A 'Creative' Future

As my faithful readers know, I have been fretting over the future here for a long time.  I have bounced between being a pastor and pursuing a PhD, probably in Moral Theology.  Well, I think I've come to a decision.  Mary Ann and I have been discussing this for the last few days, and I think I'm going to pursue an MFA in creative writing.  You'll notice that this is neither the pastoral track nor the PhD track.  There are PhD options in creative writing, but most programs just offer the terminal MFA.

How did I come to this decision, you ask?  By weighing the options, of course!  I looked at PhD work and realized that I could not really get excited about Moral Theology.  I had also come to the conclusion that the pastorate was not the place for me a long time ago.  Then I took a long look at my writing abilities, and I came to the conclusion that I'm a better "creative writer" than I am a theologian.  So the "subjective experience" criterion was definitely in the MFA's favor.

Then I thought about how I feel alive when I'm writing fiction.  I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile.  Like I'm where I'm supposed to be.  It's a spectacular feeling, and one I'm not used to.  I realized then that God designed me to write.  That's how I'm built.  And if I can put in a commercial for Covenant Seminary here, this place has really helped me come to grips with how God made me, and how he can use the arts for his glory.  Coming here for the MDiv was worth it, even if I won't be using the degree in the expected way.

To continue the process I had a conversation with Mary Ann a few days back.  I was still clinging to the idea that I might use the PhD as my primary goal, but keep the MFA as a side option.  During that conversation she helped me realize that practically speaking the PhD was not all that much better than the MFA.  Both the PhD and the MFA will open up teaching jobs, the PhD in theology and religious studies, and the MFA in creative writing.  Neither field has huge demand, but MFA programs are popping up all over.  There is more growth there, I think.  Also, if I get the MFA jobs in the book industry open up a bit for me.  I could get an editing job more easily than before.  Theology doesn't offer a similar non-professorial option.  I know there are think-tanks, but there are certainly more publishers than there are think-tanks.  So there's that.

I also think I stand a better chance of getting into an MFA program with funding than I do a similarly funded PhD program.  As I said before, I'm a better writer than a theologian.  The question is, of course, which program?  I've started trying to figure that out, but that's a post for another day.

Vintage Furniture and Oddities, Part 2

Ages and ages ago I posted the first installment of a little thing I called Vintage Furniture and Oddities.  I intended to post more, but I never did.  Then, earlier today my brother called me.  He is a dang fine artist, and since he liked the little story he wanted to see if we could maybe put into a graphic novel, just for fun.  That was cool with me, and naturally it made me want to write a bit  more.  This installment isn't as dynamic as the first.  It shows how Esther and Lucy met, and also drops the hint of oncoming conflict.

*************************************

The bell over the door chimed as she entered the store behind Sam.  Dust particles floated in the sunbeams that stole through store windows; windows which were mostly obscured by dark, heavy furniture.  Esther rubbed her nose and sniffed away the itch brought on by those tiny particles.  Lucy was nowhere to be seen.  It was just her, Sam the Rook, and some old squatty man with thick glasses.  He ignored Esther and Sam, instead thumbing briskly through what looked like an old library card catalog.  Esther was surprised his stumpy fingers could move so quickly.  It seemed almost unnatural.  She squeezed Oliver's flag in her hand inside her pocket and wondered why she was there.

    "Why should I have ever listened to Lucy?" she thought.  "I knew she was a weirdo from the first time I met her.  But here I am."

   Her thoughts drifted back to Pak-Mart and the job that would probably not be there for her when she returned.  Her shift should have started twenty-minutes ago.  Esther thought of Lucy's grandmother and then of Lucy and, in search of some clue as to what was going on, she rehearsed their first meeting in her head.

*******************

            “So Gemma was your grandmother?” Esther began.

            “Yeah,” Lucy replied.  “I knew her health had been slipping for a while—”

            “But still.”

            “Yeah.”

            Esther remembered leaning on the conveyer belt in front of Lucy’s register and staring into her face, trying to gauge her emotion.  Instead she noticed Lucy’s exotic features; some mix of asian and African and plain ol’ white.  There was a tiny jewel in her nose and a definite sadness around her eyes, but mainly Lucy just looked burdened.

            “Um . . . She was a great greeter.  Your grandma.”

            Esther winced over her absurdly bad eulogy.

            “Thanks.” Lucy smirked.  “She talked about you a lot.”

            “Did she?”

            “Oh yeah.  ‘Esther’s a good kid,” she said, putting on a quavering voice.  “‘Needs some direction, though.’”

            “Sounds about right.  She talked about you, too.”

            “Really?”

            Esther remembered how Lucy’s eyes brightened.  She was embarrassed because Gemma had really not mentioned Lucy much at all.  It was just over the last couple of weeks that Gemma worked at Pak-Mart that she started talking about Lucy.  Nonsense mainly.  Lucy’s face remained expectant though, and Esther, failing to find a lie sputtered the truth.

            “It was a sort of a . . . joke, I guess,” she said, stroking her bone straight hair.  “She would tap her temple and say, ‘That Lucy, she’ll take over the family business.’  I guess she was kind of . . . going.”

