Reason #978 that my wife is the best:

She lets me set up Star Wars fight scenes on our Christmas tree, and not just on the back where no one can see.

C. S. Lewis on C. S. Lewis

"I was a younger son, and we lost my mother when I was a child.  That meant very long days alone when my father was at work and my brother at boarding school.  Alone in a big house full of books.  I suppose that fixed a literary bent.  I drew a lot, but soon began to write more.  My first stories were mostly about mice (influence of Beatrix Potter), but mice usually in armor killing gigantic cats (influence of fairy stories).  That is, I wrote the books I should have liked to read if only I could have gotten them.  That's always been my reason for writing.  People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it myself: no rot about 'self-expression.'  I loathed school. Being an infantry soldier in the last war would have been nicer if one had known one was going to survive.  I was wounded--by an English shell.  (Hence the greetings of an aunt who said, with obvious relief, 'Oh, so that's why you were wounded in the back!')  I gave up Christianity at about fourteen.  Came back to it when going on for thirty.  An almost purely philosophical conversion.  I didn't want to.  I'm not the religious type.  I want to be let alone, to feel I'm my own master: but since the facts seemed to be the opposite I had to give in.  My happiest hours are spent with three or four old friends in old clothes tramping together and putting up in small pubs--or else sitting up till the small hours in someone's college rooms talking nonsense, poetry, theology, metaphysics over beer, tea, and pipes.  There's no sound I like better than adult male laughter."

(A brief autobiographical sketch composed for his American publisher, 1944)

The Tobolowsky Files: A Beginner's Guide

One of the great discoveries of the summer for me has been The Tobolowsky Files, a (roughly) bi-weekly podcast of "stories about life, love, and the entertainment industry as told by character actor Stephen Tobolowsky." I can say with equal certainty that you probably don't know that name, and you probably know this face:

His credits include Groundhog Day (as insurance salesman Ned Ryerson), Memento (as the cautionary character Sammy Jankis), and Mississippi Burning (as KKK head Clayton Townley). You've seen him in something. In addition (and more relevantly to this post), he's one of the best storytellers I've ever heard. His stories are moving, well-written, and occasionally hilarious, and they're (perhaps more importantly) conscious reflections on the human experience: youth, heartbreak, success, regret, marriage, parenthood, aging, hoping. I think they're wonderful. For the even mildly intrigued, here are some of my favorites:

Episode 4: "The Alchemist" - Stephen explores his most vivid memories of his mother and wonders why those memories, and not others, stuck.

Episode 22: "The Dangerous Animals Club" - Young Stephen and a neighbor boy try to catch every potentially lethal animal in Texas.

Episodes 26-28: "Dark Matter," "Three Honeymoons," and "The Afflictions of Love" - For those ready for a greater commitment, a trilogy of stories about Stephen's marriage to Ann.

Episode 29: "The Classic" - A behind-the-behind-the-behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Groundhog Day.

Episode 34: "A Good Day at Auschwitz" - An elderly man at Stephen's synagogue is a survivor of Germany's invasion of Poland and, later, multiple death camps.

Episode 39: "Contagion" - Conspiracy and racism on the set of Mississippi Burning.

Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose.

If you were to contend in my presence that James Taylor has written some hokey songs, you'd get no protest from me. But if you were to further argue that he's never written anything awesome (and for some reason you were unpersuaded by "Fire and Rain," whose only defect that I can discern is its overfamiliarity), I think this is the song to which I'd force you to listen. It's got all the elements of good music: acoustic guitar, a catchy chorus, and a cowboy.

Therapeutic Fiction

Tim Keller:

"The only time I ever faced death personally was when I had thyroid cancer. From the beginning the doctors told me it was treatable. Still, when I was going under anesthesia for the surgery, I wondered what would happen. You may be curious about what passage from the Bible came to my mind. True confession: What I thought of was a passage from Lord of the Rings. It comes near the end of the third book, when evil and darkness seem overwhelming. Here is what Tolkien tells us about the thoughts of Sam, one of the heroes:

Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate...ceased to trouble him.... [P]utting away all fear, he cast himself into a deep, untroubled sleep.

I remember thinking at that moment: It's really true. Because of Jesus's death evil is a passing thing--a shadow. There is light and high beauty forever beyond its reach because evil fell into the heart of Jesus. The only darkness that could have destroyed us forever fell into his heart. It didn't matter what happened in my surgery--it was going to be all right. And it is going to be all right."

(King's Cross, pp. 210-1)

The Rest at the End of Ourselves

Today I've listened repeatedly to what has to be one of the most beautiful recordings I've ever heard: Mindy Smith and Sola's cover of Antje Duvekot's "Reasonland." (Before you start to feel impressed that I know such obscure singer-songwriters, let me say that I heard this song on a mix CD from Marc Tantillo. Most of my musical "finds" roll downhill from him and Josh Glidden.) If you haven't heard it, the link will take you to a free listen on Grooveshark. Art is always preferable to analysis of art, so if you have to choose between listening to the song or reading this post, listen to the song.

