Instructions for the race

After Hebrews 12:1-17 

Listen, runners: here are

instructions for the race.

Lift your drooping heads.

Strengthen those weak knees.

Make straight paths.

Strive for peace with all.

Strive for the holiness

known only to the Lord.

Share the grace.

Avoid bitterness.

Know your birthright is

worth more than a meal.

Accept the discipline

meant for your good.

Endure.

Endure to the end.

 

Photograph by Steve Lelham via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

When Christian Groups Subvert Religious Liberty of Christians – Joe Carter at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Summer Reading for G.K. Chesterton – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Female Faith Poets: Where to Begin – Jody Collins at Poetry & Made Things. 

 

You’re Useless – Br. Gerard Rosario DeAngelis at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Run with endurance

After Hebrews 12:1-17 

We are to run

with endurance,

this race set

before us, keeping

our eyes on the prize,

the founder and

perfecter of our faith,

our belief, our hope,

the one who kept

his eyes on the prize

and endured,

endured the cross,

enduring the pouring

of the sins of all

upon himself, endured

the hostility and hatred,

so that we, too, could

run the race, and

run with endurance.

 

Photograph by Isaac Wendland via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

A Son’s Journey to His Father – Art Kusserow at Front Porch Republic.

 

Making Good Return – Tim Challies reviews the book on caring for aging parents by Kathleen Nelson.

 

Seven Things Good Days Say – Chap Bettis at The Disciple-Making Parent.

 

The Getting of Wisdom – Andy Farmer at Biblical Coalition.

 

The Least of My Brethren: Sally Thomas’ Works of Mercy – Abigail Wilkinson Miller at The European Conservative.

My Dad Gave Me Books - and More Besides - Joel Miller at Miller's Book Review.

Sidetracked

After Galatians 5:1-15 

You were running the race,

and running well, feet 

in motion and eyes 

on the goal. The end,

the finish line, was

in sight. And yet

you stopped, attention

diverted to another

goal, another song,

seductive but false, 

a siren singing

to attract the ear and

betray the heart. Was

the song that compelling,

that attractive, even

when your heart knew

better?

 

Photograph by Milan Degraeve via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The one thing

After Philippians 3:12-14

I love history, especially

my history, the history

of me. I love looking

back, to see how far

I’ve come, what 

I’ve achieved, what

obstacles I’ve overcome,

celebrating my journey,

sharing my wisdom.

Except none of it is

true; it only looks true

when given a superficial

glance. By me. Scratch

the façade, and what

lies beneath was

brought to me by him,

only him, the one.

I don’t forget what

lies behind; instead,

understanding what

I know and where

I come from, I strain

forward to what lies

ahead, as if I’m running

a race. What lies

behind is important;

what lies ahead is

vital.

 

Photograph by Eric Muhr via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“Smart People,” a Play by Lydia Diamond

Smart People, a 2016 play by Lydia Diamond, has been staged by several companies around the country. It’s set in 2008, shortly before the presidential election. Four people (and they are the only characters in the play) are connected to Harvard University. One is a surgeon, one is a psychologist, one is an actress, and one is a teaching neuropsychiatrist. All are, to one degree or another, interested in how the brain works. And all four are, to one degree or another, looking for love and affirmation. 

But then there’s politics. And politics saturates the characters’ thinking. Only a small part of that politics concerns the presidential election; it almost serves as an unspoken theme off-stage. But there’s academic politics (and what happens when cancel culture rears its head). And there’s what happen when the politics of relationships inserts itself into what might have been love stories. For all of their understanding of how the brain works, for all of their expertise, and for all of their intelligence, the characters of Smart People seem unable to overcome the politics they supposedly know so much about. 

 

Lydia Diamond

Yet these characters are all recognizable. In their own ways, they are all compelling. That isn’t to say a reader of the play finds them sympathetic. Each is disagreeable, the neuropsychiatrist in particular. He’s an academic close to tenure, something of a rainmaker for bringing all kinds of grants and recognitions to his department. He’s looking for what in the brain makes people racist. He himself is “evolved,” as he describes it, and has transcended his own racist leanings. Except he suddenly faces cancel culture for something he says in the classroom. 

