Speaking of reading (see my last post), a few months ago my pastor's network was exchanging their lists of "books that left their mark on us." In lieu of a post on "Faramir and the Weight of Glory" that I'm working on, but not quite ready to publish, I thought I'd share the list I came up with here. These kinds of lists are always so subjective (which is why they're fun... they show how dynamic our interactions with the literature are). Only 3 months after witing it, I'd probably produce a quite different list-- I re-read Mrs. Dalloway last week, for instance, and can't for the life of me figure out why I would include it on a list like this, but, that's the mystery of reading, I suppose. Anyways, for a bit of Saturday morning procrastination fodder, here goes:
Dale's List of Books that Left Their Mark on Me:
1. Jesus and the Victory of God, N. T. Wright.
A masterful, stunning and compelling portrait of the historical Jesus; scholarly, playful, generous and rich, it introduced me to the Messiah in a way few books before or since have. Read N.T. Wright. Start here.
2. The Resurrection of the Son of God, N.T. Wright
This one’s tough slugging but, oh, so worth the effort. Does for the resurrection what “Jesus and the Victory of God” does for the historical Jesus. You will never celebrate Easter the same...
3. Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace, James Torrance
A short but sweet study of how Christian worship is really a participation by the Spirit in the Son’s worship of the Father. Deeply ministered to me, on so many levels.
4. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle
Read this book dozens of times as a child. The first book I remember weeping genuine, grown up tears over. A classic.
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula LeGuinn
Re-read this childhood classic last spring, and was stunned all over again by how rich, profound and satisfying it is. If you love fantasy novels and haven’t read this one, drop everything and run (don’t walk) to your local library. You will not be disappointed.
6. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Wolfe
I have no idea why *Mrs. Dalloway* is embedded so deep in my heart. I read it for a novel course in University, and even though in almost every way it is the “anti-Dale,” it captivated me and has haunted me ever since.
7. Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius
No, I didn’t just include this one to sound smart. I read it for a course on Geoffry Chaucer in my under-grad and, man, it leaves you thinking.
8. That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis
This list could have been C.S. Lewis alone, and for sure the Narnia books belong here, but since I’ve already got one candidate from my childhood, *That Hideous Strength* will have to stand in for the C.S. Lewis corpus. This one’s well worth a read in its own right—I read it about every 4 years, and each time it’s a brand new book.
9. A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
This one’s a relatively recent read, so time will tell if it deserves to sit in such auspicious company as Lewis and Wright, but Helprin’s a genius story teller and a masterful artist; truly great fiction.
10. How Shall We Then Live, Francis Schaeffer
I used to be quite awed by Francis Schaeffer; over the years I’ve downgraded awe to deep appreciation, but I still find much of his work compelling in over-all vision, if not always in actual content. This Evangelical “Rise and Fall of Western Civilization” seized my imagination when I first read it.
And while I'm at it...
(My) (Evangelical) 2011 in Review
The novelty of the New Year wanes quickly, so only two weeks into 2012, this reflective look back at '011 already feels a bit cool. But I was away for the first week of January so I'm only getting to it now, and hoping that enough of you are still mistakenly writing "2011" on your cheques that a year-in-review will still strike a nerve.
Not sure how many of you remember any of the following headline highlights, but each in the list below stood out to me as especially significant, either for its impact on the Christian world, or for the light it shed on the State of that Nation known as the People of God.
January 12: Jay Bakker releases Fall to Grace
Son of the infamous televangelist with the same last name, Jay Bakker released a humble-autobiography-cum-church-manifesto about what's wrong with our present practice of the Fundamentals of the Faith, and what needs to change. I was under the impression that fundamentalist snipers had neutralized most leading lights in the Emergent Church, but Bakker's book, at the very least, shows that the movement's not yet dead.
March 2: Pakistani Minorities Minister shot dead
Shahbaz Bhatti's assassination for his political work in Pakistan to guarantee the religious freedoms of that country's Christian minority (1.5% of the population) was far more stunning and troubling than either the mainstream or Christian press gave it time for. It struck me then, and later still when Coptic Christians in Egypt started to suffer persecution after the much-lauded "Arab Spring" thawed that country, how little attention the Canadian media pays to Christian persecution around the world.
March 15: Rob Bell releases Love Wins
So much to say about this whole doctrine-meets-Internet debacle, so little time (which is perhaps why some distilled their commentary down to a single Tweet). It demonstrated in ways few were prepared for what the gasoline of social media can do to the fires of doctrinal disagreement; it showed us how ill-prepared Christians really are after all to navigate the sticky strands of the World-Wide-Inter-Web; it showed us that the closets of Western Evangelicalism were bulging with Universalists of all description waiting-- just waiting-- for someone to jiggle the handle and discover it was unlocked; and it showed us (yet again) the dark under-belly of celebrity-pastor-culture.
April 23: The Conservative Party promises Canadians an "Office of Religious Freedom" if elected
Whether this was, as some cynical pundits suggested at the time, a shameless ploy to secure the Christian Right vote, or not, it does shed light on the way politics and religion mix far less easily in Canada than they do down south, and that, more than any other party, the Tories "got" the psyche of the average Canadian evangelical.
May 1: John Piper vets Rick Warren
That John Piper, the old-guard of the Neo-Reformed movement, saw fit publicly to interview Rick Warren, the Hawaiian-shirt-frocked front man for Purpose-Driven pragmatism, on his doctrinal soundness, says less about Warren's supposed "orthodoxy" than it does about the cult of celebrity in American churches, the widening fissures in Western Christendom, the crisis in Evangelical ecclesiology, the troubling in-grouping-out-grouping tendencies of the Neo-Reformed movement, and the even more troubling ex-Cathedral authority pastors with lucrative publishing deals can accumulate to themselves.
May 21: Harold Camping's Rapture doesn't come
Probably the less said about this one the better, but it did remind me why I'm an Amillenialist, all over again, and reminded me of the wisdom of humbly taking Jesus at his word, when he said what he said back in Matthew 24:36.
June 1: Christianity Today launches a "Quest for the Historical Adam"
This was, it seems, the year of the "Evangelical Doctrine on Public Display": Hell, the Rapture, and Genesis-literalism all nova-ed brightly across the canopy of cyber-space this year. Though this article received less attention than Love Wins, it did show us that the debate is much further from being settled than we ever thought, and that along with those universalists, the closets were also bulging with theo-evolutionists of a distinctly Evangelical variety.
