Another geek post: fountain pens

Not too long ago, I made mention of my love for the traditional woodcase pencil. There was a brief period of time in which I contemplated (somewhat seriously) giving up on ink altogether, except in the most necessary places (such as legal documents). Well, that never happened. Instead, I’m starting to use ink in a new/old way. I’m starting to love fountain pens more and more.

(Dixie rolled her eyes when she saw that I was writing about pens. But she can’t say anything, because she once learned all of Gloria Gaither’s “schpiels” and dressed up as her for halloween.)

It all begins with this pen (but see below…):

This is a Parker 51 “Special”. My dad got this pen in the late 50s or early 60s and used it when he was in Bible college. This pen has great sentimental value to me for that reason alone. I inherited my obsession with writing instruments from my dad. I inherited a love for the Parker Jotter from him and, as a result, my love for the Parker brand in general.

It turns out that the Parker 51, and to a lesser degree to cheaper 51 “Special”, is a pen highly sought after by collectors. 51s in good condition will sell for hundreds of dollars. It has been dubbed “the best pen ever made”, for a combination of reasons: design, durability, smoothness of writing. I’m not looking to sell this pen, but it adds to its mystique.

It works very well after all these years. One of the inner parts (breather tube) needs to be replaced (though it doesn’t prevent it from functioning). It’s a bit scratchy, due to misaligned tines in the nib, which I’ve been trying to fix, but it’s generally a fine writing instrument.

My dad gave me this fountain pen maybe 15 years ago, but it wasn’t until the last year or so that I began to appreciate writing with it. Somewhere in the last couple of years something clicked and I began looking into fountain pens more. I checked ebay for another 51 — something without sentimental value that I could comfortably take with me out and about in the world. There are lots of 51s out there, but unfortunately they don’t seem to sell for any less than $50 on ebay (and generally sell for much more), and I’m not prepared to pay that much.

The Parker Frontier, which is now unfortunately no longer in production, is in some respects quite similar to the Parker 51. Its cap and barrel have a similar look. The grip and nib are different. But still, a fine writing pen, and for $12-$15 not too expensive (though they’re no longer in production). I bought this one as my take anywhere pen:

I then got it in my head that I would like something less breakable than this relatively cheap plastic pen. I found a matte-black metal Parker Frontier on ebay. It was from a seller in India (top-rated seller). For several reasons, I suspect strongly that it’s a fake, but I can’t be sure. Either way, it is a disappointingly hit-and-miss writer:

I started to do some reading on fountain pen forums (yes! fountain pen forums!) about inexpensive fountain pens that write well. What I discovered there was the Lamy Safari:

It’s a German-made pen. My understanding is that it’s made for young people learning to write: it has a formed barrel and a stiff nib for the novice to learn proper writing technique and fountain pen handling. However, it’s a very popular fountain pen among enthusiasts. German engineering!

I was pleased enough with the matte-black fine-point Safari I purchased that I bought a red one as a backup and a blue one for Dixie! It writes smoothly and comfortably and is my main writing pen.

The Lamy isn’t exactly a cheap pen, of course. $15-20 a pop is not what I would call a throwaway pen. But it’s well built and will last a lifetime if I treat it well.

Then I purchased a cheap Japanese Pilot 78g:

It writes very well for an $8 pen, although I made the mistake of purchasing it with a fine nib. Western nibs are often too broad, so that I will buy one nib finer than I think I want (e.g. fine instead of medium), but Japanese fine nibs are too fine.

Apparently there is quite an industry of “homage” pens in China. They’re not exactly fakes, because they keep their own brand name on their pens, even though they are imitations of other brands. $10 bought me this Jinhao 159, a knockoff of a Montblanc pen that sells for hundreds of dollars:

It is perhaps my smoothest writer, but it’s MUCH too broad for a medium nib. Apparently Chinese fountain pen nibs, contrary to those of their Japanese neighbours, are broader than normal.

