Burns Supper II

This is over a month late, but regular readers (cough) may remember that I gave the Toast to the Lassies at the Robert Burns Supper party my Scottish flatmate threw two years ago. At the risk of being outdone, my sister gave the Reply on Behalf of the Lassies at event this past January. It describes the dating life in our own hometown of Washington (something I'm sure Robert Burns would have sampled had he visited), and is based on Burns' own poem, "The Rights of Woman."

This evening, I would like to read to you my adaptation of Robert Burn’s speech, the Rights of Woman. He wrote the poem for one of the many women he had his eye on, Louisa Fontenelle, to deliver at a benefit dinner. My version takes a slightly different approach, though one I believe our poet would have approved, to reflect the places and the means by which DC’s men and women carry out their romantic affairs. Please feel free to follow along on the papers provided, and then keep them for personal reference in the future.

DC’s Romantic Undertones

An Occasional Address

While the Nation’s eye is fixed on mighty things
The fate of health care and the fall of left wings
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp Afghanistan
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
DCs romantic undertones merit some attention.

The first, in the sexes’ intermixed connection
Happens in the heat of presidential election
The tender flower, who delivers her debate
Makes helpless the man, and seals his fate
He may think partisanship renders their nexus a fling
Until it’s yearly rekindled at State of the Union bing-o.

The second connection – but ladies please take caution –
WMATA can offer the most thrilling option
Each man who embarks on his morning commute
Can be sure he’s observed and deemed unattractive or cute
There are, indeed, several different types
From politician to hipster, a lass can choose what she likes
Furtive glances over the top of a book
Shy smiles, batted lashes, sweep him away with a look
Now, foolish man, if you choose not to act
It is only your loss, for she’ll keep her posture in tact,
She doesn’t fret (though you find yourself quite the catch)
For at the next stop, there’ll be a whole new batch.

Our third and our final, could happen to any Washingtonian,
So never underestimate what could happen at the Smithsonian.
A man who gazes at the Hope Diamond so bright,
Or a woman “admiring” the work of the Wrights
Neither is present for their respective exhibits
There’s only one goal, and that’s to gather some digits
As on the train, the same tactics apply,
A smile, a wink, a flirtation, a sigh.
Whenever we use our museums to charm
It takes only a moment for us to completely disarm.

So in a city split upon party lines,
With do-gooders and cynics, and many great minds
To what really unites us we must all raise our glasses
And toast the romance, the seduction, of DC’s lads and lasses.

The Old Yellow Booklet

One of my roommates commended to me an Austin Farrer sermon called "The Old Rosewood Desk." In thinking about his old desk full of youthful treasures, the Oxford pastor, theologian and friend of famous Christians like C.S. Lewis, he reflects on childhood statements of faith, such as a confirmation certificate. Through this, he reminds those of us who have turned to Christ, however, long ago, that a constant factor in our ever-changing lives is fidelity: Our own fidelity to God and God's fidelity to us. The former only being possible through the ladder.

In sum, preaches Farrer:

"Man, knowing that without faithfulness he cannot be anything, looks for a loyalty to which his whole existence, and not part of it only, can be pledged. And who deserves this measureless, this all-embracing faithfulness, except the faithful God? Those childish undertakings, those writings on cards, confirmation professions, have grown dim and somewhat unreal. It is now that we must make up our minds, and pledge our obedience to the faithfulness of God. If we do so, we shall bring our former resolves to life by our new decisions. We shall, indeed, bring to life something older than our youthful resolutions - that is, the grace of our baptism, when the resolution was not yet ours, but our parents'; and we shall bring to life something older even than our baptism - Christ's will for our salvation when he died on the cross; and older than that, the everlating faithfulness of god on which the world was built.

Religion is not self-improvement, or decent conduct or emotional worship. Religion is fidelity. 'Promise unto the Lord your God and keep it,' says the psalm. But the fidelity which is the soul of religion is not our fidelity, it is God's. We give ourselves to him in no reliance on our own trustworthiness. Experience has taught us what we are. Our Confidence is that god's faithfulness will prevail over our faithlessness, that he will recall us, that he will not let us go."

