The Excitement over Christ's Coming

I just re-read a letter written by an early Christian to a man named Diognetus. It's a beautiful letter, written in a simple, refreshing, and poetic style around the second century A.D. I always liked it for its description of the early believers as "indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs," yet "extraordinary" because "they live in their own countries as if they were only passing through." Clear distinction of the two kingdoms.

But what impressed me today is the writer's excitement as he explains to Diognetus the wonder of Christ's coming:

"For, who of men at all understood before His coming what God is? Do you accept of the vain and silly doctrines of those who are deemed trustworthy philosophers? of whom some said that fire was God, calling that God to which they themselves were by and by to come; and some water; and others some other of the elements formed by God? But if any one of these theories be worthy of approbation, every one of the rest of created things might also be declared to be God. But such declarations are simply the startling and erroneous utterances of deceivers; and no man has either seen Him, or made Him known, but He has revealed Himself. [...And] after He revealed and laid open, through His beloved Son, the things which had been prepared from the beginning, He conferred every blessing all at once upon us, so that we should both share in His benefits, and see and be active. Who of us would ever have expected these things? He was aware, then, of all things in His own mind, along with His Son, according to the relation subsisting between them.

"As long then as the former time endured, He permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of God, be vouchsafed to us; and having made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter into the kingdom of God, we might through the power of God be made able. But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, punishment and death, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors! Having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life, and having now revealed the Saviour who is able to save even those things which it was [formerly] impossible to save, by both these facts He desired to lead us to trust in His kindness, to esteem Him our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counsellor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, Honour, Glory, Power, and Life, so that we should not be anxious[ concerning clothing and food."

Wonderful thoughts, as we celebrate the coming of our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counsellor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, Honour, Glory, Power, and Life.

"Who of us would have ever expected these things?"

Merry Christmas!

Turning in the Manuscript

Turning a manuscript to the publisher is one of the hardest things I have learned to do. It could be because I am a perfectionist. It could also be because I am new at all this and feel like I don't know what I am doing half of the time. Each time, however, God has come to my rescue at the last minute.

Even if many people had read my manuscript on Augustine, I was not totally satisfied with it until, just a week or so before my deadline, Dr. Philip Cary of Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, read it and sent me many valuable suggestions, taking the time to examine line after line, always ready to answer my questions (see an earlier post about this).

I turned in my first manuscript of my short novel on Olympia Morata in May. The corrections went back and forth between my editor and I for a few months, until she felt that it was done. Still, I was not completely happy with it. Since this is my first attempt at writing a novel, I thought I was just expecting too much. "Maybe this is all I can do," I thought.

By a turn of God's providence, I discovered only one month ago that I had to obtain permission for all my quotations of Olympia's letters and poems because, even if they were written in the XVI century, the translation I used was quite recent. The permission was given, but too restrictive. The only alternative was to re-translate everything. The letters were originally written in Latin, the poems in Greek.

I studied Greek for four years and Latin for seven, but that was a long, long time ago... Right then, a young man preached at our church. "Most of you know me for my passion for anything Greek," he said as he introduced himself. The answer! I asked him if he wanted to translate some poems for me and he said yes. His name is Chris Stevens. The result was fantastic, as he was able to catch subtle nuances that the original translator, probably not as acquainted with the Septuagint version of the Bible, had missed.

As for Latin, I was happy to discover that I can still master the language. My mother would be proud of me! I actually read each passage out loud in Latin, feeling like a teenager again. Never mind that, way back in high school, Latin translations were seen as gruesome tasks. This time I actually enjoyed them!

All this unexpected extra work, however, served another purpose. It was buying some time. Enough for my friend and former editor Heather to email me and invite me over. I had sent her my manuscript months ago, asking if she could review it, but she had never answered. I found out why. She had been fighting cancer and undergoing chemotherapy. Being in remission, she was now willing to read my manuscript.

"I need to send it in by Friday," I told her.

"Send what in by Friday??? This is Wednesday night!!!"

I really didn't expect her to do it, but I told her Monday would be OK. She must have worked late into the night, even Thursday, after a day spent watching her three young grandchildren (triplets). Her comments came in three messages, insightful and discerning, probing me to draw deeper into the wells of my mind to find more convincing and poignant explanations of various concepts and emotions.

Her questions were incisive. I had written this book with young Christian girls in mind, mostly Reformed Christians, and many statements were unintelligible to other readers.