I recently discovered that there is an homage to the Parker 51 made by Hero. The Hero 616 is an almost exact replica of the 51 and can be purchased for as little as $5 apiece. And apparently if you get an authentic Hero 616, they are quite pleasant to write with. I say “authentic” because apparently even a fake $5 pen is being faked in China. A fake of an homage to a pen!

I said above that it all started with the Parker 51, but the first fountain pen I saw as a child (that I can remember) was an old orange fountain pen in my dad’s office. I seem to recall him saying that it was his dad’s or his grandfather’s and that he wasn’t sure if it still worked or not. I didn’t know what it was until the last couple of years when I started reading up on fountain pens. Turns out that it was a Parker Duofold, another legendary pen in the Parker line. I didn’t think it was around anymore, but my mom found it among dad’s effects:

She sent it to me. It’s a Parker Duofold, Jr., which is a stubby version of the Duofold. I think it dates from the 1920s or 1930s. It belonged to my great-grandfather on my father’s side, who was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church in Holland. It has “A. v. d. SLUIJS Dz.” engraved on the side. That’s pretty cool!

The ink sac was completely dried out and brittle (new one almost on order), but everything else *looks* to be in working order. Unfortunately, I may have done some permanent damage to the orange finish. I had put all of the parts in very hot tap water in order to clean out the old ink. Apparently you’re not supposed to do that with old fountain pens in particular. The black ends, made of a kind of rubber, turned brown, and the the orange barrel and cap now have a bit of a white haze, which I hope can be polished off.

And just the other day I bought this Noodler’s Ink Standard Flex Nib pen:

It’s interesting because it has a piston ink converter. It sucks ink directly into the front of the barrel by twisting the back of the barrel. I’m having some issues with the ink “feathering” (too much ink flow?), but these pens are apparently made to tinker with, so hopefully I can fix that.

I’m almost ready to give up on ballpoint pens altogether, except for the fact that they are very convenient when on the go and for the fact of my ongoing love affair with the Parker Jotter. My dad always had one in his pocket. As a child at church, when it was time for the sermon, I would turn to dad and whisper, “Do you have a pen?” He always did. He’d pull a Parker Jotter from his shirt or suit pocket, click the pen “on” and hand it to me. I’ve purchased and been given a number of these over the course of my life:

The one on the far right with the green barrel is commemorates Parker’s 125th anniversary. Just purchased that one a month or so ago. Next to it is a newer “luxury” Jotter. (Both are stainless steel.) It seems like Parker is moving more towards the luxury pen market. I don’t like that very much myself, but perhaps it makes business sense in a market flooded with cheap but well-functioning pens. Next to that (black barrel) is a standard Parker Jotter, followed by two newer models (light blue barrels) with a rounded “clicker” (one was a gift from my aunt and uncle in England, the second time in my life they’ve given me a Jotter!), and then a couple more older models.

And since I’ve plunged right in, why not throw in two additionally “special” pens:

This doesn’t look all that special. A Bic Clic pen from a hotel. Except that it’s from the “resort” (I use the term VERY loosely) we stayed at for part of our honeymoon. Each evening I would pocket the pen on the nightstand, which would then be replaced by another the following morning. There are several of these floating around our house, but I’ve kept this one set aside.

This is “The Assman Pen”. You remember Dick Assman? He was a Regina gas station owner made famous (for his name) by David Letterman in the mid-90s. I purchased this pen at his gas station in Regina at that time (the Wikipedia article says it was the Victoria Square Mall, but I’m pretty sure it was the Golden Mile Centre). I’m not sure why I’ve been carrying this one around — largely unused — all these years. I guess it’s just one of those things.

And there are other pens, too. But I won’t bore you with those (I assume if you read this far you weren’t entirely bored by this post).

Canada Day 2013

Canada day 1 Yesterday — Canada Day — was a pretty good day. The day started out with some indecision and uncertainty about our plans. Fooling around with our new above-ground pool to get it sitting and working right. We left late for an informal church-family gathering in Edmonton, which involved a bike-ride from the Alberta legislature to a park 10kms away. Some mild panic and anxiety and uncertainty ensued.

