oxfordian overture

Top 10 Reasons Why Men Shouldn't Be Ordained

2007-10-03T01:13:00.000+01:00

I came across this on of all places, Facebook, and couldn't resist marking a firm stamp of approval by co-opting it for the blog. (FYI, this satirical piece was posted in response to the Christian Reformed Church's lifting of the ban on female ordination this summer.) Enjoy!

Top 10 Reasons Why Men Shouldn't Be Ordained

10. A man's place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be "unnatural" for them to do other forms of work.

7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievment of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.

5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.

4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, and maybe even lead the singing on Father's Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.

1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.

Moral of the story: Pretty much anyone can use Scripture/common sense to come to pretty much any conclusion that they pretty much want to. I love satire.

the art of settling

2007-07-08T19:54:00.000+01:00

I am embarrassed and a little wordless now that I have sat down to (finally) update this dag-nabbed thing. Not wordless because I'm naturally wordless or because my experience leaves me at a lack of words, but because I think I've become a little dumber over the last few months. It's been a refreshing state of dumb, however - I've given my brain muscles a little rest after running the marathon that is Calvin+Oxford. Now I'm slowly learning that there are types of intelligence that don't involve Wittgensteinian linguistic theory or bio-metaphysics (I actually think I just made that last one up) - like, for example, knowing how to sit quietly and just be. Or knowing how to not make to-do lists for every dimension of one's life. Or knowing how to get up early in the morning and actully enjoy it. In these regards, nuns are brilliant in ways that Wittgenstein might never have been.

I feel like I've already been here for years, that it still hasn't sunk in how drastically my life has changed over the last six months. It's just that I'm so connected already - connected to my coworkers, in and outside of work; connected to that e'er moving ebb and flow that is church life; heck, I'm even connected to the local birding club. Life is good, and still a little shocking. I have yet to find out why I'm here.

So, for the juicy stuff, here are some statistics about life right now:

- I work as an editorial administrator at Christianity Today Int'l, in its online publishing department. Currently, I work the most with this and this website.

- The job is great, except when my job entails making paperclip runs.

- I like my coworkers, except when I feel like I should be a better evangelical.

- I think I really am an evangelical at the end of the day, but I also like liturgy, mystics, and smells 'n bells. BAH to labels.

- I have no boyfriend; I'm barely aware of boys' existence; I'm still considering the nunnery.

- Are there such things as evangelical nuns?

- I am trying to grow three plants; two have been successful.

- I go birdwatching two or three times each week, though the birding season is quieting down, and the weather's too damn hot to enjoy the occasional fly-by. Chicago-area lifers have included a black-crowned night heron, a baltimore oriole, a chestnut-sided warbler, a great-crested flycatcher, and a double-crested cormorant.

- I am constantly imspired to embark on craft projects, and am constantly aware of my lack of artistic knack.

- I am infatuated with the movie theatre down the street.

- I go to a women's Bible study every Tuesday, where we learn about how human and yet totally baffling the Old Testament can be.

- I like having people over to eat or to stay overnight, and anyone who reads this is welcome to come visit for a weekend.

Here's what to expect when you come:

Panicky Post-Grad Prayers Answered

2007-02-20T17:29:00.000Z

As a 17-year-old seeped in naivete and egocentricity, I often reminded my parents that if they were to invest in an RV upon retirement, like they had always planned, they would never be able to visit me in my fashionably-cramped, downtown Chicago apartment. There simply wouldn't be anywhere for them to park that ugly thing. I envisioned myself as a swinging single working as an up-and-coming editor at some snot-nosed fashion magazine, enjoying martinis and diamond-studded high heels: not unlike a Sex in the City motif, but without all the giggling. It's such an American cliche, really: you do your part to oil the wheels of consumerism at your job, whilst your personal habits in themselves mirror the self-absorpotion that you inspire in others.

Now that I am a few years older, have sobered up a bit, and have developed the cynicism and self-righteousness to make such a sophisticated cultural critique as the above, my life plans have changed a bit. But not so drastically as one might assume. Yes, I will be living in an apartment in suburban Chicago. Yes, I will be working at a magazine, though not a fashion one. Yes, I will be enjoying alcoholic beverages from time to time, though they will steer clear from vodka and probably be something more like $4.29 bottles of white wine. And no, my parents will still not be able to fit their RV on my street, though they are welcome to visit in their normal-sized vehicle any time.

