The Unsuitable Cross

One last quote from David Adams Richards’s God Is.

As one theologian has said: “Faith begins where to the unbeliever proof in the absence of God is substantiated.” That is, faith begins at the cross. I do not know why that is, but I have seen it all my life. When Christ says, “Pick up your cross and follow me,” he is not saying look around and find one, suitable to the journey. He is saying you will have one given to you that is most unsuitable and you will hate to carry it, but you will have to. The fact is, whether or not you believe in him, the cross will still be there. You will, in so many ways, still carry one. That is the secret. (pages 157-158).

What Is Actual Violence and What Is Not

David Adams Richards’s God Is. reads like a series of concentric circles. The broad theme of the book is stated in the subtitle: “My Search for Faith in a Secular World.” However, Richards constructs this theme by pondering love and violence, liberty and power, sincerity and con games. This following section, highlighting these themes in the classic film High Noon (one of my favourites), captures the crux of this scattered yet worthwhile book.

There is a courageous journey as well in the movie High Noon, with Gary Cooper as sheriff who just married that very day, Amy—Grace Kelly—a Quaker woman opposed to violence. These, of course, are old morality plays—but they are plays that must be observed. The sheriff has put a man away, kept the town safe from a man who is now out and, along with his brother and two cronies, are coming to exact revenge. (These people, like the mob I referenced, never act alone.) No one stands up for Cooper or with him. The town turns coward—and some profess their indifference—by hiding and drinking in the tavern, or profess their moral superiority by going to church and praying. (This tavern and church are shown here to be one and the same.) It is interesting how all of these townspeople now turn on the sheriff and blame him, not only for his own difficulty but for the position he has put them in. The tavern and the church become the twin pillars of a false morality in the witnessing of one man’s agony.

Cooper has to fight the four men alone, and he does—with Amy finally coming to his aid and saving his life.

Nothing shows better the idea of a pretension toward goodness enabling evil. For the surface good, the surface morality is neither.

Therefore what counts must finally be recognized, and it will be sooner or later. Maybe not within the confines of a two-hour movie, or a ten-page story, but someday and for all time. It will also be known what is actual violence and what is not. Those in church were far more violent than Gary Cooper’s character that day. (pages 125-126)

The Unity of Word and Deed

As my friend Davey knows all too well, I have moments of doubt—moments when I’m sure that philosophy and theology are useless “abstractions” that should be tossed out the nearest window. But no, he assures me, that is not how you should see things. And after a little while, I come around to realizing that yes, I have again forgotten that there is a time and a place for everything, even mere thoughts.

And yet I still struggle. If the goal is to live well, just how does thinking play into that? I ask this because I know from experience the dangers of overthinking. I’ve often found it easy to be consumed by existential questions and forget about the real world.

Well, here’s a quote from James Jordan that answers this question very well. From the Introduction to The Liturgy Trap:

Christian worship … is not a technique for obtaining grace, but is a response to truth. That means that worship must always be governed by truth. It means that worship is under law, under the gracious regulation of the Holy Scriptures. True worship must develop out of rigorous truth and be a response to that truth. (page xiii)

To make this statement broader, replace “worship” with “love”:

Christian love is not a technique for obtaining grace, but is a response to truth. That means that love must always be governed by truth. It means that love is under law, under the gracious regulation of the Holy Scriptures. True love must develop out of rigorous truth and be a response to that truth.

This is, I believe, a wonderful and yet simple way of explaining “the unity of word and deed” (to borrow Davey’s phrase). After all, if we do not have the truth (that which sets us free), how can we live or live well?

Smarter, Wiser, Humbler

Joe Pelletier (of Hockey Book Reviews.com) has just posted a fascinating interview with Stephen Brunt, author of Searching for Bobby Orr and (most recently) Gretzky’s Tears.

The interview focuses on Gretzky’s Tears, since it’s just been released. I’ve not read either book, but this interview has convinced me that I should. Brunt appears to write as a hockey fan, but a hockey fan with discernment. He sees the game for what it is: a fun game, but full of business, celebrity, and greed.

One tidbit, on Gretzky and his “brand”:

[Q:] You scrape away at Gretzky’s Teflon just a little bit in the book, showing him mature from the kid from Brantford to someone interested in big pay days and the Hollywood lifestyle. Yet he was so fiercely protective of his squeaky clean image. How close is the real Wayne Gretzky to his carefully kept image?

[A:] Well, we all have feet of clay. I think it’s important to understand that a big part of Gretzky’s image isn’t just his construction – in many ways, it has to do with what we wanted him to be. He was elevated by the fans, and by the press, into something far more than just a great hockey player. He was a great hockey player – perhaps the greatest who ever lived – and I think from everything I know he’s a decent guy. But a whole lot of extrapolation was done beyond that, to suggest that he was smarter, wiser, humbler, more patriotic, than the average Canadian and therefore worthy of our adoration. In all aspects of sports heroism, I think it’s safer to leave it on the field or on the ice, and not imbue athletes with other qualities simply because of how well they play their games.

The whole interview is well worth a read for anyone who enjoys sports (and not just hockey).

Centuries from Now

More from Dark’s Sacredness of Questioning Everything:

Reading history yields the realization that deeply sincere people have gone to houses of worship, looked after their families, and prayed intensely while also participating in unthinkable atrocities. With this in mind, I read in the hope that I might participate in the redemptive moments of history, the kind that will look redemptive centuries from now. (page 173)