The Scouring of the Shire and High School Graduation

Graduation Commencement Address 2016

By Marc Hays

I.                    Exordium: QUOTE from Return of the King, “Scouring of the Shire”:

“[Pippin] cast back his cloak, flashed out his sword, and the silver and sable of Gondor gleamed on him as he rode forward.

‘I am a messenger of the King,’ he said. ‘You are speaking to the King’s friend, and one of the most renowned in all the lands of the West. You are a ruffian and a fool. Down on your knees in the road and ask pardon, or I will set this troll’s bane in you!’

The sword glinted in the westering sun. Merry and Sam drew their swords and rode up to support Pippin; but Frodo did not move. The ruffians gave back. Scaring Breeland peasants, and bullying bewildered hobbits, had been their work. Fearless hobbits with bright swords and grim faces were a great surprise. And there was a note in the voices of these newcomers that the ruffians had not heard before. It chilled them with fear.”

II.                 Narration of Scouring of the Shire:

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were the four hobbits that accompanied Gandalf the wizard, Legolas the elf, Gimli the dwarf, and the two men, Aragorn and Boromir, on the journey to save the West from the evils of Lord Sauron. Their journey culminated in the destruction of the Ring of Power in Mt. Doom and the crowning of Aragorn as King in Gondor. However, upon the return to their home, the Shire, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin found a spiked gate, securely fastened at both ends of the bridge crossing the Brandywine River. They were refused entrance into the Shire and warned not to cause any trouble or break any of the new rules, or the Chief would hear of it, and throw them into the Lockholes.

They returned to find their home overrun with “ruffians and highway-robbers.” Food and drink had been rationed and there was even a daily allowance of wood that could be burned. Only the Chief’s men were allowed tobacco and speaking against the Chief was forbidden. There were so many new rules that at one point the shire-folk saw something funny and wanted to laugh, but weren’t sure if laughing was allowed. Upon seeing all this, Sam Gamgee responded, “I hoped to have a rest, but I can see there’s work and trouble ahead.” So, after jumping the gate and tearing down the list of rules, the battle-proven foursome proceeded to “scour the Shire”—to cleanse their homeland of the ruffians who were holding the hobbits captive in their own homes.

But the scouring of the shire is not meant to only be seen as another martial conflict at the end of a long series of battles. The scouring of the shire was written, as Stratford Caldecott says, “written as a call to arms to the reader, as a blast on the Horn of Rohan summoning us to the help of our friends and the healing of our world. We too, if we have imaginatively accompanied the hobbits on this journey from the mundane to the epic and back again, are initiated into the realities that exist behind the veils of everyday life." (~Stratford Caldecott, The Power of the Ring)

So the shire was a different place than when they left it, but then again, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were not the same hobbits they were when they had left on their journey. To quote a friend of mine, “Those hobbits who returned were gangsta.” And when it came to confronting the thieves who were tormenting their friends, they were “gangsta.” Without batting an eye they mustered the hobbits and conquered the invaders.

Regarding how the hobbits had grown on their journey and were now prepared to protect their people:

Pippin left the Shire irresponsible and reckless, but while serving under Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor, he learned obedience and fealty. However when Lord Denethor went mad and was going to mistakenly burn Faramir alive on the funeral pyre, Pippin learned to transcend obedience to man’s rules when a higher good requires rules to be broken. Faramir’s life took precedence over Denethor’s wishes.

Upon returning to the Shire, Pippin would not stand for his neighbors to be under the unjust thumb of the new Chief and all his oppressive & petty rules. So, Tolkien had Pippin to be the character who tore down the list of oppressive rules. What Pippin had learned in Gondor, he applied in service to his neighbor at home.

Merry left with the Fellowship much in the same state as Pippin. He was young, inexperienced, and timid. However, during his journey, he pledged himself to King Theoden and rode with the Rohirrim, with the mighty horsemen of Rohan. Before the final muster to battle, Theoden released Merry from his vow, though Merry wished to continue on to fight. The text reads, “Merry wished he was a tall Rider like Eomer and could blow a horn or something and go galloping to the rescue.”

Upon returning to the Shire and finding his neighbors in need of rescue, it is Merry who blows the horn to muster the hobbits for battle. Although he was lesser than the Riders of Rohan, he was the best man for the job when the Shire needed scouring, and he became a faithful steward of his home and of his people. What Merry had learned in Gondor, he applied in service to his neighbor at home.

And what about Frodo? During the scouring of the shire, Frodo refused to wield his sword, but allowed others to do so if the need arose in order to protect the life of a hobbit. He was not a pacifist in the scouring, but he served as a protector to anyone living. No one was to be killed through vengeance or malice.

