On reading and thinking

I'm attempting to do something I haven't tried in awhile...to post something thoughtful. I love blogging (way more than I'd ever have thought) but confess it's mostly about connection for me and instantaneous picture sharing. But I love reading others thoughts and although these are not my own thoughts I am attempting tonight to engage with the thoughts of two authors I've been reading of late.

I finished To Own a Dragon, Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father by Donald Miller recently. I am very thankful for this read because it helped me engage my culture (so many are growing up fatherless and in stark contrast to our own home) and put me in touch with a growing movement called the emergent church. Miller is well known for being a part of this movement that prides itself on engaging a postmodern culture. This boy can write. Reading this book, to me, felt like it took seconds. But just because something goes down easy, does that mean it's good for you? I can easily wile away 15 minutes at the doctor's office reading People magazine but I hope we'd all agree that that kind of cultural relevancy is probably not doing a whole lot for my spiritual growth. Actually, I thought Miller had lots to say in this book that was worthwhile...the main emphasis of the book is upon having a personal relationship with God, our Father and he even had good Trinitarian emphasis here. The parts of the book that I question are his crudity at points. He's also clearly got some authority and irresponsibility issues going on, but it's his honesty on these points that finds him endearing and God sends along a father figure (John McMurray) who mentors him in these areas. The book is written to other men and is definitely trying to help them heal from their "father wounds," own up to their own issues, and mentor others. Here's a sample of quotes I particularly liked:

On belonging, Ch. 4: "If a kid grows up feeling he is burdening the people around him, he is going to operate as though the world doesn't want him."

From Girls: The Thing Tony Said, Ch. 9 "I think we can use other people, romantic stuff, to validate ourselves. It has nothing to do with love. And when you find love, or when you are mature enough to understand it, the feeling you get is gratitude. I'm not saying I am mature by any means, but when I wake up in the morning and look at my wife sleeping next to me, I am sometimes overcome that another human being would want to share her life with me."--Tony (married friend) speaking to Don who is single

On education, Ch. 13: "The latest statistic is that the average American watches 1,456 hours of television a year but only reads three books. So if it's true that readers are leaders, and the more you read the further you advance. then there isn't a lot of competition."

On faith, Ch. 14: "...that will grow. You're young, with a lot of life ahead. I think the important thing to remember is what you already know, and that is to trust Him, to believe Him, to give Him...the benefit of the doubt, or as I would say, to have faith. The doubt will decrease." --John McMurray to Don

On the love of God our Father, Ch. 4: "He (John) told me that when Terri (John's wife) gave birth to Chris, and he held his son in his arms for the first time, it was the closest he had ever been to understanding the love of God. He said that though he had never met this little person, this tiny baby, he felt incredible love for him, as though he would lie down in front of a train if he had to, that he would give up his life without so much as thinking about it, just because this child existed. John set this love beside other relationships, but they didn't compare. In other relationships, the person he knew had to earn his love. Even with his own father, John learned to love him; and with his wife, they had fallen in love over several years, becoming closer and closer friends. But it wasn't that way with his children. His love for them was instantaneous, from the moment of their birth. They had performed nothing to earn his love other than be born. It was the truest most undconditional love he had known. John said if his love for Chris was the tiniest inkling of how God loves us then he had all the security in the world in dealing with God, because he knew, firsthand, what God's love toward him felt like, that it was complete."

I am now reading Searching For God Knows What and read a brief excerpt of Blue Like Jazz and must confess I've been rather disappointed. I guess it's been helpful to me to realize why I am not that into the emergent line of thinking but it is good to know how to dialogue with this thought. More specifics on this if anyone's interested...

I thought the following quotes by Will Willimon help shed light on problems with the so called emergent thinking and reminded me in a poignant manner why I am a traditional Wesleyan:

"A bestselling book of the past year says it all: Leaving Church. Our God dis-incarnate determines that we all must disembody our faith and leave church in order to follow the governmentally approved ordo salutus - saving ourselves by descending ever deeper into our subjectivity. Because of our limp theology, our anthropology becomes too stable, and the purpose of our preaching is adjustment, confirmation rather than conversion. Preaching thus becomes another means of self-cultivation as well as a well reasoned defense against true transformation."

"For Wesley, grace was the constant, moment-by-moment active working of God in us that gives us a different life, indeed a different world, than we would have had if God had left us alone. Without God we wretched sinners can do nothing, thought Wesley, with God we being-sanctified saints can to all things. Wesley took the Moravian one-time experience of spiritual enlightenment and made it a lifetime process of daily awakening to what grace can do among us."