The Wing-Beat

The Crossroads Academy and V-5 Institute Board has had little help from me recently, but I haven’t “quit” either, especially when I get opportunities to meet with some of God’s good men and women. So I and mine did this past weekend at the Rominger home in Tecumseh. The occasion was filled with conversation, board business (redefining, reorganizing), spiritual devotion, some great meals (thanks Janelle) and a good dose of Oklahoma history courtesy of Dr. Don Rominger. It is a rich history, and none are more aware of it than the numerous American Indians who in the twisting course of events had much befall them in Anglo-America. Yet they–and the rest of us–are part of a much more complex America that includes everyone (not always happily) but still permits special identities. That is no more so than with Indian identity, tribal belonging.

This past weekend our board president received, in absentia, a token, a totem of unity and patriotism, a gift in honor of his own military service, patriotism, and love of the United States and what our nation best represents, a ceremonial working/battle axe. It was also in honor of his sons, one of whom, a Marine lieutenant, still is recovering from burn injuries received in Iraq from a roadside bomb that killed most of his brothers-in-arms. Those injuries will force his retirement, which he must accept, though reluctantly, and earlier than he wished.

The giver? An elder representing the Citizen Pottawatomie tribe of Oklahoma. The recipient and his son? Members via Mexican ancestry, in part, of the Yaqui tribe. Yet all are citizens of the United States, heirs to a tradition of patriotism based not in what some consider a threatening militarism but in their convictions that they can best serve their country as members of a proud, distinguished service branch of the American Armed Forces. And these Marines have served well.

The United States includes many amazing people, humans whose backgrounds, convictions, and accomplishments can only evoke encouragement and admiration. I learned this past weekend about the long tradition of military service among the Cheyenne of the Middle and Northern Plains. Where in the social histories do we learn that the Indians are more than just a formerly oppressed group? Where do we learn that among them, always, have been individuals and groups who transcended the difficulties of accommodation and integration to the larger Anglo-European society, who came to share fully in it, yet who, paradoxically, retained their traditions as best they could? I am interested to learn more about the American Plains warriors whose love of country is a lesson for all Americans — not to glorify war, though some surely might, but to be reminded that in a world where wars will occur, there are patriots whose best response is to take part.

Spring on the Plains! and the Red River Valley. Well, not just yet, but soon. The weekend’s winds kicked up some 3-4 foot troughs on Texoma Saturday. They brought some more of New Mexico, West Texas, and western Oklahoma eastward, too, so there must have been a bit of dust-storming westward. I’m sure there will be more of the same in March. This year we have had “more” winter on the South Plains and the upper-Gulf Coast continental shelf. That has meant more rain than in recent years. But Texoma was still low. Other lakes are low. We need more rain, still. I hope it comes in the right places.

per-

(A prefix; connotes modification, intensification, as in perfection . . .)

My Dear, if I say you are gorgeous:

You knock my eyes out!

What if I say Hey, Per-gorgeousness?

Have I eyes enough to last? I hope so.

Ah, perfect love! For today, let us relegate the classical, sacrificial charity-love to a wall seat where it shall surely remain, but for a few lines. Take up (as C. S. Lewis did in his The Four Loves) the subtle joys of Affection (Storge) or the often-neglected, sometimes scorned, virtues of Friendship (Philia) or the state-of-being-in-love, that is, one’s desire for the Beloved, that is the essence of . . . Eros! But Eros is not what most people think; they do have in mind, actually, Venus, what Lewis referred to as “the carnal ingredient within Eros.” Lewis has much more compelling stuff in the pages following that comment, and I recommend him to you: for example, his astonishing comments on Ephesians 5:25 and context on the husband as the head of the wife:

This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is–in her own mere nature–least lovable. For the Church has no beauty but what the Bride-groom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely. The chrism of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man’s marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of a bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness: forgiveness, not acquiescence. As Christ sees in the flawed, proud, fanatical or lukewarm Church on earth that Bride who will one day be without spot or wrinkle, and labours to produce the latter, so the husband whose headship is Christ-like (and he is allowed no other sort) never despairs. (Harvest Book edition, 1960, 1988, pp. 105-6)

I said astonishing. And so it is. Moreover the kind of headship described here is impossible apart from the pre-eminent and sacrificial headship of Christ himself. It is in fact the comparison between the husband and his wife, and Christ and his church that is so vast; Christ’s love for the Beloved is such that the husband’s love for his wife pales by comparison. That which so consumes the lover and beloved as Eros ultimately can be fulfilled, that is, perfected, only in the Charity-love (Agape) modeled in Christ. Eros is fundamentally powerful and effective, but cannot be pre-eminent without being demonic, and if demonic, then not truly Eros: Eros is terrifyingly imperfect and unsatisfying unless fulfilled by obedience to God.

