Ill at ease, or, a longish update in lieu of many shorter ones.

My lack of posts on here is embarrassing! I feel so ashamed, redesigning this space and then not giving it any new material. What a tease. In my defense, I've been incredibly busy the past five weeks-- the first two, I had my fiance and my family come visit me in England, then shortly thereafter I went to Edinburgh for five days, came back to York with one day to wash clothes and repack, and then headed off for Dublin. Travels, travels.

I had a great time-- esp. in Edinburgh (beautiful, magical city!)-- and got to do some pretty amazing things. I've been reading a lot, thinking a lot, getting inspired a lot. Looking forward to seeing where that takes me in the upcoming weeks.

I've set a new goal for myself during my remaining time in England: I'm going to write a novel. Yes, I know what you're thinking... a little ambitious, probably destined for failure, what the heck is he doing. But! I did write a novel in high school, and once I got into a good rhythm it wasn't too difficult. I've grown significantly since then, and my writing has progressed and matured so much that I almost want to write one out of sheer curiosity and comparison. It won't be anything too strenuous-- it's actually an adaptation of sorts, so the outline of the material is already there for me. I just have to flesh it out and get to writing. I'm also, as with my first novel, aiming this one at a middle-grade, YA demographic, so I don't have the pressure of creating the next masterpiece or anything. In fact, my setting this goal is mostly for my own benefit. It's been too long since I last exercised those creative writing muscles, and my brain grows weak as I let them wither.

I was inspired to set this goal while in Edinburgh, drinking a Bailey's and coffee in The Elephant House, the cafe where JK Rowling scrawled bits of her first few Harry Potter books. Dublin urged me my newly-set goal while I toured the literary sites and read through Joyce's Dubliners in St. Stephen's Green.

Joyce wrote Dubliners when he was about my age. I feel like I can at least spit out the first draft of a children's book in a few months. Get back to my roots.

Anyway, as I said above, I've also been reading a lot. Much of my reading material has come in the way of theological and religious texts, doing work not only on my own possible vocation, but also in a more obtuse way researching for FLP.

About a month ago, I said I wasn't going to comment more than once on the whole "Rob Bell Love Wins" explosion. But now that the book is actually out, and I've actually had a chance to take a look inside it, I figured I'd make just one more statement-- I'll tell you what I hate most about it.

No, it's not the message; I actually think Love Wins counts as Bell's least compelling book  for a number of reasons (and I'm not just saying that to be provocative), and I believe that if it hadn't caused such an uproar before its release, it would have passed rather quietly from the Christian literary scene.  Velvet Elvis and Sex God challenged my thinking and were both engaging and well-written. Love Wins, on the other hand, didn't say anything that Tim Keller hadn't already said much more succinctly in his book The Reason for God.

But the fact that it didn't tell me anything new is not what I disliked about Love Wins, as Bell himself admits that he's not setting out to blaze any new trails with it. What irked me most was the style of it-- everything from the typeface to the typeset. It was written like a compilation of tweets in a godawful Arial/Helvetica mess. I really hope this isn't HarperOne's idea of what kind of books my generation will read. If so, I'm embarrassed and irritated.

Velvet Elvis and Sex God were printed in a similar way, but at least in those books there were actual paragraphs (though I don't recall any indentation), and it seemed, at least to me, more fitting with the material, especially of Sex God, which read like a bit of a theological guidebook or something. I was impressed in Love Wins when I found a paragraph that extended more than three or four lines of text. With a work that attempts to introduce deep theological speculation, I would expect less blurbs and more in-depth explication. The tweet-style of it made his statements and thoughts feel disjointed from one another.

And, to top it off, there's an embarrassing typo in the last sentence of the book ("loves wins"?). The last sentence! The one where, you know, you need as much power as you can get, where you are leaving the reader, where your words have ended and their thinking begins. And there's a typo. Ouch.

I don't agree with everything Bell says in Love Wins, but I do commend him for getting this discussion going again, even if it didn't really turn out to be fruitful and was instead your standard shouting match, let's-see-who-can-yell-loudest ideological melee. And I do love Rob Bell, and look forward to what he does next. I just think that Love Wins, with all of it's hype, came across as a bit disappointing.