Life plans change quickly...one week I was living in Grand Haven, Michigan with my grandmother, becoming so desperate to secure any kind of job that I had even applied to be a pizza delivery girl. My days were spent applying to jobs, looking at birds, cross-stitching bunnies and chickadees, and watching Jeopardy. Though not a shabby lifestyle, I knew I couldn't stay for much longer. Plus, doors seemed to be closing in West Michigan - the only job leads popping up were for positions I was only marginally interested in; most of my closest friends had moved outside the region, and with good reason; the dating relationship for which I had returned to Michigan in the first place ended before it really began; plus, the ghastly amount of snow seemed to be sucking my soul away. The next most likely place seemed to be Chicago: only a day's drive away from family, around the corner from several close friends, and one of my favorite downtowns.

By highly unlikely circumstances that I can only attribute to Providence, I was able to secure a job at Christianity Today's Web Resources department, find an outstanding apartment 10 minutes away from the office, and literally across the street from the train station heading into downtown. My friend Sara lives in the apartment building right next to mine, and three other close friends from Calvin live within a 45-minute radius of where I'll be. Though initially hesitant about working at CT, I think it's an optimal place to begin if I want to pursue a career in journalism and that whole faith+culture thing. (One thing I've learned about the post-graduate job search is that you have to find a way to retain your core ideals while still manage to pay your water bill.) I have gone with Sara a couple times to the Episcopal church where her father is the Father, and find it a great place to start learning more about liturgical worship. Overall, I honestly can't think of one downside to this new move. I am so excited, feel incredibly blessed and taken care of, and can only guess what new and challenging life events might be around the corner in the post-graduate stage in my life. Assuming you don't drive an RV, you are more than welcome to visit.

As Mr. Vedder Always Says, I'm Still Alive

2007-01-26T17:43:00.000Z

Though this blog will no longer live up to its title, as I am not in Oxford and my life right now is anything but an overture, I still feel it overdue to write a blog entry. (Not that many people are reading it these days...Mom, you already know where I am.) As should be expected, I feel at once refreshed to be back home, and homesick for the city of Oxford and the people I lived with while there. It still has not sunk in that I lived in Oxford, England for three months. Oxford is an alternate universe to me now. I especially began aching for it when I watched "Shadowlands" a couple weeks ago (the story about C.S. Lewis' late-in-life marriage to Christo-Jewish Communist Joy Gresham). The familiar spires against the ever-misty skyline and the faint hum of a boys' choir singing in one of the college chapels...gosh, I feel so poetic.

Looking back, I would describe the three months in Oxford as a time of healing and rest. The reading and essay-writing was rigorous, of course, but not so much so that I could not enjoy the work. Because this was a tacked-on semester, I didn't feel quite so much pressure to come out with a perfect GPA. I especially enjoyed the research I did on Lewis' and Tolkien's fantasy books and the appeal of Myth as a genre and a human activity. The opportunity I had to tour English cathedrals was unforgettable. Nights spent with the MayBe community were warming and enligthening, and secured my new-found desire for liturgical worship. Plus, I built some killer thigh muscles by riding my bike, the Green Phantom, everywhere. (Which are now long gone due to residual Christmas-season fluff.)

Spring Lake, Michigan does not have the same tug on my emotions, of course, but still, it's been a nice home for the last month. I am currently living with my grandmother, whom I get along with very well. I am her first grandchild (and granddaughter at that), and so sometimes I get special attention, I'll admit. (Tyler, you have Boompa on the other side, so stop your whining.) Nonnie and I usually cook dinner together, watch Jeopardy and the evening news, go to church together on Sunday mornings, play card games, and enjoy the occasional after-dinner liqueur. I realize it's painfully parochial on the outside, but it's a great set-up for a recent graduate who is looking for a job and needs to save money, and tends to be a bit on the parochial side anyway.

As per the job search...moving to Chicago is the ultimate goal. Right now, I have a resume in for an Editorial Administrator position at a Christian publication in Chicago (whose name is yet to be disclosed because of possible preconceptions that might arise in your (or my) mind). I have a handful of friends from Calvin living in or right outside the city, which is always nice. One of these friends is also working for a Christian publication, which is the last thing I thought she would be doing, but I'm so happy she is. Plus, it's Chicago. And Chicago is not West Michigan. In the meantime, I have been applying for several Administrative Assistant positions here, a couple of which I am actually excited to work for the particular company, but I won't be staying in Michigan for too long.

The reason that I am not staying in Michigan for too long is because the only reason that I came back to Michigan in the first place is no longer a reason at all. Most people who read this probably already know what I am referring to, so I don't need to go into detail here. For those who don't know, let's just say that I've looked into Chicago nunneries and I found out I don't necessarily have to convert to Catholicism to join one. (Foreseen issue with the nun career track though: you have to be pretty quiet in abbeys, and do you really see any opportunity to incorporate Cher impressions into outreach ministry?)

