the Gently Mad

I’ve been a long time fan of Don Miller, ever since I read Blue Like Jazz in college. While, not without his problems, I have always enjoyed his writing and been encouraged.

Just saw this new book on Amazon and got all excited until I realized that it won’t be out until the middle of next year. It looks interesting though…

Just heard this quote five minutes ago from a real person:

It makes me feel good to have name brand things. I could die tomorrow, but I’ll be wearing Dior.

Very interesting article over at DangitBill! that I found via Challies.

For a long time I’ve wanted to write at length about homeschooling and its place in our world. I have very strong opinions because I was homeschooled. Nevertheless, I haven’t yet had the time to collect my thoughts in a way that would be profitable. However, that may change in comming days as my family continues to grow in size.

Brian Sandifer, who is a homeschooling dad, has written a great post that’s a start in understanding some of my fundamental frustrations with homeschooling and homeschoolers.

Everyone acknowledges that the public school system in American needs reforming. It is producing graduates that are less and less prepared for the workforce, college, and the global marketplace. But the message went far beyond that. The speaker asserted that the public school system is working perfectly–just as it was designed to do. In other words, it’s not broken; it’s evil! In a perfect world it wouldn’t even exist. Public schooling was portrayed as useless, enslaving, stupifying, and monopolizing. The funny thing is that EVERYONE in the room (including the speaker) was educated in the public school system! (It didn’t seem to terribly fail us.) We were addressed as refugees and escapees of the system, as the only ones who are enlightened to the nature and purpose of REAL education. It occurs to me that the perceived problem framed in these terms amounts to a harmartiology.

Continue reading here.

He said:

It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.

I’m a sermon freak, which could be good or bad, but that’s another post.

Tonight, on the way home from work, I listened to an old Piper favorite on Romans 12:1-2. He was talking about the idea of being transformed and a statistic he used really got me thinking. He said:

It is an overwhelming thought to ponder this fact: Ninety-five percent of your life, you live without premeditation.

It is indeed an overwhelming thought. And it leads me again to the question that has consumed my thoughts now for most of this year: How do I live intentionally? I’m not asking for examples, I’m asking for how-to. Maybe those are the the same thing.

Most of us aren’t in vocational ministry. Most of us have jobs, spouses, kids, responsibilities and myriad other activities consuming our lives and the question that has been plaguing my thoughts recently is, how do we not miss the opportunities? How do I seize the day, take every thought captive, beat my body into submission and live every moment intentionally for the glory of God?

The days slip by so quickly. I get ready to go to work on Sunday afternoon and before I know it, it’s Friday again. And that’s the cycle that repeats itself over and over again and I strive to look back and find intentional living in that blur of weeks.

Piper’s answer is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, e.g. Romans 12:1-2. I think he’s right because transformation leads to a new set of defaults.

But how do we do that? You can listen to the sermon here.

I want to say right off that I have tremendous respect for John MacArthur because it was through his books and ministry that I first felt an awakening toward theology and truth vs. pop Christianity. He has had an indelible impact on the world and I thank God for him.

However, I was listening to one of this sermons from this year’s Together for the Gospel conference and this statement leaped out at me:

I’m not interested in creativity. I don’t care what’s going on in the culture. I’m just there to communicate the word of God.

It seems to me that the two (understanding culture and preaching the gospel) are inextricably intertwined. How are we to make disciples without an understanding of the people we are trying to reach? What would we say of a missionary who packs up for India and says “I don’t need to understand anything about India or Indian culture or the lives of the people who live there?”

I think we would say he’s going to have a difficult time. But then, I also think there is a huge divide in how we think about foreign missions and domestic missions, which is an entirely different post.

I’m not arguing against the sufficiancy or power of the scriptures. I just think it’s statements like that that lead to arrogance and a failure to understand what it means to make disciples and be agents of God’s kingdom in the world.

But then, John MacArthur is far more godly than I will ever hope to be and has forgotten more about the disciplines of a godly life than I will ever know.

I love satire. I would say that it is one of my favorites genres of writing. Done well, it can be incredibly insightful and entertaining.

Chuck Palahniuk is one of today’s most popular satirists and he’s very good at it. He’s written a handful of novels, all of which are very dark, very funny, and very true. His works are often very nihilistic though he claims that he is not a nihilists but a romantic, and that his works are only mistaken as nihilistic because they express ideas that others do not believe in.

He has been labeled a “shock writer” because of the abnormality of the situations in his writing. And indeed his writing is very disturbing. I want to say again that his writing is very disturbing and if you go pick up one of his books, be prepared. His subject matter is often the darker side of humanity and human nature. That being said, however, he is so bluntly honest about his perceptions of life and human character that many times he reveals the obvious, but in ways that are very discomforting.

I’m sure that some of the situations in his novels are created with an eye toward shock value, but more often than not, I find myself agreeing with his assessments of human nature. I think the reason his writing is so often disturbing is that the truth is disturbing. People don’t want to look inside themselves for fear of what they will see there. Palahniuk has no such fear.

Regardless, his writing is very ironic and cynical, often littered with dark or “black” comedy that makes his culturally satirical tales very entertaining and all the more hard hitting.

Several years ago I read his third novel, Choke, which is a satirical look at addiction and recovery, and the lengths to which people will go to find happiness and meaning in life. The novel is the spiritual successor to Fight Club and deals with many of the same issues.

The following is a passage, that, as I have already said, rings true to human nature and illustrates some of the lies we believe about life.

(He thought) that if enough people looked at you, you’d never need anybody’s attention ever again.
That if someday you were caught, exposed, and revealed enough, then you’d never be able to hide again. There’d be no difference between your private and public lives.
That if you could acquire enough, accomplish enough, you’d never want to own or do another thing.
That if you eat or sleep enough, you’d never need more.
That if enough people loved you, you’d stop needing love.
That if you could ever be smart enough…

These all became the little boys goals. The illusions he’d have the rest of his life. These were all the promises he sought…

Choke has been made into a film directed by Clark Gregg and starring Sam Rockwell. The trailer can be viewed here.