Grace Beats Karma

This book is a collection of letters written from prison* by Neal Cassady, primarily to his estranged wife, with excerpt ripoffs at the footers of each letter to be read to their kids; but also to his godfather who was in the Catholic clergy. We're only getting Neal's letters here, not the responses - if you need a reminder who he was, N.C. was a close friend of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, being immortalized by both as Dean Moriarty in On the Road and in various poetic referentialisms; little of Cassady's poetic writings survive in the world of Actual Publishing, but his impact as a personality is pivotally central to the whole generation of avant garde wordsmithery that followed in his wake.

   We forget too easily how deeply religious the Beat core founders were: Cassady and Kerouac devout catholics, Ginsberg a reformist Jew - as such, a considerable bulk of these letters is Neal talking on and around the history and understandings of his faith, trying to memorize the whole list of all the Popes** there's ever been while doing daily exercises in his cell and committing longer and longer passages of Scripture to memory.

   Ultimately it boils down to his inner wrestling with the transcendental realisations of dharma that he and his fellow poet-beats had 'discovered'*** the dharmic truths of Eastern religions, and were trying, through their business of poetry, to syncretize or harmonize these insights with Western Christendom; ultimately a task they were halfway successful in, but Neal paid for it with his life, being imprisoned by dint of his own trust in American libertarian amenities and losing his family soon after. These letters are not tragic - nor are they entirely pleasant reading; you can see the boredoms and hypocrisies and mental gymnastics he puts himself through each time his wife writes back - and the tidbits he feeds as half-truths to the kids make this an actually interesting case study book for psychologists looking into the neuroses of the archetypal charismatic leader of folks. Well worth a read if you're interested in modern American cultural history, or the roots of all Cool Poetic stuff since WW2.

Since grace, in real Christian life - really does beat karma, I'm going to take the timely opportunity here in this post to talk briefly about my exit from my home church, which I'd already given some intimations towards here and here.
   So, my home church, The Crowded House, has been hemorrhaging members for some years - often under legitimate pretences of planting new churches elsewhere, but also because something was rotten in the local Danish crown, if you know what I mean. Anyway, the dams holding back the leak or leaks of refugee testimonies burst - it made big news - and I don't entirely know where to look to for spiritual leadership now, as it kind of feels like waking up to the fact that Acts 29, the meta-church body of which I was a part, is no different from the personality cult megachurches where book sales and speaking tours take precedence over pastoral care for all in the flock.
   Others have said far more than I would like to say here on the whole messed up scenario, so rather than testify myself (which I have done, to the formal enquiry) I'm just going to linkdump a few things. Some have seen it as fishy since Driscoll days; signs of unchristian leadership were noted and undealt with a full decade ago; from 2016 red lights began popping up more and more - this was the same year both of my parents left TCH, forcing me to stay and decide whether I trusted them or my Elders more for my longterm spiritual welfare; and now, with all that has come to light having come to light - we need to be having serious conversations about what ministry looks like in the 21st century, dealing in Hard and Certain terms with celebrity status and bullying.

* Some policemen gave him a lift home once and he, well-spiritedly and not knowing they were cops, paid them for fuel in form of two or three jazzy cigarettes.

** He lists them, including their dates of popehood, in an appendix. Another appendix is a letter from Neal's long-suffering wife to Allan Ginsberg - or is it the other way around? In any case, it adds a good bookend.

*** "Disco inferno" I was, somewhere on the internet, told translated from Latin as "to learn through the fires of suffering" - but Google Translate didn't let me get away with this, and only by playing around with its phrasing to "discos infer no" which renders "bring no dishes" - which is arguably a Zenlightened kind of roundabout means of saying what I meant anyway.

Punk Monk

This book by Pete Grieg and Andy Freeman is perhaps the best book I have thus far read about prayer as a communal, lived out practice. Drawing on the ideas of old and new monasticism, the authors passionately and persuasively sketch out exciting fresh means and models of doing church that resonate with these ancient arts - breathing, meditation, lectio divina, fasting, prayer benders [my term], involving creativity with group worship - all things that lend so much spark and life to Christian richness and witness.

   This book would be a great boon in the shelf of a well-discerning leader in any kind of Christian community, much more an encouragement and drive to the imagination of many involved in such communities as 'mere' members little engaged with the "running models" of church activity to indeed get more stuck in, using their individuality and initiative to find new paths to service and outreach. A truly inspiring read, with some really handy appendices which tie in really nicely with some of the models of ministry and smart discipleship that cropped up in 5Q and other books.

the Cloud of Unknowing

This book is the product of an unknown 14th-century Carthusian monk, probably from the Midlands or thereabouts. It deals in an incredibly holistic worldview developed from the mystical  theology of Saint Denis, and contains as well as the introductory essay on Denis's thinking, an epistle on the subject of prayer, and a longer note discussing privy counselling, which I'm just going to haphazardly compare to being medieval term for spiritual direction: the main chunk of the text though is the central work as given the main title.

   The "cloud" refers to the impenetrable fog of ineffability that human minds brush up against during the holy act of contemplating the supreme virtues of God above; only by God's grace over time and effort can we begin to even somewhat penetrate deeper into the fog, and doing so can be psychologically and spiritually ardous even for the most liturgy-hardened monk. The author strongly recommends not reading this work at all if you have no desire to embark upon the road to deeper and greater contemplation of God's nature and works; but I took this warning with a pinch of salt and took the plunge. I regret nothing, but I easily could have lost my mind had God not stepped in to save me from where my contemplative journey started taking me - that's what happens when you, as a well-intentioned Christian, track daemonic energies into your own "holy" mind palace on the bootheels of your ego. So beware, and be mindful, and read this book if you want the inner adventure of a lifetime - for reading this whole thing may irrevocably open your eyes to spiritual dynamics of life that it is very difficult, in my observation, to unsee.

Holy Habits

This book by Andrew Roberts is a wholesome, practical* unpacking of how the community of followers of the Way (as Christianity was originally known before its adherents got called Christians) went about daily life following the Way to Christ's glory, as we're given a remarkably attractive, counter-cultural and transformative picture of in the last verses of Acts chapter 2. Roberts begins by breaking down the nature of what Christian life is, in terms of individual and communal rhythms of discpleship, which entails a commitment to God and one another, through sacrifice and suffering, experiencing signs and wonders of God's love for all - deepened intentionally as all share in things, through the habits. There's a lot to unpack from these and even more that could be said about how we might think of ways to contextualize them for different situations, but broadly we get listed ten habits that signify healthy spiritual and social patterns of discipleship as we follow the Way: biblical teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, eating together, giving, service, gladness and generosity, prayer, worship, and making more disciples. It may seem immediately like these cross over each other quite a lot and they do - they're meant to in real practice too! I'm not sure this book in itself is particularly groundbreaking or insightful but taking the time to walk through these patterns as practiced in the earliest model of Christian church and thinking about ways to apply and inhabit them today is certainly a worthwhile task in any Christian setting and if your church feels like it's missing something in terms of the day-to-day rhythms of normal life, that these aren't naturally helping people draw closer to each other and God, then this book may be a good leaping-off point for further thought on that question. Roberts writes accessibly and concisely, with a strong grounding in both real examples and scripture - and ends on a prophetic note, challenging us not only to see the routine habits of church-as-we-know-it as unchangeable but to push imaginatively onwards in emulation of Christ and his disciples as pictured.

* So much so that in the several years following its publication, it has helped spawn a new range of missional church resources from BRF.