            They were both silent.

            “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” 

            “No, thank you.”

            There seemed to be genuine gratitude in Lucy’s face, which was a shock to Esther.  Emboldened by the reaction, Esther told her the other thing Gemma used to say.

            “There was one more thing, if you want to know it.”

            “Sure! 

            “She told me, ‘Mr. Chalmers had his estate sale.’”

            If the gratitude had been a shock to Esther, it was nothing compared to the waves of emotion that crossed Lucy’s face.  Shock, panic, then terror hardening into determination.  Lucy reached across the conveyer and grabbed Esther by her blue smocked shoulder.  Her fingers dug in slightly.

            “She said ‘Chalmers?’” 

            “Yes, Chalmers,” Esther replied, swatting Lucy’s hand from her shoulder.  “I reckon you missed the big sale, though.  That was a few of weeks ago.  Sorry you missed your china, or whatever you buy at estate sales.”

            Lucy covered her face with her hands.

            “How did I not hear about Chalmers?”  she said.  “Dale.  I’m going to kill Dale Stain.” 

            “Yeah, sorry ‘bout your luck,” Esther said. She had been disturbed by Lucy’s behavior.

    "That's when I should have walked away," she thought.

      Instead she said, “I’ll tell you what though.  I’ll just give you what she gave me.”

            A few aisles away, a cash register chimed a sale.

            “She gave you something?” Lucy asked.  Her voice shook.  She was struggling to maintain control.

            “Yeah, a handkerchief with a bug stitched on it.  But seriously, it’s yours.”

            In a split second Lucy had switched on her ‘calm.’  She waved her hand.

            “No, she gave it to you.  It’s yours.  Just,” here the panic stirred the surface of her face again, “take care of it.  For Grandma.”

            “Deal.”

            A customer entered the line behind Esther.

            “I’m going to go,” she said.

            “Yeah.  Okay.”

             “Do you have any padparadscha?” the man asked.

            Lucy flicked off the light illuminating the bright number ‘12’ over her head.

            “I’m sorry sir, this lane just closed.”

*****************

   "Yep.  Totally weird."

  The sound of a door scraping a warped floor pulled Esther's attention up the stairs.  The upper landing was an exposed walkway, but it was just as crowded with antiques and knick knacks as the downstairs so Esther couldn't see what was going on.  Sam rose to his feet as Lucy rounded the corner and began to descend the stairs.

  "Got the girl and the flag.  Saw a truck."

  "Corundum?"

   Sam nodded.  Lucy hurried to Esther and hugged her.

  "Glad you're safe, girl."

  Esther extricated herself and eyed her friend.

 "Any reason why I shouldn't be?"

Trinity Art Conference: Ruminating on Art and Change

I have now looked at my notes from the Trinity Arts Conference.  As I suspected, they're bad.  In fact, after the second lecture they become non-existent.  I did alright in the first lecture, which is nice because that was given by Greg Wolfe.  Greg is a brilliant guy so he had a lot to say.  The topic of the conference was 'Change.'  One thing that Greg said is that people tend to hate change in art because they want to shoot the messenger.  Society changes, artists respond by expressing that in word, music, paint, etc.  This 'new art' is decried, called non-art, and sometimes anti-Christian (depending on the context).  In reality, the artist is often just holding up a mirror to society.  Understand, I'm saying what Greg said only as I understand it now from my notes.  Don't hold him responsible if I misrepresent his ideas.

The main point of Greg's lecture, I think, was contained in a quote from Walter Brueggemann, which I think I copied down correctly:

"Truthful statements must be continually stated to remain truthful."

This might sound scandalous to ears suspiciously seeking postmodern ideas, but I believe it is true.  To use a silly example:  Many years ago if you called a girl 'cute' she might have sucker-punched you.  Why?  Because 'cute' used to mean 'bow-legged.'  In order for 'that girl is cute' to be true in its original sense, we must restate the proposition:  'that girl is bow-legged.''

On a deeper level we can look at the word 'Gospel.'  One of the speakers at the conference made reference to this.  It was either Greg or one of the guys who did a devotion.  Anyway, the word 'euangellion,' which is Greek for 'gospel,' literally meant 'good news,' but in its context it was good news of a particular type.  One could tell 'the gospel of Caesar,' which would extol his good works and the wonderful things that resulted from his reign.  This affected the way 1st Century people would have understood the phrase 'the Gospel of Jesus Christ.'  It did not mean 'Jesus died for our sins and rose again' to them.  That would be part of it, but not nearly all.  That is how most people understand the word 'Gospel.'  It's either the formula I mentioned or a reference to a genre of music.  In order to help people understand what 'gospel' originally meant, we must restate it.

Greg used an Ezra Pound quote to translate this need for restatement into the realm of art.  Pound said, "the artist's motto is 'make it new'."  The IT, said Greg, is something unchanging.  Great art is still working with the fundamental data of this world.  That statement resonates with me.  I see it in both Rembrandt and Picasso.  Sometimes they might come from vantage points I reject, but even if the images in a painting do not match the world I see in my eyes, I can understand the lens through which it is interpreted and thank God for the truth and beauty contained in the changing form.

