A Bucket of Thoughts: From Eliot to Strauss to Nietzsche to IWS
Random thoughts on a Monday morning …

I’m grateful to Thomas Howard for Dove Descending, his commentary on T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” But why must Eliot be so pointedly obtuse as to need line-by-line decoding? (Though I suspect some of my students would think I find in Eliot a kindred spirit.) Having forced my way through “Prufrock” and “Hollow Men” and “Wasteland” last week, I’m ready for some words of redemption. I’m just getting started on “Four Quartets” — I love the notion of there being “a way up that is at one and the same time a way down,” but this poetry is tough going. (I hope I can get some help from Charlie Kidd when he returns from abroad.)
Last week while grading exams (almost done), I listened several times (and am doing so even now) to Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony. The Alpine Symphony, a tribute to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, makes Nietzsche’s atheism (or at least his quest for a “nobler god”) feel so, I dunno, so what? Brave?
Then again, if your best hope is to have your ashes parked on the top of the Himalayas in a Chock Full o’Nuts can (per The Bucket List, which movie Shari sat me down to watch this weekend, and which movie felt to me like an extended commentary on how to make Nietzsche work for you — even if the main characters do make non-Nietzschean moves toward relationships), you move past bravery into, well, again, what?
OK, I guess it makes a pretty big difference whether there’s a Redeemer or not. If not, The Bucket List is about as close to redemption as you’re going to get, I suppose. That said, I’m not sure a bucket list isn’t a bad idea even if (or since) there is a Redeemer.
What could be on mine? I’ve already killed a gator, hit a home run, played Bach & B.B. King, swung a samurai sword, driven (even briefly owned) a muscled up Mustang, kissed the most beautiful girl in the world, raised with her the three most vibrantly alive sons ever, written more than I have the right to expect anybody to read, spoken truth into the lives of half a generation of seminarians, seen tons of the majestic …
Before we leave Strauss, his Also Sprach Zarathustra (the whole tone poem) has inspired me to try to get the “Prelude” into my fingers on my Lucille and out through my Fender tube amps.
My head still hurts (that good hurt when your head feels like it’s taken in more than it’s able) from how rich the Institute for Worship Studies experience was this session. I’m grateful especially for bold prayers and wise counsel I received, and for the self-giving love I witnessed among strong-willed and talented worship leaders. It’s curious that my teaching partner and I are going through such parallel dysfunctions in church life. I love the church so — may all of us who love the Groom and his Bride help each other help Her not dress so ugly. I hold much promise of Her better adornment through my IWS friends.
Like I said, random thoughts … but, hey, it’s my blog.
Note to both devoted readers: I won’t forget about the other seven reasons for samurai sword training in Japan.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality. • T. S. Eliot





My friend Greg Davis lost his battle with esophageal cancer this week. But he won a more significant campaign. Greg loved Jesus. And Greg lived as though he weren’t just returning to dirt. He lived as though he were destined to become an everlasting splendour.
Bob Webber was larger than life in the latter sense. He went on to glory this spring, and I’ve spent a lot of quiet time this summer parsing his passing. He made me shine brighter and feel larger, and I’ve been trying to understand why.
A lot of what made Webber an enlargingly large presence comes to light in the last book that was “in the pipeline” before he became ill,
God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat! By bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever! Praised be His name! His will be done! Farewell! (ch. 23).
“Any song that makes you think you’re born to lose, bound to lose, no good to nobody, songs that run you down or poke fun at you because of your bad luck or hard travelin’, I’m out to fight these songs to my very last breath of air, to my last drop of blood. I’m out to sing the songs that will prove to you that this is your world, no matter what color, what size you are or how you were built.” — Woody Guthrie
I never thought I’d be naming Woody Guthrie my theologian of the week. I never thought that crusty folk singer would put me in mind of the hope Christ came to bring. But today he reminded me of how tired I am of fear-based and hope-bereft theology. Somebody gave Eeyore the microphone, and it’s time to take it away.
“Why did Jesus Christ have to be God?” the potential ordinand was asked. And, at least so it seemed to me, he muffed it: “It took God to offer perfect obedience.”
For almost a year and a half now my son and I have been pursuing samurai swordsmanship. Finally, next month my son and I will undergo our first testing, aiming for our first “rank.” It’s taken a year and a half of tutelage for our sensei — our sword teacher — to think we’re decent enough to show in public.
Part of the “singing” side of Jesus’ story is the celebration of his many voices, which, as my friends and readers know, I parse in terms of Bach, Bubba, and the Blues Brothers (Chapters 8-10 of With One Voice).