I promise to keep this updated more often. I'll use it as a way to keep myself accountable, especially in my writing goals. It can serve as warm up in the morning before I dive in to my more pressing projects. So, even if it's just a little few-sentence explanation of what I've been doing, I'll say something here in this space.

Hold me to it.

Serious concerns, our future.

"Trying to place the situation on the INES scale is premature, said David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University.

'I've been asked to put a number on it a few times and I've resisted,' he said.

Cochran said his concerns transcend nuclear power. 'We've watched Exxon Valdez, the BP oil spill, numerous coal mining accidents, Chernobyl, TMI, now Fukushima, slag ponds, TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) reactors giving way. You have got to ask yourself, how many wake-up calls do you need before you get serious about building a safe, renewable-energy economy?'"

 (Taken from this article.)

Redecorating.

So I finally got around to changing the motif around here. I'm not sure this is the way things are going to stay, as I'm not completely satisfied with it, but it is at least a change-- a change that, I think, better reflects where I am now, not where I was three years ago when I opened this Blogger account. I enjoyed the brooding grays and blacks of my previous design, cerebral and stark. But all that is gone now.

Instead of the Chicago skyline, we now have a whimsical painting I found in the Ashmolean during my trip to Oxford. It better captures how I live now; freer, happier, the world opened up before me with the starry sky above. Sure, it is in some ways a return to the sometimes flowery self-indulgence that marked my adolescent blogs years ago. It's perhaps less "grown-up" than my monochrome skyline and simple, streamlined design. And yet, I find a symbolic significance to the playful painting and the muted greens and creams of this blog's newest iteration.

Sometime near the end of my high school career, I made a WordPress account with the intention of keeping a blog there. It had all the right trappings: an brown, intellectual looking template, a catchy URL, etc. And yet I updated it only sporadically. I realized that it was just a slightly more thoughtful variation on my earlier Xanga account-- something I did not wish to repeat. And so it fell out of favor.

Yet I felt like I wanted some sort of online presence, a place to dump my thoughts. For while I didn't really like blogging or the concept behind it-- giving everyone a platform to whine, moan, and wax seemed dangerous to me-- I realized that my strategy of willful ignorance would not, in the long run, benefit me. Thus, because I couldn't beat 'em, I joined 'em. And now we have this Blogger account.

I have changed so much since my first attempts at keeping a blog. I stand on the cusp of a truly scary and truly exciting time of life; graduate school, vocation, marriage. The real world stands at my door. And so in many ways I feel like that little guy on the boat up there, his face to the sky, searching for the transcendent. In fact, for the brief time I kept that WordPress account, I penned a post that used a ship and sea as a metaphor for my life. Trite, to be sure, but once more pertinent as I look to this next chapter of my life.

We'll see how long this design lasts.

Love may win in the end, but for now it's animosity.

Within the evangelical protestant blogospheretwitterverse this week, there has been a lot of buzz surrounding Rob Bell's upcoming book Love Wins. I've kept my eye on the debate from a distance, as I have no mind to spit vitriol and Bible verses across the internet. This post will be my only observation.

I love Rob Bell. I respect him, I've paid money to see him speak. I think he's one of the greatest Christian leaders of our day, and he doesn't get enough credit for it. I've also watched the video, edited much like his popular (and brilliant) Nooma series, that discusses the premise of Love Wins. And I think it's great.

Though I have never really respected John Piper (first for his views, second for his spat with NT Wright) this has now given me a third reason not to take him seriously. His comments, as well as the comments of other prominent (and some not so prominent) figures in the evangelical world have caused me great distress. They speak to a contentment with ignorance, to the very blind acceptance and intellectual vacuity that caused me to nearly turn away from the church just over a year ago. Those wounds are still fresh. They still bleed, even as I contemplate a life in ministry to the church.

Rob Bell's intention to examine what heaven and hell really are and how they fit into the concept and assumption of a loving God is an admirable endeavor. He's taking up a deep theological question that has not only occupied the minds of some of history's greatest theologians and exegetes, but also of history's greatest skeptics. To think that we have answered the questions "What does it mean to be saved?" or "What is God like?" in some neat and tidy fashion is ridiculous.

