Most of my links off to the side go to people interested in church and ministry.

And yet I’ve run into a bit of a quandary, and I’m curious if others have experienced this, or if somehow I’m an oddball or maybe just experiencing the August doldrums.

I’m really bored with conversations about church and ministry. Not just with other people. I’m bored with myself when I talk about it. Yet I do, because it’s interesting on a theoretical level and I’ve studied the subject a lot, and will be studying the subject a lot.

But today, all summer really, I’m just plain bored with topics of leadership, organization, strategy, diagrams, angst, and the rest. Just plain bored of it all.

Anyone else feel like this?

Any suggestions or commiserations?

I’ve realized over the years that I’m a peculiar reader. Peculiar in that I’m not entirely sure what will and what will not strike my fancy, especially my fiction fancy. I’m not a literature snob, reading only the Great Books, but neither do I seem easily contented to wander the wide fields of whole genres. Which makes it difficult for me to find books that really swallow me up, even as that’s one of the great pleasures of my life since I was very young. So, it was with a rare delight that I enjoyed reading The Unnameables by Ellen Booraem.

First the description, then a little review.

Medford lives on a neat, orderly island called—simply—Island.

Islanders like names that say exactly what a thing (or a person) is or does. Nothing less.

Islanders like things (and people) to do what their names say they will. Nothing more.

In fact, everything on Island is named for its purpose, even the people who inhabit it. But Medford Runyuin is different. A foundling, he has a meaningless last name that is just one of many reminders that he’s an outsider. And, to make matters worse, Medford’s been keeping a big secret, one that could get him banished from Island forever.

When the smelliest, strangest, unruliest creature Island has ever seen comes barreling right into his rigid world, Medford can’t help but start to question the rules he’s been trying to follow his entire life.

A whimsical fantasy debut about belonging, the dangers of forgetting history, and the Usefulness of art, The Unnameables is one of the funniest stories of friendship you’ll ever read, with a cast of characters you’ll never forget.

I’ll be honest. When I picked this book I did so because I thought it had an intriguing message of being yourself in midst of society’s attempt to define. After ordering it, but before receiving it, I began to get worried. Because it had an intriguing message of being yourself in midst of society’s attempt to define.

That, I thought, is a sure recipe for a book that is beloved by teacher’s organizations, book award clubs, and other such fine folks who tend to see a message being much more important than story, writing, or imagination. In other words, where the moral of the story is so obvious it’s pretty much a given a book should be called unreadable.

I was wary.

And I was pleasantly surprised.

Booraem has accomplished a brilliant task, offering a story with a clear moral without being overbearing or blatant about it. Indeed, she helps create a unique world that echoes aspects of our own, but certainly has rather strong differences. Indeed, these strong differences make The Unnameables more of a fairy tale story rather than an attempt to show a direct picture into our society.

As the story went on it we are pushed deeper into this world, caught up in the characters, some usual and some wholly unique. We quickly move past the expected “Footloose” plot where young, creative teenagers show the adults about having fun. Instead, the story moves deeper, where there is no generational line, and where we see a wonderful creative exploration of a society’s tradition, history, and culture.

Booraem has a moral to the story, but is not preaching, nor is she drawing lines in the sand against religious, cultural, or other societal standards. What she is saying is be true to who you are, and this goes for those religions, cultures, and standards. It is when these standards have lost sight of their own foundations there is distortions, distortions which sadly then take over the whole movement.

But even as I write that last paragraph I feel awkward, because that sounds so dry and ‘full of message’ like a heartwarming episode of our favorite family sitcom.

It’s not that. It’s so much more enjoyable. Booraem has walked a very fine line in her writing giving us both a message while avoiding becoming overbearing. More than that, she has penned a very readable book. That’s why I gave it five stars. I realized not too far in that I kept wanting to come back to it, I couldn’t put it down, and I was for a long while absolutely lost in this story that has a wonderful mix of identity crisis, detective story, fantasy, and even humor.

Honestly, this is one of those books that I think was marked as young adult fiction more because of the age of the main characters. It is directed towards those 10 and up, and probably would be more enjoyed by kids and adults who themselves have a creative, introverted, side they have felt punished for.

