Thornton Wilder's "Theophilus North"

If, for some reason, Simeon's talk at the recent Mockingbird Conference wasn't enough to convince you to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Thornton Wilder's book Theophilus North, then maybe this will entice you.

The following comes from Wilder's unfinished preface to Theophilus North and gives an insight into the overriding themes which dominate this intuitive account of life in "old" New England. (Spaces are left blank where words are missing).

Wilder mutually affirms both a pessimistic realism and an idealistic optimism, taking into account a low anthropology and the intermittent spark of creativity. He says:

"All men aspire to excellence. All men strive to incorporate elements of the Absolute into their lives. These efforts are doomed to failure. Every man is an archer whose arrow is aimed to the center of the target; but our arrows are leaden, their feathers are ill {____} our eyesight is imperfect; our education has failed to distinguish the true from the false targets; the strength in our arm is insufficiently developed. All men aspire to incorporate elements of the Absolute into their lives.

"To the impassioned will all things by possible. The founder of the Christian faith is reported to have said, "if you have faith {_____} mustard seed, you shall say unto the mountain, be removed, and it will {_____} and {_____} and it shall be open to you. And all things are possible to those who love God." That is of course, absurd. Something must be the matter with all the 'terms of reference.' As I have often amused myself by saying, “Hope never changed tomorrow’s weather.” Yet. . . yet. . . history abounds with achievements that fill us with wonder."
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Thornton Wilder and "The Emporium"

Thornton Wilder has long been a favorite on this blog for his deep insight into the struggle of life. The following comes from journal notes he wrote concerning his play "The Emporium." It is a tragedy that he never found the necessary creativity to finish the play and put his great ideas to paper.

Wilder described the play as combination of Kafka and Horatio Alger. It seems that "The Emporium" is organized around the following two central ideas:

1. The Impotence of the Ethical.

For Wilder, a central problem of humanity is the presence and potency of fear. Life is marked by an insatiable fear and our striving to quench this insecurity.

"Ethics does not offer any relief to the basic fear of men; though millions try to make themselves believe so."

"The Just Man, conscious recti, cannot dissipate or liquidate his fears; he can only ignore them; or, as we say, rise above them. They lie in wait to assail him at those moments when weakness or some sudden blow of circumstances (mis-chance) robs him of the will-constructed resolution not to confront them. And the long-time contemplation of the totality of experience is itself the enemy of serenity. Many a stoic has significant resolution to be unshaken by the ills within his own life; can he sustain it in the contemplation of the ills of all mankind? Again there is a transition from quantity to quality: to remain serene in the presence of a few ills is stoicism; to remain serene in the face of a myriad demands faith".
[CONTINUE READING]

NOW AVAILABLE! New Persuasive Words DVD by Paul Zahl

We are very proud to announce the release of a new resource! Our first ever DVD:

"The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem -- new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones."

The great American novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder made this incisive observation in the midst of the Great Depression. His stray diagnosis has taken on undeniable prophetic significance in the intervening years.

Wilder is referring to religious words that have been freighted with negative association, words originally meant to be joyous and inspiring but which have instead become signposts for ways of life that are repressive, confining and guilt-inducing. Doozies like “Evangelical” and “Justification,” even “Gospel,” not to mention slogans like “Jesus died for my sins”; at best they’ve been rendered impressively quaint/irrelevant, at worst they have been turned into weapons of exhaustion and judgment. Wilder understood the devastating consequences of such a semantic crisis. With understanding for a defensive modern audience, he applied himself to devising new ways of telling the old story.

Dr. Paul Zahl found more than inspiration in Wilder’s ideas; he found a summation, and he found an assignment. Indeed, as his many books and countless sermons will attest, Dr. Zahl has devoted his life to “translating the religious dimension into gut-level, fresh terms that speak today.”

But the task is more than a linguistic one. Language is only important in so far as it effectively communicates the “heart of the matter.” Dr. Zahl is after the message; his interest lies in what Christianity has to offer suffering, grieving and lonely people when it comes to the deepest problems of life – the elusiveness of love and the inevitability of death, and the innumerable fears and anxieties they generate. He says, “religion fails people when it doesn’t touch the essence of human nature and human healing that is rooted in the New Testament.” These five talks represent a handful of his attempts at redressing Wilder’s “rhetorical problem.”