Anyway, well if you're here for pictures, here are the final ones from when my family came over to visit England the second week of December:

view of Magdalen College, Oxford Botanical Gardens.

4:30 p.m. Sunset at Oxford Botanical Gardens.

Male Green Finch at Botanical Gardens...a real lifer.

The Tower of London, where people were killed and stuff.

London Bridge, not falling down.

The highlight of the trip was eating here, according to my brother.

Dad & Mom, outside of St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

Subway Art.

At the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Winter outdoor installation at the Victoria & Albert.

the home stretch, the final leg, the long haul, and all other sports-related euphemisms for a scholar's week of hell

2006-12-01T00:36:00.000Z

**If you're just here for the pics, keep scrolling down.

It has been an embarrassingly long time since I have written, and even now, I shouldn't be. A housemate estimated, much to her fellow housemates' chagrin, that we only have between 6900-9700 essay words left to write by this coming Thursday at 12 p.m. Plus, it's the last week the students in this program will see one another, so picture-taking, affectionate-hugging , and celebratory pub-hopping i s more on our mental agenda than anything else. There is a group of six visiting Oslo, Norway this weekend by 15-pound plane tickets, and though I was invited, my inner, anxious scholar got the best of me. So this weekend I'll be tackling Karl Barth's doctrine of election, as well as a 15-pager on "The Development of a Christocentric Doctrine of Creation and Approach to Popular Culture at Calvin College." (Also, known as "Ripping Calvin's Theological Program Into Shreds.") Woot. Woot.

It is not that I didn't love Calvin's Reformed theology while it lasted, and still don't admire parts of it. My involvement with the Student Activities Office, one of the college's hotbeds for insightful theo-cultural exposition, was one of the most formative elements of my time at Calvin. I was a cultural discerner. I read Neil Plantinga's primer on the Calvin Project, "Engaging God's World," several times outside of DCM. Calvin spoke to me and my need for God-centered reflection on some of my deepest enjoyments of life: music, film, community, etc. Plus, I loved the people involved, and still do.

But something about its program turned stale during my senior year, while I was working in the Student Activities Office and still very involved in its mission. I think there had been doubts percolating regarding the theological robustness of the office's mission for awhile. Here are a handful of questions that continued to come back, much to my annoyance:

1. How do we determine whether a piece of art embodies God's "truth"? Truth in the sense of theological propositions, truth in the sense of existential observations, truth in the sense of "people really act like this in real life?," truth in the sense of "this can be proven scientifically"? etc.

2. How do we separate our strong emotional bonds to art when attempting to discern the Holy Spirit? Is the only way to find out whether God is "speaking through" a song dependent on the chills we get while listening to it? Is experience the only way to understand this? If so, then cultural discernment is profoundly charismatic. I don't think most CD kids are ready to come to terms with that.

3. When does our appreciation or strong emotional bond to a piece of art become idolatrous? (Either idolatrous in the sense of worshipping the piece of song or the artist.)

4. Can movies really help "save one's soul"? (As the book title goes...)

5. Are we just using God's name to justify the cultural predilections of the times, of the Indie Kingdom? Is God more prone to show up in the music of The Books than of Garth Brooks?

6. Is the SAO's newest project, the Fashion Advisory Board, theologically justifiable on the basis of fashion potentially being used for "individual self-expression?" Such a value seems terribly culturally situated in the last 200 years, as a product of America's glorification of The Material and Person As Commodity. (Using bought items to reflect your personhood.) Since when has individual self-expression become a fruit of the Spirit?

7. Oh yeah...where does Christ fit into all of this? Is His role in the cosmos really to redeem our culture? (This is more a criticism of Calvin College than of the Student Activities Office in particular.) If so, then Christ seems to be subservient to creation, as if renewed creation and not Christ is the consummation of the story of humanity. Did Christ come to make our albums better sounding and our films more mesmerizing and our organic soap more organic and fruity-smelling? (I'm being facetious, but it's 1 in the morning and I'm cranky that I'm not in Oslo.)

So I have the next week to finally face up to these questions and attempt to answer them in about 4000 words.

