Adeodatus in Wonderland

I had a Dominos pizza about five years ago, and after wiping that savory cardboard taste from my tongue with an old rag I vowed not to repeat my mistake. But there we were in need of a quick dinner and Dominos was as quick and cheap as any.

Not only were they pretty nasty pizzas (with all of two sliced mushrooms on the mushroom one), but this unsavory brochure was displayed proudly on the counter.

A zesty sauce as spicy and rich as the neighborhood itself!

Already the aspen shoots have been pulled, the junk mail tossed and a cold lager pulled from the garage fridge. Home with all its pleasantness and familiarity. The same weeds are growing, the same cracks show in the walls, but it is ours. No one to feel awkward about: let those kids scream at each other! Let those toys sit on the floor for a day or two.

We drove through the night twice, camped in the woods off the grid, and drove past two Cabelas stores to make it back.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me give you the whole story (Stop me if you've heard this one before). . .

7.16.2004 Almost through the first week of candidate school. The Big 3 have the best of it: field trips every day to parks, lakes, and pools. We adults get to sit and eat and play with the pencils.

Yesterday I slipped out the door to find some Wireless Technology in this green world of sprawling manicured swathes and manifold fishy-looking lakes. The web promised some wifi at a mall up the road, but no one there knew anything about it. The two ladies at the info desk made a few calls and gave me an apologetic look. Grmmbmbmblble. . . but as I dragged my feet back out to the van, I glanced up long enough to see that all the bored kiosk keepers were all bouncing around the web. Hmm.

I found the strongest connection to the ubiquitous network from the comfy chairs above the food court. Not until I was well into downloading windows updates, checking e-mail updates, and IM’ing up a storm did I notice that these innocuous comfy chairs were directly across from Lacy Underwear Emporium, complete with the Plastic Prostitutes seducing the weak-willed from their windows. I can imagine the thoughts running through the minds of the (real) women coming in and out, as this guy sat there slouched over a computer screen, glancing up at the Black Lace Display Vixon every few minutes. Skeevy, man. Very, very skeevy.

Bug & I meet next week with our director regarding some questions on our application. I signed the statement of faith, but not without a big asterisk next to the pre-mill clause. (I will just quote Calvin r.e. chiliasm: “This fiction is too puerile to need or to deserve refutation.”) We both have some reservations about the alcohol policy (which advocates voluntary teetotalism unless that would hamper ministry). On top of this, I’m not a huge fan of congregationalism, which happens to be another plank in the statement of faith. During a 45 minute lunch break on Monday, then, we will need to address these issues as well as try to nail down where we are heading in this whole process.

The biggest concern still being this: if we head into a different culture yet focus entirely on operating in English, will this significantly hamper our long-range usefulness as cross-cultural educators? You see, most of our compadres here will go straight into language school, studying intensely for at least a year. They will then have the most basic tool for understanding a different culture. But teaching MK’s – this is the sort of job you are expected to jump right in to, focusing on their educational and spiritual needs. From where I’m sitting, this looks like a great recipe for keeping us secure in our Western ways and impervious to any real interaction with neighbors and shop keepers.

PS. Tonight we were to enjoy an evening of engaging people in “spiritual conversations,” an altogether appropriate exercise from a church-planting-focused organization. Those of us with kids were sent out together to a park with a nice little beach, I suppose for the purpose of letting the kids swim while we talked with folks. I will be having a wee talk with the recruitment director tomorrow: you do not talk to guys on the one hand about keeping your eyes pure, then send them off to T & A Emporium for spiritual conversations. That is UnCool.

7.14.2004 It’s not that I have anything against olfactory aids in prayer, but just don’t expect me to meditate on how sweet smelling vanilla reminds me of grace after a big lunch. Give me a nap.

I’m finding one of the hardest things to keep up on during this whole thing is consistency with the kids. There is very little leverage when it comes to punishment. No movies, TV, video games to take away. I can threaten to take away their daily field trips, but that is quite a hammer to swing for most of these minor infractions. Maybe I can make them stand next to the woods on the other side of the parking lot for ten minutes without swatting at the bugs. That would teach them.