The attitude displayed by those who denounce Bell as anti-Christian don't help anyone. An attitude like this brings to mind a few Copeland lyrics: "No one really wins this time." No one. Christians who only denounce don't answer these sorts of questions because, well, they don't ask them. But questions need to be asked, and they discussion needs to be healthy and civil. Because whether you like it or not, asking "Why can you be such a good person [like Gandhi, the example in the video] and still be damned to hell?" is a valid and pertinent question. Even CS Lewis posed it rather indirectly with his work The Great Divorce.

One has to think systematically; if you say that the only way to get to heaven is by praying a prayer to accept Christ into your heart, then what do you do with the billions throughout time who have not even heard of Christ, God, etc.? What happens to them?

I'm interested to read the book for myself. Because, unlike Justin Taylor's overblown "Rob Bell: Universalist?" post, I want to see what Bell really says. I don't think it will be a universalist claim. Rob Bell is too collected and thoughtful for that.

UPDATE: Here's an article I found on CNN's "belief" blog about the controversy surrounding Rob Bell's new book. The most embarrassing part? Justin Taylor hasn't even read the book. Seriously?

Sage advice, hazelnut scones.

Earlier this week, I had the wonderful opportunity to have coffee with the canon theologian of York Minster, the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Draper. I had wanted to talk with him-- about ordination, about the church, about England-- not just because he was someone important, but because he was from New Jersey. Yes, the New Jersey of Princeton, sprawling NY suburbs, and Snooki. Delighted to find a fellow American, especially one who had lived in the UK for many years, I was eager to chat.

He suggested coffee, and, not one to EVER turn down coffee, I accepted.

We discussed all manner of things, not the least of which being my current vocational trajectory. His advice matched his godlike, James-Earl-Jones voice-- it was deliberate, wise, and tempered with empathy. He had a way of addressing my questions and concerns without actually answering anything outright. Instead of adjudicating my dilemmas, he offered anecdotes, lessons. I appreciated this.

We plan on meeting again soon (his idea) to continue this discussion. For my part, I am simply thankful for his time, and to have such a wonderful resource for helping me decipher my oftentimes needlessly complex manners of thinking.

On an unrelated note, I'm contemplating a redesign of this blog space; it feels time to redecorate after two years of the black-and-white Chicago skyline to better reflect my life now rather than my life from freshman year. A lot has changed. (Thankfully.)

Friday night merlot.

I've been thinking a lot lately. Despite my busy schedule, I've managed to build in a significant amount of reflection and introspection. In fact, my entire trip to Oxford last weekend was for the purpose of mulling things over in a place that held some sense of significance (both spiritual and intellectual) for me. I remember many nights wistfully dreaming of those spires, wondering what they actually looked like, wondering if the city and university really were as great as I thought. As it turns out, they are.

Mostly for my own benefit, I will try to describe the journey of my inner-life as it has been the past couple of weeks. I promise to try to make it as interesting as possible as I lead you on the most aesthetically sublime vacation of my life. And so we begin...

I headed out last Thursday on a train bound for London. After navigating my way on the underground-- a skill I've grown quite good at-- to St. Paul's Cathedral, I ducked under my umbrella to avoid the rain and hurried over to my hostel. I got settled and, with the rain deterring any travel on foot, I decided to buy a ticket and tour St. Paul's, which stood just across the street. The iconic domed structure seemed out of place on Ludgate Hill, as office buildings, swanky restaurants, and hip clothing stores have sprung up around it, almost choking it. It feels as if it should have at least a bit of surrounding green space, or at least a larger paved courtyard. Paternoster square doesn't seem sufficient.

Pleased to be out of the rain, I made my way inside and was almost overwhelmed by the beauty. The aesthetic appeal is much different than that of York Minster. The Minster feels ancient and sacred, almost mysterious. Christopher Wren's design, by contrast, feels nearly new, gleaming in the pomp and splendor of Empire, of royal ceremonies and brazen nationalism. I've never seen anything so gorgeous as the mosaics adorning the ceilings of St. Paul's. And I didn't know how to feel seeing the magnificent towering statues of statesmen and military leaders sitting so prominently within a church. It's one thing for a monarch to be buried in a church beneath an elaborate monument, yet another for Lord Horatio Nelson to be commemorated by a two-story marble statue situated above his enormous sarcophagus. The marble statue commemorating Dr. Johnson was especially hilarious-- they had stuck his rather awkward overweight head and neck onto a toga-wearing body of ideal proportion and beauty. I suppose I'd prefer people remember me as looking like a god, too.