June 12: The Book of Mormon (The Musical) wins a Tony for Best Musical
I include this one on the list because the fact that a Broadway musical about Mormonism garnered so much acclaim and accolades illustrates, among other things, how mainstream this religious movement has become. One Mormon commenter, when asked if it troubled her to see a play so directly and irreverently satirizing her faith, said it all for me in her reply: "No," she said, "it just tells me that the broader culture has finally become comfortable enough with Mormonism to poke fun at it." At the risk of sounding prophetic: this illustrates an evolution in the main-stream perception of Mormonism that will have significant implications for credal Christianity and its witness in the world.
July 7: Mark Driscoll's latest drivel
I'm thankful to Pastor Driscoll for the regular lessons he gives me in throttling my own indignation and choking back my bile. He's so uniquely adept at saying stupid things insensitively that he has almost become his own adjective. So: suffice it to say that this summer, when he posted an open invitation on Facebook for his friends and followers to share derisive stories about their encounters with "effeminate anatomically male" worship leaders, it was, for lack of a better word, totally driscollian.
July 27: John Stott passes
We commended a lovely servant of Jesus and a humble states-man for the Faith to the Grace of God this year. Preacher, pastor, evangelist, philanthropist (in the best sense of that word), writer, Christian leader, missionary, he was, by all accounts, a beautiful man and God used him wonderfully. To commemorate his going to be with the Lord, I've added The Cross of Christ to my reading list this year.
40 (more) Foci for Preaching
Around this time last year I was reflecting on my preaching ministry at the FreeWay and posted this list of the focus statements of my first forty sermons at the FreeWay. The "homiletical focus," as I said back then, is a concise statement that distills the point of the text and anchors the theme of the sermon in a single compelling, (hopefully) vivid sentence. I'm at-or-around sermon #80 now, and feeling a little retrospetive, so I compiled this list of the focus statements of my last forty sermons at the FreeWay.
1. Romans 8:22-27: God’s Spirit labours in our weakest prayers
2. 1 Peter 2:4-10: God’s building a living cathedral made out of transformed people.
3. John 8:12-20: As God is my witness, I light the way.
4. John 6:34-51: I’m the food that will feed you forever.
5. John 10:1-10: I’m your doorway to God; and I’m God’s doorway to you.
6. John 10:11-21: I’m the God who gives his own life to give life to his own.
7. John 11:17-27: I’m the next life, happening now.
8. John 15:1-11: I’m the tree, you’re the branches, God’s the gardener, love’s the fruit.
9. John 8:49-59: Jesus is the I AM God.
10. Romans 1:14-17: The Gospel is the power of God at work.
11. Colossians 4:2-6: Pray and prepare for God to open a word door.
12. Acts 16:11-15: The Gospel stands at the crossroads with God.
13. Acts 17:22-32. I know the name of your unknown God.
14. Hebrews 10:15-18. Our God has remembered to forget.
15. Isaiah 11:1-10: The perfect son of Jesse brings us perfect knowledge of God.
16. Isaiah 9:1-7: God meets our greatest expectations through the great humility of a child.
17. Isaiah 2:1-5: The peace of God will reign in the end.
18. Luke 2:10-14: Don’t be afraid.
19. John 1:14: The glorious word of God has taken on our fragile flesh.
20. Matthew 2:1-12: Who has seen the child who upsets the status quo?
21. Matthew 4:1-11: So Jesus: what kind of Messiah are you, anyways?
22. Ecclesiastes 1:1-10: Nothing’s worth the effort in a world where nothing’s ever new.
23. Ecclesiastes 2:1-11: Filling up on pleasure only leaves you empty in the end.
24. Luke 8:26-39: The cure is sitting at Jesus’ feet.
25. Ecclesiastes 2:17-26: God can redeem the rat race.
26. Ecclesiastes 3:1-14: Everlasting God gives a season for everything and everything for a season.
27. Romans 6:1-11: Baptism shows the world I’m dead to sin and alive to God.
28. Ecclesiastes 4:1-3: I’d rather not live, in a world with no one to comfort the exploited.
29. Ecclesiastes 4:7-12: Togetherness is God’s best for us.
30. Matthew 21:12-17: The vulnerable see in Jesus what the self-sufficient never can.
31. 1 John 4:1-4: Love is a sacred choice.
32. John 19:31-37: Tonight your perfect Passover lamb is slain; his blood is on the doorpost of the world.
33. John 20:11-18: Let go of what was crucified; step into new creation.
34. John 20:19-23: Receive the Holy Spirit and let God unlock the door.
35. Proverbs 31:10-31: The King’s ideal Bride is the picture of perfect wisdom.
36. Philippians 4:9-11: Practice all the time for God’s peace (in your marriage).
37. Nehemiah 1:1-11: When the walls are broken down, that’s our call to fast and pray.
38. Matthew 28:16-20: I’m heaven’s authority on earth now—now go be my disciple-making disciples.
39. Acts 2:42-47: The Spirit-filled community overflows with life for the world.
40. Acts 20:7-12: Hey Eutychus: Wake up! Get up! And come to the table.
37 Good Things
Last week was my 37th birthday. This time last year I composed a list of "36 reasons I'm glad to be alive" and I thought a similar post for the big 3-7 might be apropos. Reminders of reasons to love life, after all, might be first on the list.
1. Sunshine in June
2. The smell of a Russian Olive tree off in the distance
3. Camping
4. Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway
5. People watching at the Y
6. U2's Achtung Baby
7. Q on CBC Radio 1
8. Dead Poets Society
9. Officiating at Weddings
10. That dusty old book-page smell that hangs about
your face when you're reading an old book
11. Settlers of Catan
12. Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor"
13. Playing djembe on the worship team
14. Building "Thomas the Train" tracks with a child
15. Reading out loud to each other as a family
16. Memories of backpacking through Europe
17. Maps
18. Cumin
19. Watching my son become a man
20. Canola fields and blue sky
21. Cool, humid mornings that promise to become
a scorcher of day
22. C. S. Lewis books
23. Playing Lost Heir with mom and dad
24. Stumbling across a forgotten piece of one's own juvenilia.
25. Family movie nights
26. Rainy afternoons
27. Walks in the forest park around the corner from our house
28. Teaching
29. Eating with chopsticks
30. The Breastplate of St. Patrick (the prayer and the Irish hymn)
31. Strong coffeee
32. Watching home videos on New Years Eve
33. Dancing with my kids
34. Fresh garden potatoes with dill
35. Stationary
36. Words whose form and meaning are as close
together as possible-- like sesquipadalian and tintinnabular
37. Moments of inspiration
Sisters in Christ
I feel like I'm always the last to find out about these things, but today they announced on the radio that it's International Women's Day-- a day set aside to recognize and celebrate "the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future."
