Breaking Bread with the Dead: How Reading Shapes Your Intellectual and Spiritual Journey

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Pursuing Faith Podcast, where we explore questions of faith, doubt and life.

[00:00:11] I am your host, Dominic Done.

[00:00:19] You guys, I am so excited for you to hear this conversation that I had with my good friend

[00:00:24] Joseph Claire.

[00:00:25] Many of you know him.

[00:00:26] Joseph is the Dean at George Fox University.

[00:00:30] He's a professor of theology and culture.

[00:00:33] He's an author with Oxford University Press and Wicked Smart.

[00:00:37] He has a PhD from Princeton, a Master's from Cambridge, another Master's from Duke University.

[00:00:44] And we talk about the state of higher education, his own journey of deconstruction and reconstruction,

[00:00:51] the Church Father Augustine, the role of reading in spiritual formation and most importantly

[00:00:58] a certain lime green Mercedes-Benz.

[00:01:01] As you could tell we cover a ton of ground.

[00:01:04] This one is a lot of fun.

[00:01:07] Fasten your seat belts.

[00:01:09] Here is Joseph Claire.

[00:01:18] So I'm here with my friend Joseph Claire.

[00:01:20] Joseph, thank you so much for taking time to have this conversation.

[00:01:25] So good to see you.

[00:01:26] So good to hear from you.

[00:01:27] Oh, it's good to be here.

[00:01:28] Thank you so much.

[00:01:29] Someone asked me the other day, they're like, hey, do you miss Oregon?

[00:01:34] And this is kind of a mushy way to start.

[00:01:36] But honestly, the first thing that came to my mind was I miss hanging out with you.

[00:01:43] It was so fun when we lived in the Portland area and just the conversations we had at

[00:01:50] George Fox and the lunches.

[00:01:54] And of course, that incredible moment where we got to ride the green dragon.

[00:01:59] Everyone's wondering, hey, what are you saying?

[00:02:03] Yes, I have to mention the great dragon.

[00:02:05] So for those who don't know our daughter Amelia, she celebrated her 16th birthday a couple

[00:02:13] years ago.

[00:02:14] This is when we're in Oregon and a friend of ours who attended our church.

[00:02:18] He owns this car dealership of exotic cars.

[00:02:23] And Amelia had told me she said, dad, my birthday present, I would love it to be to go on a

[00:02:29] fancy car.

[00:02:30] She'd never been in a fancy car before.

[00:02:32] And I just kind of told my friend just after church service.

[00:02:36] And he's like, yeah, actually, I have one you can use for Amelia's birthday.

[00:02:40] And I'm serious.

[00:02:41] Yeah, come down to the dealership went down there.

[00:02:43] And it was a, do you remember the colors?

[00:02:45] Like a bright green metallic like a mat metallic lime green.

[00:02:54] Mercedes Benz GT class.

[00:02:56] I mean, this thing was insane.

[00:02:59] I remember pulling up to church and just the looks I got.

[00:03:07] I don't know if that was a wise decision.

[00:03:10] He said, yeah, you just needed a bumper sticker that said, I tithe.

[00:03:14] Or anyway, I showed up at George Fox with it, right?

[00:03:20] And that was awesome.

[00:03:21] It took you for a ride on that country road.

[00:03:24] Went on the country road which of your George Fox student listening to this do not do as

[00:03:29] we did.

[00:03:31] But we went on one of these back roads in Newberg.

[00:03:36] And I remember I pulled it to a stop at a stop side and then just gunned it.

[00:03:41] And it was like, I almost stomach like behind my brain somewhere.

[00:03:44] It was so fast.

[00:03:45] Yeah.

[00:03:46] I'll never forget looking over and just seeing your face.

[00:03:50] It was like a combination of horror meets euphoria.

[00:03:54] Yeah.

[00:03:55] That's that's actually I thought that was your apologetic method.

[00:03:59] That's what you do.

[00:04:00] The fear of God.

[00:04:02] Yeah.

[00:04:04] So anyway, I miss hanging out with you and I just, yeah, so grateful for your friendship.

[00:04:09] And I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

[00:04:12] So for those who don't know what you're up to, bring us up to speed, so to speak on

[00:04:18] what you're up to and what's new in your life.

[00:04:21] Yeah.

[00:04:22] No, it's things continue to go well at George Fox put an old plug for my employer which

[00:04:28] I love.

[00:04:29] George Fox University is a Christian university that's been doing the Christian liberal arts

[00:04:35] and professional preparation since 1891 here in the Pacific Northwest.

[00:04:40] And yeah, I've been here for 10 years.

[00:04:42] This was my first big job at a graduate school as you know.

[00:04:47] And I've been able to launch an honors program here where we study the classics, great books.

[00:04:52] And now I'm overseeing a bit more including humanities and arts and theology.

[00:04:58] We continue to thrive in strange times for higher education, but there's a lot of really

[00:05:03] cool things going on here including a more focused emphasis on Christ's like character

[00:05:09] formation in our students.

[00:05:11] So topic for another podcast between us, but that kind of merger between spiritual and

[00:05:16] character formation that uniquely happens in the college experience.

[00:05:21] So that's one project I'm pumped about.

[00:05:24] You're right.

[00:05:25] It is kind of odd times in not only Christian university space, but the liberal arts which

[00:05:33] I guess kind of the elephant in the room was okay, you spend a ton of your time in academia.

[00:05:38] What value would you see in right now in 2024 in a liberal arts education because there

[00:05:45] are some more some metrics.

[00:05:47] Wall Street Journal, they had an article where they're quoting some guy from Notre Dame

[00:05:52] a couple months ago.

[00:05:54] And the article started by saying quote, the liberal arts are dead and they're talking

[00:06:01] about how just the number of students majoring in liberal arts as fall and precipitously

[00:06:06] graduates in the humanities is declined by over 30%.

[00:06:10] So you have the worrisome metrics, but then you also have worrisome politics.

[00:06:16] And you recently wrote an article for Christianity today.

[00:06:20] And in that article, which I found fantastic, we'll put a link to it in our show notes.

[00:06:24] But you talk about the new university social psychologist Jonathan Hate and how he differentiates

[00:06:32] between the liberal approach to universities.

[00:06:36] I think he calls it truth university and the progressive approach, which he calls social

[00:06:41] justice university.

[00:06:44] And he notes that most major liberal arts institutions in America have become social

[00:06:50] justice universities by default.

[00:06:53] So how is that true?

[00:06:57] And then also with metrics and politics, like for you personally, what value do you see

[00:07:01] in education moving forward?

[00:07:03] Oh, man, big set of questions.

[00:07:07] Yeah, relevant today with the kind of aster and resignation of the president of Harvard,

[00:07:12] maybe the most university in the world over just these things.

[00:07:18] Higher education is in decline, maybe even collapse.

[00:07:22] It's in like a world historical change period.

