The Engagement

At some point during the week of our kayaking adventure and my ring-sizing hoopla, Kathryn and I had something close to the following interchange:

"What do you want to do on Saturday?" I ask.
"Surprise me."

Nice. What she offers me here is a scapegoat, upon which I can lay anything out of the ordinary that might occur. And, being the engagement night, there will be extraordinary things happening.

The thing is, by Wednesday night, I had almost no idea what shape these extraordinary things would take. I had been sucked dry of any originality and nearly any creativity I might have otherwise possessed. I was at a loss. This was terrible. Part of it was the pressure--I mean, whatever story this turns out to be, it will be repeated over and over, it will be analyzed, it will be critiqued (internally or otherwise), and so, in the words of more than one person that week, it better be good. This was simply paralyzing. I'm not ready for this. Thankfully, I've got friends who are willing to live vicariously through others, and so have a stake in what goes down as the engagement story. And these friends have ideas, ideas for me to sift through, accept, reject, rework, and rearrange. Which is precisely what I do.

While I have no problem giving credit where credit is due, let me dispense with the aplomb and get down to business. The suggestion of an Ethiopian restaurant in Atlanta instantly appealed to me: Kathryn had been there on a missions trip just this summer and was always going on about the food and the coffee ceremony she took part in on occasion. But where should I take her? With only the internet as my guide, some of the restaurants in Atlanta, and their corresponding websites, looked more chic and contemporary while others seemed more earthy. I, and Kathryn as well, would go for the latter, but these typically get more mixed reviews, and I wanted this evening to be special. One of the restaurants' reviews mentions that it is run by a woman who both serves and cooks the meals. It is somewhat romantic, family friendly, and has woven tables. Perfect. I call ahead, letting them know what I plan to do, and requesting that they perform the coffee ceremony for us. She's excited: "It is such a blessing to be a part of this!" This bodes well for me.

Wanting this to remain a surprise, I give her an indication of what attire to bedeck herself with and let her know we are going to eat in Atlanta. On the way, she asks a few questions, so I tell her she can ask twenty, but I get gunshy around Question #8 and by fiat limit the total to ten. She resists, but to no avail. One of the more interesting things about the restaurant, a thing I was not knowing, is that it is situated in a rather sketchy part of Atlanta. We must have passed three or four hole-in-the-wall strip clubs ("Naughty Girls" comes to mind) and adult novelty stores, which provokes the question "Where are you taking me?", which provokes various comments on my part about good drink specials and a little shopping afterwards. I'm having a little trouble finding the place (not because of the clubs and shops, mind you) but, after turning around once, pull up to a hole-in-the-wall Ethiopian restaurant, complete with murals on the concrete blocked walls.

We walk in and are greeted by one of the ladies. "I'm Bryan," I say, but instantly wish I could take it back. Kathryn will surely know something is fishy! But I continue, unabated. We are taken to a little table in a far corner on a small stage close to where the coffee ceremony is set up. So far, so good. We get situated, Kathryn orders for us, and we wait for the meal, listening to tidbits of conversation from a family sitting nearby (but not too nearby), watching some Ethiopian dancing on the large-screen t.v. at the far end of the room, and admiring the decor. The covering of our seat has the little faces on it that are on the mug Kathryn got me from her trip to Ethiopia--nice touch!

We eat a good Ethiopian meal. I enjoyed the food, dispersing Kathryn's worries. I've got the ring in the front pocket of my shirt. It's in a little plastic bubble that I got out of the Kroger vending machine the night before. In a pants pocket it would be too visible, but I wanted it on my person and I wanted it in that plastic bubble. Earlier, when I picked her up from her house, I didn't want to hug her too tightly else she would begin to ask questions that I didn't want to answer. Perhaps she wondered why I wasn't offering my usual bear hug; better she wonder about that than about what was in my pocket. Why the plastic bubble? As I mentioned in the previous blog, she told me repeatedly that she would like whatever ring I got her; so, of course I have to play this up by offering to get her a plastic ring from every vending machine we'd passed in the last month. We both knew that wouldn't happen, but that night I wanted to continue the charade.

