Why Pursue a PhD? Or, “Why I Need New Eyes”

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I read a fantastic piece today on Fuller’s website written by Katherine Lee (a recent Fuller graduate). I found it profoundly moving, in that it encapsulated so much of why I have chosen to continue my education at a doctoral level as well as the tensions that attend such a decision.

Lee’s narrative centers around a Christopher Slatoff’s sculpture “Jesus is Nailed to the Cross”, which sits prominently outside the prayer garden across from the library on Fuller campus.

sculpture

When I visited the campus, I found it impossible to walk by the sculpture without being drawn in. (In many ways, my decision to attend Fuller specifically could be symbolized by the presence of this sculpture and other works of art throughout the campus: it signified an artistic and imaginative ethos absent at other schools.)

Lee writes of watching “outsiders” to the Fuller community walking through campus and interacting with the sculpture. She tells stories of three such outsiders: a culinary student who stopped to consider the sculpture, a woman who knelt to weave flowers around Jesus’ head, and a day laborer who stopped to touch Jesus’ feet.

I encourage you to go here and read the whole thing, and then watch Christopher Min’s short film (only 6 minutes) that was made to tell the story. The film powerfully captures some of the drudgery, isolation, and mental fatigue that can attend the academic enterprise. Given such conditions, it is easy to lose sight of God as a “Thou” and start treating him as an “It”, a subject to be studied rather than a person to be known, loved and worshipped.

In any case, here is Lee’s concluding paragraph.

“Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross” is situated between the lush, tranquil prayer garden and the clean, commanding architecture of the David Allan Hubbard Library. Though it is intentionally placed between worship and scholarship, it is not equidistant to them. It is, as it should be, decidedly closer to the garden. The “outsiders,” and their acts of worship, taught me something about my alma mater. As is often portrayed in biblical narratives, those who are considered least qualified to grasp the gospel often understand before the learned do. It is the Magi, the Syrophoenecian woman, and the Centurion who grasp the meaning of Christ more intuitively than the earnest seminarian. At graduation, I realized that the outsiders knew the primacy of worship, that it takes pausing to cross oneself, to weave flowers in his metal thorns, or to touch his feet in faith, in order to be made whole. Devotion has its many forms, and I came to Fuller because I sensed that scholarship could be one of them. But it was never meant to eclipse praise, wonder, or recognition of need. Like the sculpture, Fuller was my sacred place, my place to offer up my mind and its heartfelt questions for his glory. I came to become an outsider again.

Amen! I fear lest I lose my capacity to be stunned by the immensity of life and the depth of grace. I fear lest the good news about God’s action in Christ becomes too familiar to me. I fear lest I keep doing ministry out of memory rather than imagination. And so my hope in doctoral studies is not so much to become an expert but “to become an outsider again”.

So why am I pursuing a PhD? Because I have need of new eyes.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

-T.S. Eliot

The Next Chapter for the Baileys: Moving to California!

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photo

True story: This morning I asked my wife, “what would you like for Mother’s Day?” She said, “I want you to move me to southern California.” Well… this has been public knowledge for almost a month, but just in case you missed it: the Bailey family is moving to California in August!

Hubbard LibraryIn September, I will be starting a PhD in Theology and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. (The picture above is Fuller’s David Hubbard Library, which I suspect will become something of a second home to me.)

My PhD mentor will be Dr. William Dyrness, who wrote this wonderful book:

poetic theology

I am incredibly excited to study with Dr. Dyrness, whose work I have admired for some time. The PhD program consists of seven consecutive seminars (10 weeks at a time), followed by major comp exams and the dissertation. The program will take at least 4 years, depending on how long it takes me to write the dissertation!

While we are incredibly excited for this new opportunity, we are also sad to be leaving all of our friends and loved ones in the Chicagoland area, especially at the church where I have served as a pastor for the last 7+ years.

The past seven years at Antioch Bible Church have been the best and happiest years of my life. We have been so well loved and blessed far beyond our wildest dreams. It will be very difficult to say good-bye, but we are confident that we leave the church in strong and capable hands, and that the best is yet to come for Antioch Bible Church.

We still have another three months before the big move, which gives us a full summer of ministry which will include one last missions trip to the Dominican Republic, one last J-Gen retreat, etc. Our last Sunday at Antioch will be August 18th, and we plan to move the following week.

