[image: retro-spinnaker, 2009, JA Van Devender]
Psa 107:23
Those who go down to the sea in ships, Who do business on great waters,
(co-posted as a review on Amazon.com)
It has been my custom throughout my life to read (books preferably) prior to falling asleep. With the dearth of constructive entertainment or interest, prevalent on the television, I now find myself resorting to this a bit earlier than previously on days when the press of duty frees my conscience to do so.
I think reading fiction, especially historical fiction, is a very edifying activity. I have encouraged this type of reading, along with poetry, to those over whom I have some discipleship privileges. Reading, as opposed to the visual arts like movies, etc., helps develop our vocabulary but also trains the mind, perhaps sub-consciously, in communication skills. This is especially important for those who aspire to the pulpit ministry because their goal is to engage the imagination as a means of touching the heart. The imagined scene is so much more powerful than one projected on a screen behind the pulpit. The hearer is engaged at a much deeper level as the words he hears communicates insights that simply cannot be projected. I view with deep concern the diminished emphasis on reading in the younger generations. I have met many, perhaps a majority, who have never read an adult novel. It's a shame.
All this is to say that I recently have revisited the Jack Aubrey series written by Patrick O'Brian (RIP). It is my admittedly amateur's opinion, that they are the finest volumes of nautical historical fiction ever written. Horatio Hornblower (C. S. Forester) was OK, in his simple way, but I will take Jack any day over him.
It is often said of Melville's great work, Moby Dick, that if you read the unabridged version you will know more about whales than you know about the main characters. There's some truth to that. I found those sections tedious when I read it years ago. I hear a similar complaint against O'Brian's work. One of my sons said that he couldn't "get into it" because of the extensive descriptions of sails, tackle, ship designs, nautical terminology, etc. To a mind trained by virtually unending car chase scenes in action movies, the desire for something to happen before interest is evoked, does pose a problem. I do not think the nautical lore to be overly done in O'Brian's work as cetology (study of whales) was in Melville's. It is there but it is not pedantic... it is often humorously rendered as the paternally minded seamen explain to the hopelessly land-lubbing Dr. Mataurin the things which, in their world, are as obvious and ordinary, as "physic" is in his.
But what O'Brian does best, far better than Forester, is build his stories around real events from the point of view of those who were actually there. O'Brian spent thousands of hours reading old ship logs from the period (turn of the century, 1800) and then incorporated the actual engagements and results into his plot. In his own words, he could not, in all his imagining, come up with more exciting stuff nor more incredible.
A point in fact. The first novel in the series, "Master and Commander", should not, in any circumstances, be confused with the movie of the same title. They bear virtually no relation in fact. In the novel, Aubrey's first command is of a little brig called the "Sophie" and she is modeled after the actual ship H.M.S. Speedy (see HERE for verification) and Aubrey, in this novel, modeled after Lord Cochrane (only as a nautical person, not in his personal history). The crowning engagement that does in fact stretch a person's credibility was when this little 14 gun ship with its 50 or so men, willingly engaged and took a much larger, more heavily armed ship, manned by a crew of over 300. Now folks, this almost defies belief, but there it is.
O'Brian's novel stays close to the facts of the engagement but makes it come alive as his characters live the battle for us. It's the second or third time I have read this particular novel and it is just as fresh and entertaining now as it was over 20 years ago when I first picked it up.
So, I think O'Brian's fiction stands on a par with any of the "great" writers. His subjects are different than Dicken's but not less compelling. His attention to detail, character development and nuances are there, sometimes subtle and at others not so. He doesn't overly romanticize the era with its harsh reality (flogging at the grate, for example) but neither does he drown us in it. The sailors of the day did in fact understand such things differently than we, even if they were on the receiving end of it. What we do see is the seemingly infinite gap between a midshipman (perhaps 10 or 11 years old) and the captain in how they lived and died and ate their meals and what concerned their thoughts. We are given insights into the politics of the mess decks and why the Navy mandated that every seaman must be allowed at least 14 whole inches to hang his hammock and why this required a "watch and watch", or two watch rotation for the crew.
Like every military activity it was hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror, and so we are introduced to how a barely pubescent midshipman might, in boredom, carve his name in a foretop, only to visit that same ship, years later, as its captain and be overcome by nostalgia as he sat there in lonely isolation.
This is the stuff of human life, no matter how or where it is lived, and Patrick O'Brian is an author that helps us live ours and be better for it.
Exodus 18: Be Reasonable - The Christian Mind
Image: "Thinkers", 2019, Severn Run E. P. Church
Exodus 18:17–18 (NKJV) 17 So Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing that you do is not good. 18 Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself.