 

One doesn’t today expect such a probing treatment of the academic and cultural left, but that’s exactly what Smart People does.

 

Diamond’s plays include Stick Fly, Harriet Jacobs, Voyeurs de Venus, The Gift Horse, Inside, and The Bluest Eye (a stage adaptation of the Toni Morrison novel). A graduate of Northwestern University, she has taught at DePaul University, Columbia University, and Boston University. She is currently a clinical associate professor of Theatre at the University of Illinois – Chicago. 

The race is downhill

After Philippians 3:12-4:1

The race is downhill

even when it’s uphill;

the outcome is decided,

the prize already awarded.

The course feels difficult,

is difficult, a vale of tears

and heartbreak, but the ease

lies behind the difficult

because we know the race is done,

the race is won, the laurel leaves

placed, the cheers ongoing.

The race is won but not finished.

Photograph by Toa Heftiba via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Already won

After Philippians 3:12-4:1

The prize is almost a contradiction:

it’s there, ours to grasp when 

we finish the race, and

it’s now, ours to keep, already won,

no matter what happens between

here and the finish line.

What kind of prize is that?

The stadium crowd is puzzled,

for no one wins a prize that

is already won, but perhaps

this is different, a different prize,

one not seen before,

one not offered before,

one not given before,

one not designed by human hands.

Photograph by Ethan Hoover via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The call is upward

After Philippians 3:12-4:1

A sound, or a voice, perhaps,

a movement in the heat

and soul and mind, gives

the first glimpse of the prize,

the first time we know

there’s a prize, its possession

a goal and a destination,

even if we do not fully

understand the goal, the destination,

and the journey required to reach

it, the precise steps of the journey

remaining unknown, steps guided

and steps taken in faith. All

we know is that the call is

upward.

Photograph by Martin Zimlickis via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“Little Boy Lost” by J.D. Trafford

Not many adult American read fiction these days, and that includes Christians of all varieties. The Washington Post reported on a study recently that says people who read fiction are more empathetic than those who do not. Buffer explored the same study and found nine benefits in reading fiction, of which increased empathy was only one.

Little Boy Lost by J.D. Trafford may go a step further. It’s a mystery novel, and specifically a legal mystery novel. The hero is a lawyer in St. Louis who has a struggling practice, despite his being a member of one of the city’s powerful political families. Justin Glass’s father is a congressman; his older brother is a state senator. Justin is another kind of man, however; he cares about the people of his city, and he represents all comers, including those who can’t afford to pay, which is most of his client base.

Justin lives with his daughter Sammy in a carriage house of a home owned by his grandfather. His mother lives in the house. The grandfather and the mother are white. Justin’s father is black. The reader knows going into the story that a major theme will be race, relationships with police, political power structures, and the poor who are too often caught in a system they can’t, and sometimes won’t, escape.

A little girl shows up with a jar of change and asks Justin to find her missing teenaged brother. There’s nothing new in a missing inner-city kid; it happens so much that it’s an accepted part of “the system.” But Justin decides to accept the request. He checks with his contacts at the police department. He starts reading files. And then the boy’s body is found in a county park’ along with the bodies of eight other boys, their hands in plastic hand ties behind their backs.

Suspicions center on a parole officer who happens to be a white supremacist and neo-Confederate. The news about the suspect goes public, and the city erupts in protest and violence. And if that had been the basic story, Trafford would have drawn just another race relations cartoon stereotype. But stereotypes are not where this story goes.

J.D. Trafford

Instead, we see race through Justin’s biracial eyes. There’s no question he considers himself a black man, but he doesn’t look at life, how own or that of others, in black and white or even shades of gray. Instead, he looks at life in terms of people, and he sees people who have value and people who matter, no matter their race, income and education level, or arrest record.