Rather than spending a lot of money on a moving truck, we are selling/giving away almost everything we own (I only get to keep 4 boxes of books!) and taking only what we can fit in our little Honda Civic. In so many ways, this move feels like a fresh start, a brand new chapter.  We are so thankful for God’s grace to us in the past and nervously excited for what awaits in the future.

If you are in the Chicagoland area, we would love to see you before we go! Otherwise, if you find yourself in the Pasadena area in the future, please come and visit us!

 

“Have Ye Then No Hope?” (14): Eucatastrophe

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This post will conclude the series. I hope you have enjoyed it! Published on the last day of the year, it is an important reminder of the hope that drives our purpose in the new year.

ending

When I think of Tolkien, the first word that comes to my mind is eucatastrophe, a word he coined. Eucatastrophe is his word for those sudden and un-looked-for upheavals of joy that bring tears to our eyes. These moments afford us a rare and unusual grace, for as we experience them we are convinced that evil will not triumph in the end. This is the taste of Joy “beyond the walls of the world” that Tolkien wrote about so memorably in On Fairy Stories. Samwise Gamgee experiences this glimpse of Joy, when in the depths of despair in Mordor, he suddenly sees a white star:

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

Eucatastrophe, in literature and in life, is like that star! It fills us with hope because we know that in the face of such beauty, the Shadow is only “a small and passing thing”.  We experience eucatastrophe when Eomer lifts up his sword in despair at the coming of the Corsairs, only to find that the ships bear Aragorn himself: “Thus came Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur’s heir, out of the Paths of the Dead, borne upon a wind of the sea to the kingdom of Gondor….”

We experience it when Samwise Gamgee discovers at the end of Return of the King that Gandalf is alive. The passage is worth quoting at length:

But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

“A great Shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever knownBut he himself burst into tears. Then as sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.

“How do I feel?” he cried. “Well I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” – he waved his arms in the air – “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”’

Sam’s question, “is everything sad going to come untrue” is at the core of the Christian hope, and Tim Keller writes: “The answer of Christianity to that question is – yes. Everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.”

Eucatastrophe pulls our hearts towards evangelion, the good news that Jesus is Lord and He is returning to put the world to rights.

The inhabitants of Middle-Earth may have had a hope without guarantees, living with a fundamental uncertainty of what happens in the end. But we living on this side of the Great Eucatastrophe, have much more hope than that! Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit is given to us as a deposit of our future inheritance (Eph 1:18). Peter tells us that we have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet 1:3).

We may die, but Aragorn’s words at his own death are instructive: “In sorrow we must go, but not despair. Behold! We are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!”

Our living hope denies, in the face of much evidence to the contrary, universal final defeat. It does not deny sorrow; it denies despair.

Have ye then no hope?

Take heart. There is hope – more than you could dream.

Fin.

“Have Ye Then No Hope?” (13): To Play Our Parts Well

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This series has largely dealt with the theme of hope in Middle Earth. But what of the free peoples of Planet Earth, living in the primary world? What vision of hope does Tolkien offer us? A few themes stand out.

First, he offers us a conception of hope that takes seriously the darkness and evil that we find in the world. In our world, as in Tolkien’s, there are plenty of reasons to lose heart. Hope does not mean that we can foresee or conceive how the injustices of his world could be put to rights. It is instead the trust, the estel of Elves and Men, that a world loved by its creator will not be utterly abandoned to darkness and destruction.

Second, Tolkien gives us a powerful portrait of the perseverance and courage that can come from this kind of hope. Sam’s heroism is that of the common foot solider who faithfully accepts his place in the mission, however great or small that place may be. We are part of a larger picture, and we have no way of knowing how significant our role is in the tapestry God is weaving.

bilbo gandalf

This is the lesson that Bilbo Baggins articulates so memorably at the end of The Hobbit.  After an amazing adventure during which he has performed great feats of bravery, Gandalf says to him: “You don’t really suppose, do you, that all of your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you, but you are only quite a little fellow in the wide world after all.”

Bilbo’s response is to laugh and to say, “Thank goodness!”  And we can say “thank goodness” with him, because we know that while we are called to play our part with all our might, the world does not rise and fall on our effort alone.  There are other forces at work, and after we do all we can, they may still have another move.

