Modesty and Mindblindness

A recent blog post by my sister she mentions her natural modesty. It’s made me think of my experience with this. Or rather my non-experience since I don’t really have natural modesty. I’ve got pictures of my wrapping paper clothing stage where I must have been about 6 or 7 and I clearly haven't absorbed which are the critical areas that clothes are supposed to cover. And while some modesty rules got drummed into my head growing up, a few seem to have escaped my attention into adulthood. It was my husband who introduced me to the idea of checking that the neighbors don’t have an unobstructed view through an uncurtained window before changing in front of it.

photo by Marc Falardeau

This is not to say I had a preference for displaying skin. In fact I remember a time as a teenager when I was intrigued by the idea of full face veils and chadors. (In those pre 9/11 days I saw any symbolism as primarily complementarian rather than specifically Islamic.) When I consider things with my reason I definitely don’t have a preference for letting others see my skin and definitely a preference for not using clothing to signal openness, approachableness, or flirtatiousness and the like.

 But you have to be aware of that on going conversation to experience your clothing as communication with another at any particular moment. For me communication is always staticy and intermittent. It’s not something the I expect to happen every time I see someone at a distance or pass someone on the street. Yes, intellectually I’m aware of the possibility of information gathering, but I don’t have that sense of minds in mutual awareness of each other. What other people think does not generally overlap with what my own thoughts and don’t impinge on my feelings outside of my conscious effort for them to do so.

           This mindblindness, as far as automatic perception goes, can be very inconvenient at times when it takes me several extra second at the beginning of conversations to sharpen my attention and sync up to another person’s viewpoint. But it does have its advantages. It may take me awhile to figure out what cloths communicate, but I don’t have involuntary embarrassment about my clothing. If I realize the my shirt has a stain on it or that I’m wearing white sox with an otherwise all black outfit, I can decide to watch out for that the next time I dress and then dismiss the matter from my mind. So for me modesty is not body consciousness but a set of rules that I’ve managed to figure out.

mini-Review Princess of Wands & Queen of Wands

        Princess of Wands and Queen of Wands by John Ringo are the story of an Episcopalian soccer mom who fights demons by the power of her faith. This is a two book (so far) series about the secret Special Circumstance department that keeps modern America safe from and demons that manifest them selves here. It has the smooth writing and good fun of a standard urban fantasy but with more of a sense of realism and with a more original set-up and plot.

        The novels unfold in a way that feels natural but at the same time leads to all sorts of places you couldn’t predict. The premise is presented very convincingly, so it’s to imagine that this could be happening all around us without most people ever noticing. In some ways there were some parts of the fantasy seemed too realistic, and I had a hard time not letting the aspect I didn’t agree with knock me out of the story. The heroin, Barbara Everett, is not very theologically sophisticated but that helps the story move along quickly without getting involved in issues irrelevant to the plot.

        The books certainly go places that something published as Christian Fiction wouldn’t. But the fact that this book is instead sf/fantasy fiction gives it a different writing style, and one that I personally prefer. And while I wouldn’t necessarily endorse many of the answers these books give, they do ask some important questions in an interesting way. I would recommend these book to anyone interested in reading urbane fantasy. 

*this review was based of the final version of Princess of Wands but the e-ARC version of Queen of Wands

Only Very Superficial People

it is only very superficial people who abject to the superficial. To the man who sees the marvelousness of all things, the surface of life is fully as strange and magical as its interior; clearness and plainness of life is fully as mysterious as its mysteries.

                                 -G. K. Chesterton

Pair of Political Posts

I’ve mildly enjoyed watching the political arguments this election season. Luckily California isn’t a swing state so I haven't had to endure the commercials, which a definitely think are the worst of it. But I see a couple of different levels of conversation going on. The most obvious is The Wrong side Absolutely must not Win. If you click through and read the article and can’t tell whether it is arguing for Republicans or Democrats, that’s the point. At the level of the political operatives trying to win this election the basic strategy and concerns are pretty much the same, just with different quotes or “issues” used as set decoration. And looking at that level could get pretty depressing.

            But Amazon has come up with a clever map that symbolizes, to me, a deeper level of the conversation. I don’t think this map is a good tool for predicting the coming election or even of the general long term trend. (Afterall, one of the books Amazon considers blue, which happens to be my favorite book of the year, I would consider neutral.) But it does give a qualitative look at people engaging with ideas, not being harassed to dislike the “wrong side.” Whether they are looking at viewpoints they might want to endorse or trying to understand how others think, they are voluntarily putting down money to read about ideas at length. While in the short term sound bites and television commercials will influence elections, I think the long terms trends of people really engaging with ideas will affect the conversations and determine what future television commercial and sound bites are about.

mini-Review The Synoptic Problem by Mark Goodacre

The Synoptic Problem: a Way through the Maze is an introduction to the Synoptic problem from a scholarly point of view. (The synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, have places where they match word for word, indicating that they were copying from each other or from another document.The question is who was copying from whom.) It is written at an accessible level, patiently laying out the details and going over examples. The evidence is evaluated from a secular viewpoint using the standards common in the academic field of New Testament studies.

