Last year, to fill my commute, I listened to Calvin’s Institutes (well, heard may be a better description for much of it), as podcasted by Princeton Seminary’s Year With the Institutes project. This year, I’m listening to Augustine’s City of God.

The primary occasion for Augustine’s writing the book, was to defend Christianity against accusations that the then-recent Sack of Rome was a consequence of the slightly-less-recent Constantinian abandonment of the pantheon of Roman gods. Having listened to the first three books so far (of 22), I can report that Augustine does a bang-up job of running through the history of Bad Things happening in Rome, and repeatedly asking the question:

which of these disasters, suppose they happened now, would not be attributed to the Christian religion by those who thus thoughtlessly accuse us, and whom we are compelled to answer? And yet to their own gods they attribute none of these things, though they worship them for the sake of escaping lesser calamities of the same kind, and do not reflect that they who formerly worshipped them were not preserved from these serious disasters.

This Goose/Gander argument is all well and good, but what confuses me is why, even before Augustine so heavy-handedly nails this argument into the floor, he begins to undercut his own argument by grounding it in a peculiarity of The Sack:

All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent calamity—all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery—was the result of the custom of war.  But what was novel, was that savage barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest churches were chosen and set apart for the purpose of being filled with the people to whom quarter was given, and that in them none were slain, from them none forcibly dragged; that into them many were led by their relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them none were led into slavery by merciless foes.  Whoever does not see that this is to be attributed to the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper, is blind; whoever sees this, and gives no praise, is ungrateful; whoever hinders any one from praising it, is mad.  Far be it from any prudent man to impute this clemency to the barbarians.  Their fierce and bloody minds were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tempered by Him who so long before said by His prophet, “I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them.”

So Christianity cannot be debited with evil, but it can be credited with good? If this argument is logically sound, then Christianity could be judged as false if it did not benefit the state of Rome. Or if some other invading state ever refrained from desecrating the temples of a victim state, then the religion of the victim state must be true. Following that logic, since the U.S. does not have a practice of destroying mosques in Iraq, then Islam must be true.

Thoughts?

I’m sure what you’ve always desperately longed for is a look into my brain, at the way I visualize the Shorter Catechism. Well, consider your itch now (partially) scratched. I’ve had this project in progress for a while now, and when I learned about the supercool utility PocketMod, I just had to finish up enough to fill up 8 pages worth, which just happens to be the first section “What man is to believe concerning God.”

So here is a link to the PocketMod version of my Structured Shorter Catechism (part 1). Print that puppy out (in color), and follow the easy-peasy folding instructions, and you’ve got a super-cool, super-convenient, super-disposable, (super-small!) booklet to help you memorize the first chunk of the Shorter Catechism.

Seriously, I apologize for the size; I didn’t realize it would come out quite that small. So here’s a link to the full size 8-page PDF from which the PocketMod was created. I’ve always found it unhelpful that traditional catechism booklets simply squish all the words and phrases together as if it were just a regular paragraph. So I have laid out each of the questions the way I organize their contents in my mind. Phrases are indented to make explicit their relation to each other; in particular repeated or parallel words and phrases are aligned. In-order repetition (in particular when the answer to a question begins with a chunk of the question) is highlighted in blue. Out-of-order repetition, or parallel/contrasting words are highlighted in red. Answers whose beginnings don’t come from their questions, are highlighted in green. Keywords in each answer are in bold. Grammatically (but not necessarily theologically) parenthetical phrases are (in parentheses). Q16 illustrates it all:

So I hope you enjoy this for now. If you use it, and wear it out, you can just print another one! (If you use it, and wear your eyes out, probably not so easy…) In the future, I hope to extend this concept to the full SC, and maybe the HC as well, and maybe even twice the size (a small, still-convenient quarter-sheet booklet instead of a tiny eighth-sheet booklet).

[Update: Just in looking at the snapshot of SC16 above, I see that I missed an opportunity to highlight the repetition of "all mankind". I fixed that, and some other things, and re-uploaded the PocketMod and full-size PDFs (the links above will get you the new ones). But, that just goes to show you this is a work-in-progress, and I will probably continually be tweaking it. So here is a read-only link to the original Google Document, which you can export as PDF at any time, and then use the PDFtoPocketMod converter to make updated PocketMods if you want.]

Sometimes it seems that our many words are more an expression of our doubt than our faith. It is as if we are not sure that God’s Spirit can touch the hearts of people: we have to help him out and with many words, convince others of his power. But it is precisely this wordy unbelief which quenches the fire.

Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry

To put it most simply, the evangelical ethos is activistic, populist, pragmatic, and utilitarian. It allows little space for broader or deeper intellectual effort because it is dominated by the urgencies of the moment.

Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

American religion is conspicuous for its messianically pretentious energy, its embarrassingly banal prose, and its impatiently hustling ambition.

Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

In a lecture at the 1979 conference on Liturgy in Reformed Worship at Calvin College entitled, “Choir & Organ: Their Place In Reformed Liturgy,” Nicholas Wolterstorff stated the following:

Characteristically we Reformed people think of going to church as going to sermon. And we think of the sermon as marching orders. In what we do Monday through Saturday, we say, lies the proof and worth of Sunday. For us, the fundamental question to put to the liturgy is always: What did we get out of it?

But in biblical perspective there is clearly a second fundamental reason to assemble for the performance of the liturgy. It is right and proper—in the words of the old Latin Mass, dignum et justum—for us to acknowledge God’s majesty and goodness’s right and proper to sing praises to God for his works of creation and redemption, and for our status as new creatures in Jesus Christ. It’s right and proper to confess our sins. It’s right and proper to continue celebrating the supper of our Lord in memorial of him until he comes again. I know of course that it’s also right and proper to care for the poor of society, to work for peace, to build bridges, to create paintings. It must be said to the Reformed person—emphatically, because he’s so much inclined to forget it—that it is also inherently right and proper to perform the liturgy. This too is obedience. There’s profound truth in speaking of what takes place in our assemblies as a worship service. Worship, let’s not forget it, is part of our rightful service to God. Not only is liturgy for building us up unto obedience. Liturgy is for acknowledging God, in a tone of chastened celebration.

I said that one question to ask of the liturgy is: What did we get out of it? In light of what I’ve just said it’s clear there’s another, namely, How did we do? How did we do in our attempt to acknowledge God with praise and confession, with thanksgiving and intercession? Did we do it at all adequately?

We’re just doing our small part here to help the cause. Here are a couple of links pointing to a series on Classic Reformed Theology. Quote Robert Letham of Volume Two:

Caspar Olevianus is a significant theologian and his exposition of the creed places him firmly in the great tradition of the church. Pre-eminent authorities on Olevianus, Clark and Bierma have combined to provide a wider readership access to this important source of our Reformed heritage. Clark’s detailed biographical introduction effectively sets the work in context, while Bierma’s excellent and readable translation is a welcome addition to the corpus of classic Reformed texts available in English.

How often the Fundamentalist attack on so-called liberalism – by which cultural Protestantism is meant — is itself an expression of a cultural loyalty, a number of Fundamentalist interests indicate. Not all though many of these antiliberals show a greater concern for conserving the cosmological and biological notions of older cultures than for the Lordship of Jesus Christ …. More significant is the fact that the mores they associate with Christ have at least as little relation to the New Testament and as much connection with social custom as have those of their opponents. The movement that identifies obedience to Jesus Christ with the practices of prohibition, and with the maintenance of early American social organization, is a type of cultural Christianity; though the culture it seeks to conserve differs from that which its rivals honor …. In so far as the contemporary attack on Culture-Protestantism is carried on in this way, it is a family quarrel between folk who are in essential agreement on the main point; namely, that Christ is the Christ of culture, and that man’s greatest task is to maintain his best culture. Nothing in the Christian movement is so similar to cultural Protestantism as is cultural Catholicism, nothing more akin to German Christianity than American Christianity, or more like a church of the middle class than a workers’ church. The terms differ, but the logic is always the same:  Christ is identified with what men conceive to be their finest ideals, their noblest institutions, and their best philosophy.

Answer:  Todd wins, H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture.

So, everyone is straight now that when Niebuhr says, “The terms differ, but the logic is always the same:  Christ is identified with what men conceive to be their finest ideals, their noblest institutions, and their best philosophy” that is what the Bible means by “traditions of men.” Right?

If theonomy is the Reformed reverse of Dispensationalism, then theonomy’s accusation of two-kingdom theology as public square antinomianism is the flip side charge of any who accuse Protestantism with personal antinomianism. But any who are called antinomian, whether it concerns public or personal virtue, should take great comfort in the fact that they keep great company. OldLife points out that oft-repeated fact that St. Paul was so accused as well. But to accuse the Apostle’s teaching to be bereft of any concern for obedience is as silly as “abandoning your wife because marriage is provisional and not part of the glorified state.”

 When it comes to the political arena, theonomists argue that we are either ruled by God’s laws from Scripture, or sinful man’s autonomous laws. They also argue that Christians who refuse to press for God’s laws concerning politics and crime are public square antinomians and compromisers.