Of course, you sometimes hear the claim that the Christian Faith is one of the main reasons we need things like an "International Women's Day" to rectify years of marginalization in the first place; but my experience and general impression is that people who make this claim have actually given Christianity at best a cursive and cliched reading. Not everything the Church has always said and done when it comes to gender equality has always been above reproach, to be sure, but it's not for nothing that the (highly macho) ancient world dismissed early Christianity derisively as a religion of "women and slaves."
Be that as it may, for my part on this International Women's Day and all, I began compiling a list of sisters in Christ through whom God has left a significant Kingdom-mark on the world, women whose contributions theological, pastoral, literary or missiological have spiritually enriched the heavenly coffers of the people of God, so to speak. This list morphed into the short quiz below.
Each of the following quotes are by (or in the case of those marked with an asterisk, about) a well-known woman of the Faith, past or present. How many of these Sisters in Christ can you identify correctly?
Who said (or in the case of 5 and 6, about whom was it said):
1. ...the soul is now wounded with love for its Spouse and strives for more opportunities to be alone and, in conformity with this state, to rid itself of everything that can be an obstacle to this solitude.
2. Oh, what a happy child I am, although I cannot see! I am resolved that in this world, contented I will be!
3. The saint in prayer, friends around the dinner table, the mother reaching out her arms for her newborn baby are in kairos. The bush, the burning bush, is in kairos, not any burning bush, but the particular burning bush before which Moses removed his shoes; the bush I pass by on my way to the brook. In kairos that part of us which is not consumed in the burning is wholly awake.
4. I am not a man nor a minister, yet as a mother and a mistress I felt I ought to do more than I had yet done. I resolved to begin with my own children; in which I observe the following method: I take such a proportion of time as I can spare every night to discourse with each child apart. On Monday I talk with Molly, on Tuesday with Hetty, Wednesday with Nancy, Thursday with Jacky, Friday with Patty, Saturday with Charles.
5. O how great is the devotion of this woman that she should be counted worthy of the appellation of apostle. *
6. For thy hands, O my God, in the hidden design of thy providence did not desert my soul; and out of the blood of my mother's heart, through the tears that she poured out by day and by night, there was a sacrifice offered to thee for me, and by marvelous ways thou didst deal with me. *
7. A great benefit of Sabbath keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us — not by becoming passive and lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives.
8. The poets began drifting away from churches as the jurists grew louder and more insistent.
9. So I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
10. People say to me. ‘What about the rich?’ They need Jesus too.’ Well, that’s fine if you’re called to them, but we’re called to the poor. The rich can look after themselves.
Seven Words to the Wise
As I mentioned before, I've been working through the Book of Ecclesiastes for about a month now, and finding it challenging, inspiring and poignant. At one point I said to my wife: I feel like I'm being converted, all over again. My tongue was in my cheek, of course, but what I meant was: when I read Ecclesiastes, I discover this way of being in the world that is very wise, but in many ways very different from how I've learned to be Christian over the years.
Here are some of the lessons The Teacher's been coaching me on so far:
1. Don't flatter yourself: ennui over the fact that there's nothing new under the sun is itself nothing new under the sun.
2. All we are and all we do is "under the sun": contrary to appearances, human potential-- even human wisdom--is not limitless, nor was it meant to be.
3. To accept the existential absurdities of life is a source of great wisdom: Everything is "hebel" ("vapor," KJV's vanity, NIV's meaningless) not because it's worthless, but because it refuses to line up with our human intuition of rational cause and effect; don't rage against this, but accept the Creator's prerogative.
4. Work is only good because it's not ultimate: accepting the limitations the Creator has placed on the outcomes of our work (and our ministries) sets us free to enjoy our work for what it is.
5. Savor simplicity: luxury itself is "hebel".
6. Stay in the Now: "There is a time for everything," and right now is the time for what's happening right now.
7. Hold your tongue: "The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools." Full stop.
The 2010 terra incognita Literary Awards
For the last two years at terra incognita, I've taken a moment in January to list the top ten reads of the previous year. As I worked on my list for 2010, I found my selections more eclectic than usual, so I thought I'd put a slightly different spin on things. Rather than a generic "Top Ten," I offer here the 2010 terra incognita literary awards (drum-roll, please):
1. Most annoying read: Shopping for God, James B. Twitchell.
A self-described "apatheist," James Twitchell offers a secular market analysis of American Christianity that examines it strictly as a phenomenon of Western capitalism. His thesis: in the saturated market of American Christendom, those denominations that best "market" their "product" will thrive, while those that have lost touch with the market will soon be going into receivership. I call it annoying because, even though he confused evangelism with advertising in a way that made me want to scream "you just don't get it!" at the same time he kept putting his finger on things wrong in the church with a clarity and wit that kept shutting me up.
2. Most traumatic read: Empire of Illusion, Chris Hedges.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges argues that North American culture is on the brink of moral, political and economic collapse, and that in the triumph of spectacle over literacy that we see in every venue of social discourse-- politics, business, entertainment, news media, higher education (nothing escapes his levelled critique)-- we are actually witnessing the final throes of a debauched culture, medicating itself with fantasy and illusion in the face of its own demise. He then offers an unflinching, if graphic description of the culture's worst debauches to prove his point. Please note: I do not recommend this book to the faint of spirit. I was quite literally shaken for a week after reading it.
3. Most bombastic read: Shake-Down, Ezra Levant.
Ezra Levant writes with the tenacity of a bulldog, the alacrity an injury lawyer and the tact of a town-crier. Shake-Down is the chronicle of his legal contest with the Canadian Human Rights Commission after a Calgary Imam charged him with hate-speech for re-printing the notorious Danish political cartoons about Mohamed back in 2005; it is also his scalding critique of the HRC and the poorly-checked legal clout that it wields; it is also his call for a drastic over-haul (if not complete disbanding) of the HRC as an unnecessary and unCanadian institution.
4. Most disappointing read: Hey Nostradamus, Douglas Coupland.
I started reading this multi-layered story about some survivors of a school shooting when I was a sub back in the Moose Jaw days, because the remedial English class I was teaching was studying it. The gig ended before we finished the novel, and I never got to hear how Jason's bizarre story finished. So when I saw it in the library this summer, I thought I'd give it a re-try. Those first fifty pages in Moose Jaw, it turns out, were the best of the book. Especially disappointing was his depiction of the religious nut, Reg. Not that I have a problem with caricatures of religious nuts in literature, but Coupland writes about religious fanaticism like someone who has no clue what religious fanaticism really looks or sounds like, and thinks he can just drop lame lines like "all I ever wanted for you was the kingdom" (fanatic Reg to his estranged son), wink knowingly at the audience, and we'll just let our anti-religion prejudice do the work of characterization for him.
