In Which I Continue to Ponder the Writing of Scott Cairns

In an earlier blog I expressed appreciation for poet Scott Cairns' insights into insulting language when used about the church. While I applied his thoughts to my own experience, I did note that the pronoun "my," as applied to the capital-C "Church" referred to the Orthodox communion. Read carefully, his piece really says that the person who attacked Orthodoxy couldn't have known any better; as a Protestant (I use the term broadly; Cairns does not give the speaker's affiliation), this individual was part of the benighted wing of the faith that regards church as a consumer choice.

That I have read Mr. Cairns correctly and not uncharitably was confirmed when I scanned his more recent blog whose opening paragraph contains this sentence:

Having been brought up within a community of folks whose sense of who they were (Baptists of an exceedingly fundamental sort) was not nearly as strong as their sense of who they weren't (Catholics), I hadn't been offered much of an explanation along the way.

In reacting to the individual who spoke slightingly of his own Church, Cairns admits that he called that person's views "a b*****t characterization of Orthodoxy." I wonder: Could I tag his own statement as "a b*****t characterization of Baptist fundamentalism"? Well, no - because that would be uncharitable, and because my mother would get onto me for even implying such language, and because anyway Cairns admits he was wrong to phrase things that way. Still, his original point remains: Someone summarized a rich and complex theology in a single, dismissive phrase and it wounded him. I'd like a little Golden Rule here.

I grew up fundamentalist Baptist and I can affirm that we had a very strong sense of who we were: We were the heirs of John Smyth and Thomas Helwys and we believed in the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the miracles of Jesus and the reliability of the Bible, among other things. We had a well-stocked theology, if perhaps a stripped-down liturgy, less impressive than what the Orthodox Church has to offer. But even that was because we didn't think the gospel needed the special effects.

I am no longer a fundamentalist, I suppose, but I am still a Baptist and, though Scott Cairns does not extend to me the same charity he insists upon for himself, I also love my church; that would be the Lexington Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas (we Baptists are not big on abstractions). We do not have the history that Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism boast but we have striven mightily toward one end: to give the Bible back to a church from which it had been taken. We don't have saints and we certainly don't have ikons, but if we did our patron would be John Bunyan (a tinker) or perhaps Andrew Fuller (a professional wrestler), or C. H. Spurgeon (an autodidact with no university degree) or maybe Lottie Moon or Martha Stearns Marhsall. And she will be depicted, not in rich robes but in mufti. And she will be holding a Bible - perhaps upside down, but certainly open, a codex, not a scroll, in English, not the original languages.

I love my church. I love The Church. And I don't want anybody trash-talking either.

Watch Your Mouth

"Hey, ya don't talk dirty about your sister!" - Rocky Balboa

I'm hearing a lot of people bag on the local church lately. Thing is, they're mostly Christians, some fairly high-profile, some just foot soldiers like myself. It almost seems to be a mark of superiority, or at least of Evangelical chic. It has always bothered me and I thought the reason was basically theological until I read a blog by poet-professor Scott Cairns. After describing what he confesses was an ungracious retort on his part to someone who dissed his own communion - Orthodoxy - he muses:

Only today, thinking over how I might have responded differently -- with humor, say, and some measure of compassion -- I realized something that I hadn't suspected before.

I actually love my Church.

My initial response -- it now occurs to me -- was accompanied by the same sort of visceral rage that would have accompanied my response to someone insulting my wife or my daughter or my son.

That focused my own heart and mind for me: Yes, it is bad theology to say you love Jesus but not the church (if by "bad theology" we mean disagreeing with Jesus), but that isn't what upsets me most. Such talk hits me the way it would if someone insulted my wife in my presence with the full knowledge that I was her husband.

Why do we do that?

