the glory and the horror

Friday night, Kathleen and I saw Bonhoeffer, a feature-length documentary on one of the most intriguing men I’ve ever read about. It’s only showing one more day at the Angelika here in Dallas, but you can register at the website for information regarding the DVD/VHS release. This may very well be the first DVD I buy on my own, for myself.

Afterwards, we had the unique change to extend some grace to some kids that were stuck at the Angelika without a way home, and we got to give them a ride. They have had an interesting life, and I was at a loss for how to talk to them sometimes. One guy said that he’d been on his own since he was 7 years old, and his story includes stuff that I have no idea how to understand. It was much cooler for me to hear from them, I think, than it would have been for them to hear about me. I was just honored that we could love them in a way that surprised them, and I pray that God uses that short 30 minute chunk of their lives to draw them towards Himself.

Thanksgiving was a blast. The hospitality of the families of our friends continues to blow my mind, and I am so thankful for their generosity. The Poteet family rocks

www.whonamedit.com

Home of many medical eponyms. I need to add this to my bookmarks.

Christian History Corner: From Beer to Bibles to VBS – Christianity Today Magazine

Randomly fun stuff

Is responsibility the same as guilt? Can you be responsible for something, but not guilty of it?

Some thoughts stolen from a bulletin board I frequent.

God formed Adam and breathed the breath of life into him, and man became a living soul. the life of humanity is caused and sustained by God. the laws of nature, both physical and human, are the institutes of God and none other. these laws govern both our internal and external environment. i.e. God ordains both our nature and our nurture. so every factor that guides the choices we make is in fact ordained by God.

I hope I get to see a patient tomorrow. I’d like to get another writeup done before the Thanksgiving break.

Today, at church, I had to lay down the law for one of the kids. Sigh. I really don’t like having to stop class to sternly and firmly tell one of the kids to either shut up or sit in the corner, but I did today. Perhaps I didn’t have to, but the other teacher backed me up on it. It’s hard. I really hope the kids are getting something out of it. I think we need to pray a bit more in class. I think they’re getting some of the ideas and stuff, but I’m not really sure. I do make it a point to have them read the story out loud, one verse per kid at a time, just so Scripture is read out loud, and people are following along.

Today’s lesson for the kiddos was the nation of Israel, crossing the Jordan River that first time before approaching Jericho, and how they built the altar as a monument for their children, and their children’s children, and many future generations to see, and ask, “Why are those stones there?” I found it a wonderful example of remembering the things God has done, so that our descendents can look back and say, “The Lord God is great, and His faithfulness was demonstrated to those who have gone before us, and is continually being manifest to us today, and will continue to be seen for years to come.” I am struck by the emphasis on remembering and memorializing in Jewish culture, and I think we Protestants have lost some of that. Yes, we have communion, but I’m not sure that it has the same role in church life (at least among your standard evangelical Protestant church) as the feasts and other commemorative occasions did in Jewish life. We would do well to learn a little, and think a little about remembering and memorializing the great things God has done, if only in our own lives, or in our own church.

Saturday night was a small Christmas ornament shower-type deal for Reese and Jenn at the Hamilton’s place. I’m really thankful for the Hamilton’s generosity and friendliness. It’s really a blessing to have them involved in our lives, even sort of on the periphery. They really went all out to make it a special night for Jenn and Reese, and I just thought that was really cool. The Body of Christ at work. Way cool.

Kathleen and I will be heading out of town for Thanksgiving with some friends from school, Joel and Alice. Actually, Joel is the classmate, and Alice is his wife. We’re doing Thanksgiving with her family, and then Friday with his family. I’m looking forward to that. Again, wonderful hospitality. This is the way the Body is supposed to be.

Kathleen is sooooo cool. She went to North Carolina this weekend to visit some friends, and while she was at Duke, she picked up The Hauerwas Reader for me!

This will complicate studying.

What a thoughtful girlfriend I have!

I had an incredible lunch today with Dr. Bishop and some other students regarding some ideas and possible future plans for encouraging and stimulating an ongoing discussion about the nature of philosophy, science, theology, and medicine. They really do all interact, in case some of you are wondering. Medical science is laden with assumptions about the world, and the telos, or end, of man. You can’t claim that science it outside the realm of philosophy or theology, because that in itself is a claim of a type of philosophy. Medicine says all sorts of things about the nature of our choices, about consequences and moral culpability. Many assumptions are embedded in the practice of medicine, especially when talking about life and death, and we take them for granted, without thoroughly thinking through them. That can be dangerous now, especially as people are looking to medical science to “explain” so much about the human experience. For example, look at all the talk about various “genes” – the obesity gene, the gay gene, the this gene, the that gene. The implications for individual responsibility when talking about genes like this are enormous, and not just for doctors, but for society at large. As people continue to think this way, an adequate understanding of personal responsibility for consequences, regardless of the moral nature of the choice, but just the sheer consequences, will slowly fade.

