The Way Home

I admit it: I sometimes write with a hidden agenda.

When I quote writers and thinkers – poets, like the renaissance poet George Herbert and the contemporary poet Billy Collins; philosophers from Augustine to Alvin Plantinga; apologists, like G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis; and many others – my secret hope is that the reader’s curiosity will be piqued, that he or she will investigate these writers for himself or herself, and will come to cherish them as I have done.

No writer (with the possible exception of C. S. Lewis) has been quoted more often in this column than Dallas Willard. I first came across Dr. Willard – philosopher, U.S.C professor, writer, speaker – in a philosophical debate between theists and atheists. When he came to lecture at Notre Dame and neighboring Bethel College, I went to hear him speak.

Since then I have read everything I could find by Dallas Willard and have gone to hear him speak whenever possible. I found him to be erudite, yet accessible; brilliant, but humble; a knowledgeable guide to the life well lived.

Dallas Willard died on May 8, 2013.

This is my tribute to him.

Dallas Willard had a scholar’s mind and a saint’s heart. He translated works of Edmund Husserl, wrote extensively on phenomenology, and was recognized as an expert in that field. But outside the academy, Willard is known best as a Christian leader who understood both the theory and practice of spiritual formation.

Willard’s friend and colleague, Richard Foster, once told me how he met Dallas. Foster was just out of seminary and called to his first pastorate in a Southern California church. Among the congregants was Dallas Willard, who was sometimes called on to preach. Foster told me with a smile that when he preached, people took notes but when Dallas preached, people brought their tape recorders. They didn’t want to miss a single word.

Willard’s book “The Divine Conspiracy” was Christianity Today’s Book of the Year in 1999. Foster called it “the book I have been searching for all my life.” In it, Willard exposed different versions of what he calls “the gospel of sin management,” as expressed in both liberal and conservative circles, which he differentiated from the good news that Jesus brought.

The Jesus to whom Willard introduced us is “the smartest man in the world.” He pulled back the curtain and gave us a glimpse of the God that Jesus knew, and the God-bathed, God-permeated world that Jesus saw. He explained why we can have confidence in Jesus and why that confidence should lead us to become his “apprentices.”

In his 2002 book, “Renovation of the Heart,” Willard described the process by which an individual’s spiritual life is formed. He emphasized the fundamental importance of the mind in spiritual formation and explained the role the Bible plays in it. There is hardly a page in my copy of “Renovation” that is not marked up.

Willard’s 1984 book, “Hearing God” is the most helpful resource I know for living a life guided by God, for “developing a conversational relationship with God.”

It’s true that Dallas Willard had his critics, some of whom accused him of being soft on the doctrine of the atonement. But in an email reply to a question of mine, Willard explained that the atonement “is everything” and that, apart from the atonement, there is no salvation.

Dallas Willard was a great man. But more importantly, he was a good man. We will miss him.

Published in the Coldwater Daily Reporter, 5/21/2013

            Marriage entered into “unadvisedly or lightly” (as the Book of Common Prayer has it), can do more harm than good. Nevertheless, people regularly enter marriage on these dangerous grounds. Perhaps if they understood what they were promising to do, they might exercise more discretion. So what is it that they promise?

            In the traditional ceremony, people promise “to have and to hold” each other. This is not to have in the same way a man has a possession – a car or a boat; it is not even having in the way a collector has a priceless antique. It is having the way a person has an eye or a hand. “To hold” implies intention. You may have something you didn’t intend to have – a cold, or a bad check; but you hold what is precious to you. Those who marry vow to have each other as they “have” no one else; to hold one another so closely that there is no room for anyone to come between.

            “For better, for worse.” Without exception, couples experience both. But if by the grace of God they have each other, and by the intention of love they hold each other, they can make it through anything. Sadly, almost fifty percent of Americans believe that in the worse times they can have better times if they will stop having and stop holding. But this is a delusion. In the end, it is not what the times are like, but what the people are like, that makes a marriage better instead of worse.

            “For richer, for poorer.” Many marriage partners foolishly arrange their entire lives – their children’s nurture, their schedules, and their involvement in a community of faith – around the accumulation of money. But this leads to tragic consequences for where one’s treasure is, there one’s heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). Only those couples who treasure each other more than money will routinely make decisions that enhance and strengthen their relationship, regardless of whether they are richer or poorer.

            In “sickness and in health.” When I served as spiritual care coordinator for a group that cared for the terminally ill, I heard about a woman who abandoned her husband when he could no longer take care of himself. On the day he collapsed, she called 911, packed a few things and left home.

            It is likely that she had once made this vow to her husband, but had not understood at the time what it entailed. But then, who does? And that is the point. These vows mean that we will not allow circumstances to dictate the success of our marriage. And the truth is, circumstances never dictate the success of a marriage. Rather, the kind of character we are developing is what determines the kind of marriage we will have, no matter what our circumstances. This couple’s marriage did not fail because he contracted a terminal illness; it failed because they were not the kind of people who can have and hold in sickness and in health.

            The next line of the vows is: “to love and to cherish.” To love is a choice; to cherish, a delight. While we cannot choose to cherish, we can choose to love, and experience teaches us that what we choose to love over a long period of time we will certainly come to cherish. To love is the responsibility; to cherish is the reward.

            “Until we are parted by death.” So many couples part before death. It is too easy in our culture to find alternatives to marriage that don’t require the hard work of love, that promise better and not worse, richer and not poorer, health and not sickness. Romance, entertainment, and sexual gratification were at one time found in one’s marriage partner, but today can be found in other sources, usually on easier terms.

            Easier, but less rewarding. For marriage is not so much about finding Mr. or Ms. Right as it is about becoming Mr. or Ms. Right. In this lies the promise, as well as the reward, of marriage.

I’ve resisted for a long time.

Writers told me that I ought to blog. My friends told me, repeatedly, that I ought to blog. They told me that my syndicated column should be featured on a blog, and that everybody is blogging. But still I resisted.

For one thing, the word blog has got to be one of the ugliest words to make its way into the English language, with its initial hard consonant, its short vowel and it guttural ending. Had I heard, twenty years ago, that someone had been caught “blogging,” I would have assumed he would be fined and possibly imprisoned – and rightly so!

Besides that, the idea of learning how to publish a blog intimidated me. I was unfamiliar with blogging vocabulary – posts, tags, Akismet stats (still don’t know what that means), and a dashboard – and not at all sure I wanted to learn.

Added to that is the fact that there are millions of blogs out there already. Who needs another one? My little blog is like a sapling in a forest of mighty oaks – will anyone even notice?

But I’ve decided to give it a try. I do so not because I think my voice deserves to be heard, but because the song I sing is worth singing, and singly loudly. The song is about the way home – the way that is also a person.

I hope to make this journey pleasant and stimulating – and a little different. We will walk with scientists and philosophers, religious leaders and politicians; but we will travel most often with Jesus and his friends.

To keep it interesting I will, from time to time, add original music from my friends – and maybe even some of my own – to the site.

I hope you’ll enjoy, and come back often. And let me know what you think.