Exploration & Contemplation

24 Hours of Travel

Backpacks

Here are backpacks, one per person, for 6 weeks of international travel. Traveling light fits our minimalist ethos, but more than that it’s just so convenient to be able to carry all of our stuff on our backs. Will we miss anything? Perhaps in the UK we will wish we had rain jackets or umbrellas, but then we can just buy them there. And leave them there. Because part of this simplicity is enforced – the Icelandic discount airliner WOW (we had never heard of it either) allows only 11lbs per carry-on! It will be close, but we just might make it if we wear all our clothing and stuff everything we can into our pockets. Or we can admit defeat to the stingiest airline ever and pay the fee for a few extra pounds.

We stayed in San Francisco on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning I was up early enough to look up this prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. I knew there would be something in there about travel.

For TravelersO God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole
creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve
those who travel [in particular _______________]; surround
them with your loving care; protect them from every danger;
and bring them in safety to their journey’s end; through
Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.

We needed God to surround us with his loving care on our trip. We left the hotel in San Francisco at 6:45am and caught our first flight at 10:00am. We had connections in Seattle and Frankfurt (Note: never travel through Frankfurt, whose ridiculous design required a long shuttle from plane to terminal, a long walk to the next gate, and then another long shuttle from gate to plane). The plan was to sleep as much as possible on the long flight across the Atlantic, then stay awake as much as possible until bedtime in Istanbul. Mostly, we didn’t sleep at all. Except in the Frankfurt airport. Just before landing in Frankfurt two of our kids threw up. Not because they were sick. Just because they were tired. Rebecca and I didn’t feel so great either.

During the ten hour flight from Seattle to Frankfurt I found myself hoping a few times that we had at least passed the five hour mark so we could be halfway done. During those ten hours the kids attempted sleeping, watched Toy Story 3 without sound, and achieved pro level on Plants vs Zombies. I did a little reading at the beginning, but after that it was about the same as the kids. Being so far north, and traveling east, the sun barely went down before rising again during the flight. It reminded me of my summer in Alaska.

The Frankfurt airport gave the kids a place to finally lay down. When we woke up one of them 20 minutes later to take the ridiculously long shuttle bus to the plane, he staggered and mumbled, “I feel so bad.”

When we landed in Istanbul I texted our driver, as the owner of our airbnb apartment had arranged. After no response I called and he said, “I will send my son over to show you where we are.” A man came by with a sign bearing my name, but it was not the driver’s son, and the driver he brought was not the man I had talked to. I was wary, having enough experience with attempted scams and cons to know when suspicion is called for. But when he called driver #1 who confirmed he had arranged it, we went along without any trouble or suspicion. I only wondered why the first driver hadn’t just said someone else would meet us.

We arrived at the apartment in Istanbul around 7:00pm the day after we departed San Francisco. Turkey is 10 hours later than California, so our journey was around 26 hours.

I collapsed into bed at 8:00pm, feeling like I might pass out otherwise. I was awake at 5:00am, and up at 5:45 with our five year old, whose body had been telling him that 4:00am was a good time to get up. The rest of the kids were up before long and acted like they hadn’t just spent 26 hours experiencing the mild torture of sleep deprivation. Thank God. I thought during the flights that arriving at the destination one desires is worth the difficulty. Heaven will be like that.

I will write about our first day or so in Istanbul soon. It’s hard for my writing to keep up with our activity!

The Ontological Argument for Kids

Some time ago one of my sons asked at bedtime (the best time for philosophical questions, either because of the potential for stalling or the potential of having one parent alone and uninterrupted), “How do we know that when we talk about God that we mean God?” It took a minute to unravel the meaning of his question. Eventually I understood that he was asking how we know the word “God” refers to the actual God. A good question, really. What do we mean by the word God?

This conversation led me to Anselm’s ontological argument, because that’s what everyone talks to their children about at bedtime, right? When they ask questions like this one, it’s a good thing to have in mind. Anselm’s brief argument for the existence of God states that: 1) God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived; 2) It is greater to exist in reality than in imagination; so 3) God must exist in reality. I am simplifying here, and if you are interested in picking apart the logic of the argument you will have to look elsewhere. The important part here is the definition of God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” That is where I took the bedtime conversation with my son, though I didn’t refer to Anselm or ontology. (We don’t introduce ontology in our household until they’re a little older).

When we talk about God, what we mean, by definition, is the being who is greater than what we can imagine or explain. If this seems too abstract or vague (or philosophical!), there are some reference points for the greatness of God that give us a place to start. For instance, God is Creator. God is the architect and builder, the designer and maker of all things, including matter, physical laws, and all life. And God is the sustainer of all things, upholding the universe and overseeing its ongoing existence. From there we could move on to the attributes of God, which I will do at another time.