"I have been bought with a price," Olympia's father said in my manuscript.

"Who bought? Who sold? What price?" asked my friend.

Well, tomorrow is Monday and the manuscript is done, thanks to Heather, thanks to Chris Stevens, and thanks to God. This time, even I am satisfied with it.

Happy Birthday Augustine!

Today Augustine is 1655 years young. Yes, just read any of his writings, especially his Confessions or some of his letters and sermons, to see how young he really is in his constant quest for truth and sincere communion with God.

I will celebrate his birthday with the prayer that the small biography I wrote for children will help many to appreciate his writings and have a greater desire to know and love God. (Click on the links on the left side of this blog to see the cover and some sample pages of my book on Augustine).

The cake on the left is an attempt, by Pasticceria Colzani, in Cassago, Italy (supposedly the same place as Cassiciacum, where Augustine spent some time preparing to be baptized and join the visible church) to reproduce the cake Monica prepared for her son Augustine on his 32nd birthday. It is made of the same ingredients described by Augustine: spelt flour, honey, and almonds - very healthy in today's standards.

On that grey and rainy day, the cake brought joy and comfort to all: Monica, Aeodatus (Augustine's son), Navigius (Augustine's brother, who apparently had a propensity for sweets), his friend Alipius, maybe his friend and host Verecundus, and some disciples. In fact, it prompted a three-day discussion on the pursuit of happiness, and the treatise De Beata Vita (On the Blessed Life) was the happy result.

The desire for happiness was very important for Augustine, an inborn, universal instinct which is meant to lead us to true happiness in God. For Augustine, happiness is... ultimately, to enjoy God forever.

John Calvin Still Travels

About two months ago, a man contacted me from Austria. He needed a translation of some documents because he is trying to claim his Italian citizenship, which will allow him to continue his missionary work in Europe. In the course of our transaction, I discovered that he is the principal of an International Christian School in Vienna, and I introduced my book on John Calvin to him. He liked it so much that he ordered four more copies.

Just today, he sent me his school's newsletter with a picture of the book being offered to the school librarian. You can see the Austrian band on the same page.

I am really amazed and humbled by all this. I am glad that the book sells well because good sales will prompt the publisher to continue the series, and I believe the series is absolutely needed. But if the books are well done it's all because of God's providence and mercy in spite of myself - as my publisher and some of my friends can attest.

God's Encouragement

Finally, after many months of hard work, the second book in my series, Augustine of Hippo, is at the printshop! It is scheduled to be published on November 20th by Reformation Heritage Books, Grand Rapids, MI.

Of course, I am very excited.

The only setback has been the news that my Italian publisher, Alfa & Omega, could not afford to publish this high-quality, hard-cover, heavily-illustrated book, in Italian. I understood their problems. Still, I was quite disappointed. I believe a book on Augustine will be very well received in Italy, as it appeals to Protestants and Catholics alike. I was begrudgingly prepared to look for another publisher there.

But God was ready to surprise me. After hearing John Calvin, the first book in the series, read during Sunday school class, a member of the Reformed church in Novate Milanese offered to help fund the printing of the second book. I am waiting for a final decision from the publisher, but things definitely look promising now.

I am amazed at this encouragement from God. My vision for these books, as I explained before, is to give our children a simple picture of God's work in His church throughout the ages, with clear references to the historical context and an easy explanation of the progression of theological thought (I am writing an article for Modern Reformation where I explain why Church history is an essential part of our children's curriculum). It's wonderful when others share and support this vision, and especially when God's hand is so visibly at work.

Thoughts on Art

I enjoyed a wonderful sermon by my pastor, Rev. Michael Brown, on Bezalel and Oholiab and their artistry work in the temple (Exodus 31). One of the main points of the sermon was that God takes form and beauty seriously and has very high aesthetic standards. He also takes pleasure in the creativity of His creatures.

That God loves beauty and art is obvious in creation and in the fact that He has placed an artistic tendency in all of us. Even if we don't all create art, we appreciate it to some extent. And even if we don't all paint or compose, we use our creative faculties daily to beautify our life and the world around us.