I've got the ring. So far, I think she considers the choice of restaurant and the coffee ceremony as "the surprise," which I was hoping to be the case. When should I get it out? When should I unveil the central surprise of the evening? During the coffee ceremony, she goes to the bathroom. I reach for the plastic bubble. I hesitate. Is this it? Is this the moment. Heck, why not? I place the ring in the middle of the cleared table and with heart pumping wait for her return, trying to recall the romantic things I was going to say to her. My mind is a whirl. I can't think straight. I'm curious as to just what will transpire in about two minutes.

She returns, walks to the table, but doesn't see the ring until just before she sits down. She stops, staring at the plastic bubble. Crap, she knows what it is. I try to deflect the hit: "I got you one more surprise from Kroger," I say unconvincingly. She says nothing, sitting down, taking the plastic bubble from the table, and she begins to open it. I, too, say nothing, until she unwraps the ring from the clear plastic to see it for what it is: a beautiful, shimmering white gold diamond ring. She stares at it, not looking up at me, and lets out a deep breath. She's got a nervous excitement. So do I. We've talked about this on occasion before, but this is real. This is action. But more talk is still to come.

My mind is still a whirl. I should have practiced this moment more. Rote memory would have saved me. Instead, I say the first things that come to mind, cheesy but true: [Ha! and you actually thought I'd tell you what I said!] I asked the question. She said Yes. We finish coffee, satisfied in all respects.

I left my wallet in the car. On purpose. I had some bridal magazines wrapped up in some lacy material waiting in the trunk. (As you could probably guess, not my idea, but a good one nonetheless.) I plop them on the front seat as the last surprise of the evening, and go back inside. The two ladies who had been serving us corner me:

"Have you asked her yet?"
"Yes, I did."
"Did she say Yes?!"
"Yes, she did!"
"Oh, how wonderful! Would you like a bottle of champagne to celebrate?"
"Oh, it has been a perfect evening so far, the coffee was just the right ending for the meal. You have done so much for us already."

But this does not satisfy her. She remains steadfast, gets that you-won't-argue-your-way-out-of-this look in her face, and tells me: "You are getting a bottle of champagne. On the house." I happily relent. They bring us the bottle, two champagne glasses, a slice of glorious cheesecake, and their heartfelt congratulations. They snap a few pictures. (I thought I had my camera in the car. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I should be getting pictures of the evening in the mail.) By now it is 10:00pm and we've got people to call. Which is precisely what we do for the next couple of hours...and several days.

One Ring

...to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness...oh, wait, that's a different ring story!

Now that we've let a sufficient number of people know via non-internet sources*, I suppose it is time to tell the tale about our engagement. Yep, that's right, people. I am engaged to be married. Where do I start? I suppose it doesn't matter in the end; I'll be mixing up chronology regardless, I'm sure. Let me start off by talking about the most recent history of the ring.

I'd been looking at rings since mid-July, educating myself on diamond quality, hoping to stay within budget and still get something dazzling. A daunting task, it seemed. I wanted to get Kathryn an antique ring, not a modern-forged antique look-alike, but an actual antique ring. My friend David had recently purchased an antique engagement ring from an antique store in Atlanta where he had a connection with a jeweler there, so, after looking at some antique rings in Athens, I headed over to Atlanta to do some perusing. I found a few rings that I liked, but they were all very different styles from one another; some were within the realm of possibility, others far afield, but I was sure I would be buying one from Atlanta. What should I do? Being the practical guy I am, I wanted to get something that Kathryn would like, despite her insistence that she would like whatever I got her. Yet, I wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible, a surprise that was sure to meet with the difficulty of not knowing her ring size. The rock and the hard place.

