Great Quote on Food and Life

I finally got around to reading Alexander Schmemann's For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy. This quote is choice:

"Man must eat in order to live; he must take the world into his body and transform it into himself, into flesh and blood. He is indeed that which he eats, and the whole world is presented as one all-embracing banquet table for man….In the Bible the food that man eats, the world of which he must partake in order to live, is given to him by God, and it is given as communion with God. The world as man’s food is not something ‘material’ and limited to material functions, thus different from, and opposed to, the specifically ‘spiritual’ functions by which man is related to God. All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God. It is divine love made food, made life for man. God blesses everything He creates, and, in biblical language, this means that He makes all creation the sign and means of His presence and wisdom, love and revelation....Man is a hungry being. But he is hungry for God. Behind all the hunger in our life is God" (11, 14).

Tonight my parents are taking the kids and Nancy and I will have the house to ourselves. I'm going to make a few recipes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and we'll rejoice in God's good gift of food, which points to him.

Three things everyone wants

In Genesis 3:6 it says that Eve “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.” While this verse is an inspired account of Eve’s psychology, it also gives insight into what motivates all human beings. It is paradigmatic.

Hence, from this verse we learn that there are three things that everyone wants. What are they? Food = Life. Delight to the Eyes = Glory. Wisdom = Knowledge. We all want life, glory, and knowledge. Every human wants those things to some degree. Come October the Yankees will be vying for baseball glory. Come this evening I will sit down with my family for fellowship and food, both ingredients for a good life (in my dining room newly glorified through a refinished wood floor, fresh paint on the ceiling, and new light fixtures). Right now people are surfing the web for all sorts of knowledge--some wholesome, some rotten, and some frivilous.

What we want we get in Christ. He restores life, glory, and wisdom to us. In communion we receive holy food, through God’s Word we receive knowledge and by the Spirit sanctifying us we are (eventually) glorified. The wanting isn'nt what is bad in us; it is where we find the solution to our wants that counts.

How far are you willing to go?

How far are you willing to go to raise your child in a Christian manner?

Reading Chaim Potok’s The Chosen challenged me to think about that question. In the novel Potok tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two boys, Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders. Though both boys are Jewish they come from different, even antagonistic, Jewish traditions. Reuven’s father, David, is a Modern Orthodox Jew while Danny’s father, Isaac, is a Hasidic Rabbi.

In the book we learn that Reb Saunders never talks to his eldest son, Danny. He talks to his other children but not to Danny—except about the Talmud. Every Shabbat Danny and his father engage in an extended dialogue and debate about the Talmud. As the novel progresses we learn that as eldest son, Danny will one day be expected to assume leadership of the Hasidic Jewish community. We also learn why his father has raised him in silence.

When Danny was young, Reb Saunders realized that his son was brilliant. Not just smart or intellectual but amazingly intelligent. Yet, to his bewilderment, Reb Saunders knows that his son has no heart. Danny has a great mind but no soul. To instill Danny with a soul Reb Saunders raises his son through silence, in the novel an ancient Hasidic parenting method that teaches the child to learn compassion through the suffering of silence.

And so, how far are you willing to go to raise your child in a Christian manner?

While I certainly disagree with the technique Reb Saunders used, I admire his willingness to sacrifice for the goal of raising a son with a soul. As Christians we want to raise our children to know and serve God (Ephesians 6:4). Instead of raising our children in silence, however, we should cultivate rich lines of communication with our children.

In the Gospels the Father communicates his love to the Son verbally (Matthew 3:16-17). The Son talks with his Father daily in prayer. The Father and Son were and are the epitome of a relationship founded on dialogue.

As parents we should imitate the Father. Deuteronomy 6:7-9 describes how thorough we must be in communicating the Father’s ways to our children:

“7You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

It is tempting to leave God out of everyday conversations. We can raise our children in silence about the Lord and not realize it. The challenge of Reb Saunders is that he was silent about everything except his Jewish holy books. Do we talk about everything except God’s true holy book, the Bible and its bearing on our lives?

Resources on Theological Aesthetics

Calvin College has a resource page devoted to theological aesthetics. This page includes a wonderful link to a bibliograpy compiled by Laura Smit.

Why should students study Latin?

Latin is a dead language. Or, so it is said. But if Latin is dead then it speaks loudly from the grave. And I wonder if it is in the grave. Perhaps rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. While Latin is no longer spoken, it is still widely studied and Latin classics are still printed. Moreover, when you realize the importance that Latin has played in the development of Western civilization—the civilization you are living in right now—you must confess that Latin may be old but is still vigorous in its old age, unlike some of us.

Even so, you might wonder, “Why should students learn Latin beginning in the grammar school years?”

You may have heard that Latin is beneficial because students who take it score higher on the SAT. English has many words derived from Latin and students who study Latin have better English vocabularies and thus do better on standardized tests. That may be true and is a worthy reason for students to labor over Latin paradigms. You may have heard that Latin is beneficial because it gives students a proper foundation to learn other Romance languages (i.e., French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian). With the rise of Hispanic immigrants to America, providing a better base for learning Spanish is a laudable reason for Latin. You may have heard that many technical words in our society’s prestigious professional fields like law and medicine are derived from Latin. Giving students a head start in honorable fields needs no justification.

While these reasons are worthy there are even better reasons for the study of Latin.

First, Latin helps students learn their own language better. When students master Latin they are (re)learning subjects, verbs, direct objects, pronouns, gerunds, infinitives and so on. Studying Latin is a total course in grammar and when students learn Latin grammar they are doing so with reference to English grammar.

When you learn another language it forces you to compare. It is kind of like watching yourself on video. You never realized that you speak that way and have those mannerisms. Latin gives students the opportunity to step outside of their own language, as it were, to see how their language really works. In seeing how another language works with comparison to their own language, students learn better English style and expression. They become better writers and speakers.

Second, Latin helps students develop critical thinking skills. Unlike English, Latin is an inflected language. An inflected language is one in which word endings determine the word’s function in a sentence. For instance, the Latin word “Amo” means “I love” while the Latin word “Amas” means “You love.” In English the verb “love” doesn’t change whether the subject is “I” or “You.”

Latin, like the Roman soldiers who spoke it, marches in orderly patterns. It follows rules and logic. To understand a Latin sentence students must attend carefully to those rules and logic. They must pay attention; they must analyze and dissect. In short, they must develop mental toughness and discipline. Latin exercises the mind in these specific ways. It provides a total mind workout. Students who work out their minds with Latin come away with a muscular brains.

Some of you might be wondering, “Well, why can’t students learn a modern language? Wouldn’t a modern language have the same benefit?” The short answer is, “No, not the same benefit.” By “modern language” you are probably referring to Spanish or French. These aren’t inflected languages. These languages don’t require the same kind of precision in decoding as inflected languages do. While beneficial for living in modern society, Latin is more basic than Spanish or French because it develops more fundamental skills.

Another added benefit is that Latin gives students the tools to read classic texts—the texts that have shaped Western civilization like Augustine’s Confessions. In short, while Latin forms the mind it fills the mind.

So Latin may be old but it is not outdated. When students learn Latin they are being prepared to live in the real world with sharpened minds and greater thinking skills. Long after we have died—and students—Latin will continue to live on as a teaching tool of the highest order. Who said Latin was dead? Rather, it is a living language that enlivens the minds of learners so that they can live better lives.