The tragedy is what today's American Christian culture has done to those natural artistic tendencies. They have repressed them, censured them, and minimized them. Many have already drawn striking similarities between the church in the Middle Ages and the evangelical churches of today. This is particularly true regarding art and censorship. Whenever we try to give art a pragmatic moral function, we cripple it, as history continues to prove. God sees art as something legitimate in itself. Rev. Brown quoted Francis Schaeffer as saying, "Art needs no justification." Schaeffer also said, "The lordship of Christ should include an interest in the arts. A Christian should use these arts to the glory of God, not just as tracts, mind you, but as things of beauty to the praise of God."

Rev. Brown pointed out that, with the fall, damage has come to God's initial masterpiece. Christ came to restore creation to the beauty originally intended. It's wonderful to understand our yearnings for beauty as parallel to our yearnings for holiness, as both will be present in full in the world to come.

The reason I chose this painting of Ophelia by John Everett Millais for this blog entry is that I was struck by the story behind it. Millais was one of the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of Romantic painters moved by the passion to reform art and bring it back to the intense colors and abundant details of Italian XIII century art and Flemish art. The Pre-Raphaelite movement has received much criticism and I am not making here a case for their art, but their passion and devotion is admirable. At a time when most artists were painting inside studios, Millais spent countless hours in the fields, studying nature in all its details. The poor model spent hours in a freezing bathtub (the candles used to warm the water had gone out and she was afraid to mention it) until she developed pneumonia.

What motivated this extreme devotion? An unquenchable yearning for beauty and perfection, something every artist will immediately identify as his or her own. God has put this yearning in all of our hearts and we need to recognize it and honor it. Sadly, we find it mostly in non-believers. But why? It seems that, of all people, we should share most intensely the groaning of nature waiting to be delivered (Romans 8:19-22).

Sometimes we hear, "See what passion and devotion non-believers show in their art? We need to show the same for God." What those messages normally indicate, however, is that we should express our passion and devotion only in "spiritual" things such as worship and prayer, or practical things directed to the furtherance of the Gospel. We should have learned by this time that the Gospel is not promoted by a paranoiac fear of culture and the refusal to use our talents to express our yearnings and even groans. Thank God for the Psaltery and the honesty of those songs!

Last (I am already going over the time I have allowed myself for this), the passion and devotion that moved Millais to labour day after day in the reproduction of every blade of grass is an eulogy to accuracy and precision in our work. Rev. Brown exhorted us to flee mediocrity in our vocations. There is a wonderful word for mediocrity in Italian, "pressapochismo". "Pressapoco" means almost, roughly, more or less... Pressapochismo is a noun derived from the adverb, meaning "roughliness" (my spell-check is telling me that the word doesn't exist, but maybe it should.

It's disheartening that Christians are often satisfied with mediocrity in the arts. It doesn't matter if the music is poor, if the novel has no plot or the art is shoddy, as long as the message is there. God knows the pain I suffered after the artist of my first book stopped working for me. I thought it would be easy to find another artist, but I was faced with a choice of poor quality or prohibitive prices. Sometimes, sadly, Christian artists offered both! It was also a lonely struggle, because many Christian friends were puzzled by my suffering. Why should I care so much about the quality of the art? I am grateful to God who has provided a truly great artist (Matt Abraxas) for my third book, on John Owen.

Disclaimer: this blog entry is not meant to give an accurate summary of Rev. Brown's sermon, but only my own impressions and thoughts. You can hear his sermon here: http://www.christurc.org/sermons_exodus.html

The Plot

On Sunday, Pastor Brown exhorted us to keep our eyes on God's story and not on our individual stories. That takes on a new meaning now that I have written a short story. It's the advice every how-to book on writing will ever give. First of all, they say, establish a logline. Whose story is it? What is the goal? How does the main character get from point A to point B? After establishing the logline ("It's the story of a _____ who starts out _____ and finally ends up ________), you must paste it on your computer where you can always see it, because keeping in mind the main story is one of the hardest thing for a writer.

My friend Dianna is writing a movie script where four friends embark on a short but adventurous journey to reach an immediate goal. All four need to grow through this journey, but the story is really about one of them, Daniel. Dianna and I meet weekly. She helps me to make some progress on at least one of my innumerable projects, and I give her some feedback on her script. "Is it Daniel's story?" she asks repeatedly.

The focus on the main character and the main plot is ever-present in a writer's mind. I hope my writing experience will make it easier for me to keep my eyes on the ultimate, over-arching plot of humanity: God choosing and preserving a people for Himself and for His glory.