Gospel as Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, which is to say at a time beyond time, or at a different kind of time altogether from the kind the clock measures, or at a time that is not time at all because it is without beginning and without end. There was a wizard, a woodchopper, a king, which is to say that if you are to believe that there was, you have to give up other beliefs you believe in including the belief that there was not because there could not be such creatures as these. A far country, a deep forest, a palace, which is to say that if you care to enter these places for yourself, you must be willing to enter them in some measure as a child because it takes a child to believe in the possibility at least that such places exist instead of dismissing them out-of-hand as impossible.¹

It has been said that the end of imagination marks the beginning of adulthood – for a child has freedom to imagine another world, but an adult must put aside childish fantasy and look straight into the eyes of reality, that is… responsibility.

Yet, Jesus asks us to become like children and later he tells Nicodemus to be born again. There is something in the nature of a child that we must embrace if we are to see the totality of the Gospel. Buechner, Tolstoy, and Lewis have written about the importance of imagination and wonder in our relationship with God, in fable they have told of the mystery and awe found in our infinite God who is unrestrained by time or resource.

And yet when we talk of God to the unbeliever we most times talk of a formula in which a relationship can be rationally deduced to a repeated prayer and a assigned text. Hear me, I am NOT under emphasizing the importance of the reading Bible and spending time in prayer, but I am pleading with the proponents of a linear gospel to stop preaching Christ as a solution to the problems of this world. Instead let’s begin to recapture the imagination of the lost, to invigorate the senses that have become rusty from inactivity.

Tell the story of the Gospel, and don’t leave out the parts that seem unreal or unbelievable. Tell of the darkness and decay that has overrun the beauty of our world, don’t omit the mystery of winged gods that do battle for our souls in the invisible night, and please don’t exclude the promise that we are prince and princesses with access to the majestic throne of grace. Proclaim to us that in a world of tribulation and adversity, there is joy to be found and a lasting hope that darkness will be overridden and the blood from our wars will water the flowers of the field and produce a harvest of souls that float on the wind like dandelion seeds into eternities bosom.

Preach the full Gospel. And it will speak truth in tragedy, comedy and fairy tale.

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Photo: © ISIK5

1. Buechner, Frederick; “Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale.” HaperCollins Publishers; 1977. pg 73-74

And of course, there is the comedy, the unforeseeableness, of the election itself. Of all the peoples, he chose the Jews, who as somebody has said are just like everybody else only more so — more religious than anybody whey they were religious and when they were secular, being secular as if they’d invented it. And the comedy of the covenant — God saying “I will be your God and you shall be my people” (Exodus 6:7) to a people who before the words had stopped ringing in their ears were dancing around the golden calf like aborigines and carrying on with every agricultural deity and fertility god that came down the pike. And yet it was this people who produced, as their greatest king but one, a king who danced another dance altogether: David the king stripping himself down to his fig leaf and to the unmixed horror of his aristocratic wife dancing like a madman before the ark of the Lord because more than most he got the wonderful joke of it. The comedy of grace as what needn’t happen and can’t possibly happen because it can only impossibly happen and happens in the dark that only just barely fails to swallow it up.¹

Some may gasp at the above words… and I believe Buechner wrote them to incite such a gasp. Tragedy leaves a mark on our lives and an age-old remedy has always been comedy. We are a culture that makes fun of the sacred — we send comedians to war zones and draw caricatures of our leaders in precarious positions.² In this sense comedy is communal — it is shared relief at the passing of danger. Laughter is a coping mechanism allowing us to recognize the danger of life and yet not be paralyzed by it… Just as tears of sorrow are outward release of our inward pain, the joy of laughter liberates us from the tension in our gut and lightens our shared reality.

So. In embracing the comedy of the Gospel, we are not making light of it, rather we are fervently endorsing the truth of it. Hope is the wellspring of laughter, faith is the expectation of the impossible and love is the root that binds us together. A threefold cord is not easily broken, and if our goal is to entwine our lives to these Gospel truths, we must see our life as comedy. We must laugh at our folly, find joy in tragedy and expect the impossible… the last of which is better said, “believe in fairy tale!” But that is for tomorrow.

