A Quote from Gene Weingarten on Writing

'A real writer is someone for whom writing is a terrible ordeal. That is because he knows, deep down, with an awful clarity, that there are limitless ways to fill a page with words, and that he will never, ever, do it perfectly. On some level, that knowledge haunts him all the time. He will always be juggling words in his head, trying to get them closer to a tantalizing, unreachable ideal.'

Gaius and The Whole Church

In the Book of Romans we find a sentence in the last chapter--the big numbers--and the 23 verse: 'Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you.'

Not much is known about this individual except that he might be the one mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1.14, one who was baptized by Paul. This is more than likely not the same Gaius mentioned in Acts 1929 or 20.4.

What do we know about this guy? Well, Gaius is playing host to an individual. It is assumed that the 'me' mentioned in verse 23 is the apostle Paul and not Tertius who is physically writing the letter--Paul is more than likely dictating it. Wither way, Gaius is hosting an individual who is a follower of Jesus Christ. But it is said that Gaius is not only hosting an individual but also the ‘whole church.’ There are 2 ways, in my opinion, to look at the latter: he is literally hosting lots and lots of people--this may cause a spacial and geographical problem as Christians were literally spread across the then known world (feel the sarcasm) or by his hosting one Gaius is, in a sense, hosting the whole church. With references to ‘the whole church’ found in Acts 5.11 and 15.22, it is safe to say that the some represent the whole in certain uses. This is encouraging as we see that when we do simple and ordinary things for one part of the church we are doing it for the whole Church. It is often difficult to think of someone as something other than an individual, after all it is our society that champions individualism. But here, in the Bible, an individual is not only part of a greater group, but an individual represents entirely a group of individuals that crosses centuries and rounds the world. Think about it this way, in the Bible the Church--all followers of Jesus Christ--is described as being a--singular--bride belonging to Christ. A bride is not usually many but what God is doing is laying out each Christians identity: a group with one face. We can think about this concept another way as well, when you burn the hand the whole body is burned.

This is also encouraging because when you are a believer in the God of the Bible you fall under the care of that same God. You are no longer an individual who cannot accomplish the favor of a God who demands perfection and will wield eternal justice on those who fail to do so, rather you are part of God's family, you are part something that cannot be divided.

Gaius probably opened his home for some to live in, maybe he brought them food, maybe he simply visited them in prison, it is not entirely clear. What is clear is that we can serve the collective church--the people who follow Jesus Christ--when we serve one individual who is part of it. Christians are those who live, day in and day out, week after long week, not for recognition and fame, but to serve God in whatever capacity they are called to; sometimes it is going from city to city establishing churches like Paul did, but other times it is by simply hosting the Pauls.

Flannery O'Conner on Christians Who Stink at Writing Fiction But Think It's Okay--It's not

'Ever since there have been such things as novels, the world has been flooded with bad fiction for which the religious impulse has been responsible. The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality. He will think that the eyes of the Church or of the Bible or of his particular theology have already done the seeing for him, and that his business is to rearrange this essential vision into satisfying patterns, getting himself as little dirty in the process as possible. His feeling about this may have been made more definite by one of those Manichean-type theologies which sees the natural world as unworthy of penetration. But the real novelist, the one with an instinct for what he is about, knows that he cannot approach the infinite directly, that he must penetrate the natural human world as it is.'

from Mystery and Manners, Page 163

Snow Day

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain

‘Rich dreams with we loath to wake from.’

The father in Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road had dreams of how life once was but these things are ‘no longer known in the world.’ Life to him had dissolved and digressed and the things which were not are extinct and gone forever themselves. He has a life that looks backwards for happiness. Though the father’s is a drastic change in life, we ourselves cannot escape the optimistic over the shoulder glances. Time after time I have heard, ‘college were by far the best days of my life.’ There is absolutely nothing wrong with having great times in the past and looking back at them with fondness. But when you’re old will you flip through the pages of your life and long to be back in them? Everyone wishes they had done things differently in life; hadn’t aid those words, hadn’t left that opportunity untried; hadn’t done this or that, but few live life now grasping for what has not yet happened. Are the most pleasant dreams about what has already happened or what will happen in the end?
Friend, the reality is that if you are not a follower of Jesus Christ when you are old and dream your last dreams they will all be rich dreams which you loath to wake from because you know they were already realized or that they can never be realized by you. Life for you is it, earth says goodbye and judgment and destruction say hello. This is not to scare but to make aware: if life is spent ignoring God, it is spent running from God and will end not in a long a senseless sleep but in giving account to our Maker we believe about his Son’s work and sacrifice and what we did with it.
The good news is that now is always the best time to have dreams that are true projects, not because we will our way into them but because they are founded on promises and not-yet fulfilled true events. Life now can be very good and that too is a gift from our Maker but more life, after the one on earth, is to be lived but it will only be done by those who know the love of Christ and those who follow him. Followers of Christ are those who can wake from these pleasant dreams and not say that ‘we loath to wake from them,’ rather we can’t wait until they are realized.

10-16-2008

Uncertainties are more about
making decisions
then having answers.

Steps of anxiety
are not the path of trust;
nor is worried waiting.

Waiting? Waiting for what:
an epiphany;
a secret message;
a whisper;
Time to get tired, throwing the towel;
hm?
you wait like a corpse,
like frozen,
like paralyzed, all waiting for movement,
not to move,
you Gnostic navel-gazer.

Anxiety affirms the acceptance of
the ‘if’ and of the ‘but;’
the wonder of the wonder
manifested in the inaction,
trusting not that the darkness is blinding
rather that it is death:
plaguing the insides,
consuming confusion,
leaving your naked faithlessness
. . . at least in the Promiser.