Well, of course there's the whole Bible-thing: The Hebrew prophets were simultaneously the greatest, truest lovers Israel had, and her most relentless assailants. And then there's our history: The Reformation began with Luther literally hammering away at The Church, then we Baptists burst on the scene and turned the Reformation's guns on itself. Cairns seems to acknowledge as much when he laments that:

This sense is, perhaps, one of the more significant losses that have accompanied the continuing splintering of the Western Church -- this sense that the Church is to be loved, as the Body of Christ, as the Bride of Christ.

There's a Moby Dick worth of theological controversy in that sentence but I'm going to sedate my inner-Ahab and focus only on the last phrase. I would like to see us recover "this sense that the Church is to be loved, as the Body of Christ, as the Bride of Christ." Maybe we love this body as Paul loved his, by delivering knockout punches to its carnality (1 Cor 9.27). Maybe we love this bride as Hosea loved Gomer (Hosea 1.2). But every body knows the difference between therapy and sadism, and every lover knows the difference between redemptiveness and self-righteousness.

Bottom line: Let's stop telling mama jokes about the Lord's Bride.

It's Not Over: It Is Finished, John 19.28-30, Saint Matthew Missionary Baptist Church, Corpus Christi, March 23, 2014

Collect

Heavenly Father, Your Son declared from the pulpit of his passion that he has finished for us, but that he is never finished with us. Grant us strength and wisdom to be complete in grace but not content in growth, to be secure in our salvation but not satisfied with our sanctification, to be at peace in our hearts but not at ease in Zion, that we might reveal to the world the unchanging yet unceasing work of salvation through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Introduction

            At 3 PM on October 20, 1968, Joseph Steven Akhwari of Tanzania, along with seventy-four other competitors from forty-one countries, began the Olympic marathon. Akhwari had trained hard for the competition, but not in the rarified atmosphere of Mexico City, the cite of the games, and his muscles soon began to cramp: but he kept running.

         At roughly the halfway point a collision with other runners knocked him to the pavement. The impact wounded his knee and dislocated his shoulder: but he kept running.

         The winner, Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia, finished at 2:20:26 while Akhwari had still more than an hour to go: but he kept running.

         Eighteen athletes dropped out along the way: but he kept running.

         When he entered the stadium the crowd had dwindled to a handful; Akhwari was the last remaining runner. He crossed the finish line at 3:25:27: but he kept running.

         When a reporter asked him later how he found the courage to continue when all hope of victory had vanished, Joseph Steven Akhwari replied, "My country did not send me five thousand miles to start the race; they sent me five thousand miles to finish the race."

         There is all the difference in the world between starting and finishing!

The Text

            In John 19.28-30, the Beloved Disciple records Our Lord's final utterance as a word of finishing. In two places, John employs a grammatical device known in the original language of the New Testament as the perfect tense. This verb form, according to the grammarians, describes an event that, brought to full completion in the past,[1] has results existing in the present time; it emphasizes, not so much the past action as the present state of affairs that action now produces.[2]

            In both instances, John applies this construction to the same word, the verb "to finish." In verse 28, Jesus knew "that all things had already been accomplished." In verse 30, he declares (using the same verb in Greek), "It is finished!" In both instances, the translators struggle to render the impact of the single Greek perfect-tense verb: Τετὲλεσται!

            Τετὲλεσται! This single-word phrase signified completion in the society of that day. When you made the last payment on a bill, the creditor would write across it, Τετὲλεσται! It was the cultural equivalent of our phrase, "Paid in Full." Both statements refer, of course, to the completed work of redemption carried out on Calvary's cross. The first refers to the affirmation of Jesus in his own heart and mind; the second refers to the declaration of Jesus to the world. The first states the invincibility of this truth; the second states its availability. The first records a word from the Father to the Son; the second records a word from the Son to the sinful world.

            And so in his final moment, Our Lord declares that he has met the foe and won the fight; that he has assumed the debt and paid the price; that he has upheld the Law and fulfilled the Prophets, that all things necessary for our salvation stand forever accomplished. Τετὲλεσται! "It is finished!"

