Letters from Kamp Krusty

The Tyranny of Mattering

"Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God."

-- Karl Barth

Two things I know about the world:

1) Everything matters.

2) This can be a real problem.

It wasn’t always this way for me. I was taught, via hymns like “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”, that only one thing mattered: God. Everything else was to “grow dim”.

But, like Flannery O’Connor, and probably you, I now see that it’s precisely because of God that everything takes on meaning. Everything is interesting. Everything matters. Nothing grows dim. It’s all fascinating. I’m serious.  Snails and snorkeling and quarks and quarter-notes; Shakespeare and shrubbery; neural paths, base paths, mud, Mongolia, and melody;  linguistics, light, and Liechtenstein; gravity, garbage; corpuscles, Cassiopeia, and Captain Crunch.

Everything matters.

And this is a problem, because, like Oscar Wilde noted about a rival worldview to Christianity, Marxism, it "takes up too many spare evenings.”  So much to be serious about! To be angry at!  So much injustice!  So much suffering!  So little time!  Do something!  Panic!

This is a real problem if you are prone to taking yourself too seriously, like, say -- oh, let me think -- me.

And hey, maybe I've had it right, this serious-taking, right?   Two reasons to be duly burdened, for starters: There’s suffering everywhere. And I’m a moral failure. That's quite enough, but there's more where those two came from, like mortality, nuclear proliferation, the Dolphins' draft strategy, etc.

And then we’re supposed to be like Jesus, right? And wasn’t Jesus the “man of sorrows”?

But this is where I’ve been changing my thinking. Forgive me for being late to the party. I’m now thinking that Jesus was the Man of Sorrows because he had to carry everyone’s burden in a very specific way. This is not something I am asked to do.  He did it.

And I’m also noticing -- I knew this, but never knew it -- that Jesus loved to party. In fact, his favorite topic was, in a way, the ultimate party. To the Jews, hungry ancient-types that they were, the Kingdom of God would ultimately be about food and drink and laughter and storytelling and reunion, and yet more food and drink.  With, like, actual alcohol.

We have no record of Jesus ever turning down a party.

My mom used to tell me to lighten up.  She was first of a long line.  I’m intense. I can’t help it. God made me intense, dangit.  But I’m trying to be intense about lightening up.

Our motley church group here is a party waiting to happen.  (We were musing about logos and marketing mottos:  "Our church is your church's party.")  Seriously:  We all love subversion, and man, there’s something subversive about joy.

Oh, yes, everything matters. Everything's interesting.  And, when you get right down to it, you know what? 

Everything is pretty dang funny.

Let's Hear It for the Me-Meister

They say you can't "love the sinner, and hate the sin."  It's not possible.  If you love someone, you cannot hate how they are to themselves or others.  If you love someone, you must accept the entirety of who he is.  All of it.

As a scholar, equipped with (that's right) a Bachelor's Degree from a Fully-Accredited Institution, I humbly, respectfully, and collegially submit: 

Bull.

Proof?  Exhibit A:  Me.

I hate some of the ways I am, and some of the things I do.  I hate, hate, hate it.  I do not approve.  I cast aspersion.  I think I'm a moral mess.  I should wear the scarlet alphabet, plus some scarlet numbers and maybe some scarlet wingdings.

...but I don't hate me.  No, I'm pretty taken with me, actually. 

I loves me some me.

In spite of my moral failures, in spite of my sin, I still manage to want what's best for me.  I'm rooting for me, big time.  I'm in my corner.  I'm on the me bandwagon.  I carry around a picture of me in my wallet.  I hate some stuff I do, some ways I am, but I'm here to tell you, I still manage to pray for blessings to be poured onto my head.

If there's one person whom I know is a real selfish jerk, it's Me.  I can't know your motives, but I know Me, and I can manage to come off unselfish for selfish purposes.  I know it, you know it, the American people know it.  And you know who I'd like to see win the lottery?  Me, of all people!

Figure this:  There's only one guy whose moral failings are amply displayed in front of me every waking moment.  And I actually put that guy's pants on for him every day.  I shop for him.  I pay for his entertainment.  I try to make him look nice.  I floss his teeth.  I take him to the bathroom.  It's way gross, but I want this guy to succeed.  I'm apparently pretty taken with him.

Yep, love the sinner, hate the sin.  Sounds not only tenable, not only do-able -- it's almost like breathing.