You see, we’ve experienced enough major non-successes — I say it that way because they weren’t failures as such, but maybe “disappointments” would be sufficient — to make us second-guess getting involved in big official public celebrations. There was the year in which after some effort to get to them, we missed two fireworks displays — one due to rain, one due to unanticipated poor positioning.

Then there was the year of Santa Claus parade in Winnipeg, which neither Dixie nor I have spoken of on our blogs. It was a dark day in the history of the Vanderfamily. We drove the hour or so into downtown Winnipeg and found a decent parking spot near Portage and Main, where the Santa Claus parade would be passing by. The parade, as I recall, was a disappointment (but maybe that’s just the adult in me speaking — I don’t remember what the kids thought), but we were all looking forward to the fireworks afterwards.

The mistake was not watching the fireworks from an area near where we had parked. We were near the river and the location where the fireworks were to be held, but for the sake of a better vantage point, a bite to eat, and a bathroom break we decided to give up our parking spot to try to make our way across the river and out of the downtown core.

The problem was that due to the Santa Claus parade traffic was heavy and many roads were blocked off from traffic. For people unfamiliar with Winnipeg’s downtown, in the dark, with a number of one-way streets, this is problematic. We ended up driving in circles for an hour or so, trying backstreets and parking-lot shortcuts, never actually leaving downtown or crossing the river. Tensions rose to a crescendo and burst forth into marriage-high moments of yelling and anger and frustration and steering-wheel pounding.

By this time the fireworks were well underway. Whenwe finally found a bridge to cross the river we looked to the east through a gap in the office towers — and in my memory’s vision this is all in slow motion — we looked to the east and saw one faint red firework burst in the distance, just above the horizon.

And that was it. We saw no more fireworks that night.

We look back now and laugh at our anger and that one, lone firework we saw, but with that memory bouncing around in our minds, you can understand our reluctance to commit to driving into Edmonton’s downtown core with an additional 80,000 people driving and walking about there.

But it turned into a very good day. Madeline and I enjoyed a nice bike ride through Edmonton with some of our church people. In parts of the trailwe could have been in the Rocky Mountains for all we knew. Then we gathered for a picnic and conversation, followed by some games with the kids and flag-football. And then we made it, right on time, to the Wetaskiwin fireworks.

Untitled

So we stared at each other for a while.

I had an odd experience at a place of business today. I was sent to buy something at a certain establishment. I was redirected to another area of that establishment, where two women were speaking to each other: a superior giving instructions to an underling. They carried on for a while as I stood at the counter; they did not acknowledge me. After a few moments, the underling left and the superior turned and looked at me. She said nothing.

At this point in my memory the events slow down. I had a mental debate about whether or not I should initiate speech in this situation. Dixie told me recently that I’m not gregarious. I also know what kind of negative first impression my dad would often make on people and I sometimes wonder if I haven’t inherited something of his “ability”. Those two thoughts pushed me towards initiating the conversation.

However, I was at the same time intrigued that this woman would simply turn to me and stare at me without saying a word (perhaps an attempt to communicate telepathically?). Since I was in a place of business, another part of my thinking — the part that eventually won the mental debate — was that courtesy and customer service would have her initiate dialogue, perhaps with a gentle “How can I help you?”

Instead, neither one of us spoke for some time. It was probably less than five seconds, but when you’re staring at a complete stranger, expecting them to speak and wondering what they’re thinking, it seems much longer.

So we stared at each other for a while.

The silence was broken by a curt “Yes?” from the lady and time returned to its normal speed. The transaction was carried out without further incident, other than a perhaps edgy subtext (not much more was said between us during the transaction).

