the original of laura

when I was in tenth grade, my english teacher told us to read a book of our choosing and write a paper on it. i went to the bookstore and found the friggin’ weirdest book i could find: vladimir nabokov’s invitation to a beheading. it blew my mind. it was the first time i ever thought a book was beautiful, and i was convinced that at its best, the story might be the world’s most advanced form of communication.

my fascination with nabokov really took off when i started reading some criticism of his work (other people’s readings of a book can be as interesting as the book itself). there, i discovered that there was a whole ‘nother world of sly tricks, turn-of-phrase, and winks to the reader scattered throughout his books that only the closest of readers could ever uncover. and who knows what else is buried just below the surface of his texts? when i returned to his actual stuff, i was frequently left to wonder: “how did he just do that?”

today i was REALLY excited to hear that his final, unfinished book — the one he asked to be destroyed just before he died in ‘77 — is going to be released in november. the original of laura. this is the literary event of the decade.

the end of memory

one of my favorite books in recent memory is miroslav volf’s the end of memory. the question he poses in that book is: how ought one remember injustice and violence? most (including myself) would say that you should always hold on tightly to the memory of wrongdoings – to honor the victim(s) and to hold the perpetrator accountable for their act. but volf says something remarkably different: he says that the proper goal of the memory of wrongs suffered is the formation of the communion of love between all people — including victims and perpetrator. love is the goal of memory; when the goal is reached, the memory of wrongs itself can also end; it can be forgotten. in other words, love is the end of memory.

many of my own memories came flooding back today as i flipped through old photo albums at my parents’ house, and the picture above captured my attention. there’s my brother, tough and valiant, looking forward with jaw clenched and rifle in hand. and there’s me. looking up toward him, wearing my potato suit + socks, holding onto my absolute favorite kinda toy growing up: my parents’ kitchenware.

i’ve been thinking a lot about the ending of this story

Salvador Late or Early | by Sandra Cisneros

Salvador with eyes the color of caterpillar, Salvador of the crooked hair and crooked teeth, Salvador whose name the teacher cannot remember, is a boy who is no one’s friend, runs along somewhere in that vague direction where homes are the color of bad weather, lives behind a raw wood doorway, shakes the sleepy brothers awake, ties their shoes, combs their hair with water, feeds them milk and cornflakes from a tin cup in the dim dark of the morning. 

Salvador, late or early, sooner or later arrives with the string of younger brothers ready. Helps his mama, who is busy with the business of the baby. Tugs the arms of Cecilio, Arturito, makes them hurry, because today, like yesterday, Arturito has dropped the cigar box of crayons, has let go the hundred little fingers of red, green, yellow, blue, and nub of black sticks that tumble and spill over and beyond the asphalt puddles until the crossing-guard lady holds back the blur of traffic for Salvador to collect them again. 

Salvador inside that wrinkled shirt, inside the throat that must clear itself and apologize each time it speaks, inside that forty-pound body of boy with its geography of scars, its history of hurt, limbs stuffed with feathers and rags, in what part of the eyes, in what part of the heart, in that cage of the chest where something throbs with both fists and knows only what Salvador knows, inside that body too small to contain the hundred balloons of happiness, the single guitar of grief, is a boy like any other disappearing out the door, beside the schoolyard gate, where he has told his brothers they must wait. Collects the hands of Cecilio and Arturito, scuttles off dodging the many schoolyard colors, the elbows and wrists crisscrossing, the several shoes running. Grows small and smaller to the eye, dissolves into the bright horizon, flutters in the air before disappearing like a memory of kites.

no conviction

a cool parable that wonders what it means to be a christian from an interesting thinker.  

In a world where following Christ is decreed to be a subversive and illegal activity, you have been accused of being a believer, arrested and dragged before a court.

You have been under clandestine surveillance for some time now and so the prosecution has been able to build up quite a case against you. They begin the trial by offering the judge dozens of photographs which show you attending church meetings, speaking at religious events, and participating in various prayer and worship services. After this they present a selection of items that have been confiscated from your home: religious books that you own, worship CDs and other Christian artefacts. Then they step up the pace by displaying many of the poems, pieces of prose, and journal entries that you had lovingly written concerning your faith. Finally, in closing, the prosecution offers your Bible to the judge. This is a well-worn book with scribbles, notes, drawings, and underlings throughout, evidence, if it were needed, that you had read and re-read this sacred text many times.