Here are the lyrics for the interested:

In Reasonland the emperor came down

To the water's edge and said, "I don't know where I'm bound

I've got emeralds and rubies sewn into my gown

But I am sadder than the diamonds in my crown

So will you lay me down in a fiddler's cloud

Lay me down to dream

Let my aching head be still, let me surrender to your will

Lay me down and deliver me"

The mighty king came down to the sea

Said, "I may win any battle that I please

I got a hundred-man batallion, they all fall down at my feet

But there’s a songbird who will not sing for me

So will you lay me down in a fiddler's cloud

Lay me down to dream

Let my aching head be still, let me surrender to your will

Lay me down and deliver me

I wanna fly out to your center

I wanna sink down into your gold

I wanna go down without my dagger

I wanna shed these clothes"

The preacher's wife kneeled down by the waves

Said, "For your love and salvation I have prayed

I am a tired tightrope dancer, I wanna go no more this way

Just give me something, a penny for my faith

So will you lay me down in a fiddler's cloud

Lay me down to dream

Let my aching head be still, let me surrender to your will

Lay me down and deliver me

Will you lay me down, won't you lay me down

Lay me down to dream

Let my aching head be still, let me surrender to your will

Lay me down and deliver me"

The song depicts three people at the end of themselves. The emperor has money enough to sew jewels into his clothing, but he can't buy joy. The king has military might enough to defeat all comers, but he can't coerce beauty. The preacher's wife has a reputation of piety, but she has no assurance of God's love. They have wealth, power, and religion, but at the end of themselves, all they really want is rest. In fact, they want a kind of death, a death to their bankrupt existence and a true surrender to the will of another. They're looking for rescue. They've come to the chasm where forward progress stops and only voice can travel. They pray.

Like these pilgrims, we all have to come to the end of ourselves sooner or later. What we really long for can't be bought or forced or faked. We all live east of Eden, and a sword separates us from the home of rest. All our life is striving: we strive after security, we strive after beauty, we strive after an assurance of God's love. And sooner or later, we too must kneel down by the waves and confess that we've come as far as we can, and we can't go as far as we must. We've come up short, and the distance between our ability and our longing must be made up for in grace. Rest must come as a gift, or not at all.

This is a terrifying turn of events for foreigners to the gospel, but for Christians this is the place of provision. In God's kingdom the blessing comes not to the strong and rich, but to the poor in spirit, to the seaside beggars. Grace comes to the humble. We can come to the end of ourselves without fear, because we know that the rest we long for comes not through our striving but through the grace of Christ, who took our burden so we could have his treasure. Jesus meets us at the shore and offers freely joy, beauty, and love that this world can neither offer nor plunder. The pilgrims' prayers are not in vain. For every Christian there is a laying down at the end of our labor. There's a rest at the end of ourselves.

I can relate to this.

"All of my life I've held onto this fear
These thistles and vines ensnare and entwine what flowers appear
It's the fear that I'll fall one too many times
It's the fear that His love is no better than mine

But just as I am, just as I was
Just as I will be, He loves me, he does
He showed me the day that He shed his own blood
He loves me, oh, he loves me, He does!"

-Andrew Peterson, "Just As I Am"

The Gaslight Anthem makes me want to play air guitar.

Air drums, too. At the same time. Fun for me, but not so fun for my wife trying to get me to focus on helping her cook.

That guy in the aviators is a hoot.

A Fearful Thing

"And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back--I would have done so myself if I could--and proceed no further with Christianity. An 'impersonal God'--well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth, and goodness, inside our own heads--better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap--best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, and husband--that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ('Man's search for God!') suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?"

-C. S. Lewis, Miracles

You Become What You Worship

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles." -Romans 1:21-23

The Bible tells us that we were made in the image of God, that we were set in the Garden as God's icons, as his idols even, making visible his unseen care and rule and joy. We were made to behold and reflect God's beauty, mirrors to his face, moons to his sun. But we're dumb ("fools" is the technical term), so we stopped doing that and started looking at other things, looking to them to save and satisfy us. And the image began to seep away. Our minds, made to consider and ponder and form new ways to worship, became futile in their thinking. The lights went off inside. We're solar-powered; as soon as we duck in the shade, our systems shut down. We're cut off from the Source. The writer of Psalm 115 nails this: "Those who make [idols] become like them; so do all who trust in them." Those who worship dead things become like them: unseeing, unhearing, unfeeling. Unliving.

If that doesn't make you a little squeamish, you probably haven't reckoned with the fact that money can be an idol. Marriage. Beauty. Power. Possessions. Popular opinion.

Worshiping idols undoes us, tears at our fibers. But gloriously, God's made a way out. A true worshiper, the True Worshiper, came into the world to rescue us out of the hole we were digging. He loved God with all his heart (the only one who ever did), but on the cross he became our idolatry so that we could become his worship of God. He beckoned us back into the light, clothed in his record of righteous praise. And now, as the Holy Spirit shows us the beauty of Christ in that very good news, "we...are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Cor 3:18). Jesus turns back the clock on our disfiguration, and as we worship Christ, we become like him.

You become what you worship. Choose wisely.