Believe it or not, this is the only such footage that exists of Dr. Zahl “in action,” and fortunately, it captures him at his unguarded best: free-associating and self-deprecating, scholarly and warm, provocative, personal, and best of all, uproariously funny. These talks were given in January and February of 2009 at All Saints Episcopal Church in Chevy Chase, MD (which may account for the DC-specific references sprinkled throughout). Between services each Sunday morning, Dr. Zahl held hour-long “Rector’s Forums” where he would give a 30-40 minute presentation, followed by Q&A with his audience. These are five of those sessions. As the title suggests, his formal theme was New Persuasive Words for Defaced of Degraded Ones: Mercy, Grace & Hope in an Age of Recession. The first four chapters of St. Paul’s Letter to The Romans were the text, or springboard, from which he was speaking.

These DVD packages - each contains three discs - are available for a suggested donation of $20. To pay with a credit card, click here:

If you'd prefer to pay by check, you can send one, made out to "Mockingbird Ministries" to 100 W. Jefferson St, Charlottesville, VA 22902. As a preview, we've uploaded the first of the five sessions to youtube, which you may view in five ten-minute installments, the first of which being:

(Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 - Q&A)

Have We Run From The Economic Crisis Into The Arms Of God?

I was reminded this week of an article that appeared last December in the Guardian, entitled "Is 2008 the year the 'real meaning of Christmas' debate resonates?" The article concluded with this line:

While the government hopes festive spending will help deliver us out of economic gloom, the church is hoping the credit crunch will deliver us from the commercialisation of Christmas into the arms of God. Who's your money on?

Looking back over the six months that have transpired since Christmas, the evidence as to whether or not the credit crunch has delivered us into the arms of God is doubtful at best. In fact, an article appeared last week in The Economist entitled Church Attendance In Recessions: No Rush For Pews. What caught my eye was this:

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama famously claimed that blue-collar workers in Pennsylvania clung to religion because of bitterness over lost jobs. Americans are now truly fearful, as unemployment has mounted and house prices fallen. Yet the theory that church attendance grows in times of economic crisis seems to be a myth.

The article goes on to quote Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll, as saying "to guess that attendance would increase [in recessions] is a common-sense assumption with no basis in data."

The prediction alluded to in the Guardian article has been made every time we experience a massive downturn in the economy – that the economic crisis will lead to a massive revival in Christian faith, and unfortunately, as the Economist article points out, the two have not necessarily translated.

This same prediction was widely declared during the Great Depression. But noted writer and Christian thinker Thornton Wilder said that if a true revival is to take place, then we must find "new and persuasive words to replace defaced and degraded ones" (hat tip to Dr. Paul Zahl). What Mr. Wilder was saying is that we have to reclaim the core concepts of Christianity from the kitschy phrases and concepts that have infiltrated and replaced our understanding of who Jesus is, what he did for us, and why it matters.

But I would argue the point a little differently than Mr. Wilder. I would assert that, rather than coming up with new and persuasive words, we need to reclaim the old words of our faith and a real understanding of their meaning. We don’t need to rethink what we believe, we simply need to rediscover it.

PZ on Thornton Wilder

A quick thought from the father figure himself, Paul Zahl:

In Wilder's book The Woman Of Andros, a wise man is observing a wise priest and thinks to himself, "People like that have some secret about living. Why don't they tell it to us outright, instead of wrapping it up in mystery and ceremonial?"

To me (PZ) this sums up why the Christian institution is flailing around these days, clueless and almost everywhere out of touch with the inward sufferings of people. It is as if we have something important to say but wrap it in packages that are hard to open.

Wilder goes on to say, in a journal entry, that in order for a religious revival to take place in his America of the Great Depression, there will have to be "new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones". In my opinion this is what my ministry has been about, and it is what Mockingbird is about.

