Piper on Women, Underhill on Prayer

John Piper was recently asked whether it was OK for men to read biblical commentaries that were written by women. (Find the podcast here.) He ruled that it is probably OK to read them as long as the women aren't there physically to assert their leadership or authority over a man directly.  Evidently indirect influence of an absent woman won't stain us men too badly or otherwise overturn the cosmic hierarchy God established, so I felt the freedom to read a book by a woman.  Instead of a commentary, I opted for a devotional classic in the mystical vein, assuming that Mr. Piper would put them into the same category.  The book is Evelyn Underhill's The Spiritual Life, and I feel that I've protected myself adequately from her direct influence since she has been dead for 70 years.

I think her words on the nature of prayer are particularly insightful:

"For prayer is really our whole life towards God: our longing for Him, our 'incurable God-sickness', as Barth calls it, our whole drive towards Him.  It is the humble correspondence of the human spirit with the Sum of all Perfection, the Fountain of Life.  No narrower definition than this is truly satisfactory, or covers all the ground.  Here we are, small half real creatures of sense and spirit, haunted by the sense of a Perfection ever calling to us, and yet ourselves so fundamentally imperfect, so hopelessly involved in an imperfect world; with a passionate desire for beauty, and yet unable here to realize perfect beauty; with a craving for truth and a deep reverence for truth, but only able to receive flashes of truth.  Yet we know that perfect goodness, perfect beauty, and perfect truth exist in God; and that our hearts will never rest in less than these.  This longing, this need for God, however dimly and vaguely we feel it, is the seed from which grows the strong, beautiful and fruitful plant of prayer.  It is the first response of our deepest selves to the attraction of the Perfect; the recognition that He has made us for Himself, that we depend on Him and are meant to depend on Him, and that we shall not know the meaning of peace until our communion with Him is at the centre of our lives."  

Thank you Evelyn.  Too often I sense the half-reality of my own existence and take it for the real thing, dismissing the haunting of the Real as nothing more than wishful thinking or the effects of some bad guacamole.  May my attraction to the Perfect, my communion with the One who made us all for Himself, my life of prayer, be kindled anew this summer.

Masterson and God

Justin Masterson got his second start for the Red Sox tonight (see blog on first start here), and tonight the bullpen did its job and he comes away with his first big league win. He went six and a third innings, giving up only one earned run (and that one came after he left the game). The Red Sox only scored two, but it was enough as Papelbon came on for the save.

During the game, I started wondering how much God cares about baseball. I remember since I was a kid being skeptical about praying for my team to win. But it seems to change things when we move from a generic prayer like that to a specific prayer about this individual player that we know. I find myself trying to suppress the prayer that involuntarily came to my lips with every payoff pitch, "God, let Justin strike that guy out." Because there is also someone that the batter knows who is praying for him to hit a home run on that same pitch. It seems like such prayers cancel each other out and make a mockery of God's involvement in the affairs of the world.

Yet, it doesn't seem wrong to pray, "Let him do his best." Is it problematic that "doing his best" seems to mean "pitching really well... and most likely winning"?? And every batter's mom is praying for him to do his best, which means getting a hit most of the time?! If this is what we mean, we're still stuck in a mode of thinking that our prayers are about affecting the outcome of the game. And in that theological masterpiece, Angels in the Outfield, we learned that at least championships have to be won on their own.

I'd like to think that "Let him do his best" means something closer to "Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." There is a sense that when anything is functioning as it ought to, it is reflecting the kingdom of God. I think this is true of the natural world just as much as the spiritual realm. But that doesn't mean that everything will always go the way we want it to go. Even when baseball players are functioning as they ought, they're going to win some and lose some. We can pray for peace for the player, for him to be free from distraction, to function as he is capable of; and I believe that God assists in those things. But especially in a game of baseball, there are lots of things that are left to chance. The kingdom mindset is that no matter the outcome, I know that all will be well. With that perspective, we can see how there could be things like games in heaven without both teams winning all the time!

Undoubtedly, Justin is going to pitch in some more major league games. And there are enough Christians in his life, that I'm sure there will be lots of people praying for him when he pitches. And I'll bet he'll win some of those games and lose some of them--and that won't be dependent on how fervently we're praying for him. Through it all, I'll keep praying that the kingdom of God will be evident through his pitching. (But it sure is fun when he wins!!)

Congrats, Justin.

500

I started running more regularly last June, and that's when I started keeping a running log. With today's six mile run, I went over the 500 mile mark.

It also makes two days and twenty-one hours worth of running in the past year. Physical exercise is certainly a spiritual discipline for me (part of that whole "beating my body and making it my slave" thing). I wonder, though, if I've prayed for two days and twenty-hours in the past year?

