Notes from the Shadowlands

So many evangelicals of my generation it seems grew up with the expectation that our lives would unfold a certain way. Grow up, go to a good school, get awesome jobs, fall in love, get married, have kids, live happily ever, etc….  Consciously or not, so many of us believed that if we memorized enough verses, read the Bible faithfully, worshipped passionately, and prayed in faith then life would turn out the way we wanted.  As time went by as dreams died, as we felt friends and mentors, and churches fail us, as we were faced with heart-wrenching disappointment and failure and the weight of the brokenness of the world seemed bear fully on our lives, so many of us decided that we could not believe in a God that didn’t give us what we thought we wanted or needed. When believing in God no longer felt right or life no longer made sense, so many of us decided to walk away. 

The bottom line was that we were more interested in a god who would give us the life we want than the God who is sovereign and has promised to provide for our needs. A god who gives us only the life we want is nothing more than the god of self. It is the ultimate irony of our generation that we long to be part of something larger than ourselves, we look for fulfillment in causes and self actualization, yet we turn our back on the God who calls us into His great cause, we look for meaning in our suffering, yet we turn on the God who promises that suffering will produce endurance and ultimately hope, not the vain hope of unfounded expectations, but a longing for a city that has foundations, a great and glorious city that will endure.

This hope reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was no stranger to soul crushing despair and hopeless situations. Yet he wrote this.

“They sat and made such a meal as they could. Keeping back the precious lembas for the evil days ahead, they ate the half of what remained in Sam’s bag of Faramir’s provision: some dried fruit, and a small slip of cured meat; and they sipped some water. They had drunk again from the pools in the valley, but they were very thirsty again. There was a bitter tang in the air of Mordor that dried the mouth. When Sam thought of water even his hopeful spirit quailed. Beyond the Morgai there was the dreadful plain of Gorgoroth to cross. 

‘Now you go to sleep first, Mr. Frodo,’ he said. ‘It’s getting dark again. I reckon the day is nearly over.’ 

Frodo sighed and was asleep almost before the words were spoken. Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo’s hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.” 

So do not despair friend, our God is coming soon. Hope in Him.

In my recent apartment search, I was drawn to several trendy new complexes packed around a growing town square in a suburb with walkable food and coffee options. As I drove the nearby streets familiarizing myself with the area, I noticed an older building at the edge this expanding urban sprawl, it’s my uncle’s old shop, a clean metal build that was the fruit of forty years of excellence in a dying craft.

As I looked at the still-unfinished urban apartments going in next door, I couldn’t help but contrast the old and the new. The prefabricated almost sterile look of the new apartments contrasted with the clean, but clearly-not-built-yesterday look of my uncle’s shop and all that it represents. My uncle is a craftsman, even though he has a masters degree in mathematics, he’s told me before that he’s never had a white collar job in his life, he’s worked with his hands and built a reputation of excellence with anyone who has been privileged enough to see the anything he has built. These apartment buildings aren’t even finished yet, but they have websites and are already advertising apartments for lease. My uncle doesn’t have a website, he doesn’t need one; anyone who has the eye to appreciate his work knows his name. You don’t build this reputation overnight.

But this will not last forever. My uncle is 75 and will retire soon, his legacy of excellence retiring with him; there is simply no one else with the knowledge or patience to do his work. When he retires, he will probably sell his land to a developer and his shop will be replaced with more quick-rising apartments.

This is the way of the world. The new replaces the old, prefabricated efficiency sweeping all before it, but in this moment, the old stands and the contrast could not be more stark.

I left the office early this afternoon to pick up my uncle at a rental car place, it was near what he referred to as “the best fried chicken in the world” (Babe’s) and he said that if I had time, we should stop in for a piece. We went in and my Uncle asked for a menu saying “that every place in the world has a menu somewhere.” After saying that “there is too damned little light in here”, “I’m too damned old to read this”, and finally maneuvering at the correct angle to a window, he was able to read the menu and passed on to me the words, “Christopher, never grow old” before ordering. He decided to order a bunch of chicken and two pies. When they told that they couldn’t give him a whole pie without 24 hours notice, he asked me to calculate how many pieces were in a whole pie and was about to order the equivalent of two pies in pieces, but added up the cost and decided to settle for only 4 pieces.

He then set his old beat-up Chick-fil-a cup with a QT cup inside of it on the counter and asked that they fill it with iced tea. The girls behind the counter obliged and he thanked them and stepped out for a smoke.