It is appropriate that I quote and write on my mother's birthday. I believe I was five years old when I made a childish promise of my own. When I write "childish", I don't mean in a negative or demeaning sense, but I use the word because I was a child when I made the promise. We lived in a Richmond, Virginia townhouse that had a counter that separated the small kitchen from a carpeted dining room. I sat on one of the three comfortably-padded bar stools on the dining room side, and my mother stood in the kitchen, leaning on the counter with her elbows.

It was there that she shared the Gospel with me. Her tool was the Four Spiritual Laws booklet, designed and used by CCCI, the large para-church organization my parents worked for (and for which I would later work in Germany and New Orleans). If memory serves me, it was the classic mustard-yellow booklet that probably looked cool in the mid-eighties. The color, judging by a pair of pants my middle sister owns, seems to be making a comeback.

It's a simple Gospel presentation - God's love, plan and purpose; our sin and separation; Jesus, the cross, the Resurrection, the way; our repentance. And a few thoughts on what to do next, including further reflection and finding a church. My little mind, in some way, understood enough of this to claim commitment to Jesus Christ as the only hope of my salvation, conduced by a loving mother and a Little Yellow booklet.

I echo Farrer. However much I change, however much I seek to define myself, however much changes of countries, cities, technologies, jobs, churches and friends will alter my malleable body, mind and soul, fidelity remains something constant. This is not because I am good and being faithful. Whenever I stand in my church and confess the Creeds, I am not touting my ability to be true to the three-personal God it affirms. Rather, I am trusting in his fidelity, patient through the eons and the minutes.

It has not made my life easier or more successful. Indeed, I often wonder if I should have chosen more ambition instead of a sort of faithfulness. But to be the beneficiary of a love deep and divine beyond our understanding, to have a hope in a grand and renewed creation, to have genuine intimacy with creator and sustainer of all things, is worth more than anything else I've been offered.

In this post-modern world, fidelity to anything is viewed as suspect. This is for two reasons. From marriage to country to religion, human beings are historically bad at fidelity. I know a man who refuses to marry, because he does not have an example of a faithful marriage in his own family. Second, many who are good at fidelity are faithful to the wrong thing. A suicide-bomber is a hideous example of someone faithful to the end.

Fidelity to Jesus, as Farrer points out, relies on His fidelity, not ours, and in that we can have great comfort. Even better, we are faithful to Love and Justice, Grace and Holiness, God incarnate. We are right to suspect worldly fidelity, but God's fidelity leads to human flourishing. For these two reasons, if you have read this far and have not committed your life to Jesus, why not start now? My mother and the yellow booklet put me on this path. Join me.

Love Songs for Grown Ups

Not quite a decade ago, Over the Rhine was finally coming to Orlando, my hometown. I was still there at the time, and I couldn't wait. The state of Florida can be a geographical inconvenience for smaller indy-bands, not worth the gas and the effort to travel all the way down the peninsula somewhere between Atlanta, Athens, Birmingham and New Orleans. Besides, Orlando doesn't quite have the cool indy reputation for such acts. This time, however, with the wind of their epic record Ohio filling their sails, husband and wife duo Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler were heading to the sunshine state.

Then, before the tour came to any palm trees, they sent an email out to all of their fans. Their marriage was suffering, and that was more important than concert-hall serenades. They cancelled the remaining shows went back to their southern Ohio home to work, to talk and to reconcile. Once again, no Orlando concert (and when they finally came a couple of years later, I was across the sea and literally over the Rhine), but ever since that season of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemptive love, Over the Rhine's music aged like French wine. Their love songs, already some of the best on the market, grew up, taking on new dimensions of desire, regret, pain, healing and beauty.