            And this is fitting: For His Father did not send him to start our redemption; His father sent him to finish it. His Father did not send him from the right hand of the throne in glory to the right hand of a thief on Golgotha to start our redemption; His Father sent him to finish it. His Father did not send him from timeless eternity to the six hours of Calvary to start our redemption; His father sent him to finish it. His Father did not send him from the ceaseless cries of the seraphic choirs calling out "Holy, holy, holy!" to the jeering cat-calls of the Sadducees and scribes saying, "He saved others, let him save himself!" to start our redemption; His father sent him to finish it.

            And so this single cry of Τετὲλεσται! demonstrates that the God perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ acts permanently and perfectly on behalf of those too weak to work their own salvation. What God demands of us, God supplies for us. What God condemns in us, God suffers for us. What God admonishes on our part, God accomplishes on our behalf.  

            And so this word of completion, this mighty perfect tense uttered by God's perfect Son as he became God's perfect sacrifice, this Τετὲλεσται! tells us two vital truths about the life to which Christ calls us. Here we learn that it's not over; it is finished. And here we learn that it is finished, but it's not over. The first is a word of permanent promise. The second is a word of powerful purpose.

A Word of Permanent Promise - It's not over; it is finished.

            There's all the difference, isn't there, between something being "over" and someting being "finished." "It's over" often means, "I've done all I can do up to this point," or, "I've done this until I'm sick of it," or, "I've run out of time." As a seminary professor, I can tell pretty quickly when I grade a student's paper whether that student said "It is finished," or merely "it's over." Eighteen entrants in the Olympic marathon at the 1968 games in Mexico declared that their race was "over," but Joseph Steven Akhwari kept running until he could declare that his race was "finished."

            It is important, then, that your Lord remains fixed fast to Calvary's cross until he is "finished," and refuses at any point along the way to declare simply that, "It's over!" We would not have blamed him if, long before the darkening shadows of Gethsemane's garden fell about him, he had declared, "It's over," and laid down the weary load of incarnate existence.

            We would not have blamed him if, as the bloody sweat dropped from his grief-corrugated brow, he had declared, "It's over," and walked away.

            We would not have blamed him if, as he found the disciples for the third time swamped in swinish sleep when he had appealed to them for prayer, he had declared, "It's over," and left them alone.

            We would not have blamed him if, when he saw the torches of the betrayer's posse winding their way from the Easter Gate of Jerusalem down the twisting path into the Kidron Valley and up the farther slope to where he watched from the olive groves of Gethsemane, he had declared, "It's over," and disappeared into the night.     We would not have blamed him if, when Peter's single, feeble sword struck an errant stroke, he had instead summoned from His Father's heavenly host more than twelve legions of angels to obliterate his enemies and declared, "It's over."

            When Judas betrayed him, when Peter denied him, when Pilate defrauded him, when the soldiers derided him, when the mockers disrespected him - at no point would we have blamed the Lord of Glory if he had declared, " It's over!"

            But he rejected "It's over" and persevered through to "It is finished!" G. K. Chesterton has rightly observed that, "Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point -- and does not break." Jesus does not give up and say "I'm done;" he goes through and shouts, Τετὲλεσται! It's not over; it is finished!

            And this means that the Christian believer holds salvation as a permanent promise. When you cling to the cross of the crucified Christ, when you plead the blood of the Lamb as the sacrifice for your sins, when you follow his body through Good Friday's cross out the other side to Easter's empty tomb, then his work works on your behalf! His "It is finished" offered to the Father becomes God's "You are finished" offered to you as God's child. You can say with the Apostle Paul, "I know whom I have believed , and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." (2 Tim 1.12) You can affirm with the unknown writer to the Hebrews, "we . . .have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." (Heb 6.18-20) It's not over; it is finished!

            Martin Luther said, "In this word, 'It is finished,' I will comfort myself. I am forced to confess that all my finishing of the will of God is imperfect, piecemeal work, while yet the law urges on me that not so much as one tittle of it must remain unaccomplished. Christ is the end of the law. What it requires, Christ has performed." It's not over; it is finished!