From Acts to the Prophets

This week I read through Acts and I noticed a couple of things. First, I noticed that not once in all the apostles’ presentation of the gospel did they mention heaven or hell (or the afterlife or eternity or what have you). They mention Jesus’ unjust death, his resurrection, his ascension to sit at the right hand of the Father; they mention repentance and forgiveness of sins; but they do not mention heaven or hell. This really has no bearing on the question of whether either one of those (particularly hell) exists. But it does have a bearing on the question of what is essential to the gospel. These days the gospel is couched in some form of the question, “Do you know where you will go when you die?”–sometimes more nuanced, sometimes more crassly. In one way or another, modern gospel presentations eventually come around to the question of heaven and hell. Not so for the apostles. Is it therefore essential to our presentation of the gospel? (As I recall, this is what McKnight touches on in The King Jesus Gospel and I imagine Wright goes there in How God Became King.)

I also noticed the continuing (from some of the Gospels) emphasis on promises and prophecies fulfilled in Jesus. Part of the apostles’ presentation of the gospel to at least the Jews was an argument of prophecy fulfilled in Jesus: the sense that he is the one they had been waiting for all these years, he is the promised one.

Which makes me wonder: how much background is assumed in their presentation of the gospel? We rarely bring the prophets into it these days (except maybe at Advent and on Good Friday) and I’m sure most of us don’t have a solid grasp of what the prophets have to say about Jesus. A few weeks ago in church I mentioned that if I had a chance to go back to any moment in history, Jesus’ post-resurrection encounter with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus would be high on my list. It is with them that Jesus “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets… explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” I’d love to have been there, because I suspect that Jesus’ exposition of Moses, the Prophets and all the scriptures regarding himself would have been much deeper and more nuanced than the ragbag of proof-texts most of us would present.

So I’ve decided to spend some time in the Prophets. I’m not sure where I’ll begin yet. Isaiah has some of the most beautiful passages of scripture in it, but it’s also pretty intimidating. I’ve read (or attempted to read) it before and it’s easy to get lost. Many of the Major Prophets are intimidating, actually. And yet they seem so essential. But I want to go to the Prophets with a particular eye and ear for what they say about the Messiah and the “age to come” and how that sheds light on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, on heaven/the age to come/eternal life.

Reading (and not heeding my own advice)

I’m not heeding my own advice. I’m still reading several books at once. That’s what happens when I’ve suddenly landed on several enjoyable books.

Currently active active reads:

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphry Carpenter (and Christopher Tolkien).Who would have thought someone’s letters could be so fascinating? Granted, most of the personal details that wouldn’t interest anyone but immediate family and friends have been edited out, but still. There’s something about the image of Tolkien sitting in his Oxford study writing drafts of letters (a draft hand-written letter! such a thing had never occurred to me!) and then writing final copies in ink. And he’s probably wearing a three-piece tweed suit, smoking a pipe, and drinking tea all the while. Wonderful!

It’s not just the setting in my imagination that makes them interesting, however. The letters include discussion of the development of the sequel to The Hobbit as well as the characters of his already developed mythology.

And he writes with such skill! These letters are not just dashed off, but are clearly written with much care and attention to form and content. The book puts me in the mood to write a hand-written (with a fountain pen!) letter to someone. (Who wants one?)

Long Wandering Prayer: An Invitation to Walk with God, David Hansen. This is perhaps the most refreshing and honest discussion of prayer I have read (not that my reading in this area has been extensive). It caught my attention because the title implied the sort of prayer that seems to fit me best, but there is much more to the book than simply walking and praying. There’s nothing sentimental here, just raw thoughts and advice and opinions on prayer.

Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation, Richard Foster. Not bad so far, though perhaps not quite what I had hoped for expected. That might change. I continue to find Foster’s prose rather dry, making it difficult to read the book with much enthusiasm (I never did finish his most famous book, Celebration of Discipline for this reason). This is unfortunate, because Foster seems have been quite influential in terms of the “spirituality” of the evangelical church.

A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson. This is my second time through this book. Fascinating, informative, well written, and hilarious as usual. A lay-person’s book about science and origins.