Throughout the case you have been sitting silently in fear and trembling. You know deep in your heart that with the large body of evidence that has been amassed by the prosecution you face the possibility of a long imprisonment or even execution. At various times throughout the proceedings you have lost all confidence and have been on the verge of standing up and denying Christ. But while this thought has plagued your mind throughout the trial, you resist the temptation and remain focused.

this is an outstanding book

“So in Jesus’ own teaching, in his choice not to avoid confrontation with the temple leaders and their Roman overseers, we find that his most definitive calling is neither to cultivate nor create — though, as we have seen, he did both extensively.  The core calling of his life is not something he does at all in an active sense–it is something he suffers. The strangest and most wonderful paradox of the biblical story is that its most consequential moment is not an action but a passion — not a doing but a suffering.”

[andy crouch, culture making]

on love and contracts

For instance, take the example of two people getting married with the firm conviction that the union will last as long as they both live.  In this state of obvious delusion no real decision needs to be made.  The future is believed to be so certain that the decision to marry requires no decision at all.

Yet if two people understand that their relationship will face various hardships, that the future is uncertain and that there are no guarantees, then, far from preventing a decision, this is the very point when a real decision needs to be made.  The vows of marriage are not so much affirmations of what one believes will take place but rather promises that one will work towards ensuring that it will indeed happen.  To decide for marriage knowing that all manner of things may conspire against the union is to make a truly daring and authentic decision – the only type of decision worthy of the name. 

Here we can see that doubt provides the context out of which real decision occurs and real love is tested, for love will say ‘yes’ regardless of uncertainty. 

A love that requires contracts and absolute assurance in order to act is no love at all.

peter rollins, how (not) to speak of god

proof

i can’t prove the friendship of my friend.  when i experience it, i don’t need to prove it.  when i don’t experience it, no proof will do…

i cannot prove that life is better than death or love better than hate.  i cannot prove the greatness of the great or the beauty of the beautiful.  i cannot even prove my own free will; maybe my most heroic act, my truest love, my deepest thought, are all just subtler versions of what happens when the doctor taps my knee with his little rubber hammer and my foot jumps.

faith can’t prove a damned thing.  or a blessed thing either.

[frederick beuchner - wishful thinking]

 

the new conspirators

in my reflection seminar, we read the dissertation of a uw phd candidate that looked at how poor, ethnic minority kids are socially ostracized in schools by students and teachers. the paper shared story after story of racist acts, and sadly, these were all recent examples around the seattle area. schools are supposed to be a social justice-oriented institution… they should give all students equal access to power, especially students of minority groups who historically have been denied access.  

the dissertation found that schools actually serve the opposite function.  despite being a foundational pillar of any democracy, our schools help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  how bizarre…

i’ve been reading a book called the new conspirators by tom sine.  a very well-researched book that definitely stands out to me as one i’ll want to revisit often.  on education, he says:

the public education system contributes to the widening gap between rich and poor in the united states. in the shame of the nation, jonathan kozol documents that over the past twelve years, american public schools are resegregating america.  unlike other western countries that fund public education through taxes, american public schools rely on local levies; consequently wealthy school districts often spend twice as much per pupil as poor school districts.  this means that the growing number of children who attend poorly funded urban public schools have less of a chance of going on to college than their suburban counterparts who attend highly financed schools with cutting-edge technology.  as a consequence, some, like their parents, will be stuck in dead-end service jobs that don’t pay a living wage.  frankly, this new global economy is going to leave growing numbers of the poor behind in all countries if we don’t discover how god might use our mustard seeds individually and collectively to be an expression of god’s compassion for the marginalized.  

[the new conspirators: creating the future one mustard seed at a time, by tom sine]

Love

While they were considering whether to stone her –

and why not? — he knelt

and with his finger wrote

something in the dust.  We are

as you know made from

dust, and the unknown

word

was, therefore, and is

and forever will be written in our flesh

in gray folds of 

memory’s

flesh.  En

arche en ho logos:

[franz wright - god's silence]

christian life

i was recently chatting with a friend at his house.

i told him about one of my students.  he was given an assignment to create a powerpoint presentation on his own life, and one of the slides he created was entitled “future goals.”  one of his goals was, “not go to jail.”  i asked him about the goal and he shared about how his mother, father, and brother are all currently in prison.  

teaching has felt like ministry to me, so it was no wonder that i felt conflicted about how to respond to him.  as his teacher, i wanted to encourage him to stay on the right track; as a christian, i wanted to tell him there is hope in christ.  obviously, i could not legally share with him the latter.  so i wonder, what does it mean to be a christian teacher?  after all, every teacher — christian or not — would’ve encouraged him to “stay on the right track.”  do i have a unique message to share?