[00:07:25] And Christians for 2000 years have cared about education, liberal arts education.

[00:07:33] And I hope we can explore that on this podcast.

[00:07:35] Why has that been the case?

[00:07:37] And what's the future for it given this time?

[00:07:40] I do think the industry of high red is in a major sea change because of online education

[00:07:47] and all the different ways in which people can get prepared for their careers and certified

[00:07:53] for things.

[00:07:54] So that's part of it.

[00:07:56] The deeper, there's reasons to be worried about the costs and the return on investment

[00:08:00] in student debt as we've just seen in the Supreme Court case.

[00:08:04] But the problems are much deeper.

[00:08:06] And I think they're a problem of vision, a problem of what education is ultimately for

[00:08:12] us as human beings and for the kingdom of God.

[00:08:16] And I think the modern approach to the university has run out of gas, basically.

[00:08:21] That's what that Jonathan hate article and talk he gave on truth you versus social justice

[00:08:27] you.

[00:08:28] He's very much for truth you a kind of return to hard-headed reasoning and scientific

[00:08:33] approaches to learning and knowledge versus this kind of overwhelming Marxist social

[00:08:39] justice you sort of approach.

[00:08:40] But I think at the end of the day there are two modern options.

[00:08:43] About modernity was on the one hand about enlightenment which was like truth as certainty

[00:08:49] and certainty is most readily accessible to us through rationalism or mathematical certainty

[00:08:55] or empiricism scientific you know observable certainty.

[00:09:01] And it sort of like banished everything that doesn't yield to scientific and mathematical

[00:09:06] scrutiny to the realm of relativism.

[00:09:08] So it's like values, meaning religion morality.

[00:09:12] It's like we don't know about that stuff.

[00:09:14] It doesn't dwell on the equation or in the lab.

[00:09:17] And so you end up with the postmodern backlash which is this kind of like reveling in the

[00:09:22] relativism of truth in relationship to values and meaning.

[00:09:27] And ultimately I think ironically in some ways in that vacuum of starving for narrative

[00:09:34] of meaning the only meaning that sort of arose was the social justice narrative of

[00:09:40] the world being about a huge power struggle.

[00:09:43] And the ultimate aim of everything is to reverse the power plays of the powerful in the name

[00:09:48] of the the disempowered and disenfranchised.

[00:09:51] And so the ultimate meaning, the only meaning that's available to you and left to you is

[00:09:56] if you're a person that has been disempowered or disenfranchised or as a participant in

[00:10:01] a certain class or group category of people that have been, that gives you a struggle

[00:10:06] for justice, a struggle for justice which provides meaning.

[00:10:10] And so you see that even in the university that's very much what the Harvard situation

[00:10:14] is about an ideological battle between a kind of clinging to a modernist approach to education

[00:10:19] and a postmodern sort of relativism.

[00:10:21] And I think Christians have to ask now why were we the ones who cared about education

[00:10:27] to the point that universities were born through the church 800 years ago, taken many

[00:10:32] different shapes over the past 800 years from Paris and Oxford and Cambridge to the present.

[00:10:37] But ask what's the next phase look like?

[00:10:39] Where does education go from here?

[00:10:41] And for me the two questions are is education can only survive if you have some conception

[00:10:48] of a human person, a human being and how education plays a role in their overall flourishing

[00:10:53] and well-being.

[00:10:54] What is a human being?

[00:10:55] Why does learning any good for us anyways that for Christians it says everything to do

[00:10:59] with being made in the Amago day and who we are as creatures.

[00:11:03] And second, we have to be educated within a story, a larger narrative of meaning that

[00:11:09] makes sense of our purpose as human beings.

[00:11:12] For Christians that's encapsulated in the scriptural narrative that history is ultimately

[00:11:17] purposeful even in dark and unknowing times.

[00:11:20] It's headed somewhere.

[00:11:21] Being Jesus has come, he's coming again, the story unfolds through time.

[00:11:26] That gives us a sense of purpose and I think without that you get the sense of just like

[00:11:31] running out of gas culturally around education.

[00:11:34] Yeah, I mean, you look at the story of Christianity and education and you're right it is shaped

[00:11:40] around those notions of human flourishing, Amago day loving the Lord your God with all

[00:11:45] your mind which I definitely would love to talk about in today's conversation.

[00:11:50] I love how you put it starving for a narrative for meaning.

[00:11:56] There is in each of us a deep hunger, a desire to learn to know, to grow, to be connected

[00:12:02] with God which has some notions there of Augustine as well.

[00:12:06] Which I'm sure we'll talk about too.

[00:12:09] But also I think in your own journey because you went through a season of you're seeking

[00:12:16] and searching and trying to understand the truth, the good, the beautiful.

[00:12:21] So share with us a little bit about your own personal journey of faith and doubt, deconstruction

[00:12:27] and reconstruction.

[00:12:28] Yeah, thank you.

[00:12:31] I think the Christian College University has a special role in the maturing and development

[00:12:38] of us as Christians.

[00:12:39] I don't think everyone has to go to a Christian College University or gets the opportunity.

[00:12:44] But I think for many it represents a maturing and development of one's own journey of faith

[00:12:50] with Jesus.

[00:12:51] That's certainly how it was for me.

[00:12:52] And I get worried sometimes because people either confuse that the church in the college

[00:12:57] have the same exact mission of discipleship.

[00:13:01] And there's an overlap there, but there's also a difference between the pastoral role

[00:13:06] of the church and discipleship and the intellectual role of the college or university to help our

[00:13:11] faith seek understanding and to seek to grow.

[00:13:14] And they're complimentary, but they're not exactly the same.

[00:13:17] So often you'll get pastors sort of lambasting higher education, even Christian higher education

[00:13:25] for being places where people go and grow skeptical and ask harder questions.

[00:13:31] And I certainly think that no all Christian colleges and universities aren't perfect and

[00:13:36] professors aren't perfect.

[00:13:38] But often there I think is a fear or a suspicion of the growth of the mind, the loving God

[00:13:45] with your mind.

[00:13:46] So my journey, I kind of break it down according to three stages of growth in faith and learning

[00:13:53] according to Paul Rekore who's his famous 20th century French philosopher who was a strong

[00:13:59] Christian.

[00:14:00] And he talks about how we begin in a pre-critical period of even naivety, he calls it,

[00:14:07] and not even in a bad sense, a kind of childlike simplicity where however you came to the faith,

[00:14:12] whether you were just born into it and inherited it or had a conversion experience as a junior

[00:14:17] higher high school student like I did, you just sort of dive into the faith headlong and

[00:14:23] often as a spontaneous response of the heart and conversion through the spirit.

[00:14:29] And you are believing, and yet you're not examining any of the complexity of the whole scriptural

[00:14:35] narrative or who God is as a trinity or who Jesus is as both human and divine.

