Nielsen’s Nook

A WTS alumnus, Mark Robinson, has made a nice lecture on John Coltrane and the relation of constraint and contingency as it relates to jazz and to human freedom. If you’re new to jazz you’ll find Mark lectures in a way that will give you not only introduction to jazz but an appreciation for it. The following is the lecture posted at Reformed Blacks of America:

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (ESV)

It’s amazing how sometimes just a turn of a phrase will strike you in a way that makes an amalgamation of the familiar burgeon into something fresh and stirring. Writing about Colossians 3:9-11, Farley writes:

The only abiding reality is Christ—He is all and everything and the only thing that matters. And He is in all. He is in everyone in the Church, without regard for their former race, religion, culture, or social position….¹

There is a boldness here that, to some, might verge upon audacity. Farley’s point is that the Apostle Paul seems to intimate that if Christ is the Incarnate Deity, the Savior of the World, the Perfect Imprint of the Father; then, indeed there is a cosmic reordering that is at hand. You see this echoed in Farley’s idea of former. In a very real and transcendent sense there is no longer race (and gender, c.f., Gal 3:28-29). There is no longer religion. There is no longer culture. There is no longer society. There is Christ—all in all.

Have we contemplated what it would be to allow Christ to more fully transform and renew the way I think about race, for example? In Christ, I am formerly a Caucasian. What does that mean? It seems to mean, at least on the surface, that Salvation circumscribes every aspect of the world in which we live, every facet of who I am as an individual and member of humanity. It does not obliterate our distinctions but puts restores them to their purposed places in the mosaic of Creation.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Help us to think cosmically about your work in our lives and in this world. Amen.

__________

¹ Farley, Lawrence. The Prison Epistles, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series. (Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 2003) , p. 182-3.

“There must be a wonderful soothing power in mere words since so many men have used them for self-communion.” [1]

[1] Joseph Conrad. Under Western Eyes. Everyman’s Library. (London: Random Century Group, 1991), 3.

I came across a post on Stuart Clem’s blog from Sculpting in Time: Tarkovsky The Great Russian Filmaker Discusses His Art that is worth sharing here:

“The alloted function of art is not, as often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.”

Suddenly the lights of the Universe seemed to be turned down. As if some demon had rubbed the heaven’s face with a dirty sponge, the splendour in which they had loved for so long blenched to a pallid, cheerless and pitiable grey. … Things do not always happen as man would expect. The moment of his arrival in an unknown world found Ransom wholly absorbed in a philosophical speculation.

In Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet there are many passages of gusto that evoke such lucid imagery. As Ransom (the protagonist) finds himself imprisoned, approaching the planet of Malacandra, Lewis tells us of Ransom’s perception that I wanted to pass on here.

^[1] C. S. Lewis. Out of the Silent Planet. (NewYork: Scribner 2003), 41.

“How does one get 25 hours out of a day?” Kuril, a Dallas native, asked himself.

“With gas prices soaring,” he thought further, “and the convenience of living by a Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) rail station, it would be wise to become a public transport patron.”

Something about the word patron made Kuril smirk. And in the midst of the mundane a most pleasant thought swam swiftly thought his mind. “It is a sort of luxury to read so much more than I would otherwise. In fact, I read the entire 30 minute commute each way. My 24 hour day just became 24+1.”

Awe fell upon him: there were no mornings here, no evenings, and no night — nothing but the changeless noon which had filled for centuries beyond history so many millions of cubic miles. ¹

“DART is a far cry from a spherical spaceship racing towards Malacandra,” Kuril whispered outloud. “Nevertheless, I hop on the train and find myself there and many other places.”

^[1] C. S. Lewis. Out of the Silent Planet. (NewYork: Scribner 2003), 31.