What I want to do now is circle back to an earlier post about God’s revelation of himself and his name to Moses. “I am who I am,” God says. Everything in the universe depends on something else for its existence and identity. We come from a father and a mother. We depend on water, air, and food for ongoing life. All plants depend on the sun for the production of food for themselves and all animals. In addition to physical needs, our identity also always depends on things outside ourselves. We introduce ourselves based on where we work, where we are from, who our family members are. We define ourselves by what we do, who we know, by things outside of ourselves.

God is the only being who is self-existent and self-defined. God is the only being who can say, “I am who I am.” God defines reality for all things other than himself. And God himself is self-defined, not dependent on anything other than himself. In C.S. Lewis’ book The Horse And His Boy, the boy Shasta is walking alone in the fog on a mountain path when someone comes to walk beside him, unseen in the fog. After some conversation with this strange companion, Shasta asks, “Who are you?” The stranger, who is Aslan the lion, answers him saying three times, “Myself!” Aslan is not defined by anything other than himself. For anyone other than God to answer the question this way would be arrogant. But God cannot be defined by things outside himself. God’s answer to Moses’ question, “What is your name?” is answered in the same way as Shasta’s question to Aslan. Who is God? He is himself.

If people, children included, can understand God in the terms of his revelation to Moses, or of Anselm’s ontological argument, that is a good starting place indeed. God is I am who I am, that than which none greater can be conceived. More on this later. These thoughts frame my sabbatical, which is exploration and contemplation of precisely this God who is greater than all conception. What a wonderful thing.

24 Hours of Perfect

We arrived in Cambria just over 24 hours ago. It has been 24 hours of perfection. I immediately found my soul seeking God: in Scripture, prayer, literature, conversation with my wife, walks in nature, and gratefulness for good, simple food. Back at home this hunger for God is often stifled by busyness, thwarted by stress, or suppressed by my own laziness. How good it is to find that when the burden of numerous responsibilities is released, my soul flies back to God. That is the hope and the purpose of this sabbatical.

And God was ready to meet me. The theme of the sabbatical is Exploration and Contemplation, which comes from Psalm 121. The first post in this blog is about that. When we arrived at the coast yesterday, I opened up the prayer book I have recently been using and the Psalm for the day was Psalm 121. The first day of my sabbatical and the Psalm for the day is the one I used to frame the sabbatical. A nice bit of confirmation that, as the Psalm says, the Lord watches over you.

I asked for book recommendations on facebook a few days ago. A couple friends recommended Wendell Berry, an author I have heard of but barely read. I visited the local library, but not finding the recommended novel, I picked a book of his poems whose title, Sabbaths, seemed fitting. This morning I read a few poems. Here is the first one. If you choose not to read it, I don’t blame you. When I come to poems quoted, I often don’t read them. Not because I don’t like poetry, but because going through my inbox doesn’t usually feel like the time for pondering poetry. But anyway, here it is in case any of you finds something to appreciate in it as well.

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leave me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing
the day turns, the trees move.

In just 24 hours of Sabbath rest, I feel my identity in God – my song – returning. I am joyful and at peace. Already feeling renewed, I told Rebecca that just these hours feels like enough. And yet I also think that at the end of these days here at the coast I will feel like it hasn’t been enough. I wonder if I will feel that way after every stage of this sabbatical. In any case, I hope to keep hearing and singing my song. I just went and kissed my wife. “Because I’m happy,” I said. I was not burned out, I don’t think, but maybe a little singed. This sabbatical already is a welcome renewal for my soul.

Some Call Me Tim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZJZK6rzjns

In this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur and his brave knights, riding their coconut horses, come upon an enchanter. He stands on a peak, ram’s horns curling down around his cheeks, beard flowing, and casts fiery explosions at the surrounding hills. He magically explodes his way down from the peak and stands in front of the men. Arthur asks, “By what name are you known?” The enchanter answers gravely, “There are some who call me…” and gives a long, expectant pause, and then, as if unsure, says, “…Tim.”

When Moses met God in the burning bush, he asked God a similar question, but got a wildly different answer. God instructs Moses to go to the Israelites and tell them the God of their fathers has sent him. But, says Moses, what if they ask “‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” Moses wants to know God’s name. Moses seems to expect a name, like the names of all the other gods he had heard of. The gods of Egypt had names. The gods that Moses’ father-in-law Jethro served surely had names. What was the name of this God, the God of Moses’ fathers, who was now speaking to him from the burning bush? Now what if God said, “Some call me…Tim”? Or Steve, or Jose, or Melvin, or Bruce Almighty? Or if God gave a powerful-sounding name like some other gods, like Osiris the god of the Nile, or Amon-Ra who had the head of a beetle?

The reason Tim the Enchanter is funny is because the name Tim is anticlimactic. An enchanter should have an impressive name. Likewise, Moses expected a name of power, but rather than a normal guy name like Tim, the name God gives Moses is really not a name at all. God says, “I am who I am.” Philo, a Jew whose lifespan overlapped with Jesus, and who was much influenced by the philosophy of Plato, translated this phrase into Greek, ego eimi ho on, “I am the God who is.” I remember that at least one of my seminary professors objected to this platonic interpretation of God’s name. She claimed that the emphasis in the Exodus account is on the fact that God was promising that he would be present with his people, not on a philosophical concept of God’s being (which the philosophers would call ontology). But surely, even if Philo stretched his translation a little too far, the non-name I am who I am shows Moses, and shows us, that God does not have a normal guy name, or a normal god name, or even a proper name at all. God is beyond a name. A name would reduce God and make him manageable.

