read is dissolved or annulled, I'll take my wife out to dinner. For every peek I take at People or Us Weekly, I’ll reread Ecclesiastes.

-----This one came from Relevant Magazine

"The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven."

-----Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"

"Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side!? If it is not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you. Do not mislead me, do not be glad that I have got lost, do not shout out joyfully: 'Look at him! He said he was going home, but there he is crawling into a bog!' No, do not gloat, but give me your help and support."

-----Leo Tolstoy, from a personal letter.

"I liked Balzac a lot, read 'luck and leather', and 'le cousin pons'. Balzac was pretty funny. His philosophy is plain and simple, says basically that pure materialism is a recipe for madness. The only true knowledge for Balzac seems to be in superstition. Everything is subject to analysis. Horde your energy. That's the secret of life. You can learn a lot from Mr. B. It's funny to have him as a companion. He wears a monk's robe and drinks endless cups of coffee. Too much sleep clogs up his mind. One of his teeth falls out, and he says, 'What does this mean?' He questions everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders if fire is a good sign. Balzac is hilarious."

-----Bob Dylan, from "Chronicles Vol. 1"