Through bearing the ring to Mt. Doom, Frodo learned to be patient with sinners. He knew how strong the temptation to seize power could be, for he succumbed to that same temptation when it was time to throw the Ring into Mt. Doom. He couldn’t do it, and Gollum ended up being the agent of the Ring’s destruction. Frodo remembered this lesson, and was not so quick to throw anyone away, simply because they were doing something wrong. He was longsuffering and loving toward his neighbors, even the ones who were his enemies. What Frodo had learned in Mordor, he applied in service to his neighbor at home.

And Sam. Sam was strong and faithful and dutiful and courageous and temperate and just and virtuous from the beginning to the end of this story. I am not sure what Sam’s lessons were, honestly. Please tell me afterward if you can remember some. Sam is the average guy that goes through life completing the mundane tasks in such a way that everyone around him is blessed by it. Sam fights faithfully in the scouring of the Shire, and eventually Sam marries Rosie Cotton, settles down, becomes a father, and is actually given the final words of the entire trilogy. Sam is a faithful friend who is faithful to the very end.

“The scouring of the shire is important because on one level the story is all about how the hobbits go through all their adventures in distant lands to acquire the virtues with which to confront the evils back home.” So “gangsta” might not be the best word to describe the hobbits. “Virtuous” might be a better one.

III.                So, you may be wondering, “what does this have to do with my graduation from high school?” Well, I’m glad you asked: I will make three applications of this story to your graduation this afternoon.

1.       The Epic and the Mundane

2.       The Stewardship of Gifts

3.       The Weapons for the Battle

IV.                First, The Epic and the Mundane:

Today is epic for you and it shouldn’t be any other way. You have been on a journey for nearly two decades, and this leg of life’s journey is nearly complete. 18 years! That sounds more like Homer’s Odysseus than Tolkien’s hobbits. That is a long journey! If you feel like today is epic, that is because it is! No doubt about it!

Today is a day for revelry and feasting and toasting and celebration and pomp and circumstance. And your journey toward this day, like that of the hobbits toward Gondor, has been a series of day-in day-out tasks—little things that eventually pile up into big things. Single steps that eventually add up to a long journey.

This is one reason why the Scouring of the Shire is so important to the Lord of the Rings story and so applicable to this day. The hobbits move from the shire to Gondor and Mordor and back again to the shire: the move from the mundane to the epic and back again to the mundane. And through the faithful completion of mundane task they accomplish something of epic proportions.

This is just like life. Epic days, like today, do not happen in a vacuum. They don’t fall out of the sky. A long series of mundane tasks has led up to your epic graduation: mundane tasks like reading books, which began by reading single words, which added up into chapters, which added up into books has added up to your reading of dozens and dozens of stories and thousands and thousands of pages throughout high school.

You did not write all your essays and speeches without going through the mundane tasks of writing each successive word and every next sentence. You did not memorize your speeches without memorizing the first line. Then the next line. And the next. And the next.

Some synonyms for “mundane” are words like: uneventful, unremarkable, repetitive, routine, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, commonplace. Do some of those words describe your journey through high school? I think the hobbits would agree that some of those words describe many of the days along their journey to Gondor and Mordor.

Both you and the hobbits completed a long series of mundane tasks that has resulted in the celebration when all was accomplished. And like the hobbits returning to the Shire with a job to do, you must embrace the reality that tomorrow will not be like today.

Now don’t get me wrong: every day is epic in one sense. It is a great blessing to open our eyes each morning, to fill our lungs with air, to be with our families, and to fulfill our tasks, but we have the word “mundane” for a reason. Most days are common. Most days are somewhat routine. Otherwise we would not have a word to distinguish those days from any other days. Right? If everything is special, then nothing is special?

You graduate today. In our culture, today is your coming of age: the threshold between the first part of your life: childhood, and the second part of your life: adulthood. It doesn’t get more epic than that. Which means that the rest of your days will be as adults. The rest of your lives will be after the battle on the Plains of Pelennor and back in the Shire.

There are exciting things ahead, don’t get me wrong, but today is huge. Everything else happens as an adult. And if you are not expecting it, the monotony of adulthood could become discouraging.

But on this note, G.K. Chesterton once said, “…perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. (in the repetitious, in the mundane) It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.”

So, my first application from the Scouring of the Shire: Your journey, like the hobbits, is from the mundane to the epic and back again.