Trinity Art Conference: The Aftermath

I've been back from Dallas for a couple of days now, and I'm still trying to sort out what I learned from the conference.  There are some practical things I learned about writing, as well as some specific things about the piece I took with me, but I'm still trying to figure out what I really learned.  What lessons about Christianity and the arts will stick with me?  I suppose I'll have to go over the notes I took for that.  Unfortunately, I take lousy notes.

Anyway, my notes may be lousy, but the conference itself was not.  I enjoyed pretty much everything, from the speakers, to the people, to the workshops, to the art show, to the music, etc.  The speakers were all engaging, covering the theme of change and the arts.  Again, I'll consult my notes and post on that later, but in the mean time you can check out the text of Andy Whitman's lecture at his blog (Razing the Bar) in this post.

Who is Andy Whitman, you ask?  Why, Andy is a music aficionado who writes for Paste Magazine, Christianity Today, and AllMusicGuide.com.  He loves music of nearly every sort, and he gave us a view of change from the critic's perspective, though he hates the term critic.  Andy was one of my favorite people at the conference, not because he spoke so well, but because I had a heckuva time just watching him enjoy the music at the show.  As the band played, Andy sat in his seat wearing a smile and moving to the music.  There was a look of true delight on his face, and he actually whooped a time or two.

What band was it that filled Andy Whitman with rapturous delight, you ask?  Why, Gretel, of course!  Gretel is a three-person band, made up of singer/songwriter/guitar player Reva Williams, bass player Phil DePertuis, and jill of all trades Melissa Myers.  And let me say, Andy was right to be delighted.  I was completely BLOWN AWAY by Gretel this past weekend.  Reva writes great lyrics, and her voice is powerful.  She is angsty and intense, while Melissa's back-up vocals are more gentle . . . angelic, if I may use the term.  Phil's voice is good as well, and he sings the third part in a few songs.  They are musically creative as well, and I will definitely make the effort to see them the next time they're in St. Louis.

The other three speakers were Greg Wolfe, Ann McCutchan, and Bruce Herman.  Winners all.  Hopefully I can write a bit about their lectures later.  I was really excited to get to work with Greg in the writers' workshop, but that didn't happen.  I wasn't able to shoehorn myself in during one of the sessions he attended.  I also tried to strike up a conversation with him, but that proved problematic as well.  No, he wasn't rude, it was just one of those situations where I couldn't come up with anything to say.  All I could do was ask him questions about literature, which exposed my ignorance on the subject.  He was perfectly friendly, but I couldn't get a good conversation going.  Alas, alack, a lump.

The upside to getting in on that last workshop was that we had a smaller group, so Ann McCutchan could spend more time focusing on individuals.  It wasn't a great deal of time, but it was better than it had been in the other workshops.  Ann was a lot of fun and she had plenty of helpful advice.  She writes creative non-fic, but she was perfectly capable of looking over my fiction.  I got the feeling she's read a novel or two.  The people from my workshop decided to give more detailed responses to all the work we brought, and Ann sent out an e-mail today saying that she was going to give a more detailed response as well.  That was exciting to me because for some reason I didn't think she was going to be involved in that.  She's a pro, after all, and a professor.  I figured she would be too busy, but I should have known that she wouldn't just blow us off after the conference.  She was too kind for that sort of thing.

Bruce Herman was the speaker I spent the least time with, though I did get to sit with him and a few others at the end of dinner one day.  I liked him a lot as a person, and I love his paintings.  I can't describe them properly, so just go to his website and check them out.  He's phenomenally talented, and he works hard at his craft.  Again, I can't really remember his lecture, so I'll have to check my terrible notes.

So the conference was well worth the money we paid for it.  Depending on our circumstances next year, I would love to go back.  The speakers will be different (except for maybe Greg Wolfe, as he's been there every year but one), but I know a lot of the same attendees will be, and they were also a part of what made the conference so great.  Friendly, creative people who love the Lord intensely.  How's that for a change?

Dallas Bound!!

Maybe we're fools, but the Duncan family, having just gotten home from West Virginia on Sunday, will be setting out for Dallas, TX on Thursday.  We are a band of strong-willed adventurers, a collection of travelers thirsty for a new challenge . . .

But not really.  We're closer to being homebodies than anything else, to be honest.  But hey, when a fella gets the chance to go to the Trinity Arts Conference  he does what he needs to do to get there.  

Yes, the famed Trinity Arts Conference takes place this very weekend!  I am getting pumped at the chance to get down there and have some people take a look at my work.  It's not like I'm going to come back with a book deal or anything.  I would have to have a novel that's closer to the finish line for that.  Plus, a publisher would have to read it, and that's about as likely as a publisher reading this post.  Anyway, I'm looking to get some good feedback from my fellow-writers at the conference.  Criticism is a good thing, and I haven't gotten enough of that in the past.