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Photo: © ISIK5

1. Buechner, Frederick; “Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale.” HaperCollins Publishers; 1977. pg 58.
2. Thomas Fluharty – is an artist that is also a Christian… His work can be found all over, mostly having to do with Political caricatures, he is one of the main cover artists for The Weekly Standard.

The Gospel as Story
Only in embracing the full story of the Bible, can we fully discern the redemptive aspects of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. The full story of the Gospel encompasses all manner of conflict – tragedy, comedy and fairytale – for each of these give a perspective of the Gospel that must be heard. For when we perceive only one aspect of the Gospel our understanding of truth is deficient; truth (like life) is a constant mixture of tragedy, comedy and fairly tale, and this is the fullness of the Gospel… the truth of life.

The Gospel as Tragedy

The Preaching of the Gospel is a telling of the truth or the putting of a sort of frame of words around the silence that is truth because truth in the sense of fullness, of the way things are, can at best be only pointed to by the language of poetry – of metaphor, image, symbol – as it is used in the prophets of the Old Testament and elsewhere. Before the Gospel is a word, it is a silence, a kind of presenting of life itself so that we see it not for what at various times we call it – meaningless or meaningful, absurd, beautiful – but for what it truly is in all its complexity, simplicity, mystery. The silence of Jesus in answer to Pilate’s question about truth seems such a presenting as does also in a way the silence of the television news with the sound turned off – the real news is what we see and feel, not what Walter Cronkite tells us – or the silence the Psalmist means when he says, “Be silent and know that I am God.” In each case it is a silence that demands to be heard because it is a presented silence, and the preacher must somehow himself present this silence and mystery of truth by speaking forth not only the light and the hope of it but the darkness as well, all of it, because the Gospel has to do with all of it.¹

Most of us know well, life is tragedy… we have felt the sting of death, the sorrow of affliction, or the shock of calamity. Life is to know sorrow and loss. Though (as Christians) we sometimes fall into the trap of the Pharisee, thinking “if only” we were to be perfect would perfection come. Our message is subtle, it is cloaked in our “Christianese” dialogue and hard to separate from, it is in our tradition to speak to a non-believer or to a struggling backslider in a way that looks down on his present state, in subtle condemnation. “If only,” we say, “you were to embrace Christ, and turn away from your sinful ways… then you will live life anew, your yoke will be lifted and your burdens will be taken away. If only you were to discipline your life in prayer, daily (morning) reading and weekly church attendance. If you do these things you will experience joy, grace and countless blessings!”

And while there is a substance of truth in these words, they indirectly lead the newly converted to expect life to be much like a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock, where things fall into place – financial burdens are solved, love is found, and a horse is ridden off into the sunset!

We do our faith a disservice by avoiding the darkness of life, as we speak of Jesus’ redemptive act, we misplace the climax of the story in the conversion of the sinner, as opposed to where it truly lies in death – the final act. In speaking truth about the Gospel (about life) we cannot continue to avoid the tragedy. It can no longer be overlooked as a postscript in our attempts to persuade someone to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. It must be boldly proclaimed, we must be transparent in our display of the broken life found in Christ. In this transparency truth is allowed to ruin our perception, and turn our tragic life into a beautiful stained glass window where brokenness and diversity come together to allow the glory of the Lord to shine through and illuminate the dreary day!

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Photo: © ISIK5

1. Buechner, Frederick; “Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale.” HaperCollins Publishers; 1977. pg 26-27.

One thing is for sure… Twitter has become a fascinating medium to meeting like-minded people. I met IRL (in real life) so many twitterati’s that I have gotten to know through twitter, and we began conversations – not like an awkward blind date, but like old friends meeting for a cup of coffee.

It is still strange to think online community can in fact translate into in-person community. Justin Wise, Drew Sams, Matt Knisely, Nathan Davis are just a few of the peeps that I got to hang-out with this weekend, all of which were initially twitter associations.

Crazy (the good kind).