So, I probed her for information, which I obtained, but not enough to set me at ease. She knew what she didn't like, which was quite helpful, but the category of what-Kathryn-likes remained elusive, just beyond my grasp. I bit the bullet and took her to an Athens jewelry store, where I engaged in enough fact-gathering for me to make a decision. In my mind, I settled on the ring I would purchase, but there were a couple of events that I wanted to transpire before moving ahead: the Atlanta jeweler was taking a trip to NYC and wanted to for anything there that would fit my now-detailed ring specifications, and, more importantly, obtaining consent from Daddy. The first of these events did not lead to any new factors in my decision, and, thankfully, the second event passed with ease, gratitude, and excitement. But I still didn't have her ring size.

And I didn't have her ring size as I was standing at the jewelry counter in Atlanta purchasing the ring on a Saturday early afternoon. Two roads diverged in the 18k white gold: give her the ring as is, hoping it would fit well enough to make it through a couple of days until we could make it back to the store and get it sized, or have the ring sized to something close enough to fit before I gave it to her. I took the ring home and pondered the decision; either way, I'd be making a trip back to Atlanta. What would help me in this decision? I knew the size of the ring I just purchased. I need to know her ring size.

She wore a ring on her right ring finger. Close enough. I'll get that one sized and have something to work with. So what do I do? I do what anyone in my situation would do: go to her apartment when she is at work, knowing that she keeps her rings on her dresser. But time was a factor. It was late Saturday afternoon by now, and Kathryn was at work. The jeweler who would be sizing the ring would be there Monday through Thursday. Kathryn and I would be going kayaking on Monday. I would be working Monday through Thursday at odd hours of the day and night: Tuesday would be the best day to go to Atlanta, but I would have to go late in the afternoon and get back in time for a meeting in Athens that night; Wednesday would be our busiest day, and looked out of the question; I wasn't sure what Thursday would bring, but I didn't want to wait that long. Kathryn would be working Tuesday through Thursday. I wanted to give her the ring on Saturday: to rejoice with the excited multitude on Sunday morning, and to show to her parents when we met them for dinner in Atlanta on the following Thursday.

I had to get the ring size now. It couldn't wait until Tuesday. I rushed over to her house, hoping that her roommate would be home, hoping that a jewelry store would be open at 6:30 on a Saturday evening, hoping I could get the ring back before Kathryn came home from work at 7:00. But there was no roommate! Man, what now? I checked the back door. Locked. The side door. Locked. Surely the front door would be locked as well, right? Wrong. Not only was the door unlocked, it was ajar. Beckoning me inside. I heeded the call, feeling a bit guilty at the B&E (well, the E part, anyway) and even more nonplussed that they left the door open like that, but on a mission that shoved the guilt hastily aside. The ring was there. I took it and ran, closing but not locking the door behind me.

The first jewelry store close by: closed. There's the mall, but it's a fair distance away; would I make it back in time? Is there another jewelry store around? Think, Bryan, think. Check the shopping center across the street. Yes, there's one! And it's open. Sweet. I walk in, get the ring sized, and get the quick lowdown on the diamonds it contains. European cut, like the one I bought that day just hours before. I then get questioned as to my need for a ring sizing, and I offer up the explanation that I'm surprising my sweetie pie with an engagement ring. Before I could turn to leave, I realized the folly of my words, for then he proceeds to suggest an assortment of rings they have that might suit my taste. "Um, I've already decided on one, thanks." Heck, it was in the car. I make a couple of thanks-but-no-thankses and take off, making it back to Kathryn's house in time for no one to be the wiser. And locking the door behind me.

Kathryn's ring is a full size smaller than the one I bought. Dadgummit, that simply will not do. I couldn't put enough band-aids on that thing to make it fit without the band-aids being more prominent than the ring itself. I'll have to take it back to Atlanta on Tuesday. But Tuesday rolls around and I can't begin my journey to Atlanta until mid-afternoon. As I'm heading down 85 southbound, I realize that I won't be able to make it in time to be back for my meeting. It'll have to be Thursday, then, but I'll have to get there early enough to give the jeweler enough time to size it and I just don't want to chance it. As it happened, I found a four-hour window on Wednesday and jumped head first right through it to Atlanta. I got the ring sized just a little smaller than the ring I borrowed from her dresser, and mentally crossed my fingers for a snug fit.