Trafford is the author of three legal mystery novels, No Time to Die, No Time to Run, and No Time to Hide. Graduated with honors in law, he’s been a civil and criminal prosecutor, worked at a large national law firm, and as a non-profit attorney. He’s lived in Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, and currently lives in the Midwest. He knows his St. Louis; this story is so well anchored in St. Louis streets, neighborhoods, landmarks, and people that it could almost serve as a reality tour guide.

Little Boy Lost is indeed a mystery story, but it’s far more than that. It’s a story of a city, a story about race, and a story that reaches for understanding in a way that newspaper articles and editorials never could. And it stands as a good reminder about why it’s important to read fiction.

Photograph of downtown St. Louis from the Arch by Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“One: Unity in a Divided World” by Deidra Riggs

I am Facebook friends with a considerable number of Christian writers and poets. Many of these friends I have met face to face, talked with, had deep conversations about serious issues with, worshipped with, and prayed with, together and in a larger group. Over time, as relationships grow and develop, you believe you know people, or know them better.

Then came the presidential election of 2016. I discovered that, for many of these friends, I didn’t really know them at all. Ferocious anger, rage, hatred, outbursts, disdain, and even sarcastic snark poured out all over my Facebook newsfeed. One friend, a minister, said on Facebook that you couldn’t be a Christian and have voted for Donald Trump.

It turns out I didn’t really know my Facebook friends after all. It was disheartening and discouraging.

It is this response to the election that kept recurring as I read One: Unity in a Divided World by Deidra Riggs. Riggs also feels and grieves the division and divisiveness in the church, but she’s experiencing it from a different vantage point. But she always has good, important things to say, and I knew I would learn from reading her new book. And I did.

In One, Riggs is talking to and with the church. Using both Scripture and personal anecdotes, she addresses the deep divisions, the lashing out at each other, the intense political arguments – all that stuff on my Facebook newsfeed. What she says is that we are supposed to be known by our love – not by wearing “Make American Great Again” baseball caps or how many “#Resist Trump” groups we join. Sadly, that is not what’s been happening.

“Our identity is who God sees when he looks at us,” she writes, “and God is not a politician.”

What are the things that divide us? Attitude. Perception. Race. Income. How we understand evil and injustice. Fear. Politics (always politics). Culture. History. We put God into boxes of our own making, without realizing that God is always bigger than those boxes. Far bigger.

Deidra Riggs

Of all the divisions that exist between Christians, race is likely the most stubbornly resistant, and by a wide margin. We still worship largely as white churches and black churches, Riggs says, and the situation hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years. There’s a lot of history to be overcome. That division is a loss to all of us. We are all made in God’s image, she points out, and God doesn’t make mistakes.

Riggs devotes a chapter to discussing the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, a black teenager shot by a white policeman. Two competing narratives emerged out of that death, one considering Michael Brown as victim and one considering Brown as thug. Riggs went to Ferguson in the days after the shooting, and was profoundly affected by what she found there.

I expected to be challenged and jarred when I read One. And I was. She quotes groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center that raise my hackles. But perhaps that is the point – perhaps some issues require groups to be out on the edge to gain attention and for the issue to be taken seriously. Sometimes you need people in your face to understand that there really is a problem here.

Riggs is a writer and speaker. She's previously published  Every Little Thing: Making a World of Difference Right Where You Are. She's spoken at Tedx conferences and women's retreats, and is the founder and host of the One Conference. She and her family live in Lincoln, Nebraska.

One is well worth reading and digesting. It provides insights into some of the thorniest problems faced by the American church. It points to possible solutions. You don’t have to agree with everything it says, and you probably won't. But you will see the value it offers. Deidra Riggs and I might disagree in a number of areas, but we have the important ones – and the important one – in common. And she is well worth listening to.

Related:

My review of Every Little Thing.

The web page for One: Unity in a Divided World.

Top photograph by James Maxon via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.