7.12.2004 The world is green over here. Plants drink their fill directly from the air. I can understand why humidity is detestable in many people’s eyes, especially those used to the unencumbered freedom of the American West. Moist air envelops you like an embryonic sac, at the same time nursing you with her heavy, hot waters yet nearly suffocating you with closeness.

Things grow like a Paleolithic forest. In the B_____’s backyard grows rhubarb which makes our plants look like a quaint garnish. A single stalk from that monster probably outweighs our entire yield for the season, from all six plants around the yard. Another thing about humidity: you sweat without labor. In all my huffing and puffing in my landscaping endeavors in Denver, I only began to break a sweat when genuine labor was exerted. It was a sign of True Work, an accurate reflection of the value of my labor. Merely packing up the tent that last morning in Nebraska, though, sweat rolled off my forehead and coated my arms. I suppose I could have done nothing more than type and my body would have responded with egregious perspiration. Sweat should not come so freely. It should be reserved for those men who have wielded heavy axes or mown twenty acres of dry hay or fought for eight rounds or passionately argued for the prosecution. High humidity does no one a favor by bringing forth sweat so effortlessly.

I am having second thoughts about this missions strategy of ours. The idea was that we would remove as many significant, life-changing dimensions of the switch as possible: teach students in an MK or international school, in English. No major vocational switch. No language acquisition. Kids get their education in this same school. This way we will be able to see if we can function in an alien culture as a family before investing in all the language and cultural acquisition. But that means living in a Western enclave as an expatriate for two years rather than engaging in any real cross-cultural activity. In the end, I wonder if we wouldn’t be cutting ourselves off at the knees by establishing habits and patterns of living and learning. We need to have a few important conversations with wise people before making any big decisions.

(These blog entries are beginning to stack up. I was hoping to jump on the wireless network at the headquarters building today, but that didn’t happen. Our host family graciously let me jump on their home computer to check some e-mail, but the machine is quaint and lacks the USB drive I’d need to switch these files over, this laptop lacking a floppy drive as it does. Perhaps tomorrow I can swing by some place with free wifi. Either that or walk up and down the sidewalks here until I find an open network.)

Ooops. I just realized that I was posting the stuff from our Minnesota period in the wrong order. In order to keep our chronology correct and keep from confusing all involved, I deleted those which were errantly posted too early. (TulipGirl! Gimme those comments again! I weep to think them lost forever).

Now I shall start from the beginning. . .

7.11.04 My dad’s birthday. We called him from the Mall of America today and sang into the phone. He gave us a quick thank you and handed the phone back to Mom.

The best store in the Mall of America (the largest Mall in the world, if you didn’t already know that. But of course you did. You also know that there is a small amusement park in the middle, complete with a log ride and two roller coasters) is the Mall of America store. I can’t be the first person to recognize how surreal it is that there exists a store devoted to selling merchandize commemorating one’s visit to a place devoted to selling merchandise.

Someday it would be nice to visit the MOA without kids in tow, just to watch the people scurrying though the corridors of purchase. You see plenty of made-up busty girls and scrawny guys in tank tops, but you also see a lot of woman wearing head scarves and men in slacks. At the food court we sat across from a Pakistani-looking young man who was just starting Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind. I read that years ago and wanted to strike up a conversation with him about it, but by the time I had coerced N. into eating a piece of carrot, I looked up to find a large (per capita, not in group number) family sitting in his place.

As a cross-cultural experience, Minnesota isn’t as starkly different as I had hoped. People do indeed pronounce their "O" differently. You can get milk in bags here. Some convenience store sells the cheapest milk in town, but only by the bag. Cheaper even than Sam’s Club, which I didn’t think was economically possible.

The first day of orientation went as well as can be expected; we spent most of the day gong over support-raising issues. Some time looking as biblical passages, and a lot assuaging fears and doubts most of us have about asking others who are secure in their vocations to give up much of their earnings to pay for our salary. There is much overlap with "support raising" and straight-up salesmanship. The slick PowerPoint presentations. The brief pitch and request for a quick commitment. Networking, and creative solutions for coming up with funds from a limited donor base – these things are all dangerous elements in my book. It would be very, very easy to slip into a human, fleshly mindset with all this. People did remind us that support raising is ministry, but it remains Something Different in my mind. A necessary evil. A painful testing stage prior to the exercise of genuine, lasting gifts. A very real concern: that I will grow to resent those in full-time paid ministry here, those associate pastors pulling in high 5-figures, whose pay is commensurate with their education and experience rather than merely cost of living in a location and across-the-board "salary" figures. Remuneration that is unquestioned and unpublished, and where decent health-care is a given rather than an assumed sacrifice. (If you are an astute and careful reader you may have picked up on the subtle grumbling audible in those last sentences. Good for you! Do pray for this soul, then, that he may see this process as a necessary humbling).