            Howard Thurman, the late Dean Emeritus of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, recalls the hymn of his boyhood, "If Satan says I don't have grace/I'll take him back to the starting place"![3] And the final Τετὲλεσται! of Christ is that starting place, that initial and unchanging salvation of the saint. It's not over; it is finished!

Transition

            So then, we have a word of permanent promise, because it's not over; it is finished. But would we, then, simply linger in the fresh dawn of Easter Sunday, clinging like Mary Magdalene to the feet of the risen Christ, so secure in our salvation that we grow slothful in our sanctification? No! Because there is another truth to find in this saying of Christ. It is true that it's not over; it is finished, but it is also true that it is finished, but it's not over.

A Word of Powerful Purpose: It is finished, but it's not over.

            Just a moment's reflection will tell you that just because something is finished does not mean it is over. In fact, most things that really matter can't even begin until they are finished. When your pastor graduated from the Logsdon Seminary program at the South Texas School of Christian Studies, he could truly say, "It is finished!" He had met every requirement, taken every course, earned every credit. We had audited and vetted his transcript and analyzed his degree plan and there could be no possibility of doubt. When he crossed that platform and they hung about his neck the hood of a Master of Divinity, when he clutched that precious piece of paper in his hand, he could declare, Τετὲλεσται!, it is finished.

            But that was not the end! It was the beginning. The "It is finished" of theological education is only the, "It has started" of fruitful ministry. It is finished, but it's not over.

            When a woman and a man stand in this altar and take their vows in Christian marriage, they can truly say, "It is finished." All of their previous relationship, all of their dating and talking and planning reach completion in the moment when they state their vows and exchange their rings. The minister declares as God's representative that they are now husband and wife. The minister signs the license and files it with the county clerk. The couple are now husband and wife and and Τετὲλεσται!, it is finished!

            But God help the husband who thinks that because it is finished, it's over! God deliver that spouse who fails to understand that the "it is finished" of the marriage vows amounts to anything more than the, "Let's get started" of the lifelong sacrament of Christian marriage. I once heard one of our undergraduates say to her fiance, "I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you!" I butted in and said, "Well, you'll have to wait the rest of your life." At a wedding, it is finished, but in marriage it's not over until death do us part. The marriage vows mean that it is finished, but it's not over.

            And the same thing is true with the finished work of Christ on the cross. While we can never live up to our salvation, God demands that we live out our salvation. While we can never work up to it, we must never cease to work it out.  It is finished, but it's not over. Now this has dimensions that are personal, and this has dimensions that are public.           

            The personal dimension of my salvation is my own sanctification. While it takes only a moment to trust in Christ, it takes a lifetime to be conformed to Christ. This is what the Apostle Paul means when he declares his confidence that, "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil 1.6) The fact that my sin is forgiven does not mean that my sins can be ignored! It is finished, but it's not over.

            As C. S. Lewis said of our struggle against sin, "(God) will be infinitely merciful to our repeated failures; I know of no promise that He will accept a deliberate compromise. . . . Failures will be forgiven; it is acquiescence that is fatal."[4] In other words, Τετὲλεσται!, it is finished, but it's not over.

            Dr. Howard Marshall says of the battle of Christian sanctification, "This takes time - the conquest spreads over a lifetime."[5] Τετὲλεσται! It is finished, but it's not over.

            So in Jesus name, take arms against the sin that so easily besets you! While life lasts there will always be evil that we continue to do, and good that we have not begun to do. There will always be room for repentance and scope for service. Let the completed and accomplished work of Calvary be your confidence for moving forward, not your excuse for slipping back. Τετὲλεσται! It is finished, but it's not over!