Meanwhile, the students in SCIO just had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day celebration in lieu of being home with our families, and though it wasn't the same, it was a close runner-up. The staff members and their young families joined us, and it was so refreshing to be around children for once this whole term. The day kicked off with an American football game in the park, followed by a Holiday Music Concert by some of the staff members on various stringed instruments. Then turkey, a surprise slide show, a dessert competition, and a viewing of " Elf" and "The Muppets Family Christmas," not to be confused with "The Muppets Christmas Carol."

(Ok, "The Muppets Family Christmas" was a TV special featuring Fozzie the Bear's holiday surprise visit to his mother's. She however, is not expecting his arrival and is about to leave for two weeks of surfing in the Bahamas. Pretty soon, the Sesame Street Gang arrives and the Swedish Chef tries to cook Big Bird for the Christmas Turkey (!) All is well when Miss Piggy miraculously makes it to the farmhouse despite a blizzard, and Kermit discovers that the Fraggles are living in the basement! Simply splendid.)

Here are some of the best pics from the day:

Grandma and Grandpa, really excited about the day.

some of the Crick House girls.

sometimes you just gotta dance...to the California Raisins' Christmas album.

roommate Amy Seymour and I.

Fellow Cricker Ryan Pendell and I.

Fellow Crick girls Katy Harclerode and Julie Ooms, relaxing for once.

cello Christmas concert by staff member Simon and his wife. (not at the piano, that's Joanna.)

Skylar and Simon's daughter Natasha, being silly.

I promise that this is a joke, Mom.

bloggers unite

2006-11-05T00:21:00.000Z

Usually a blogger has the technical capacity to link to other bloggers in an official-looking bar on the side of his or her page. However, I am not a usual blogger, nor do I have much technical capacity of which to speak. Hence, you are presented with an unofficial-looking-yet-just-as-effective list of bloggers whose words I like to eat up. Besides having delicious vocab, they also happen to be pretty swell people in real life, too. If you like a heavy dose of humor, cultural critique, creative writing and a whole lotta soul, you'll find it here.

http://sheilapunkarelli.blogspot.com I got to know Cyndi while we worked together for two years on Calvin's beloved, ever-illustrious newspaper, Chimes. We have agreed since that our first interactions were marked by a shared sense of admiration of and intimidation by the other's fashion sense. (I mean, come on, have you seen me in my longjohns?) Since then, our friendship has become much less superficial and much more rewarding. Cyndi has recently moved away from Grand Rapids back to her hometown Chicago, where she is working as a curriculum writer and getting ready to go to Hong Kong. Her grilled vegetables and cheese-and-garlic sandwiches will be sorely missed in GR.

http://brianbork.blogspot.com/ Brian is a former Calvin history major, a former Bowling Green cultural studies grad student, a current seminarian, forever a Canadian, the future chaplain at the University of Toronto, the future lead guitarist of The Who Revival Tour, and eternally a Grade-A nerd and a Class-Act cook. Those wheels churning ever so speedily inside Brian's head proffer critique on the current American political scene, theology, the South, Star Wars, and Russia.

http://evangelicalexpat.blogspot.com/ Kate was the Research and Program Coordinator for the two years I worked for Calvin College's Student Activities Office. My time in the office was very dear to me and proffered some of the most formative conversations of my life, in large part because of Kate and her wisdom. Though she has not been updating her blog as of late, as she has recently moved to Philly with her husband Nate, I think Kate's reflections on American evangelicalism, Calvin's Cultural Engagement "Thing," and life in general are timeless.

http://katyharclerodes.blogspot.com Katy is a fellow student in the SCIO program at Oxford, studying Ye Olde English. She lives down in the basement of the Crick House with me, and thus provides much good conversation and entertainment when both of us are practicing paper neglect. She also happens to be an East Texaner, a fact evident after speaking with her for two minutes. She both affirms and subverts the stereotypes associated with such a title. Because of this, I think Katy offers a refreshing view on what life can be like in this rusty old city.

http://thegourd.blogspot.com Ryan is also a fellow student in the SCIO program at Oxford, as well as a fellow Crickster. He has red curly hair and recently just shaved his once-definitive beard, so that now we can call him "bald-chin." Ryan is by far the most artistic person living at Crick; while the rest of us are stressing ourselves out scrambling for the right quotes the night before our essays are due, Ryan can be found in the kitchen, contemplatively working on a collage whilst listening to Schubert. If you are looking for thoughtful insights on poetry, art theory, theology and the Midwest, you've found the right place.

Oh, and read mine too, when you get a chance.

