There's Beauty in the Bellow

I won a Persian rug off eBay. It arrived a week before Hurricane Michael hit the Florida coast -- only 50 miles east of us. As I cleaned up our little house, two truths lay before me in tension. The first is simply this: do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and mold destroy, where thieves break in and steal, and where hurricanes ravage. The second is that the good man lays up an inheritance for his children's children. My momma has a Persian rug that her grandparents bought through the Sears and Roebuck catalogue when they married. She remembers dancing on that rug as a child, and I danced on that rug ... picking out step patterns by choosing which geometric element to step on next. So I bought a rug from the same region in hopes that my children and grandchildren will dance on it too. The rug by itself might not be that valuable. But more significantly, I hope that it becomes a tangible reminder of love. My paternal grandmother, although not a...

The media outlets featured an early foray into activism by the Duchess of Sussex, then a ten-ish year old Meghan Markle. She called out a company for advertising dish soap to women. The company in question acquiesced and changed its campaign language to "millions of people ." Fair point: women aren't the only ones who wash dishes. In fact, humans aren't the only ones who use dish soap either. One brand advertises that its users include needy marine life. I have an uneasy relationship with "Activism". It seems too close to "lobbyist." Moreover, it seems synonymous with "busybody." I do fervently believe in being active  and actively useful . Maybe some might deem "useful" as demeaning but I would retort: not nearly as demeaning as use- less . But I should hope that one's activity would result in the noise of industry and not the noise of scolding. At any rate, that's an aside and I know that the Duchess intends, wit...

It's not a new debate, but one that I keep an on-going dialogue with: can Christians practice/participate in yoga? I recently listened to John Piper's "Ask Pastor John" segment from last year on this topic. His response is a measured "No." Some of the comments retorted that yoga is "just exercise" in the U.S., if not the West. The thought on yoga ranges from dangerous idolatrous practice to cheery secularization, to adapting it to Christian meditation. Whatever it is, it is not inert. If we are going to plunder the Egyptians, we must take and repurpose carefully. I have the most problem with the last approach, of attempting to baptize yogic discipline with superimposed Christian prayer and Bible reading. Christian mediation is not like Buddhist or Hindu meditation. It has a different purpose: the focused contemplation on Yahweh and His glory. And it has a different method, which we have pretty well mapped out for us: devoted reading of the Scri...

We watched the BBC's Tudor Monastery Farm with the unstoppable Ruth Goodman several months ago. We've watched the Primitive Technology channel on YouTube but something about Tudor Monastery Farm -- maybe because of William T. Cavanaugh's lectures -- has stuck. Maybe because Ruth, Peter, and Tom explain the techniques of our forebears in more detail than the gentleman on Primitive Technology. Tudor Monastery Farm (such a mouthful!) challenges what we mean by Primitive. "Primitive" encompasses a vast range for us on this side of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Cave men living in caves to Roman aqueducts and Gothic Cathedrals. If you mean simple tools, well maybe yes, all those things are primitive. If you mean ignorant, most certainly not. The Medievals may not have understood the human body as seen under a microscope. But they most certainly knew what boiling water, salt, and sunlight could do. They wasted nothing. If their tools were simple, the...

First off, I liked The Riot & The Dance, a nature documentary. It had a sense of humor, which most documentaries don't. I don't mean that you don't find humor in the films themselves, else why would we see so many shots of baby animals? They're funny, that's why. But usually the creators themselves don't have much humor about them. Reverence, yes. Awe, yes. Beauty, yes. An urgent message, yes. Sometimes Sir Richard Attenborough starts to sound tired telling the same story again and again, with different factoids, dragged down with the weight of saving the universe in its entirety. Dr. Gordon Wilson is quite taking with his gentle humor and enthusiasm for some of the more homely and despised members of the animal kingdom. I took his biology course plus some electives in college and all the things I liked best about him are present in the film. He's persistent, patient, careful of speech, and slyly provocative. I don't know where Dr. Wilson's w...

In Princess Mononoke, we see humans and gods at war. The forests and rivers and mountains are the domain of the gods and when humans farm or build factories, they cannot help but trespass upon sacred ground. How can war be anything but inevitable? Lady Iboshi employs prostitutes and lepers turning them into skilled laborers and giving them stable room and board. She defends them and cares for them and they give her unshakeable loyalty. But this utopia depends on the iron ore found under the mountain inhabited by gods and Lady Iboshi is willing to wage that costly war. We see not only men and gods in conflict but war between one human tribe and another. While Iron Town functions for the good of its people just as the gods seek the good of the trees and rivers, human greed willingly destroys both for short-sighted achievement. Prince Ashitaka comes from a tribe that has apparently lived peacefully amongst nature but his tribe is dwindling. He suggests at the end that there is a bette...