I Could Always Be Wrong

I do dumb stuff.

Yesterday, I walked back from the gym.  I realized, mid-way, that I'd left my iPod case behind.  I thought, "Perhaps I'll go back sometime today."

When I got home, I looked in the parking spot in front of our place, and decided that yes, I would, in fact, go back to the gym today.  Because I'd left my car there, too.

I know this about myself:  I can always be wrong.  Perhaps I'm wrong about this church thing.  Heck, I'm the guy who passed on LaDainian Tomlinson in my fantasy draft.  (Non-fans:  This makes me, in football terms, a "doofus".)

So I could be wrong about this church thing.  Perhaps one really does need to attend an hour-and-a-half presentation on a weekly basis, and perhaps this is supported by scriptures I've yet to properly interpret. 

Perhaps we really are called to go forth, and, among other things, attract people to that event.  Perhaps the teaching I need is best-served by a paid expert in a mass environment, where I can't ask questions or offer a thought of my own. 

Perhaps people really are, deep down, yearning for a corporate structure in which to "plug in".  Maybe the only real reason they're not attracted to it is because they're worldly, and won't take their medicine, or give our awesome worship band a chance.  Or maybe it's not them -- it's US.  By us, I mean, of course, the preacher, who just isn't as good as that other guy. 

Or, just maybe, we'll get to heaven and find out...The Problem?  The problem was that our transitions weren't smooth enough.

Perhaps the above logo -- drawn up as a joke for our little community here (a logo?  ha) will confirm what you already thought:  Brant just wants to have some fun.  After a lifetime of existing in American Bible-Believing Churches with Biblically-Correct Structure, I don't want it anymore.  I do want the Kingdom -- God's dream for the world -- and I'm pretty dang excited about it, and about learning, growing, and leading others to help the Kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.

(Chesterton said liturgy -- work -- is wonderful...but it's the work of earth.  Play?  Now, you're talking about better stuff:  the work of heaven.  Disagree?  Feel free to write G.K. a strongly-worded letter.)

I know well:  This all will anger some.  Others, including MANY Kingdom-minded pastors whom I know and respect, are nodding in agreement.  They may also identify:  There's the church, and there's the American Understanding of Church.   Jesus has ruined me on much of the latter, and made me very, very excited to be part of the former.  But I could be wrong.

Turns out, the Kingdom is a party.  Turns out, most people -- not all, Jesus learned -- like parties.  But I could be wrong.

Merry Christmas.

The One, Last, Interesting Thing

Did you hear?  Get this -- Madonna is hanging on a cross in...her...concert...and...she sings...and she...mocks the...can't stay...awake...I just...zzzzzzzzzz...

Sorry, Madonna.   Sorry, artistic establishment.  You're not shocking.  You're what we call, "boring".  Deeply, profoundly, but not at all shockingly, boring.  Your fellow pop culture dealers even continue a daunting project:  rendering sex boring.

But it's no surprise that, thematically, you continue to come back to the one, last, interesting thing.  You do it all the time.   Only problem is, ironic allusions, or outright mockeries, of Jesus don't really wake us up anymore.  Nothing does for more than a few minutes, really. 

Our culture is dying, and we're in need of a pair of those electric-paddle-heart-jumper-cable-thingies they use in the E.R.

R.R. Reno knows what that would look like, italics mine:

I don’t think our situation is too complicated. My students tend to be shocked by self-discipline, piety, loyalty, and love. One of my former students is a monk at a local monastery. I had him teach a class on Thomas Merton. The students were taken aback.

I am convinced that the avant-garde today is to be found in piety and love... The postmodern educational aesthetic of critique is loveless, or maybe more accurately, it lives on the hollow love of its own impiety. It is the professor who conveys his love for Henry James or T.S. Eliot who wins the day. It is the novelist who loves humanity who is cutting against the spirit of the age.

Our society is numb, dead, boring, and Tozer was right:  it has put out "the light in men's souls."  We've literally dis-enchanted the world.

-- and yet, there remains that one, last, interesting thing.  It so happens that the last thing, the very last thing the artistic establishment would embrace, not only has meaning, it fills the world -- every single thing -- again with wonder.

One Heck of a Test-Post

I'm just checking this out, trying to see how stuff will work.

I'm not sure I like this format.  It just looks so...not cool.  I don't know how to put it.

That's a picture of some water.  I like some water.  Not all water.  Some.