By Abram Van Engen

What does it mean to contemplate whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy? It means to live and do them from day to day.

This spring, various Carver Project faculty fellows have considered how the calling of Paul in Philippians 4:8 affects our lives as teachers, researchers, doctors, scientists, writers, and workers in this world. But to close the series, I’d like to turn to verse 9, where Paul embeds contemplation in a life of action. The King James Version puts it most powerfully: “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do.”

Paul’s command reminds me of a sonnet I have long loved by Gerard Manley Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.” In this poem (reproduced below), Hopkins equates action with identity. Each thing “speaks and spells” itself in what it does. A hung bell gongs as it swings, and the sound it makes “flings out broad its name.” Its action in the world defines what it is.

In the same way, Hopkins argues, everything “does one thing and the same”: tells us what it is by what it does. To make his point, his own poem performs what it describes. A plucked string can be heard in the words “each tucked string tells.” And we can hear the gong of the bell reverberating through the words “hung,” “swung,” and “tongue” when Hopkins writes: “each hung bell’s / Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name.” The sound of the poetry enacts the point of the poem. The doing is the thing, for as Hopkins puts it, all things cry, “What I do is me: for that I came.”

In the first part of the sonnet, Hopkins limits his attention to animals and objects: kingfishers, dragonflies, stones, strings, and bells. But in the second stanza, he turns to humans. Humans, too, become what they are by what they do. It is not enough to think about “what is just.” Instead, Hopkins writes, “the just man justices.” Justice, he implies, is a verb, not a noun. Justice exists only where justice gets done. It comes into being by being enacted. And thus, to be a just person means precisely to be the kind of person who acts justly—the person who, as Hopkins puts it, “justices” in the world.

Paul would agree. He tells his readers in Philippians 4:8 to think about justice, to consider what is lovely, to dwell on what is noble and true and praiseworthy and excellent. But then, he turns immediately to action. What you think about, he says in verse 9, do. Each of these nouns is also a verb. For when we do them, the thinking comes alive. The just man justices. 

This dual necessity of contemplation and action runs, unsurprisingly, all the way through the Christian tradition: Neither thinking nor doing is enough on its own. In the Rule of Benedict, which helped establish the first monastic tradition in Christianity, Benedict called followers to “pray and work”—ora et labore. Such pillars supported a series of traditions in Christianity that have all insisted on the mutual necessity of both thinking and doing. Thinking, after all, not only informs our practices; it is itself an act. And practice, for its part, is not just informed by thought; it also shapes the way we think.

And what shape are we called finally to take? Hopkins and Paul both point to Christ. The doing of justice anywhere reveals the presence of Christ everywhere. When we enact grace in this world, we reveal the actions of Christ. And in this way, we come to be “in God’s eye what in God’s eye” we are: Christ. Miraculously, through our own bodies and eyes and faces, “Christ plays in ten thousand places.”

Paul says the same. He tells us in Philippians to “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (2:5), and then he poetically describes a savior who became a servant and laid down his life for others. In Philippians 4:9, a couple chapters later, Paul describes what comes of such a mindset: peace. This incredible promise of peace bookends verses 8 and 9. Insofar as our contemplation and action approach the image of Christ through the grace of Christ, we find in our lives and in our world a peace that passes understanding.

It is an offer and a promise I easily and often forget. My own thoughts are often far lesser than what Philippians 4:8 calls me to. My own deeds fall short of Philippians 4:9. But these verses—moving from peace through thought and action back to peace—still redirect me when I lose my way.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Gerard Manley Hopkins

[Note: the accents below are from Hopkins, and they tell the reader what words to emphasize.]

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God’s eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Abram Van Engen is the Executive Director of The Carver Project, Professor of English at Washington University, and the editor of this Carver Connections series.

By Meredith Liu

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  –Philippians 4:8

When I was growing up, my mother would sometimes recite Philippians 4:8 to me before I left for school in the morning. At fifteen years old, I distinctly remember rolling my eyes at the scripture. It was hard to think of anything pure or admirable in my daily school environment, which was rife with all the typical things you get when you throw several hundred slightly depressed, pubescent people into an enclosed space forty hours a week. And I was certainly part of the problem; it’s not like I was this saint who rallied forth notions of truth and nobility and sparked a gospel revival in the halls of East Greenwich High School. 

But my mom had a point. 

People are attracted to goodness. In a broken world, they are drawn to what is true, what is noble, what is right, what is pure or lovely or admirable—anything excellent and praiseworthy. Our hearts long for God, and these glimpses of the way things ought to be pull us into all the goodness that God is. 

Today I am a graduate student at an art and design school in coastal Georgia. Even though this school is a decidedly secular environment – and even though, like so many schools, it is full of depression, anger, and loneliness -- God has opened my eyes to see how He is Kingdom-building even still. 

For one, my professors are constantly pushing us to be empathetic. Their goal is for us to emerge from this program able to bring order from chaos, designing solutions for people in need based on empathy and not condescension. We are trained to produce work that is authentic, aesthetically refined, and – well, excellent. 

My incredibly talented designer classmates also continually demonstrate the pursuit for what is lovely, even though their work often touches upon very dark things. I see it in their humor and wit as well as their diligence to produce work with high-quality craft. I see it through their passion for social justice and their appreciation for aesthetic beauty. 

I can see that God has instilled in them a sense of empathy and a drive to make the world better, adhering to the standard of goodness that God has imprinted on each of our hearts.  

I think that art and design school in particular has a reputation for being a bit dark. I recall my aversion to attending an art school for my undergraduate degree because I didn’t want my perspective to be shaped solely by artists who – I felt at the time – willingly chose to steer away from what was honorable or lovely.

But something that I’ve come to notice as I’m pursuing my degree is that even the darkest pieces show evidence of the human pursuit for truth and goodness. Even work that rings with anger or brokenness simultaneously resonates with the human longing for order from chaos, beauty from ashes, or redemption from hopelessness.

What’s more, God doesn’t call us to ignore the darkness as Christians. He asks us specifically to wrestle with the afflictions of this world (Psalm 25:16-18, 2 Corinthians 6:4-6, James 1:2-4), knowing that He has already conquered sin and death through the resurrection of Jesus. In many ways, to acknowledge the existence of darkness is to more fully comprehend the value of the light. 

In short, God can use designers to bring truth, nobility, purity, justice, and excellence into dark and chaotic situations. So my responsibility, as a Christian and as a designer in this secular environment, is to acknowledge the shared brokenness of the human experience but dwell mindfully on the goodness God calls us to seek.

Meredith Liu works on communications for The Carver Project and is an MFA Graphic Design & Visual Experience Candidate at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

By Alex Siemers

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:4-9

Universities are increasingly anxious places. Even before the pandemic’s onset, many were ringing the alarm bells due to rising levels of anxiety and depression among college students. And the past two years (yes, it’s been two years) have just accelerated those trends. Many explanations are proffered as to why this is so: the relentless pressure to secure meritocratic success, the ubiquity of social media (which encourages comparison of oneself to curated, unrealistic ideals), the lack of coping skills among young people—to name a few possibilities. 

Yet those in college are not unique. Many adults have anxious thoughts about themselves: Am I doing well in my job? Should I move to a new place? Does my spouse still love me? Why haven’t I heard from my friends in a while? Does my life have a purpose?

Look too at the world around us, and there is no shortage of issues to quicken anxiety. Will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lead to even larger-scale conflict? Will inflation keep rising, will there be another housing bubble, will there be a new variant to stretch this pandemic even further?

For us, then, Paul’s guidance in his letter to the Philippians—don’t be anxious—seems striking in its difficulty. How does he suggest we go about not being anxious? Well, the most obvious way is by making our requests known to God. Do that, Paul says, and the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. And if the Philippians keep on doing what they’ve learned from Paul, the God of peace will be with them.

Sandwiched right between those promises of peace comes verse 8: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Taking this guidance in context, Paul seems to be suggesting that what we think about can lead us in a more anxious—or a more peaceful—direction. Well before the introduction of cognitive behavioral therapy, Paul here links up our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. 

