A Path

This is a tentative outline of upcoming posts laying out my discussion of hospitality as the soil for lament. You can read the impetus here. 

The first set of posts will give background information on hospitality from ancient, medieval, and biblical perspectives. If time permits, I plan to take the time to examine how the meaning of the term "hospitality" has changed to our present understanding. For certain I will show the connection between hospitality and lament from the Latin root word "hospitalis". 

The second series of posts gives a broad overview of suffering historically and biblically. I'm indebted to Tim Keller and his thorough coverage in Walking with God through Pain and Suffering.

The next series will cover the practice of lament from ancient through present times. 

A fourth series explores the practices of lament as seen in the record of protestant Bibles. I hope at some time in the future to look at other traditions as well. 

A smaller series will look at how, and if, various protestant traditions, have included lament within their times of corporate and private worship.

A post or two will feature Andy Crouch's suggestion that lament is the seedbed of creativity. 

The last of the posts will examine how each of the Narnia books show us lament practiced within hospitality. 

Why the Chronicles of Narnia?  Reading, and re-reading, the Narnian tales as an adult can be a vastly different experience than reading as a child.   As C. S. Lewis, author of the Narnian tales, these stories allow us to

 "steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday School associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.” ¹ 

When someone is paralyzed, it is difficult to grow physically, emotionally or spiritually. These stories can show us our paralysis. On a personal note, when reading The Horse and His Boy, particularly the chapter, "The Unwelcome Fellow Traveler", I finally saw God's sovereignty of goodness and generosity in my own life, not the begrudging god I had created and which had paralyzed me, when Aslan invites Shasta to "Tell me your sorrows."   As we see a little further in the story, Aslan full well knew Shasta's sorrows and his questions, but Shasta's re-telling was necessary for Shasta to acknowledge his hurt and paralysis and Aslan to give comfort and freedom. 

Some have noted the overuse of and overreliance on Lewis's works, and some even go as far as to dismiss him, his works, and those within the Inklings universe due to that overuse and overreliance. To those, I say, abusus non tollit usum.² It seems from the quote above my use would be in line with his purposes. 

1. C. S Lewis, "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said" in On Words and other Essays on Literature, ed. Walter Hooper (Harvest, 1982) pg. 47

2. Misuse of something is no argument against its proper use

 

I wrote this as a response to a post I saw on IG. Putting this here as reminder of where I'm going.

Thanks for asking about my thoughts surrounding the lament, common good, etc. My thoughts are not fleshed out at all but this is a very brief outline of what I hope to work through more fully. A bit of background to set it up. I’ve been in a lamentable situation for about 6 years with no end in sight at this point. It has been an extended period of lamenting. I’ve read a few books, have a couple of close friends with whom I can share, but other than that I have been at a loss as to live in this period. And yes, part of the reason is the loss of the practice of both corporate and individual lament. We grieve, but that is short-term.  Last year, at Hopewords writers conference, Andy Crouch’s keynote address was how our best creativity is born out of lament. Yep, there was my key. I practically tackled him after the address to thank him and to pass on another resource.

All that to say this is my current outline for understanding how the topics below are integral to one another.

1)      Understanding what the phrases “common good” and “flourishing” mean. Are they universal and/or local? Does the beatific vision guide us here? I’ve read Jake Meador’s book, In Search of the Common Good, and plan to work through James K. A. Smith’s Kingdom series.

2)      When flourishing/common good are lost due to sin/fallenness what does our grieving and lament look like? Does the loss tell us, show us what has been lost, tell us something about the good that has been lost? Does experience of loss precede knowledge of the good? Does the practice of lament help us to name the loss and the good? If it does, then perhaps the loss of corporate lament has been a larger factor in our loss of common goods. More here: https://fisherlane.blogspot.com/2019/09/recently-i-was-asked-about-lament_30.html

 Working with books by Tim Keller, Wendy Alsup, Kelly Kapic and other essays on suffering, grief, lament.

3)      Creativity, as Andy illustrated, is a natural outworking of those who seek shalom while working from a place of lament. Unfortunately, I can’t lay my hands on my notes, but when I do, I will send you more details on this. (why am I so disorganized when I’m home all the time? 😉 ) Creativity is needed to recognize, repair, recover as best we can the good. I’m compiling a list of books about creativity, theological anthropology, etc.

4)      To recognize, repair, recover will require struggle and sacrifice.

5)      And now to the question that is more difficult for me at this point. Can we come to an agreement on the common good, or that fact just one common good, that we can all agree on and all struggle and sacrifice for? If so, what? If not, how do we go forward?

One of my favorites