            But just as there is a personal dimension to this truth, so there is a public one. The public dimension of my salvation is our shared suffering. When on that cross Jesus declared salvation complete, he did not mean only the individual redemption of each believer. Remember that Jesus' first proclamation of the Gospel centers on "the Kingdom of Heaven." (Mk 1.15) Now the Kingdom of Heaven is not where you go when you die, otherwise Jesus could not have declared that it was "at hand." The Kingdom of Heaven is where you obey the rule of God while you live. The Kingdom of Heaven is where character, and not color, determines one's treatment. The Kingdom of Heave is where work and not wealth determines your worth. The Kingdom of Heaven is where right and not might sways the scales of justice. The Kingdom of Heaven is where the outsiders finally make it inside and the down-and-out get lifted up and the marginalized find themselves in the very middle.

            And in case you haven't noticed lately, that's not the world we live in! Jesus declared on the Cross that it is finished, that he has done all that needs to be done to make the Kingdom of Heaven a reality but even though it is finished, it's not done. That's what Paul means when he declares, "I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions." (Col 1.24) Paul does not blasphemously imply that Jesus failed to complete his work. Paul affirms the "It is finished" of Calvary. Instead, Paul says that his own suffering, born in the same manner as Christ bore the cross, extends that same saving work and thus brings in the Kingdom. Τετὲλεσται! It is finished, but it's not over!

            Every time we stand up to injustice without ourselves committing injustice; every time we turn the other cheek while refusing to bow our heads; every second mile we walk, though we walk it in the protest line or on the road to the ballot box; every wrong we forgive while refusing to call it a right - every time we accept in the name of Christ the suffering we did not choose, we join and become more deeply joined to Our Lord, who won by losing and defeated death by dying and brought about justice by undergoing an unjust death. It is finished, but it's not over, and until it's over, every sorrow I undergo partakes of the glorious work of Christ. Τετὲλεσται! It is finished, but it's not over!

Conclusion

            So it's not over; it is finished. And it is finished, but it's not over. Τετὲλεσται! There is a story from our own times that helps us grasp the power of this one word from the cross.

            On October 30, 1974, world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman defended his title against the former champ, Muhammad Ali. The bout took place in Zaire, Africa. Sports writers dubbed it "The Rumble in the Jungle."

            All the odds favored Foreman: at twenty-four he was in his prime and had a right hand that could punch through the hull of a battleship. He had stopped Joe Frazier in two rounds to win the belt and then defended it by dispatching Ken Norton - the only man besides Frazier ever to beat Ali - in the same fashion. Ali, on the other hand, at thirty-two had been idle for over three years because he resisted the Viet Nam draft. He then fought Frazier for the title and lost decisively.

            The older challenger had one real weapon: He was incredibly quick on his feet and could stay out of Foreman's reach while outscoring him. In the first round, however, Foreman showed that he was ready for this tactic by moving to cut off the ring, forcing Ali to take two steps for the champ's one. If this kept up, the older man would tire and  fall prey to Foreman's punching power.

            But Ali had prepared a secret weapon. In round two, he began to lean on the ropes and cover up. He let the bigger man pound away at his arms and shoulders without scoring any points or doing any real damage. Meanwhile, Ali took every opportunity to shoot quick blows to the face between Foreman's guard, causing the champ's eyes to swell. Then, he started taunting Foreman. "They told me you could punch, George!" he hissed. "They told me you could punch like Joe Louis!" Enraged and inexperienced, Foreman lost his temper and began slugging away, quickly tiring himself without really harming his opponent. He began to fade in the jungle heat.

            In the seventh round, Foreman made one last effort. He bulled Ali into the ropes and unleashed a right hand to the ribs that by all the laws of physics should have come out the other side. Instead, Ali rode the force of the punch, sagged back on the ring ropes and bounced up onto Foreman's chest, whispering in his ear, "Is that all you got, George?" As Foreman himself later testified, he thought to himself, "Yeah, that's about it."

            It was: In the eighth round Ali suddenly cut loose with lightning-fast a five punch combination ending with a left hook that brought Foreman's head straight up. Ali tagged this target with a hard right hand and Foreman crashed forward to the canvass. He did not fall back with the momentum of the blow, but forward, meaning the lights had all gone out. With a champion's heart he clambered to his feet at the count of nine and the referee waved Ali back in, but after two seconds jumped between the men to declare a TKO.