So what are we to think about? If I turn my thoughts toward myself, I quickly realize that I am frequently dishonorable, unjust, unworthy of praise. The fiefdom of my own head is all too often plagued with selfishness, pride, and other sinful shortcomings. And if I turn my thoughts toward the world, I quickly encounter falsehoods in the form of conspiracy theories on social media; injustice in the forms of racism, homelessness, and human trafficking; mediocrity in our governing institutions. This is not to disparage the truth, justice, and excellence still to be found in the world. But it is to suggest that Paul might well be directing our thoughts elsewhere—namely, to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

When we think about the person and work of Jesus, we are immediately confronted with and by one who is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. Jesus describes himself as the truth (John 14:6): he is called “Faithful and True” (Revelation 19:11), and his work on the cross tells us the truth about ourselves and the world. Jesus is worthy of all honor for his work on the cross (Revelation 5:9-12): he is (in Karl Barth’s idiom) the just judge who was judged for our sake and in our place (Romans 3:21-26). Jesus is the one who is well-pleasing to God (Luke 3:21-22) and whose single offering “perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). He is commendable because he suffered unjustly (1 Peter 2:19-22) and through his work has “obtained a more excellent ministry” (Hebrews 8:6). And Jesus is worthy of all the praise he will receive when every knee will bend and every tongue confess that he is Lord—precisely because he “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-11). There’s not an adjective on Paul’s list that fails to apply to Jesus. And we would do well to think more about his person and his work each day.

This thinking about Jesus should occur both individually and communally. Regularly gathering with other Christians—whether in churches, in small groups, or over meals—can help direct our thoughts toward that which is true, just, and excellent. We often need others to point us to Jesus when we are feeling stressed, distracted, or hopeless. And we too can offer that same assistance to others when they need us.

Thinking about the person and work of Jesus also propels us outward—the thinking ought to lead to doing, as Paul’s counsel makes clear. Though Jesus is certainly more than an example for Christians, he is that, too. Reflecting on him who is true, honorable, and just can inspire us, by God’s grace and with the Spirit’s assistance, to be true, honorable, and just in turn. And it can allow us to exude a calm and faithful presence for those around us—whether in university classrooms and corridors, in workplaces around the country, or with our families at home. 

Yes, there is cause for worry in the world today. But thinking more frequently and more deeply about Jesus might just provide God with an opportunity to shape us into less anxious and more faithful disciples.

Alex Siemers is a 2021 graduate of the Washington University School of Law and a current law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

By Stephanie Wormleighton 

I can still picture the first time I told a stranger that I wanted to go to law school. I was in a swanky San Francisco wine bar with a dutiful-but-bored alumnus of a local program, and he asked the natural networking question: why law school? I don’t remember exactly what I said first, but I do remember what I said second—I’ve repeated it many times since.

My first response was something lofty about social justice, systems affecting inequality, ensuring that those without resources, power, or connections had excellent legal representation. The somewhat jaded reply came: “Oh, so you care about fairness.” He was dismissive, and I heard my idealism on review. “No,” I responded, surprising myself with my clarity and forcefulness. “I care about goodness.” 

I’m now halfway through my law degree. While juggling Zoom cold calls and remote internships and pandemic-hindered attempts to build community on campus, my desperation to see the goodness of God has only increased. It turns out I was almost prepared for the emotional and spiritual challenges of the classroom. “The law only comes in when things are going wrong,” my best friend told me during her own law school journey. “Every case you read has happened because something has broken down from the way it should be.” I knew this in theory, but the pain on the pages felt different in practice. 

I sought out a Christian professor for advice a few weeks into my 1L criminal law course. I needed to know: How do I read these horrible cases and not either numb myself to the suffering and brokenness or descend into an intercessory pit of despair every few days? He encouraged me to remember that these cases are about real people, with real families, traumas, and survivors. He encouraged me to take the time to pray for the people involved in the heavier cases, knowing that we have a loving God who hears. Essentially, he encouraged me to remember Philippians 4:8.

I have worked with refugees seeking asylum after too many tragedies, with desperate renters unsure how they’ll survive the next few pandemic months, with parents doing everything in their power to get their little ones back home, with others navigating a confusing and demanding municipal court system threatening their money and freedom because of difficulties paying the bills. I have seen the anger and tears of uncertainty and fear. But I have also seen the hope that comes from a court date and kind counsel. I have seen faith, relief, joy, courage, and profound connection amidst the loss and stress of these situations. It reminds me to look for goodness even—and especially—when the broken realities are the easiest realities to see.

One of the most consistent corrective words I sense from God is “look up.” In law school, and I expect in law practice, looking up does not happen naturally. Either we plow forward with blinders on to get through the task before us or we actively “look down,” dwelling on everything that is wrong, difficult, and disappointing about the status quo. If the case or task before us is not outright lamentable, it’s often boring or confusing or tiring. Sure, there might be enough to get us through it. Good friends in the hallways. Good feedback from that externship. Another round of finals to work towards and through. A handful of beers on a Thursday night. That first paycheck from the summer job. But I wonder how often law students like me are limping through, in survival mode, holding on to some hope that the next season will be better or easier or at least more financially secure. I wonder what would happen if we looked up. What would happen if we beheld the true, noble, right (also translated just), pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy God who’s always issuing an invitation for connection? How would we see the law, our clients, our classmates, ourselves, and even God differently?

In many of my classes, we talk through policy concerns, those strategic tradeoffs animating judges’ and legislatures’ decisions about how the law will work. Fairness and equity are often front and center, sometimes actively lauded and sometimes taken for granted as a core consideration. But when I think about fairness, that resolve I recall from my cocktail party conversation still gives me pause. Because in my Christian worldview, I’m not left with a version of justice that demands an eye in exchange for an eye, a death sentence for the most egregious wrong. No, the justice that I know is a challenging and profoundly merciful version. That justice looks like carrying the soldier’s pack two miles, like Jesus looking in Peter’s eyes and charging him to feed his sheep, like the adulteress left unaccused by those unable to cast the first stone, like the thief on the cross diverted to paradise instead. To me, justice looks far more like the goodness I’ve seen modeled by Jesus than the fairness we have settled for in the law.

This is why I find Philippians 4:8 to be so crucial in the study and practice of law. As those who are entrusted to work with the vulnerable, distressed, and brokenhearted, we have the special task of looking up, of orienting toward what is good and true and lovely—even in the quagmire. The law has relatively few right-and-wrong, black-and-white answers. Instead, lawyers must read, must wrestle, and must think. In this thinking, we must remember to think about these things that situate us in the goodness of God, knowing that it is faith, hope, and love that ultimately remains.

Stephanie Wormleighton is the Systems Coordinator for The Carver Project and a second year law student at Washington University in St. Louis.

By Rob Krosley

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” –Philippians 4:8 (NIV)

It’s hard to remember the last time I used the word “noble” in an earnest fashion. 

Nobility, even as an abstract concept, tends to induce winces or eyerolls from most people today. The idea of nobility (or even honor, as this word is translated in the ESV) often seems to suggest the connection of power or position with virtue. But since power is built into the definition, it becomes hard to think of nobility as a virtue. History has taught us to be vigilant against inequality, oppression, and injustice, and nobility seems to require a sense of inequality to operate at all. It’s not a word that seems made for the modern day.

A few years ago, I went through The Lord of the Rings books with a chapter-by-chapter podcast. The host had to continually re-contextualize the monarchical language that praised things like “condescension” and “kingliness” as virtues. In a world of kings, Tolkien imagined what a “good king” would look like: one who “condescends” by bringing himself down from his powerful position to meet those who serve him.

This virtuous kingliness is not often what we see in our modern leaders. For several years before taking a position at The Carver Project, I served as a policy researcher in the Missouri Senate. Working in politics, I recognized that the functional lodestar for many in power seemed to be pragmatism. Justifications for deviating from virtuous conduct abounded: 

“Just look how the other side is acting.”

“We’ll never win if we don’t fight.”

“If I don’t do what it takes to stay here, I won’t be here to do the good stuff.”

“You’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet.”

Time and again, I saw these moral compromises, small and large, come back to bite those who made them. The “other side” would escalate and “demand” further retribution. “Wins” would have to be redefined to justify the “fights.” Members who compromised their virtues never got around to seizing opportunities to do the “good stuff” or lost their opportunities to stick around anyway. Meanwhile, their constituents often found themselves disappointed by those they chose to entrust with representative power. 

The rationalizations and results I saw in politics make me think of director David Lowery’s recent adaptation of “The Green Knight.” In the film, Sir Gawain faces a choice between acting honorably—a path that in this case leads to near-certain death—or instead saving his own neck and retreating to a life that he believes will lead to “honor” being bestowed upon him. Of course, even this life leads to unforeseeable pains including the very consequence he is trying to avoid: his own demise. He can’t escape a mortal fate, and he is confronted with the reality that the only things he can control are his own choices to embrace or dismiss integrity.