Some highlights:

The Paramount Theatre is gorgeous… and Ben Arment took advantage of this fact by making the lobby conducive to the idea of Story, allowing the conference attendee’s to bask among hired actors dressed in different genre’s as well as puppeteers and other elements that made my first impression a memorable one.

Of the speakers… To me the most memorable was during Nancy Beach’s talk, she brought on the writer of a short story Willow Creek is basing their Christmas program on, Holly Laurent, who read aloud her 3 page story about the town of “Lack,” to the audience. It was a great way to emphasize the empowerment of artists and to embrace a story that tells truth through metaphor.

Donald Miller’s talk was fantastic, it seemed to be a concentrated effort bringing all of what he shares in his Writer’s Seminar DVD’s into a 45 min lecture. Very succinct and impacting, allowing the audience to clearly see ways in which conflict mold and shape our live’s into a story worth telling.

Thursday’s workshops were also very good. Giving the 500 or so attendees access to some of the most forward thinking writers and artists, in a more personal and accessible environment. Skye Jethani, John MacMurray, and Thomas Fluharty were my favorites, as they provoked stirring thoughts and incited my heart to dream creatively on how to proclaim the Gospel without losing the mystery of our shared story.

All in all… a very worthwhile conference and many things are continuing to spring out of me as I process and ruminate on the words, pictures, images and stories shared.

I’ll leave you with this picture, found on the Story ‘09 Flickr page… it shows a couple of us live blogging during one of the speakers from nearest to furthest: @surferdrew’s mac, @justinwise’s mac and legs, and @duregger’s mac, legs and arm!!

When we look at pornography we are quenching an animalistic function, specifically our basic physical appetite. In this perspective we may be roused by beauty, in a literal sense, but not transformed by it. To be transformed by beauty – this is the difference that God has made in us, for we are not animalistic in nature, rather, we are a spiritual being incorporated within the physical. We cannot deny that in every person there is an intangible, mystical, transcendental being, personified or made tangible by the gift of choice. We have the gift of selection – the sacred or the profane, the good or the bad, and this ability to choose is what separates us from the beasts of this earth.

Genesis 1:28 – And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Dominion is the idea of supreme authority – sometimes taken out of context leading to a false presumption that domination and subjugation of the world is our right as humans. But this is a misleading interpretation as there is an element of responsibility that pervades the Creation story. A meta-narrative that leads the reader to see the beauty in his/her surroundings not as something to be consumed, but as something to be upheld.

And in protecting the sacred, the beauty of nakedness cannot be a stimulant towards the gratification of our physical appetite. Rather beauty must be a reminder of our fragility, for in our nakedness we are vulnerable to the elements. [Which again reminds us that we are not animals, for animals are naked and suffer no shame... have you ever seen a dog blush because he is unadorned?]

And this vulnerability is the lynchpin to intimacy.

The addiction to pornography short circuits our normal brain function, for there is no vulnerability between you and the page, between you and the screen. Intimacy is lost and this lack of oneness produces a conduit of selfishness that desires instant gratification. In return your relationship with God and with your spouse suffers… for these relationships are built upon vulnerability and intimacy. Togetherness steeped in wonder and mystery, and mutual appreciation of beauty in each others nakedness.

He done good.

Some of these ideas have legs… most of them do not.

Out of the ideas that have legs, I would say less than 10% of them become a reality, and out of those ideas that become a reality, only a handful have ever been “successful.” Most ideas have short life span and do not impact me in any way, they are in some bizarre way a healthy workout for my mind, as new ideas replace the old in a matter of minutes.

But when an idea has legs and begins to move along toward becoming a reality, it becomes apart of my life. And sometimes these ideas fail or come to a inexplicable end due to internal or external factors… Internal hindrances to an idea are easy to deal with – as it includes a natural, and logical progression to extinction. In the times that external factors play a significant hindering role to an idea’s crushing end, it is hard to cope with… and I usually go into a period of mourning – a process within my mind grieving the loss of such a potentially life-altering idea.

Basically, the idea has to die within me so that I can move on.

The Death of an Idea: My Internal Process of Grief.