That tag line up there? About realized eschatology? That was supposed to be a joke, tired by now to be sure. It was never supposed to draw battle lines or poke somebody in the eye. But now it has, and now I realize that 41% may be a little on the low side.

I now have 8 posts all typed up and ready. But they are on my laptop and I am having just a bit of trouble getting logged onto the web at the moment. (Presently I am tying up the phone lines of our gracious host family). So when they do come, they'll be fast & furious. Until then, know that Minnesota is a nice place to be, even in late July when ninety degrees feels far more oppressive than a mere ninety degrees should be.

7.10.04 This date now has mythical associations: tis the date we are required to arrive in Lakeville, Minnesota. And if it weren’t for another’s Cabela’s store a few miles back, we would already be pulling into our host family’s driveway. Three more exits off of I-35.

Quite the day! Here I thought we go a late state on yesterday morning because we needed to dry everything out. Nope. We are just a very pokey clan. Today we had the luxury of making breakfast and showering before putting our house back onto the car, and thus didn’t pull out until almost 11:30. J. & I even had a nice conversation about depravity and common grace. (“Isn’t it neat that man can still make stuff,” he said, “ I mean, sin makes weeds grow, and some guy’s back hurts so he takes a stick and makes a hoe." Now, how is that, son? If sin has affected our entire being...)

Everything starts in the morning. I've got so many concerns: will I make friends? Will people like me? Will they have palatable coffee? An update with be forthcoming as techonology becomes feasible

7.9.2004 The second night on our trip toward Destiny. Stacy took the Five to swim at Lake #3 here at the Louisville Lakes State Park in eastern Nebraska. Our campsite is a wee swath of a long, green field, shaded by cottonwoods. To add ambiance, a huge grainery lies a mile to the east, filling up the trains which roar by 80 yards that way.

A few observations of our trip thus far:

We found Nebraska an enlightened sort of place when we stumbled upon the wine aisle at the Walmart. Nice! Here was one of our favorite Australian reds, at a pretty good price. Nothing like sipping on a plastic cup of wine after the kids are tucked into their sleeping bags, and unwinding from a day of travel. Not so fast. The great state is wise enough to allow consumers to purchase wine at supermarkets, but it clamps down on enjoying it at your campsite in a state park. I can see the totalitarian sign from here: “Drinking alcoholic beverages is prohibited.” My first inclination leaned toward scofflaw – who is going to check our plastic cups all the way over here in this field? But the Nebraska legislature has spoken. I may think he wields the sword with too much Samurai vigor, but he wields the sword no less. (And perhaps there is wisdom here beyond my line of sight. Perhaps the local Louisville boys were keen to set up their tents and roll out a keg. This fair city needs no such reputation).

Last night we had a stretch of lakefront all to ourselves. It was some big reservoir far from any major towns. Just as I had the tent up and the soup simmering the sky turned black. We crammed into the van as the first drops fell and ate soup off the little table while the sky lit up with perpetual flashes. Drizzle turned into hail, which turned into a steady downpour. After the soup and a package of tortillas, I ran to the tent, carrying the smaller kids and throwing them through a slit in the door. Five of us crammed onto the inflatable queen mattress, while Stacy and J. crashed on the sleeping pads on the floor. I am amazed both what children can sleep through and the positions that sleep takes. I woke up after the thunder let up and the winds started tearing at the tent walls, and found M. wedged between the foot of the now-limp mattress and the tent wall. L. was in a similar position at the other end, and N. was crashed out in a full-on puddle. Morning was spent hanging up clothing and sleeping bags and waiting for the hot summer sun to burn off the remaining haze. Such are memories. (Water! Water! Everywhere, and not a drop to drink – the water pumps around the campground didn’t work, and we hadn’t filled up the Nalgenes, let alone the Reliant 2.5 gallon. We scrounged just enough from the cooler to keep the kids from lapping up lake water).

