Seasonal Shifts
We're back to normal around here - school has started, the routines are back in place after a full, rich summer. We had good times together as a family, and we each took on some valuable adventures, seeing some new-to-us places and visiting some very cherished friends.
I also participated in two fruitful events -- one, a week-long seminar at the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship in Grand Rapids on African-American Religious Autobiography, and the other a shorter two-day political theology workshop in nearby DC hosted by Baylor University. Both were immensely rich opportunities of learning and networking for me, meeting fascinating people, getting a chance to read deeply on various subjects relating to our common life and political decision-making, and encountering valuable ideas, pedagogical practices, and insights. (More on this another time.)
Our children each took steps of personal adventure this summer too, and honoring my instincts to shield them from more digital scrutiny, I'll leave it at that. I'm proud of them for their respective adventures.
At the moment, I'm preparing for another doctoral colloquium, returning to Belgium for a week's worth of in-house academic conversation. Just as I tried to do in these summer seminars, I'm practicing the ordinary work necessary for those settings -- doing the readings, writing down some thoughts, being prepared for honest, fruitful dialogue with others who work in ideas, writing, and theological research, and being open to the people themselves, listening well, giving and receiving feedback and critical engagement from others. It takes practice!
So, we're back to normal, but in so many ways, I am also sensing a marked seasonal shift both in the inner landscape of my life as well as in its outer forms. I've been having deeper, sobering conversations with many loved ones about all kinds of hard things -- nothing that is easily managed or tidied up. It's put me into contact with some real grief, something I realize that I try to keep at bay very often - getting older, all the risks and dangers that happen in the course of our ordinary lives, that sort of thing. Looking at some of these realities squarely is tough, but there's immense value to still risking it. Our culture supports and sustains nonreflective modes of life: hustle, haste, and info-taining numbness: On to the next thing! No time to reflect! Too painful to do so! Eat, drink, be merry, and never (never!) say die.
But the reason we think about our inevitable and unknown end is to prompt us to receive the gift of today and live within it, in gratitude, discovery, and hope. Getting time with cherished people this summer, going deeper in conversations with them, feeling their own shifts and griefs, laughing mightily as we recounted old stories -- these gifts of life emerge even as we feel the bewildering stings of death and decay.
One of the people I had a chance to meet and enjoy sustained conversation with this summer was an Episcopal nun (yes, they exist!) who had recently published some valuable instruction on hope -- actually, about the ordeal of hope, which is a bracing way of putting it. Take and read both of her articles (Part 1: "The Ordeal of Hope: Practicing a Virtue under Unpromising Conditions," and Part 2: "Between Presumption and Despair: Further Thoughts on the Ordeal of Hope.")
In an earlier summer posting, I mentioned my recently published Comment article "The Birds and the Beguines." If you didn't have a chance to read it yet, it is now out from behind their paywall and you can even hear me read it (which was a fun to do, even if I mangle the many languages). Comment also hosted an author conversation with Chelsea Bombino and me discussing our recent articles; a recording of that event is here.
That's all for now, but I hope you are receiving and taking up the work that God has given you to do, no matter how small it may feel, and that no matter what, you are wrestling in the work of hope. I can testify that it matters not only for my life but for many others as well.