This depiction of honor and nobility–one that accepts mortality and adheres to integrity–stuck with me long after the lights in the theater came up. Of course it’s easy to call out our leaders or those we feel have wronged us, but Sir Gawain’s example resonated with me and drew my thoughts back to the plank in my own eye. I recognized that my life is filled with myriad choices to act honorably or try to find the pragmatic way around my values and commitments. It’s far too often that I try to escape the inevitable by choosing the latter. And while it’s easy to dismiss describing myself as “powerful,” I know that I have a position and a privilege that enables me to act in this world. I get to choose what to do with that responsibility. Far too often again, I fail to steward my power, whatever the amount, in the manner of a good king.

Our reticence to extol the virtues of “nobility” and “honor” reflects the truth that there is only one truly Good King. Paul exhorts us to recognize and emulate His characteristics: truth, beauty, purity, and yes, nobility. Where we have power, we must use it wisely and nobly for those who have less. When we are faced with choices to live with integrity, even when we have a “better” idea of how to get what we want, we must choose the truly honorable path. 

Rob Krosley is the Communications and Project Manager for The Carver Project.

By Sara Flores

Maybe it was growing up in the shadow of family members who accomplished impressive things. Maybe it was receiving praise at an early age for overachieving in school. Maybe I’m just a competitive person. Regardless of the reason, I have spent a lot of my life, especially my academic life, trying to outdo myself. And everything seems like it falls a little short. My attempts to do most things—from writing papers and teaching to simply arranging groceries in my shopping cart so that they will be easier for a cashier to bag—are often plagued by thoughts like “I could have done that better.” I find it’s much easier to think about what I didn’t do well or what someone else did better than to give myself grace for doing whatever it is I have done. 

So when I recently read the Apostle Paul’s call to think about all that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy, this thought crossed my mind: “Certainly some things are more praiseworthy than others, right?”

As a pastor’s kid and pastor’s grandkid (and pastor’s niece, for the record), I grew up memorizing Bible verses at church, including Philippians 4:8. Like most things with me, memorizing verses served mostly as a challenge to master, something to perfect and be rewarded for by Sunday School teachers. I don’t remember reflecting too much on the actual words I was memorizing, but I do remember finding Philippians 4:8 fairly easy to memorize because of its repetitions. 

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (NIV)

The main repetition here is that little phrase: “whatever is.” It’s harder to remember the words that follow the phrase than the phrase itself. So to memorize the verse, I focused on those words, visualizing which one was next on the list until I concluded triumphantly with “think about such things.” What I perceived as the verse’s major words—the non-repeated ones—were the words that mattered most to me. “Whatever” was merely the bridge that got me from one memorized word to the next. 

But now, at this moment in my life, I think “whatever” is not just a bridge word to something more important. It is significant in its own right. 

“Whatever,” for example, is not a hierarchical word. It doesn’t rank the forms of true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. It is not a competition. Indeed, the Apostle Paul doesn’t even include specific examples in this verse. It leaves the object of attention open to each of us. We fill in the concrete details ourselves, with our own memories or thoughts. In that way, “whatever” makes me pause and question my tendency to categorize and judge. It frees me from the pressure of always trying to find a better answer. And I don’t think that “whatever” diminishes the value of any one thing. After all, the things we’re supposed to think about should still be true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. Rather, I think “whatever” allows for appreciation and recognition of all such things without the expectation of ranking them on some flawed, human scale. 

In my life more generally, these thoughts allow for flexibility and a certain freedom that follows from Paul’s injunction. But recognition without ranking also relates to my work as a literature PhD student. Scholars who study writings by authors of Latin American descent living in the United States have long sought recognition for these works and struggled with systems of ranking that relate to categories of American literature. Some scholars argue this literature should be considered part of the American literary canon, no questions asked. Others say these writings are a part of a separate, unique tradition that exists in opposition to American literature. Still others argue that these works resist categorization altogether and that attempts to label them Latina/Latino/Latinx suggest a fabricated sense of unity which glosses over cultural differences as well as individual experiences. 

Why does all this matter? In order to even have these debates about categorization, a person has to first agree that these works are worth celebrating and studying, and that’s where recognition becomes essential—and also how the struggle for recognition runs into systems of ranking. Unfortunately, stereotypical expectations for a Mexican-American novel or Nuyorican poem or Cuban-American play can limit popular and critical interpretations of these works. In other words, if a novel by a Mexican-American isn’t considered Mexican enough by publishers or critics, it might not be considered as important as another novel. 

So this brings me back to “whatever.” It brings me back, strangely enough, to Paul and this verse I memorized long ago as a kid. I don’t want to miss what is lovely and true and praiseworthy about what I read because I’m judging how closely its subject matter or the way it is written aligns with a restricting set of expectations. Philippians 4:8 encourages me to approach what I read from a standpoint of appreciation. It allows me the freedom to see all that a text contains and to love what is there instead of looking for what is not. It doesn’t automatically make every text perfect, and it also doesn’t mean blinding myself to the ugly that so often sits beside the beautiful. But in an odd way, I am learning to appreciate and examine “whatever is” instead of whatever we might expect or require. 

From that perspective, Paul’s language of “whatever” sounds an awful lot like grace. 

Sara Flores is a Ph.D. student in English at Washington University in St. Louis and a member of The Carver Project.

By Ben Wormleighton

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9 (NIV)

What do you see in me? 

There are many “you”s in our context — colleagues, students, collaborators, administrators —  who see us. What do they see in us? Uncertainty? Comfort? Drive? Compassion? An inner Christ-man bubbling to the surface?

The reality of being deeply and instinctively seen by those around us can cause a great deal of anxiety. It seems like an unfortunate pedagogical reality that the things we actively want to impart to those around us are often those things that require the most energy and careful intentionality to do so. I can spend an hour crafting the ‘perfect’ treatment of Lagrange’s theorem, but perhaps what some of my students actually take away is that I was three minutes late to class. They might conclude that teaching, or at least what they’re currently learning, must not be a priority of mine. How we move through the world is being picked up and relayed back, often in ways we might not know or appreciate.

I think it is very deliberate that Paul connects the example of his own risk-taking and Christ-dependence with the provision of peace because that is exactly what I need when attempting risks of far smaller magnitude. Paul was likely imprisoned at the time of writing, and he was corresponding with a community of believers who were living in the midst of a hostile, intensely nationalistic context. That to say, Paul and the believers in Philippi understood risk to a very real, very present extent. Their way of life could at any moment—at every moment—clash with the concerns of those around them. They had to live into a spiritual maturity that Paul calls them to embrace throughout his letter, offering reassurance as he resets their thoughts in Philippians 4:8-9.

In my own classes, I usually give a short spiel at the start of a course on the concept of “mathematical maturity.” I’m sure there is a version of this in every field: mathematical maturity is the combination of sufficient base knowledge with the skillset to grow more. For instance, you may not be able to immediately reel off the proof to Lagrange’s theorem, but you mostly remember the statement and have an intuitive sense of how it fits into the wider landscape of group theory. I have found it to be a helpful point of view — at least for upper-division math classes — that the objective in those spaces is to hone the mathematical maturity of a student in the general direction of the class topic, above even adding to their pool of base knowledge.

What does it look like to inhabit and impart “spiritual maturity” into the academic spaces we move in, and to see it emerge as practice in our lives amid the lives of all the “you’s” who just keep seeing us?

I want the colleagues, students, collaborators, and administrators around me to see that the risks I take are risks taken for Christ’s sake—in what I choose to research, how I choose to distribute my time and my resources, and how I choose to conduct my professional relationships, especially with those of less “power.” I want to be a part of a spiritual community at WashU that is continually teaching one another how to risk.

This Lenten season God has been challenging me to access greater levels of compassion for my colleagues and collaborators, and to do that by encouraging or offering to pray with six people a week throughout Lent. In the moment this feels costly but reading Paul’s words reminds me that these are little acts of obedience and opportunity, and that the feeling of risk is intrinsic to such things.

I pray that we will be — individually and communally — open to God’s leading into a variety of risks, and that we will approach Him with hunger for new ideas of how to risk.

God of peace, be with us as we risk.

Ben Wormleighton is the William Chauvenet Postdoctoral Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

By Megan Burgess

In my profession as a pelvic health physical therapy clinician, I do not dwell in any conventional sense of beauty or loveliness. Often my patients are hurting and in need of help, battling strong adversaries and failing. Some have been victims of sexual trauma; some are battling pornography or other demons related to sexuality. Others are caring for babies amidst immense sleep deprivation, feelings of no control, and a body that seems ‘broken’. Still others experience devastating depression and/or anxiety. Some are growing a child amidst overwhelming life struggles with a body that is pained day and night. All seem irreparably far from beauty as defined by our world’s standards, and often far from my own standards as well.