Something seems wrong to me about keeping a prayer log in terms of the number of minutes prayed per day. Lots of people keep a prayer journal, though. Is that the same sort of thing? More qualitative than quantitative, I suppose.

Can we push the comparison further? One of the big things in getting more effective in running is just logging lots of miles. It doesn't really matter how fast; your body "remembers" the miles and benefits from them when you try to run more seriously. I pray the Lord's prayer just about every day. Does that do anything analogous? Does the regular habit of praying somehow make my prayers more effective?

New Year

Those of us in the academic profession feel that new year's day should be sometime in late August. That is the new beginning for us, when all things are made fresh. I have a good deal of responsibility with the the prelude to the new year--think of it as organizing the New Year's Eve party.

We had our new faculty on campus today after a meal at the president's house Sunday night. Lots of fun. Tomorrow starts the full faculty retreat. I have a pretty big speech/talk/sermon (I'm never sure what to call them) to give on Wednesday night. The theme will be the purposes of God in our generation which might be served by the Christian college.

Across my banner at the top, the first descriptor is education. This blog has been rather thin on that topic so far. I'll see if I can't do something about that in the future. I need to dig in now to this speech/talk/sermon. If you're inclined to such things, I'd appreciate your prayers; if you're not inclined... fight the inclination and give it a try. I'm pretty sure it won't hurt you.

ND prayer service

So today I participated in the ecumenical prayer service at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of Notre Dame. It was a pretty awesome experience. For as much as I disagree with some elements of Catholicism, they sure know how to do pomp and circumstance.

It was the 150th anniversary of the Ft. Wayne - South Bend Diocese; the 25th year anniversary of Bishop D'Arcy becoming the bishop; his 50th anniversary of his becoming a priest, and his 75th birthday. The Basilica was packed and overflowing. The Archbishop from Indianapolis was there. President Jenkins of ND gave the opening remarks. I was in the processional that went to the platform with about 12 others (including some prominent pastors in the area, the Mayor of South Bend, a dean from Notre Dame).

During the intercessory prayer part of the service, we each had a line to pray, to which the audience responded in song, "Lord hear our prayer". My prayer/line was, "For people of all faiths, we pray that they would have freedom to worship according to the dictates of their conscience; this we humbly pray..."

Prayer

I finally finished Yancey's book. It is a masterful treatment of the subject.

A glimpse into my daytimer:

Saturday: Ecumencial Prayer Service at ND
Sunday: New Faculty Dinner
Monday: New Faculty Orientation
Tuesday-Thursday: Faculty Retreat

Blogging may be down the priority list for a week or so.

Keep in touch.

I was thinking about Frank Peretti's novels (This Present Darkness, etc.) for some reason today (I think when mulling over the reality that there is a spiritual realm) and got chuckling a bit when I realized the eerie similarity with the movie, Monsters, Inc.

In the latter, the monsters in their alternate reality have to live on the power of screams that are collected from the regular world; in the former, the combatants in the spiritual warfare that is going on behind the scenes are buoyed and strengthened by the prayers that are offered in the regular world.

Something seems a little funny about that... We certainly need a way of articulating that reality of a spiritual realm and the fact that we can influence what is going on there (and vice versa); but we need to be careful not to reduce prayer to screams that can be collected and burned for fuel.

Prayer

Yesterday our middle son was having some pretty severe acid reflux from his stomach--resulting in a lot of pain for him and a lot of being grossed out by the rest of the family as he constantly deposited the effects of the reflux into a bin he kept with him. By 10:30 last night, we were bracing ourselves for a long night. He couldn't lie down because it made things worse; and he couldn't fall asleep sitting up.

I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately (probably more thinking than doing, unfortunately). Some of this has been because of the VTech incident and my musings on why God doesn't always keep us safe [see May 1 and following posts]; but also because I've been mulling my way through Philip Yancey's new book, Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference? I find Yancey to be very insightful and profound and highly recommend his books to everyone. But this one is challenging. There are lots of examples (to which we could all add many more) of good, sincere people asking God for things that don't seem unreasonable, and being met with deafening silence. And yet somehow, we keep praying and asking. What else can we do?

So last night as I sat in bed with my son I prayed, "God let him sleep tonight. I'm not asking for a miraculous cure, just some rest for his body and for ours." In 30 seconds he was sound asleep, and stayed that way the whole night. This morning he was up reflux-ing again right where he left off.

I think that one part of becoming a spiritually mature person is to orient oneself toward, or to see the world through, faith. Did an answer to prayer happen last night? Would he have fallen to sleep if I hadn't uttered those pleas to God? I suppose there will always be competing realities for people of faith and people without faith--like the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip where the tiger is alive in Calvin's perspective on the world, but not in anyone else's perspective. Life is sure a lot more interesting and fun with a live tiger.