I'm taking the same piece of work to the conference that I read in my Christianity and Imagination class (The Brown Sisters).  It got positive comments there, and I really think I've improved it since then.  I've had some other folks take a look at it and gotten positive comments as well, but most of them have been family.  They're certainly willing to be critical, but I think the family connection will always color their views.  If I get good comments at the conference that will be big for me.  I am praying that this weekend will clear up a little bit of my future.  If writing is not to be in my future, hopefully I'll know that this weekend.

Pray for us as we make this trip, and pray for me that I will not be too wounded if my story is demolished or simply passed over without much comment!  If I get the chance I'll try to blog from the conference.

Thinking About the Future . . . Again

Today we'll be traveling from Huntington to Lewisburg to attend Mary Ann's sister's graduation from Med School.  Cari will soon be starting her internship across the river in Ashland, KY (if she hasn't started already--I'm not sure how that works).  This graduation, combined with my brother Aaron's ongoing attempt to get into the PhD program in Communications at Ohio U, has really made me think about my future.  I know, I know.  Posts about 'my future' comprise about two-thirds of the writing I do on here, but bear with me one more time.

Cari's finishing up her DO, Aaron's (hopefully) about to start a PhD.  I'm working on my MDiv, which is a good, comprehensive degree, but I still worry over the possibility of academic work.  Specifically, I worry that I won't get into a decent school.  I know God is in charge of what happens, but I also know that I'm a sinner who can easily mess things up.  God doesn't automatically remove the negative consequences of my sin, after all.  I have to battle that hardened habit of laziness that keeps me from really writing that excellent research paper, or studying hard for that test.

Even if I do conquer my lazy habits, what about the past?  I can no longer control that I did not go to a prestigious school.  I don't think that's a necessarily a killer problem, but if a guy with a degree from Duke and a guy with a degree from Tri-State Bible College are competing, the Duke guy has the edge.  I'm hoping to balance that out a bit with my GRE scores.  Aaron is my model there.  He really busted his butt and got the score he needed for his program and more.  I admire that, and I've already asked his advice on how to go about it.

I'm excited, though, because I'm going to take an independent study with Dr. Anthony Bradley in the spring.  He advised me to do this because he said the papers assigned in typical classes at CTS aren't designed to show doctoral potential.  He said that he took independent study courses to see if he had what it took, so that's what I'm going to do.  That means extra reading and writing, but I, along with Dr. Bradley, basically get to pick the topic.  Pretty cool.  If I can parlay that paper into a sparkling writing sample, I will have done all I can.

Where does this leave the fiction writing I've been harping on lately?  The same place its always been:  one of a few options.  I intend to keep pursuing fiction hard and also pursue PhD studies.  As Dad would say, you always need a back up plan.  But let's just ignore the fact that both of my plans are risky and have a high possibility of falling through.

West Virginia Livin'

So here I am in Almost Heaven, West Virginia.  It's good to be back in the 'home country.'  The sojourn in St. Louis will continue for at least two more years, and even when that ends I doubt we'll be returning to WV, but I'm always glad to get back.  I tell people how wonderful West Virginia is whenever I get the chance, but I also tell them how jacked up the government is here.  It's a beautiful, welcoming place, but I wonder how it will ever recover from its economic woes.  People tend to elect the same leaders over and over, and those people do the same things they've always done.

Another problem for West Virginia is the strong union presence.  Don't get me wrong, I think unions serve a noble purpose in the right context, such as early the 20th Century coal mines, but so many of them have become bloated bureaucracies that they can't provide services to their members as they ought.  Even so, many West Virginians remain devoted to their unions.

Still, the draw of West Virginia life is strong.  I feel tied to the state in a way that is unlikely to be matched by any other place.  If I got my PhD and was subsequently offered a job at Marshall University I would have to seriously consider returning.  That possibility is only slightly less likely than me becoming an astronaut, but there's no harm in a little day-dreaming.

You'll have to excuse me now . . . I have a song to sing.

Whuddamigonnado?

Ah, it's good to be back!  The end of the semester seriously cut into my blogging time, but I have returned.  It's funny, I've been working and studying for these papers and tests for a good while now, finishing my last one at two o'clock today, and suddenly I have nothing left to do.  No papers.  No tests.  There is nothing for me to put off until tomorrow.  I can't even procrastinate.  It's as though I've been robbed of my identity.

Here I stand, paralyzed by a pulchritudinous pile of possibility!  I even did half of my summer reading during the semester, so Godric and The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay do not beckon.  That's the price I pay for using them to divert myself from schoolwork, I suppose.  But I'll always be able to find new books to read.  Or new old books to read.

I think I'm starting to ease into things, though.  I picked up a copy of Danny Gospel by David Athey the other day, and it's pretty good.  I thought the first chapter was a little shaky, but I'm into chapter three now and it's moving along well.  It's not "Good Country People" or anything, but so far it's the best fiction to come out of the "Christian Fiction" world since . . . well, I don't know.  I haven't read any official "Christian Fiction" since the first book of the Left Behind series.  Danny Gospel leaves that in the dust without breaking a sweat.  It's been getting good reviews from others as well, so I recommend it.