5. Most rewarding re-read: A Wizard of Earthsea,Ursual Le Guin
The beauty of A Wizard of Earthsea wasn't entirely lost on me when I read it back in Grade 7, but re-reading this gem 24 years later, I was caught off guard with its depth, lyricism and wisdom. Earthsea is as compelling a world as Middle-Earth and more vivid than Narnia, but its Ged's journey to name his shadow that works away at you long after the book is closed. I wonder how it will be reading it again when I'm 70?
6. Most enraptured read: A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
I've had Mark Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War sitting unread on my bookshelf for almost 15 years; I bought it at a used book store because I'd read his Winter's Tale and loved it. This fall I finally decided it was time to justify lugging this 700+ pager with me on 5 consecutive moves, so I made the time to read it. I'm glad I did: one of the purest works of fiction I've read in a long time.
7. Most edifying read: Theology for the Community of God, Stan Grenz.
Stan Grenz has renewed my appreciation for systematic theology and has convinced me that more than any practical church-growth books or ministry manuals, what pastors most need to read is theology. He is irenic, erudite, lucid and reverent in this book, and there were times when reading his work led me into a profound experience of worship-- and he never even picked up a guitar. My wife and I are contemplating reading it together as a devotional book this year.
8. Most willing required read: The New Creation, Theodore Runyon
Required reading for a Wesleyan Theology course I took this spring as part of my ordination in the FMCiC, Runyon's study of "The Image of God" in Wesley's soteriology was inspring and challenging. (The "Most Willing" in the award title is also my indication that there were some required reads this year that I read somewhat begrudgingly).
9. Most unexpectedly interesting read: How Soccer Explains the World,Franklin Foer
Unexpectedly interesting because I am not a soccer fan-- I'm so not a soccer fan that I didn't even know I'd started reading it the same time the FIFA World Cup was about to begin in South Africa. Foer's thesis is that soccer offers us a vivid microcosm of the global economy, and he travels the world to show how beautifully soccer illustrates the ironic effect of globalism, which entrenches us in ever tightening tribes even as it homogenizes us as global consumers. By the time I was done the book, I had become fascinated enough with "the beautiful game" to watch the World Cup final with enthusiasm and appreciation.
10.Best all-round read: The Year of Living Biblically, A. J. Jacobs
I've written about this book here and here, so I won't repeat myself now, except to say that of all the good books I read about the Good Book this year, I'm glad this was one of them.
Top Headlines of (my) Evangelical 2010
The parenthetical "my" in the above title is my acknowledgement that I am neither knowledgeable nor impartial enough to offer a list like this with any objectivity. That said, I've put together this survey of news items from 2010 that stood out to me as notable landmarks on the evangelical landscape. I post it here IMHO, and welcome any nominations for additions to the list:
January 12:, 2010 Pat Robertson waxes inflammatory on Haitian disaster.
Not that I think his (at best) poorly timed comments and (at worst) cruel drivel about Haiti's alleged "pact with the devil" was even worthy of the attention it got, but it made me sad on a number of fronts: sad that for some, Pat Robertson's comments will just reinforce the tainted view of Christianity they already have; sad that a camera and the celebrity it creates has made a man like this some sort of spokesperson for a certain kind of Christianity (and that this "kind of Christianity" is so often held up as normative by the secular media); and sad, too, that mere "outrage" has somehow become a legitimate and sufficient moral response to ideas we dislike.
April 27, 2010: N. T. Wright announces his retirement as Bishop of Durham and his appointment as Research Professor at St. Andrews University.
This barely made a ripple in the headlines, I admit, but the fact that one of my favorite biblical scholars has taken a teaching post at St. Andrews was news to me, inasmuch as it gave me hope that the eagerly anticipated fourth volume of his Christian Origins and the Question of God series may be along sooner rather than later.
June 30, 2010: Anti-theist Christopher Hitchens diagnosed with cancer.
One of the world's best-known and more vitriolic opponents of religion announced this summer that he's been diagnosed with cancer. While some people (people of Pat Robertson's stripe, perhaps) have taken this opportunity to use vindictive phrases like "what he had coming," and "cosmic justice," others have taken the opportunity to practice pious prayer for the enemy, which, depending on the motive and content of the prayers, may be just as opportunistic.
July 13, 2010: The Canadian Government scraps the mandatory long-form census.
While this made more than a ripple in the secular media, I only noticed it because it hit the fan the week my family was away in Alberta and I was home alone, so I was listening to the CBC more than usual. At the time I didn't give it much thought. The portent of the decision didn't sink in until months later, when I was sitting in a room full of pastors, and a representative from the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada explained to us how we might use statistical data to help us in ministry, and I finally realized how useful a tool we'd lost.
July 31: Author Ann Rice "quits Christianity."
When Ann Rice first became a Christian, it turned heads especially because she was the famous writer of novels that could morph into multi-million dollar Hollywood productions staring the likes of Tom Cruise. Now that she's "left" the church (in her words: "In the name of Christ, I quit being a Christian") this is "news" only for the same reason; the story mattered to me primarily because it seems to illustrate James' wisdom in warning us against giving preferential treatment to the rich and famous (James 2:1-5).
August 15, 2010: Theologian Clark Pinnock dies at age 73.
I've read very little of this somewhat controversial theologian, but parts of his Flame of Love and parts of his Wideness in God's Mercy were helpful to me. I'll refer you to David Guretzki's tribute to him over at Theommentary, and commend him here to the mystery of the divine grace he worked his lifetime to describe.
August 24, 2010: Donald Bloesch dies at age 82.
It struck me as notable that two theological servants of the church-- in many ways so different in their theological bent-- should both pass away within 10 days of each other. I read swaths of Bloesch's work in Seminary, and found him to be thorough and challenging. When I heard about his death, I thought of a line in Barth (a theologian for whom he had a special affinity). I remember it imperfectly, but he wondered out loud once if God didn't laugh to see him pushing around his wheelbarrow full of books. I commend Bloesch, and his own wheelbarrow full of books, to the mystery of God's grace.
September 7, 2010: Florida's Terry Jones threatens to burn thousands of copies of the Koran on September 11.
Not that I believe a guy like this deserves anywhere near the amount of the attention he got, but it illustrated a number of things for me: a) the media's tendency to pour gasoline on a fire so they can write with incredulity about the religious flames; b) again how we've come to value "outrage" as some sort of "moral" response to things we think are wrong; and c) how tribal the notion of god has become in a world of tolerance and wars on terror.
October 1, 2010: Rick Warren speaks at John Piper's national "Desiring God Conference."