And then there are the inactive active reads and actively inactive reads which I won’t list here…

Sometimes you just have one of those days where you wish you had a RESTART button.

Somewhere recently I heard the term “The Facebook Lie”, which refers to the lies we tell on Facebook about our lives: the glowing portraits of a healthily functioning family at play, the hilarious things that we say to each other on a daily basis, the delicious meals, the serene setting in which we live. It’s not that those things individually are not true, but the overall picture we paint is a false one. Our lives are not living Norman Rockwell or Thomas Kinkade paintings. Where are the arguments, the tears, the yelling, the mess? It’s one sided. I’ve thought more than once that maybe I should record some of those messy, ugly times with stylized Instagram photos and gritty Facebook statuses. I haven’t done that yet, except in what follows I guess.

I went to bed quite late last night. I knew it was a bad idea and all that prevented me from going to sleep was mindless browsing of the internet and hitting “refresh.” My body was tired, but I just didn’t want to go to sleep yet. I guess I did eventually watch a movie, but still, not a good reason to stay up these days.

Dixie was in Calgary for the week and I chatted with her a bit toward the end of the evening. I said, “I shouldn’t have stayed up so late. Now I’ll be grumpy with the kids tomorrow and generally useless.”

And so it was.

I turned my light off at about 12:15 or 12:30, about two hours later than we normally do. There was no school today, so I let the kids stay up a little later on the assumption that they would sleep in. They did a little, but not much. I was woken up at 7:39 by Olivia’s tapping on the railing of her bunk bed. That’s about 40 minutes later than I normally get up, it wasn’t enough to make up for the late night and I couldn’t get back to sleep.

Until about mid-afternoon, it was one of those days in which I repeatedly wished I had a “RESTART” button I could press to have a second (or third or fourth) go at the day. I was tired and didn’t feel like doing what the kids wanted to do (“The Game of Life”? Really?) and I was edgy. I’d snap at the kids, show them very little mercy (in other words: wouldn’t let them be kids), raised my voice in irritation and anger. Of course, they were the problem. My day would be much better if they would just stop…being them.

Later on the day I reflected on this. The problem wasn’t the kids. I mean, they had their moments of fighting, loudness, rudeness, disobedience and poor listening, but that’s not unusual. They’re kids, after all. The problem was me. I was cranky, I was on edge, I was impatient, which meant that I reacted where I didn’t need to react and, worse, I would set both them and myself up for further failure. One of them does something that isn’t wrong in itself, but it really bugs me because I’m tired, so I tell that one to stop it. They do it again and so I get angry with them for disobeying me. And things escalate. My crankiness leads me to set up unreasonable and unnecessary expectations for my children, which leads to further crankiness when those expectations are inevitably not met.

I attempted a couple of restarts today. I walked the few hundred yards to the mailbox and back, in hopes that the blue skies and fresh winter air would brighten my mood. It only worked for a couple of minutes. I tried napping after lunch but was woken twice by the kids right at that moment of transition between wakefulness and sleep. Then I just laid there restlessly for a while, unable to get back to that transition point. Later, at Madeline’s request, we went out for a walk. Luke and Olivia didn’t want to go outside initially, but pretty soon they were having some fun sliding down some piles of snow-covered dirt in the yard. They wanted to stay outside, but none of us (except Olivia) were dressed properly and I, being grumpy and the attempt at revival failing miserably, wanted to go back inside.

I hate those kinds of days. I loathe myself as a father on those days. And that loathing feeds my crankiness. I feel much regret on those days, cycling through failure and regret, failure and regret, failure and regret. And then I experience low levels of anxiety about alienating my kids, so I give them big hugs and tell them I love them and that I sometimes have grumpy days and that today is one of them. Moments later I’m likely to be Unreasonably Grumpy Dad again. Failure, regret, reconciliation attempt, failure, regret…

But you know what’s crazy (and this is perhaps what I should really take away from the day)? The kids are unfazed. They know their dad. They know I have grumpy days, and they are always forgiving. At lunch I apologized for my grumpiness. I asked them if they would forgive me. Luke said, “I’ll always forgive you, dad!”