Of course this reminds me that I need to revisit my own fiction before my trip to Dallas on June 12 (to the Trinity Arts Conference, for those who don't know and can't be bothered to scroll down a few inches).  I haven't even read my chapter of The Brown Sisters (a working title) for a few weeks.  Finals have a way of demanding your attention.  I'll do that, work on some new parts and hopefully by the time the conference rolls around I'll have a nice fat chunk of prose I can be proud of.  I mean "a nice fat chunk of prose of which I can be proud."  Yeah.

The Trinity Arts Conference and A Fiction Update

An update:  We have officially decided to go to the Trinity Arts Conference!  My wife wrote her way through the decision-making process in this post, we sent in the check, and BAM!  We're conference bound.  Mary Ann decided not to attend the conference, but she, the kids, and her parents will be visiting her Aunt Pam in McKinney, TX.

This is a big deal for me.  I've wanted to write at least since I was a young teenager (it was comic books back then), but this is really the first step I've taken toward putting my fiction out for public consumption.  Well . . . not quite the first step.  The first step came yesterday, when I read the first chapter of my novel (you read that right!) to my fellow-students in my Christianity and Imagination class.

I was nervous.  As I said to the class, I've preached before, bared my soul on this blog, and sent out a non-fiction paper for publication, but I've never shared my fiction with anyone outside of my family (My "Vintage Furniture and Oddities" post doesn't count since I didn't really invest myself in it).  I have never been a 'reviser' either, but I actually tried to craft this story, not just to barf it out onto the page.

A negative response would have been depressing indeed.

Fortunately, the response was quite positive.  For one thing, three people actually made comments.  No response might have been worse than a negative one.  Three of my classmates spoke to me as class ended, two of them saying they wanted to hear more of the story.  The third said, "So you've finished the novel?"  I decided to interpret that as interest.

And no, by the way, I haven't finished the novel.  Just chapter one and a few important scenes.

The professor also told me he looked forward to reading what I wrote, so that counts as a positive response too.  He is an extraordinarily kind man, though, so he might say that even if the story stunk out loud.

Anyway, I'm taking the chapter and whatever else I can complete before June 12 to the conference for the writer's workshop.  Nerve-wracking, but if I want people to actually enjoy reading my stuff that's what it will take.  I don't want to make any sweeping pronouncements, but this may just be the start of a new direction.

Reciprocal Linkage

You know, I didn't realize that so many of my fellow Covenant guys were regular bloggers.  Jeez, you think you know people . . .

Anyway, a few of my friends have had me linked for a while, and since they have some decent stuff to say I thought I'd link 'em back:

Chris Gensheer at Intersection

Todd Gwennap at The Unqualified Theologian

Jeff Kerr at The Sojourner

Dave Lindbergh at Changin' Times

Justin McGuire at The Reluctant Unprofessional

Thanks guys!  Now write something earth-shattering.

The Church Supporting Art: What Does it Mean?

Tim Challies has provided some 'blog-fodder' for me again.  If ever I run short of ideas again--see my total 4 posts in 2007--I think I'll just hitch my wagon to his, commenting on every post he makes.  Anyway, Tim has read a book called Why We're Not Emergent, which he reviewed here.  A few days back he posted an excerpt about the Church and artists.  It was by Ted Kluck, and Tim found some humor in the article.  I usually agree with what Challies writes, but I read the excerpt, and not only did I not think it was funny, I found parts of it a little insulting.

Am I being hypersensitive?  Am I just grousing because, since I would like to write literature, my ox got gored?  Maybe and maybe.  Still, the excerpt seemed unnecessarily sarcastic toward people who are trying to positively contribute to culture in a self-consciously Christian way.  I wouldn't mind if it seemed like the author was approaching the topic with humility.  He might have said, "I don't understand this movement of the church toward supporting artists, and I am afraid they're missing the boat in some important ways."  Instead he wrote about 20-30 somethings looking like Sufjan Stevens ("skinny, hip, and misunderstood") and trying to "out-dishevel" each other.

For one thing, I ain't skinny.  And I ain't hip.  And I'm only slightly disheveled.  But apparently I am misunderstood, as are the rest of the people who want to support artists in the church.  Kluck himself demonstrates the misunderstanding:

My hunch is that there is this feeling that churches aren’t adequately “supporting” artists (musicians, writers, visual artists) in their midst. However, I don’t exactly see churches “supporting” software designers, salesmen, or farmers either. That’s not the church’s purpose. And it seems that the artists who are making the most noise about “not being supported” are the ones who may not have the talent to really cut it in the marketplace anyway. I don’t know of any working artists (musicians, actors, writers, painters) who complain that their church doesn’t “support” their efforts. Art is tough. Making a living at art is tough. It’s tough on families and marriages. That’s simply the nature of the game.

The Church's support of the arts is not about financial subsidies.  It is about striving for creativity, about pushing the envelope to communicate God's grace in new forms.  It is about creating an environment in the Church that is conducive to producing art that is not 'safe.'  It is about having room for Flannery O'Connor and Frederick Buechner and not just Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.  The latter have their place, though I am not a fan of the Left Behind series, but the former can challenge and transform us in ways we might not have otherwise imagined.  The Church is enriched by art, whether the Church enriches artists financially or not.