The saying goes that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” This could not be more true about us as a species. We are often drawn toward clean, symmetrical, shiny, socially-acceptable norms of loveliness. The criteria can change with trends and times and often follow those in power, but some of these standards for beauty persist unaltered over many years. Beauty often looks like—and brings—success. 

However, this perception of beauty by earthly standards is contrary to that of our heavenly King. As the Creator he hates pain and hurt and sin, but he loves every misperceived imperfection, every asymmetry, every hair on our head, often defining “beautiful” by standards the world would never know or admire. He brings peace, power and strength to those deemed “ugly” and “unworthy.” He humbles the proud, the arrogant and the conceited regardless of their perceived beauty and loveliness. The impartial Creator of all calls all of his creation beautiful, and he calls us to see the beauty behind the brokenness as well. 

That call may not always be easy to hear or obey. We have to see not just the way the world breaks and falls short—the hurt, the pain, the need—but also the loveliness that so often lies there despite or inside or beyond or through the ugliness. We have to see how exalted the humble can be, and how beautiful the lowly, instead of settling for the limited criteria of the world. The truth of the gospel shows us that in our easy admiration of the seemingly lovely we are like simple-minded sheep, too often settling for the damp cold of the field when our shepherd has invited us into a warm place to lay our weary heads.  As C.S. Lewis writes in the Weight of Glory, “We are half-hearted creatures […] like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”  

To our Lord, the people I serve and others like them are the epitome of radiance, made in His image. They are as glorious as the stars in the sky and as magnificent as any mountain range. This loveliness is unchanged by what a person is wearing, how they feel, the degree of their need or their appearance. This has always been true of our Father. It is not always true of us—of me—and any time I find myself making a judgment about someone, I am immediately humbled by the fact that our great God sees this person as the pinnacle of loveliness. I may not perceive it with my limited viewpoint and sin-stained experience, but in knowing that this person sitting across from me is a child of God, I can begin to glimpse what God sees all the time. I can begin to trust in his uncorrupted perspective.

That shift of perspective follows me to my teaching. One course that I instruct is cadaver anatomy for physical therapy students in the Medical School at Washington University in St. Louis. Talk about an abrupt and unnerving lack of loveliness! You enter the suite and are struck by the intense smell of chemical preservation. You see death and decay and the human body’s failures at every corner. However, in the midst of literal death, I can also see many examples of loveliness. I see it in a learner’s face when they truly understand and can visually appreciate the action of a muscle by seeing it in situ. I see it every time I dissect and review the intricacies of our form, the redundancies of design that keep us alive despite everything we encounter in a lifetime. I see it in the beautiful web of vessels that give all of our tissue the nutrients they need. I see it in a tiny muscle of the foot with a very particular role to improve efficacy of another muscle so we walk more efficiently.  I see it in my colleagues’ and the students’ gratitude for those that donate their bodies for us to learn and then use this knowledge to better serve our patients. The human body is fragile but also immensely durable; it is intricate but also consists of patterns of repeated design and function. The human body is adaptable, wild and capable but also dependent on specifics to thrive. In the middle of decay and death, there is exorbitant beauty. 

Even here, even in a room full of cadavers, full of death and decay—even here Satan has lost. What God has made beautiful becomes all the more visible in the midst of opening it up. Our God’s viewpoint of loveliness still outshines any other, that of demons or humans alike. It takes eyes to see as God sees and faith to accept what Paul calls us in so many letters to accept: that whatever is lovely is never fully lost. It persists in the midst of the ugliness, a lasting radiance in each child of God, a work of wonder from his own hands.  

Megan Burgess is a Carver Project Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy and Orthopedic Surgery in the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. 

By Chris Sommer

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. – Phil. 4:8

The door to the hospital room was propped open, so I could immediately see the congregation member lying in the bed. Although it was mid-afternoon, the room was dark; the lights were turned out and the curtains were mostly closed. Lester was awake. Hospitals are wonderful for many reasons, but getting sleep is not one of them. He turned to his right to see who was walking through the door, saw me, and smiled. Lester had a warm smile that was only outdone by his gentle voice and inviting demeanor. Although in his eighties, he was still objectively handsome. He sported a well-trimmed goatee, and always dressed crisply for Sunday mornings. He would never say this, but, although I came as the clergy in this moment, we both knew that he had more Biblical knowledge than I did or do. His faithfulness was evidenced in the fact that, unlike most people, when I asked if he had a favorite scripture that he would want me to read, he had an answer. Without hesitation he said Philippians 4. 

Oddly, I don’t remember much else he said that day. If I remember correctly, Lester was a painter before retiring and we spoke of that a bit. His loving bride suffered from Alzheimer’s at the time, so he was concerned for her while he was away. I had visited with the two of them once before at a senior living facility in south St. Louis County, one which I drive by ten times per week. I remember him standing next to her tiny frame. Although he was not a tall man, his posture and personality projected him as larger than he was. Unfortunately, I can’t remember many more details from his life, but I can tell you my impressions of him… Honorable. Just. Commendable. Loving.

I am sure that it is no coincidence that my opinion of Lester lines up well with his favorite scripture. Over time, the text he thought so much about (both qualitatively and quantitatively) just naturally absorbed into his person. True. Honorable. Just. Pure. Lovely. Commendable. Excellent. Praiseworthy. That’s how it seems to work… our actions and words habitually follow our primary thoughts. Before you or I can be the person that walks the walk, we first have to be the person that thinks the thought.

Lester thought faithful thoughts. He thought a great deal of Philippians 4. And his dwelling with Philippians 4 affected who he was to the point that, when I hear verse 8, I think of him. He reflected these attributes--not perfectly, but faithfully. But here’s the really odd thing. I wanted to share a specific example of Lester doing something of excellence or worthy of praise, but enough years have passed that nothing specific came to mind. Yet, I still remember the person he was even if I don’t remember what exactly he did. I don’t have a specific memory of him doing a loving act, but I remember him as a loving person. I don’t remember him doing anything specifically commendable, but I remember him as a commendable person. These words from Philippians 4 are not primarily things Lester did; they are descriptions of who he was.

That’s how it is with the qualities in this verse. These adjectives cannot be thought of abstractly, divorced from someone or something; no, they have to be associated with a noun. If you say the word pink, I can think of the color pink without thinking of any specific object; but if you say “lovely,” I have to think of something lovely. I cannot think of “lovely” in the abstract. If you say “excellent,” I have to think of something excellent; I can’t think of “excellence” apart from an excellent object. And I would assert that when Paul penned these words to the Philippians, he did not intend for us to think of them abstractly; instead, he wanted us to think of a specific thing or person that reflects these qualities, a particular creation that reflects its Creator. Things or people that are… True. Honorable. Just. Pure. Lovely. Commendable. Excellent. Praiseworthy. 

I frequently need Paul’s reminder. I have lived with myself long enough to know when I need to redirect my thoughts, times when I become crabby over my job, or the news, or my family... when my mind is drawing itself to the false, dishonorable, unjust, impure, hideous, reprehensible, inferior, or condemnable. And while I don’t want to think about these antonyms to what Paul is suggesting, I can’t simply say to myself, “Don’t think about those negative things;” because the human mind will immediately then begin thinking about just that. No, I can’t somehow attempt to stop my thoughts, but instead I need to replace them--replace them and think about the litany of attributes Paul prescribes. I need to think about things that are honorable, just, commendable, and loving. I should think about Lester more. 

Several years after that day in the hospital I attended Lester’s funeral. It was an appropriate funeral for a man who would have wanted us to celebrate him not as a source of truth, purity or love… but rather as a reflection of them. My hope is that someday when someone else needs to think of these qualities (or even just one of them), they will think of me and how I strive to reflect God in that way. But I know that to become that person, I first need to think of these things myself… to be changed by them… to look around and be reminded of all the wonderful attributes of our Creator. These beautiful reminders are all around us. A lovely sunset. A pure white snow. Excellent service. Or even a senior living facility. 

Chris Sommer is Executive Pastor of Faith Lutheran Church, a partner of The Carver Project.

By Eric Stiller

“Finally, sisters and brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8

In the movie Stranger Than Fiction, Will Farrell portrays an IRS agent named Harold Crick, who one morning hears inside his head the voice of an English woman narrating the story of his life. After the initial shock, he becomes accustomed to it – until the day she announces his imminent death. “What to do?” Harold wonders. A psychiatrist suggests medication. But Harold is certain he isn’t crazy. So he visits a literary expert who matter-of-factly explains, “The first thing we have to do is figure out what kind of story you’re in.” 