English Cathedral Tour - Part II

2006-10-26T18:26:00.000+01:00

For those who have been waiting eagerly for the next installment of my blog (which means you, Mom and Dad...), the only excuse I can give for my recent lack of writing is that I am at Oxford. By this I mean that in any given week, I typically have 4-5 books to read, and 10-20 essay pages to write. For example, I had an essay assigned to me last week in which I was to answer the question, "what is art?" It reminded me of a Saved By the Bell episode in which Lisa Turtle, in an attempt to impress a snobby, pseudo-intellectual schoolmate, utters the timeless phrase,

"What is art?
Are we art?
Is art art?"

I always thought the philosophical insights posed by Saved by The Bell were underestimated. The tutor's name who assigned the "what is art?" essay is Christopher Lawrence. He wears black jeans and sports a long black ponytail which he incessantly pushes back in a Fabio-esque manner during our tutorials . He likes to make jokes about Derrida, Wittgenstein, and other Oxford tutors who inhabit opposing philosophical camps. You get the picture.

Anyway, I want to get back to narrating the English Cathedral Tour, 2006, specifically the last two days in York and Ripon. But since my trip was so long ago, I have to refer to the journal I kept during my journey, and all I find when I open it is hurried scratches keeping track of the money I spent and the English birds I spotted. (And by birds, I mean winged creatures proper for ornithological study, not stylish British females.) I thus think it best to get on with some good pictures and a list of highlights from the last two days of the tour.

(enter drum roll...)

5. The Thorpe Prebend House Tour in Ripon, 10.02.06

The Thorpe Prebend House is a 15th Century home-turned-historical museum that tells the story of the town of Ripon. Literally, the only attraction in Ripon is the cathedral, so you get the impression that the museum's curators had to scrounge about for some vaguely famous names to throw in the exhibits. (For example, author Lewis Carroll's father briefly worked as the chapel dean at the cathedral, and yet there was an entire room just about "Alice in Wonderland.") I was the only person in the museum that Monday afternoon. But what made the museum so delightful was the elderly man who worked there and took me on an extensive tour around the House. I would say he was about 72 or 73 - bespectacled and wearing a frumpy blue sweater. He clearly took great pride in his job and the facts he had so diligently memorized about the exhibits. He did not leave a detail out - down to the estimated age of the wood beams in the ceiling - but I felt it best to take notes during the lecture, to assure him that his job was meaningful to at least one person.

Here are the best pictures from Ripon Cathedral, later that day:

4. The next highlight is a picture, also taken in Ripon on 10.02.06:

3. Sung Eucharist service at York Minster, 10.01.06

It seems that church-goers tend to make a novelty out of the style of worship antithetical to the one in which they grew up. For most of my life, I've attended a church where people raised their hands and danced about and drank coffee out of styrofoam cups during the sermon. So I have most recently become very interested in a liturgical form of worship. It certainly helps that I currently live in Anglican Town Numerus Unus, and that my roommate last year, Sara Gunter, grew up in the Anglican tradition and that her father is an Episcopal priest.

Anglican worship emphasizes the importance of communal tradition, creeds and confessions, visual images as a means of reflection, and most centrally, the Holy Communion. I have only started to understand the importance of act: that kneeling to pray is not about feeling like you want to kneel, necessarily. It is about making a public confession with your entire being, including your body, about your deepest beliefs, and acting with an entire host of saints who have done the same for generations. At this point in my life, liturgy is very appealing to me, because it means I don't always have to be double-checking to see if I'm "getting the experience" that I supposedly should be getting.

The morning service at York Minster was definitely high mass, all smells and bells, as they say. I had arrived early enough to sit in the special section between the altar and the nave. The seats were individually-spaced, like mini-thrones, and carved out of a deep, rustic wood. I really had to watch the people around me to see when I was supposed to kneel and cross myself, though I'm sure no one would have noticed, or minded, had I decided to raise my hands after all.

Pictures from York Minster after the service:

buttresses of the flying variety

O Constantine, you are looking so debonair as you survey the land you ransomed and pillaged.

2. A sighting of a rare English bird (again, winged creature, not hottie): the Bullfinch, also known as the Pyrrhula pyrrhula. Apparently these creatures are very shy and secretive, as their numbers have declined dramatically over the last 50 years, so I felt very privileged that one would choose to flash its bright pink feathers right outside the youth hostel at breakfast one morning. In ornithological world, I experienced what is known as a "lifer."

1. Worship in the crypt of York Minster, 10.01.06

While walking through the streets of York after Sung Eucharist on Sunday, I came across an advertisement for an Emergent-style worship service, to be held at a smaller Anglican church in York that evening. I had been experiencing some hestitancy and skepticism regarding the Emergent "thing," but because of my brief and very positive experience with the MayBe Community here, thought I might give it a whirl. (Perhaps I will delve into an robustly theological explanation for my hesitancy in a later post.) So I showed up at this church on Sunday night, only to find out that the location of the service had actually been moved back to York Minster - down in the crypt.