Many of us grew up in traditions that denigrated art, treating it like sin or a path that leads straight to sin's door.  We just want our churches to acknowledge that art and literature are good things when done well.

Challies post is not all bad news, though.  The response from those who come from a 'support the arts' perspective has been excellent.  It has been measured, humble, and well thought out.  They pointed out Kluck's misunderstanding and explained what we actually want in a gracious tone, and that is just the sort of art we can all appreciate.

Speed-Writing, Anyone?

Interesting day I had today.  As I mentioned in a previous post I have a "Christianity and Imagination" class this semester.  It's been a great class, and I'll be sorry to see it end.  My professor, Dr. David Calhoun, is a wonderful Christian man who loves to really grapple with good literature.  He introduced me to Frederick Buechner, for which I am thankful, and we will be discussing his work as well as Flannery O'Connor's.  She's been a favorite for a long time, so I'm looking forward to that day.

There is only one grade in the class.  Each student has to put together some form of imaginative art.  It could be a poem, a painting, even a dance.  I planned to write a short story because at any given time I have a number of short stories kicking around in my head.  As I feared, the story has begun to creep beyond the bounds of 'short storydom.'  It's on its way to becoming a novel, I think.  Don't get me wrong:  I will be happy to have a novel if I can complete it.  I'll shop it around.  Finishing it for class will be the problem.

On monday we had 'drawn lots' to see when we would do our presentations.  I drew May 2, which seemed good to me.  That gave me more than a month, and I thought if I aimed at writing 1000 words a day I could have a decent amount of work done.  1000 words a day is a tall order, but it was something to aim for.

But that was before Friday.

It seems that when Dr. Calhoun set up his lot-casting system he was using an outdated list of names.  There are three more people in the class than he thought.  That means that he needed to add an extra day to the presentation schedule.  But that's not a problem.  He thought the most fair thing would be for us to draw lots again.  Suddenly the room felt a little hotter.

The basket went around the room for the second time.  After a few minutes it came to me and I drew my paper.  I opened it, checked the date, and laid it on the table.  My new date is the 18th.

APRIL 18th.

I lost two entire weeks.  If 1000 words a day was unlikely, 2000 is in the realm of the absurd.  I don't suppose I have to have the whole novel finished, but I would like to have most of the first draft done when I do my reading.

So if you'll excuse me, I've got some work to do.

Because You Were All Wondering . . .

No, this is not me:

Xavier's Josh Duncan

Though I did teach him everything he knows about basketball . . .

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I want to go to the Trinity Arts Conference.  I received a brochure for it in the mail a while back, and I came close to throwing it away immediately because conferences are generally not feasible.  There are usually schedule conflicts, the cost is almost always prohibitive, and what would we do with the kids?  They certainly couldn't sit through a marathon-style writer's workshop.  No, conferences don't work for the Duncan family.

But . . .

A few days after the brochure arrived Mary Ann was cleaning some clutter--most of which was mine--off of the kitchen counter.  She was flinging junk mail into the trash rapid-fire.  Since I am the pack rat of the family she often comes across items I have senselessly kept, and in the midst of this particular purge she came across the brochure.

"Did you want to keep this?"

"Yeah, I just keep it around to torture myself," I replied.

"You want me to throw it away?"

Her arm moved toward the trash can.  I hesitated.  It's a funny thing; last year I didn't think twice about the Trinity Arts Conference.  Maybe I thought it was a nice idea, but I wasn't even tempted to go.  I was (and still am) a poor seminary student with a wife and multiple children, after all.  Somehow this year felt different.

"Let me see it."

Mary Ann handed me the little green paper and I looked it over.  $135 for the conference, housing included.  I'm also considering pursuing writing as a career, so whatever critique I could get would help.  If I saved a little money, or maybe asked for an early birthday present . . .

But what about Mary Ann and the kids?  Well, that is a problem.  On one hand, the conference is in Dallas, and Mary Ann's aunt Pam lives about a half hour to forty-five minutes away.  That could work, but that would keep us apart for the weekend.  It wouldn't be as fun by myself, and I'd probably get lonely.  Not only that, but Mary Ann ain't a bad writer herself.  Those of you who have read her blog know this.  Anyway, she has a good idea for a children's book and would probably benefit from the writer's workshop as much as I would.

I don't know if I'll go to the conference or not.  It would be sweet, I don't deny, but I don't know if I can justify it.  So, if anyone has any advice just leave a comment.  Or, in lieu of advice, send money.

Full On, Five-Alarm, Red Alert Homeschooling: The Cycle Continues

I am in full on, five-alarm, red alert, hide your copy of The Well-Trained Mind homeschooling mode.  

I should probably explain.  You see, I live a cyclical life, which means I flit from interest to interest in a more or less orderly fashion.  For example, an interest in philosophy might yield to theology, which might yield to music, which might yield to literature, which might yield to philosophy, and so on.  Sometimes I skip one interest or another, but mostly the cycle continues to click, whir, and rattle its way through my head.

