"Stop the rocking!"
Needing Biblical vision for the journey
There’s a moment in French Kiss, a 1995 film, where Meg Ryan is on a train leaving Paris, and she is enjoying all the various French cheeses, only to recall too late that she is lactose intolerant. She screams at the train, “Stop the rocking!” While less of us suffer from a parallel vulnerability to Camembert, we can all empathize with that feeling of needing to get off the train we somehow boarded. How did we make all the decisions that led up to the moment where we don’t want to be where we are!?! Some days, I want to scream as Ryan does, “Stop the rocking!” I want to depart this train.
Although 2020 gave us a brief reprieve from some of our runaway schedules, we may have too quickly jumped back into the full calendar. The best way I have found to avoid the nausea caused by own overcommitting is Bible reading. Last year, I followed The Bible Recap with Tara-Leigh Cobble, and this year, I listen to Fr. Mike Schmitz through Ascension Press’s Bible in a Year. The podcast reads the Scripture to you before explicating the passages for the day, and there are regular intervals of historical and theological explanation by Jeff Cavins. Because of this daily Bible reading, I am seeing my whole day, not in light of what I am planning, but in light of what the Lord is doing.
This augmented Bible reading has been accompanied by a recent book project and seminar I’m leading at the University of Dallas on how to read as a Christian, or the art of reading. In that course, we have walked through Origen to Flannery O’Connor, considering how to read spiritually, according to the four senses of Scripture, and how to read virtuously, with attention and virtue. I’ve uploaded my lectures to my YouTube. These are not the polished presentations of a hermeneutics expert, but the passionate discoveries of a co-learner.
I was encouraged last weekend at the Good News Conference by hearing Fr. Mike Schimitz speak, but also by the words of Fr. Stephen Gadberry: “No Bible, no breakfast. No Bible, no bed.” We should not eat before we’ve read the Word, and we should not sleep until we do. Our vision is being formed by this practice. At this same conference, where I spoke (thank you everyone for your prayers!), Bishop Barron attended; he spends 90 minutes each day in prayer and Bible study. As did Eugene Peterson in his lifetime, according to his biography, which I reviewed this month for Plough. If we’re serious about becoming saints, we should read the Bible daily.
What I’ve Been Up To:
Spoke at Higher Ed Summit on “Carrying the Fire”: here’s the written version and the audio version. Jenn Frey reviewed the event here.
Spoke at Providence Classical School in Dallas on Expanding the Canon and How to Cultivate a Reading Life
Answered the Question, “Is the Scholarly Life Still Worth Pursuing?” : “I hope students will throw themselves into these divisive conversations robustly. Call nonsense what it is when you hear it. Offend everyone around you with the truth. Do not fear to pursue the intellectual life with vigor. I am certain the world is hungry for more courageous and selfless women and men to learn, to know, and to speak truth.”
Celebrated Dostoevsky’s 200th Birthday : “By the grace of the Spirit that moves both writer and reader, Dostoevsky’s novels remind us who we are and who we are called to be. We must be willing to die and, like Dostoevsky, bear much fruit.”
Was Interviewed by Conversations with Consequences on my upcoming 2022 books, The Scandal of Holiness and Learning the Good Life
Interviewed Presidents of NEW liberal arts colleges, Stephen Blackwood, John Mark Reynolds and Matthew Smith on The Liberating Arts podcast.
Became a Bluestocking in Residence!
What I’ve Been Reading:
The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics by Benjamin Lipscomb (Oxford UP 2021): one of the best books I’ve read in awhile—scholarly, engaging, transformative philosophy. The conclusion made me want to preach: "And we build on one another's work. We borrow from our foremothers and leave things to our children. While the sun smiles on us, we collaborate with friends and see what we can do together. It is the kind of creature we are." AMEN!
Scripture as Real Presence by Hans Boersma (Brazos 2017): Considering how much I’ve been studying the four senses of Scripture, this book was a must read. Boersma closely examines how Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and other early exegetes read with a heart towards the text. They focused on what mattered when they did biblical scholarship—coming to know Christ. In that way, the Word is sacrament for the reader.
Other books I’ve read this month include Permanent Crisis by Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon, In the Vineyard of the Text by Ivan Illich, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman, Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith by Daniel Silliman (review in TGC soon), How to Read (and write) Like a Catholic by Joshua Hren (we’ll be discussing his book at Notre Dame this weekend with Chris Beha), and I am in the middle of—Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr!