Instead of the health of society, let’s apply this logic to the health of the body. “Radical two-kingdomers are afraid to press the crown rights of Jesus into the medical sphere. Some say radiation therapy is the best cure for cancer, others are using more natural cures and ideas. And what about dieting? Does no one care about what God says in Scripture about whether Atkins is proper or not? And what about homeopathy? Surely we must take a prophetic role over the nations and declare what God says about homeopathy and dieting. We even have some men in our churches getting vasectomies after bearing a number of children. Surely there is a clear word from God on whether this is sinful or not. It’s time we stopped this medical antinomianism and declare God’s word over all of life, including dieting, cancer treatment, etc… The argument for freedom in these areas is simply a weak-kneed attempt to capitulate to autonomous man.”

It doesn’t really work, does it? Theonomists usually admit freedom in these areas. So here is the question. If in the matter of the body’s health, we admit there is freedom to figure out what works best for us while also admitting the Bible does not address these questions particularly; and that we can use -dare I say- natural laws of science to help us decide these issues, why, when it comes to society’s health, Christians who also admit freedom to disagree on politics and social policy, who suggest God has not spoken to these issues particularly, are assumed to be antinomians and compromisers? In other words, why do politics need a manifesto from the Bible but not health?

(I have an answer but I’ll wait to see yours first).

Well, in a contrarian sort of way.

But I have always found it curious how Calvinists pile on Pentecostals for being good Pentecostals and bad Calvinists. When Pat Robertson discerns providence that’s because he’s not a Calvinist, who, along with Calvin say that to do so is to “enter a labyrinth from which there is no hope of return,” and confess with Belgic 13:

“…And, as to what he doth surpassing human understanding, we will not curiously inquire into, farther than our capacity will admit of; but with the greatest humility and reverence adore the righteous judgments of God, which are hid from us, contenting ourselves that we are disciples of Christ, to learn only those things which he has revealed to us in his Word, without transgressing these limits.”

The Pastor Pat’s of the world don’t subscribe to any of this. So what gives with all the condemnations of bonker-o-sity?  Aren’t they a bit like blaming dogs for not being cats?

What is actually more interesting is when neo-Calvinists like John Piper think they can discern the secret will and divine providence of God. For whatever reasons, that tends to get lesser airtime in ostensible Calvinist environs. Thankfully, those of a more paleo shade of Calvinist light up at least a sliver of the Reformed world when the neo’s show their quests for illegitimate religious experience.

It just seems to me that prying open the heavelies is prying open the heavenlies no matter who is doing it. True enough, theological error should be called out for what it is, but I also wonder why so many of us go somewhat ballistic when those so badly prone to it do what they have always done.  Somebody once said there is nothing new under the sun. I think he was really onto something.

Well not me personally, but my good friend (and college roommate and best man) Michael Hobson, who has published a book about his year in China. I’ve read it, and it’s great! Check out the flyer. Available exclusively through lulu.com, in both Hardback and Paperback (with previews).

[Update] Mike tells me there is a sale on! Until Jan 31, use the promotional code “READMORE2010″ at lulu checkout for 10% off!

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. 

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.

 

From A Letter to Diognetus (Nn. 5-6; Funk, 397-401)

Okay  -Now it’s just getting creepy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_KL92oBWcQ

(Zrim, don’t even try to find a picture for this one)

Sharing the Gospel: A Gathering Interview With Franklin Graham

AUTHOR: Vicki Clark, The Gathering

SUMMARY:

At the September 2009 Gathering Conference in Scottsdale, AZ, we had the opportunity to sit down with Franklin Graham and talk to him about his views on the gospel and the need to share it, as well as his thoughts on the role of believers when it comes to social justice issues. Here’s what he had to say…

ARTICLE TEXT

Sharing the Gospel: A Gathering Interview With Franklin Graham

At the September 2009 Gathering Conference in Scottsdale, AZ, we had the opportunity to sit down with Franklin Graham and talk to him about his views on the gospel and the need to share it, as well as his thoughts on the role of believers when it comes to social justice issues. Here’s what he had to say:

TG: In today’s Christian culture, there’s a lot being written about the nature of the gospel. Some people are saying it’s been too small, others say it has a “hole,” and still others believe it needs to be redefined. Could you comment on that? What’s your definition of the gospel?

Graham: Paul’s definition. That Christ died for our sins, shed His blood for our sins, was buried for our sins, God raised Him to life, and when we repent of our sins and believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be saved. This is the gospel.