The message is simple yet profound: We can’t know how to live unless we know what kind of story we’re in. We might nobly profess agnosticism about ultimate reality, but our lives will ultimately be shaped by some vision of reality, some story about “how things are.” 

In Philippians 4:8, the apostle Paul encourages us to ponder the story in which we find ourselves, that we might better live within that story. For the qualities he commends are doing exactly that: telling a story. 

We can see the underlying story, first, by noticing that Paul is not inviting us to consider abstract principles such as truth, honor, justice, or loveliness. He says, “Whatever is true, honorable, just, or lovely.” The “whatever” points beyond a concept to a concrete reality. It could be the honor of this unhoused person, the loveliness of that Japanese maple, or the truth of my imminent death. When Paul says, “think about these things,” it’s the things themselves we are called to consider. 

Second, the word “think” was often used for economic calculation (“reckoning” your bill at the market) or philosophical reasoning. But here Paul employs it to speak of a kind of contemplation, even imagination (as when he says “imagine no evil” in 1 Corinthians 13:5). Imagination is related to reason, but there is a crucial difference. Reason takes things apart in order to analyze them. But the imagination sees things as a whole and assigns meaning to them. For instance, we cannot reason about the truth of a statement like “the kingdom of God is at hand” unless we can imagine what “the kingdom” means.

“Think about these things” therefore indicates something closer to “contemplate what kind of story you’re in by pondering the things that give this story meaning.” Such contemplation is vital in our modern Western world, because the things that mean so much to us – especially justice and the honor and dignity of every human being – are difficult, if not impossible, to square with the stories that shape our social imagination. What do honor and dignity mean if humans are simply a bag of chemicals? What does justice mean if this world is merely the result of a mindless, unguided, natural process? 

An entirely secular story – in which human flourishing originates and finds its fulfillment solely within this natural world – often fails to acknowledge the longings that have no answer in this world alone. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said, “A picture held us captive.” We are all caught in a picture of reality that eclipses any world beyond this world. But the other world keeps creeping in no matter how much we try to keep it out. No spell has ever enchanted us more powerfully, or more cruelly, than the idea that a purely natural world can satisfy our supernatural longings.

The tragic irony is that it is precisely this world which suffers for it, because we reduce God’s creation to a tool to be manipulated in the service of a project that equates endless optimization with rest, therapeutic wellness with peace, consumeristic free-choice with contentment, and self-defined authenticity with holiness.

Contemplating “these things” is one of the strongest possible ways of breaking the spell. We are in desperate need of what J.R.R. Tolkien called Recovery. “We need… to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity – from possessiveness.” It’s a matter of learning, or rather re-learning, to see the things of this world “as we were meant to see them.”

One way of “cleaning our windows” is through art, poetry, and literature. That may sound counterintuitive. If Paul is encouraging us to ponder the things of this world, to see them as they are and order our lives accordingly, why would we give our attention to a fictional world?

Because entering other worlds – through art, poetry, or stories – has the potential to wake us up to the reality of this world. G.K. Chesterton wrote that fairy tales “make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.” 

In other words, well-crafted stories about other worlds wake us up to the forgotten story of this world in which things like truth, honor, justice, and beauty are real. They remind us that this unhoused person is not a nuisance but a bearer of God’s image, that the beauty of that Japanese maple is not merely a chemical reaction in our brain but a transcendent unveiling, that my imminent death is not just the cessation of energy but a harbinger of eternity. 

And the best-crafted tales, whether intentionally or not, point us to the forgotten story of a world that was created good, fell under a curse, but is being redeemed by a great king who came from a far country disguised as a lowly peasant, in order that the loyalty of those who follow him might be due not to the demands of a tyrant, nor the blandishments of a trickster, but because he is the embodiment of truth, honor, justice, purity, and beauty. 

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis tells the story of a little girl named Lucy, who volunteers to help some friends in need of rescue by recovering a spell from a magician’s book. While searching through the book, she comes across a spell “for the refreshment of the spirit.” It’s simply a series of pictures which are more like a story than anything else. Not more than a few pages in, “she was living in the story as if it were real, and all the pictures were real too.” The pictures told Lucy “the loveliest story I’ve ever read or ever shall read in my whole life.” But because this was a magic book, she forgot the story as soon as it was over. “And ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician’s Book.” 

We all tend to forget the true story of our world and be taken captive by other pictures that tell us false stories. Contemplating not just “these things” but the story pictured by those things awakens us to the forgotten, but real, story behind it all. Pictures don’t only take us captive. The right picture can set us free. 

Eric Stiller is Pastor of Central West End Church.

Further reading: 

• J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” in Tree and Leaf (London: Harper, 2001). 

• G.K. Chesterton, “The Ethics of Elfland,” in Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995). 

• Kevin Vanhoozer, “In Bright Shadow: C.S. Lewis on the Imagination for Theology and Discipleship,” in The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life, and the Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis, ed. John Piper and David Mathis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015).

By Nii Addy

“Oh, that’s just not right!” Maybe you’ve just witnessed a poster-worthy dunk on tv, with the commentator exclaiming this phrase. Or maybe a friend is being teased mercilessly, and you say it in their defense. Or perhaps you’ve heard the phrase in a far more serious context. Maybe a good friend or family member continues to face significant health challenges, despite diligently seeking out treatment options, or a long-standing relationship is deteriorating, amidst everyone’s efforts to intervene. In so many cases, in so many places, it’s just not right.

For those of us on college and university campuses, “that’s just not right” is a phrase (or a sentiment) we know quite well. Personally, I’ve heard this phrase in many different contexts over the last two years in my roles as a professor, research mentor, advisor, mental health advocate, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion leader on campus. I’ve heard it from undergraduate, graduate, and professional students navigating pandemic-related stressors and sometimes feeling that they’re not receiving all the support they need. I’ve heard it from faculty members, staff, and administrators feeling stretched thin, simultaneously being asked to serve on more committees, provide additional support to students, and make leadership decisions to guide their institutions. I’ve heard it from our communities of color, where individuals are often asked to guide diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism efforts, sometimes feeling like they’re being tasked to solve their institution’s longstanding, intractable challenges. 

But how do we react when something is “just not right?”

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

As I recently reflected on Philippians 4:8, the phrase “whatever is right” caught my attention in a way it hadn’t before. With this very familiar Scripture, it’s easy for my eyes to gloss over the verse and conclude that I should simply think about good, pleasant, positive or “feel good” things. But what does it really mean to think on “whatever is right,” especially in our current moment? What does it mean to think about what is right in our relationships, our vocations, our classrooms, our leadership, our commitments, and our communities? Over the past two years, thinking about what is right has taken on a different and broader meaning for me, and I suspect, for others as well. As I interact with so many on campus and elsewhere, it has also been right and fitting to acknowledge what is wrong.

And so much is wrong. I’ve seen students and faculty setting pre-pandemic goals for themselves, only to fall short. This is often followed by disappointment and anxiety, which makes it harder to reach the goals they hoped to achieve, and the cycle of unrealistic objectives and disappointment ensues. I’ve seen many individuals in our campus community who have struggled to navigate the educational system while experiencing personal and ongoing microaggressions and racism. I’ve seen members of our faith communities falling out of community with one another, and struggling to maintain their faith. The wrong is not hard to spot.

But in rightfully acknowledging what is wrong, many are simultaneously thinking on what is right, and—just as importantly—thinking about ways to make things right. I’ve heard stories of faculty members who have brought their full selves into the classroom in ways that they hadn’t before. Indeed, these faculty walked a fine line of vulnerability, where they’ve authentically acknowledged their own challenges and opened themselves to students. As poignantly described in a prior Carver Connections piece by Heidi Kolk, this bold vulnerability can be transformative and can create a new level of trust, encouragement, and community within the classroom. I’ve seen instances, in our campus ministries, in our churches, and in our academic settings where more and more people are asking hard life questions, sharing honestly about their own journeys, and investigating Christianity and faith in ways they never had before. 

So as I think on what is right, I seek to do so in the context, and not at the expense of, what is not yet right. We know that things are not the way they are supposed to be. When we think on what is right, we identify what is wrong; and when we identify what is wrong, we can then do as Paul subsequently exhorts us to do in Philippians 4:9—we can think on ways to make things right. We can put into practice what we’ve learned from his example. 

That broader frame and wider understanding makes it possible to pray that in the midst of everything wrong, we may continue to think on, cling to, and move towards whatever is right.

Nii Addy is the Alfred E. Kent Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale School of Medicine and a board member of The Carver Project.