1. Frustration - may include cussing, short temper and general feelings of malaise.
2. Franticness - wild, distraught, and chaotic searching for another avenue to avoid the idea’s demise.
3. Fall-out - complete resignation to the fact that the idea is dead. Symptoms: avoidance of showering, ingestion of large amounts of unhealthy food, lots of uninspiring TV (aka: NASCAR and CSI), avoidance of anything athletic or creative in nature, et cetera.
4. Funk - depression resulting from previous day(s) Fall-out.
5. Formalities - official turning point, acceptance of the ideas demise.
6. Formation - the beginning of a new idea… the peculation of new and exciting postulations in my mind.

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I’m in the Funk stage today… trying to find a way to put this idea six feet under.

How do you deal with the demise of your ideas?

Mawidge…mawidge is what bwings us togewer today… Mawidge, the bwessed awwangement, that dweam wiffim a dweam… … Ven wuv, twoo wuv, wiw fowwow you fowever..

With my upcoming life change… I have been catching up on some reading on the topic of “marriage.” Inevitably, everyone has their own opinion on good marriage books and I’m constantly receiving unsolicited advice on what book I should be reading. So, in light of this reality below is my unsolicited advice on books you should read if your engaged, newlywed, or married plus:

How Come Marriage (The Theology of Marriage)

Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason is a shaping read on the how-come of marriage, tackling issues of oneness, vows, intimacy, and otherness from a perspective of Christ’s covenant with his Bride. He eloquently weaves the object of love between a self-appreciating focus to a self-effacing focus between the two who are becoming one. I was amazed and enthralled with the duty of love while reading this book and will probably read it every year, just to be reminded that love is not about me!

Marriage made in Eden by Alice P. Matthews and M. Gay Hubbards is an atypical book in Christendom relating to marriage in a postmodern age. The authors dedicate the first portion of the book to tracing the history of gender roles, marriage models, and social views of marriage. This lengthy introduction builds a case against the Christian view of marriage using postmodern influences of individualism and materialism. If you want a comparative study on marriage within the culture of today, tracing the influences within your own marriage – this is the book for you.

How-To Marriage (Fundamentals of Marriage)

The DNA of Relationships for Couples by Dr. Greg Smally and Dr. Robert Paul, I am a little biased as both Greg and Robert were professors of mine while I was pursuing my Master’s in Youth and Family Ministry at John Brown University. In my firsthand opinion they are both top notch professors, husbands, fathers and counselors. Their book is written in story form, guiding the reader through the stories of 5 couples at a weekend marriage retreat led by the two Doctor’s. As far as conflict management goes, this book has some fantastic applications that will help the most explosive of couples deal with the core of their disputes.

Sacred Marriage by Gary L. Thomas is a qualitative look at how marriage is not about making us happy, rather marriage, as Gary explains, exists to make us holy. His take on love is that it takes more than romantic love to make a marriage last and in fact it’s in the daily choice to love your mate that is most refining to our soul.

Sexuality (ummm…. self-explanatory)

Sheet Music by Dr. Kevin Leman is a good read on sexual intimacy within a marriage, and is written for the engaged couple to read up to and during the honeymoon (in fact, it actually has a break in the book that says: “to be read on the honeymoon”). Dr. Leman does a good job in breaking down the myths and stereotypes associated with sex and gives practical advice to couples on all levels – psychology and physiology. One caveat: I do not agree with some of the things Dr. Leman discusses on preparation and practice leading up to the wedding night, as I feel the advice given leads to justification of instant gratification rather than a healthy dependency on Christ during the tempestuous engagement months.

Intended for Pleasure by Ed Wheat, MD and his wife Gaye Wheat, is a more technical look at marriage as it relates to sexual intimacy. Think of it as a Human Sexuality class that is christo-centric in it’s perspective. I would recommend this book to engaged couples (about 1-month out to wedding day) and newlyweds who have questions and concerns relating to their sexual intimacy et cetera… although I believe every married couple could benefit from the reminder that true intimacy can never be about you.

What books have benefited your marriage? ie: What other books do I need to read?