Goodacre agrees with the academic consensus on Mark being the first Gospel but disagrees on the existence of Q, thinking instead that Luke knows Matthew. This gives the reader a great opportunity to see how academic argument takes place. When Goodacre argues on academic grounds against the academic consensus the reader gets a fascinating look inside what evidence is weighed and how a theory’s momentum effects it’s evaluation. It’s also fascinating to see how the very slender evidence we have is used to make solid assertions and the difficulties of speculative assertions being used as givens in latter argument.

There are many point where I disagree with Goodacre both in general approach and in specific detail due to my different philosophical positions. However, I very much enjoyed this book and all the things it got me thinking about. I would recommend it to anyone interested in academic disputes about the Bible.

This Review was based on the Kindle edition

David’s Now and Not Yet Kingdom

"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end."

            -Luke 1:32-33 (NASB)

in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

            -Hebrews 1:2-3 (NASB)

When I first encountered the already-but-not-yet establishment of Jesus’s kingdom on earth I had a little trouble getting a sense of what that could mean. Then one day I was thinking about the story of King David. Who better to look at as a type of Christ as King then King David. And David had a period of already but not yet kingship. In 1 Samuel 16:12-13 God has Samuel anoint David as king of Israel. But it is not until many stages of life and many years later that David is actually acknowledged King by all Israel in 2 Samuel 5:3-4

        I’m definitely not saying the Jesus’s actives are in any way constrained or foretold by David’s story, but I do think it’s useful to look at this period of David’s life to help my ability to picture possibilities for how this period of Christ’s ministry might look. In fact there are lots of different possibilities that David models as he goes through different stages: total unknown to society, rising star at court, target for royal paranoia, hunted fugitive, leader of a mercenary band, and king of half a kingdom.

David and Saul

    When David was first anointed king he didn’t announce the fact, he didn’t try to start building a power base. In fact he did his current job, and he took opportunities to make the job of the existing power structure easier, soothing King Saul and driving his evil spirit away. (1 Sam 16:21-23) David volunteers to face the problem that no one else is willing to face, but when he goes out to fight Goliath he takes his own weapons and not Saul’s but sticks to the pattern of showing respect for the existing government as legitimate.
    People begin to praise David as one would a conquering King, (see 1 Sam. 18:17 and the comment on it in 1 Sam. 21:11) and Saul becomes jealous. In impulse and trough plots Saul starts trying to Murder David. David escapes again and again (1Sam 18:11, 1 Sam 18:25, 1 Sam 19:1, 1 Sam 19:10, 1 Sam 19:11,15, and 1 Sam 19:20-21) and keeps returning to Saul as a loyal servant. By my count it is only after the seventh time (1 Sam 19:22-23) that David because reluctant to present himself again. After Sauls show himself ready to make an eighth attempt (1 Sam 20:31-33) David flees Saul’s authority. As long as he could David tried to help Saul’s efforts to protect and govern Israel and when that was no longer possible David chose flight over confrontation.
    Even as Saul hunts David in the wilderness and David does nothing more then cut off a corner of his robe When he has Saul in his power. (1 Sam 24:4) David continues to plead humbly with Saul. (1 Sam 24:8-15) David considers that it would be immoral for him or his followers to kill Saul (1 Sam 26:9-11) Even when Saul is eventually killed in battle David mourns for him and executes his killer. (2 Sam 1:11, 16)
    During this whole time God has removed His blessing from Saul and chosen David to be Israel's king. But David does not try to enforce God’s decision in his own strength. Neither does God seem to be in a hurry to dispose of Saul and bring all Israel under His chosen ruler. This helps me to be comfortable with the fact that though the kingdom of God has been initiated, Jesus is waiting to enforce his rule with power.

A Psalm of David.

The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”

-Psalm 110:1 (NKJV)

Triumph of David, Nicolas Poussin

there must be harmony

There must be harmony between God and His worshippers; such as God is, must His worship be. … The man who would truly worship God, Would find and know and possess and enjoy God, must be in harmony with Him, must have a capacity for receiving Him.

                        -Andrew Murray