There have been several albums since, and the latest manifestation just came out on February 8. Some albums, I like at first listen and then later realize we have less in common. There are other albums that feel uncomfortable at first but win my heart as the CD spins and I begin to understand. I have loved The Long Surrender since I first heard a few clips on an NPR interview and continue to do so after saturating my work and my leisure with every track (you can listen for free by clicking the "record player" link on their website. Let me know if you agree - hopefully my enthusiasm hasn't damaged impression by way of expectation).

Working with producer Joe Morgan for the first time, The Long Surrender is full of musical adventures not previously explored on Over the Rhine records. Keys are pressed, strings are plucked, percussion instruments are tapped, tickled, pattered and beat in places new and refreshingly unexpected. The feel of the album is an old Paris nightclub full of smoke and expatriates. Or perhaps a 1920s Cincinnati speakeasy, full of jazz, smoke and women in flapper hats. In fact, I think that cities and municipalities should lift their smoking bans whenever Over the Rhine roles into town, just to give their concerts a proper ambiance.

It opens with a call of sort: in "Laugh of Recognition" Bergquist sings out: "C'mon boys! Time to settle down/What do you think you'll gain from all this runnin' around?" The journey of love, relationship, pain, hope and brokenness continues. And of course, a major theme is their own marriage: honest love songs to and for and about the other. Yet their story, unique as it is, is full of universal thoughts and emotions, left unexplored in so much of today's art about love. In interviews, Bergquist and Detweiler remark that while most love songs are about the beginning of a relationship, theirs are about what happens next. And the truth is, what happens next is a majority of the time. Those of us in what happens next need songs, stories, support and celebration.

It would be easy for such art to be lovey-dovey kitsch. It would be just as easy to focus on the darkness, to despair of marriage, relationship and long-term love. As I've alluded to before, the art that appeals to me is complex enough to include for better and for worse. Thankfully, somewhere between Disney and films like Revolutionary Road stand mature songs like "Undamned," "Oh Yeah, By the Way" and that deliciously wordy history of the Berkquist/Detweiler marriage, "Infamous Love Song." These songs are balm for those of us who believe marriage is so much more than a piece of paper from the city hall, for those who believe marriage is beautiful, earthy, spiritual and sacramental, for those of us who believe it is God's artwork: wonderful, full of depth and sadly tainted by the fall. We rejoice with relief when in "Days Like This," we hear Bergquist sing:

"All I wanna do is live my life honestly/I just wanna wake up and see your face next to me/Every regret I have I will go set it free/It will be good for me."

Given all of this, it shouldn't surprise us that grace is another reoccurring theme. The album's closing anthem, "All My Favorite People," is the sort of song you can sing waiving a Bible or a bottle of beer. Book or beverage, we sing along:

"All my favorite people are broken/Believe me, my heart should know... All my friends are part saint and part sinner/we lean on each other/try to rise above/We're not afraid to admit that we're still beginners/We're all late bloomers/When it comes to love."

One of the most honest lines you'll ever hear is the title and chorus of the song: "Only God Can Save Us Now." The song is inspired by the nursing home where Karin Bergquist's mother lives. "Only God can save us now" was the exclamation of one of her mother's fellow residents. The song describes the crazy antics of the seniors and reflects that there's a good chance that will be our final stop as well. When we get there, we remember there are some things only God can do.

The Long Surrender navigates the joy and pain of love honestly and carefully. With its detailed production, I will say it lacks the spontaneous power of Drunkard's Prayer, the 2005 album that was born when they stopped their tour before I could see them in Florida. Drunkard's Prayer, along with the German worship music of Andrea Adams-Frey and Albert Frey (another married music duo), helped me to take courage and begin the journey of my own marriage. (The title track if that album, incidentally, has one of my all-time favorite lines in song: "You're my water, you're my wine/You're my whisky from time to time.") But, The Long Surrender makes me root for Over the Rhine as a band, because their songs speak to thing in ways so many others don't express, in ways that continue help me. It since they lay it all out there, The Long Surrender also makes me root for their marriage, for my marriage and for other marriages, infinitely more important than any music a marriage may produce.

