Still

Months ago I received a review copy of Still, the “new” book by Lauren f. Winner. Sadly, seminary, fatherhood, and general laziness kept me from reading it and writing a review. Now, at the start of my internship, while trying to avoid finishing a sermon and in the need to clean things off my desk, I finally have the motivation to get this off write one.

This book is very good. In it, I found a description of what it means to live with faith. Over the years, as I’ve traveled down the path to ordination, it seems that I’m confronted a lot of times with my journey to faith rather than my journey with faith. I’ve written the journey to faith in essay form a million times but it only seems that my journey with faith isn’t really asked for all that much. Instead, I seem to share it here on my blog. Winner writes well, and with passion, about what it means to be at the place where faith and real life interact, meet, and pound into each other. And I’ve always enjoyed this genre of writing. It is a brilliant read.

But Still is also not my kind of read at the same time. There is a style within these words, a pacing, and a sense of identity, that I tend not to find inviting. It doesn’t speak to me because my world is not Winner’s. I’ve had some of the feelings that she’s had but not all. And there’s a breath-filled approached to the writing that seems to give it a softness that doesn’t speak to my background. There’s also a tendency to dwell in the language of prayer and spirituality that is very Episcopalian (which Winner is) and that, well, is off putting to me at the moment – probably because I’m the token Lutheran at an Episcopalian seminary. Sometimes, when I am confronted by the spiritual writings of the mystics, fathers, and mothers of the church in modern writing, I turn off because I see a veneration of their words that seem to be in competition with mine. I know that’s my problem but it is something that I see all the time in my time at Seminary and….it irks me. So, really, this isn’t a book for me – but that’s perfectly a-ok. When I stopped asking the text to speak to me, to be what I need, and when I let it be itself, as a series of essays reflecting on living with faith – I liked it.

But there is more to this book than just being an entertaining reflection on living with faith. There was one thought in this book that I love – a thought I wish I had but now one that I will cherish forever. I direct you to page 164.

I am attending a lecture, at a divinity school in New England, about light. The lecturer is a physicist, an expert in black holes, and she is doing her level best to give a bunch of church organists and theology students and preachers some sense of the science that underpins this symbol we ceaselessly invoke: Jesus is the “light of the world”; eternity is “like a great ring of pure and endless light”; “the light of the righteous rejoiceth: but the lamp of the wicked shall be put”; the flames of Hell emti “no light, but rather darkness visible”; and so on.
During the Q&A, someone asks how light can be both a particle and a wave. The questioner seems perplexed.
It seems to me that anyone who worships a being who is both God and man should not have so much trouble with light.

Yes.

My singing puts Olivers to sleep. VICTORY.

Oliver, like most babies, has his very own witching hour(s). We’ve learned how to shorten it by taking him out for a trip in the evening. We’ll either go on a walk or go out to dinner or run an errand that requires us to ride the subway. Once he’s in his carrier, he is out and his time as fussy-mc-fussy-pants is reduced considerably. Tonight, after an ok dinner out and a trip to the grocery store, Oliver still arrived home with over an hour of his usual block of time available. He, of course, immediately went into his routine of being loud and cranky. still woke up with an hour and a half of witching time to fill. A plan was devised where K fed him, bathed him, and then Oliver was passed to me to entertain. I carried him but he still fussed. I did deep lunges but his cries didn’t stop. I even sat on the exercise ball and bounced around. He liked that, at first, but it didn’t last long. Even my patented move where we play Olympics (i.e. I put him on the bed face up and wiggle, move his arms and legs around as if he’s participating in various sports) only worked for so long. Oliver had a job to do and I was going to suffer for it.

Part way through it, K suggested a new tactic and said I should sing to him – that Oliver needed to hear a song from his daddy. Now, I don’t consider myself a singer and I have a terrible memory when it comes to song lyrics so I did what anyone would do in my shoes – I sung and stole made up lyrics to the song from my wife. Why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to? And it was shocking – SHOCKING – how quickly Oliver calmed down once I began to sing. His lovable angry/cranky/i-am-so-tired-i-could-kill-you face became mellow and relaxed. He started to look around and began his personal wiggle and dance to the bedtime gods that he does every night before he falls asleep. Sure, he was still up for about 30 minutes but it was quiet. By the time 10:30 rolled around, he gave one giant burp, fussed for two seconds, and then passed out on my shoulder like he just gave up on life. I never realized that a lullaby that I sung would actually work on a baby but it did! I’m going to pat myself on the back for this one.

The song I sung was “The Wheels on the bus but with modified lyrics supplied by K and me. Repeat for 30 minutes. It seems guaranteed to work…at the moment at least.

The Wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round –
The Wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town.

The Kates on the bus eat doritos, do-re toes, do-re toes
The Kates on the bus eat doritos, all through the town.

The Marcs on the bus sing Lutheran hymns, Lutheran hymns, Lutheran hymns
The Marcs on the bus sing Lutheran hymns, all through the town.

The Twinkies on the bus, they chase their tail, chase their tail, chase their tail
The Twinkies on the bus, they chase their tail, all through the town.

The Chulas on the bus, they play with string, play with string, play with string
The Chulas on the bus, they play with string, all through the town.

The Olivers on the bus go waah-waah-waah, waah-waah-waah, waah-waah-waah
The Olivers on the bus go waah-waah-waaah, all through the town.