I climbed up to the famous "whispering gallery," where I admired the remarkable paintings that adorn the inside of the dome. Then, in a fit of curiosity, climbed about 450 steps all the way to the very top of the dome to find a most commanding view of London. This breathtaking view was dampened a bit by the steady rain and the fact that the clouds impeded my visibility. Nonetheless, it was as awe-inspiring as the rest of the cathedral., all at once drawing attention to the splendor of London.

Wet and cold, I climbed back down and walked around the back of the quire, where I found the memorial to the great poet John Donne. I paid my respects and quoted a few lines of his "Batter my heart, three-person'd God..."  before finally wrenching my gaze from his thoughtful expression and slowly walking to the high altar. It was sometime during this experience-- climbing to the top of the dome and back again, standing where John Donne lays buried-- I began to think. I began to think hard.

I approached the high altar with quiet reverence. Though bursting with gold leaf, sumptuous dark wood, and overwhelmingly ornate carvings, the space managed to remain tasteful rather than gaudy. I could hear a choir singing somewhere in the distance, and the hair bristled on my neck. This was a sacred place, a holy place. I impulsively crossed myself. It was here that I asked in my mind: What does this mean to me?

Under the high altar, St. Paul's.

 Did I think, as Keats said, that there was truth contained in this beauty, or was I simply responding to aesthetic experience? Did I think God really lived and breathed in this space? For someone who is seriously working to discern a possible call to the priesthood-- and soberly realizing that a decision on graduate programs looms only months down the road--questions like these are paramount. And yet, I found I could not answer them. I remember returning to John Donne's memorial before descending into the undercroft for the second part of my tour and staring at it, silently pleading, for some sort of answer. I longed to speak with him, to ask him if he had ever felt this way, thinking that an answer from John Donne would somehow put my mind to rest.

But the more that I wrestled with the questions that spun inside my head, the more I felt they were insignificant; I felt as though I were making too big a deal of it all. I wanted to read something terribly profound into my own life, my own story, and perhaps the reason I couldn't grasp any answers was because there weren't any there. I wanted to take something transcendent from this space, to feel like I am a participant in something truly weighty, but couldn't get past the fact that, behind me, there were groups of tourists being chastised for taking photographs when they weren't supposed to. And here this most crucial of questions came to the front of my mind: Does it even matter? Does anyone really care about this? What am I deciding? It became clear that this was more than a simple career choice. This was a deep, deep commitment.

I left St. Paul's feeling thoughtful, and returned there the next morning for prayer.

Oxford proved important in its own right. I had written in my journal the night before while at dinner at a pub on Fleet Street, trying to put myself in the right mindset for my trip to Lewis' grave. I expected this to be some sort of revelatory moment-- a glorious epiphany that would solve all my dilemmas regarding my vocation. (Don't ask me how it would do this, because I really don't know.) Yet I arrived at Kilns Lane nearly an hour later than I had hoped, and thus felt quite rushed. It was 3:00. I had to meet someone at The Kilns at 4:00. My plans for a relaxing stroll to Shotover hill seemed, well, shot, so I walked over to Trinity Parish Church, figuring it was more important that I pay respects to Warnie and Jack's grave than hike up a muddy hill.

The tiny church was idyllic. It sat in the cleft of a gentle valley, at the end of a narrow, winding road lined with pretty houses. The area around the church itself was surprisingly wooded, and so serene. After accidentally wandering amongst random grave markers, I heeded the signs on the parish gate and found the Lewis' marker-- a large marble slab-- situated beneath an ancient tree. Bright flower buds carpeted the grass around the grave, as if knowing that a brilliant mind lay beneath, the radiance of Lewis' legacy causing them to grow. I thought that if there were a time for tears, they should flow now. But they didn't. In fact, aside from solemnity and reverence, I felt no swell of emotion.

All was profoundly still. I waited for almost fifteen minutes before I made my way back down the footpath to Shotover. While walking the paths, I passed a pond with a stone bench tucked into an embankment. Lewis and Tolkien used to sit on this bench overlooking the pond, smoking and talking about life. I imagined those conversations, and once again found myself longing for them to be there so that I could talk to them, have them answer my questions. It was like my moment in front of Donne's memorial. Why didn't I think I could answer anything for myself? I turned and walked through the gate to The Kilns.