PZ's Picks Of 2008

We asked the very merry Rev. Paul Zahl to contribute a year-end list, and he graciously obliged (Thanks Dad!):

1. Anything by Thornton Wilder, author of “Our Town”. His two novels that are absorbing me right now are "Heaven's My Destination" from 1934 and "The Woman of Andros". I had a most illuminating visit recently with his literary executor and nephew -- Wilder touches important nerves Christianly and contemporarily.

2. Jack Kerouac's notes on religion remain stunningly up to date. Those are worth keeping under your pillow.

3. I am also looking forward COMPLETELY to the Roberto Rossellini television reissues on DVD in January: Cosimo de Medici, Blaise Pascal, and Cartesius -- it's the number one DVD event of the early new year, so far as I am concerned. These were done in the late 60s for Italian television, and are just full of inspiration (I trust) -- and almost no one has ever seen them.

4. Mark Rutherford's (aka William Hale White's) short story on marriage and eternity, entitled "The Sweetness of a Man's Friend" from his very, very last publication, entitled "Last Pages from a Journal". "Sweetness" has a definitely "Our Town" feeling, with a strong Christian feeling and theme.

Oh, and let's not forget "I don't want to be a freak (but I can't help myself)".

4.33 Links 4 The Weekend

1. Maybe it's because it's so nice out, or maybe it's because we completely forgot to mention his fantastic Conference talk in our recent newsletter, or maybe it's because his Good Friday and Easter sermons were so inspired, but we urge you to check out the following write-up over mardecortesbaja.com.

1a. Supplied by above preacher, here's an another priceless quote from Thornton Wilder. From his one-act play "Pullman Car Hiawatha", the following comes out of the mouth of (the character of) Robert Louis Stevenson:

"There is so much good in the worst of us

and so much bad in the best of us,

that it ill behooves any of us

to criticize the rest of us."

2. The Onion reports this week, "God Makes Surprise Visit To Local Church" and asks, rather brilliantly, "Should We Be Doing More To Reduce the Graphic Violence In Our Dreams?" [Warning: it gets a bit bloody, in a surreal way.]

3. Some exciting self-promotion: Jacob Smith's post about A Theology OF The Cross Vs. A Theology ABOUT The Cross has legs - it was chosen as last week's blog-post of the week by the highly respected theology radio show Issues Etc! At about 3 minutes in host Todd Wilken gives the plug. Congrats again, Jake!


4. In other radio-related news, courtesy of Andrea Zimmerman, be sure not to miss last week's episode of This American Life entitled, "This I Used To Believe". Andrea sums it up perfectly:

"Act two of this piece is a perfect example of Christian apologetics backfiring. The girl in the piece [whose good friend had just tragically died of cancer] gets such an earful from the [Christian] football coach - including being told that her logic is the same as Hitler's! - that she tells Ira Glass that he is more loving to her than the coach who was trying to convert her. This girl wants to believe in God and she really tries to hear what the coach is telling her... I can't believe she stuck around so long. I wonder what would happen in situations like this if Christians just listened instead of spitting out jargon and judgment."

4a. Mitchell Hurwitz's animated follow-up to Arrested Development, Sit Down Shut Up, debuted this week. Initial reviews have been mixed to negative, which I sadly have to agree with. Let's hope this one's a "grower"! Fortunately the same cannot be said for Parks And Recreation, which so far has been way outshining it's older sibling, The Office. And HBO's Grey Gardens was almost as charming as the documentary itself (Drew Barrymore - who knew?!). Finally, I haven't heard much about the Caprica dvd yet - has anyone seen it?

Announcing PZ's PODCAST!

We are proud to announce another very cool new resource, our first foray into podcasting: "PZ's Podcast"! A weekly transmission from the world of, you guessed it, Paul Zahl. To subscribe (and listen to the first three installments), click here.  But first, a word of, um, introduction from the man himself:

This will be a series of talks, most of them about 35 minutes in length, which try to bridge the gap between Old Ancient Teaching (the phrase is from an epic religious poem entitled "Mexico City Blues") and popular culture.