V.                  Second application: The Stewardship of Gifts

As mentioned earlier, the hobbits returned to the Shire and used their unique lessons learned to the help of their friends and the healing of their world. It is no accident that Tolkien’s heroes are short, chubby, and unassuming. To all appearances they are not a threat to anyone, and yet they are the ones who save Middle Earth from the evil and darkness. They are the ones who save the Shire from the ruffians and thieves. They are the fictional incarnation of the truth that “the least shall be the greatest”; that a single mustard seed can grow into a mighty tree; that a widow’s mite can be more valuable than a King’s ransom.

A widow’s mite and a sower’s seed are both limited by physical and temporal “smallness,” as are the widow and the sower themselves.

But He places the mite in the widow’s hand and asks, “What will you give?” She gives everything and He asks nothing more. He did not ask for two mites. She gave her fortune, little and limited as it was, and Jesus smiled as He smelled the sweet savor of her sacrifice.

What did God do with a penny? I haven’t any clue, but I trust it was something great. He has made it a habit of doing grand and glorious things with the seemingly scant offerings of His creatures. God never asks for anything less than everything, and in his mercy, never asks for more. He remembers our frame, our dustiness is never hidden from His eyes.

Remembering the parable of the Talents, we remember that the master gave 5 talents, 2 talents, and 1 talent to each “according to his ability” before leaving on a long journey. The man who was given 1 talent had apparently not proven himself a wise investor, but still the master gave him the chance to try again.

When the master returned and the talents were required of the stewards, the one who had received 5 brought 5 more. The man who had received 2 brought an additional 2, and the man who had received one brought back only the one. He had buried it in the ground, refusing to take any risks with the master’s money.

Well, he judged his master all wrong. Failure may have been judged harshly, but lack of trying was judged more harshly even than failure. What little he had was taken from him and given to the man who had 10 talents. He did not use what little he had and even it was taken from him.

When Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin originally left with Fellowship, they were not prepared to Scour the Shire, their master had not yet given them those talents, but upon their return, they were ready, the time had come, and they did not bury this readiness in the ground. Out of love for their neighbor they laid down their lives for the help of their friends and healing of their world.

Like the hobbits, you are capable of doing far more than you could ever imagine, but you are never asked to do anything more than you are currently capable. God knows your frame. He remembers that you are dust. God has given you each talents and he has given you the gift of a thorough education for the maturation of those talents, and now you will find opportunity after opportunity to use them. You, and no one else, are the steward of your talents. Don’t bury them in the ground. Take a risk with your master’s money. He wants you to.

VI.               Third application: The Weapons for the Battle

Once while eating at Taco Bell, I noticed a young man, wearing a Taco Bell uniform, standing beside one the windows. He was out of the way of foot traffic, watching the room and apparently waiting for something to happen. He had a dishcloth tucked in his left back pocket and a spray bottle hanging by its trigger from his right front pocket. By his facial features and stature I could tell he was a young man with Down’s Syndrome. He stood waiting until someone finished eating, picked up their tray, and headed for the waste bin.

As soon as the customer had left the table, the young man made a bee line for it. As he was walking, he snatched the dishcloth from his rear pocket with his left hand, and he whipped the spray bottle up with his right. Upon arriving at the table he scoured that table. Four quick bursts of cleanser and one fluid wipe down were all that was required for the table, and a couple bursts and quick wipe for each seat.

That dining room had been placed under his stewardship, and I have never seen as diligent a worker as that young man. He was single-minded in his task, and I noticed as I left that it was the cleanest fast-food dining room I had ever been in. He wielded his weapons well. The dirt and scraps were exiled, and his employer won a great battle.

(As an aside, speaking of the food service industry, don’t get down on yourself if you end up working in fast food for a while, even if for a long while. Jesus said “feed the hungry” and that’s what you’re doing. Hungry people enter the restaurant and full people leave. You are doing the Lord’s work. And if you think that it doesn’t count because you’re getting paid to do it, remember that your pastor is getting paid to deliver God’s Word, while you are getting paid to deliver God’s food. Jesus said, “feed the hungry” just as clearly as he said, “preach the Word.”)

You may not know at this point what your vocation will be or which weapons you’ll bear. If you go into dining room cleanliness, you may bear a dishcloth and a spray bottle. If you go into law enforcement or armed services, you may bear a “sword,” as it were, like the hobbits. But I can tell you today the two weapons you must take into every battle in life.

Upon hearing my thoughts, you may think that “weapon” is the wrong word for them, but you will ultimately conquer enemies and win battles only with these two weapons. These two weapons are the only two Jesus cares about, and he says so. They are the fulfillment of all he’s given us to do. They are the fulfillment of every noble task we could ever perform.