And whenever I root, I pray. I can't help it. I believe, as much as I believe the chair on which I sit will continue to hold me, that our Lord entered this world and sympathizes with our weaknesses. All his favorite people are broken, because, we all are. We lean on each other, and we all lean on Him, to rise above. And He, the ultimate lover, love incarnate, intimately understands the joys and pains of love, in marriage or otherwise.

Football Teams Should Be Named After Local Industries

Rick Reilly points out that the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, who (you read it here first) will play each other in the Superbowl this evening, are the only two remaining NFL teams named for local industries. Way to support the American worker, AFC and NFC champions! This is the sort of boost the American economy needs. In fact, I think other teams should follow suit and re-name themselves after their local industries. Here are some suggestions:

1. Houston used to be the Oilers, before the Oilers became the Titans and moved to Tennessee and the Texans took over in Houston. Changing the Texans to the Oilers, and bringing back the ketchup on pail-blue uniforms would be a start.
2. Speaking of Tennessee, it is nowhere near Greece or their mythology, so Titans won't cut it. Tennessee is known for the music industry, so here are some ideas: The Banjo Pickers; The Record Producers; The Elvises; The Partons; The Tennessee Twang
3. Wait, aren't the Cowboys a local industry in Dallas? Maybe I'm wrong...
4. Piracy is no longer a thriving occupation in the Tampa Bay, moving to Somalia in this era of globalization. As the church of Scientology has bought up most of the Clearwater area, one idea would be to change the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the Fightin' Hollywood Stars. This works especially well as LA no longer has an area football team.
5. Atlanta is known for Coca Cola, not for Falcons. So let's change their name to the Secret Formulas. Or the Corn Syrupers.
   
6. The Bay Area is home to the new engine of our economy, the tech industry. So change the 49ers or the Raiders (again, piracy has long been outsourced) to the Techies. Or the Red Bull Consumers.
   
7. Detroit already has a car-themed basketball team, but the Lions could still change their name to the SUVs, or the Engines, or the Hummers (please add your joke about them not lasting as long as a Japanese football team here).
8. New York has two teams. The Giants should represent the beleaguered finance industry. They could be the Financiers or the Hedge Funders. New York Jets could change their name to the New York Hipsters, representing that other great NY industry, and attract players who are "over" the whole sports thing and want to show you their vinyl collection.
   
9. My local team, the Washington Redskins, has plenty of options. The Presidents, the Senators (once Washington's baseball team), the Congressman, the Justices, the Battlin' Bureaucrats, The Military Industrial Complexers, the Lobbyists, the Protesters. Perhaps the Kansas City Chiefs could move to the D.C. area and change their names to the Commanders and Chiefs...

After what local industry would you name your local team?

As a Bears fan who thinks Troy P. (sorry, didn't want to look up the spelling) has amazing hair, let me say, Go Steelers!

Flying While Parenting

The reactions people have to my baby daughter when I bring her out in public is one of the hidden joys of parenting. My daughter, more than her father, is a people person. Wherever I bring her - church, supermarket, work functions - she hands out smiles, and when I'm carrying her, I get to experience what it's like to have charisma. This is true anywhere, anywhere except the airport.

She's over a year old now, and I've flown with her several times. Whenever someone sees me sitting in front of their gate, bouncing a cackling little girl on my knee, they give me a look that mixes pure dread with a scowl of indignant injustice. You'd think I had just published their TSA body scan on my Facebook page. I see the visions flash before their eyes: a crying, screaming, kicking, food-throwing child, next to me, when all I wanted to do was go to my company's convention in Orlando in peace. I deserve so much better, they think.