Purpose-driven Pragmatism meets Hedonistic Calvinism? This one raised my eyebrow. After all, when one of the most vociferous doctrinal watchdogs of American Evangelicalism invites one of the most effective pragmatists of American Evangliscalism to the party, eyebrows are going to raise. And they did: 40,000 blog-posts worth of indignant eyebrows, apparently; some even invoked 2 Timothy 4:3 and warnings about latter-days apostasy. For my part, I was left musing about how, in the absence of a clear ecclesiology, Evangelicalism in this part of the world looks and feels like a doctrinal clique.
December 13, 2010: Barna survey finds North American church to be theologically illiterate.
For the record, I saw methodological problems with Barna's survey so huge that it was hard to take their conclusions seriously, but at the very least this headline shored up my resolve to preach on the Incarnation the first Sunday after Christmas.
A Blogging Year in Review
Happy 2011 everyone. I trust you rang in the New Year with verve and gusto. Me: a rollicking game of Settlers of Catan followed by our family's New Years tradition: watching home movies. Nothing like welcoming a new year by laughing and reflecting together on the last 12 as a family.
And speaking of traditions: this time last year I posted a random list of stats and figures on my first year blogging. Not long after that post, I discovered Google Analytics, a free service provided by Google that tracks a wide variety of stats on your web-site's usage. With the help of Google Analytics I've compiled this list of statistical curiosities from another year blogging at terra incognita. For those of you who contributed to any of the following numbers, thanks for joining me for another trip around the blog-o-sphere sun. For what they're worth, here're some random weights and measures of 2010 .
1. Top five cities from which visitors arrived: Oshawa, Ontario (327); Toronto, Ontario (204) Grand Rapids, Michigan (194),Caronport, Saskatchewan (177); London, Ontario (125)
2. Most distant visitor: Someone from Chennai, India, (13,646 km away)
3. Most common landing keyword (i.e. what people typed into Google to find their way to me): “prayer for the offering”
4. Top five most commonly visited posts: A Prayer for the Offering (916); On Kafka Dreams (113); Tidings of Great Joy (96); Pangs of Northerness(92); The Geometry of Heaven? (66);
5. Overall average time spent on site: 49 seconds
6. Most common (non-search engine) referring site: This Side of Sunday (314)
7. Total hits in 2010: 6,646
8. Most Commented-on Post: Blogging in the Echo Chamber (5)
9. Worst Post: Upon hearing that Austin Texas is renaming 2nd Street (this one sounded funnier in my head than it did on the screen; at least it was short).
10. Most Fun Post to Write: The Adventures of Elroy (or what has Nintendo to do with Jerusalem?)
10 Lessons Learned Blogging
The other day I was talking to a friend who was thinking about starting a blog but didn't know if, or where to start. After the chat I was still mulling over some of the lessons I've learned in the last year and a bit of blogging (real practical lessons, mind you, not philosophical epiphanies or lead-in-to-a-joke kind of lessons).
In what follows I defer completely to those who have been doing this longer, but here are some practical rules of thumb I've found helpful.
1. Decide why you're doing it before you do. In my experience, blogging can be a sort of love-hate experience (especially if you're committed to items 2-5 below). The blog, in one sense, is never satisfied. Unlike a paper, or a sermon, or a story, it's never "done," and next week the post you just spent hours crafting will feel kinda stale and you'll have to start all over again. Knowing why I started doing this, after all, helps on those days when it feels it would be easier to just pull the plug.
2. Keep them short. This was a real tough one for me, starting a blog straight out of seminary and all, but the discipline of keeping my blog posts to around 500 words has (I think) improved my writing generally. It's curious, but I find writing a 500 word post harder than a rambling 1100-er. Go figure.
3. Keep it coming. This is a tough one too, but I've found that consistent posting is a really helpful discipline (he says after eight days of silence....); it develps the habit of regular writing, and once you find the groove, it makes the general experience of blogging more pleasant.
4. Plan ahead. Keeping a running list of possible post ideas as they come to you really helps with #3, especially when that computer screen is staring you down, a week since your last post, and you still don't know where to start.
5. Write ahead. This helps a lot with #3, too. I took a couple of weeks a while back and hammered out ten or twelve short back-up posts which I keep on file for those weeks when the well's dry or I don't have much time to put down the bucket.
6. Take breaks. Rather than just letting things peter out, I've tried to take intentional hiatuses (hiatai ?) from blogging when I find my creativity or energy is flagging, setting a specific stop-and-re-start date for myself. The few times I've done this I find I come back blogging with renewed enthusiasm.
7. Use Dropbox. Dropbox is an easy-to-use online file sharing service and about the quickest way I've found to include additional content (files, word documents, pdfs, video games, etc) in your posts. Just put it in your dropbox and then include a link on the blog. Done.
8. Use videos for podcasts. When I started I wanted to embed audio files in some of my posts. Doing some research I discovered this is a lot more tricky than it sounds. I found lots of ways to embed audio using html code, but the problem was it didn't always work, depending on the browser you were using. Often it "forced" the music which is really annoying. And you always needed off-site hosting. The simplest solution I've come up with is to convert my audio to a video file, setting it as the sound track to a blank black screen. You can then upload it simply and cleanly straight to the blog using the "add video" feature, and Blogger's video driver takes care of the rest (because I prefer the way it looks, I go in after and adjust the dimensions of the driver in the html code, just to make it more resemble an audio file).
9. Have regular "features." Another one for the sake of #3. Keeping a few "regular features" (e.g. a "movie of the month," book reviews, etc.) helps you with built in post ideas for when the idea-pickings are scarce.
10. Keep lists. Lists are among the most fun, illuminating and interesting posts to write, especially when it's been eight days or so, and you're still staring blankly at the sceen . (Take my post on the 10 lessons I learned blogging, for instance.)
Top Ten Books I Never Finished
Usually when I post book lists, I have formative or compelling reads in mind. But yesterday I was thinking wistfully about books I started with high hopes and good literary intentions but, through the vicissitudes of time or machinations of fate, somehow never finished. As an avid reader, it was a humbling exercise.
So here's my list of the top ten literary ghosts of my past, rattling their unfinished chains at me from the dusty corners of my bookshelf. What about you? Any books back there that you started with the best of intentions only to get bogged down and abandon somewhere between "Once upon a time" and "happily ever after"?
10. The Imitation of Christ,Thomas a Kempis.
I've tried twice to wade through this medieval masterpiece of Catholic piety, and something about it always escapes me.
9. Don Quixote, Cervantes.
I made it to the end of Book 1 and at page 450 or so, I was still only half way through. I sat for a moment in a staring contest with Book 2, until Book 2 won. (Later I sat through all 3.27 hours of the Man of La Mancha, so maybe in that I'm redeemed).