In Matthew, chapter 22, the gospel writer relates:

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

In your right-hand you have “Love the Lord your God.” In your left hand, you have, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind—with all your passions and emotions, with all your appetites and desires, with all your thoughts and ideas. If you bear this nobly with your right hand, your left will wield this love of God to pass it along to your neighbor.

It’s kind of funny to me, “as you love yourself.” I wouldn’t think I was a good judge of this, but God’s says, “Marc, you are your neighbor’s steward. Invest the love I’ve given you in them. You must decide how are you’re going to invest in them. Just don’t bury my love in the ground.”

How do you want to be treated? Love your neighbor by treating them that way.

How do you want to be thought of? Love your neighbor by thinking of them that way.

How do want to be encouraged? Love your neighbor by encouraging them that way.

How do you want to be loved? Then love your neighbor as you love yourself.

·         Like Pippin and Merry and Frodo and Sam, you are the messenger of the King.

·         Like the hobbits, your mundane and your epic are both equally blessed.

·         Like the hobbits, your shire needs scouring: wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, whomever you’re around, you’ve been called as a steward of the people within your reach and called as a steward of any corner of this earth where you may live or roam.

·         Love of God and love of neighbor will not fail to please God, to bless you, to serve your neighbor, and to spread the Kingdom of Jesus Christ to every square inch of creation.

·         May God bless you today as you graduate.

Never Asking Anything More Than Everything

God never asks for anything less than everything, and in his mercy, never asks for more. He remembers our frame, our dustiness is never hidden from His eyes. A widow’s mite and a sower’s seed are both limited by physical and temporal “smallness,” as are the widow and the sower themselves. All four are finite creatures, and more humbling than finitude, the widow and the sower are both fallen, both sinfully natured and habitually inclined toward sin.

But He places the mite in the widow’s hand and asks, “What will you give?” She gives everything and He asks nothing more. He did not ask for two mites. She gave her fortune, little and limited as it was, and Jesus smiled as He smelled the redolent savor of her sacrifice. What did God do with a penny? I haven’t any clue, but I trust it was something great. He has made it a habit of doing grand and glorious things with the seemingly scant offerings of His creatures.

Hey, CC Dads! Are You Ready for Cycle 1?

Some of you may remember this post from last year. Here it is again, focusing on Cycle 1.

Hey, CC Dads. July is nearing an end, which means that the 2015-2016 academic year is upon us. In just a few weeks, our wives and kiddos will be loading up in the van once a week to head to the local Classical Conversations campus for their community day. Their summer schedule will end. Their school year schedule will begin, and most of our schedules will continue unabated. We will go to work at the same time every morning and come home at the same time in the evening (unless you work the 2nd or 3rd shift.) The day-in/day-out schedule of a working man is not too terribly exciting, but we’re not complaining; a status quo of work is good to have—day-in/day-out.

Classical, Christian Cardboard Cutouts

As parents, we have the opportunity to instill countless habits, tendencies, or trajectories in our children’s lives. Some of these come naturally by virtue of the atmosphere of our households; they simply breathe the same air as us for 20 years or so.

One tendency at the HaysHaus that I find funny is how our use of Essential Oils has changed the way our children look at minor first-aid and health care. If someone gets a headache, they ask their mom if they can smell some Peppermint; a minor abrasion, they ask to apply some Lavender; and a slightly infected area calls for Thieves. The presence of these remedies precludes any questions for pharmaceuticals. (However, when they get a cut, they still want a band-aid.) This aspect of their lives is under our control as parents; we created this atmosphere, and the children don’t know any differently. But not everything falls into the category of total parental control.

Alan's Presentation and His Liberal Education

Upon looking at the scope and sequence of any classical curriculum, one often feels an overwhelming sense of awe for anyone who could accomplish all that’s being proposed, as well as a sinking feeling concerning one’s own likelihood of being counted in that number. I propose that "checking off all the boxes" is the wrong way to look at a liberal arts education and the right way has more to do with helping our children to more fully realize their potential as human persons--as image-bearers of God.

My 11-year-old son, Alan, has Down’s syndrome. Ever since his open heart surgery when he was six-months-old, he has been exceptionally healthy. He started walking when he was 4. Early on, he learned a little bit of sign language to help communicate but quickly abandoned it when he decided to use words instead. The language he speaks is a rough approximation of English, but he has certainly created his own dialect. Fortunately for us he is a good teacher and most of the household understands “Alanese.”

Discovering Planet Narnia

I am currently reading Planet Narnia by Michael Ward. I am only halfway through, so this is not a full review, only some thoughts. I just want to catch you before you appropriate all your Christmas money; this may be a book you want under your tree with your name affixed to it.

