Classic Update

Back in February, I committed to rising above the great unwashed masses of culturally illiterate by beginning a quest to read the classics. I was tired of feeling embarrassed about the fact that I had never read most of what are considered to be great works of literature. So I started with The Good Soldier, by Ford Maddox Ford, and since that time, I have not read anything but the sorts of books found on the "100 Books You Must Read Before You Die" lists. I have, in fact, bookmarked one such list, and refer to it regularly as I choose my next book. So here's how I've made out so far. Perhaps, when this is all done, I'll have my own "100 Books" list. It will probably take me 20 years to get there.

The Good Soldier, by Ford Maddox Ford. #43 on my list. Perhaps the oddest book I've ever read. It has no plot, unless you consider a man sitting in a chair in front of a fire telling you the story of his life in rambling bits and pieces a plot. I hated it. It infuriated me. I think I was supposed to be rooting for the guy who was telling the story, but he was the most insipid, vacuous fool of a man I have ever met. I think I was supposed to be appalled by the guy who was the good soldier, but I liked him. I felt sorry for him. And it all ended so miserably. It was indeed "the saddest story I have ever heard", or at least one of them. I couldn't stop thinking about it, for days. Which is when I realised that I loved it.

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austin. #7 on the list. Sort of. Actually, Emma was #7 on the list, but I replaced one Jane Austin book for another. I had heard way more about Pride and Prejudice. It was like reading a long, long episode of The Bachelor, set in the 1800's. Tea parties. Coy games. Oh, I know, I know. I'm slamming everyone's favourite classic. And this is why I resisted reading the classics for so long. Because every woman to whom I've talked who has actually read this book has loved it, and I felt like I was supposed to love this book, and I didn't. But I watched the BBC version of it with a good friend of mine, and that was great fun. You know, the Colin Firth version. Watching it on screen made Mr Darcy far more acceptable, and Mrs Bennett far less so. I actually liked the movie more than the book, which causes a pain in the region of my heart to say, because I never like movies more than books. But now I can say that I have read Pride and Prejudice.

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas. Dumas was #65 on the list. If P&P was about tea parties, musketeers were all about sword fights. I was 10% of the way into the book (reading on a Kindle, one does not deal with page numbers, but with percentages) and D'Artagnan had managed to get into a sword fight with every single person he had met. It was certainly more exciting than tea parties. Throw in a fair bit of political intrigue, several episodes of, shall we say, naughtiness with the girls, and lots of honour and bravura, and I had myself a jolly good yarn, that, in the end, all felt rather pointless. Perhaps I should have read Count of Monte Cristo after all. Ah, well, at least I now know who the three musketeers were.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, by Lew Wallace. It's not actually on my list, at least not on The List, but it was written in 1880, so it counts. This book presents every cliché about Christmas you can possibly want: the three magi, Belthasar, Gaspar, and Melchoir arriving at the stable, Mary riding on the donkey, you name it. Come to think about it, maybe Lew Wallace created those clichés. Maybe they didn't exist before Ben-Hur. Perhaps that's the wonder of classics. However it happened, you're not going to go far wrong with a tale that includes a ripping good chariot race right in the middle, and a great story of healing and redemption. I can pretty much guarantee that the movie adaptation coming out soon will not do the story justice.

The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. #16 on the list. I hate admitting that, though I had read LOTR many times (and have even highlighted parts of it, the Bible being the only other book in which I have highlighted things), I had never read The Hobbit. I have now rectified that situation. It's classic JRRT. Need I say more? The man was a genius. His books are magic. I feel horrible that I waited so long to read this rollicking good story. The little guy triumphs. I love that.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. #27 on the list. I was a bit worried about this one. I had heard . . . things . . . about this book. It promoted homosexuality. It was a commentary on art. It was high-faluting. So I began reading with some trepidation. Now, maybe I am a bit thick, or hopelessly naive, but I just did not see it. Oh, if knowing that Wilde was gay, I went looking for it, I suppose I could find glimpses of homosexual relationships, but it was all quite obscured. What was not at all obscured was the wretched story of a man who utterly rejected the opportunity to repent, and who died bearing the full weight of a selfish and sinful life. What would it mean if every sin I had ever committed was painted across my face for me to see so clearly? It was thought-provoking, acerbic, and heartbreaking. I hated it. I loved it. I would read it again.

Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stephenson. #24. Apparently, I am not Scottish. Nor do I find it easy to translate a Scottish accent, even when it is written. And it's a bit disheartening to realise that this book is considered children's fiction. I think children must have been much smarter in the 1800's, because I don't know a child alive today who would be able to read this book. Ok, that might be an exaggeration. I don't know many. It reminded me of Lassie Come-Home, without the dog. That is to say, it was a great story, once I had translated it from the Scottish.

Dracula, by Bram Stoker. #31. I read this one while I was camping. Alone. All alone. As in, not another person camping in the entire campground. Just me. In a tent. At night. Worst. Idea. Ever. What was I thinking? How does an author make a fictitious character seem so real? Maybe because the fictitious character IS, in some way, real. Maybe there is an evil that lurks out there, preying on us, not drinking our blood, perhaps, but killing our souls, slowly but surely, except by the grace of God. I woke up in the middle of the night one night, and could not get back to sleep. I thought about reading for a while, but I couldn't bear the thought of facing Dracula at 2:30 in the morning, in a tent. I read 1 Samuel instead. Goliath was far less fearsome. At least I knew how that story ended.

Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy. The book wasn't on the list, but Hardy was #29, and a friend highly recommended it. This book scared me. I mean, I don't even understand the title. What is a madding crowd, anyway? How am I supposed to understand a book when I don't even understand the title? Ah, well, I tackled it. And loved it. I LOVED it! And in loving it, I feel as though I have stepped over the line from the unwashed masses into the cultural elite. Oh, I am just barely over the line. If I trip, I'll fall back into the unwashed masses. If I quit now, I will quickly revert to a reader of dime novels and pulp fiction. <Sigh> I miss dime novels and pulp fiction . . . Remember dime novels and pulp fiction? Remember being able to read a book in three hours? Those were good days . . . Wait, where was I? Oh, yes, culturally elite. Thomas Hardy. The madding crowd. I loved it. It was a beautiful story of foolish choices and loyal friendship and abiding love. And sheep. Lots and lots of sheep.

I'm still at it. I've gone on to a little book called The Thirty-Nine Steps. A friend of mine informed me that this particular classic was featured on Sesame Street once. (I have never watched Sesame Street, either. That's another whole story.) I feel reassured by this. If Sesame Street can make sense of a classic, surely I can. I'll let you know how it goes.

In all seriousness, I have learned a few things.

I have learned that I can read hard books. I can stick to a book that takes me longer than a day or two to finish, and I can persevere to the end. I think it's even getting easier as I keep at it.

I have learned that I love words. Oh, I have always known that, but I am learning that I really love words, and those classics are full of beautiful, beautiful words that we just don't use anymore. I believe my vocabulary is growing. The language is lofty, and it is full-orchestra music that I can see in my mind as I read the words. We don't write like that anymore. There is a part of me that grieves that.

And I have learned that there are an awful lot of good tales out there, available for free on my Kindle, just waiting for me to discover them. Who knows, I may yet tackle War and Peace.

Wait . . . It's not on my list. 

Les Misérables is, but I read that years ago.

Staying Behind

I am part of a church that takes missions seriously. I haven't got statistics, but we seem to have a lot of commissioning services. We seem to send a lot of short-term missions teams overseas. We raise a lot of money for missions, and a large part of our church budget goes to supporting missions. Just this past Sunday, we had another commissioning service for a couple and their three young children, who are heading overseas to serve in medical missions. It's phenomenal. It's exciting. And . . . can I be honest? It's hard.

It's hard because I'm not going.

It is a hardness I feel every time someone goes. It is a difficulty I feel every time I attend a missions' conference, or speak to those who are passionate about going.

Because, you see, I am not going.

I am staying behind.

I believe wholeheartedly that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be, doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. There is no doubt in my mind that I am called to stay behind, just as certainly as those who are called to go feel their call to go. When I look at what I'm doing, I know it is serving to advance the Kingdom, one person at a time. It is what I am good at doing, what I love doing. I know it is good and God-honouring work, and I pray always that it brings glory to Him.