* Well, ok, so I sent out a few emails. Sue me for bad etiquette.

Spelling Woes

As I was saying in a previous post, I was helping Steve finish the floor of the Krispy Kreme on Atlanta Highway this week. They had to close up shop all day Wednesday, and, so as to inform the customers of this, put up a sign on the door to that effect, a sign that included the following monstrosity:

WE APPOLOGIZE FOR ANY INNCONVEINCE.

I mean, c'mon people, get a manager that either can spell or can take the professional time to spell check using his word processor. Sheesh, this is almost as disgusting as the years of caked, black moldy sugar hidden under the tiles we broke off the floor.

Oh, and you might be surprised at the number of people who bring their 9 and under children to the Krispy Kreme at 11:30 at night. What are these people thinking?

Ecclesiastical Unity

What makes a plurality of things a unity, how does a pile of particulars form itself under one universal? What is the metaphysical status of such a unity, that is, how real is this unity? Is its reality merely formal or conceptual, or is it ontological? Another way to put this last question: does the unity have what we might call "real existence"? There are any number of connections that a once disparate bunch of things could have that groups them together into a class. Color: all the brown things on my desk. Use: all the things with which to write in my apartment. Place: all the cars in the parking lot, all the books on my shelf. And so on. But are there really, in actual existence, tangibly so, these classes in the world? In addition to all the brown things on my desk, is there another entity in the room, namely, the set of all the brown things on my desk? Is it only the particulars that have real existence, while the classes that we form of them are diminished in their degree of existence, being our mental or conceptual constructs, classes that we create rather than find in the world, classes that exist dependent on us rather than independently from us?

The old philosophical debate about the ontological status of universals (or classes) rears its head. Is a class a real thing, something over and above the particulars that make it up, that bring them together in their unity? Or is it, as Ockham would have it, merely a sound in the throat, or, as contemporary nominalists would have it, a concept that we impose upon the particulars (and is thus devoid of independent, or real, existence)? This is not a merely academic debate, either in medieval philosophy or now. As it did then, so now it has theological implications. In particular, it has ecclesiological implications.

The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children.... (WCF, 25.2)

Here we have a plurality of particulars, "all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children," forming a unity or class, "the visible church." The question now is: how "real" is the visible church? Is it a merely formal or conceptual unity, or could the unity be said to be institutional or ontological? A further germane question: what is the source of the unity of the visible church?

I ask these questions after having come across a Catholic (big C) objection to the Protestant notion of the visible church, basically, that it is a merely conceptual unity without institutional or ontological bite. The implication is that there could be no schism within the Protestant church, since to be in the church one would still be a professor of the true religion and so would not be breaking off from anything but would still be bound to all the other particulars in the class. Adding to this the claim that any ecclesiological position that would make schism conceptually impossible is a bad ecclesiological position, we come to the conclusion that the Protestant ecclesiological position is untenable. On the other hand, so the discussion goes, the Catholic position has it that particular believers are baptized into the institution of the Catholic Church, which is, somehow, an actual unity that the Protestant "visible Church" is not.

This Catholic objection, I think, has some weight, though it is not without its own problems, namely, why the Catholic Church gets to be an actual unity while the visible Church does not. Aside from that, I am nervous about basing the unity of believers on a profession of what is believed. I'm all for the profession part, but that just kicks the basis of unity back to what is professed; it puts the source of unity, at least potentially, in a set of propositions. So, to maintain unity, the set of propositions which one must profess must itself be maintained, listed, clearly set out, etc. This makes me very nervous. How long should the list be? What should its contents be? Yet, there is such a thing as heresy, which constitutes a denial of something central that the particular believers in the unity of the visible church must profess, which assumes that there are certain things that all must profess to remain in the unity.