            THAT is the force of the Greek perfect tense here: Jesus has taken everything that Satan and Death can dish out. Judas' betrayal, Peter's denial, the Sadducees' mock trials, and the Roman's practical politics are not his enemy; they are only punches thrown by the great Dragon of the Revelation, boxing gloves on the wicked fists of the Accuser of the Brethren. In this moment, as Death deals its final blow, Jesus sags back on the ring-ropes of his cross, surges upward one final time and cries out, Τετὲλεσται!, which being translated means, "Is that all you got, Devil?" To which Satan must eternally reply, "Yep, that's about it." Three days later the knock-out blow of the Resurrection leaves Christ with his hand raised before an eternally defeated foe.

            And one glorious day, when there are no more days for sun and moon have fled from the Light of very light, one final time, when time shall be no more for the Eternal shall have been revealed, I will stand before the Great White Throne of judgment. And at my left hand will stand the Satan, the accuser of the brethren, as he stood at the side of Joshua the high priest (Zech 3.1). And he will hit me with everything he has - every sinful deed I've done, every vile and hateful word I've spoken, every twisted and selfish thought I've pondered - and not one punch will land because I will sag back into the outstretched arms of Christ and cover up in his shed blood!

            And when my enemy has punched himself powerless, when he has hurled accusations until he can no longer find anything to say, Jesus will stare into those eyes of evil and hold out the five wounds of Calvary and say, "Is that all you got, Devil?" And before the throne of God and all the angels and risen saints the devil will say, "Yeah, that's about it." And my Lord Jesus will hit him with his nail-scarred hands and he will crash to the solid floor of the crystal sea and crash through it to the pit of destruction reserved for him and his angels forevermore!

            Oh, rejoice, children of God! It's not over; it is finished! It's finished, but it's not over!

Benediction

May the Lord do for you

            What you can't do for yourself.

May the Lord do in you

            What Christ and you do together.

May the Lord do through you

            What you must do for those around you.

In the name of the Christ who assures you

            That it is not done; it is finished.

In the name of the Christ who exhorts you

            That it is finished, but it's not done.

In the name of the Christ who

            With the Father and the Spirit

Is one God now and forever,

Amen.

---

            [1] William D. Mounce, Basice of Biblical Greek Grammar, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 223.

            [2] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 573.

            [3] Howard Marshall, Disciplines of the Spirit (Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1977), 23.

            [4] C. S. Lewis, "A Slip of the Tongue," in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, revised, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Macmillan, 1980), 131-132.

            [5] Marshall, 32.

The Ringing Grooves of Change: Some Thoughts on the Hobbit, Hamlet, Calvinism, and Plato

As a colleague handed my mail yesterday I spied a bound volume and exclaimed, "Oh! The new Shakespeare Quarterly is here!" In the awkward silence that followed I glanced up to see several sets of eyes trained on me with deep embarrassment. "Oh," I mumbled. "Did I say that out loud?"

Still, I scurried away to my lair to unpack my treasure and immediately began reading "The Question of Original Sin in Hamlet" by Professor John Gillies of the University of Essex. Gillies posits this Christian doctrine as a useful lens for reading the play. From the riches of his article I will only pluck the first shiny object that met my gaze: He refers to the parable of Gyges in Plato's Republic to illustrate the universality of the concept of fallen human nature. For those unfamiliar with the tale, I will quote Gillies' own summary: "Upon discovering a ring that makes him invisible, Gyges, a humble Lydian shepherd, infiltrated the king's palace, 'seduced the king's wife and with her aid set upon the king and slew him and possessed his kingdom.'" It's a classier version of the old saw that "integrity is who you are when no one is looking."