It definitely renewed my interest in pursuing an academic career to explore the nature of medicine, science, philosophy, and theology. I’m not sure what shape that will take, but I’m looking forward to being involved in doing this stuff at school. Dr. Bishop is also encouraging us to do some serious writing, looking towards publishing our work.

I’m looking forward to it

I gotta get back to working on that Szasz paper. Gotta find out what Aquinas I should read.

From the etymology section of the Oxford English Dictionary:

doctor, n.

[a. OF. doctor (-ur, -our, -eur), ad. L. doctor, -orem teacher, agent-n. from docere to teach.]

From Cecil Textbook of Medicine, 21st ed.

Paradoxically, modern medicine, with its powerful technologies for diagnosis and treatment, requires more than ever that the physician emphasize one of medicine’s most ancient activities, that of being a teacher. Fittingly, society requires that the doctor work with–not on–the patient.

I think I’m beginning to flesh out some of my thoughts on the high and noble calling of medicine. I am seeing more and more similarities between the clergy and medicine. Both are truly priesthoods. No other professions deal as intimately with life and death in the human experience. No one else is given the job of explaining the nature of life and death, even if it’s a bit mechanistic nowadays. Doctors are still seen as the people who push back Death, who steal a little life back from Death, so that we can enjoy the sweetness of life just a little bit longer. So doctors are also teachers, those who pass on the knowledge, as well as the artistry, that has developed over the years. They also teach their patients a little more about themselves, about what they can and can’t do, about what they should and shouldn’t do. It’s quite an impressive thing, don’t you think?

From Derek Webb’s journal entry of August 9, 2003

At the count of three, unplug yourself from this modern world. Just for a moment, pull back the curtain of what motivates you and the secret fears that under gird all your actions. If only it were that easy to do. Unlike the vivid imagery of The Matrix, or the final scene in The Wizard of Oz, we can’t really divorce ourselves from our culture and our history this side of glory.

As you may have heard, this past year or two, since I left my band of 10 years, I’ve poured over a collection of songs about the Church. The thing I keep coming back to in all my study and reflection is the way in which the consumer mindset of our society has dug deep roots under our Christian communities. In ways where the people of God should be reforming as a Counter-culture, instead, we look more like a Sub-culture. We are marked more by the ways we imitate the world then by the ways we reclaim our civilization for the glory of God.

The world sells us false independence, disappointment, illusions of prosperity and an improved self-image—all at a great price. In contrast, the Church places us in right dependence as a community, gives us identity in the larger narrative of God and His people, and frees us from this relentless state of self-absorption. So if that’s true, then why do so many of our American churches seem to chase after marketing trends so we can fill more seats and build bigger facilities? And why is my heart so addicted to buying the latest product that promises to satisfy my felt needs? We are an idolatrous people, looking to all sorts of broken cisterns to satisfy our insatiable thirst.

If you’re like me, you look around on Sunday morning and wonder how this bunch of ordinary, hypocritical folks can be God’s love to this desperate world? The answer is simple, and you’ve heard it before. The Church becomes the object of God’s affection only through Jesus. Jesus came to make this bunch of sad, complacent, stubborn, wrecked and displaced people beautiful. Not just to make them lovely on their outsides, but truly and completely acceptable before the Almighty. If we believe this to be true, then it literally changes everything. Because of Jesus, we are free to lay our lives down for somebody that may look nothing like us. Because of Jesus, we are called to step out into the larger story, from just living out a series of our own personal decisions. And because of Jesus, we exchange our earthly agendas for kingdom work that will last forever.

The bad news is, there’s no formula to follow, no new book to run out and buy, and no list of 10 easy steps that will fix you and your local Church body. The good news is, this leaves us with a healthy dose of divine mystery, messy community in progress, worship that makes us sane, and most importantly—it leaves us with Jesus. The way to be a counter-culture is Jesus. The way to love each other well is Jesus. And the way the Church can be who She is for this dying world is Jesus. May all other affections die out, all other promises disappoint, and all other hopes fail. Maybe then we will collapse on Him again, as if for the first time, as we remember that He is the only one who can satisfy our ever restless souls.

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What blows my mind about this, is that it took me YEARS to see the counter-culture-ness of Christ, after buying into the sub-culture-ness for years. Glad I see it now.