The crypt is one of the oldest parts of the cathedral, and at one point stored the tombs of famed people in the community. A little eerie. All the lights in the cathedral were off, so I had to walk in pitch black through the aisles to get down to the crypt. There was ambient techno music playing downstairs, with symbolic images and bright colored lights flashing on the walls. It was a little startling but refreshing to see the medieval and postmodern symbolic universes fusing together in one space. I think the original designers of the crypt were rolling in their tombs upon hearing Bjork played in such a "sacred" space. No, seriously: I actually heard one of them rolling around.

There were probably 20 people there, most of them my age. We sat on mats on the floor and had several liturgical readings, hymns, and an interactive prayer time. Most importantly, we shared the Lord's Supper, and it hit me that it had probably been served in that same spot some 1,000 years ago. Without my own doing or choosing, I belong to this beloved community that transcends time and space, and that in some way, I share more in common in my heart with a nun who worshiped there in the 13th Century than I can probably comprehend. Even though I didn't know the people who broke bread with me that night, I have to believe that I probably know them, in some baffling way, as well as I know myself.

"It is make-believe. You make believe that the one who breaks the bread and blesses the wine is not the plump person who smells of Williams' Aqua Velva but Jesus of Nazareth. You make believe that the tasteless wafer and cheap port are his flesh and blood. You make believe that by swallowing them you are swallowing his life into your life and that there is nothing in earth or heaven more important for you to do than this.

It is a game you play because he said to play it. 'Do this in remembrance of me.' Do this.

Play that it makes a difference. Play that it makes sense. If it seems a childish thing to do, do it in remembrance that you are a child.

The next time you walk down the street, take a good look at every face you pass and in your mind say, Christ died for thee. That girl. That slob. That phony. That crook. That saint. That damned fool. Christ died for thee. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee."

-Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

sunset along the Ouse River, York

English Cathedral Tour 2006 - Part 1

2006-10-05T19:21:00.000+01:00

Elvis Costello once said that writing about music is like "dancing about architecture," but I think his axiom can apply to any situation that requires using one art form to capture the essence of another. In this case, I am making a feeble attempt to write about architecture, and I find it's difficult to do without relying on stale academic terms I've picked up in Calvin art history classes. "Romanesque," "Gothic," "Norman," - these simply can't capture the sublimity you feel when standing in a 12th Century English cathedral.

It's no wonder that many people come to these cathedrals to just sit, and be. The experience of "the sublime" is that reminder that you are very, very small in the midst of such holy grandeur. The grandeur of a cathedral is one that points far beyond the arches and votive candles and stained glass of the building, and even beyond the generations of saints that have passed through it. It's a grandeur that points to the glory of Glory itself. Or Himself.

Such was the reminder that kept coming back to me this last weekend, when I took a solo tour of three of the most renowned cathedrals in northeast England - Durham Cathedral, Ripon Cathedral, and York Minster. The "English Cathedral Tour 2006" was inspired by a class I took last spring on medieval art history, and particularly by a whole night spent on English cathedrals and their distinctive ceiling ornamentation. (Maybe you can see why I went by myself!) But I went for more than cool ceilings. In part, I wanted to see if I could spend a long weekend traveling alone, without the comfort of mom and her maps. I wanted to have the selfish pleasure of meandering about unknown streets and cafes and bookstores without interruption. But mostly, I wanted some spiritual nourishment that I have been craving after the topsy-turviness of restlessness of this last year.

So I embarked on my journey last Friday afternoon, after having received two hours of sleep the night before due to a seriously boring paper on the seriously non-boring topic of 14th Century mystic Julian of Norwich, which was due Friday morning at 9. It took nearly eight hours to arrive in York, where I would be stationed for the weekend in a YHA youth hostel. I had one layover in the concrete wasteland of a city known as Milton Keynes, but the layover paid off because of a random and fascinating conversation about evolution I had there with a taxi driver. The youth hostel was a renovated Victorian home on the outskirts of York, and it featured a huge backyard with several birdfeeders and birdhouses. I thus immediately knew I was in the right place.