“PZ's Podcast” is the voice of a lost Space-Child, who, it turns out, is broadcasting live from the New York World's Fair of 1964. PZ ventures out weekly from Flushing Meadows to find answers from various heroes of his, beginning with the American playwright Thornton Wilder; then the 'Beat' writer Jack Kerouac; then the English muse Terence Rattigan; then to the misanthropic and now forgotten philosopher-novelist James Gould Cozzens. Each of these people gives to PZ whatever he can.

At one point, our Space-Child, almost demented by loss, is reduced to reflecting on giant crab movies, so desperate has become his search.

PZ seems to travel from the ridiculous to the sublime in no time at all, and doesn't always know which is which. He has to trust that Ancient Teaching, too, as he circles back each week in search of antidotes for human miscreance and mourning.

Initially, PZ will publish three of his reports. Then, on a weekly basis, he will publish new pages from his Diary of a Madman (de Maupassant and Vincent Price). We have high hopes for these ecrits. We'd bet they'll be lively, maybe even worth telling someone else about.

Luckily, it's "Only the beginning, only the beginning, only the beginning" (The Phantom Planet, 1961).


"PZ's Podcast" is brought to you proudly by Mockingbird. The podcast is free, of course, but if you wish to make a much-needed contribution in support of it,  please go here. And to obtain one of our last few copies of his New Persuasive Words DVD, go here.

Malchus, Will You Be Ridiculous With Me?

Since the Mockingbird Conference I have been exploring some of Thornton Wilder's other plays from The Angel That Troubled the Waters, and there is one with which I particularly identified called Now the Servant's Name Was Malchus.

The setting is heaven, portrayed as the "Father's house with many mansions", and the conversation is between Jesus and Malchus, the High Priest's servant whose ear Peter cut off and who Jesus subsequently healed in the Garden of Gethsemane:

OUR LORD: ...Now what is it that you want of me?

MALCHUS: ...It's...it's hardly worth mentioning. Most of the time, Lord, we're very happy up here and nothing disturbs us at our games. But whenever someone on earth thinks about us we are aware of it, pleasantly or unpleasantly. A sort of something crosses our mind. And because I'm in your book someone is always reading about me and thinking about me for a moment, and in the middle of my games I feel it. Especially at this season when your death is celebrated, no moment goes by without this happening. And what they think is, that I'm ridiculous.

OUR LORD: I see. and you want your name to be erased from the book?

MALCHUS: [Eagerly] Yes, sir. I thought you could just make the pages become blank at that place.

OUR LORD: Now that you have come here everything that you wish is granted to you. You know that.

MALCHUS: Yes, sir; thank you, sir.

OUR LORD: But stay a minute. At this season, Malchus, a number of people are thinking of me, too.

MALCHUS: Yes, Lord, but as good, as great. . .

OUR LORD: But, Malchus, I am ridiculous too.

MALCHUS: Oh, no, no!

OUR LORD: Ridiculous because I suffered from the delusion that after my death I could be useful to men.

MALCHUS: They don't say that!

OUR LORD: And that my mind lay under a malady that many a doctor could cure. And that I have deceived and cheated millions and millions of souls who in their extremity called on me for the aid I had promised. They did not know that I died like any other man and their prayers mounted into vain air, for I no longer exist. My promises were so vast that I am either divine or ridiculous. [Pause] Malchus, will you be ridiculous with me?

I can identify with Malchus because there are times in my life that I have been made to feel ridiculous for my beliefs, and perhaps you have, too. But then I'm reminded of how Christ was ridiculed, and I think what better company with which to feel ridiculous.

As C. S. Lewis put it, Jesus is liar, lunatic or Lord, and each of us has to make up his own mind. Each of us places Jesus in one of these three categories, and two of the three are packed with ridicule.

But this is how Malchus answers Jesus: "Yes, sir, I'll stay. I'm glad to stay. Though in a way I haven't any right to be there."

Favorite Movies, Music and TV of 2009 (Plus)

Okay, here goes. I would break the pop culture of 2009 down this way: a pretty good year for music, an alright year for film and a downright incredible year for television.