Gillies connects this idea to Calvin-via-Augustine and the idea that all of society amounts to an attempt to govern our fallen nature, to make us behave ourselves in response to various positive and negative pressures. Shakespeare, he believes, works from the same theology: The only reason Claudius never killed his brother before was that he never stumbled across, "hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;/Confederate season, else no creature seeing." "Thoughts black" he had in at the ready. 

A few pages later Gillies quotes Patrick Downey's take on Calvin's reading of Cain and his race as the emblem of society in general: "Politics is revealed for what it is, a pack of hidden murderers and thieves who appear to be law-abiding citizens out of fear rather than desire. Inside the heart of every citizen is a fugitive and wanderer who has no place to lay his head because he has exiled himself form his fellow man and creation. Outside, that same fugitive is a solid citizen who farms, plays well with others and obeys the law." It reminded me of Marlow's taunt to his companions as he tries to tell the tale of what happened to Kurtz in the Congo: 

You can't understand. How could you? - with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums - how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitude - utter solitude without a policeman - by the way of silence - utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion?

Marlow repeatedly emphasizes Kurtz' isolation - his virtual invisibility - from Cainite control mechanisms. "There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth. Confound the man! He had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone. . . ."

A thought struck me: For Plato, a ring of invisibility makes visible the essential corruption of human nature. Now, you don't run that image past a Tolkien nerd like me and not set up a whole series of reflections on the One Ring of Sauron. In many ways, the One Ring operates pretty much the same way Gyges' ring does. Gandalf tells Frodo that, upon discovering what his shiny trinket could do, Smeagol-ne-Gollum, "used it to find out secrets, and he plug his knowledge to crooked and malicious uses. He became sharp-eyed and keen-eared for all that was hurtful. The ring had given him power according to his stature." That last line is the money-shot: Gollum used the ring for evil because he was evil; he didn't use it for any great evil, not because he was not evil, but because he was not great. Tolkien underscores this idea when Frodo offers the ring to Gandalf: "No! With that power I should have power too great and terrible."  Smeagol to Sauron is only a sliding scale.

Bilbo, however, is the exception. When Frodo, upon learning the ring's malevolent nature, fears for his beloved uncle. "I don't think," Gandalf reassures him, "you need worry about Bilbo." Indeed, for all the hobbit/Gollum parallels Tolkien is at such pains to sketch in this scene, including Bilbo's lie immediately upon taking possession of the object, this exception should have struck me more than it has so far. Granted that, as Cory Olsen, the Tolkien Professor has pointed out (and as Hollywood has, regrettably, failed to notice), The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are very different books, it is still true that Tolkien re-wrote the ring-scene in The Hobbit to accommodate his developing tale. So it is worth noting the last mention of Bilbo's actions upon finding himself back home in Hobbiton and now in Gyges' place: "His magic ring he kept a great secret, for he chiefly used it when unpleasant callers came."

So why is this one being, this simple little villager, the exception, not only in Middle Earth but in ancient Greece and the Belgian Congo and east of Eden? "There is," Gandalf explains to Frodo, "only one Power in this world that knows all about the Rings and their effects; and as far as I know there is no Power in the world that knows all about hobbits." Tolkien repeatedly described himself as a hobbit, and he was too faithful a Catholic to identify himself with an unfallen race. At any rate, Frodo's final defection from the quest proves that even hobbits had their dark side.

Perhaps - and I'm drawing a bow at a venture here and inviting assistance - the difference is community. The same passage that tells us Bilbo used his ring to avoid unpleasant callers also tells us that he used his gold to buy presents, mostly for his nieces and nephews. Like Smeagol, his reputation with his own kind suffered, but that had more to do with his adventures than his magic ring. Bilbo did not aspire to become king, or even Mayor of Michel Delving. If he wanted to avoid unpleasant callers, he still wanted pleasant ones.

He Being Dead Yet Speaketh: A New Book by C. S. Lewis!

