Don't Read This Book If You Are Easily Offended

Do an Internet search for images, click on the page where the images are from, and you get to read some rather interesting articles, like the article for this image above on book clubs. 

Yesterday I attended the monthly meeting of a local library book club. I have been part of the group for at least four years now. They were excited when I came because I was someone younger joining the group. I was excited because I was not the oldest person there. The group has definitely expanded my reading list. After a brief stint with Nancy Drew mysteries during my elementary school years, the number of times I have chosen to read a mystery or detective novel has been less than one every ten years. (My apologies to former student Elaine who writes detective/ mystery novels -- I promise to read hers.) Since joining the group, I have read from every genre. Last month's book (so this month's meeting) was The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt. 

Don't read the book if you believe in God and you are easily offended. Greenblatt's thesis (not a spoiler, and even if it was, unless you are heavily interested in textual scholarship, you are going to want to get to the point) that the re-discovery of Lucretius's poem On the Nature of Things caused the world to become modern (i.e. Epicurean). Okay, so maybe that is a simplistic description of his thesis, but I just want to get to what I was practicing yesterday. I shall, however, return to this book from time to time. 

It might be helpful to know that possibly 95 percent of the members agree with Lucretius's poem (as summarized by Greenblatt): 

• The universe has no creator or designer 
• Human society began not in Paradise but in a primitive battle for survival
• The soul dies 
• There is no afterlife 
• When you are dead, you will not care because you will not exist; you just go back to being atoms 
• All organized religions are superstitious delusions 

There's more, but I think you get the picture. You probably figured out that I am the 5 percent who believes in God. So, I'm practicing the with-God life, did I go in armed with apologetics (a defense of the faith)? I did not. Not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to bring Jesus to them. 

I practiced listening because that's what Jesus did.  I let other members explain how bored they were with Greenblatt's endless historical perspective. When the discussion leader read Greenblatt's biographical information and spoke out words that had everyone in a quandary, I could explain what New Historicism, textual, and contextual meant. Jesus is intelligent; I can be intelligent. I practiced asking questions kindly. Afterwards I went to lunch with those going to lunch because Jesus loved to eat meals with people, people who did not believe in Him. Jesus was accused of eating with sinners.

And, this is where my practice time did not go so well. Oh, no, I neither made enemies, nor fell into gluttony, but I failed to practice blessing. Three of us, in great humor, poked fun at the differences between us and our husbands. I suppose we could be excused for our rather gentle jokes, but we did not notice that our eldest member, a dear soul who had been married for thirty-seven years and widowed for twenty-six had fallen quiet. As we got up to leave, tears filled her eyes and she told us to cherish every moment we had with our husbands. The holidays had been extremely difficult and lonesome for her. We comforted her, of course, as best as we could. But, I realized, I still have some practicing to do when it comes to being as present as Jesus was and is to people. Lest you think I am going to mentally whip myself, I am not. I am going to continue to practice. 

Side note: Greenblatt goes to great lengths to explain how early Christians, even those like Thomas More, wore hair shirts and physically whipped themselves, etc. The apostle Paul clearly writes in Colossians that God never called anyone to do those types of activities; whipping oneself, either physically or mentally is a human invention. So, no, I am just going to continue practicing the incarnational life -- living as Jesus would have lived if he was Debbi going to a book club meeting. I can not do it completely, but I can do.

Wow. Never do an Internet search on a topic if you want to write easily and quickly. I searched the word "incarnational" prior to writing this post.  It turns out that some people, who do believe in Jesus, do not believe in living an incarnational life. The main argument against living an incarnational life or carrying out an incarnational mission is that Jesus as God became human. We're not God. Point taken. I still like the term because I know those of us who use it do not actually believe we are God. We just want to bring the presence of God with us wherever we are, wherever we go. Maybe I will just call this tradition, virtue, thread of life (all words that if I do an Internet search are going to come up with criticisms…sigh…): the With-God Life.