Roughly five years ago the topic of homeschooling got added to the cycle.  This was coincident with the birth of my first son, Max.  You see, I was educated/marred in the public school system so I knew that I did not want the ravening bureaucrats of American public education working their 'magic'--the educational equivalent of avada kedavra--on my children.  And since I'm bad with numbers, and therefore bad with money, I knew I'd always be poor, so private school was also out of the question.  That left homeschooling, and that meant I had some serious research to do.

I don't know if you realize this, but combining the vigilance of a first-time father with the zeal of an anti-bureaucratic crank yields a near nuclear amount of energy.  I dove into my homeschooling research headfirst, and in roughly two minutes I had discovered the aforementioned book The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.  After reading about classical education for a bit longer I decided that it was definitely the way to go.

By this time all you homeschooling moms out there have probably noticed the lack of reference to my wife thus far.  There's a reason for that:  I didn't really ask her opinion.  Don't misunderstand, we had agreed to homeschool before we actually had children, but the classical education thing was my baby. The majority of the work was going to fall on her shoulders, but I couldn't help myself.  As Woody Allen said in a somewhat different context, "The heart wants what it wants."

So the plan was set.  Mary Ann and I agreed that we would homeschool using the classical method.  I bought a few books and then came to the realization that my one year old probably wasn't going to be entering kindergarten in the next few weeks.  A bit after that my second son, Leo, was born, so my focus shifted again (remember, 'I live a cyclical life').

Jump back to the present.  Max is now five and in kindergarten.  We've done educational things with him in the intervening years, but now I have that burning desire to get his schooling started in earnest.  Right now we're doing reading (phonics), math, and writing, but when first grade rolls around this fall we will have to add history, science, art, and of course, goat husbandry.  I'm still trying to convince Mary Ann on that last one.

Goat jokes aside, though, I am dying to get my hands on some curricula.  I WANT BOOKS.  I want to buy every book that TWTM gals recommend for first grade study.  I'm desperately trying not to, but I've already made an amazon.com wishlist for Max's education.  I don't know how much longer I can hold out.

Not only are my book buying habits hurtling us toward financial ruin, I've also taken to 'hovering' while Mary Ann and Max do school.  This puts my patient wife in a quandary.  I think she likes having me around, and doesn't mind me helping out, but she's got to be wondering if my hovering is a signal of disapproval.  It's like she's a teacher on probation and I'm the superintendent of schools sitting in on her class.  Of course I don't disapprove.  I trust that she is doing a wonderful job with Max's education.  I'm just impatient.  

I know I should relax and wait on the Lord.  I don't need to get bent out of shape.  First grade is going to be OK.  It's just that, you know, I live a cyclical life.  And for better or for worse, I'm in full on, five-alarm, red alert homeschooling mode.

On Being a Pastor

A couple of days ago Tim Challies had a short post about some of Mark Driscoll's comments during a sermon he gave on the regulative principle (yes, you read that correctly).  Unlike other Mark Driscoll posts on Challies.com, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.  Why?  Because in the post Challies features an audio clip of Driscoll confessing his own failures as a pastor to his church, and he goes on to tell them that the counsel of C.J. Mahaney and John Piper has lead him to do so.  I don't mean to say that Piper and Mahaney said, "Confess your failures to your church, Mark."  Rather, the two older pastors lovingly told him the sorts of changes they'd like to see in his life and in the life of Mars Hill.  Driscoll responded with humility, repenting before the Mars Hill congregation.

I've always liked Mark Driscoll, but I have been put off by his manner on a number of occasions.  This is a refreshing look at a young pastor who is striving for godliness.  Mark Driscoll is a teachable man, which is more than I can say for a lot of younger Christians, myself included (and yes, I realize there are plenty of unteachable older Christians).

This event improved my opinion Driscoll, but more importantly it encouraged me about ministry in general.  I make it no secret that my future career is up in the air.   Will I be a professor?  Author?  Pastor?  All of the above? None of the above?  I am uncertain.  What I am certain of, however, is that in the past 'pastor' was lowest on the list.  I guess it's because my default understanding of ministry is more administrative; getting programs and volunteers in place and other such things.    Since I am B-A-D at administration, I'm not interested in making it my life's work.  The 'Driscoll-Mahaney-Piper' affair has made me remember what ministry is about:  being faithful to Christ.  THAT, my friends, is worth doing. Thanks to Driscoll et al I can approach the ministry I'm doing now with renewed strength and love, for Christ and the people I serve.

Maybe being a pastor ain't such a bad idea after all . . .

Spring Semester 2008: My Kinda Study

This is a good semester at Covenant Theological Seminary.  I have four classes and three of them I enjoy immensely (I enjoy the fourth class as well, but 'immensely' would be too strong an adverb).  Christianity and Imagination focuses on creative people within the Church like Flannery O'Connor, C.S. Lewis, and Annie Dillard.  The class has also introduced me to Frederick Buechner, which is a nice bonus.