Indeed, The Unnameables a great book for artists of all ages, and I highly recommend it as a fun read.

There was a bit of a commotion in the pine tree that stands right outside, just past the deck. The pine cones are starting to open, and apparently the local birds realize there are tasty treats inside.

The sun was descending in the west. The stellers jay was after a bit of dinner. I took some pictures.

More to come.

I woke up this morning and there was this beautiful web made between two small branches on the cedar tree outside. We don’t tend to have a lot of these great concentric webs around up here, and even if I don’t like spiders, I appreciate good engineering when I see it.

I got up, took a picture, then went outside to do some work. About an hour into it I looked up and there was this raven, sitting in a branch across the street. I didn’t see him land there.

As far as I could tell he was just hanging out, checking out the yards.

And these few from this last week:

We’ve been having a black-chinned hummingbird assume the feeder as his own.

He perches on a branch, watching and waiting.

I’d be bothered by his repeated attacks on every other hummingbird, except for the fact that he often starts to sing this lovely little song while he is on duty.

My good friend Jim Geiger sent me a link to this great promo he put together for YouTube:

I highly recommended his book The Gospel According to Relativity last August, and still highly recommend it, as my Amazon review notes.

Be sure to also have a look at the short article he graciously wrote for this months Porpoise Diving Life.

I’m going to start looking at all those articles this week, by the way.

“They’ve been given the law not too long before,” Karl says, “but it’s been hard. Life with God hasn’t been easy. God has discipline. His goal isn’t to make us happy, his goal is to lead us to maturity—like we’ve talked about a lot. God ordains feasts, but also fasts, and a life of discipline and training—a life in the wilderness—can be totally frustrating. So, when there are others around, others doing good, eating well, free to live as they want, it’s easy to say what’s the point of following God. Take the easy way, as it doesn’t make a difference.”

“Or makes it easier in the moment,” Nate says.

“Or makes it easier in some way, that’s right. The Israelites, not all of them but a lot of them, gave in. Indulged. They were tempted by the sex and stayed for the sacrifices to other gods. It was a gateway. They didn’t hold onto God. They rejected him because they wanted what they wanted. And they got burned.”

“Things became good and that became a problem,” Debbie says. “The wilderness is a dangerous place. Rebellion, desperation, and temptation.”

“Oh my,” Nate says, with a chuckle. “What we have to remember, and make sure people pick up on, is that this isn’t because God had rejected Israel. These aren’t the judgments the prophets talked about, that’s what I’m finally seeing. All this stuff, all that happened, all these choices are coming about because God led them into the wilderness. This is, in essence, all God’s work because he’s leading them to this new freedom, this promised land. But they all have a choice in the midst of it.”

“And we think God is this outside force, aloof and we lose heart,” Debbie says. “We lose sight of God who is with us in it, who helps us.”

“Because he walked the road too,” Nate adds.

“With Israel,” Karl says. “Not against it.”

“And not just with Israel,” Nate says. “This is all the story of the Gospel. The story of Jesus. God walked this road in his life he lived in Israel. Jesus endured it all. We don’t see this magical life full of blessings and great honors. We see struggle. Death. Torture. A lot of joy and wisdom along the way too, but a lot of coming face to face with the reality of the world’s evils. Jesus faced it all, the same way we did, only with a perfect faith. So, it’s not like we’re asked to do something God doesn’t understand. What’s the verse in Hebrews? ‘Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.’ God is with us in the wilderness, because he has spent a lot of time there himself. So there is hope. Even if there’s all kinds of dangers too, which get worse if we don’t choose to step with God.”

From Exodus: The Path to Promise (working title), chapter 16, by me.

I finished the first draft of this book this morning. I’m using the story of Exodus, the setting of the Columba Pub and Restaurant, including the characters who made up It’s a Dance, to talk about how God works to lead us to a more thorough spiritual maturity.

Now, I have to do some editing…

I have a fair bit of issues with the church and the form of Christianity that seems to have driven a lot of people away from Christ even as there is a lot of Jesus language flying about. It’s not entirely cynicism anymore, as I’ve tried to understand it historically and so realize what has been often earnest reasoning behind long standing approaches.