I’m off to join the swimming masses, then back here for some smoked polish sausage and sodas. God is good.

It is like this: you slowly put down the fork and savor the flavors of a succulent recipe you haven’t made in ages. Odors and flavors twirl around, their essence sacrificed upon the altar of your matriculation, to the glory of their Creator. You look into an open cabinet across the kitchen and witness the evidence: stacks of ramen noodles (Mushroom flavor? Shrimp? Ignoble flavorings brought to us, no doubt by the same people who conjured up Blue Raspberry and Ocean Fresh scents), a few pouches of quick-rice, boxes of store-brand mac-n-cheese which only manage a pasty, dull yellow in the saucepan.

When did bland, quick dishes become the norm at my table? What distracted my priorities so thoroughly that I have become content with the likes of store-brand Velveta and overcooked elbow macaroni, especially when delectables await with hardly much more effort and expense?

It is like this, only not with food but with the meditation of my heart and the confession of my tongue. I haven’t been reading bad or boring books, mind you. In the last few months I’ve moved a few decent titles from the tall Must Read These pile onto a more permanent place on a shelf. But by and large, there have been no good theology tomes. Then I bumped into an old professor. He asked me if I would help with some grading this summer, and suddenly I found myself judging the quality of writing and thinking of seminarians’ theological musings. It only took a few pages to rekindle that strong doxological incense that is lit by such thoughts. The unity of Christ’s natures. . .the nature and mission of His Church. . .the efficacy of the Sacraments.

I realize that the Body of Christ is rich and varied, and the Church is thus blessed with diverse doxological avenues. Songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. Skillfully crafted poetry. Liturgical readings. I will even grant some of the Emergent brouhaha such as dance and visual creations (though probably not in the context of gathered worship), as long as it remains aesthetically resonant and historically informed. Such avenues may well serve the Church by stirring hearts and souls toward true worship of God, with a correct knowledge of his work and character. But ours is not an age (and mine is not a tradition) which recognizes theological meditation as a doxological, or even devotional, via divina. Many traditions strive to maintain the wealth of their theological forebears through regular contact with creeds and catechisms, although even many of those have been stripped of the weightier thoughts. But most of my evangelical peers remain ignorant of the profound summaries of scriptural truth so carefully worded at Nicea and Chalcedon. (As an example: many of those papers notes that many theologians dealt with the nature of the church using the categories one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. If any of them recognized those descriptors as part of the 4th century creed, they didn’t let on. To his credit, the professor requires reading of all key creeds and statements of faith along with the main textbook.)

If I am waiting for such theological to show up on a Sunday morning, I will be perpetually disappointed. Mine is an environment where the primary question (presumably in line with sola scriptura) is, “Where does Scripture say that?” The problem is, theology as a discipline does not work like that. That mindset presumes that a plain reading of scripture, divorced from any systematizing or intentional interpretive framework will be sufficient for all life and worship. Of course then you are left without a doctrine of the Sacraments, an understanding of the role of the Law for the Church, or a proclamation of the Trinity. In conjunction with this is the idea that simplicity must remain the highest goal for all doxological elements. The songs must be short and simplistic both musically and doctrinally. Preaching must lay out the Word of God (or, presumably, an appropriate topic. Much danger lies down that path, preacher!) as dish of curdled infant formula for the babes amongst us to scootch toward and lap up around the edges. Simplicity is an important plank in communication and aesthetics, to be sure. But as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." And that is the sort of simplicity expressed in the creeds and in theology done well.

For example, from Nicea: “We believe in Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made…”

Or Chalcedon: “we apprehend this one and only Christ-Son, Lord, only-begotten — in two natures; and we do this without confusing the two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other, without dividing them into two separate categories, without con- trasting them according to area or function.”

Now let those words sink in. Think about them for at least 42 seconds. Those are some hard ideas communicated with some technical language, but you would not confuse the resulting understanding and devotion with the stuff of Hamburger Helper.

Soli Deo Gloria.