About 20 minutes later, our order was ready and we returned to my car where he placed a CD on the dash and asked if I would like to listen to John Gary, a singer “with an amazing voice who died too soon” (he did have an amazing voice, but he actually died at age 65). I told him I would be delighted to listen to John Gary and soon the sounds of old Irish folk songs and ’40s-’50s style Big Band instrumentation filled the car. We spent the drive home talking about the music of Stephen Foster and how no one in generations beyond my uncle’s would even know any of his references. On the way to the house he shares with my grandmother, he called my Dad to let him know that he was bringing “chicken” for dinner.

When we got to the house, He asked me if I’d like to continue listening to John Gary, and when I said yes, he offered to loan me the CD for a bit. I stopped for a few minutes to admire his new truck, he opened the doors proudly and told me that “these things are all aluminum these days, so I need to make something to protect the bed and keep it from getting dinged up.”
My parents weren’t there and were still a ways off, so I popped in to say “Hi” to Grandma and Uncle Walter insisted that I try the green beans, a piece of chicken, and some pie. I told him that I didn’t want to take pie away from him and he said that it was “just payment for my services”, I thanked him and started eating a piece.

Between spoonfuls of serving Grandma, he turned and said “Daddy (my Grandpa), was always proud to offer his hospitality to anyone who came by, no one left hungry, because he truly knew what it was like to go without. When he was a boy in Quannah,” at this point Grandma interrupts protesting his liberal distribution of the “incredible green beans”. “When he was a boy in Quannah,” I prompted. “Yeah,” he replied, “he told me this story of when he was a boy in Quannah, must have been about ’34 or so. He would have been about 12, they were digging these large ditches, and just slaughtering cattle and throwing them in. The idea was to drive livestock prices up, it didn’t work,” he added, “like most of the New Deal plans.” He continued, “Daddy remembered leaning on the fence with a few other boys his age, with their stomachs gnawing on their bones and wondering why the men from the government were throwing away ‘so much good food’ instead of letting them have some of it.”

“That kind of thing stays with you” I replied softly. “Yes, yes, it does,” he said matching my tone “and that is why Daddy never voted Democrat a day in his life and had no love for any Democrats, but particularly Franklin Roosevelt”. I finished washing my spoon in the sink, my pie long gone thanked him for his hospitality and said that I had to get some work done. I walked out towards the door, he followed me out and told me that sometime, we should go for a ride in his new truck, “no one has ever ridden in the passenger seat” he said. I told him “I’d like that” and got in my car and drove off into the night listening to John Gary and thinking about two worlds that are rapidly fading from view. The first, is Grandma’s house, with my Uncle’s interesting conversation and old-time manners, and the second, the world of that little 12-year-old boy, a boy whom I only knew as an old man, a man who would never withhold hospitality from anyone.

At the end the year I like to compile a list of the most interesting books that I’ve encountered over the past year. I did not intend for much of my reading in 2016 to be historically themed; although history is one of my great interests, many of the books below I read because I started down a topical path and once I started, I felt that I must continue down the preverbal rabbit hole until I reached a somewhat satisfiying conclusion. In so doing, I have encountered many interesting characters and mesmerizing stories. I’ve condensed the list of books that grabbed my attention over the past year down to ten, I hope you find them as enlightening and engaging as I have. 

10. The Great Contemporaries by Winston Churchill

This is a series of essays written by Churchill on the major figures of the day in the 1930s. He both provides his unique perspective into the characters of the day and also helpful insight into how the major figures of the day were perceived before the carnage of World War II forever altered our vision. 

9. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise by Dario Fernandez-Morera

This book is a valuable read for anyone interested in the history of Europe and the historical conflict between Christendom and Islam. Fernandez-Morera does the digs into the background and particular ideologies that informed both Muslim and Christian Spain and makes the case that we should reset much of the common thought about Al Andalus and it’s influence.
8. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe 

When John Glenn the last of the mercury seven astronauts passed away a few weeks ago. It caused me to finally dig in to this book. The Right Stuff is the rip-roaring tale of the first 6 Americans in who rocketed into space. Wolfe captures the feel of the wild west age of air and space exploration as only someone who has lived through it and understood the culture can do. For a boy who grew up reading everything I could get my hands on about space, I’m surprised that I didn’t get to this book until now; and it is a treat. Names like Yeager, Glenn, Shepard, Grissom, and Armstrong; heroes from my childhood are captured in vivid color along with the culture that produced them. For spaceheads like me, this was a fun and a bit nostalgic of a read. For anyone interested in the space race and who wants to understand the mixture of fear and pride that powered the US to the moon, the is a helpful and informative read. 

7. The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

I found this timeless work from Lewis to be particularly poignant this year. The work is framed as a series of letters that a senior demon is writing to his nephew, a junior tempter. The letters contain advice on how to malign and distract the junior demon’s assigned human target and in his advice is concealed much of Lewis’ wisdom about culture and the nature of temptation.