There are some exceptions. Billy Graham is one of them. I have nothing but respect for the man and for his work. He was a man of his generation and so I don’t feel it helpful to mimic him. But I do honor him for listening to the Spirit in his age.

So, I’m thinking this might be an interesting movie, not least because it appears they are willing to deal with his frustrations and fears as much as the joy and successes.

Should be an interesting look at a very, very influential man.

Of course, he did go to a good school…

Over the course of the last few years I’ve increasingly noticed something about theology. At first, it was a vague discontent, sort of the anti-intellectual diatribe against wanting theology to be practical. Yes, I would say, but why does it matter?!

Which is funny, if you know me, because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about theology and pondering a lot of topics which certainly don’t fit into the field of practical theology. I don’t want to often admit it of myself, but I can get kind of philosophical at times. I know. I’m trying to get better.

That I’m now going to start my PhD in Systematic Theology is utterly surprising. I remember at Wheaton not wanting to take a Systematic Theology class because I thought it would be useless knowledge. I wanted history! I wanted to know what was, not what someone else thought up. Then I realized my study of history made me good at theology, and then I realized theology wasn’t really about philosophy. Not the good kind, at least. Theology, the good kind, is about God.

That’s not exactly a startling realization, I know.

But, it’s what I realized. And when I realized it I began looking at theology a little different, indeed with a bit of interest. Only there was that lingering… something… that kept me from thinking I would leap fully into my new theological lifestyle.

That vague discontent has started to coalesce until now I feel like I’m starting to find what it is that was bothering me before and what I intend to do about it. A passage I was writing about this morning gave even more imagery to my thoughts and so maybe it’s time to start putting these into words.

The passage? The golden calf incident. Exodus 32.

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

These kind of stories are left for us to read because they tell us about more than a single incident. They tell us a human tendency. The whole Exodus story, from the slavery to the settling in the Land, is a template of God’s work and human response. It’s what we should expect again and again and again, with the specifics different but the themes often quite the same.

And as I was dwelling on that fact it hit me. So much of theology has become a Golden Calf. That’s a weird thing for me to say, what with my starting a PhD in systematic theology in a little over a month.

But the fact is it’s true. Not entirely true. But true in enough ways for me to say that it’s true.

God, you see, reveals himself. That’s the core of theology. We know God only as he lets himself be known. But the fact is that questions remain. God doesn’t answer our questions. In fact, God often entirely ignores our questions. Scripture, in fact, doesn’t answer our questions. Yes, it answers questions, but not our questions.

Scripture answer the questions that God chooses to answer. Meaning, God tells us the questions, as well as the answers.

But we don’t like that. We don’t like not knowing. We don’t like waiting. We don’t like mystery. Mystery is… scary. So we try to solve mystery and if God won’t answer our questions then by golly we’ll answer our questions about him, and make it sound like he’s submitting to our little Q&A.

A lot of theology is that. Our questions being given our answers, which are almost always given more precedent than the questions God has decided are important to answer. So we have a lot of arguments about a lot of topics that aren’t apparently germane to God’s purpose in revelation.

And so we miss the points God is trying to make even as we are trying to really get a better handle on God.

We throw our gilded words onto the fire and cast our version of the revealed God that makes best sense to us. And we worship that god, and we insist other people worship that god.

Which makes me wonder. What would a theology look like that not only seeks answers about God, but also seeks the right questions? Instead of starting with the Greek or Enlightenment or Postmodern questions about who God is, and thus find the answers of who we would like God to be, how about starting with looking at the questions God says we should be asking.

I don’t know exactly what that would look like. But, in that I see a focus of my own theological development over the next years. I think I’ll call it Organic Theology, because it is devoted to stay in the original soil for questions, discussion, and conclusions.

An Organic Theology would start with God’s revelation and move along the answers God is answering, while remaining open and humble about the rest.

Might be a curious way to go through advanced theological studies while retaining my own hope to remain relevant while exploring even greater depths.