There are different ways in which scripture, and Paul in particular, describes or symbolizes the unity of believers. But as symbols, they point to a deeper source of unity: Christ himself. Not the institution of the Catholic Church, not a profession of the true religion alone, but Christ. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is one indication of unity:

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Cor. 10:16-17)

That there is one bread symbolizes the unity of those particulars who partake of it. What do the cup and bread symbolize, what do they point to? The real source of unity: Christ. Paul talks about the sacrament of baptism as an indication of unity:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit.... Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor. 12:12, 27)

By what are we baptized into one body? The Spirit, sent by Christ after his death and resurrection. In other places Paul points outright to the source of unity:

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Eph. 1:22-23)

There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Eph. 4:4-6)

But not to forget the words of Christ himself, he says in his high priestly prayer:

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. (John 17:11)

In these passages, we see the Godhead as the ultimate source of the unity of all believers, a unity that shows itself outwardly in many ways: profession of the true religion, partaking of the Lord's Supper, receiving baptism. It is true that these things connect us; we must, I think, have a high view of them and not fall into an empty nominalism in their regard. They do real unifying work in our midst, but not apart from what they point to, not apart from Christ. When we are baptized, we are baptized into Christ and united to him thereby (Rom. 6:3-5). When we take the Lord's Supper, we are participating in Christ. When we profess the true religion, we are professing Christ.

With Christ as the source of the unity, it is no mere conceptual or formal unity, for its basis is in something outside of our own conceptual creations. It is surely conceptual or formal in some sense, but this sense is not dependent on us; it is created by Christ himself, which, as far as I'm concerned, gives it a good enough reality to hold on to. It is not a merely institutional unity, though it certainly has institutional structure to it: within the church, there are hierarchies (elders, deacons, congregants, etc.), ceremonies (worship), and rites (sacraments) that rule the local bodies. It is a covenantal unity, a unity imposed unilaterally by God in his dealings with his people, a unity that he creates, maintains, and relates to on both corporate and individual levels, but being covenantal does not make the unity any less real or actual.

How does this relate to schism? It depends on a number of things, foremost perhaps being what "schism" means. Taking it to mean separation, there are different levels of schism that correspond to different levels of unity. I have only been talking about unity at the most general level, and schism in this regard would be separation from Christ himself. But, interestingly, this comes about from within the level of the unity of the local church, say, in the form of excommunication resulting from continued unrepentant sin or from apostasy.

It is as if the local bodies are more strongly actual unities than the greater unity that they make up, the visible Church, for it is in these and through these that the hierarchy of unities takes place. Particular individuals are united to one another in a local body through profession of faith, baptism, or both, and the unity is maintained through partaking in the Lord's Supper. These outward expressions find their ultimate source in the unity of the particulars to Christ himself, a connection which unifies all local bodies of professors and the partakers of the sacraments into a broader unity, the visible Church. All of this is going on at once, and it is, quite amazingly, going on right before our eyes!

Churches can also be divided within themselves, as the Corinthian church was (which is why Paul spoke so much in his first letter to them about unity), and this kind of division also happens at the level of the unity of the local church (rather than at the level of the universal or visible church). For the Corinthians, the division springs out of professions of others than Christ:

What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos," or "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor. 1:12-13)

Here, Paul points them back to the source of their unity in their baptism: Christ. Christ is not divided, so neither should they be since they are one body in Christ by virtue of their baptism in the name of Christ. Paul uses the institutional aspects of the local body at Corinth, specifically, their baptism, to point them to how they are really united and to encourage them in their unity with one another.

I'm not sure how much better the Catholic Church fares in this regard. Could schism occur within the Catholic Church? No. Unless the person recanted their Catholic baptism, they would still be united to the Catholic Church, no matter that the unity is institutional. But being institutional, it seems to me a diminished degree of real unity than the covenantal unity to the Godhead, which has been the mainstay of the Protestant church.

Do Electric Sheep Fall Out Of Bed?