The primary reason to read this book is that Lewis was a genius and the Narnia movies are, to put it bluntly, not. If you are watching the movies but not reading the Narniad to your children, then your children are learning lies about Lewis. Although it may be formally true that the films were “based on books written by C. S. Lewis,” it can only be true in the meanest sense. The movies are “action/adventures” for children; the books are the subtlest of fairy tales. The movies are the epitome of unliterary, while the Narniad nears the apex of literary. The Chronicles of Narnia are sublime, and Michael Ward proves it.

Lewis: We Are Far Too Easily Pleased

"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, 'Unselfishness'. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, 'Love'. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

-C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (introductory paragraph)

Order your copy here.

Are You Planning on Yelling at Your Children Today?

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.  Galatians 6:1

In his sermon series entitled, Loving Little Ones, Douglas Wilson makes application of this passage from the larger church body to the specific microcosm of the Christian home. In our homes we have leaders and followers, teachers and learners, older, wiser ones and younger, foolish ones; everyone in both categories being brothers and sisters in Christ. Pastor Wilson pointed out that in our homes we tend to leave the “ye who are spiritual” part out of the verse. We assume that folks “at church” need to remember this verse whenever they may be admonishing, exhorting, rebuking, or correcting us, but when we get home, this verse does not apply when we are correcting our children. In the church, folks need to remember the “spirit of gentleness” part; especially when they are correcting us.  If they don’t, we get to turn things back around, make an accusation at them, and then completely ignore whatever they were trying to say to us. At home, we pretend like we are the “ye who are spiritual” ones by default, therefore “spiritualness” gets defined by however we are doing things at the moment.

The Lost Tools of Thinking

Last year, our homeschool community, Classical Conversations, introduced the Lost Tools of Writing program as parts of the 7th and 8th grade curricula. This was a good, good thing. I am no expert in the Lost Tools curriculum or in the application of all it has to offer, but what I have seen has been fantastic. I offer you one thought in particular to express my excitement.

Classical Conversations students study grammar and composition through our Essentials program from around 9-years-old through age 12 (plus or minus a few months.) Here they learn how to recognize and use the parts of speech, how to classify a sentence from one of the 112 possible choices, how to make a key word outline, how to diagram a sentence, how to write an essay, how to write from a source, as well as from image prompts, how to present their essay in front of an audience, etc. They also do much, much more than this, but being a dad, I'm not in class with them every week, so my list is shorter than it could be.

Naming God's World

I am currently rereading Nancy Pearcey's Soul of Science. Here's a juicy morsel from the conclusion of chapter 7:

"The primeval paradigm of human knowledge is the account of Adam's naming the animals. Devising a suitable label for each animal required careful observation, analysis, and categorization, based on the way it was created. Adam couldn't very well call a fish 'woolly creature with four legs' or a bird 'scaled creature with fins.' He had to reflect the world as God made it.

Yet Genesis tells us 'God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would call them.' God did not prescribe one right name, one correct way to describe an animal. He left room for Adam to be creative, both in the features he chose to focus on and in the terms he selected to describe the animal. In this simple paradigm Genesis gives the Biblical basis for all the arts and sciences. On the one hand, we root our work in the external world God has created, and, on the other hand, we freely exercise the creativity and imagination He has given us." (page 160)

We're Getting Warmer

Three years ago while building our house we installed both a chimney and an electric heat pump. The heat pump was for present use. The chimney was for the future, standing cold and dormant while the heat pump did its work. For all the benefits that it does have, there is something missing from the heat pump experience—something crucial, like heat. Although a heat pump keeps the pipes from freezing, one cannot stand over the grate and actually get warm. Instead, there’s a draft—a mildly lukewarm breeze that actually sends chills down my spine just thinking about it.

Morning Devotions: The Screwtape Letters, Chapter 6

In Chapter 6 of C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, Uncle Screwtape exhorts Wormwood to “direct the malice of his patient to his immediate neighbor whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.” Screwtape references the English people as “creatures of that miserable sort who loudly proclaim that torture is too good for their enemies and then give tea and cigarettes to the first wounded German pilot who turns up at the back door.”

Recalling that this book was written in 1942, the English people would certainly have been loving their enemies by caring for wounded German pilots. These Luftwaffe pilots had fallen from the sky, just two years earlier, while attempting to destroy London during their Blitz—37 consecutive weeks of bombing raids, resulting in the destruction of over one million English homes and deaths of over 40,000 civilians. Screwtape’s Enemy (God) told His people to love their enemies, and the English people were actually doing it.