Five Favorite Films Of 2009*
1. Fantastic Mr Fox
2. District 9
3. In The Loop [warning for profuse-albeit-very-inventive foul language]
4. Coraline
5. Up

Most Underrated: Duplicity
Most Overrated: Inglourious Basterds

*Bear in mind that I haven't seen The Hurt Locker, An Education, A Serious Man, The Road, Dr Parnassus, Big Fan or 2012 yet. So this is definitely more of a favorites list than a "best of". And I am as surprised by the predominance of "family" films as you are...


Twelve Favorite Songs Released in 2009
1. Psalms 40:2 - The Mountain Goats
2. Moment Of Surrender - U2
3. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
4. Dream City - Free Energy
5. All Nights Rest - Trevor Giuliani
6. Someday I'll Be Forgiven For This - Justin Townes Earle
7. 21 Guns - Green Day
8. My Girls - Animal Collective
9. Your Control - Crooked Fingers w/Neko Case
10. Daniel - Bat For Lashes
11. Just The Past - Peter Bjorn and John
12. Young Adult Friction - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart


What I Actually Listened To In 2009
1. HIStory Vol. 2/Blood On The Dance Floor - Michael Jackson
2. Rock Of Ages - The Band [Greatest album title ever? Certainly top 5 greatest live albums.]
3. Day & Age - The Killers
4. Radio City - Big Star
5. Beatles In Mono - The Beatles
6. Singles - New Order
7. Northern Lights - Dawes [came out in 09!]
8. "Breakdown" - GNR
9. Ennismore - Colin Blunstone
10. Everything and anything by Mott The Hoople/Ian Hunter
11. Album - Girls [also 09]
12. Victory For The Comic Muse - The Divine Comedy


That The Golden Age Of Television Showed No Sign Of Slowing Down In 2009 - Nine Supporting Arguments
1. Friday Night Lights - seasons 3&4
2. LOST - season 5
3. Mad Men - season 3
4. Battlestar Galactica - "Daybreak", omitting the final 30 seconds.
5. Big Love - season 3
6. Modern Family - season 1
7. Parks And Recreation - season 2, esp the Andy character
8. Hoarders
9. Curb Your Enthusiasm - "The Reunion, pts 1&2" [warning: extremely crass]

Most Highly Recommended Book: Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder

Favorite DVD By Far: Whit Stillman's The Last Days Of Disco

So there you have it, and I'm sure I've left out a bunch of worthy items. What would you include?!

p.s. The A/V Club has posted a great list of the 32 most anticipated 2010 entertainments. What are they missing? I mean, besides Scorcese's George Harrison documentary...

Speaking of Thornton Wilder...

The great author expressing a similar sentiment as the one which inspires PZ's new DVD (below), slightly elucidated, and touching on some of Mockingbird's core concerns. This comes from the final paragraph of the foreward to his book of short plays The Angel That Troubled The Waters:

"The last four plays here were written within a year and a half. Almost all the plays in this book are religious, but religious in that dilute fashion that is a believer's concession to a contemporary standard of good manners. But these four plant their flag as boldly as they may. It is the kind of work that I would like to do well, in spite of the fact that there has seldom been an age in literature when such a vein was less welcome and less understood. I hope, through many mistakes, to discover the spirit that is not unequal to the elevation of the great religious themes, yet which does not fall into a repellent didacticism. Didacticism is an attempt at the coercion of another's free mind, even though one knows that in these matters beyond logic, beauty is the only persuasion. Here the schoolmaster enters again. He sees all that is fairest in the Christian tradition made repugnant to the new generations by reason of the diction in which it is expressed. The intermittent sincerity of generations of clergymen and teachers have rendered embarrassing and even ridiculous the terms of the spiritual life. Nothing succeeds in dampening the aspirations of the young to-day--who dares use the word "aspiration" without enclosing it, knowingly, in quotation-marks?--like the names they hear given to them. The revival of religion is almost a matter of rhetoric. The work is difficult, perhaps impossible (perhaps all religions die out with the exhaustion of language), but it at least reminds us that Our Lord asked us in His work to be not only gentle as doves, but as wise as serpents."