When Moses asks God his name, God’s response shows that he is beyond names, beyond all categories, beyond attempts to pin him down. God is more than any name or description or category we could put on him. Which is good news. Because people are constantly trying to reduce God to this or that object or ideology. God refuses to have that done to him, not just by his choice but by his very nature. God is who he is. Philo’s interpretation is not wrong. God is “the one who is.” Despite all our attempts to reduce God down to something manageable, God says, “I am who I am.”

So the pursuit of God is made endlessly more complicated – and endlessly more interesting – by the fact that God is greater than our understanding, always breaking the boundaries of our finite minds. I will have more to say about the joy of exploration and contemplation of the God who is I am who I am. Specifically, I will write about using Anselm’s ontological argument with my inquisitive children, tours of the Kingdom of God, and exploring the grizzly-packed beauty of Denali National Park. Trust me, it will all come together, although I’m not sure how many posts that will take. And in a couple weeks I’ll write about what we are experiencing in the country of Turkey.

Exploration & Contemplation

A few years ago I took my two oldest kids on a camping trip on the Stanislaus River in the Sierra Nevada mountains. As always when we go camping, exploring was a priority. It didn’t take any encouragement from me; the boys raced ahead. An irresistible curiosity drew them down the river, vaulting over rocks, cruising serenely over fallen logs. Just as I said “Be careful” (why bother with such a warning with young boys?) the younger one disappeared on the other side of a boulder. He hadn’t anticipated there would be such a big hole on the other side.

Their curiosity made them hurry to explore, but it also caused them to stop and contemplate things of interest. What’s in that puddle? Any fish in that pool? What’s under that rock? Ants, a beetle, a lizard, a snake. A snake?! Jackpot! We found an entrancing little rubber boa. The rewards of exploration and contemplation.

Exploring, just to experience what’s there. Turning over rocks, just to see what you find. That’s exploration and contemplation, which apply to the spiritual life as well. Follow a passage of Scripture downstream just to experience what’s there. Turn over some rocks and see what you find. Exploration and contemplation. Some have described the spiritual life in terms like these. Faith is an active passivity, it is exploration and contemplation.

I was sitting in a coffee shop practicing exploration and contemplation with Psalm 121 around the time my wife was diagnosed with a rare disease. The symptoms had been rather terrifying – life-threatening, in fact. With that in the background I was turning over rocks in Psalm 121 just to see what I would find. “I lift my eyes up to the hills; where does my help come from?” I asked questions: are the hills a source of danger or a source of help? I noticed things: often the Psalm says the Lord watches over you; there are indications of the nearness of God – he is the shade at your right hand.

I turned over rocks in the Psalm, I explored and I contemplated, and bam! God spoke. I was passive and God was active. I found the voice of God in the Psalm. God said, “It’s okay. I am watching over your life.” My wife has a rare disease, the churches I pastor are fragile, our future felt uncertain. How reassuring to hear the voice of the Lord saying, “I will watch over your coming and your going both now and forevermore.” This was passive activity, exploration and contemplation.

So when I applied for a generous grant to fund a sabbatical (time away from the responsibilities of ministry to focus on other important things), the proposal was based on Psalm 121: “I lift my eyes up to the mountains – where does my help come from?” which led to the theme of Exploration & Contemplation. I lift my eyes to look, to explore. I also lift up my eyes to contemplate what I see. The grant also gives us the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore God’s world and his ways through international travel.

In Turkey we will get to know Constantinople…I mean Istanbul (Istanbul was Constantinople). We will also visit one of my good friends there. In Cappadocia, home to some of my favorite theologians of the early church, we will take the famous hot air balloon ride over the ridiculously shaped rock formations (look it up!). We will also hold a family worship service in one of the many ancient cave churches. From Kas we will take a two night boat trip on the Mediterranean. Then on to Albania, where we will visit with good friends and I will read, write, and pray. Before returning to the United States we will see where my family came from 300 years ago. We will search for the grave of Hugh Humphrey Nelson, my ancestor from twelve generations past, in the church yard of Penrith, England. Back in the US, we will visit with family and I will do some backpacking with a good friend back in the Sierra. We get to do so many fun things I almost feel guilty. Almost. We would never spend our own money on these things. Spiritual retreats bracket both ends of the sabbatical.

For the summertime, this blog will focus on reflections related to our exploration and contemplation prompted by the places we travel. I may have some other thoughts to share as well. Beyond the summer, if I choose to keep writing and you choose to keep reading, this will be a place for further thoughts on things of interest to me. If you choose to keep reading, then I will know that they are of interest to you as well.

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We begin on May 23. We can hardly wait for this season of exploration and contemplation.