[00:14:39] You just kind of take this, you also are just taking on board all the kind of subcultural

[00:14:45] practices of your version of the church to the way worship goes or how communion is practiced

[00:14:50] or isn't practiced or in a way pastors sort of like talk about the spiritual life.

[00:14:56] And you're in this kind of for me it was a honeymoon period of like this is just the way

[00:15:00] it is.

[00:15:01] This is we teach through the Bible verse by verse and this is the way we do worship.

[00:15:05] And then something kind of spurs you out of that pre-critical honeymoon naivety, childlike

[00:15:13] simplicity, and it's often questions that you have.

[00:15:17] And this is the period I think of what I call the critical thinking desert.

[00:15:21] Something kicks you out of the honeymoon and sends you on this quest out into the desert.

[00:15:26] And this is where I think a lot of people are just kind of ending their journey in deconversion

[00:15:30] or deconstruction or X-van gelicalism where it's like the questions came.

[00:15:36] Sometimes the questions are about the subculture of the group that you're a part of, like

[00:15:41] you find out your church home is actually radically nationalist and politically oriented

[00:15:47] in ways that seem to defy following Jesus or maybe there was a toxic subculture around

[00:15:53] leadership but more often and not more often for me it was around questions of the credibility

[00:16:00] of the Christian faith.

[00:16:01] So how do I know that the Bible is authoritative and the word of God?

[00:16:06] How do I know God exists or how Christianity makes exclusive claims to the truth about

[00:16:12] God and reality and being and says everyone else is on the outside until you confess Jesus.

[00:16:18] How do you wrestle with that exclusivity?

[00:16:22] And those questions set me on a course of deep questioning.

[00:16:26] That was my first year of college so that often is for people as you go into state university

[00:16:32] like I did and I had one professor Marcus Borg who was teaching really hardcore historical

[00:16:38] criticism and deconstruction of the Bible.

[00:16:41] And it's authority in my religion classes and I just was overwhelmed by the immensity

[00:16:47] of the questions and dove into apologetics which is a great place to go.

[00:16:51] That's often the beginning of your critical thinking desert though it seems like there's

[00:16:54] an immediate quick fix with some of the answers that you get in the books but then you realize

[00:16:59] the questions are actually pretty persistent people wrestling with them for a long time.

[00:17:04] So that was I thought I had solved the critical thinking desert by transferring to a Christian

[00:17:10] college so I transferred to Wheaton out in Illinois and studied philosophy but actually

[00:17:15] rather than solving it the critical thinking desert extended actually went deeper because

[00:17:20] it's studying philosophy I was reading all the modern masters of philosophy who are like

[00:17:25] suspicious of faith.

[00:17:26] Like Feuerbach who says hey your idea of God is a projection of what you want God to be

[00:17:31] like or Nietzsche who says yeah religion is just the way people like resent more powerful

[00:17:37] people but making them feel bad about being powerful or Marx it's the opiate of the

[00:17:41] masses you know what to control people or Freud it's a dream of big daddy you know parent

[00:17:47] figure all these questions it's like I just kept going with the questions and going

[00:17:51] and it was ultimately after a period of long sort of waiting through and there's you know

[00:18:01] there are great resources for thinking about how to answer those questions we live in

[00:18:05] the heyday of Christian thought and apologetics and there's amazing responses to modern atheism

[00:18:10] and suspicion and ways to understand the reliability and authority of scripture.

[00:18:15] Nevertheless once you get exposed to the complexity of things and the enormity of those questions

[00:18:20] you feel like you're like can't get back to that place of childlike simplicity and sort

[00:18:25] of confidence that you had and Paul R. Cora says that out of that season of the critical

[00:18:33] thinking desert he says there's a moment where you move out of the critical thinking desert

[00:18:39] into a post critical childlikeness a post critical moment and he says that it comes when you

[00:18:49] realize this that Christian faith is not synonymous with modern understandings of knowledge as certainty

[00:18:56] so it's not really the rationalist hunt you know for mathematical certainty or the empirical

[00:19:03] scientific search for you know hypothetical laboratory certainty but it's also not totally

[00:19:11] relativism the post critical moment is not a leap it's not a throwing up of your hands and saying

[00:19:16] no one knows anything so I'm going back to the harbor of childlike simplicity it is this it is

[00:19:21] to recognize that faith itself is a specific kind of knowledge that includes a high level of risk

[00:19:29] and it's much more akin to making a big decision in your life it's like making a big decision

[00:19:34] around a relationship in fact the thing that it's most like as Kierkegaard points out is deciding

[00:19:40] to marry someone because no one knows fully what they need to know on that day when you pledge

[00:19:47] your life till death do you part and sickness and health and yet you know enough to to leap together

[00:19:54] forward and it's in the unfolding of time and the commitment of the relationship that the truth

[00:20:00] of that relationship comes out and so the post critical moment is when you move from an idea or

[00:20:07] an image of God that you have to God the person who he actually is to the relationship which requires

[00:20:15] this sort of like laying oneself out vulnerably and recognizing that it's only in the commitment

[00:20:24] of relationship and friendship with God over time in which the truth the knowledge of the truth

[00:20:29] of God and the relationship with God sort of manifests itself

[00:20:43] so that's like in a nutshell the move me and I think there was a couple key moments when

[00:20:50] I kind of transitioned out of critical thinking desert into this kind of post critical moment but

[00:20:55] you know you tap back and forth as you as you move through your journey of faith some questions

[00:21:00] the problem of evil can really get after you when the death of a loved one comes and you're

[00:21:05] wrestling with how God's goodness and power can be squared with the way things actually unfold

[00:21:10] in the world and time and I loved your book I mean the shadow wrestling with your faith

[00:21:16] faith and doubt book is so good because it shows that rather than seeing doubt as a

[00:21:22] nymical to faith in some ways it's the other side of the coin of faith that speaks to this very

[00:21:27] like essential vulnerability and risk at the heart of trusting God as faith rather than like wrapping

[00:21:34] God down into the certainty of your mind I love that you use the analogy there the Paul Rikor uses

[00:21:43] of the first naivete or innocence through to you know the second innocence again in remind me

[00:21:51] to have like Walter Brugamon said in his book I think it's called spirituality of the Psalms

[00:21:57] and he essentially says there's three different kinds of Psalms there's Psalms of orientation that

[00:22:02] are kind of like the first naivete they're written during times of celebration and worship you know

[00:22:08] truly God is good but then you have the Psalms of disorientation which it sounds like you went

[00:22:13] through in that time of you know Marcus Borg and was I a U of O by the way or Oregon state

[00:22:19] Oregon state yeah I'm I have another friend whose faith was derailed by a Marcus Borg but now he's

[00:22:25] a pastor so but yeah then there's these Psalms of disorientation which these are Psalms that come

[00:22:34] from a place of unexpected disruption anger despair tragedy that eclipse is faith and these are