Every morning started off by 'stocking up' on free food at the hearty continental breakfast served at the hostel. This was the classic English breakfast: bacon, sausage, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread, baked beans, hash browns, coffee, and black pudding. One thing I learned quickly on Saturday morning was that black pudding is actually not pudding. It is blood sausage. This is sausage that has been cooked in blood. And I ate some. It was kind of good, before I knew what it was. In my naivete, I thought it was actually just a big lump of fried chocolate pudding. But it did not taste chocolatey.

Saturday afternoon I decided that I would visit Durham Cathedral, about a 45-minute train ride north of York. The cathedral, originally the monastery of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, was taken over in the Norman invasion of 1066 AD, led by none other than Medieval Bully #1, William the Conqueror. The cathedral sits atop a hill overlooking the Wear River, once the locus of Durham's commercial and social life. You look up at the cathedral and its imposing bulkiness, and can hear William saying, "I'm here, I'm Norman, I'm in control, and there's nothing you can do about it."

There was unfortunately no photography allowed in the cathedral for religious reasons, but I was still able to get some spectacular shots from across the Wear River:

I hope the pictures have whetted your appetite for more from York and Ripon...stay tuned.

richard dawkins and aesthetics

2006-09-26T18:40:00.000+01:00

I just found out Richard Dawkins lives in our neighborhood. He lives off of Banbury Road on the north end of Oxford, and so do I. My Junior Dean, Jonathan, ran into him on the street as we were coming back from our field trip to Bath last week.

Today, Jonathan passed on to me a humorous anecdote/rumor he heard about Mr. Dawkins. Apparently an elderly, extremely devout, and perhaps slightly naive woman arrived on Dawkins' porch collecting money for Christian Aid a few weeks ago. Upon finding out that this woman was from a Christian organization, Richard became very red-faced, exclaimed something about religious fanaticism, and slammed the door in her face.

Ok, maybe ad hominen arguments aren't the best way to face Dawkie. But I digress.

For those who have never encountered the works of this cheery chap, Dawkins is a brilliant, witty, and renowned evolutionary biologist who became popular in the late 1970s with his neo-Darwinian, gene-centered theory of evolution. He theorizes that all human life can be explained by the process of replicating genes, wherein genes 'out-propagate one another' in the process of natural selection. Dawkins extends this idea to explain all cultural phenomena throughout the ages such as religion, creativity, and the spread of ideas, proposing that there must be some evolutionary advantage to these phenenomena that scientists have yet to discover. He calls the specific genes that give rise to these phenomena 'memes.'

Beyond his prolific academic work, Dawkins is also known for his evangelistic quest to spread atheism and debunk religion as what he has coined a 'virus of the mind,' and he goes about this quest with a fervor akin to television fundamentalist preachers. In his 2000 work Unweaving the Rainbow, Dawkins expresses his belief that the meaning of life is to live, pass on genes, and then die. He finds great beauty and wonder in this process, and speaks of it quite poetically in an interview with Colin Hughes:

"We are fantastically privileged to exist at all, but then we also have the privilege of understanding this beautiful world in which we find ourselves. that should make us all the more eager to soak up as much as we possibly can of understanding our world and our place in it before we die...Mysteries do not lose their poetry when solved. Quite the contrary: the solution often turns out more beautiful than the puzzle... "

It's rather ironic that 'Ole Richie D and I have quite a similar way of thinking about the world. Though I am no scientist and could neither refute nor support Dawkins' theories of gene-centered evolution as explaining the origins of life, I too, find this world incredibly beautiful, full of wonder and grandeur, and fascinating to learn about. I would not be surprised if Dawkins and I have similar motives for going birdwatching on a crisp fall day. Maybe I can show up on his doorstep one of these mornings with binoculars and Sibley's Guide to Birds.

For me, though, one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God are these terms that Dawkins himself uses: 'privilege to exist,' 'beautiful world,' 'mystery...' The ability of humans to even perceive such abstractions in the world and use language, art and music to express those abstractions, seems to point to a deeper reality that can hardly be explained away as being 'evolutionarily advantageous.' It just seems so superfluous, tacked-on, that humans would spend so much of their time creating, when we could be out spreading genes like rabbits with whomever we choose.

I cannot help but think this when I listen to The Arcade Fire or visit the Bath Abbey or watch Dead Man Walking. I believe that in the grand scheme of things, the purpose of art is to expand our imaginations enough that we can not only believe in a Creator who we cannot see, but go a step further and believe that He is indeed loving and the supreme source of all beauty, truth and goodness which we arrive at when we create things ourselves. I think my upcoming tutorial on philosophical aesthetics will help me to arrive at a more robust theology about the meaning of art. Maybe I can leave my thesis on Dr. D's front porch.

a reason to start a blog

2006-09-19T16:12:00.000+01:00

So I am finally writing my first post.