Thus, I was not surprised when Gulliver, the Economist's travel blog noted that 74% of businessmen polled considered children the most annoying thing about business-class travel. The writer explores childless sections in airplanes, but rightly concludes:

"But while all travellers would agree with the appeal of a quiet flight, it's a big step to ban certain passengers from certain parts of a plane. I'd rather sit next to a well-behaved five-year-old than an adult with bad body odour, but I don't think smelly people should be herded to the back of the plane. Easier, I think, for airlines to continue to treat everyone equally, and do everything in their power to ensure that passengers throughout the plane are given all the help they need to rest."

The writer also reflects on a late 90s Economist leader by a less-gracious colleague:

"For children, just like cigarettes or mobile phones, clearly impose a negative externality on people who are near them. Anybody who has suffered a 12-hour flight with a bawling baby in the row immediately ahead or a bored youngster viciously kicking their seat from behind, will grasp this as quickly as they would love to grasp the youngster’s neck. Here is a clear case of market failure: parents do not bear the full costs (indeed young babies travel free), so they are too ready to take their noisy brats with them."

I suspect the writer has never flown with her own children (a six-year-old's delicious rebuttal is published on the original post). Whatever cost there is to a child on the plane, the parents bear them in spades. If you hear a bawling baby on a plane, keep in mind that he is rows away from you, underneath the nose of a sleep-deprived parent whose book is in pieces on the floor who likely is not enjoying the in-flight movie. If there's a bored youngster viciously kicking your seat from behind, remember that the kid's mom feels his sneakers on his skin, probably after an unsuccessful attempt to have him eat an inflight meal.

And while we are on the subject of negative externalities, the original blogger is right to mention that children are not the only flying annoyances. So perhaps there should be a charge for body odor or for too much perfume. Heck, whenever someone in front of me leans their seat back, he's unloading a built-in negative externality on my knees (it makes me want to viciously kick the seat). Or, why not an extra tax on crotchety business travelers who sneer in distain at innocent little girls, sitting in their papa's lap on the way to grandma's house? It would sure make my flight more pleasant.

When we arrive at our destination, my daughter and I are greeted with happy, relieved fellow travelers. "She was so good!" they explain, nearly in tears. Yes, she was good, for the most part. But she cried when her ears popped, she talked, babbled and sang. The cojourners don't notice because planes are loud and crying is temporary. It all gets lost in the dull roar of an airline engine. And for the 75% haters from the poll: if you can afford business class, you can afford a good set of noise-resistant headphones. Slip them over your head, order yourself a cocktail, and reflect on the fact that you can zip around the world at speeds your grandpa couldn't dream of. Yes, travel can be a nuisance, from security pat-downs to the quirks of the guy sitting next to you. But don't take it out on the kids.

Do We Need God to Stand Fast?

Add me to the list of those who recommend Eric Metaxas' excellent biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I'm embarrassed to say that I've personally read very little of Bonhoeffer's works. I have Life Together in German and have been stubbornly trying to read it in its original text. It's possible for me, but it requires an amount of mental energy to keep up, and it sits on our shelf, a reminder of how far my German needs to go. I've recently read some of Wilhelm Busch's (Germany's answer to Billy Graham) straightforward Gospel sermons with more success.

Whether we have read him or not, we Christians are familiar with Bonhoeffer, even if his books are a thick jungle of theology, scholarship and challenge. He stood out among the Christians who stood up to the Nazis. He was theologically sound, truly spiritual and unusually courageous. He helped start the Confessing Church (in response to the nazification of the German church), trained pastors, rescued Jews and conspired to kill Hitler. For his efforts (particularly that last part), he was martyred, executed two weeks before the liberation of his concentration camp. We remember him, because unlike many (and unlike many of us would have, we fear), he did the right thing. He recognized an evil for what it was, recognized it has no place in Christianity, and stood fast to the end.