8. Middlemarch, George Eliot.
They told me this was a masterpiece of an English Novel but I could only get down the first 90 of its 800 or so pages before it lost me. Later I read Silas Marner and loved it, so maybe Middlemarch is worth a second attempt.
7. Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche.
Maybe if I were a nineteenth century German existentialist, this book might have seemed far less pompous, angry, and ridiculous; as it was I'd lost all ability to take him seriously after the first 50 or so pages.
6. Hard Times, Charles Dickens. For the record, Tale of Two Cities ranks high on my list of favorite novels, so it's not Dickens himself, but somehow the times in Hard Times were a bit too hard for my patience. I think I reshelved it after chapter 1.
5. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens.
See the disclaimer about Dickens on #6 above, but to be honest, while I could recognize the genius of this novel, I never quite made it to the end.
4. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy.
Tess (of the d'Urbervilles) is one of my all time favorite heroines of English fiction, so I tackled Jude with quite high hopes. I'm not sure where or how, but at some point the whole plot seemed to unravel for me and I couldn`t muster up the sympathy to read Jude's sad tale to its (by all accounts) pathetic end.
3. The Pilgrim's Regress, C. S. Lewis.
Funny enough, I really love this early Lewis book, and I've read it all the way to the last few chapters something like three times; but somehow it derails for me in its final throes, and I can't track the allegory through to the end of its last 20 pages.
2. The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan.
And speaking of allegorical pilgrims, to my great chagrin I confess here that I never finished The Pilgrim's Progress. Moment of silence. I read Book I dutifully (and it was dutifully) but somehow I couldn't find the energy to do it all over again with Book II.
1. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Because people I respect deeply deeply respect this novel I did my best, but somewhere in the Russian Monk's life history, I trailed off and have never (yet) found my way back.
Occupied
The other day we were filling out some forms for some changes we're making to an insurance policy, when the helpful representative from the brokerage asked me this innocuous question: "Occupation?"
He'd already run through the questionaire with my wife, so I knew what was coming next. Because after I answered: "Pastor," he asked: "And the description of your work?"
He just wanted hard data. He just wanted to be able to assure the insurance company that I'm not at any special risk of death or dismemberment because of the nature of my occupation. But I have to admit, my mind sprinted a couple of laps before I answered.
Mostly because I've been asked this question before, usually out of genuine curiosity, always out real interest and only once out of vague suspicion towards the role in general: "So, what does a pastor do?" And I always hesitate.
When I was in seminary, one of the courses I took had us write a "vision statement" that would help us define our future roles in ministry. My own "vision statement for ministry" is: "To use my gifts as a teacher, preacher and leader to point others to the revelation of God's grace and faithfulness in Jesus Christ, and to fully participate by the power of the Holy Spirit in the redemptive work that Christ is accomplishing in my community and in the lives of those around me. " But I knew that if I told the polite, helpful insurance broker sitting across the table from me that in my line of work I use my gifts as a teacher, preacher and leader to point others to the revelation of God's grace and faithfulness in Jesus Christ and to fully participate by the power of the Holy Spirit in the redemptive work of Christ... it wouldn't have got me very far.
He just wanted hard data, after all.
Of course, thanks to the unlimited storage-and-retrieval powers of modern technology, hard data isn't that hard to come by. A few clicks on the computer this evening and I found out that in my first full year as a pastor I:
preached... 138,318 words
received ... 1,774 emails
sent ... 1,228 emails
read ... 781 pages for denominational ordination
played ... 348 songs
posted ... 108 blog posts
wrote ... 43 pages of papers for denominational ordination
baked... 22 loaves of communion bread
tabled ... 10 pastor reports to the board
taught .... 7 introductory sessions on the Christian Faith
submitted... 1 annual report
And participated in... innumerable meetings. (I once heard a pastor say that he "didn't do meetings" and I thought: How? That's like a high steel worker saying he didn't do rivets.)
But it turns out that all this hard data is actually rather soft. Because none of these numbers really express what it is I "do" as a pastor; and there is no number you could write down to quantify what it means to be invited to walk alongside God's people as Christ does his new-creation work in our life together. No number could express the honour it is to invite others to discover the grace of God in Jesus Christ, or the privilege it is to help others see the love and goodness of Jesus in the Book he inspired, or the joy it is to encourage God's people to use the gifts God's given them to be part of God's redemptive mission in the world.
None of this, I suppose, entails special risk of dismemberment, but there is a special risk of death in there; a death to self and a daily resurrection into a life of measuring all things-- work, meaning, worth, success, life itself-- by the measuring stick of the cross, and by the scandalous death of the crucified King.
And how do you quantify that beautiful risk?
When I Grow Up
Maybe it's the two week holiday I took at the start of July, or maybe it's just the fact that this is the first time in eleven years I haven't had the whole summer vacation off, but I'm thinking a lot about work and meaning these days. As my recent vacation back "home" (i.e. out west) has reminded me, in many ways I'm still learning what it means to be a "Pastor" for a living.
It's perhaps inevitable, and not necessarily unbilical that we should draw so much self-identity from our work. In his book Ethics, Bonhoeffer points out that work (along with family, worship, and governance) is one of the four original mandates for the Adam in Paradise. The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes would probably agree; after all, he reminds us, to be happy in one's work, this too is a gift from God. And having work that humanizes us-- that puts us into honest and reciprocal relation with the people around us, that connects us to the earth that feeds us, and helps us understand ourselves in terms of a meaningful contribution to the common weal of society-- this, too, surely, is from the hand of God.
Don't believe me? Well ask a child what she wants to be when she grows up. Better than a Rorschach test, that. It is, in many ways, one of a child's first acts of self-definition, one of their first efforts to consider their own contribution to the social fabric and to understand who they are, or might be, in relation to the world outside.
For interest sake, here's how I answered it at various stages in my life (and for the record, you can click here if you want to see how life really panned out):
1. Writer (age ?5). I'm not sure how clearly defined this ambition was, but I still remember my first two works of fiction: Fuzzy the Bear (a gripping adventure story about an astronaut bear named Fuzzy and his rocket journey to the moon), and Mr. Who (a suspenseful thriller about a hooded murder named Mr. Who that I dictated to my Dad).
2. Scuba diving instructor (age ?9). My Dad did scuba diving when I was a kid, and this is back before it became a relatively straight forward recreation activity. Once in a while we'd get him to bring his scuba gear to school for show-and-tell, and maybe it was watching my class sit mesmerised as he explained things like the regulator and the weight belt that I first decided this would be an ideal career.