Baby Steps Toward the Masterpiece

Thanks to a blue-light special at the Kindle store last year, I acquired an e-copy of N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. The first section addresses humanity’s struggle with justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty. His questions are honest and piercing, and his logic so seamless, that I find it hard to decide on a pull quote without doing a great injustice to the surrounding material as well as the quote itself, but, having said all that, here’s a portion that is exceptionally tasty.  It is from chapter 4, For the Beauty of the Earth,

"What we must notice at this stage is that both in the Old Testament and the New, the present suffering of the world–about which the biblical writers knew every bit as much as we do–never makes them falter in their claim that the created world really is the good creation of a good God. They live with the tension. And they don’t do it by imagining that the present created order is a shabby, second-rate kind of thing, perhaps (as in some kinds of Platonism) made by a shabby second-rate sort of god. They do it by telling a story of what the one creator God has been doing to rescue his beautiful world and put it to rights. And the story they tell, which we shall explore further in due course, indicates that the present world really is a signpost to a larger beauty, a deeper truth. It really is the authentic manuscript of one part of a masterpiece. The question is, What is the whole masterpiece like, and how can we begin to hear the music in that way it was intended?

Alfred, Calvin, and Tolkien

On a recent journey from our little hamlet in middle Tennessee to the bustling metropolis of Nashville, I was accompanied by my son, Calvin.  The journey takes about an hour, which gives ample time to listen to a lecture en route.  Dr. George Grant willingly rode in the mp3 player on the dashboard, while Calvin was happy to have the whole backseat to himself.  I asked Dr. Grant if he would tell me about Alfred the Great again, and he obliged.


Dr. Grant began with a lengthy quote from G.K. Chesterton’s, Ballad of the White Horse King. He then proceeded to tell us the story of this great king of Wessex; the king who united a band of tribal chiefs to defend his home and his people from the onslaught of the Viking hordes; the king who sang and prayed with his troops before battle; the king that redesigned a navy in order to quell the pagan plunderers before they reached his island.  As Dr. Grant spoke I recalled what I’d learned about King Alfred from Ben Merkle’s book, The White Horse King. So I paused our inimitable orator to tell my son about shield walls and bezerkers, about Guthrum and the Danes, about bravery and cunning, about a king that learned humility through hardship.  Calvin commented how much the Middle Ages sounded like Middle Earth, and I agreed.  Externally I agreed.  Internally I rejoiced that my son was avidly listening to my stories and listening well enough to have made a connection between Alfred and Tolkien.

I love King Alfred.  I want to be like King Alfred, and I want my sons to be more like King Alfred than I will ever be.  Long ago, I realized that you can’t force your children to love your heroes, but during that conversation with Calvin, I realized that you don’t have to.  Your love for your heroes will be infectious.  Your children will simply catch it. I love King Alfred because King Alfred loved King Jesus and that love saved a nation from utter destruction.  I love King Jesus and I want Calvin to love King Jesus more than I ever will, so that he and I can sing with Alfred and his troops, with Tolkien and his hobbits, and with our beloved Dr. Grant,

When the enemy comes in a’roarin’ like a flood,
Coveting the kingdom and hungering for blood,
The Lord will raise a standard up and lead His people on,
The Lord of Hosts will go before defeating every foe;
Defeating every foe.
For the Lord is our defense, Jesus defend us,
For the Lord is our defense, Jesu defend.

The Birds, the Bees, and the Eleven-Year-Old Trip

My children know that when they reach their eleventh birthday, they get to go on an overnight trip with Papa, i.e., me. They get to pick where we go and what we do for that entire day (within reason, of course–in other words, Disney world is not an option.) We have a grand time doing the things that they enjoy, and as a dad, I rejoice in the opportunity to focus on them entirely for the weekend. However, the primary motivation for the special trip centers around getting them alone for several hours in order to begin more detailed discussions about those ‘birds and bees’ that can be so uncomfortable to discuss. The goal is not to talk about it all, all at once, but to invite them to engage in a conversation with their dad. My hope is that this conversation will continue through their teen years and up until they say, “I do,” before God, their minister, and the gathered witnesses, and the chosen, complimentary mate says, “I do,” in response.