Gospels is another excellent class.  With Dr. Dan Doriani at the helm class lectures are informative, spiritually enriching and a lot of fun.  We are also reading a number of good books, Jesus and the Victory of God being chief among them.  Wright's treatment of the gospels does an excellent job of taking 1st Century Jewish history and showing how the Synoptics fit the context like a glove.  Of  course Wright has his problems, as Dr. Doriani pointed out just last night.  If you're interested read on; if not, skip the next paragraph.  

The problem, Dr. Doriani explained, was that Wright ignored the context in which the parables were written.  As an example he used the parable of the Prodigal Son.  In context Jesus is defending his association with 'tax collectors and sinners' to the Pharisees.  He uses three parables in his defense:  The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (prodigal).  The idea was that it makes sense for Jesus to seek those that are lost.  Jesus adds the portion about the elder son as an offer of himself to the Pharisees.  They were so busy being upset at the 'sinners,' who were represented by the prodigal son, that they refused to celebrate when they entered the kingdom like the elder son.  Wright doesn't really address this, spending more time showing how the parable fits his conception of 1st Century Judaism.  Frankly, it was nice to hear an intelligent critique of Wright because I myself am utterly incapable of providing one at this point in my academic career.

My other favorite class is ethics, with Prof. Anthony Bradley.  Prof. Bradley was my covenant group leader during my first year at seminary, so I was looking forward to taking a class with him after getting to know him last year.  He has not disappointed.  The book list is a little unwieldy, but there is good variety.  We still have the standard text, Biblical Christian Ethics by David C. Jones, who recently retired from the post Bradley now fills.  Then there's The Peaceable Kingdom by Stanley Hauerwas.  This book has been a real mind bender for me.  Hauerwas thinks about ethics in an utterly different than what I'm accustomed to.  I come from the world of evidential apologetics and analytic philosophy, which makes me much more at home thinking abstractly about ethics.  Reading this different perspective has been invigorating for me.  It will take a decent amount of time to decide how much of Hauerwas I can accept.

We're also reading Thomas Sowell, who I think of as coming from a far different perspective than Hauerwas.  Then there's The Elements of Moral Philosophy by James and Stuart Rachels.  This, as I understand it, is a basic college level text in ethics.  It's alternately interesting and maddening.  Rachels has a tendency to briefly critique positions and act as though the matter is settled.  In his chapter on religion and morality he points out the difficulties raised by the Euthyphro Dilemma and acts as though they carry the day.  He does not even offer a disclaimer like, "There have been counter-arguments offered, but I believe the dilemma stands."  We're also reading Elements of Justice by David Schmidtz, but I'm not far enough into it to offer any sort of critique.

I'm enjoying this semester so much I'm even looking forward to writing research papers.  I think I've finally decided on my topic for Ethics:  The theology of aging and dignity.  This will hopefully encompass a number of aspects of aging, including whether dignity is affected by progressive diseases such as Altzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, etc.  The biggest issue right now is that I need good resources.  I want academic level studies in medical and theological ethics on the topic.  If any of you out there in internet land have any suggestions let me know!

Last Minute Leap Day Musings

I flatly refuse to allow January's output to exceed February.   I had four posts in January.  That's an average of  . . .  let's see . . . one per week.  If I did my math right that is.  February only had three up to this point, but thanks to that glorious event called Leap Day I still have a chance.  I'm going to try to get in under the gun here.  I'll even try to have some sort of halfway decent content.

I'm going to comment on the Oscars.  They've been called boring, and in fact they were supposedly the least watched Oscars in a long time.  Frankly, I enjoyed them.  I didn't watch the Red Carpet ridiculousness, but the awards show itself was fun.  It gave me a lot of ideas for movies to put in the ol' Netflix queue.

Politics:  I still have no idea who I'm going to vote for.  I'm still a Republican, so do I vote for McCain?  Meh.  Obama?  Hillary?  Seems unlikely.  There is no good candidate.  If ever there was a year in which I could not vote and still maintain the right to complain, this is it.

Life:  School is going well.  I'm enjoying my classes.  I have ethics, Gospels, Intro to Counseling and Christian Imagination.  I have found enjoyable points in each class.  The readings have been excellent.  Annie Dillard, N.T. Wright, Stanley Hauerwas . . . the list goes on.  Sweet stuff.  Hopefully I'll have something of substance to post here as a result of these readings.

In closing, stay beautiful. Only you can prevent forest fires.  Watch Futurama.  Follow Christ.  That last one was serious.

New Blog Link

I just added the photo blog of Neil Das, who is a student at Covenant Seminary with me.  I don't know Neil (though I've seen him around) but his exhibition currently at The Schaeffer Institute is quite good.  I'll post the link here and let you enjoy Neil's recent posts.

The Dassler Effect

If you are in St. Louis come and see Neil's photos at the Institute.  I highly recommend it.

My Brother in the News

My oldest brother Scott has a small blurb in the Herald-Dispatch back in Huntington, WV. He has taken the associate pastor position at River Cities Community Church. RCCC is getting an excellent pastor and a caring human being.

Congrats again, big bro!!

Link: River Cities Welcomes Associate Pastor