But then I look at this young couple heading over to a country where just a few weeks ago another medical missionary lost his life, and I think, Really, Marianne? They're literally risking life and limb, and the most you ever risk is having your Starbucks coffee get cold before you can finish drinking it. They are going to be blogging about their adventures, and you can just imagine the tales that will be told of snatching poor souls from the jaws of death, both physically and spiritually; of miraculous provision just in the nick of time; of edgy, exciting, almost other-worldly adventures . The most compelling stories you will have to tell are how you found cauliflower for a reasonable price and how you had to inch your way through thick fog to get to school this morning, and how you have a big stack of marking which you should be doing instead of blogging. They will be posting pictures of life-saving medical procedures, and hippos and elephants and deadly-poisonous snakes. You can post pictures of the foam on your latte and the squirrels in your backyard.

And suddenly, my called life looks so ordinary. So uninteresting. So boring. So . . . unspiritual. Like really, is what I am doing in my safe little "Christian bubble" so important?

I begin to doubt. Maybe I'm not really called. Maybe I should blow this popsicle stand and head off to the nether-regions of the world. Maybe the only reason why I feel "called" is because this life that I know is comfortable and safe and I'm too fat and lazy and spiritually soft to actually do hard things for Jesus.

Maybe.

But I don't really think so.

Because I don't really think that living passionately for Jesus in Canada is all that easy. Resisting the siren-call of culture isn't really all that easy. I am always stunned and saddened at how many people in the "Christian bubble" don't really know Jesus at all. They fear him. They question his love for him. They are living a salvation by works. They don't understand grace. I am heartbroken over how many people in the "Christian bubble" are in bondage to demonic forces like pornography, greed, gossip, sexual license, drugs, and alcohol, never mind things like sports, food, entertainment, or shopping. I am consistently grieved at the level of darkness that is found among those who are supposed to be light, and I am compelled to shine a light in the darkness inside that Christian bubble. Oh, do you see Jesus? Do you really see him? Do you see how recklessly in-love with you he is, right here, right now, in all your sin and brokenness? Do you really see him? Because so many who call themselves his disciples don't truly see him at all.

No, I don't really think that living passionately for Jesus in North America is all that easy. Or easy at all. It's just not all that glamourous. No one commissions the housewife or the auto mechanic or the IT guy or the nurse who changes bedpans in the local hospital or the many others who stay behind and grind it out, day in, day out, in a culture that does everything to overcome the light. No one reads their blogs or wants to hear their stories. Hardly anyone prays for them. They just do their thing in obscurity. It's not bad that it's like that. It's not wrong. It's just not easy. Staying behind, faithfully living for Jesus right here is hard.

And then there's the waiting. The letting go.

It's one thing to send "missionaries". But these people aren't "missionaries". They are our brothers, our sisters, our sons and daughters, our aunts and uncles and cousins and grandchildren. Our friends. Our best friends. And while the digital age has made the world smaller, the other side of the world is still a half a globe away. Skype may help a little, but it can't replace the flesh-and-blood, face-to-face relationships. True, our faith gives us the courage to step out and go to hard places. It gives us the courage to let go of those who do. But it doesn't turn us into emotionless automatons. We will still grieve. It will still be hard. We will miss our loved ones. Yes, Jesus said that he who gave up father and mother for his sake would receive back 100-fold, but he never said it would be easy, or without tears and heartache and missing those we love. Following Jesus by going, or by staying behind, demands sacrifice, and as right as the sacrifice may be, as much as Jesus is worth it, it still makes me sad.

That doesn't make me selfish. It doesn't make me weak. It doesn't mean I don't care enough about lost people. It doesn't mean I'm too ensconced in my comfort zone to do hard things for Jesus. Knowing the rightness of the call doesn't make the call easy or fun or without pain. The pain means I'm human. The pain means I love, and I'm willing to be sad and to grieve for the sake of the gospel. But going is hard. And so is staying behind.

I am staying behind. No one has commissioned me. No one wants to read my blog.  There's nothing glamourous about my life. Nothing particularly dangerous. It is just another an ordinary life lived in simple service, marked with ordinary happenings and lonely separations.

And yet . . .

It is my life. My story.

Lived for Him.