I have, on occasion, encountered some dear Christians who sought to find a biblical answer or verse to every question they encountered. They most often live life very narrowly. They are often from a Pentecostal background. If they face a question they have to have a biblical text to throw at it. Often their use of the Bible is questionable and doesn't demonstrate a very comprehensive view of Scripture. Conversation with them can be uncomfortable because of their hard-over black and white view of things. They are dear... there are not many of them... but they are there.
Much more numerous are those Christians at the other end of the spectrum. For them the Bible is about "God-talk" confined to discussions of theology or "Bible-study" which doesn't really affect their lives very much. These folks have, for all practical purposes, a 'Gnostic' Christian world view. They, consciously or unconsciously, see a difference between the "real world" and "God stuff." They speak in terms of worldly platitudes and proverbs. "You do what you gotta do!" "If you want to swim with the sharks you have to be a shark!" "It is what it is" (whatever that means). Just to mention a few. These folks are right at home in conversation with just about everyone because they have common ground with the world and are comfortable in it.
This raises the question of what constitutes a Christian Mind with regard to life in a fallen world. Moses, in this chapter, was erring a bit more on the "narrow" side of things. He was dealing with every question that came up among the Israelites and it required him to sit and counsel people all day long (shudder). What Moses was doing was "not good" as his father in law said and that is true. He had not used his God-given reason to figure out how to lead God's people in a delegated manner. The principles of "organization" of God's people had not been revealed in Scripture. God had left it up to Moses' Spirit led mind to humbly figure it out and do it.
Now using our God given reason to figure out things within the sphere of freedom to do so given to us by God is called Christian Philosophy. To even mention that word is to invite a certain amount of controversy because some Christians, especially those in the first group, think that "philosophy" is basically anathema. They usually mention Paul's statement in Colossians 2:8 (NKJV)-"8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." What they do not take adequate account of is that Paul is arguing against "non-Christian" philosophy. He is speaking of that which is "according to the tradition of men" and that which is "not according to Christ." The Bible does not speak against the idea of Christian Philosophy at all. The entire book of Ecclesiastes is a beautiful exposition of how life, under the sun, is empty and vain. Here is a clear headed view of the world that is specifically developed by "experience of the world." The author looked at wealth, pleasure, knowledge... he gave himself over to exploring these things... and then developed a Spirit-guided philosophy of the world as it is if God is not taken into account.
Moses' father-in-law similarly had a Spirit guided philosophy of organization of God's people that he had developed over his life and was based on his experience. This is philosophy.
Perhaps a definition is in order. "Philosophy" is the intellectual pursuit of understanding using reasoning and experience within the framework of specific presuppositions that are accepted as fundamental. Secular, atheistic philosophy accepts the "presupposition" that there is no God and pursues understanding based on that premise and others (e.g. the primacy of wisdom and experience). "Christian Philosophy", which I take to be a subset of Theology, is the pursuit of understanding, as above, but under the authority and subject to the Holy Scriptures. In other words, Christian philosophy cannot, by definition, reach conclusions that are contrary to Scripture.
Now this means that most of the realm of human existence is wide open to the study of the Christian mind. Philosophy is not an esoteric exercise. It is a focus on the actual "real world" which seeks to understand how God's laws (moral, "natural", spiritual) work and how people are to conform to them and advance human flourishing in them. There is Christian "physics" just as there are Christian "metaphysics." There is Christian anthropology and there is a Christian view of the mind. The entire world has been given to us for our excitement and understanding. The more we learn about it the more we Christian Philosophy leads to doxology, the giving of glory to God.
Christians should never be afraid of "big questions." The last thing we should do is just simply close our minds to those issues which are difficult to understand. The horror of abortion in this country, speaking of ethics, has developed somewhat because there was not, early on, a credible Christian answer to the questions "What is a human being and when is a fetus to be classified as one." We Christians have generally evolved to having a credible answer... but we were late.
Christians, of all the world's people, should be centrally concerned with learning how to think... how to reason... and how to apply the fruits of their thinking to the issues that confront us in the world. We should be insisting that our children are taught "dialectically" (the art of investigating and discussing the truth of an issue) rather than the prevailing norm of simple regurgitation of "facts" or "teacher approved opinions."
This is our world... we ought to understand it ... so that we may glorify God in it.
Posted by Gadfly on July 04, 2019 at 09:09 AM in Books, Christian Apologetics, Church, Commentary, Culture, Movies, etc., Current Affairs, Discipleship | Permalink | Comments (0)
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