So, the other night I fell out of bed. And I have a bunk bed. And I'm on the top bunk.

I'm on the top bunk because the previous house of Kathryn had a basement to put some of my stuff (leaky though the basement was) and a (non-leaky) place to put my books. Now being the previous house, I needed a new, and climate-controlled, place for my libros. So I am doing what I did a couple of space-needing years ago: slept on the top bunk and shoved all my junk underneath.

I had been working with Steve The Concrete Finisher Guy this week on a night job during non-peak business hours and rolled up into bed around 1:30am or so to be up again at 6:00am. (It so happened that, once again, I turned off my cell alarm instead of snoozing it and overslept.) I was having a dream, can't recall what it was, but it had me either slipping out of the bed or getting up out of bed. Either way, right about the time I was hitting much needed REM sleep, I suddenly found myself on my knees on the floor. I wasn't hurt. I was disoriented. I thought I was still dreaming.

It was dark. I thought I might have fallen in a cave of some sort, at least some fairly cramped space in which I could, and did, stand up. I felt above me for the ceiling. Nothing. I knew that I fell in here, so maybe I could crawl out the same way. I felt where I thought I had fallen from. It was soft. It was my bed, but I didn't know that at this point. I tried to feel below it for a foothold, but found nothing. How will I get out of here? I didn't have my glasses on and, being very badly nearsighted, still couldn't place where I was. (A question: Am I nearsighted in my dreams? I never considered this question before, but it seems to me that I am not, that I can "see" well in my dreams. Interesting...)

As my eyes adjusted to what little light there was in the room, my mind began to catch up. Wait, I'm not in a dream. I'm in my room. And I'm standing beside my bed. And the weight bench beside my bed has been pushed over into the desk chair. Weird. Never done that before. It's 4:45am, and I crawl back into bed, hoping not to have the same dream, and hoping to catch up to some more REM sleep before heading back to work.

Whoa. I open the newest edition of the critical thinking textbook I'll be using for one of my classes this fall. I'm checking its table of contents and page numbers against a schedule from an old course to see how much of the old syllabus I'll have to edit. I flip the first few pages of the book to get to the table of contents, and I think I see my name on the acknowledgments page. Hmm. By the time it registers, I've already passed the page, so I flip back to where I thought I saw my name. Sure enough, there it is.

We would like to thank the following reviewers for their input:

Bryan Baird, University of Georgia

And then it goes on to list three other reviewers. I vaguely recall sending in a review of the old textbook, but I don't remember previewing a new text. Anyway, good to see that it's there, I guess. Not that anyone, including me, ever looks at the acknowledgments. I just hope that's not the last time my name appears in, or on, a book...

Kayaking On The Broad River

My goodness yesterday was hot. The hottest day of the summer thus far? I don't doubt it. The sun was brutal. It turns out there was a heat advisory for much of Georgia, the heat index reaching into the lower 100s where we were. Not the best day to be planning a trip that would completely expose you to such brutality for 3 to 4 unrelenting hours. Not the best day for poor planning, for not packing a river bag filled with ice and drinking water, for leaving two Nalgenes of soon-to-be-warm water in the car. Some Eagle Scout I am. I left the Boy Scout motto, Be Prepared, at home with my common sense. The Broad River water, what little of it there ended up being, was blessedly cool, but unfortunately not suitable for the hydration that we so badly needed. I obviously have not watched enough episodes of Man Vs. Wild.

I woke late, but not late enough, having gotten to bed around 4:00 am after an all-nighter at the Krispy Kreme on Atlanta Highway helping Steve prepare the concrete slab, underneath the tile we broke up and hauled off on Saturday, for its new floor. It's 1:30 in the afternoon, fast approaching the hottest part of the day. A half mile or so from the outpost entrance, I see two red things sticking up out of the ground. Could that be the entrance? Nah, there's a cheap marquee sign there between the red things, a pitted red dirt road leading into the woods. Surely there'd be bigger and better signage, right? Wrong. As I read "Broad River Outpost" in alternating black and red letters on the marquee, Kathryn points to the towering red canoes as we pass. "That was it." So it was.