The Davis House

Lawrenceville, N.J.

June, 1928.

THE MOCKINGBIRD SINGS: Pensacola & Good News for People with Big Problems, Plus

1. The Pensacola Mini-Conference is a mere 11 days away! November 19th and 20th are your long-awaited chances to experience Mockingbird in all its physical, um, glory. The theme is "God's Grace When We Need It Most: The Gospel For Hard Times," and we promise it will be more fun than it sounds (you can read the previews of the content here), especially with the Mockingfather himself, Dr. Paul Zahl, speaking! Believe it or not, what we're most looking forward to is PZ's pre-conference seminar on preaching/ministry/life - not that any of us need help with our sermons, of course...!

Register today: The cost for the main event is $65/person, $75 for the preaching/ministry seminar, and combined for the ultra-affordable price of $120. If you'd prefer to pay in person, that's fine, but please email us at info@mbird.com ASAP to save your spot. The ball's in your court... you know what to do.

Oh and after you register, be sure to check out the reports from Dr. Zahl's recent pilgrimage to Paducah here, including some truly astounding pictures of a Presbyterian church in Tennessee built during the (very) short-lived Egyptian Revival. No joke! [FYI, in order to give Pensacola his full attention, the maestro has put PZ's podcast on hiatus until December].

2. The recordings and handouts of the freshly-reworked Mockingbird 101 course, "Good News for People with Big Problems" are now up on our website. Presented by David Zahl during our meetings at Christ Episcopal Church this past Fall, you may listen/download by clicking on the talk titles below. Enjoy:
[CONTINUE READING]

From MBird Conference 2009

From Thornton Wilder's The Angel That Troubled the Waters:

The Newcomer: Oh, in such an hour was I born, and doubly fearful to me is the flaw in my heart. Must I drag my shame, prince and singer, all the days more bowed than my neighbor?

The Angel (Stands a moment in silence): Without your wound, where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble in the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love's service only the wounded soldiers can serve. Draw back.

[PZ throws his paper off the pulpit]

Another Week Ends: Whit's Voice, Predestination, & the (prog) Nicene Creed

1. A Fine Resource: Mockingbird friend Shawn Smith, has written a wonderful little series (on his blog) about Predestination, surveying some classic interpretations of the matter (including Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and others, though no Pascal). You might read them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6

Remember the nice words from Article 17 of the wonderful 39: "...the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons..."

2. There's a fresh interview with Mockingbird fave, Whit Stillman, up on the Village Voice site: here!

3. For fans of the "Emerging/Missional" Church: In 1978, in an attempt to show young people that Christianity is not uncool, the Austrian prog group Eela Craig, recorded their own version of a liturgical Roman Catholic mass. Here is their version of the Nicene Creed. Christian pop culture does not get more awesome than this:


4. Thornton Wilder quote of the week: "All love is overestimation."

Speaking of Thornton Wilder

I thought I would share a quote from "Our Town." This is from a scene in Act II. George is about to get married to Mr. Webb's daughter Emily, and they are talking about marriage.

Mr. Webb:

George, I was thinking the other night about some advice my father gave me when I got married. Charles, he said, Charles, start out early showing who's boss, he said. Best thing to do is to give an order, even if it don't make sense; just so she'll learn to obey. And he said: if anything about your wife irritates you-her conversation, or anything-just get up and leave the house. That'll make it clear to her, he said. And, oh, yes! He said never, never let you wife know how much money you have, never.

George:

Well, Mr. Webb...I don't think I could...

Mr. Webb:

So I took the opposite of my father's advice and I've been happy ever since.

Freezing Repetitions and the Spirit of Play - Theophilus North, Again

A few people have asked about the quotes from Thornton Wilder's novel Theophilus North that I used a few weeks ago in my talk at the Mockingbird Conference in New York. The first comes at the end of the chapter 'Diana Bell', in which a woman who is trying to elope slowly realizes she is not really in love with the man whom she is trying to marry. She discovers instead that she is playing out once again an old story in her life, without realizing it; one which has repeated itself before and has more to do with trying to escape her difficult parents than with love or marriage or who she really is. I talked about how this moment towards the end, this 'freezing realization of the repetitions in her life', is a kind of experience of the

Spirit of God.