In fact, when responding to a reader who had complained about Frodo’s failure, Tolkien said that it was actually impossible for Frodo (or any incarnate mortal) to destroy the ring themselves.  And yet, Frodo played his part:

Frodo deserved all honor because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), “that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named” (as one critic has said).

This is what we are called to do as well: to use every drop of our power of will and body to do as much as we can do. To play our parts well, and then in humility to step out of the way, and allow other powers to act: to let God be God.

Next: Eucatastrophe (The Conclusion)

“Have Ye Then No Hope?” (12): Tolkien’s Ragnarok

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(I told myself that I would finish this series before the end of the year, and I think there are at least 2-3 more posts left. This post will touch on the eschatology – the end times – of Middle Earth.)

ragnarok

Tolkien wrote that eucatastrophe, the unexpected upheaval of good signifies that there will not be universal final defeat. So what kind of an end, if any, did he envision for Middle Earth?

Tolkien seemed reticent to speak of it beyond the tensions explored in this paper. Indeed, if the history of Middle Earth is supposed to be a pre-history of Planet Earth, then it follows that the eschatology of Middle Earth is ultimately bound up in the eschatology of the Primary World. There are, however, a few strands that we see in his earlier writings, which are worth examining. The first is the prophecy of “a greater music still”, which will be sung by the Ainur and the Children of Iluvatar:

Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Iluvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Iluvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Iluvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the the comprehension of each, and Iluvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.

Once again, this prophecy is from the Elvish perspective, and it is not spoken in terms of certainty but rather possibility: “it has been said…”.

There are also references to a final climactic battle at the end of days. Though Christopher Tolkien edited it out of the published Silmarillion, his father wrote to Milton Waldman that the Silmarillion

ends with a vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the ‘light before the Sun’ – after a final battle which owes, I suppose, more to the Norse vision of Ragnarök than to anything else, though it is not much like it.

The battle is not like Ragnarök principally because the forces of Good are not ultimately defeated!

At the very beginning of the Silmarillion, when Varda makes the stars, she puts two constellations in particular that anticipate a final battle at the end of days: Menelmacar (Orion), swordsman of the sky and Valacirca, the “Sickle of the Valar and the sign of doom.”

In later versions of this story, Menelmacar comes to be identified as none other than the cursed Turin Turambar.  While there are multiple differing stories as to who kills Melkor, in the end it seems that that honor goes to Turin:

Thus spake Mandos in prophecy, when the Gods sat in judgement in Valinor, and the rumour of his words was whispered among the Elves of the West. When the world is old and the powers grow weary, then Morgoth, seeing that the guard sleepeth, shall come back through the Door of Night out of the Timeless Void; and he shall destroy the sun and the Moon. But Earendel shall descend upon him as a white and searching flame and drive him from the airs. Then shall the Last Battle be gathered on the fields of Valinor. In that day Tulkas shall strive with Morgoth, and on his right hand shall be Fionwe, and on his left Turin Turambar, son of Hurin, coming from the halls of Mandos; and the black sword of Turin shall deal unto Morgoth his death and final end; and so shall the children of Hurin and all Men be avenged.

It seems that Tolkien feels the need to vindicate his arguably most tragic character: who but Turin should slay Morgoth? This takes on added significance if, as discussed above, we see Turin as typological for humanity: valiant but self-cursed. This does beg the question, however, of how a human character like Turin is allowed to come back for this battle. But then the Author of the play is free to bring his characters back on the stage after the play seems to be over.

Might this be a hint of the hope of resurrection? If so, it is a “hope without guarantees”, at least for the free peoples of Middle Earth. At the very least, since Tolkien is writing a myth and not just a story, these impulses signify his attempt to give all his characters justice in the end.

Next: Hope in the Primary World (Some Applications)

Ecclesiastes 12.12: A Spoken Word Piece

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The following is a spoken word piece I did for our recent Antioch Poetry Slam. It is my wrestling with the fact that so much of my life is composed of words: reading, writing, speaking, etc. I hope you enjoy it!

“Of the making of books there is no end,
And much study is a weariness of the flesh.”
So says the Preacher, and I say amen.
What is the value of sitting before books
Sifting through words on the page; arranged and rearranged
to rage, to wrestle, to war with other words?
Like “ignorant armies that clash at night”
To fight the good fight of rhetoric
To finish the course (to get the grade)
To keep the faith, at least to keep it in my pocket
As if it was mine to hide, hold and have;
To halve, to cut it into parts that are more manageable
As if the mind could wrap around immensity.