C. S. Lewis scholar Andrew Lazo has blessed the world of Lewis lovers - both scholars and fans - by bringing out a critical edition of the previously unpublished first draft of what amounts to a Q-document or Ur-Hamlet of Lewis' autobiographical works Pilgrim's Regress and Surprised by Joy. The current edition of SEVEN, the Marion E. Wade Center's definitive journal on all things Inklings, contains both the edited manuscript and Andrew's introductory essay. As I say, this new work contains rich blessings for both scholars like Andrew and fans such as myself. Of course, these distinctions are more convenient than real since being the former does not preclude one from being the latter, nor does being the latter prevent one from aspiring to the former.

For the serious Lewis student, the merits are obvious. Andrew has already rocked the field by establishing beyond doubt that the accepted date of Lewis' conversion must be altered. He now provides us with the single most significant datum for that argument. As Andrew explains in his introductory essay, what might seem an obscure point of biographical detail actually has the potential to deepen our understanding of one of the great minds of the twentieth century. But more than that, access to Lewis' rather raw thoughts (remember, this is an unpublished manuscript written closer to the events described than any other known document) will assist researchers in tracking the growth and development of Lewis' faith.

For the person like me who simply dives into Lewis to revel in elegant, masterful prose and the pleasure of complex thought expressed with breath-taking simplicity, this new work is a joy. Many lines will enter the rich public trove of the quotable Lewis. My personal favorite is Lewis' hymning of what he calls "the joys of atheism." His honest treatment of that subject, previously unknown, would be a welcome addition to the rather tinny "debates" we hear so often between the "new atheists" and certain Christian apologists. There is also a line about "the Christian superstition" as opposed to the true faith which our Fox News Christianity much needs to hear. Again, even a casual reader such as I can quickly gain new background into much-loved scenes from Lewis, such as Ransom's sense of the uncomfortable "fullness" of the Perelandrian atmosphere or John's sad plunge into the Brown Girls in "Pilgrim's Regress." Particularly striking is Lewis' frank account of his flirtation with magic. His desire to visit other worlds presages the Wardrobe, but also - darkly - Uncle Andrew.

But this is to look at Da Vinci's "Last Supper" and point out a favorite splash of color or how nicely the artist renders St. Jude's cheekbones. I heartily recommend that the reader order the journal here and read the manuscript itself. This is all the more a wise decision because Andrew's introductory essay and crisp footnotes genuinely open the work itself in ways that I, at least, could not have discovered on my own. He is an apt Virgil for this journey, one who has, happily, this time been permitted to take us through the Paradisio itself.

Lenten Sonnets - Week 2

As we begin the second week of Lent, we ponder the second station of the Via Dolorosa, where Our Lord, weakened by the severe beating he has received, can no longer struggle on. The Roman police escort dragoons a passerby to take up the burden. We know two things about Simon of Cyrene: Mark and Luke record that he was "coming in from the country," perhaps indicating that he was just arriving for a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage from his home in modern-day Syria to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. Touching a cross, especially one smeared with blood from the flayed back of its victim, would render Simon unclean and thus unable to enter the Temple for the Passover. Second, Mark tells us the names of his two sons, indicating that his family was known to the early church. These facts, taken together, seem to indicate that Simon became a Christian, most likely as a result of his unplanned encounter with the Lamb of God as he was on his way to sacrifice the Passover lamb.

This sonnet is part of a series of meditations on seven of the Stations of the Cross that is, in turn, included in my book, Nothing There Is Not More: Poems of Faith Through Doubt" which is due out later this month. You can order it here.

2. Christ Falls the Second Time

He falls again to find he cannot rise,

Though inclination be as sharp as will.

This body no mere seeming, no disguise,

The God-Man truly man, for good or ill.

A Roman sword athwart a pilgrim’s way

Derails devotion, unslays sacrifice.

A passerby who longs his lamb to slay

Must now by-pass that plan to pay this price.

Though from the temple courts now balked by blood

Of man from shedding blood of goat or bull,

He leads a truer lamb behind this rood,

Enters a truer temple at the Skull.

Diverted from the way he would have trod,

A human hand here helps a human God.