What a gift! What a gift! It encourages me and it shames me.

It’s difficult to forgive myself on these days, to do that thing that seems to come so naturally to my own children. Is it possible give ourselves as parents the room to be who we are on these days without also justifying the way we are? Our kids seem to give us that room, but we are left only with regret.

Jesus seemed to think we had quite a lot to learn from children. I think he was onto something.

The afternoon was salvaged with pop, a big bowl of popcorn, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and the kids with me on the couch, Luke snuggled up under my arm.

Kitchen conversations

The other day I was walking to work, between open fields pure white with snow. It was a clear blue day, the sun shining bright, but there was a cool breeze blowing across the fields, setting the power lines to humming. It put me in a bit of a melancholic mood, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I felt a bit of the isolation out here in this beautiful place we live, maybe a bit of loneliness.

I thought of my friends from Providence Seminary and the conversations we would have almost every day during class breaks. We’d wander the halls, almost inevitably ending up in the seminary kitchen area. Someone would boil water for tea, and we’d lean back against the counters or sit on them while we waited. We would discuss and debate and question and explain. There would be a number of conversations going on at once, spilling out into the hallway. It was mostly theology we talked about, stuff that came up in class, stuff we read, controversies we heard about, and all of it peppered with wit. Later we’d run into each other in the library or near the bookstore and we’d pick up where we left off.

Those were good years. And I miss them right now (water rises to my eyes).

I started this blog nine years ago last December. I didn’t own theeagleandchild.com at the time, but it was called The Eagle & Child right from the beginning.

The Eagle & Child is a pub in Oxford, England, where J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and other members of the Inklings would gather Tuesday mornings for a pint and some good discussion. They discussed their own literary works-in-progress, and I imagine theology and philosophy was also covered.

… The concept of the Inkling’s gatherings was sort of what I had in mind for this blog. It was to be a place where people “gather” to discuss life, faith, literature, philosophy, and so on. (from my About… page)

And for a time, at least, that’s what happened here. Lots of theological (and sometimes political) discussion and debate, and a bit of a community developed. I started blogging less and less frequently around the time I started to move towards vocational ministry and it almost died completely through the last three years of seminary. That was surprising to me, since I had expected seminary to provide lots of “blog fodder”. I’m sure there were a number of reasons for the decrease in blogging, but it occurs to me now that what I had envisioned for this blog–the, as it were, Eagle & Child experience–was happening in the hallways of Providence Seminary. I didn’t need this blog, because I was having face-t0-face discussion and debate.

That seminary kitchen was my Eagle & Child! Were I to start a blog like this now, I might just call it “Kitchen Conversations.” Kitchens are where the best conversations happen most of the time, and that particular kitchen in the seminary is where “the Eagle & Child” became real for me.

Maybe I’m idealizing. Maybe nostalgia has taken control of my memory and my emotions and circumstances and created something didn’t exist in quite the way I remember it. But I don’t have access to that kitchen any more. I won’t be discussing Torrance or Bonhoeffer or Wright or even Bell while leaning against that kitchen counter as the kettle begins to gurgle and spit. Not anytime soon, anyway.

So maybe this will mark a return to this space. And maybe it’ll mean more of a contribution to the joint blog I occasionally contribute to with the very guys I was having those discussions with. And new face-to-face conversations will be had where we live now, and they, too, will be good.

But I’ll still miss those seminary kitchen conversations.

Whatever is foreseen in joy

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

~ Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997

We are all theologians…

…whether we like it or not.