Touring the house was surreal, and I won't spend time describing it. (Though I will say that your perception of someone you admire changes when you see the spaces in which they lived, worked, and, in Lewis' case, died. They become more human. More real.) After a good pint and a filling dinner, I went back to my B&B and watched TV (something I haven't gotten to do in Britain) before going to bed.

Touring the colleges provided its share of memorable experiences, namely of the aesthetic variety. It got to a point where I felt like I needed to look at something plain just to cleanse my palate before viewing another room with intricate fan vaulting. Nonetheless, it was a wonderful time, and the day full of sunlit trails and quiet quads gave me more time to dwell on those questions that had been occupying my mind. I took a much-needed time to journal while enjoying a meal in the Eagle and Child before heading back to my room to catch Top Gear and go to sleep.

Sir John Polkinghorne, the Templeton-winning physicist, gave the sermon. That's why I went to Magdalen on Sunday morning. The small chapel, lit only by the flicker of candles, felt more like something out of Lord of the Rings than a church in which I should be attending service-- and I mean that in the best way. It was, like so many places I'd gotten to experience on this trip, absolutely gorgeous. And though it was cool to see Dr. Polkinghorne speak, I was hit with the same odd expectation of receiving an answer to all my questions that I had expected from Donne, Lewis, and others.

Addison's Walk

After a delicious lunch at Magdalen, I was shown the way to Addison's Walk by a man I had met at my table. It was on this drizzly walk that I felt I made the most progress in considering my vocation. And though I'm reluctant to attribute significance and meaning to symbols to which they are not due, I must say that it seems coincidental that I should get so much from strolling down Addison's Walk, when this is the same path that Lewis walked with Tolkien and Dyson the night he became convinced of the veracity of his Christian faith. In a very real way, that one walk down this dirt path altered Christianity in the 20th century and literally changed the world.

To be fair, I didn't expect anything like this to happen as I walked down Addison's Walk, but I was hoping that a little of that energy still hung in the air somewhere for me to absorb.

I reflected on what it was that finally clenched it for Lewis-- the thing that made God make sense. For him, it was all about myth, and how myth became fact in the life of Jesus Christ. I knew that this would not be the thing that did it for me. In fact, I'd say that myth is the thing I need to stay perhaps farthest from. Instead of answers, my walk only yielded more questions. Yet it didn't discourage me this time. I realized that though one thing clicked into place in Lewis' mind, this one thing was actually the product and culmination of years and years of growth. In many modern stories of Lewis, I think evangelicals try to spin this moment on Addison's walk as a conversion experience, but I believe Lewis himself remarked that he felt he never had one. I walk a similar path (mind the pun) in that I don't think I'm going to have everything simply answered in one stroke while staring broodingly out over the English countryside or something. Instead I think it will come gradually until one day it fits; I know what I am to do and I feel a sense of conviction behind it.

Until then, this question remains: What am I deciding? Is it my faith? Is it a choice between one degree or another? Whether or not I can or am willing to endure the ups and downs that come with a vocation in the church? Teaching? What? Because it's definitely not as simple as just choosing a job. Or perhaps, choosing a job in itself, if you think about it, is just this hard.

Keeping busy.

Sorry for the lapse in updating (I feel like I'm always saying that) but I've been rather busy. I pulled an all-nighter last Sunday, and that threw me off for the remainder of the week. I didn't go out this week except to try my hand at trivia night at the Lighthorseman on Thursday night. Our team, comprised of Rahma, James, Tom, Sarah, and I, fared much better than the previous week's debacle but still did not manage to win-- not even a raffle. I guess luck wasn't with us. (Though James did have a sterling performance answering a good many of the questions correctly.)

It doesn't look like my schedule will clear up any time soon. I've got articles to write for FLP, two scholarship applications going, revising two pieces of criticism to submit to an undergraduate journal, attending an interfaith event in London hosted by the Three Faiths Forum on Thursday, heading to Oxford on Friday, seeing all I can until Monday, and making it back to York in time for my lecture at 4:15PM.

I can't wait for Oxford. More to come.