[00:22:41] the Psalms are like gritty uncensored unapologetically honest and then you know the Psalms

[00:22:47] yes darkness right yeah absolutely yeah darkness is my closest friend I mean try putting that on

[00:22:53] a Christian coffee mug right unless you like your coffee black and then you have the Psalms of

[00:22:59] new orientation which are like you know a seedling that rises through the broken soil right their

[00:23:06] faith Psalms of faith but it's faith reborn and what's interesting that Walter Brugamon points out

[00:23:12] and also that you know Paul Recours is getting at what you just shared about the role of relationship

[00:23:18] it's not the end of doubt doubt lingers on but it's as if the individual somehow harness doubts

[00:23:26] energy to move towards belief rather than unbelief yeah and I think it seems Lewis also went through

[00:23:35] a season like this where you look at mere Christianity and it's much more analytical and here

[00:23:41] here are some of the answers are you apologetic yeah but then you come to a book like until we have

[00:23:47] faces an apology and a beauty or his book on grief grief observed after his wife joy died and there's

[00:23:55] no answers essentially but he comes to the conclusion that okay even though I don't know the answer you

[00:24:01] are yourself the answer it's like he had learned what it meant to trust God even in the midst of having

[00:24:08] the questions yeah for me it's like I have a bucket in my brain where I put questions that I still

[00:24:17] have them and will continue to have most likely until I die it's like Paul he said I see through a

[00:24:24] glass dimly but someday face to face like it's okay to have the questions it's okay to wrestle

[00:24:28] stuff there are some questions that are on this side of eternity kind of unanswerable

[00:24:35] but that doesn't mean that we should cease the pursuit the discovery the learning the growing

[00:24:41] and this is what I love about what you're saying is that a big part of new orientation is learning

[00:24:48] to love the Lord your God with your mind yeah so I'd love you to speak into that a little bit as an

[00:24:53] educator in the world of academics Christian University how do we love the Lord your God with our

[00:24:59] mind because how we think is a profoundly sacred yeah and loving act yeah thought is worship it's why

[00:25:08] Jesus spent so much time teaching his disciples of the 90 times Jesus was addressed in the

[00:25:14] gospels 60 times he was called teacher and this is why it's like kind of weird to me when I do

[00:25:21] hear pastors kind of berate higher ed or make fun of seminaries or whatever we've all heard

[00:25:29] that that trope of like you know it's cemetery not seminary yeah yeah and I understand partially

[00:25:36] what maybe being said there that you can get so caught up in the life of the mind you fail to

[00:25:41] like disengage with the aches and loneliness of ordinary people but Jesus was able to do both

[00:25:48] yeah I think that's part of loving the Lord your God with your mind so yeah how do we do that what

[00:25:52] does that look like for you yeah man it's so good I love that first Corinthians 13 Paul thought that

[00:26:00] we see through a glass dimly our whole lives are going to be seeing the faith through a glass

[00:26:05] darkly but one day we will see face-to-face so the resolution of the the dimness and the doubt is not

[00:26:14] the equation will finally you know missing variable drop-in and you'll see the equation fully it's

[00:26:19] that you'll see him face-to-face it's a relational personal knowledge so I don't want to diminish

[00:26:26] the role of learning of knowledge of information even but the wisdom of the Christian faith

[00:26:34] that is rooted in the knowledge of the content of scripture and the content of good Christian

[00:26:38] teaching over time is a relational wisdom it's the wisdom of love ultimately and I think that

[00:26:45] it's understanding that that tension between loving the Lord your God with your mind thinking

[00:26:51] does matter thinking clearly about God matters not because we're just so silly and starved and have

[00:26:59] nothing to think about need our my our empty minds to be filled but because we already do have

[00:27:05] ideas and thinking about God in our mind often totally misformed and misshaped on the basis of

[00:27:12] our own desires and projections or our own bad experiences as a child or in a faith community

[00:27:18] and you need the true God until you can have the true knowledge of the true and living God

[00:27:24] to fix and heal and replace and reorient that knowledge that image that's already in there

[00:27:30] were doomed to the bad practice of the Christian faith and that's been one of the the errors

[00:27:36] of modern Christianity was on the one hand like a hyper extension of reason that everything in

[00:27:42] the faith had to do with knowledge of irrationalist certain kind where it's like almost a kind of

[00:27:48] fundamentalism where you had certain Christians appeal solely to the text of scripture as all

[00:27:55] the authority all the knowledge is there just know it answers every question stop you know asking

[00:27:59] the art questions often that requires a kind of psychological coercion to get people to suppress

[00:28:05] questions in the face of the text and on the other hand we've moved into I think a total post-modern

[00:28:12] celebration of feeling in modern Christianity where it's all just ui gooey our God no thinking so

[00:28:19] it's like there's this like fundamentalist rationalism on the one hand yoke with this kind of like

[00:28:24] fuzzy woo woo sort of emotions of the heart the reality is that God's being is made up of truth

[00:28:32] and love we approach God through the mind and the heart simultaneously as we know more about who

[00:28:38] God is and who he truly is the heart leaps even higher in praise and exultation so getting those

[00:28:45] kind of two engines running together at the same time loving God with all your heart soul strength

[00:28:52] and your mind and I think again that's the special role of the Christian college or university to

[00:28:58] continue to be faithful to and extend the Christian intellectual tradition that has been wrestling

[00:29:03] with you thing and I like to think of it like John Wesley had this cool way of talking about the

[00:29:08] wholeness of the Christian faith is you have scripture is preeminent that's where you know about

[00:29:12] the true God but you also have a reason God gave you a mind to think and to love him with

[00:29:18] and you also have tradition and it's a three legs of a three-legged stool which is stable now

[00:29:24] scripture is the big leg the most important leg that you hold your reason up to but because the

[00:29:29] church has been wrestling with scripture and loving God over time there's this great repository

[00:29:35] of resources in tradition or what we would call you know we have the church fathers and we have

[00:29:40] great thinkers like Aquinas or Calvin for me the discovery of that cloud of witnesses from the ages

[00:29:47] was the way in which I saw different models of loving God with your mind and that freed me

[00:29:54] from my doubts in some ways because I feed I met a figure like a gustan who we've talked about

[00:29:59] before Augustine of Hippo great church father I was like I could never outthink Augustine of Hippo

[00:30:05] or ask harder questions than he's asking in his confessions and that was like having a mentor or a

[00:30:11] coach come alongside me in some way and be like let's go down this journey together let's ask these

[00:30:17] questions I've been there but the questions are fresh for you you're living 1600 years later

[00:30:22] how can we approach it now you know yeah when you love someone you you want to know their story

[00:30:29] you want to know their past their experiences and I think part of learning to love God as you're

[00:30:35] sharing is learning the beauty of the Christian story the Christian tradition there's this memoir

[00:30:43] called hold still where the photographer Sally Mann she quotes from one of her father's diary entries