For many, “theology” is a field of the academic world, out of the mental reach of the average person, and not really all that valuable in day-to-day life. It’s certainly true that much of what is known as theology is often written in nearly impenetrable prose. In this respect it really is “the science of God”, because people who “do” theology for a living (I’ll call them “vocational theologians”) have created specialized terminology in order to make dialogue between vocational theologians a little simpler: they could string a bunch of verbs and adjectives together when talking about God or some concept relating to God, or they could come up with a single word that encapsulates all of them. The one-word option makes communication much less cumbersome and less confusing within the field, just like the latin names of plants and animals may be a more efficient form of communication for botanists and entomologists (or for me to say “entomologist” instead of “guy or girl who studies bugs”). But to the rest of us, this also makes theology seem like the exclusive field of vocational theologians.

But here’s the thing: theology is simply “thinking about God” or “words about God”. Theology is what we do when we try to come to grips with who God is or understand what God is doing in the world, when we ask “Who is God?” or “What is God like?”. And we all do this. All of us. Even you. When you say, “Jesus loves you,” you are doing theology; when you say “God is love,” you are doing theology; when you confess that “Jesus is Lord,” you are doing theology. Even if you say “There is no God” or “God doesn’t care about the world anymore,” you are in some sense doing theology.

What the vocational theologians–the ones we may think of as impenetrable-prose, know-it-all hot shots–are doing is unpacking theological ideas, trying to get behind them. They are curious and want to know what it means, for example, that “God is love” or how the Three-in-One God might work. And the deeper they go, the more complicated it can sound. But just because you or I don’t go to these levels doesn’t make us any less theologians or make theology any less our business.

Karl Barth–possibly the most famous and important theologian (at least within vocational theological circles) of the 20th century–wrote a 13-volume (6 million words!) theological tome called Church Dogmatics, on top of many other books. It’s not an easy read–it takes work to read. I think. That’s what I hear. I purchased a copy of the set on a whim (or possibly through mob shopping mentality) when they were made available at a once-in-a-lifetime price. I’ve opened the books on occasion and I will again, but they’re not easy. That much was clear after reading a page or two. But here’s the thing: there’s a story told (it’s not just a legend) in which someone asked Barth after one of his lectures how he would summarize his life’s work as a theologian. His answer was this: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

What Barth and other vocational theologians do is unpack and examine the implications of our theological beliefs, asking the question “What does it mean when we or the Bible say ‘God is love’” But Barth and you and I are ultimately all thinking and talking about the same thing: Jesus love me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Most of us just don’t have the desire or privilege to spend our days thinking about little else, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable for others to do so, or for us to draw on their thoughts and learning for our own benefit as individuals and as the Christian church.

Why do theology?

I can think of a couple of reasons why we might want to be more actively theological (as opposed to being accidentally theological). First, theology can be an act of worship and discipleship. There is value in contemplating the God we serve and to try and understand this God who seeks us out and who promises that he is with us. Theology is part of the pursuit of God, of getting to know God better, and in meditating what who God is means for our day-to-day lives.

This leads into the second reason theology is important for everyone: it shapes who we are, what we do, how we act, the choices we make. If God loves his creation so much that he enters into that creation to make things right, it has implications for how we deal with the wrongs in our lives and in the rest of the world, and with our broken relationships. If God says his creation is “very good,” it has implications for how we care for that creation. In other words, theology is connected to our action; how we understand God influences how we act.

So… theology is not by nature complicated. It can sound complicated, just like conversations about the mechanics of cars or farm machinery can sound complicated to those who are not mechanically inclined. But, unlike the world of the mechanics of internal combustion engines which not everyone can engage in, we are all theologians whether we know it or not.

To mangle a phrase from Larry Norman, “Why should all the vocational theologians enjoy all the theology?” They shouldn’t. You and I should too. Maybe not to the point of unintelligibility, but at the very least to think on who God is and what that means for us and for the world.

Reading as mining for gold and precious jewels.

I was laying on my bed this afternoon trying to read Shusaku Endo’s The Samurai. I’m pretty tired after a 6am wakeup (amazing how much difference one less hour of sleep can make), so I had a hard time focussing. I started thinking about the reading I do. I love reading… when it’s a good book. I’m starting to realize that reading is a bit like mining for gold or precious jewels: a lot of work is done in hopes of finding a gem among the rubble. The gems are worth the wait, but when I’m slogging through the rubble it gets tough sometimes. Sometimes rocks will change into gems later; sometimes what looks to be gold at the beginning turns out to be pyrite. Generally, however, gold is gold. It just takes time to come across it.