6. 1453 by Roger Crowley

This is an account of the final days of the Roman Empire as it came to it’s violent end, not in Rome, but on the shores of the Bosphorus. Crowley, a man who spent most of his life teaching English in Istanbul uses period sources and archeological evidence to piece together a powerful and at times heart-wrenching account of the conflict between Islam and Christendom centering on the fall of the “City of Gold.” For anyone interested in interested in the history of Europe and the Mid-East, this book provides an excellent overall account of the period beginning with the ascendency of Islam and ending with the with the fall of Constantinople.

5. Race and Culture by Thomas Sowell

In the first book in his three part work on culture, Dr. Sowell explores the idea of race and the combined impact of factors like geographic location and cross-culture exposure on cultural development. He also explores the history and impact of slavery on cultures and how imperialism has shaped the modern world. Sowell is one of the intellectual titans of the last 50 years and his writings will inform thinkers for generations to come. This is a great introduction to his body of work. I found this work particularly interesting because it provides insight into many of the issues facing the world today and also shows how many of the great issues facing humanity in the past have been resolved.
4. Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley

G. K. Chesterton considered the battle of Lepanto to be one of the most significant in human history and in this excellent book, Crowley seconds his argument with rich and well researched historical narrative as only a master storyteller can, Crowley conveys the hopes and fears of Christendom and of the Ottoman world of the 16th century bringing to light the complexities of a changing world and the intricacies of the last fight between two old cultures for the “sea at the center of the world.” I was hesitant to include two books by the same author, but the quality of this book is so high that I couldn’t bring myself to leave it off my list.
3. With the Old Breed by E. B. Sledge

Considered one the best personal accounts of a war in the English language, this book is an interesting, and at times a very challenging read. Sledge tells the story of what it was like to be a solider in the 1st Marine division during the island conflicts on Peleliu and Okinawa, two of the harshest battles of the second world war. As the grandson of a veteran of Okinawa, I found the stories of the men who lived and died on this barren rocks to be both meaningful and heartbreaking. Sledge not only describes the fighting, but the turmoil that the men dealt with each day with the acute realization that each moment might be their last.
2. Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence

Churchill called Lawrence’s work one of the greatest works in all of English literature and Lawrence himself one of the most interesting and brilliant men that he had ever encountered. After getting about halfway through the book, I agree with him. So much so that I included it in my list of favorite books for the year even though I haven’t yet finished it. The name Thomas Edward Lawrence is one that is most likely not familiar to the average person today, but he was a man who lived a life as large as the vast desert that serves as the backdrop for his tale. His story is of the Arab rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in 1916-1918 and is written by the remarkable man who led it. “Lawrence of Arabia” tells of his adventures with both the flair of a great storyteller and the keen insight of a man who understood the political and social complexities of the times in which he lived. This is a book that stands the test of time well and provides an interesting perspective on the beginnings of the movements that created the modern middle east. 

1. Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance

This in my estimation is the book that best encapsulates 2016. It is the autobiographical story of growing up in the white working class world of the rust belt. In some ways I saw some small glimpses of my own childhood in Texas in Vance’s story, and perhaps that is partially why I found this story so compelling. I can identify with Vance’s lower working class childhood and although the level of family dysfunction that Vance describes is far beyond my experience, it is the story of many people I know. In the aftermath of the presidential election, the “rust belt voter” has been the subject of many articles and been the topic of countless conversations and talk shows. Vance however does what they could not do, he provides a glimpse into the life and mind of a boy who grew up in Appalachia and small town Ohio, and was subject to the hopes, fears, and struggles that were unique to that culture. Hillbilly Elegy is the story of men and women struggling to survive and to find meaning and redemption in a broken world. Perhaps we can all relate in many ways.

The waning days of 2016 provide an opportunity for many thoughts and emotions. To say that it has been an eventful year is probably a bit of an understatement. Much has changed in the world; 2017 dawns to both new clarity and uncertainty, and we are reminded that there is both good and evil in the world. Amid the termoil of this broken world, we are drawn to the celebration of a 2000 year old story. A world in darkness, a baby in a manger, shepherds startled in their fields, Immanuel, God with man. A story that is not only intriguing drama, but also eternal reality. It is this, the great story, in which good stories find their fulfillment. The apostle John says of that child that “in him was life and the life was the light of men” and that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Even after two millennia, the story continues and the light shines as strongly and clearly as ever. And so, as we say goodbye to 2016, we celebrate the light and long for the day when faith will be turned to sight for “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.” Merry Christmas.