Lewis’ commentary catches the hyperbolic emphasis of Paul the Sent: here, an emphasis on complete sacrificial commitment, and there, the fact of its impossibility unless Christ makes it happen. In the broader context of Paul’s teachings we can make sense of this by recognizing the pervasive life of Christ not only in individual believers but in his church, which is (again, astonishing!) :

his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:18b, NET Bible

This is no obscure spiritual mysticism but a spiritual theology that flows from life (the life of God) to life (the life we are given in God), and which touches all of our human, natural loves, to, and beyond, the point of fulfillment in the source of love. I would struggle to describe it adequately; perhaps for now it is enough to call Charity-love back from the wall seat, to be the center of attention as that perfect love.

From the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia we learn of three historical Saints Valentine, martyrs all in the second century; a bishop, a priest of Rome, and a Christian, possibly a priest, in North Africa. Medieval folk associated the Feast Day of St. Valentine, February 14, with the pairing of birds and from there with lovers or loved ones exchanging notes and gifts. So the 13th Century literature includes references to Valentine’s letters.

As with most traditions we have choices for celebration here, both of them worthwhile and affirming. Leaving aside the scattershot patterns of giving Valentine’s cards as children (though one might reserve a special card for some One), the feast (festival) day celebration recognizes the sacrifices of ancients willing to die for a glory far greater than themselves yet a glory in which they had been given a non-negotiable part; or Valentine’s Day recognizes the glory of men and women held together in a commitment far greater than the bonds achieved through their own (or society’s) strength and resolve. Of course at best I do mean Christ-ian marriage, and if we may not celebrate it on Valentine’s Day, then how could we be satisfied, or inspired, by anything less? How better to picture sacrificial love than in service to one’s beloved? Paul the Sent said no less about it when he described Christ as laying down his life for his bride the church.

You married men must love your wives, just as Christ love the church and gave Himself for her, to consecrate her, after cleansing her through His word, as pictured in the water bath, that He might present the church to Himself as a splendid bride without a blot or wrinkle or anything like it, but to be consecrated and faultless. This is the way married men ought to love their wives, as they do their own bodies. The married man who loves his wife is really loving himself, for no one ever hates his own physical person, but he feeds and fosters it, just as Christ does the church, because we are parts of His body. Ephesians 5:25-30, Williams Translation

The Texas Baptist Historical Collection is a resource more Baptists should know about and take advantage of. Every year useful historical materials are lost when churches and families discard files, letters, and other records from long-term ministries and lifetimes of experience in service. These could be historically valuable–and the TBHC can help you to decide how valuable. They are the experts, and they want to hear from you.

On a previous post from December 3 I mentioned the conception of “god” or “God” in the Chinese tradition. The emperor could be seen as a god of sorts. I have visited all too briefly with my Chinese academic friends about this, but one comment resonates with my growing understanding of the ages-old “secularity” of Chinese society and belief: even without the modern, naturalistic, atheistic world view of most educated Chinese today, to have “God” is something very difficult. In traditional China, the emperor–Son of Heaven or tianzi–dominated over the people, and together they constituted the main reality of the world. There has been no “emperor” since at least 1912, but there has been no lack of authoritarian government. Beyond mundane boundaries, though, and subordinate to the world itself, is the traditional Chinese conception of a god or God, and it is well-nigh inconsequential: “It’s hard to be a god in China,” said one friend. And I must say it can be hard to accept the idea of a loving, redeeming God and along with that idea, the concept that a Chinese person would need such a god. Read more…

It’s no secret to my extended clan that BuzzFever is alive and growing. I want to congratulate son Curtis and supportive, collaborative daughter-in-law Crystal for a truly interesting business site with The Lord-Only-Knows potential. It’s just one idea, but it is REAL.

This is my first entry for 2007; I hope to have more to say about BuzzFever, among other things more typical of my own and some other common interests. Today is the Ninth Day of Christmas according to my lectionary . . . Read more…

On the one hand, it is getting easier now to sway some people toward the view that before the Iraq War no degree of diplomacy could be too much. We are into it far enough to have many people shift their views, thinking, saying, in effect: were there no other ways to deal with what our leaders considered a crisis, requiring imminent intervention? We will never know. Historical reflection suggests it has always been so. Read more…

Filling in for Alex in the Faith Bible class this morning, I read from C. S. Lewis’ The Four Loves on the way to thinking through the Incarnation with the class members. I love doing this stuff! Lewis wrote a beautiful treatment about the distinctions between Need-love and Gift-love, among other things, and in his discussion of Charity asserted that God is love, insisting that we can understand any of this at all only by starting with God: Read more…