I got up out of the bed and pulled out all the books I have “on the go”, by which I mean I still have a bookmark in them with the intention of picking them up again at some point to keep reading. Some of them I am actively reading (meaning they’ve been read from in the last couple of weeks), others haven’t been read from literally in years (but I still intend to read them!). There are eight of these books laying on my bed at the moment. I know there are at least a couple of others which were reluctantly returned to the bookshelf on the assumption that they will at the right time in the future be gold.

I’m mostly to blame for this situation: over the years I’ve purchased and been given books at a rate faster than I can read them. Sometimes by the time I get to them I’m no longer interested. Other times I get hooked by more than one book at a time. Sometimes I read a book because it feels like I should. Sometimes I read a book because I want to, but then get distracted by another book (I’m always browsing). Sometimes a book catches my eye and I read it straight through without reading anything else until it was done. That’s generally a sign of gold.

But, I need to be a bit more intentional and less haphazard about my reading. That, or I just need to chill out and walk away from a book when I’m no longer interested. Here are some rules I may want to adopt:

1. I shouldn’t read books simply because I “ought” to. Yes, there are classics. Yes, they are valuable to read. Yes, there can be rewards for pushing through the tough bits. But–dare I say it?–in the end it’s just a book. No use losing sleep over it.

2. If it doesn’t catch me (or prove useful, if it’s a work-related book) in the first 50-100 pages, abandon it.

3. It’s okay to not finish a book.

4. It’s okay to return to a book later. It’s okay to start a book over some day. It’s probably not helpful to pretend that I’m still reading a book when I haven’t read it in months or years.

5. Don’t start another book until this one is finished. Or, at the very least, don’t start another book in the same genre. Reading a work of fiction, along with a work of theology, along with a work of history, for instance, may actually be a good thing and might keep me reading. Reading two novels or two theological works at the same time will usually mean one or the other gets abandoned.

6. I don’t have to read every book out there.

7. I don’t have to rush through books. Savour them. This one is difficult to practice when I’ve got shelves of waiting-to-be-read books. If I’m ever to catch up, I feel like I need to rush.

8. …but it wouldn’t hurt to skim from time to time.

9. I don’t have to catch up on reading all the books on my shelf.

10. A friend told me that he reads what he wants to think about. This is probably a generally good policy. What do I want to think about? Read a book about that and then combine it with thinking, journaling, conversations, etc.

11. Know my genres. I tend to eat up what one might call “pop sociology” books (or perhaps “pop non-fiction”): The World Without Us or The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon or Fast Food Nation or A Walk in the Woods or A Short History of Nearly Everything? I eat those books up. Mentally stimulating, absorbing, fascinating, etc. For pure enjoyment reading, that’s the way to go for me.

12. I need to learn to read and retain. Too often I read a book and forget what I read. I like to think I internalize some of the valuable information or that it’s at least formative. But who really knows. Is there a point in reading if nothing is retained? Doesn’t that just make it escapism?

13. But then maybe it’s okay to read even theology simply for pleasure. I do that already, but I’m always concerned about remembering. But maybe escapism is okay, too.

14. Sometimes a book can be judged by its cover.

15. …but an old, worn-out cover with illegible lettering and little bits of string coming off of it is not de facto unreadable.

16. I’ve found that there is a time and place and place for every book. A book that was formative or mind-blowing ten years ago might be meaningless now. A book I tried hard to read might be just what I need a few years down the road. I guess this is a kind of mystical view of the reading process. It seems to work for me. Which means that if a book doesn’t catch me fairly quickly, I should just move on and leave it for another day.

17. Perhaps I should’ve given up reading for Lent… Maybe next year.