Because Jesus

A missionary who my church supports died this past week. He was a crazy-in-love-with-Jesus guy who had devoted his life to serving his Saviour in Togo. He was a doctor, the head of a hospital there that serves thousands of sick people each year, and is seeing many people come to Christ. He was a colleague, a friend, a son, a son-in-law, a brother, a husband, a father of four boys. Within less than two weeks, he got sick with malaria and typhoid. He did not respond to treatment. He was medevaced out to a hospital in Germany, where he died shortly after his arrival. He was 46 years old.

We prayed for his healing. This man was loved and needed. He was serving God faithfully in a hard country. So why would God allow him to die? Indeed, if we take the sovereignty of God seriously, why would God take him? As followers of Jesus, we want to believe there is a reason, and we want to know it. If I could only see some vast, eternal plan, it might make me feel better about the fact that this fine, fine man died, leaving behind a crater in his family, in his ministry, and in his country of service. If I could only look at the situation and see how God is going to be glorified in this, as I believe he will be, it might make me feel better.

There are no answers. There rarely are in heartache and tragedy. There's only the throbbing pain of loss and the desperate clinging to the notion that somehow, in all of this, God is still good, that he is still worthy of my love and trust, and that there is a vast, eternal plan that will lead to his glory.

But I've been thinking about it a lot. Good friends of mine served with Todd in Togo several years ago. They had to come back to Canada because of a medical emergency. Now Dr. Todd is gone because of a medical emergency. And in several months, my church will send another family to Togo. I don't want them to go. Togo is a country that chews people up and spits them out. (It might not be, really, but that's the impression I'm getting.) People go to Togo and they get sick and die of horrible infections and illnesses. Togo isn't safe.

And then I thought, That's why Todd died. He died because he lived in a country that wasn't safe. He took a crazy risk - moving himself and his family to a country where disease and death are rampant, and health care is limited to the extreme. He died because he and his family lived and served Jesus in a country where malaria and typhoid and all sorts of other horrid nasty things that want to kill you live, and just because he was a believer and a missionary did not make him immune to the natural risks and consequences of living in that place, any more than just because I am a believer doesn't make me immune to cancer, heart disease, or traffic accidents on the 401. It's not so startling that he would die from malaria and typhoid in a country where those diseases are rife.

What is startling is that he was there at all.

Why would anyone leave the relative safety of life in a developed country (a relative safety that is probably largely illusory) to live in the relative danger of an undeveloped country (a relative danger that is probably somewhat exaggerated)?

Because Jesus.

Because Jesus called him there. And because he understood that the glory of Jesus was of far greater consequence than his own comfort and safety.

Because Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And Todd, for the joy set before him, endured malaria and typhoid, despising its shame, and is now rejoicing in the presence of Jesus.

And what is startling is that anyone who is still there, knowing the risks, would stay. Or that anyone new, knowing the risks, would go. What is startling is that anyone at all who had a choice, knowing the risks, would voluntarily accept those risks, laying down control of his or her own life, potentially laying down his or her life.

For Jesus.

That is startling. For this fat, comfortable, prosperity-gospel-tainted North American believer who is used to my padded pew and my Starbucks coffee, that is startling. For this kingdom-of-me Westerner who has the mindset (however I try to deny it) that serving Jesus ought to come with some special compensation, some kind of free pass-out-of-bad-stuff-that-could-happen, the thought that laying down my life to follow Jesus might mean actually laying down my physical life is startling.

But this is the fact: laying down my life to follow Jesus could mean actually laying down my physical life. If I am truly living for Jesus, that is the reality, just as much here in North America as in Togo. If I am truly following Jesus, my life is no more in my control here than it would be anywhere else in the world. And the hard truth is that, conversely, if I am grasping for control of my own life, if I am more interested in staying safe and comfortable than I am in the glory of Jesus, if I am not willing to actually die for Jesus, even right here in North America, then I am not following Jesus at all.

I think Todd knew that. I think that people who grasp the notion that following Jesus means laying down one's life, who truly understand it at the deepest level, stop seeing things and places and people as "safe" or "unsafe", "developed" or "undeveloped", "comfortable" or "uncomfortable". They go against all the self-seeking, self-serving interests of the sinful human heart. They stop investing in the Kingdom of Me, and begin to invest in the Kingdom of God. They recognize that God's glory is of infinitely greater value than safety and comfort and ease. They don't just talk about it with words. They actually live that way.

They see Jesus.

And they follow. Wherever they are. Wherever he calls them.

And he is glorified.