By Asher Gelzer-Govatos

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. – Philippians 4:8

I’ve been trying out a new discipline lately. Every morning, after I stagger out of bed and secure some coffee, I do three things: I pray a rosary, I read a chapter from the Bible, and I spend as much time as I can justify reading a novel for pleasure. At the moment I have two going: War and Peace, which my wife and I are reading together after she discovered that you could scale Tolstoy’s mountain in about a year by reading one short chapter each day; and Martin Chuzzlewit, another nineteenth century doorstopper, and, in my opinion, one of Charles Dickens’ more underrated books.

Does it seem strange that I, an English professor, have had to carve out time to read for pleasure? Surely if “the just man justices,” as Gerard Manley Hopkins said, then an English professor reads. That’s true of course. I read a great deal, both as I prepare for class and as I putter along with research. Right now I’m in the thickets of a challenging semester, so I’m devoting time to texts both familiar to me (Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier for my Intro to Fiction class), and far outside my realm of comfort (asking a twentieth century scholar to teach a class on Chaucer is a bit like enlisting a podiatrist to perform heart surgery).

But what I’ve found, in my own life, is that reading for a distinct end – even a noble end like conveying the beauty of Anthony Trollope’s sentences to students, or working out the puzzle at the heart of a poem by W.H. Auden for research – works at cross purposes to the ultimate value of literature in my life: to refresh my soul with the admirable and the true. Do people in other vocations struggle with this blurring of the lines between work and rest? I can envision an enraptured mathematician cracking open the mysteries of the universe as she cracks open a cold one on her porch, but for most people I suspect there’s little overlap between what they do at their job and how they refresh themselves in their leisure hours. 

We literature professors, though, find ourselves in a bind. Most of us entered the profession having loved deeply a leisure activity, but we find ourselves forced to work on something we first approached from love. So we teach, and we research, and then we head home burned out, ready to turn on Top Chef and zone out. I even find it a struggle, when teaching texts I dearly love, to preserve my own enthusiasm for a book as I tear it apart to show students the value of diction, or motifs, or whatever might most need teaching. 

And so, to safeguard the love that drives my vocation, I have decided to prioritize time for pleasure reading. To me, it is critical that this reading involves three components: first, it must come at the beginning of the day; second, it must be detached from immediate teaching and research; and third, it must be centered on books that are not merely relaxing, but have some value for contemplation. 

The first of these strictures is easy enough to understand: if I wait until the end of the day, I am too worn down by the various stresses of life to give my attention to a text in a meaningful way. Starting the day with reading for pleasure frames all that follows: what I do when I teach and research follows from this first love, which I am reminded of first thing. Just as I start my day with prayer and scripture to ground myself in the reality of God's truth and love, I read for pleasure straight away to keep the loveliness of literature in my brain for the rest of the day. But also, reading for pleasure in the morning means being able to focus on my pleasure reading. That may seem a little counterintuitive at first (doesn’t leisure entail no requirement for focus), but in fact part of the pleasure comes from the concentration—what I am able to learn when I am not learning for a goal.

But why restrict myself (secondly) to books outside of my immediate teaching and research needs – and even outside my areas of expertise? Because focused aimlessness is critical to this endeavor. I need to be moved by whim, by a lonely impulse of delight, or my reading quickly dissolves into another box to be checked. I find aimless reading to be of immense value even during times of actual research, but it’s even more vital to protect my love of literature in my hours of useless pleasure reading. 

The great Christian professor of literature Alan Jacobs, in his book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, recounts the story of a critic who once a year would reread Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, even though he knew he would never write a word about the book. He did so, Jacobs assesses, “Because he knew himself, knew what he needed, knew what would give him the kind of delight that he craved.” Jacobs goes on to argue that the critic was driven by one particular part of our human nature, the part that “knows itself and therefore seeks what is really good.” 

That leads to the third key component: books that will nourish and refresh the love that drives my vocation. The particulars may vary by person, of course – taste plays a role – but it matters that the books I read for pleasure concern themselves with deep questions, and do so in patient, thoughtful ways. I’m skeptical of grandiose claims about how literature can change us for the better, but at their best novels do help us puzzle through the various complications of real life. As the great philosopher turned novelist Iris Murdoch says, “In the traditional novel the people, the story, the innumerable kinds of value judgements both illuminate and celebrate life, and are judged and placed by life, in a reciprocal process. We read great novels with all our knowledge of life engaged, the experience is cognitive and moral in the highest degree.” Reading texts that encompass life and remain open to life’s complications forces me to engage my whole inner self.

Despite being a scholar of the twentieth century – a period I deeply love – I find myself, then, drifting in my moments of pleasure reading toward those gargantuan novels of the nineteenth century that dare to tackle the full richness of societies. Contemporary novels feel confident enumerating human evils, an important subject, but often shy away from depicting people and events that are admirable, noble, and lovely. So I return to Dickens, who gives us not only the roundly hypocritical Seth Pecksniff, but also the indefatigably cheerful and loyal Mark Tapley. Or George Eliot, whose good characters are always flawed and whose bad characters retain the possibility of redemption. Next I might try Père Goriot by Balzac, whose work I’ve never read and whose novels I will never write about in my academic life. We’ll just have to see where the next whim takes me. Wherever that is, I trust I’ll find something excellent and praiseworthy waiting for me, reminding me of the admirable and the true, and refreshing me in all I do.

Asher Gelzer-Govatos is a Carver Project alumnus and a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Doane University. He is also the co-host of The Readers Karamazov, a podcast about philosophy and literature. You can follow him on Twitter @conceptofdredd.

By Katie Nix

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” Philippians 4:8 Message Translation

I don’t know about you, but these days I find myself doing a lot more cursing. In my defense, we are still in a pandemic trying to navigate school and friendships and vaccines and social justice and church and family and... Do you see now why I may sometimes let a word slip out?

Growing up as a good little Christian girl, I was instructed countless times about the dangers and evils of cursing. According to one sweet old lady in my church, it was one of the worst sins imaginable! I took this close to heart and pondered it intently as I grew, only to discover the great irony of this warning. How many times had the Lord’s name been used to justify unimaginable evil, from slavery to genocide to the oppression of women and siblings of all beloved identities? Could cursing truly be the worst thing a Christian can do? Perhaps “taking the Lord’s name in vain” was more than just yelling out a profanity when I stubbed my toe.

And perhaps there are times when only a good curse word will do. I once read a parenting blog article written by a mom to her children after the death of their dad. She shared in the article that she taught her children how to curse. Death demanded it. Shocking, and yet incredibly intriguing. She explained, “Sometimes our emotions are so big and so heavy that we need special words to say what’s bottled up inside. That if we are going to be true to how we feel, that sometimes it’s ok to use words that get it all out.”   

I found such comfort in this idea, and it wasn’t until recently that I also saw its presence in this passage from the Apostle Paul. How many times had I read this passage and skipped right to the rules? “Do this, don’t do that. Fill your mind with good things. Don’t curse.” But the passage begins with powerful markers – truth and authenticity. Perhaps the Spirit is trying to give us an avenue of grace (and creative license in our language) through this passage. Perhaps this passage acknowledges that sometimes, maybe more than we allow ourselves, in order to end up at the point of praise and the best, we need to yell about the worst and even curse. 

Those of us who have seen the hard, the painful, the lonely, and the overwhelming of this pandemic know all too well that sometimes our hardship can become beautiful, if we give it the words it needs to live. The Apostle Paul encourages us in the preceding verse to turn our worry and fears into prayer. During this pandemic, my prayers have been raw and vulnerable and full of heavy and hard language. And that’s ok. That’s holy. That’s exactly what God wants from us. To name the truth, to be authentic, and to bring all of the ugly before God.

Friends, I don’t know how this school year has been for you. Since I have yet to hear a single parent, student, or teacher say that it has even reached the mark of tolerable, I’m guessing it hasn’t been easy. I hope you give yourself enough grace in this season to name the ugly so that you can find the beautiful, to cry and scream over the worst so that someday… yes, someday… you will be ready to see and feel the best. But most of all, I hope you can be authentic. Even if it means you need to curse. 

Rev. Dr. Katie Nix is lead pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in St. Louis, a church partner of The Carver Project.

By Naomi Kim

When I was nine or so, I began to think I might have a superpower. I had just begun the habit of taking a book along with me wherever I went, and I discovered—to my delight and surprise—that I was capable of reading while I walked. In Walmart, trotting along after my mother with my head buried in a book, I marveled at the fact that I could read and still see the stocked shelves and ambling shoppers around me out of the corners of my eyes. It was amazing. Surely this was some kind of special ability. 

