"Do you love me more than these?"

Over dinner tonight, Maddie of Bestfriendom and I fell to talking about how difficult but crucially important it is to maintain a meaningful relationship with Christ. It directly influences all the other aspects of our lives. And then I came home and stumbled across this passage in Flavel. Once again, books spookily echo what has just been on my mind:

Without love to Christ we may have the name of Christians, but we are wholly without the nature. We may have the form of godliness, but are wholly without the power. Give me thine heart is the language of God to all the children of men, Proverbs 23:26; and "Give me thy love" is the language of Christ to all His disciples.

Christ knows the command and influence which love to Him, in the truth and strength of it, has; how it will engage all the other affections of His disciples for Him; that if He has their love, their desires will be chiefly after Him. Their delights will be chiefly in Him; their hopes and expectations will be chiefly from Him; their hatred, fear, grief, anger, will be carried forth chiefly unto sin as it is offensive unto Him. He knows that love will engage and employ for Him all the powers and faculties of their souls; their thoughts will be brought into captivity and obedience unto Him; their understandings will be employed in seeking and finding out His truths; their memories will be receptacles to retain them; their consciences will be ready to accuse and excuse as His faithful deputies; their wills will choose and refuse, according to His direction and revealed pleasure.

 All their senses and the members of their bodies will be His servants. Their eyes will see for Him, their ears will hear for Him, their tongues will speak for Him, their hands will work for Him, their feet will walk for Him. All their gifts and talents will be at His devotion and service. If He has their love, they will be ready to do for Him what He requires. They will suffer for Him whatever He calls them to. If they have much love to Him, they will not think much of denying themselves, taking up His cross, and following Him wherever He leads them.

(The True Christian's Love to the Unseen Christ, pp. 1-2)

And thus we have a testament to the power of the love of God. First, it is mirrored in ours. "We love, because He first loved us." But it also strengthens us to godly action. Not only does it make us love Him, it makes us like Him. We are transformed when we encounter the love of God.

As Dante ended the Divine Comedy,

Yet, as a wheel moves smoothly, free from jars,

My will and my desire were turned by love,
The love that moves the sun and the other stars. 

Not that I'm counting or anything

However, if I were, I'd write a blog post about how there are 22 days separating me from England.  Sandwiched amongst the pre-European festivities is a trip to Florida to visit my aunt. Between the two of these excursions, I plan on missing the majority of the new and improved polar vortex the Weatherman is threatening us with again.

Last night, my genial coworker asked whether I'd started packing yet. To this, I indulged in a laugh with a maniacal edge to it and replied that I was happy I had just done my laundry. Having thrown 75 pages of papers at yours truly, the semester has been brutal. It began with me incredulously remarking that I had nothing to do, and ended with me running into the living room where my sister sat, proclaiming for all the world to hear: "I AM A WRITING GODDESS!!!"

Anyways, the reality that I am going to be gone in three weeks is hitting me. I have my plane ticket, an over-zealous itinerary of places to visit, and a church to attend. My bank has been told that imminent transactions in Europe are just me trying to buy myself some groceries, OK?!?! Today, I went to the store and stocked up on all the random stuff I'll need to bring along. Can't survive without those socks. I think I've had a master packing list since at least last spring. Actually buying the stuff on there made this trip start to sink in.

These are the classes I'm signed up to take:

• Philosophy of Religion (God's attributes, prayer, eternal life)
• Pauline Epistles
• The Early Church
• Explorations in Literature (basically a western survey)
• Christianity and the Arts (THERE ARE FIELD TRIPS)

Soooooo excited.

I've had two people recommend visiting a service at King's College Chapel. The choir is beautiful. The chapel is beautiful. This whole semester is just going to be one long case of aesthetic over-stimulus.

HOW DO YOU EVEN CONCENTRATE???

And that's about all I have to say at this point. The countdown continues.

THANK YOU LELAND RYKEN

The other day, when presenting my paper on Christian literary theory, I matter-of-factly stated that Christian theory should not be afraid to promote the Christian agenda (duhhh). I'm pretty sure I annoyed several of my classmates. That made me happy. Anyways, I am finishing up said paper and came across this quote by Ryken, which I am going to appropriate as validation.

Modern literary theory has championed the idea of interpretive communities - readers and authors who share an agenda of interests, beliefs, and values. Christian readers and writers are one of these interpretive communities. Everyone sees the world of literature through the lens of his or her beliefs and experiences. Christians are no exception. As an interpretive community, Christians should not apologize for having a worldview through which they interpret the world and literature.  

("A Christian Philosophy of Literature" in The Christian Imagination, p. 31.)