The apostle Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation.” We live in a Christian culture today that is compromising the gospel, because we want to be politically correct. We want not to be condemning. We don’t want to be exclusive; we want to be inclusive. So, [this culture says] let’s compromise a little bit; let’s talk about the love of God. The love of God is the fact that He sent his son to die and shed his blood to save us from Hell. And it requires a response. Either we accept it or reject it, there’s no middle ground.

TG: You really feel that there’s an urgency surrounding the gospel. Why do you feel that it’s so urgent that we share it?

Graham: Well, if you walk around this hotel, probably ninety percent of the people in this hotel are going to go to Hell: the person serving you, the other hotel guests… so there is an urgency. It’s life or death. It’s Heaven or Hell. …

Many people have lost a lot of money investing in the stock market. Some people lost everything. …I look at investment opportunities related to how to win people to Christ – how a person can invest in such a way [not in regards to] financial return, but how to win people to Christ. There’s only one commandment Jesus gave his disciples, that is: Go into the world and make disciples of all nations. It doesn’t say anything about going into the world to create a Christian culture. It says, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”

We live now in a culture that is anti-Christ. The spirit of anti-Christ is here today. It’s in our government, it’s in Europe, it’s in Asia, it’s in the Arab world, and it’s in China. …The spirit of anti-Christ has permeated the world today. So, how much longer until the anti-Christ himself appears on the world stage? I don’t know. But it’s urgent. We have the opportunity to invest right now in the souls of men and women. That is what’s important.

TG: The next generation of believers seems to be making social justice issues such as poverty, disease, orphans, clean water, etc. a real priority. What do you think about that?

Graham: None of that is our mandate. Jesus never said, “I want you to go out and alleviate the poor in the world.” …So many churches and so many pastors today are going directions Jesus never told us to go into. He said, “you’ll always have the poor with you.”

TG: Do you see those works as a door to sharing the gospel and making disciples?

Graham: That’s the if. If they do it, sure. My grandparents were missionaries to China. They took modern medicine to China. Why? Because the Chinese people had no medicine. My grandfather, a surgeon, saved people’s lives so that he could preach the gospel. If the social program comes first and then if you can, you try to work the gospel wedge into it, that won’t work. It has to be the gospel first. You go, why? Because Christ died on the cross. He shed His blood on the cross, and that’s why I’m going. And by the way, if I see somebody hungry, I’m going to try to feed them. If I see somebody that needs some medicine, I’m going to give them that. If I meet somebody who just needs an arm around them, I’ll hug them and tell them God loves them. But I’m going because Christ told me to go into the world and make disciples. He never told me to go feed people. He never told me to go try to make people feel better. He told me to preach the gospel.

TG: To what extent do you think Christians should be involved in helping to usher in the kingdom of Heaven now, on Earth? Should we be trying to redeem our culture?

Graham: First of all, the Bible didn’t tell me to do that. I can’t Christianize this culture. The god of this world is Satan – this is his culture. He is the god of this age. I’m to preach the gospel. …. God is calling a people for Himself. I don’t know whom He’s calling, I just have to be faithful and preach.

TG: Some people think the crusade method of evangelism may be outdated. But through the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, you recently completed a crusade-type outreach to young people called “Rock the River.” Did you find it effective?

Graham: A lot of people don’t understand crusade evangelism. We don’t just go into a city and say, “let’s have a meeting.” It’s an invitation that comes from the result of many churches wanting to organize and cooperate to win the lost. When my father started crusades in the late 1940’s, the sound in that day was the Big Band sound. …That was exciting and churches didn’t play that. …When my father came along with Youth For Christ and had the Big Band sound at meetings that took place on Saturday nights, these youth rallies were huge because it was something that the kids wanted to come to that they weren’t getting at church. But when they got there, my father preached the gospel.

Rock the River was nothing more than a modern version of Youth for Christ. We just had bands (and to be honest I hated every one of them!) made up of good kids who played loud rock and roll music. And the kids came! After an hour and a half of music, I’d get up and preach. Then another band would get up for an hour and a half with more head bangin’ music. Then I’d get up and preach again and give and invitation. A thousand people would come forward. …We recently just got back from Bogotá. We saw hundreds and hundreds give their lives to Christ every night. We pray, we get the churches involved, we pray some more and all I can say is that God doesn’t sponsor flops.

God continues to open doors for us. We’re going to be in North Korea in two weeks – not to preach the gospel, but I’m going to ask them for permission. I’m going to also be in Northern China at a church that has about 12,000 people. And a man from the Chinese embassy … who is a member of the communist party, but I believe he’s also a believer even though he can’t say that, he said, “Reverend Graham, it is my prayer that one day you will have a chance to preach all across my country just as you have done in your country. …My government needs to get to know you.”