As we head down the dirt path to the dirt parking lot, I faintly hear "Dueling Banjos" in my head, wondering what sort of adventure awaits us. Two young barebacked lads standing outside of a beat up looking building don their shirts, preparing for perhaps the first and only customers of the day. We get our PFDs, and I help our outfitter haul the kayaks to the top of a steep hill, a swath of it lined with flattened plastic. He tells me to get in the kayak and ride it down the hill. I look at him rather incredulously. Is he serious? I'm going to break something before I even get in the water. Little did I know at the time that the ride down the hill was to be the most exciting kayak ride of the afternoon, but far from the most enjoyable part of the trip.

The most enjoyable part of it, of course, was (ready yourself for a little cheesiness) having Kathryn there. We learned something about each other yesterday, the different attitudes we have toward traveling downriver. Me, enjoying the river is paddling, paddling, paddling, whether through whatever rapids we come to or through the slow spots. Kathryn, on the other hand, is content to have the river do more work, floating her resting body where the currents would take it. We managed to do both, though I'm sure that I was the worse companion during those times she prized more highly, to my shame.

And I'm sure I was the worse companion during those times that I prized more highly, as they came very few and far between. The water was so low that we kept getting beached upon rocks in the rapids and sand bars in the open water. The first hour or so was good: there seemed to be a fair bit of water, the rapids were full enough, and we had to drag our kayaks over barely submerged sand bars only a few times. But after a couple hours more, and 15 or so more times of getting out of my stinkin' kayak to drag it not only across submerged sand bars but also through "rapids," I figured that better use could be made of my paddle by beating my kayak with it, which use I made with more and more frequency.

By the third hour, both of us were ready to be out. We weren't really able to float for long periods due to the kayaks' bottoms dragging the river's bottom, and there were more rapids where we would be stopped short by those mean rocks than there were that would let us through unimpeded. The outfitter dude said that we would pass under a large bridge before reaching the place where they would be to pick us up. It got to where every time we would go around a bend, we would look downriver for that precious bridge. Our hopes were dashed upon the rocks as often as we were stopped by them.

The outfitter dude would be at the exit every hour on the hour to pick us up. It was about 4:45, and still no bridge. Would we make it by 5:00? Would we have to sit around, without water, worn down by the sun, until 6:00? When the bridge did come, our hopes soared. Only a half mile to the exit. I was in front. After passing under the bridge, I heard what sounded like the outfitter's bus on the road that was now paralleling the river and turned to see through the thick vegetation our yellow savior heading downriver to the exit. I looked back to see where Kathryn was, saw her motioning with her hand to go. "Go! Go! Go!" I heard her scream.

I was off like a madman. Only several more rapids to go and I could be there to hold them until Kathryn caught up. Would there be more people to be picked up? There were only a few people who had signed up that day before us to go downriver with the outfitter. Is that them in front of me? Other kayakers had entered the river at other points, so it wasn't a sure thing. I had to assume that we were the only ones being picked up. But try as I might, several more rapids meant several more times I would get hung up on the rocks, which I did. It meant several more times I would have to drag my kayak across sand bars, which I did. Oh, the frustration! I was farther in front now. I passed a couple of shady looking guys in cut off blue jeans, no kayaks, standing on a sand bar throwing rocks into the river. Kathryn would pass them later. Should I wait for her? Would they see an opportunity for mischief in her passing? I decided to continue, peering behind me to see her pass safely by them without event (though not without some ogling, I was to later learn).