[00:30:50] and it's beautiful quote she says do you know how a boatman faces one direction while rowing in another

[00:30:59] and it's this this sense of we move forward and by by looking back we we make progress by considering

[00:31:05] ancient wisdom I'm see as low as he he talked about how we need the sea breeze of other centuries

[00:31:11] kind of blowing a fresh perspective into our mind or what Alan Jacobs um he wrote a book by this

[00:31:17] title too but he called breaking bread with the dead yeah and in your story it's like

[00:31:23] the one of the key figures that you've broken bread with that you've been apprenticed by was

[00:31:29] Augustine which he is so uncanny I mean he's so ancient and strange and yet his experiences are

[00:31:37] so common that they feel contemporary um so I'm curious like how did you choose to be apprenticed

[00:31:43] to Augustine like what was it about his story that captured your heart and imagination your

[00:31:49] intellect that that caused your faith to come alive yeah I found a copy of his confessions as

[00:31:56] an undergrad in borders you remember borders books like I do I guess those still miss it still

[00:32:02] missed the brownies that they had there but the uh borders outside we never had the book

[00:32:08] assigned in class but it's an epic epic book which I hardly recommend everyone listening

[00:32:14] it is a story of his own journey to god it's the first autobiography in in western history which

[00:32:21] is sort of strange is not not a biography like you'd expect to find uh from a modern person it's

[00:32:27] a story of finding god or godfinding him he says at one key moment that Lord you were closer to me

[00:32:34] than I was to my own self and so it's only through like retracing the steps and the halls

[00:32:39] the memory of my own life that I can see the way you were present I can see the way you were guiding

[00:32:45] um and he he gives not just the highlights but the lowlights too I mean it's called confessions

[00:32:50] because he's confessing his own memory of his life he's confessing his own sin but he's also

[00:32:56] confessing his faith and confessing his praise of god um and I think with the book what the book did

[00:33:04] for me yeah was he's ancient but he feels contemporary and modern in the sense that he sees the way

[00:33:13] that our knowledge of god is wound up with our knowledge of ourselves and our own identity so

[00:33:20] John Calvin later kind of takes the Saga Stinning insight and says that true knowledge of oneself

[00:33:26] and true knowledge of god are the are the goal of true learning and are are yoke together you can't

[00:33:33] separate the two and so it's by having a clear more accurate perception of yourself

[00:33:41] that you allow yourself to see god's presence in your own life and that includes actually being

[00:33:47] brutally honest about how fallen and broken you are but also celebrating the goodness

[00:33:53] of god in your own life and your own creation in your own journey across time and so there's a kind

[00:34:00] of like twisting there of the ancient Greek you know uh maximum the Delphiac Oracle said

[00:34:06] know thyself you know Augustine's like yeah know thyself but ultimately you want to know god

[00:34:12] and ultimately you can't know yourself until you know the true and living god so the confessions

[00:34:17] was the thing that hooked me I think the other thing uh that hooked me that we've talked about before

[00:34:23] was this kind of platonic shadow lands idea that very much influenced s Lewis too but

[00:34:31] this idea that all the experiences we have down here in this life of beautiful things like a

[00:34:36] beautiful epic you know winter sky sunset looking across the mountains in the river or

[00:34:43] the beauty of you know your your beloved your wife the beauty of things the goodness of things

[00:34:49] the tastes you know of a delicious hot pizza you know on a Friday night all these little instances

[00:34:55] of good and beautiful and true things can draw the heart back up to god who is the source of all

[00:35:02] those things the good the true and the beautiful and so instead of seeing life as something to be

[00:35:07] rejected or forgotten or gotten away from you can actually follow the affections and the desires

[00:35:13] of the heart for the good things we find in this life back to their source their true source

[00:35:19] in god as the headwaters of all things and give him thanks and give him recognition as the source

[00:35:25] that that's simple like a apologetic idea of god as source of those things was really revolutionary

[00:35:32] for me in the way in which I can embrace the fullness of life not seeing it as um in exclusion

[00:35:38] or competition with my love for god but as a gateway path for the heart and path for the heart

[00:35:44] and that was one of the things that struck me about uh the confessions to I'll never forget

[00:35:49] I think it was 20 um and I was living in Vaughanowatu at the time and we had like a very small stack of

[00:35:56] books that were there in the middle of the jungle but one of them was confessions and I picked it up

[00:36:01] and it just so captured my heart um I literally read it all night I didn't sleep that night

[00:36:08] just read the whole thing I think I was like 4 a.m. or something I finished I laid down I couldn't

[00:36:13] sleep because my mind was just spinning but that that was one of the things that struck me was

[00:36:17] he's giving terminology to describe the aches and longings of the heart in fact one of the

[00:36:22] quotes I have underlined in that book is um and you're familiar with this he says late have I loved

[00:36:28] you beauty so old and so new late have I loved you you were with me I was not with you the lovely

[00:36:35] things kept me far from you though if they did not have their existence in you they had no

[00:36:40] existence at all you called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness you were radiant and

[00:36:47] resplendent you put to flight my blindness you were fragrant and I drew in my breath and now

[00:36:53] pant after you I tasted you and I feel but hunger and thirst for you you touched me and I'm

[00:36:59] set on fire to attain the peace which is yours

[00:37:21] and it's this idea of God as the source of our longings and I think what the deeper we go into

[00:37:28] this notion of hunger and thirst for God we discover transformation in the process which is

[00:37:35] another key longing I think it's what draws us to higher edits what draws us to reading it's

[00:37:41] what draws us to wanting to grow in the life of the mind as we want our character to be shaped

[00:37:46] and changed into form be formed into the image of God um David Brooks he uses the analogy of

[00:37:52] resume virtues versus eulogy virtues I love that because resume virtues are what you list on your

[00:37:59] resume but eulogy virtues are the things that get talked about at your funeral it's who the real

[00:38:05] you is whether you're kind or brave honest or faithful the kind of relationships that you

[00:38:12] are formed and we're preoccupied as a culture with our resume virtues but what Augustine I think

[00:38:20] highlights and what you're describing there is the beauty the sanctumony of the inner life

[00:38:26] was it Alexander Salciaiton who said that hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases

[00:38:34] of the 20th century and you actually talk about this in one of your books that it's easy for us

[00:38:42] though to blame modern technology for the problem of a scattered fragmented mental life but

[00:38:50] Augustine seems to suggest that we've always had trouble paying attention and one of the remedies

[00:38:57] for that is finding our our life back in the life of God through something as simple as reading

[00:39:05] that reading good books not only provides the therapy of mental focus but the moral insight

[00:39:14] that powers self-reception how has that been true for you yeah the practices by which we become

[00:39:25] ourselves and who God made us to be it's been beautiful to see the kind of resurgence of spiritual

[00:39:31] formation and thinking around habits and disciplines and practices and for me reading has been

