God, google, and the carthusians

"what's a devotional?" asked ben, one of the soldiers in debby's statistics army.

i stared at him.

rebecca came to my rescue be explaining that the term 'devotions' is christianese for hallmark card theology. that is, generally you pick out a passage of scripture--preferrably something from the gospels or the psalms--and share a happy little anecdote or a quick moral. it's spoon-fed christianity.

she makes some good points, but i don't entirely agree. even simple one page devotions don't seem quite that cookie-cutter to me. and even if she's right, that's not the kind of devotional that i intend to bring to the campfire on saturday night. but how to jump above the cookie-cutter conundrum?

first, pray. that's how i spent most of yesterday, praying and googling. the prayers were petitions for inspiration and desire. praying for desire may sound kind of funny, but it's been a while since i've looked forward to reading the good book. i'd like to see it sitting on my desk and think, "gosh, i want to read that," but it's not often like that.

and then the world turned upside-down. you see, i've always thought that it would be great if prayer worked like google. give God a request and then 0.38 seconds later He gives you 15,800,000 answers sorted from best to least relevant. however, yesterday i felt far more answered by God than by any silly google hit. i was looking for poems, short stories, encyclopedia entries--anything that might correspond cooly to saturday's passage from the daily lectionary (look to your left)--but alas, i stumbled onto nothing. in one sense it was a productive evening: i had a long talk with God. but i was still stuck in terms of that saturday deadline.

that's when it helps to date beth. she turned me on to the lectio divina, the perfect centerpiece for a saturday devotional. hooray for beth! hooray for God! hooray for the carthusian monks!


andrew david (and rene magritte) "the statcounter" moma, nyc. (magritte tells me that in cyberfrench that translates to "i'm watching you")

my assignment

i don't have our pedigree in front of me, but the green-david-welling-cunningham-howard-whitson family numbers somewhere around 35. this means there's about a 3% chance of being drafted into devotional service for the weekend of the family campout. unfortunately, grandma trimmed that list down to four people before even drawing a name from the hat. that means that my chances shot right up through the roof and then into my toe (serves me right for hanging out on the roof). thus, this saturday evening i have 34 relatives to teach, entertain, and move with my little words. i'd say this sounds like a job for God. as it stands RIGHT NOW, i think i'm going to try and draft a little something based upon each evening's lectionary passage. (see the lectionary link to your left). between now and thursday that gives me 3 chances.

2.77 HOURS LATER
well, i read a bit, but nothing jumped out at me. nothing said, "andrew, read me! thy LORD commands it..." i guess i'm no bb taylor (leaving church -- see the book section to your left). i also thumbed through several books: life together (d bonhoeffer), the way of the pilgrim (anonym), the imitation of christ (ta kempis), compassion (hjm nouwen), mudhouse sabbath (lf winner), sacred journey (f buechner), and craggily craggily croo (aka various poems by j donne). maybe i'll spend tomorrow's lunch break conducting some further study. stay tuned...


beth the s.o. "the 55 bar communion" greenwich village, nyc.

our daily bread

i suck at devoting time to bible study. its such a big book that it seems a little like reading anna karenina* on steroids. if you're reading in bed, you constantly have to devise new ways of propping the book open -- it's tough. like the norton anthology of fill-in-the-blank literature, its not something you do for fun. i should, but i don't.

i want fiction.

i want poetic prose.

i want metaphors and suspense.

i love reading books that allude to biblical stories or that manage to convey biblical truth so subtley that our postmodern world passes right by the reference. as the kings of convenience say, this 'love comes like--surprise!--ice on the water' (my punctuation and out of context insertion, not theirs). that is, i'm often moved by these allusions, but i half think it's because they're unexpected, like blessings which i did not seek.

so, as pastor richard might say, that leaves me sucking slop at the mouth of the columbia. sure, i get some fine h2o here and there, but i also have to contend with chemicals, household waste, and 1,152 miles of unknown nastiness.

i think that moms have a 6th sense about these kinds of things, so mine shoved me toward the source. she sent me a free subscription to our daily bread, a poor, time-crunched, mainline protestant's version of the book of common prayer. so, like a dutifully bored and thirsty son, i've been using these daily devotionals. each entry includes a verse, a half-page of commentary that alternates between cheese and insight, and--drumroll please, here comes the real reason for this blog entry--a closing poem.

a few nights ago i was pleasantly pondering the application of paul's command to 'live peacably with all men,' perhaps i was even praying, when i came across the abcb rhyme scheme of the final four lines. maybe the devil was in that rhyme, because i was suddenly ripped from the realm of the spiritual into the charcoal sky of the literary gre. there i was thinking, 'what kind of stanza uses an abcb rhyme scheme?'

a ballad.

amen.

so, read your bibles little lasses and laddies and whatever you do, beware of the literature gre. it will warp your every perception, sidetrack your studies, and make your blog messy. remember, friends don't let friends gre.


andrew david 'a new kind of accomodation' puerto vallarta, mexico.

*from my perspective, tolstoy is 0/2. i disliked the death of ivan ilyich and i doubt i'm going to finish anna k.