I gesture and gesticulate wildly, “there’s something out there”
I stare into the darkness daring that I am not deluding myself.
Are these sentences, that I read, write, rehearse, structure and speak
(So easily now, once it was not so)
Are they real? I mean, is there “real presence” here
Or are they mere sophistry: the art of ornamenting ordinary language
To perpetuate the persuasion that I am talking about something real?
“I have a fever, and the only prescription” is on the printed page?
I paint pictures of things that I have never seen but have only felt in moments that have left me breathless
(On such breathless moments hang so many sermons).
My words like paper bills – rags, really – strips of cloth
Their value derived from that to which they point.
But You – like gold, your value does not move with the market of whether I mean it or not.
And so I will go back to my books
Back to the places where rumors of You abound
My books like small boats that launch out onto the ocean (the boats are so small)
But they may float, and I will row like Reepicheep in his coracle
Paddling towards I know not what,
I pick up the pen and pray
that you will take my paper bills and give me gold.

“Have Ye Then No Hope?” (11): Sandy Hook, Sadness and Hope

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So there I was happily updating my Tolkien series on a regular basis, and the last six weeks of the semester hit me like a train. I am not beginning to emerge from the chaos and beginning to do things that have been otherwise left undone.

This post, which is a continuation of the last one (from October) seems particularly poignant given the horrific shooting at an elementary school which left 28 people, mostly children, dead. I place my hand over my mouth, no words to speak of that horror, only grief. This week in general has been emotionally exhausting, and my heart has been heavy with sadness.

sandy-hook-school-shooting-5.png

But somehow Tolkien is always a tonic, and a short time spent in his world always gives me hope for this one.

Last time I stopped at the point where Arwen binds herself to Aragorn, foregoing immortality for the sake of love. Yet Elrond tells Aragorn that he can only have her hand if he reclaims the throne of both Gondor and Arnor. It is under this impossible doom that Aragorn strives for many years, valiantly opposing the enemy, but unable to foresee how his and Arwen’s hopes could be ever fulfilled.

After many years Gilraen (Aragorn’s mother) is “aged by care”, ready to die before her time, unable to face the encroaching darkness. Aragorn tries to comfort her, “Yet there may be a light beyond the darkness” but she replies with a linnod: “Onen i-Estel Edain, u-chebin estil amin” (I gave Hope to the Dunedain, I have kept no hope for myself).”

In other words, her role was to bear, raise and protect the heir of Isildur. In doing so, she has given humanity its best hope repelling the darkness. And yet, no hope remains for Gilraen.

Gilraen’s statement is paradigmatic of Tolkien’s vision of the hero: a true hero surrenders to their role in the story. This is why Peter Jackson can put the line “I keep [no hope] for myself” in Aragorn’s mouth in the cinematic version of Return of the King without doing violence to the story (though he does so in other ways!). Gilraen, Aragorn, Bilbo, Frodo, firemen, parents, teachers at Sandy Hook and countless others keep no hope for themselves and yet in doing so they give hope to others.

The choice to call Aragorn Estel signifies the kind of hope that he embodies. Despite the prophecy, there is no careful campaign to restore Aragorn to the throne of Gondor. Estel is not the kind of hope that comes from experience, an expectation rooted in weighing the odds and calculating the chances.  Aragorn embodies the hope that comes from an almost blind trust, rooted in a certain conviction about the nature of the world. It is the conviction that providence exists, and such providence only works through the obedient actions of heroes.

For Tolkien, to go on without hope (amdir) is to do the right thing even when you cannot possibly imagine how things could be put right after all the wrong that has occurred, even if you cannot conceive how things could work out for the best.

The rationale here is that even if consolation cannot be imagined, there are larger forces at work in the world, and when we come the end of our strength, when we have no more options, perhaps they will take over.

At a time like this, we need this reminder.

Every small action of love, courage and compassion is a refusal to give in to the darkness that threatens to swallow us all. It is the defiant choice to believe that despite all appearances to the contrary, hope remains for humanity.

For surely in a created world, loved by its Creator, there will not be “universal final defeat”.

Kyrie Eleison.