I carried her suitcases up to the darkened entrance [of her house]. She said, ‘Hold me a minute.’ I put my arms around her. It was not an embrace; our faces did not touch. She wanted to cling for a moment to something less frozen than the lofty structure under which we stood; she was trembling after the freezing realization of the repetitions in her life. ‘Good night,’ she said. ‘Good night, Miss Bell.’

The second quotation comes from the first chapter of the novel, just after the main character, Theophilus, quits his unhappy job teaching at a boarding school. I talked about how this little sequence, which sets up much of the later action in the book, can be read as a kind of moment of being filled with the Spirit. It captures somewhat, by way of analogy, how a truly unconditional picture of God's grace in human lives – of the life that is justified by faith – manifests in a spirit of humor, freedom, wonder, and childlike play. Not entirely unlike this blog!

From the moment I resigned, two days before leaving the school, I discovered that several things were happening to me in my new state of freedom. I was recapturing the spirit of play – not the play of youth which is games (aggression under the restraint of rules), but the play of childhood which is all imagination, which improvises. I became light-headed. The spirit of play swept away the cynicism and indifference into which I had fallen. Moreover, a readiness for adventure re-awoke in me – for risk, for intruding myself into the lives of others, for extracting fun from danger.

To see the touching and hilarious ways this 'anointing' works itself out, you must read the rest of this extraordinary novel.

Theophilus North on the fears of servants and masters

Servants live in terror of being unjustly dismissed from a situation without a letter of recommendation. This usually takes the form of being charged with having stolen objects of value. As the reader knows I shrink from making a generalization, but when I do it's a bold one: persons endowed with enormous inherited wealth tend to be more than a little unbalanced. So would you or I. They know they are marginal citizens- a very small portion of the inhabitants of this industrious or idle, mostly starving, often much enduring, often rebellious world. They are haunted by the dread that what destiny, chance, or God has given them, destiny, chance, or God may as mysteriously withdraw. They are burdened by the problem of their merits. They assume (often with reason, often with none) that they are the object of envy (one of the uglier sins), of hatred or ridicule. They herd together for company. They know that something is wrong, but who began it? Where will it end? Hysteria lurks under the surface. (From Thornton Wilder's Theophilus North, ch.14)

Slightly Expanded And Significantly More Organized Conference Book Table List

Here's the full list plus a couple of relevant additions, linked to sites where they can be purchased. Although everything comes highly recommended, this is by no means meant to be a definitive list (stay tuned...). For the sake of newcomers we have divided the non-fiction into three itunes-inspired categories: Basics, Next Steps and Deep Cuts. In other words, the books are organized according to accessibility rather than importance.

NON-FICTION
Basics
1. Alcoholics Anonymous. The Big Book.
3. Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News For the Bedraggled, Beat-up and Burnt Out
3. Martyn, Dorothy. Beyond Deserving: Children, Parents And Responsibility Revisited.
4. Norris, Sean. Judgment And Love. [out-of-print, 2nd edition coming soon!]
5. Paulson, Steven. Luther For Armchair Theologians.
6. Vieth, Gene. The Spirituality Of The Cross: The Way Of The First Evangelicals.
7. Walker, Paul. Sermons From The Cathedral Church Of The Advent.
8. Zahl, Paul. 2000 Years Of Amazing Grace: The Story And Meaning Of The Christian Faith.
9. Zahl, Paul. Who Will Deliver Us? The Present Power Of The Death Of Christ.