Literature is all about understanding said  "beliefs and experiences." Reason #83582950 why I hate postmodernism is that it strips literature of all meaning. Wayne C. Booth, one of my Chicago School (=great books) homies, described two possible functions of art: "showing" and "telling." "Showing" simply draws a picture; "telling" comments on it. We have a word to describe art which simply "shows": BAD. That kind of thing is the realm of art students in Drawing 101 who need to practice their drapery, or the budding poet who needs to master the form of a sonnet. But postmodernism seems to believe that complacently stalling here indefinitely is ok. In reality, it's sophomoric. Also naïve, because who are we kidding? Everybody has an agenda, whether they admit it or not.

 

Rant over, carry on.

I am woman, hear me roar

It's finals week, and my lucky professor has a rant on feminist literary theory waiting for him. I got so personally invested in it, I decided to immortalize it here for posterity.

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In “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” Adrienne Rich argues that revision is necessary in order for women to find their place in the canon of literature. The problem with this statement rests in three underlying assumptions: First, that women cannot relate to the experiences their male counterparts describe; second, that the existing depictions of women in literature are weak and unrealistic; and third, that dwelling on this perceived disunity will somehow promote efforts to create unity.

Writing about the literary potential of the twentieth century, Rich anticipates that “at this moment for women writers in particular, there is the challenge and promise of a whole new psychic geography to be explored” (513). Rich conflates the distinction between universal realities and particular experiences. Is it really the case that men’s description of the human condition is unhelpful because it is not comprehensive? For example, one of the most universal experiences for humans is the case of falling in love. Outward factors and circumstances may vary between individuals, but everybody, regardless of gender, race, age, etc. is capable of synthesizing these experiences and thereby identifying the overarching phenomenon. Instead, by creating a fundamental dichotomy between male and female versions of the of same experience, feminists such as Rich wander dangerously close to erasing any concept of the human condition. There is no longer a single, unifying constant which brings mankind together

The second flaw is Rich’s characterization of the female presence in western literature. In western literature, a woman “meets the image of Woman in books written by men. She finds a terror and a dream, she finds a beautiful pale face, she finds La Belle Dame Sans Merci, she finds Juliet or Tess or Salome” (516). Here, Rich purposefully lists a string of pathetic (not tragic) heroines. While including Shakespeare, Rich could just as easily have mentioned Beatrice, Portia, or one of the Wives of Windsor. Instead, however, she picked an example of teenage melodrama. If Rich is to gloss over such characters as Antigone, Beatrice, and Helen because they are not relatable versions of womanhood, she must also dismiss Odysseus, Beowulf, and Arthur because they are idealized portraits of men as well. Meanwhile, Rich neglects to mention later, better-rounded examples of women whose actions directly challenge the behavior of the men surrounding them, such as Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet.

Finally, Rich argues that painstaking revision (or the act of identifying female oppression in male-dominated literature) is necessary in order to move forward. “Re-vision-,” she writes, “the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival” (512). By calling for a separate, female-oriented body of literature, Rich adopts the same mindset she accuses male writers of implementing: One-sided perspective. While it is necessary to address the faults of the past in order to effectively move forward, it is very easy to make the mistake of defining oneself by these problems. By understanding women as victims of patriarchy, Rich paints a reactionary image of femininity. The basis of a correct understanding of man- or woman-hood is by first understanding humanity. Variables such as gender and race add further depth.

Revision is not the answer to female oppression in literature. Instead, by searching for the common, universally-applicable threads of humanity, readers discover the shared dignity men and women can enjoy in creation.

Semester in review

When you ask for this:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

(Donne, Holy Sonnet #14)  

You end up with this.

I struck the board, and cried, "No more;

                         I will abroad!

What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free, free as the road,

Loose as the wind, as large as store.

          Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me blood, and not restore

What I have lost with cordial fruit?

          Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn

    Before my tears did drown it.

      Is the year only lost to me?

          Have I no bays to crown it,

No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?

                  All wasted?

Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,

            And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute

Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,

             Thy rope of sands,

Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable, to enforce and draw,

          And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

          Away! take heed;

          I will abroad.

Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;

          He that forbears

         To suit and serve his need

          Deserves his load."

But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild

          At every word,

Methought I heard one calling, Child!

          And I replied My Lord.

(Herbert, The Collar) 

Not even me

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written,

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:31-39 

The problem of evil and other cheery things

Or, why you shouldn't focus on one realm of theology at the expense of the others.

 

In keeping with what has become the confessional nature of this blog, there are two things I must admit to from yesterday:

1. My mind wandered in chapel.
2. I'm glad it did.

For a year now, the problem of evil has been randomly plaguing my mind. Depending on each person, there are some things which are easier to obey God in than others. For example, as an individual who has gone on record for thanking a cop for a license plate citation, fits of rage generally aren't my problem. But when it comes to verses like, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God," my reaction is typically: "BUT WHY DO THERE HAVE TO BE SECRET THINGS?!!??!?!" Without much more of an explanation for the reason God let evil exist than, "It's for His glory," Sarah, who operates on logic and reason, breaks down. I am my namesake.

Enter ROMANS 9.