[00:39:38] the central one Richard Foster talks about the spiritual discipline of study in his book

[00:39:43] celebration of discipline and reading obviously central to study that's that's it's been true for me

[00:39:50] let me talk for a moment about Augustine's own journey I think that's the thing that that I only

[00:39:55] saw later in rereading the confessions a couple times through grad study from a more academic lens

[00:40:01] but he's reporting to you the journey of his own soul's growth in his own spiritual journey toward

[00:40:06] God according to episodes of reading books are the way he makes way toward God or God you know finds him

[00:40:15] it's not only scripture he says for a while he was too high-minded for scripture he got a bad you

[00:40:20] know Latin translation in North Africa and he thought it was for simple people but it was cisteros

[00:40:26] were tensious this exhortation to the philosophical life that he says first woke his heart up to

[00:40:32] eternal things then finally he does come to scripture and he says that I had to stoop to enter the door

[00:40:39] of scripture in its apparent lowliness but only walked in to find this vast cathedral of space

[00:40:46] I could go humbly down and enter through the door so anyways there's just these moments of reading

[00:40:51] is really important way in which I can look at my own you know bookshelf behind there and think

[00:40:56] of all the scrolled notes in the margins and ways books that have impacted me I think we are

[00:41:02] in a strange like moment in the history of reading though I'm kind of weaving my way back to your

[00:41:07] question though so Augustine would have been reading codices or like a codex which would have been

[00:41:13] like the first thing of a book but you couldn't actually I mean if you think of like valum paper you know

[00:41:18] where it's like you could only he only had the letters of Paul when he has his conversion story and

[00:41:23] book a of the confessions he's not you couldn't even get the whole Bible in one book at that time

[00:41:28] but that's an advance against papyrus and scrolls which is really awkward way to find

[00:41:33] in way through but from about Augustine until 1400 you know with the Gutenberg revolution you just

[00:41:40] have like these very limited you know exposure to things like books in the form of codices

[00:41:46] but man we're coming out of 500 years of books at a like popular publishing you know sort of like

[00:41:53] affordable rate where you and I can have the penguin classics of everything up on our shelf

[00:41:58] and yet now where we are with the internet with the smartphone with the Kindle we're not back to

[00:42:02] the eternal scroll we're like back to papyrus you don't always know where you are in the book

[00:42:07] and you have this like constant doom scroll going of like stuff coming at you and did you read it or

[00:42:12] not I can't remember and you're over you're flooded with information so I think part of the

[00:42:18] distractibility of the age the benefit is we are just a wash and have access like you and I could

[00:42:23] pull up anything we want right now that would have been unthinkable in a guest in the world you know

[00:42:27] so what a great gift the downside is that our kind of spiritual appetite and habits and discipline

[00:42:34] haven't caught up I think with the the agent so for me in some ways I still go back to reading the

[00:42:40] Bible in paper in the morning or books that I really want to focus on because something about

[00:42:45] anchoring my attention right then and there I put the phone away on silent in the drawer shut the

[00:42:51] computer down because I can only be there with the text and there with myself reading the text

[00:42:57] and it's in that kind of interaction with the text that Augustine says there's a transformative

[00:43:02] moment because why books can be mirrors and James says that about the Bible preeminently but any

[00:43:10] good book worth its salt can be a mirror for the self in which you're seeing something new you're

[00:43:15] learning your mind is going out but you're also being given a glimpse of your own self that's how

[00:43:20] understanding and interpretation actually happened and so Augustine yeah I mean his he says any

[00:43:26] good book can give you this form of of conscience of attention sharpening of mirroring back

[00:43:33] in self-understanding but he says some books actually transform you and they provide self

[00:43:38] understanding and self-transformation for him it's the Bible that does that specifically the

[00:43:43] Psalms he says in the Confessions and that's been true in my own life there have been moments of

[00:43:48] like you come to your senses and self-realization and self-knowledge but I think one way to Augustine

[00:43:54] sort of envisions it in Confessions has been true is you narrate your own self's journey

[00:44:01] through an understanding given to you by text preeminently the text of the Bible self-narration

[00:44:07] we live in an age where we find ourselves kind of strung between two options that feel incompatible

[00:44:15] on the one hand we live in the age of like self-design like create yourself self-creation be who you

[00:44:22] want I mean you could change almost anything about yourself very much like Nietzsche's idea of

[00:44:27] self-creation come to roost in a popular technological way like design yourself perform yourself

[00:44:34] present yourself you know even on your phone and yet there's this ancient pagan idea that the true

[00:44:39] self is some like hidden kernel or Oscar pearl down deep inside yourself and you need to like get

[00:44:45] back in there and know that I self the true self is somewhere in there Christianity I don't think

[00:44:50] is either of those pagan alternatives total self-creation or total self-knowledge it's a becoming of one

[00:44:57] self under the two-lige and discipleship of the author himself the author and finisher are

[00:45:03] our faith and so for me it's been this process of like receiving and becoming the gift of my own

[00:45:10] self my own life my own identity by understanding myself in conversation with the word the word of

[00:45:18] scripture but with him who is the word with with Jesus as the author of my life and so I call that

[00:45:23] like soft reception as an alternative to self-creation or to self-knowledge yeah it reminds me of the

[00:45:32] novelist Thomas Pinkin he introduces this concept in his book Gravity's Rainbow that I think

[00:45:39] could be applied to reading he said that personal density is directionally proportional to temporal

[00:45:47] bandwidth and temporal bandwidth kind of represents our awareness of the past and future

[00:45:52] and the more you read the more grounded in a sense you become the more centered you become

[00:45:59] it kind of gives your your soul a sense of gravitas this immensity that that mourns you in every season

[00:46:06] so instead of being blown you know through life easily just influence and swayed you instead

[00:46:11] possess a personal density and and that's why I see with Augustine too there is this sense of

[00:46:21] a personal density that as he finds his life enraptured with the life of God but also the part of

[00:46:28] the process is the journey I love what you said to about how in confession see models his spiritual

[00:46:34] memoir on these journeys I think he draws from a disses yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's transformative

[00:46:42] encounters with books right and the books are like deck hands for setting sail and they're like

[00:46:49] telescopes for reading navigational clues and they they provide substance on how we can

[00:46:56] appropriate and interpret and provides wake up calls map signposts encouraging all of that

[00:47:05] it's masked when we need to be yes exactly it's like fertile ground for acquiring the habits

[00:47:10] of the mind and heart but I think a big question would be because you know we could talk about

[00:47:15] the philosophy of reading and all that in the history of it but what practically how do we do it

[00:47:21] you mentioned just the simple act of getting up in the morning with a paper bible I think there's

[00:47:31] something to that just that physicality you know I've on my Kindle on my iPhone hundreds of Kindle

[00:47:41] digital books but the problem is I'm in the middle of reading one on my iPhone and then I get a