3. Professional wrestler (age ?11). Seriously (no: seriously). My wrestler's name was going to be something like "The Mongoose" and my finishing move involved a back flip off the top rope. Luckily as I aged, my body-mass grew considerably less than my ambition.
4. Archaeologist (age 13). The Indiana Jones movies had made "archeology" synonymous in my mind with exotic treasure hunts and adventurous quests for lost civilizations, and the Egyptology books in our school library added mysticism and esoterica to the mix, making "archaeologist" a tantalizing career choice for an imaginative 13-year-old. They told me, when I asked about it, that a real archaeologist uses a sieve and brush more than a bull-whip, but I just didn't believe them.
5. Comic book Artist (age 14). The margins of almost every notebook I had in Junior High were crammed with doodles of ninjas, knights and random superheros. I even went to a comic book fair, with a portfolio stuffed with drawings of my own superhero designs. I asked one of the famous artists there how I might go about becoming a comic book artist. His answer was blunt, a bit deflating, and, looking back, rather obvious: "First you have to learn how to draw."
6. Teacher (age 14). Wouldn't you know it: career day in grade 9, and neither comic book artist nor archaeologist was on the list of careers for us to chose from for our career-day research project, so I picked what seemed at the time the next best thing.
7. Novelist (age 22). I actually stuck with teacher, more-or-less, right through the rest of high school and into university. For a short stint between the end of my time at university before starting my first job as an English teacher, I toyed with the dream of becoming a novelist. I even tried my hand at it, and got all the way to the twenty-some-rejection-slips in the mail-box-stage before shelving it. Oh well, there's always teaching.
Some Summer Specials
Things will be quiet for the next few weeks here at terra incognita, as I take a bit of a summer break from blogging. Conventional wisdom says that guests will stop visiting for supper if there's nothing on the table for them when they do, so I thought I'd put together a little menu of some of the "daily specials" we've served at terra incognita over the last number of months, to whet your appetite until I'm back online.
I'll be back some time before the end of July, but in the mean time, might I suggest...
1. These thoughts on the Triumphal Entry
2. This reflection on Sabbath and Rest
3. My home-made video game, served with a reflection on faith, longing and gaming
4. Some thoughts on youth, served with a review of Wal-Town as a starter
5. A love letter to Saskatchewan
6. Reflections on joy and grief in the community of Faith
7. A very funny comedy routine by Brian Regan, with some reflections about listening on the side
And for those with a bit more theological appetite, I've also put together a couple of "main course" items, namely a few papers on bible, theology and/or ministry that I've had kicking around on my hard drive for a while and thought they might be worth making available online.
1. A paper on art, aesthetics and church ministry
2. A theological/historical study on baptism
3. A research project on drama and Christian Worship
4. A paper on the temple theme in the Gospel of John
5. A theological study on Worship and the Mediation of Christ
And for dessert, here's a very simple guitar arrangement of the hymn, "Holy Holy Holy" that I recorded a while ago for an altogether different blog post idea that never came to be. It's been on the shelf for a while now, and I didn't want it to go to waste, so I thought I'd offer it here.
40 foci for preaching
When I was studying preaching, my homiletics prof, Blayne Banting, taught us about the importance of the sermon "focus." In biblical preaching (i.e. preaching that is focused specifically on a biblical text), the "focus" is that single sentence that distills, encapsulates, crystallizes and summarizes the message of both the text and the sermon. Ideally, everything in the sermon, in some way or another, feeds into or flows out of the focus, and anything that doesn't is shelved for another sermon. Hadden Robinson called it "the big idea"; Blayne Banting called it "the focus." In biblical preaching-- and Blayne Banting was quite clear about this-- the focus of the sermon must emerge from, and tie directly back to the focus of the text. Whatever the text says-- at its heart-- that's what your focus should say; the focus statement should be the result of careful prayer, thought, theological reflection and disciplined exegesis of the text.
The idea of a "homiletical focus" has been very important in my own development as a preacher, and I've found writing the focus statement to be one of the most arduous but invaluable and rewarding initial steps in my process of sermon prep. Sometimes the focus statement will go through up to 10 or more drafts before I finally have it clear.
Is it worth it, all this fuss about a 10-word sentence? I don't know, but I do know that a couple of weeks back, someone mentioned the first sermon I preached at the FreeWay, a year ago, and, without knowing any of this finicky stuff about "homiletical foci" she said: "I remember, you told us: we need resurrected eyes to see the resurrected Lord" (see item 1 on the list below).
So I preached my 40th sermon at the FreeWay this Sunday. I've mentioned before how I'm not one to let biblical milestones like 3s or 12s or 40s pass by unnoticed, and so today I'm thinking back through the last 40 Sundays in the pulpit at the FreeWay (Daniel might call it 40 sevens, maybe?), and mulling over the first 40 foci of my preaching. I admit that some are better than others, but here's the last 40 things I've told the FreeWay about God and life together with him.
1. Luke 24:13-33: We need resurrected eyes to see the resurrected Lord.
2. 1 Kings 19:8-18: God's promises never have to go back to the beginning.
3. Luke 13:1-9: If it don't bear fruit, it's time to uproot.
4. Luke 14:15-24: God is determined to throw the greatest party in history.
5. Luke 16:1-9: Be a scandalous spendthrift of God's grace.
6. Luke 18:1-8: Kingdom come prayers never fall on deaf ears.
7. Genesis 11:1-9: No height of hurt is impossible in the community built on sameness.
8. Jeremiah 29:4-14: God has peace plans for his people.
9. Amos 5:8-26: God rejects empty religious show.
10. Galatians 5:13-15: True freedom is servanthood; and servanthood is true freedom.
11. Mark 1:14-15: God's revolution is happening now, turn around now and believe it.
12. John 3:1-15: God's Spirit is birthing believers into his kingdom.
13. Luke 9:28-35: This chosen one fulfills the history of God's life with his people.
14. Mark 10: 35-45: The king of God's kingdom rules as the servant of all.
15. Acts 1:3-11: In the meantime the Spirit holds us out to the world.
16. Psalm 45: He will reign forever and ever.
17. Luke 1:67-80: The promising God has visited us.
18. Isaiah 7:13-14: God is with you in the mess.
19. Matthew 1:1-17: The Christ's family tree is rooted in scandal and faithfulness.
20. Luke 2:22-36: This little baby is the God-hope we've been looking for.
21. Matthew 2:13-23: The Son of God will weep and wipe Rachel's tears.
22. Luke 2:41-51: We'll find this child of destiny in his father's things.
23. Luke 2:52: The Son of God grew God-wise, God-strong, God-loved.
24. Job 41: 1-11: God's faced the chaos on a scale we can't imagine.
25. Revelation 22:1-5: A day's coming when all manner of thing shall be well.
26. Psalm 1: There's no two ways about it with God.
27. Psalm 26: We walk right with God because his Christ walked blamelessly for us.
28. Psalm 29: The Lord is the real life-giver.
29. John 12:12-19: Death is defeated when the king of love rides into town.
30. Matthew 27:50-54: It really is a good Friday.
31. Mark 16:1-18: God rolled back the stone because we were helpless to move it on our own.
32. Colossians 2:11-13: Baptism is our heart-circumcision.
33. 1 Corinthians 15: 35-49: The God who creates is the God who resurrects.