Then I found out about peripheral vision. Turns out that what I thought was unique was really just common to us all. I had to abandon my delusions of grandeur. But really, it wasn’t a hard loss, because the grandeur that mattered more to me than this potential superpower were the books themselves. After all, my love for books, for stories, had been the reason I had ever tried to read while walking—and to read while brushing my teeth, and to read while eating, and even, once, to disastrous consequences, to read while pouring a glass of water (ruining a library book and upsetting two parents).

My chin harabeoji, my paternal grandfather—himself an avid reader—joked with me that I should stop spending so much time reading fiction. After all, he teased me, novels were just full of lies. Made-up people. Made-up places sometimes. And even, sometimes, made-up words. But for me, that was the very appeal of stories. I fell in love with reading as a child because of the power of make-believe, but I keep reading because of the power of truth. The best fiction, I have found, never fails to tell the truth. It sets my bones abuzz with something real. Sometimes the truths are unpleasant, like the agony of doubt in Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair or the frustration of un-belonging in Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown. But there are also truths which soothe and heal, like the joy and wonder of loving the world in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, or the warmth of love and friendship in L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. 

These days, I still love to read, but I grapple with a new reality—the study of what I read, or reading as a kind of vocation. Reading for make-believe and reading for truth are one thing, but why study what we read? It was the question that haunted me when I declared my major in English as a sophomore in college, and it haunted me as I applied to English PhD programs two years later as a senior. And if I’m being honest, the question nags at me still now and then. On good days, it seems to me that there is no better thing in the world, and on bad days, I begin to brood and despair. In the library, as the afternoon sunlight streams across the carrels, I scroll through the New York Times, a headache setting in as I think, no novel could ever transform the wreckage we have made of the world. And what a cheap use of my life it seems then, to spend my time turning pages and writing papers. 

And yet, in both good times and bad, I find myself turning to words printed on the onion-thin pages of my well-worn Bible, a single verse written centuries ago in a different language, on a different continent, by a man with a thorn in his flesh and a fierce intensity to his convictions. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things…

Not all works of literature are noble, or admirable, or praiseworthy, but literature puts on full display the truth of human experience in all its ups and downs. It exposes the powers and principalities that structure and enslave, corrupt and grieve. It gives voice to the terror and the wonder of our embodied existence. To give sustained, close attention to fiction, I hope, is a way of honoring not only what it means to be human but also of honoring the God who gave us the gift of this existence itself—and who, too, gave us a wealth of stories.

The Bible, after all, is full of poetry and proverbs and parables and complex, gritty stories that refuse to shy away from tragedy or violence, that refuse to clear up all confusion and ambiguity. Jesus, the Word of God himself, spoke in story and metaphor, puzzling crowds and close disciples alike. It seems to me that with those stories, Jesus invites us to look closer, to learn to see more clearly. He invites us to study what we read. And maybe, just maybe, that is what studying literature helps us practice—the sharpening of our sight so that our vision sees the world around us and in us all the more truly. 

As a reader, I already believe this. 

As a grad student reading in the library, I pray that what honor I show the books before me might open even one small truth of God’s world. 

Naomi Kim is a PhD student in English at Washington University in St. Louis and a graduate student member of the Carver Project.

By Sabra Engelbrecht

From now on, brothers and sisters, if anything is excellent and if anything is admirable, focus your thoughts on these things: all that is true, all that is holy, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:8) 

As I sit down to write this, I’m surrounded by the familiar buzz of my favorite spot for coffee and conversation. Working in ministry, I am often found not in an office or behind a computer, but out in the world meeting with people, hearing their stories, discovering their gifts and passions, and inviting them to a life with Christ. I find people are most comfortable at a table, hands surrounding a steaming cup of coffee, in a space that is busy, with others coming and going. There is something about the activity and the ambient noise that makes us feel safe. Maybe it’s simply the subtle reminder that we are surrounded by humanity. 

I hadn’t started at the coffee shop. I first thought to write this somewhere quiet and chose the library - the quietest place I could think of. Except on this particular occasion, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Call it poor timing, or rude librarians, but I happened to hit the library at a time when there were a variety of conversations among staff, each at a volume that could not be described as library-approved. And so, after sticking it out for a while, I packed my bag and headed to the familiar and comfortable – the coffee shop down the street. Apparently, it just isn’t true that the library is quiet – or at least, it isn’t true all the time.

We’ve all experienced these moments when we’ve been confronted with a reality that is different from what we thought was true. Maybe the library is loud. Or, you realize the song lyrics you’ve been singing for years are wrong. (Apparently Starship didn’t build this city on sausage rolls…) Maybe the grumpy neighbor with the aggressive political sign surprises you with an extreme act of kindness. Or, the theology you’ve built your life on begins to unravel when your daughter tells you she’s gay. Even the silliest of these examples can be disorienting because they challenge our understanding of reality.

The past two years have been full of these moments. We had to adjust our understanding of where school, work, and even church take place. We watched an officer, who we thought worked to protect us, suffocate a man before our very eyes. Some told us to distrust scientific experts. These shifting realities and the power of the media has left us skeptical, cynical, and questioning what we believe. At a moment in our history that has been so utterly disorienting we find ourselves asking, “What is ‘true’?”  

What is true doesn’t change, it endures. 

The concept of truth is commonly associated with what we think we know. At The Gathering, the church where I serve, I often find myself in a conversation with someone expressing a desire to grow deeper in their faith. At the heart of this desire is, at least in part, a quest for truth. When I inquire about their prayer life, they admit they don’t have one (who has time for prayer?!). When I ask about the last time they shared their faith with someone else in a way that forced them to really think about and articulate how faith has made a difference in their life, they can’t name one. Almost without fail, what they are looking for to “deepen their faith” and find truth is another book to read or another bible study to attend. They want to grow in their knowledge of God. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if we approach faith solely as an intellectual exercise, we will never experience the breadth and depth of “all that is true.”
Our knowledge will only take us so far. Too often, it keeps us trapped in our heads, neglecting all that our hearts seek to teach us. 

We see this play out in the numerous times Jesus challenged what the people thought they knew. One of my favorite such instances is when Jesus is asked to confront the woman caught in adultery. The religious leaders saw this as an opportunity to test Jesus, albeit at the woman’s expense. It was true that the woman had committed adultery and the law required her to endure a stoning. “What do you say?”, they ask Jesus. Jesus responds with a directive that requires the religious leaders to look within and discover the actual truth. He challenged them to be guided not by their knowledge of what the law required, but by their heart. The truth was that they were all sinful, all broken, and they were all in need of forgiveness. In this dramatic moment Jesus reveals a clue about how to discover the truth. We discover truth through connection - connection with others, connection with self, and connection with Christ.

Purposeful, meaningful connection with others expands both our minds and our hearts. Sit with someone who is dying and you will discover the truth about what matters in life (and what doesn’t). Engage in a conversation with someone different from yourself and, if you are open, you will gain a more expansive understanding of the world. This is why making space for creative dialogue is so valuable. Dialogue may in fact make us smarter, but more importantly it reveals deeper truths about the shared human experience. 

However, in order to arrive at these places of depth we must be willing to look inward and connect with our Self. Connection with Self is something few of us make space for. It is often a difficult, lengthy, and painful process. It involves removing masks, shedding armor, and stripping ourselves bare. It is the work of letting go of our ego (who we think we are) in order to discover the truth of who we really are. Father Richard Rohr reminds us that we actually have several false selves -- identities based on things that are temporal and fleeting. Things like education, profession, wealth, and status. Once we move past these understandings of our “self” we will, according to Rohr, “fall into the True Self”. Our True Self is the place of union with our Source where we find freedom and liberation. In this space you are connected to something inexhaustible. Something that endures. Something eternal and true - Christ.

The ultimate moments of truth come when we experience deep connection with Christ. As we journey beneath the layers of our false self, we grow in courage, honesty, humility, and vulnerability. We become like Christ. We discover the eternal divine who dwells within us. As John Phillip Newell has written, “Christ’s soul and our soul are like an everlasting knot. The deeper we move in our own being, the closer we come to Christ. And the closer we come to Christ’s soul, the nearer we move to the heart of one another. In Christ, we hear not foreign sounds but the deepest intimations of the human and the divine intertwined.” In Christ, we find truth.

The truth Paul encourages us to focus on won’t be discovered in purely intellectual pursuits. It isn’t dependent upon our cultural context or societal norms. It doesn’t change based on who’s leading our country or what algorithm is controlling our social media content. Instead, it endures. It is the unchanging Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Sabra Engelbrecht is the Executive Director of Ministries at The Gathering, one of The Carver Project’s Church Partners.