Some thoughts I shared over at Armchair Theology:

The established doctrine is trying to get at something, but limited by human language and understanding. Instead of being humble, however, theology becomes very prideful and arrogant. Personally, I think there’s an elegant study of God within the doctrine of the Trinity. But, holding close to Scripture is our foundation and so holding even the formal doctrine loosely does keep us in tune with Scripture. We lose sight of Father, Son, and Spirit we lose sight of God’s marvelous work and reality. We over-emphasize our versions of who we think God is we risk boxing him in and defining him wrongly–making an idol out of our theology.

The Bride of the Church as the feminine is a beautiful image. And Scriptural. The Trinity is this wonderful fellowship, and we’re invited in. Not that we’ll become part of the Trinity, but they still are wanting to dance with us. Only we’re being trained to know the steps, to interact fully, to not step on toes, either God’s or each others. That’s holiness. We’ve been given a ticket to the dance, not by any of our own efforts. But now we learn to dance–as a Body of Christ.

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for spirit is “ruach”. This is a feminine word. A lot of languages, if you don’t know such languages, have nouns assigned genders. And “ruach” is feminine and requires feminine pronouns and such. So, we could say that spirit in Hebrew is a feminine quality.

The difficulty is that for us we have gender and sexuality. God is Father not in terms of him being male, but in terms of his role and identity. He is not a guy. He’s the Father.

When humanity was made, Genesis tells us, we were made male and female, in the image of God. Thus both the masculine and the feminine reflect the fullness of God. It’s absolutely right to hold onto the Scriptural imagery the God reveals, and thus to use the masculine pronoun and emphasize the roles he expresses. However, we can’t do this and think the feminine, and thus women, are somehow not part of God’s image. Ever since the beginning we’ve confused our images of male and female, and our roles of man and woman, and attached them to God’s identity.

Women are no less an image of God than men. We very much risk making God into our image if we discount the fact God is beyond our gender roles and sexual traits. We lose sight of the image of God if we discount the fact that He created male and female in his image, and Scripture has references to God in a mothering role as well as Father.

That’s where so much theology and church organization has gone wrong. It has started with a revelation, God is Father, and then made God into the image of what we understand as ‘father’, attaching our cultural gender roles and boundaries.

If we are in fact male and female made in his image then no man is man enough in comparison with God. We’re all feminine. At the same time, no woman is woman enough compared to God’s feminine. We’re images, reflections, not fully expressing God’s fullness of masculine or feminine, because he fully encompasses both words, with our split identity into man and woman becoming only together a hint at God’s reality.



Worth reading the whole thread over there (and the other threads). It’s so heartening to read the depth people exhibit when given space to do so. That’s an especially solid group of folks over there, well shepherded by a couple of utterly superb moderators.

The Trinity is hard to understand. It’s far too complex to have been made up, and no where do we have it explained to us with any kind of absolute understanding. We’re faced with the fact there’s one God, and yet there is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They’re all different. But there’s only one God. Unity and Diversity. Three in One. How does this work? Well, there have been a lot of suggestions over the centuries. The latest prevailing attitude has been to see the Trinity as a hierarchy. The Father, then the Son, then the Spirit. But that’s not quite right, because there’s a lot of discussion in Scripture that doesn’t make it all that neat. The Father gives all his authority to the Son, who sends the Spirit, who had already sent the Son. It’s unusual.

Add to this the fact it’s not the kind of relationship we’re used to dealing with in organizations. They love each other. It’s the love and the relationship that is the bond. God is love. There’s no intimidation or manipulation or ambition or dissension. There’s just relationship. And this kind of relationship has been given a name. Perichoresis. Basically this is a big word to say something not that hard to understand, but almost impossible to live. Instead of being a hierarchy, the persons in the Trinity are continually circling around each other, interwoven, interdependent, interpenetrating. Or to put it more simply… the relationship is kinda like a dance.

Read more at the Porpoise Diving Life. Not just more from me. Sonja and I are guest-editors of this month’s issue and we gathered together a wonderful variety of men and women tackling this issue from unique perspectives. I’m going to write more about each article over the next few weeks, but for now I’m just encouraging folks to wander over and have a read of these great thoughts.

Come on in. The music is fine.