Who stands fast? Who will do good in the face of such evil? Bonhoeffer himself asked this question (we'll get to that later), and, in his reflection after reading Metaxas' biography (published in The New Republic), Alan Wolfe asks the same question. Take some time to read Wolfe's essay; his reflections are good and provide some additional background. As a Christian, I always wonder how such a work as Metaxas' Bonhoeffer, where a devout Christian honors the life of a considerably great devout Christian, will be accepted. There's a certain comfort to know that Wolfe thinks it a "fine biography," and even more so, it challenges the liberalism in which, to use Wolfe's words, he puts his own faith. It challenged him enough so that he writes a defense in that same TNR article:

"Throughout his book, but especially toward the end, Metaxas turns this erudite and at times abstruse theologian into a living and tragic human being. I would be less than honest if I did not admit that bringing this man—and his intransigence on all the important questions of our time—so vividly to life raises awkward questions for the liberalism in which I put my own faith. How, precisely, would a Rawlsian have acted in those dark times? Must we not move beyond this-worldly conceptions of politics as a struggle for power to other-worldly concerns with repentance and days of judgment, if we are to grasp how the Nazis were able to combine their own rational plans to kill millions with satanically inspired ideas about a Thousand Year Reich, and also how some people were able to resist those plans? Is it possible to face death with courage without knowing that a better life awaits? Can one be loyal to one’s collaborators in the resistance without being loyal to some higher power? Can faith help overcome torture? Lurking behind all such questions is the major one: if the problem of evil is not one that humans can solve, have we no choice but to rely on God for help? Does Bonhoeffer’s greatness prove his rightness?

Yet when I put this book down, I realized that its author, no doubt inadvertently, had helped me to answer these questions. Bonhoeffer may have been convinced that God was telling him what to do, but I am not convinced. Ironically, Metaxas’s passion, the intensity of his engagement with his subject, wound up persuading me of the importance of the very autonomy that Bonhoeffer believed that we do not possess. Even if God told Bonhoeffer what to do, it was Bonhoeffer who chose God in the first place. It was not a humble servant of the Lord who involved himself in the resistance, but a singular human being who, for whatever reason, was able to know what to do when faced with the problem of evil.

It is important to note in this context that there is no simple relationship between faith and courage. The German Christians who collaborated with Hitler may have abused religion, but they considered themselves religious. At the same time, many—if not most—of the resisters to Hitler were not Christian believers and did not take orders from God. They included Prussian generals, and left-wingers (including even a few communists), and the student movement known as the White Rose. Their bravery had nothing to do with religion. One should come away from the Bonhoeffer story impressed by religion, but not in awe of it. The human picture is more complicated."

The human picture is indeed complicated. I wonder, though, if it works both ways. He addresses part of this in his essay, but Bonhoeffer was not proud of whatever human freedom he possessed. In his essay, "Who Stands Fast?", Bonhoeffer writes:

"As to the man who asserts his complete freedom to stand foursquare to the world, who values the necessary deed more highly than an unspoilt conscience or reputation, who is ready to sacrifice a barren principle for a fruitful compromise, or the barren wisdom of a middle course for a fruitful radicalism — let him beware lest his freedom should bring him down. He will assent to what is bad so as to ward off something worse, and in doing so he will no longer be able to realize that the worse, which he wants to avoid, might be the better. Here we have the raw material of tragedy."

Freedom can easily be asserted bad and good, evil and virtue. For Bonhoeffer, the one who stands fast is one who is ready to sacrifice that freedom to his faith in God. Bonhoeffer would say, in disagreement with Wolfe, that this is why he stood. Wolfe, in contrast, does not give us another reason. He only provides examples of religious Christians who compromised, and some non-religious folks who did not (though, among his list, I should point out that at least one of the members of the White Rose movement was a Christian).