TG: As you travel the world as president of both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, what is the main thing you’re hoping to accomplish? How do you want to leave your mark?

Graham: I want to preach the gospel. That’s the main thing. I can feed people all day long. They’ll be a line tomorrow that wants to get fed again. I can provide medicine, hospitals and clinics around the world. There can be tornadoes and earthquakes and we can respond and do all kinds of good work, which is important to do. But if I have not presented the gospel, than I have wasted every opportunity and have squandered my resources. I think for every believer, if you’re not using what God gives you to win people to Christ, you’re squandering His resources.

TG: Do you think there’s a place or need in the world that needs more attention from Christians than what is currently being given to it?

Graham: That’s a hard question because there’s so much need that I can’t just put my finger on a map and say this place is more important than this place. It’s all important. Our own country is important. …Our churches need a baptism of fire. Our churches have become so self-centered and so into their own programs that we’re forgetting missions. We don’t support missions like we use to. …We’re not sending missionaries. Missions today means sending somebody for two weeks. It’s going out and staying for a month and then coming back to talk about it at a cocktail party. That’s missions today. But I’m talking about somebody who will give their life to go to a country and absorb themselves into the country – to get to know the culture, the language, and to give their life to that nation for the sake of the cross. We’re not raising missionaries like that or challenging young people like that. …There’s a great need not just around the world, but right here at home to train up another army of young men and women who will go into the world to take the gospel to another generation.

TG: How do we do that?

Graham: Revival. We need revival. Our churches are dead. You have liberalism now that has crept into mainstream evangelicalism. That’s scary.

TG: What’s the best advice your father ever gave you?

Graham: He said, “Franklin, if you want to preach, the way you learn to preach is by preaching.” …You can’t learn that out of a book. You learn to preach by preaching.

In a recent podcast interview with Covenant Radio about Gospel-Driven Life, there’s a great moment where Horton addresses the popular conception (which I certainly grew up with) that when Christians are accused of relying on Christianity as a crutch, they should freely and happily admit, “Yes, Christ is a crutch, and I need it because I am a poor and needy and completely helpless human being.” Horton agrees, and clarifies:

Jesus came to call not the righteous but sinners. It’s not those who are well who need a physician but those who are sick. And at the same time, another way to look at that is depending on what people mean by it. What Sigmund Freud and atheists ever since have sort of argued is that God is a crutch, in the sense that you can’t face life yourself, you can’t grow up and be a big boy, so you project a God who is responsible for the things that are happening to you, to whom you can pray, and hopefully — hopefully he’ll turn things around; you don’t have to take personal responsibility; it’s a crutch! And if that’s what people mean, that critique — that atheistic critique of religion as psychological projection of our own felt needs — is actually given plausibility by the way a lot of Christians today present the gospel as therapy, as a panacea for everything.

And that’s where I think we have to say, “No, actually, I don’t need Jesus to get through life. I could probably creep through life without committing suicide, by just trying to be a good person and trying to work hard and climb the ladder and so forth. I could make it through this life without Jesus.” And let’s face it, we can! He’s not a crutch, he’s a savior! Because there’s something greater — our problem here is not just that we don’t have our felt needs met, that we are falling short of the best life we could have now, the problem is that again we are under the wrath of God and the story God tells is a lot deeper than the story we tell about ourselves. So you know, I think that a lot of non-Christians hear Christian testimonies as if Jesus is the savior from all of our problems and struggles; that we’re unwilling to address ourselves. And  they don’t really get that Christianity is saying Jesus is the rescuer from this deep problem of which all those other things are mere symptoms.

To sum up, it seems to me that we can rightly say, we don’t necessarily need Jesus as a crutch to get through life, but we certainly need him as a crutch to get through death!

On the Eve of a New Year, the blogosphere is predictably lit up with all sorts of sunni-o-sity. Reformed evangelicalism, just as predictably, joins in the fray (is glorified resolving finally any different regular resolving?). But I prefer the sort of reflecting that thinks after the thoughts of Ecclesiastes, that epistle of straw.

My fire and I, we are both of us dying. For to live is to be dying; to live is to consume life, to use it up; to live is to kill oneself. It may be that the world can be carved up into what lives and what doesn’t, but tonight in the woods, far from the warmth and noise and joy, I doubt this easy taxonomy. It seems to me there is only death and dying–dying and, after it, death. In the house the children are running and laughing; the women are passing a baby and discussing bargains. Uncles are tickling rosy-cheeked kindergarteners, and bubbles are rising to the brims of champagne glasses. If the house throbs with life, it throbs with dying also.

I tug at my pipe. The smoke vanishes. As for me, my days are as grass.