Heaven Understands Hell, But Hell Does Not Understand Heaven

The following is a quote from C. S. Lewis' A Preface to Paradise Lost:

"In all but a few writers the 'good' characters are the least successful, and every one who has ever tried to make even the humblest story ought to know why. To make a character worse than oneself it is only necessary to release imaginatively from control some of the bad passions which, in real life, are always straining at the leash; the Satan, the Iago, the Becky Sharp, within each of us, is always there and only too ready, the moment the leash is slipped, to come out and have in our books the holiday we try to deny them in our lives. But if you try to draw a character better than yourself, all you can do is to take the best moments you have had and to imagine them prolonged and more consistently embodied in action. But the real high virtues which we do not possess at all, we cannot depict except in a purely external fashion. We do not really know what it feels like to be a man much better than ourselves. His whole inner landscape is one we have never seen, and when we guess it we blunder. It is in their 'good' characters that novelists make, unawares, the most shocking self-revelations. Heaven understands Hell and Hell does not understand Heaven, and all of us, in our measure, share the Satanic, or at least Napoleonic, blindness. To project ourselves into a wicked character we have only to stop doing something, and something that we are already tired of doing; to project ourselves into a good one we have to do what we cannot and become what we are not." (p. 101)

Dads: Education is Just Like Land Surveying, Only Different

A land surveyor from the perspective of an eight-year-old

How do we evaluate progress in our children? Whether we are measuring academic progress, spiritual progress, progress in their chores, progress in their sibling/social interaction, how do we surmise that they have gone from a position of relative immaturity in an area to a place of more maturity? I am not a trained educational expert, nor am I a child psychologist, nor am I a pastor or certified counselor, but I am a land surveyor. I am a professional measurer. People pay me to measure their real estate to a very high degree of precision, culminated by a rubber stamp on a plat by which I stake my livelihood on the fact that I’m right.

I am also a father—have been for 15 years. I never finished college, but I’m working very hard on my PhDad. By God’s grace we’ll graduate these six young people into godly adulthood.

"String of same-sex marriage rulings broken"

"Roane County Circuit Judge Russell E. Simmons, Jr., of Kingston ruled in a case of two gay men who were married four years ago in Iowa and are now seeking a divorce in their home state of Tennessee.  Unlike every other court ruling — federal or state — since the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor in June 2013, the judge rejected the idea that the Windsor decision undercut state authority to ban same-sex marriages."

Read the entire article here:

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/08/string-of-same-sex-marriage-rulings-broken/

Classical Education: The Spirit of Inquiry

“Classical education is not, preeminently, of a specific time or place. It stands instead for a spirit of inquiry and a form of instruction concerned with the development of style through language and conscience through myth. The key word here is inquiry. Everything springs from the special nature of the inquiry. The inquiry dictates the form of instruction and establishes the moral framework for thought and action. Classical inquiry possesses three essential attributes. The first of these is a general curiosity, as opposed to the systematic or specific interest of modern science. One does not launch a classical inquiry with a preconceived methodology or from the point of view of an established academic discipline. Consequently, the field is open for all sorts of questions, whether regarding the true nature of happiness, the cause of the Persian wars, or the source of the Nile. Second, one responds to these questions by forming imaginative hypotheses. The very nature of the questions, being far-flung and wide-ranging, often makes impossible what qualify today as scientific hypotheses. Third, one completes the inquiry by devising methods for testing the hypotheses. Again, the restrictions placed by modern science upon methodology are not adequate. The method used to test the hypothesis formed in a classical inquiry may involve reason or observation, logic or experimentation. The inquirer may even seek confirmation for his hypothesis in an emotional or religious experience. How else, ultimately, does one test the value of a poem or the validity of God’s love?

General curiosity, imagination in forming hypotheses, and method in testing them, then, mark the classical spirit of inquiry. This bent of mind allows the educated man to go on educating himself or extending the realms of knowledge for his fellows.”

David V. Hicks, Norms & Nobility, p.18

The Role of Heretical Christianity in the Rise of Islam

Image taken from http://www.worldology.com/Europe/decline_rome.htm

Although North Africa enjoyed the blessing of the presence of Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo, the impact of these great Catholic leaders was unable to maintain a long-lasting effect. The influence of Vandal Arianism supplanted Trinitarian Catholicism to the point that when the Muslims invaded from the East, there was no sufficient, theological base in the North Africans to resist the new Islamic heresies. Through a series of events, over a couple of centuries, the Byzantine people, and their Catholic culture, had become undesirable to the North Africans. When Vandal Arianism arrived on the scene, the North Africans were emotionally and psychologically prepared to have their Catholic dogma replaced. They did not specifically seek it out, but they were unprepared to repel the Vandal Arian heresy. Upon the acceptance of Vandal Arianism, the North Africans rejected Chalcedonian Christology and therefore, had no problem with the Islamic idea that Jesus was only a great prophet and that Mohammed had come as an even greater, and final, prophet. It was this religious difference between North Africa and the rest of Europe and southwest Asia, rather than any economic or socio-political differences, that opened the door for Islam to nearly eradicate Christianity from northern Africa.