[00:47:46] notification or a phone call or I'm wondering what's going on on Twitter and there's something about

[00:47:51] just the the physicality of having an actual book in front of you and you know touching its papers

[00:47:57] and engaging with it um I think it was Mortimer Adler who he wrote that classic How to Read a Book

[00:48:05] which I highly recommend for anyone who wants to read a book on how to read a book um it's actually

[00:48:11] brilliant because he talks about the four levels of reading elementary and spectral analytical

[00:48:17] uh synoptical um and one of the key components of analytical reading and synoptical reading is

[00:48:28] you're not just over you know skimming it but you're actually engaging with it and I think a

[00:48:33] real practical way to do that is just by marking up a book having a pen having a journal having paper

[00:48:42] Edgar Alan Bowie said marking a book is literally an experience of your differences or

[00:48:47] agreements with the author we could even say disagreements with the author um it's the highest

[00:48:52] respect you can pay him um and so in some of my books I'll actually have you know on the margins

[00:48:59] things I agree with but then things I'm like I don't know if I agree with that or here you know

[00:49:04] here's a question it's raising in my mind it's like you're having this dialogue with with the author

[00:49:09] so what are some practical tools that have been helpful for you in how to read well

[00:49:16] yeah oh man all read how to read a book by Adler I think that's a great place to start but it has been

[00:49:25] for me shifting between the digital and fluid and the malleable back to the analogue the paper

[00:49:32] the right stuck with yourself and with what's right in front of you you know I think you can have

[00:49:37] both I'm not a hardcore let-ite like get rid of all tech but I think finding the time and space to

[00:49:45] have just the single text never be afraid to mark up a text it is a sign of great respect and engagement

[00:49:52] and also have the journal uh Gustin has these great lines about how he thinks as he reads and he reads

[00:49:58] as he thinks and then he thinks as he writes and he writes as he thinks so there's this movement between

[00:50:04] reading and thinking and writing and going back again and it's having a dialogue with the author

[00:50:10] just like we're having a good conversation now this is a kind of reading in a sense we're reading each

[00:50:15] others thoughts we're engaging back and forth and these are the core skills of our humanity they're

[00:50:21] not just good because they get you a good job although this will make you better in the professional world

[00:50:26] to be able and adept at these really core human skills of speaking and thinking and writing

[00:50:32] but they also are core to who we are made in the image of him who is the word himself that's

[00:50:38] like the central image for our god as the word and the beginning was the word the word was with God

[00:50:43] the word was God so there's this beauty of like the speaking God in Genesis 1 and John 1

[00:50:50] that then creates a culture of literary of literacy that's given to to Israel and inherited by

[00:50:58] the Christian so long before we got to Greek and Roman liberal arts education with the trivia

[00:51:03] and grammar and logic and rhetoric we had the Hebrew tradition of hearing from God and recording

[00:51:10] the oracles of God and then interpreting them through the tradition of Mishna and different

[00:51:14] things so there's like this deep kind of educative core at the center of Judaism and Christianity because

[00:51:20] we are people of the book but more importantly we're the people of the word himself so anyways I

[00:51:27] you're you're inspiring me dumb but the practical thing is like get out the pen the actual paper book

[00:51:33] get up in the morning I always have I have this kind of mystical pond idea about my mind that there's

[00:51:39] no like formed impressions or words on the pond of your mind and the morning and the first thing

[00:51:44] I want to touch my mind is the word of scripture and so the first thing I'll read and reflect on

[00:51:49] is is scripture and again I won't do it on my phone most of the time when I have a paper

[00:51:55] Bible there because I want that like non interrupted non distracted interaction with the text which

[00:52:02] I think is increasingly rare and again we're gonna go deeper it we went from being a culture of

[00:52:07] remembering like think back in the day when you're in Augustine's time you didn't have all those

[00:52:11] books on your shelf like you were lucky if you had a few of them so you would go read and you need

[00:52:15] to remember what they said I mean the ancients were so good at memorizing things out of necessity

[00:52:21] because they didn't have the libraries and the collections everywhere we went from remembering

[00:52:26] to searching on the internet so now you don't need to remember you just search on Google

[00:52:31] but now we're moving beyond searching till like prompting I guess we're prompting chat GPT to like

[00:52:36] not just find the answer but like synthesize it into something for us and I think it's important

[00:52:42] to like remember we can use those tools but we ought not lose our humanity our image bearing this by

[00:52:48] not being able to return to those core kind of human skills of reading of remembering of thinking

[00:52:55] of writing of speaking this is like part of our image bearingness you said something there that

[00:53:01] really jumped out at me the analogy of your mind as kind of like a pond or a lake first thing in

[00:53:10] the morning you know it settled there's an author he talks about establishing for yourself a

[00:53:18] zone of silence right then there's like a sacred hush in your mind that I think reading helps to

[00:53:25] cultivate it for me at least when my mind is just overwhelmed with thoughts and distractions and

[00:53:32] myriad directions that could go in there's something about reading that focuses it and brings a piece

[00:53:39] with that as well and then it's like when you read a book or a thought or a chapter whatever

[00:53:45] it's like that that pebble that's thrown onto the pond right there's ripples that are formed and I

[00:53:51] just love what you said there about the first thing being thrown into our mind in the morning

[00:53:57] is the word of God because for me like a big weakness is I get up and like the first thing I want

[00:54:03] to check is the news or my email or whatever and then nine times out of 10 I'll read something that's

[00:54:08] disturbing right and then my mind just kind of sets on this trajectory for the day that's not good

[00:54:14] but filling my mind with things that are true and good and beautiful and I think too as we

[00:54:20] tile these things together in your journey it was through the process of reading finding a historical

[00:54:26] figure to be apprentice under viewers like okay I want to learn from Augustine what did he have

[00:54:31] to say about the life of the mind what did he have to say about the soul's yearning for God

[00:54:36] and these things take time and to encourage anyone who's listening to this and like you're

[00:54:41] inspired by Joseph's story here it makes you want to read deeper and further or maybe pursue

[00:54:47] some more education or be apprentice by someone but it does take time right to have those ripples

[00:54:54] form in the pond of your mind this isn't something that's just an instantaneous but to actually

[00:55:00] shape you and change you we're talking months or years Alexander Pope the poet he once said a

[00:55:08] little learning is a dangerous thing drink deep or taste not the preenspring so there's a sense of

[00:55:16] like go all in if you have questions about scripture we don't just listlessly set them aside and

[00:55:23] hope the answer will magically appear we drink deep from the well we tear into the story we pick up

[00:55:29] some good commentaries we go to the mat with God or maybe you're struggling with questions of atheism

[00:55:34] or have doubts about God's existence or goodness but I think the worst thing you can do is just

[00:55:39] read half of the God delusion by Richard Dawkins and then announce on social media you've abandoned

[00:55:45] your faith instead I would say hey you have questions about this go all in right read study learn