34. Colossians 3:1-11: You've been raised from the dead: make your life extraordinary.
35. Isaiah 49:13-16: The Lord God out-mothers us all.
36. Hebrews 9:11-15: Jesus is our perfect High Priest.
37. Acts 2:1-13: The Spirit of God has begun the harvest.
38. Genesis 48:8-20: God doesn't choose the way the big-shot executive world chooses.
39. 1 Timothy 2:1-8: Pray for them all, starting at the top.
40. Luke 11:9-13: The Perfect Father will give his children the perfect gift.
36 reasons I'm glad to be alive (besides the obvious)
It's the big 3-6 for me today; not to get too reflective, but I started putting together this 36-item list of simple things I love about life. Harder than it sounds, but good for the soul.
1. The first snowfall of winter
2. The feeling of thaw in the air at the start of spring
3. The way herbs like thyme and basil leave their scent on your hands when you brush them gently
4. The way our dog is always in tune to the movement of the family as a unit
5. The sound of bagpipes being played off in the distance
6. Sleeping with the fan blowing and the window open on a cooling summer night
7. The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins
8. Rain
9. Hunting for four leaf clovers with my kids
10. Tolkien's description of the demise of Smaug in the The Hobbit
11. Putting on a freshly-ironed shirt
12. The way a good cup of coffee relaxes and stimulates at the same time
13. Seafood
14. Playing Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring on the piano
15. The smell of fresh-baked bread
16. Being from Saskatchewan
17. The prayer of St. Francis
18. Draining a three-pointer
19. A properly poached egg and buttered toast
20. Waking up to the sound of birds singing
21. Leading the church in communion
22. Writing
23. Reading the work of aspiring writers
24. Building a camp fire
25. Canova's Eros and Psyche
26. Elixir guitar strings
27. Used book stores
28. Staying at a nice hotel room
29. Landing that shot in squash where you hit it against the back wall
30. Playing crib (especially with my Grandma)
31. Lentil stew and rice
32. Talking to children seriously
33. Reading N. T. Wright
34. Loading a moving truck (especially when it's not mine)
35.Reading in the tub
36. A good joke
A blog by any other name
Terra Incognita was actually my second choice as a title for this blog. Originally I'd planned to call it "One Hand Clapping," because I thought that sounded all tongue-in-cheek-zen and esoteric and what not; it seemed like a good name for a blog about faith, words and spirituality. But when I googled "one hand clapping" I discovered that the name was already taken... and this by a po-mo-emergent-Christian-blogger-type whose theological interests included things like the intersections between ecology and faith and guys like N. T. Wright. Go figure. I followed Onehandclapping for a while, just to see if fools seldom differed, after all. We differed once in a while, but it is an interesting blog: I'd recommend it.
So I settled on terra incognita, a title that came from what was one of my favorite D. H. Lawrence poems, back in the pre-fully-devoted-follower-of-Jesus days. But I was curious today about who else might be using terra incognita as a label for their paricular creative endeavors, and, a few google searches later, I had a sizeable list of organizations and individuals exploring the "unknown regions" of their own areas of interest, passion or enthusiasm. For the curious (and for lack of better post-fodder) I offer my top ten here:
10. Terra Incognita (the album)-- the title of a 2009 album by rocker Juliette Lewis.
9. Terra Incognita (the RPG)-- a "roleplaying games [sic] of exploration, intrigue, and mystery, featuring adventurer-scholars whose exploits span the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries."
8. Terra Incognita (the novel)-- a novel by Ruth Downie about the Roman Empire in the time of Emperor Hadrian.
7. Terra Incgonita (the travelogue)-- Sara Wheeler's account of her 7-month journey to Antarctica.
6. Terra Incognita (the (other) blog)-- a blog about "Spirituality, shamanism, ethnobotany, visionary art, images & photos, roots reggae and other good listenings, bizarre & interesting things, cult movies, trips & travels, underground & counterculture..."
5. Terra Incognita (the documentary film company)-- a company that makes documentary films that "map the unknown territories of our current knowledge."
4. terra incognita (the arts organisation)-- "a British, not for profit, visual arts and curatorial organisation, that tries to challenge both the London art world and wider society with their proposals for other ways of doing things."
3. Terra Incognita (the museum exhibit production studio)-- an "interpretive design studio that produces interactive educational experiences for museums."
2. Terra Incognita (the eco-tourism outfit)-- a tourism company that promotes "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people"
1. Terra Incognita (the screenplay (that James Cameron alegedly ripped off for the film Avatar))-- apparently James Cameron is being sued by a Vancouver reseranteur named Emil Malak, who claims he sent the screenplay of his 1995 novel Terra Incognita to James Cameron, and heard nothing from him. But when he saw the movie Avatar, he noted uncanny similarities to his work that couldn't be mere coincidence.
Top Ten Reads of 2009
Around this time last year I spent some time reviewing the most interesting, engaging or challenging reads of 2008. What with moving to a new province, starting a new ministry role, uprooting, re-rooting, transplanting and all, there weren't nearly as many titles to choose from this year as last, but I thought I'd spend some time looking back over the best reads of 2009.
10. Straight Talk, Daniel Wackman et. al.
Though I tend to be sceptical of books that claim the power to revolutionize relationships through simple steps, this guide to assertive communication is actually quite helpful. Concepts like "understanding control talk," "using the awareness wheel," "making I statements," and "using active listening," are poignant and effective, and when I take the time to actually employ them in my communication, I often find myself speaking the truth in love.
9. Paradise Lost, John Milton
8. John Wesley: A Biography, Stephen Tomkins 
7. The Way To Heaven: The Gospel According to John Wesley, J. Steven Harper 
6. Confessions of an Amateur Believer, Patty Kirk 
5. Satan and the Problem of Evil, Greg Boyd 
4. Collected Short Stories, Flannery O’Conner
3. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, Michael Pollan 
2. From the Holy Mountain, William Dalrymple 
1. Violence, Hospitality and the Cross, Hans Boersma