By Hannah Wakefield

“Batter my heart!” my professor exclaimed as she pounded her fist on the whiteboard. It was the first day of our poetry unit in my college Introduction to Literary Analysis class, and my professor was beating a lesson into the brains of twenty brand new English majors using the opening lines of a sonnet by early modern poet John Donne:

“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.”

With her beats on the board she was helping us to see how the rhythm of those first four syllables, along with the repetition of the violent ‘b,’ ‘d,’ ‘t,’ and ‘k’ (the consonance and alliteration) actually created the battering effect the lines described. Poetry, I learned that day, does what it says. And with that lesson, I finally began to understand and admire poetry.

Admiring poetry often requires training. These days, when I project a sonnet onto a screen for my own Introduction to Literature students, the anxiety in the room is palpable. But, with instruction, students grow into understanding— and even appreciation and admiration— of poetry. They learn about basic organization and mechanics, they use the Oxford English Dictionary to look up archaic words, they label the rhyme scheme, and they scan the poem for its meter. My heart glows when students concede, “I guess I kind of like poetry now.”

In the same way, obeying Paul’s Philippians 4:8 injunction to reflect on what is “admirable” doesn’t necessarily come naturally to us. We may not know exactly what is admirable until we are trained to see it. In fact, in Philippians 1:9-10, Paul writes, 

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ…”

To approve the excellent (or admire the admirable) requires love, knowledge, and discernment. My admiration of poetry grew by leaps and bounds once I learned a little bit about meter and consonance. Likewise, an appropriate estimation of the good, the praiseworthy, and the excellent comes as we discover what to look for and how to look for it. 

In Philippians, Paul becomes an astute instructor, filling his letter with examples of the admirable so that his past and present readers may discern what “such things” are. There is Timothy, a servant among the self-interested: 

“For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.” (2:21-22)

There is Epaphroditus, willing to sacrifice his life for the gospel:

“So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.” (2:29-30)

And there is Paul himself, persevering in chains: 

 “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.” (3:17)

But, over and above all these examples, Paul points readers toward the ultimate object of admiration in the form of a poem: a single meditation to train our hearts and shape our minds to approve what is admirable—even against our initial inclination. “Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,” Paul instructs in Philippians 2, 

6 who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be used for His own advantage.
7 Instead He emptied Himself
by assuming the form of a slave,
taking on the likeness of men.
And when He had come as a man
in His external form,
8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
9 For this reason God highly exalted Him
and gave Him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
of those who are in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

The first three verses of this poem are decidedly not admirable. In fact, they depict a hero’s tragic downfall, as Christ descends lower and lower to meet a despicable end. Verse by verse, he strips off his privilege, lays aside his equality with God, becomes a man, becomes a slave, becomes a criminal who dies a criminal’s death. 

But then comes the poem’s “volta”—its abrupt turn in idea—at verse nine, when this un-admirable life is revealed to be the most admirable of all. Suddenly Jesus is raised up, renamed, highly exalted, adored by the entire cosmos— revealed to be supremely admirable indeed. 

Philippians shows us where to rest our regard. From prison, Paul shows us what is commendable for our meditation. He tells us, in chains, what we should hope to imitate. And he reveals through his own life and the examples of countless others that what we ought to admire may often look like the lowliest of the low. The admirable is not necessarily obvious. Paul is pounding that point into us, again and again and again, because it requires training, it requires guidance, it requires teaching to turn our eyes. The humility of Christ is where true glory lies. It just takes some instruction to see it.

Hannah Wakefield is Assistant Professor of African American Literature at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga and a Carver Project alumna.

By Abram Van Engen

My toddler, Hendrik, has recently reached the Age of Why. Any statement, at any time, can get the same response: “But why, Daddy?” Finish your dinner. Why? Put the blocks away. Why? Time for bed. Why? And every answer, of course, gets a why in response. You need to nourish your body; we need to clean the floor; you need your sleep—why, why, why? It is adorable and annoying all at once.

Recently, these whys bent toward my line of work. As I headed to my study one day, he wanted to know where I was going, and of course why. Why do you need to read? Why do you need to write? Why do you need to teach? Why, why, why.

Maybe it was an insistent toddler in ancient Greece that finally got Plato to articulate his own answers to these never-ending whys. In the end, Plato said, it all comes down to one of three possibilities: the True, the Good, or the Beautiful. Whatever our inquiry, whatever our pursuit, whatever we hanker after or hope to have, it will be our understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness that drives us. Once you arrive at one of these answers (because it is true, or because it is beautiful, or because it is good), then there is nothing left to say—no why left to ask.

Unlike toddlers, professors far more often ask each other what. “What do you do?” we like to say, by which we mean, “What do you study? What do you research and write about? What is your specialty?” Depending on who is asking and in what context, we all answer with differing levels of specificity. In a broad meeting of professors from across the university, I might say English. Among English professors, I might say religion and literature, or American literature, or early American literature, or, more specifically, the Puritans.

Whatever answers we tend to give, two errors tend to plague them. First, what most of us do is far more than research or write. We teach. We train students. We mentor and advise. We administer programs and departments. We treat patients. We do far more than study and publish.

But second, our answers draw us, by instinct, toward our differences. You study anatomy; I study literature. You study twentieth-century lit; I study seventeenth-century lit. You study one thing, I study another. We draw our boundaries, mark our territories, and stake ourselves on what makes us distinct.

It makes sense that we do this. We often need to know how our specializations distinguish us from one another. But such answers can also hide what we share. The fundamental whys that drive us are not always so fundamentally distinct.

In Philippians 4:8, Paul rounds out his counsel by reminding his readers to concentrate on the things that matter most. “Finally,” he writes, “whatever is true, whatever is just, what is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Paul’s advice does not mean turning a blind eye to whatever is unjust, impure, or unlovely. Paul himself never looked away from sin and brokenness. But his counsel does urge us to consider how we know what is unjust, untrue, or unlovely in the first place. Searching for what is right will reveal a great deal that is wrong. The Greek word for truth, aletheia, literally means “nonconcealment”—to bring out from hiding. The light remains the point. We correct what is wrong by our knowledge of truth. We call out injustice by what we know to be just. We consider the unlovely through the lens of what we love. All of this requires us to think about the true, the good, and the beautiful.

The trouble is in remembering them.

Let me illustrate. My wife and colleague Kristin studies speech perception, and specifically what goes wrong when we fail to understand another’s voice. Her earliest research involved noisy backgrounds and the interference of other talkers. Suppose you go to a restaurant on a date. You are there to listen. You want to pay attention. But the restaurant is too busy, too full, and in the end, it’s just too hard to hear. This is energetic masking. The problem is that you cannot hear the signal for the noise.

Sometimes I think that can be the case in our own lives more generally. We came into our studies and our teaching for all the reasons articulated in Philippians 4:8. We fell in love with linguistics, or literature, or law because God had called us to wonder at him and his world in these subjects through the lens of justice or purity or love. But life got busy. Duties called. Meetings mounted. Moving from task to task and need to need, we can forget why we were ever drawn to this subject in the first place.

But there is also another more insidious and all too common form of interference. Suppose the restaurant is not full. Suppose, instead, that the conversation at the next table over keeps drawing us away. We came here wanting to set aside time and listen to someone we love, but we still end up distracted by another. This is called informational masking. Our attention is lured away.

Informational masking also afflicts those of us who research and teach. We start with a love of a subject—pursuing in it whatever is true or lovely or just—but we come to love most of all our own ability to master the subject. We pay more attention to our own recognition. A hope for higher honors becomes the answer to the question why.

In either scenario, we do well to remember why we started down this road in the first place. Why, in the end, do we study glaciers, or finance, or infectious diseases, or occupational therapy, or linguistics, or law, or history, or art, or poetry, or any number of other subjects? At our best—which is not always—I believe we are guided by the same ideas that Paul lays out in Philippians 4:8, trying to think about whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, anything excellent and worthy of praise—these deeper things that drive our search and draw us together.

In the coming weeks, different members of the Carver Project community will be offering short reflections that respond to Paul’s list in Philippians 4:8 and consider how it shapes the work of the university and our lives more generally. We started this series last year, and we invite you to read what we posted then. This year, we are expanding and deepening the series, including not just the reflections of current professors but also meditations from our wider community—students, alumni, pastors, and priests. Each writer will add to a Lenten series contemplating Philippians 4:8, thinking about how Paul’s counsel affects our lives and work.

We offer this series through the Carver Project in the hopes that whatever questions or answers each writer comes to will also be of some service to you as well—wherever you might find yourself and whatever work you might pursue.

Abram Van Engen is Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis and Executive Director of the Carver Project.