Though the inclination comes and goes in spurts, I have always committed myself to never starting a blog. I knew that for me it would become highly self-indulgent exercise. I knew that throughout the day I would find myself concocting witty anecdotes and quips to share with the predicted 1,000+/day audience members, who would rush home from work/school to see if I had posted anything, and then chuckle in relief when they found that I had. "Oh Katelyn," they would sigh collectively. "Your gentle and quirky humor never fails to astound us." And I knew that I would also rush home everyday to see if anyone from my fan base had posted a comment to remind me of this fact.

As you can see, this blog has already fulfilled what I expected would happen. But I now, finally, have a justifiable, concrete reason for starting this thing, aside from self-indulgence: I am in Oxford, England. I have been living here for two weeks now and will be studying at Oxford University until the middle of December. I am here with a Calvin-endorsed study abroad program called Best Semester studying theology in general, and more specifically, the works of neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth, and philosophical aesthetics. In the word of the loveable George-Michael Bluth of Arrested Development, "Yipes." The work load will be astounding.

Several folks have asked why I have chosen to continue my studies, considering that I have already graduated from Calvin and don't need the credits, not to mention the continued academic strife. In many ways, all I can say in response is, "your guess is as good as mine." There's a part of me that wonders if this detour is not my subconscious scaredy-cat acting up at the thought of bucking up, buckling down, getting a job, deciding on a grad school, and basically avoiding my quarter life crisis before it comes. And I will heartily acknowledge that staying an extra semester for "intellectual enrichment and valuable life experience" has alot to do with being from one of the richest societies in the world in which the myth of traveling to Europe to "find yourself" is pervasive. Maybe I'm just towing the postmodern and grossly spoiled American college student line after all.

But then my instincts return and I remember that I have journeyed to Jolly Old for a distinct purpose. A while back, in the winter of 2005, I had the great privilege of interviewing and speaking with Fleming Rutledge, a renowned preacher and author who was at Calvin to give a lecture for the January Series. One of the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church, Rutledge stands at a unique ideological crossroads between the New York intellectual elite and orthodox Christianity, and is one of the most dynamic and soul-shaking preachers I have encountered. After hearing her preach and speaking with Rutledge myself, the loudest thought I had for several weeks after was, "I want to do that, too." I had realized since being at Calvin that it was deep in my bones, to think, write and talk about God - that it was my heart's "deepest gladness," as Frederick Buechner would say. And now I finally had somewhat of a Fleming-shaped blueprint for how I could make sense of that passion and spend the rest of my life pointing to the Kingdom with my spoken and written words.

Which brings me back to Oxford. I'm here to read alot, write alot, talk alot and essentially get my butt kicked academically, as a kind of precursor to going to graduate school and learning how to write and talk about God. Yes, it sounds a little vague, and no, the plan's not set in stone, but yes, it is still so worth it - to be in this quiet and hauntingly beautiful city, to have 8,000,000 books at my fingertips, and to be able to stand (though precariously) on the shoulders of some of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of our time who have been in this same place - I don't see how I could end up regretting it in the end.

Won't you join my fan base?

p.s. - Also, about 8 percent of the reason I am here is to go on my own English Ale Tasting Tour, which I am documenting on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. I am up to five new ones.

oxford in technicolor - pictures of the last two weeks

2006-09-06T21:19:00.000+01:00

These newest pictures are from my solo trip to London on Saturday, September 16th. The sunflowers are outside of the Tate Art Museum, and were by far more beautiful than any of the paintings I saw that day.

standing along the Thames River, in London. St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.
sunset along the Thames
statue dedicated to John Wesley. goooo, UMCers!

St. Paul's Cathedral in London

Big Ben & Averagely-Sized Megates entering into Buckingham Palace (the Queen's home)

our group outside Buckingham Palace

Josh, Me, Julie, Ryan, and Kim at "The Lamb & Flag"

detail, Christ Church

Christ Church, the largest and most famous cathedral in Oxford

one exhibitionistic pigeon!

some of the things I just couldn't leave at home...

Kim Williams and I at the pub, "The Purple Turtle"

at the annual St. Giles Fair in downtown Oxford

St. Giles
waiting for fish and chips at the pub, "Radcliffe Arms"

can you find the pigeons?

my new "humble" abode at 8 Crick Road!

(some of) the girls I live with, in the common room

Sunday afternoon tea in the backyard

Bakhtin, the house cat

Crick Road, where I live