[00:55:50] read books on both sides don't settle for the low hanging fruit right reach for the best

[00:55:55] arguments and fight it out if you're you mentioned suffering if your faith is being shaken by

[00:56:01] suffering the worst thing we could do is just be content with you know cheesy Christian trusses

[00:56:07] like cat posters won't cut it when you're face to face with cancer or injustice right you lean

[00:56:13] into it like David did in Psalms the Psalms of disorientation you cry out to God you talk to

[00:56:19] people have gone through pain and they'll come out on the other side you engage with these

[00:56:22] historical figures of the past what was their experience here you immerse yourself in scriptures

[00:56:28] lament and redemption you dare to say like Jacob I will not let you go into you bless me

[00:56:34] and I think that's for me so inspiring Joseph in your story because you're one who

[00:56:40] models that your posture towards God is I'm not gonna let you go into you bless me you're gonna

[00:56:46] if you're gonna read you're gonna read deep you're gonna allow your mind to be formed and shaped

[00:56:50] by these thinkers of the past establishing in your heart a zone of silence and the beauty is

[00:56:57] it's actually really good for you um like there's amazing health benefits just to to reading

[00:57:03] and what that does for your soul so thank you for that um I found that so so inspiring well what would

[00:57:10] you say to someone who's who's listening who maybe you rewind the clock 10 or 15 years ago

[00:57:19] and or whenever that was for you the Marcus Borg days 20 years ago and maybe they're in that season now

[00:57:25] their faith has been shaken by something what would your encouragement be to them to find

[00:57:32] that that second innocence um to come back to a reorientation of belief in God yeah man

[00:57:40] god is not afraid of our questions he's fully he's fully ready for us to bring um the enormity

[00:57:50] of them like you said in the Psalms you know the Psalms are great masterful guidebook like God's

[00:57:56] not afraid and if you're part of a faith community that is suppressing those questions or making

[00:58:01] you feel bad for the complexity that you're bringing to it I'd be wary of that community sort of

[00:58:08] like trying to crimp now you can ask questions in bad faith sometimes sometimes you're looking for

[00:58:14] doubts you can have a cover for your sin or you're looking for this you know criticism so that you

[00:58:19] can you know shame something but I think of those are honest questions gods up to to wrestling with

[00:58:27] them with you and I I think the second thing is I there is a danger in pursuing um our faith purely

[00:58:37] through the avenue of the mind and the modern framework that it's like you're just looking for this

[00:58:42] you know silver bullet you're gonna find the answer the holy grail you're gonna read the right book

[00:58:46] that's gonna have the answer and forget that Jesus is as much out there in an answer to our

[00:58:53] mind's question as he is right next to us in the pews in the body of Christ in which we find ourselves

[00:59:00] that's the mystery of following Jesus is that he's known to us um but around you following Jesus

[00:59:06] in a community of disciples as he makes so clear uh in the gospels like to not let go of that habit

[00:59:13] and set up practices alongside the pursuing of God with your mind and through the questions and

[00:59:19] that was something that I think I had wise Christians around me that just encouraged me on that

[00:59:24] front like don't let go of the that what can feel like the mundane day-to-day practices of being

[00:59:30] in communion with Jesus and his body even as you pursue him with your mind and yeah I think

[00:59:38] you know just to wrap it all back to uh to learning and to education where we started I think we're

[00:59:45] in an amazing time where Christians are going to have to answer again why we care about education

[00:59:53] and learning and why the loving of God with our minds matters the questions are new they're ever new

[01:00:00] and I think that we have an opportunity as places in the church and also in the Christian

[01:00:06] college and university to model for a world that's just out of gas on education doesn't have a narrative

[01:00:12] of meaning big enough to make sense of why you would pay that much or go through that much time

[01:00:17] to learn and I think we need to bear witness to our vision of how humans flourish through good

[01:00:24] true education and how it's part of this much grander story Augusta and actually has this line

[01:00:30] in the city of God interestingly where he he thinks that the codex the book is a better example

[01:00:36] of time than the scroll of the papyrus the scroll that papyrus is kind of like a kindle you're like

[01:00:42] you don't know where you are it's always going the book you could actually lay down on its spine

[01:00:47] and crack open and see that there's a beginning there's a middle and an end and he says that this

[01:00:52] is true of human consciousness kind of like the Thomas Pinchin quote it's a great quote about

[01:00:57] personal density we as human beings Augusta says have the ability to remember the past and look back

[01:01:04] and to look to the future in anticipation and expectation and hope and to anchor the past and

[01:01:10] the future in the present through our own attention attention to ourselves to the now to what's

[01:01:16] right around us and I think that's that's the model he has for education that we are able to look

[01:01:22] to the past we're able to look to the future through our knowledge of the scriptures and pull

[01:01:28] and hold those things in the present attention of hope and I would say that that's something our

[01:01:34] culture we're in an epidemic of hopelessness a sense that time has been flattened a sense that

[01:01:40] we either want our lives to like make sense right here and now instantaneously and get all we can

[01:01:46] get out of it or we're full of despair there's a kind of numbing out I think that's going on and so

[01:01:52] for us to model this kind of personal density of attention and awareness of the past a hopefulness

[01:01:58] toward the future anchored in our Christian faith and hold it in the present and not just be so

[01:02:04] distracted and flattened that we don't seem to offer anything different to the culture around us

[01:02:10] I think that's one of the virtues of this kind of Augustin like mode of Christian education

[01:02:16] I have this poem that from time to time I read that kind of speaks into what you're sharing there

[01:02:22] about this idea of the moment like right we start where we are in our in our walk and relationship

[01:02:28] with God doubts struggles grief angst all of it and God meets us in this place

[01:02:35] and but the poem goes like this it's from an English poet he was a priest as well Malcolm Guithe said

[01:02:41] begin the song exactly where you are remain within the world of which you made call nothing common

[01:02:49] in the earth or air excepted all and let it be for good start with the very breath you breathe

[01:02:54] in now this moment's pulse this rhythm in your blood and listen to it ringing soft and low

[01:03:01] stay with the music words will come in time slow down your breathing keep it deep and slow become

[01:03:08] an open singing bowl whose chime is richness rising out of emptiness and timelessness resounding

[01:03:17] into time and when the heart is full of quietness begin the song exactly where you are

[01:03:25] and I think the beauty is that God meets us exactly where we are right now you know wrapping up

[01:03:31] this podcast whatever we're facing today whatever decisions have to be made we can just take a moment

[01:03:37] and say okay my my heart is an open singing bowl God just speak into me and and he will

[01:03:45] and our mind like you said so beautifully is like that pond and what we choose to put in it has

[01:03:52] ripples has impact has effect but we can enter this new year I think full of hope and a year

[01:03:59] from now God willing we've been shaped and formed more into the image of Jesus so thank you man what

[01:04:06] a beautiful encouraging conversation

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