Next Steps
1. Allison, C Fitzsimmons. Fear Love And Worship.
2. Allison, C Fitzsimmons. Guilt Anger And God.
3. Barnes, Robert. The Reformation Essays Of Dr. Robert Barnes.
4. Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage And Vindication In The Parables Of Jesus
5. Elert, Werner. Law And Gospel.
6. Forde, Gerhard. On Being A Theologian Of The Cross.
7. Greene-McCreight, Kathryn. Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response To Mental Illness.
8. Lewis, C.S. A Grief Observed.
9. Long, Anne. Listening.
10. Luther, Martin. Commentary On Galatians.
11. Luther, Martin. The Bondage Of The Will.
12. Norris, Sean. Two Words Devotional [teaser].
13. Pless, John. Handling The Word Of Truth: Law And Gospel In The Church Today.
14. Rosenbladt, Rod. Christ Alone (Today's Issues).
15. Zahl, Paul. Grace In Practice: A Theology Of Everyday Life.

Deep Cuts
1. Bayer, Oswald. Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation.
2. Forde, Gerhard. A More Radical Gospel: Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement and Ecumenism.
3. Forde, Gerhard. The Preached God: Proclamation in Word And Sacrament.
4. Holcomb, Justin. Christian Theologies Of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction.
5. Holl, Karl. The Distinctive Elements in Christianity.
6. Holl, Karl. The Reconstruction Of Morality.
7. Mattes, Mark. The Role Of Justification In Contemporary Theology.
8. Null, Ashley. Thomas Cranmer's Doctrine Of Repentence: Renewing The Power To Love.

FICTION
1. Eliot, T.S. The Cocktail Party.
2. Eliot, T.S. The Family Reunion.
3. Giertz, Bo. The Hammer Of God.
4. Kerouac, Jack. Big Sur.
5. Lewis, C.S. The Great Divorce.
6. O'Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories.
7. Tolstoy, Leo. The Great Short Works.
8. Wilder, Thornton. The Collected Short Plays.

MUSIC
1. Brown, Dusty. Dusty Brown.
2. High Street Hymns - High Street Hymns.
3. JAZ. I Played Sports.
4. Mejias, Alex - Alex Mejias.

So... what were we missing? We're especially eager to find more "basics". And did we get the labels right? We're all ears...

Conference Book Table

As promised, here's the full inventory of what we had on offer last week. It's by no means a definitive collection or 'canon', just what we were able to gather up in time for the conference. They're listed in order of author, with links to where you can purchase them. They all come highly recommended!

NON-FICTION

Basics
1. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book).
2. Brewer, Todd [ed.]. The Gospel According To Pixar. Coming Soon!
4. Hawkins, David. The Useful Sinner.
5. Long, Anne. Listening.
6. Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel.
7. Norris, Sean [ed.]. Judgment & Love: Expanded Edition.
8. Paulson, Steven. Luther For Armchair Theologians.
9. Rosenbladt, Rod. Christ Alone.
10. Walker, Paul. Sermons From The Cathedral Church Of The Advent.
11. Wallace, David Foster. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
12. Zahl, David [ed.]. Grace In Addiction: What The Church Can Learn From Alcoholics Anonymous. New!
13. Zahl, Paul. 2000 Years Of Amazing Grace.
14. Zahl, Paul. Who Will Deliver Us? The Present Power Of The Death Of Christ.

Next Steps
1. Allison, C. FitzSimons. Fear Love and Worship.
2. Allison, C. FitzSimons. Guilt Anger and God.
3. Allison, C. FitzSimons. Trust In An Age Of Arrogance. New!
4. Ebeling, Gerhard. Luther: An Introduction To His Thought.
5. Elert, Werner. Law And Gospel.
6. Forde, Gerhard. On Being A Theologian Of The Cross.
7. Greene-McCreight, Kathryn. Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness.
8. Holl, Karl. The Reconstruction Of Morality.
9. Lewis, C.S. A Grief Observed.
10. Luther, Martin. The Bondage Of The Will.
11. Martyn, Dorothy. Beyond Deserving: Children, Parents and Responsibility Revisited.
12. Norris, Sean [ed.]. Two Words: Teaser.
13. Pless, John. Handling The Word Of Truth.
14. Senkbeil, Harold. Dying To Live: The Power Of Forgiveness.
15. Zahl, Paul. Grace In Practice: A Theology Of Everyday Life.

Deep Cuts
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