I do agree that the relationship between professed faith and courage is complicated. I suspect that Bonhoeffer wrote so strongly, in part, because he was unimpressed by the many Christians who compromised, or perhaps tried to avoid the issue all together. But claiming to follow God does not make us God-followers. I can write, in a comfortable house far away from any sort of political persecution, that however blinded by fear, patriotism or what have you, the religious appeasers of Bonhoeffer's day serve as shameful examples of what not to do in the in the face of evil. Whenever we Christians do wrong, or fail to do right, we are not taking orders from God, whether we believe we are or not. For Bonhoeffer, faith led to actions - actions that, whatever or in spite of our own personal inclinations, took God at his very Word - His Word that took on human form and dwelt among us. His Word who said things like, "love each other," "love your enemies," "I am the way, the truth and the life," and "follow me." This Word took sides with the poor, beleaguered and persecuted, and when Bonhoeffer stood against the Nazis, he did the same. Tell me, whose word does an atheist fail should he not be moral? His own? If so, then on what grounds should that concern him? And why should he not deconstruct those grounds to suit his own purposes?

How then, should we understand the noble non-believers? I'm curious how Bonhoeffer would answer that question (perhaps he has in one of the books that I have not read), but Metaxas provides a clue in the German pastor's reaction to another 20th century giant who did not share his faith. A reoccurring theme in the biography is Bonhoeffer's desire to visit Mahatma Gandhi to learn more about non-violent resistance. He was never able to make the trip, but they did exchange letters. It seems that Bonhoeffer thought God was using the actions of a non-Christian to shame Christians into right behavior. Gandhi did not believe in God in the same way Bonhoeffer did, but who is to say that the same God wasn't somehow involved in those actions? What if he is more intimately involved then any of us could have guessed.

Wolfe writes that there were plenty of heroes resisting the Third Reich who were not taking orders from God. But how could he know? More to the point, maybe the leftists, any non-religious Prussian generals and any other didn't know they were following God's Word, but if they stood for up for the oppressed against unadulterated evil, then frankly, they were. What if they were made in God's image, and there was something written in their hearts that compelled them to right action? What if they were blind agents of God, putting to shame many who claimed to see?

Wolfe did not leave Metaxas' biography "in awe" of religion. That's perfectly fine. Who says we should be in awe of religion? The Bible, with all of its religious instruction, never instructs us to glorify religion. Rather, we should be in awe of God himself. His Word, his fulfillment, was in the person of Jesus Christ. I am impressed with those like Bonhoeffer or anyone else, who follow his example, and I wish to learn from them. My religion does not guarantee that I would stand fast in such a time, nor does Wolfe's lack thereof guarantee that he would not. The answer to Wolfe's and Bonhoeffer's question lies not in some sort of triumph for our own will, but in God and his will. May he give us the grace to stand fast when the time of trial comes.

Twain, London, Creativity and Sin

I heartily second almost all of Kathleen Parker's defense of Mark Twain's original text. Eliminating the "n-word" from Huckleberry Finn is a good-intentioned denial of part of our past that could give way to more insidious denials. It is up to teachers to help children navigate and understand the plot and the language, and I am personally thankful to the teachers at Robious Middle School in Richmond, Virginia who did so for me.

I quibble, however, with one sentence: "...it seems to me that racism and the sort of worldly intelligence that inspires men and women to art are incompatible." Now, according to what I've read and heard, Twain was no racist, and, as far as I can know, neither were the other authors Parker lists (Faulkner, O'Connor, Warren, Melville).

It's much more likely, however, that Jack London was racist. Having only read, but not really studied the author, I was surprised to hear the accusation for the first time on NPR while driving my car to a work event. London, along with Twain and Tolkien, were among those who first opened my young mind to reading. His stories of animals, nature and humans under extreme circumstances enthralled me. He may not belong on pantheon Parker mentions, but he had the "worldly intelligence that inspires men and women to art." Yet the fact that London wrote this short story should give us pause.

Whatever London's views, we should not let the creative off that easily. I'm a fan of the creative mind, but I can tell you from experience that sin is even stronger. To say a certain virtue always neutralizes a certain sin risks pride. Pride, in art or in virtue, comes before a fall, and falls can surprise us. Whatever the sin, however disgusting, however horrific, the old Reformed idiom, "There but for the grace of God go I," remains a good reaction.