 

At the same time, I am a good sober Calvinist. Namby pamby angst at not being included in the inside information of God's providence gets answered with "who are you, O [wo]man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, 'Why did you make me like this,' will it?" God, who is, well, God, has this figured out. Quit whining.

 

While all of this theology is correct, my attitude began to move in a dangerous direction. Without realizing it, my view of my relationship with God began to take on keywords such as  "stoic," 'detached," and "cold."

 

Enter CHAPEL.

 

Bad Christian alert: I don't remember what the speaker was saying. But somehow it got me thinking about all of the above. In the midst of all that, this suddenly dawned on me:

 

A detached, cold God, who arbitrarily allows evil into the world He created would not send His son into it to die an excruciating, cosmically-humiliating death in order to redeem us from said evil. He would not personally involve Himself.

And so we come back to the essence of the Gospel, and the need to daily remind ourselves of the reality of all that Christ has done for us. When you focus on God's sovereignty and meanwhile forget to dwell on His lovingkindness, you end up crying in a parking lot for an hour over the apparent meaninglessness of the crap which has happened (or that you're scared will happen) in your life*.

 

Enter SARAH, ascending SOAPBOX.

 

We rightly advocate the need for precise theology. But in doing so, we must remember that incomplete theology can be just as dangerous as the incorrect variety as well. We are not going to get by living on only half the story. God is just and God is good. He is powerful and also loving. He is Creator and Redeemer.

 

This side of eternity, we will never get a rationally-satisfying answer for the problem of evil. But the work of Christ reassures us. The words of Job, whose story essentially revolves around this problem, come to mind:

 

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.
Even after my skin is destroyed,
Yet from my flesh I shall see God;
Whom I myself shall behold,
And whom my eyes will see and not another.
My heart faints within me!”

 

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*This is, of course, just an example and obviously never actually happened.

Art history shenanigans

We are now studying Byzantine Art in our class, and today we looked at this mosaic of the emperor Justinian from the church of San Vitale in Ravenna (Italy). Does anything seem unusual about this?

THE BEATLES ARE STANDING ON THE LEFT.

THE BEATLES DISCOVERED TIME TRAVEL.

In which I contemplate my little-ness

 

So I'm supposed to be writing a paper on the American Revolution right now, but somehow I got sidetracked and found myself looking at pictures from the Hubble. The one above, "Ultra-Deep Field," apparently depicts 10,000 galaxies. 10,000 GALAXIES. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE THAT???

 

And then it hit me that the God who made THAT is so invested in my life that not only does He daily sustain it, He also died for me so that I don't end up getting what I deserve....I get infinitely better. Me, who wouldn't show up on this picture if you zoomed in a million* times, because we are looking at entire GALAXIES here. You know when you have those moments when your brain shuts down because it can't deal with the information you just threw at it? Yeah.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
(Psalm 8:3-4)

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*I have no idea if this is true, it's just the liberal arts major talking.

Reverting back to my old ways

In which I return to the blog with this startling bit of self-awareness:

 

GOOD HEAVENS YOU WOULD HAVE MORE FUN AT A FUNERAL THAN YOU WOULD HANGING OUT WITH ME LATELY.

 

I need a party or something. The thing that tells me this is that I have no desire to have a party. It's disturbingly similar to the fabulous old homeschooling days, when I thrived on weeks with little-to-no human interaction, because books.

 

A few things on my mind which I expect nobody will care about except me. But this is my blog and I can do what I want with it and you can just stop reading if you're bored. Ahaahahaha.

1. Being the devoted contrarian that I am, I've spent the last year or so hiding out in the Alamo of Sarah's Mind, pretending not to care about Housewife Theologian. I've always lived in horror of becoming that freakishly-domestic girl who obsesses over books on how to be a good wife as a way of dealing with her lack of husband. It's always seemed....pathetic. Anyways, despite all my best efforts, the more I read by Aimee Byrd, the more I like her. Dare I say kindred spirit? Too late, I just did. Going to have to ironically give her book a shot in the midst of all my single glory.
2. In my literary criticism class, our final project is a paper/presentation demonstrating our own literary theory as inspired by the sources we have read. The idea is to generate a writing sample for grad school. It looks like mine is going to be some kind of synthesis of the Chicago School (think Mortimer Adler and the Great Books) and Tolstoy's What is Art? Along the way, we have to refute/interact with those who would oppose our ideas (I have no idea how we'll pull this off in just 10-pages). Anyways, this ties into some ideas for posts that I've been keeping on the backburner for quite a while now. Ever since I started college, I've been struck by the lack of attention the conservative Reformed world gives to the arts. I get why, but I think it's also a valid forum for discussion, and it's something I'd like to focus on in my own career. So I'm foreseeing some of this project appearing on the blog as I write.
3. This one I'm kind of shocked I haven't mentioned yet: In 9 weeks, I fly out to England to study in Cambridge for the semester. Time is starting to move unsettlingly quickly. It's weird to be so close to something you've dreamed about doing for so long. What a time to be alive.