Vandal Arianism developed in the Teutonic regions of northern Europe where Christ was viewed as a step above the average man, rather than a “second degree” God as he was viewed in Hellenic Arianism.  Jesus was a hero, a commander, or king, but not God like the divine All-Father.  This is as clearly heresy as the Hellenic version, albeit distinctive in the details.

In the early 430’s, the Teutonic general, Geiseric moved down through the Iberian Peninsula across the Straits of Gibraltar into North Africa.  By 439 he had conquered North Africa from present-day Mauritania to Tripoli in Libya.  He had become “master of North Africa”.  As surely as modern politicians show favors to those who will be favorable to advance their campaign, Geiseric, a Vandal Arian, promoted his religion in all the cities of his dominion.  Things were much easier for adherents to Vandal Arianism than for those who maintained the Trinitarian Catholic faith. Many clerics were exiled to Italy and the treasures of the local churches confiscated for Arian use.  To portray Geseric and his successors as merely religious zealots would be to oversimplify the matter, for politics played an important role in establishing their rule over the Berber people of North Africa.  With little to no religious allegiance to Rome or Constantinople, a North African ruler could count on that much more fidelity from his constituency. These anti-Catholic moves by the North African leaders, as well as some dumb moves by the Byzantines and Catholics themselves, solidified the shift from Trinitarian Christianity to Vandal Arianism.

Mohammed crafted his vision in 610 A.D., and within 80 years of his death in 632 A.D., his followers had spread the Muslim religion and kingdom throughout the Middle East, Egypt, North Africa and Spain.  Although the Byzantine generals and troops put up a fight every step of the way, the Arian predisposition of the Berber peoples in North Africa made them prime candidates for conversion to the Muslim faith.  This predisposition to a subordinate Christology aligned them more closely with an Islamic view of Jesus than a Catholic one.  The Quran refers to Jesus as a Prophet and the son of the virgin Mary but also says that Mohammed was a greater servant of God than Jesus. The Vandal Arian heresy had primed the pump for the next greater one than Jesus to come along.  As C.J. Speel surmises,

“Conversion from Teutonic Arianism, the faith of the bulk of North Africa’s population from ca. 450 to ca. 670 A.D., to Islam was an easy step.  In Teutonic Arianism Jesus was not God; neither was He the “Second degree” God of Arius, a philosophical logos.  He was a great tribal leader, or healer, or commander, an historical figure, a man who was manifested as the Son of God. Islam did not seriously alter this picture of Jesus; it simply added another and even more distinguished figure—the Prophet of Mecca to whom was revealed in most recent times the will of God.”

By 698 A.D. Carthage had fallen to Muslim invaders and has not yet risen from the ashes.  This is not simply an accounting of things that happened a long time ago on a continent far, far away.  We are not only concerned for the conversion of North Africans to Christianity, but we must take note of the current state of Christianity in our own land.  If a shift from the Trinitarian Catholic Faith of the historic creeds of the church is a tell-tale sign of what is coming, then we need to hang on tight.  This ride is about to get a lot bumpier.

For example, we are not too far removed from the Republican Mormon that was offered to us for consideration last presidential election.  He was weighed in balances and found wanting, but the sobering thing is that he accomplished being the last “conservative” on the scale.  What are conservative Americans attempting to accomplish if a Mormon is the man for the job?  Trinitarian Christianity cannot be anywhere but on the fringes of American culture if Mitt Romney made it as far as he did.  Not to mention the support he received from overtly Christian organizations like Billy Graham’s, who removed Mormonism from its list of cults on their website a few months before the election.  “Christian” leaders like Joel Osteen, the pastor of a Houston church, with tens of thousands of members, says that “Mitt Romney is a believer in Christ like me.”  If Osteen was the exception rather than the rule, it would be different, but American Christians bought it hook, line and sinker, and sent Romney up against Obama.  As least the Vandal Arians imposed the rule on the North Africans as their conquerors, as opposed to the GOP, who has willingly traded Nicaea and Chalcedon for some golden plates found buried on a hill in New York.

This is not meant to be a harsh judgment of folks who view the General Election as a zero-sum game, and therefore felt compelled to vote for one of the two options, however abhorrent the choices were.  It’s not the individual’s vote in November that is as disconcerting as the fact that Romney was ever considered viable by the conservative populace.

America is following in the footsteps of the North African culture, which has not known Christendom for over 1300 years.  She walked away from orthodoxy and God let her keep walking.  America is just a flash in the pan compared to many cultures, and we’ve already walked away.

Speel II, C.J. “The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the Wake of the Rise of Islam.” Church History 29, no. 4 (1960): 379-397. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3161925. Accessed February 1, 2013.

This article was originally posted on the Kuyperian Commentary