I knew that eventually I would get to the exit point, but I didn't know what I would find, if anything or anyone. I see the railroad ties with "BRO" hastily painted in white. The exit point. Trees shrouded where the bus would be waiting. Are they there? Would they wait? Did they see us on the river? Did they care? Oh, the tension! It was happily released as I sided along the lowest crosstie and spied the bus and trailer, kayaks being loaded and customers sitting on the ground beside it. Whew. I dragged my kayak up the hill a ways, went down to wait for Kathryn and drag her kayak up to the trailer. Sunburned and tired, sharing the bus with two other couples and overly dyed hair, we made it back to our tepid water, soon to be replaced by store-bought cold water at a quaint corner store north of Danielville (that still had some operational old school gas pumps!).

We were glad we went, though it was probably the worst day we could have picked for it. I'll plan ahead next time.

The Goodness of God

I was recently faced with a serious and sincere question about the goodness of God from a fellow brother in Christ, a question that I realized I did not have a ready answer to. This must mean, I think, that I haven't thought deeply enough about the issue. I want to try and do that now, but I so often feel like I don't have the intellectual resources to deal with such things. Odd coming from a philosophy PhD, and a humbling admission, but true nonetheless. The meat of the matter is reflected in the following queries:

If God is perfectly just, shouldn't we somehow all be given the chance that was given to Adam? Isn't it essentially unfair of God to apply Adam's sin to us from birth when we did nothing to deserve it?

There are a number of things going on in this passage. There is some doubt, even if hypothetical, about God's goodness by bringing out contradictory implications of his justice. That is, on one reading of what justice requires, it seems that God is not just after all. This leads to a second thing to note in the passage: an assumption about what justice is and what actions should follow from it. There is also the seemingly absurd idea that some aspect of the universal (the sinfulness of Adam's posterity) could be determined by the actions of the particular (Adam's rebellion).

The first place I want to run in response to these issues is away from individualism and toward federalism, away from personal autonomy and toward the covenantal representation and solidarity.* When we make assumptions about what justice is based on an implicit individualistic standard, of course it seems that God is unjust in applying Adam's sin to his posterity before the entrance of that posterity on the scene. Sometimes in scripture this individualistic standard is indeed applied to the judgment wrought by personal sin, as when the law says that "each one shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deut. 24:16). But that context, the father/son relationship, does not constitute the same kind of relationship that Adam had to all mankind.

In the latter case, God set it up that Adam was to be mankind's federal representative such that his actions would be applied to those whom he represented in the context of the covenant God made with him. God did not just covenantally bind himself to Adam qua individual but to Adam qua federal head of humanity; this means that had Adam persevered in faithfulness, humanity would have reaped the benefits downstream, but as it happened Adam was unfaithful, which had serious detrimental affects downstream. This way of contextualizing Adam's relationship to God and to humanity in terms of covenant also helps to make sense of the strange idea that Adam's fall as a particular event had an affect on the plight of humanity after him. Because of Adam's status as federal head of humanity, his past actions are present both around us and within us.

How does this covenantal reading of the fall and of original sin apply to the issue of justice, of punishment for an offense? It seems rather unjust to be blamed, punished, or judged for an offense that one did not commit, yet this seems to be exactly the situation we find ourselves in with the doctrine of original sin. But here, punishment, blame, and judgment are assumed to be strictly judicial, as referring only to an offense committed; what is left out of the equation, a factor that is present in Adam's circumstance, is that sin not only refers to an offense against a commandment, a transgression of a law, but it also refers to the violation of a relationship. The covenantal view includes both the legal and the relational, and the one is not reduced to the other.

Insofar as we are "in" Adam relationally as our representative before, his offense affects us relationally with respect to God. The horizontal relationship between Adam and us and the vertical relationship between Adam and God and between us and God are simultaneously affected, because they are all interrelated through covenant. Adam's actions affect us horizontally in the same way that a king's actions affect his vassals; in both cases, the latter is represented by and under the federal jurisdiction of the former. What is the affect of Adam's actions on the vertical scale? Just as Adam's covenantal relationship to God was jeopardized by his rebellion, so our relationship to God is jeopardized and in need of repair. This is why Christ is called the Second Adam: just as Adam brought death to all regardless of any particular offenses committed, so also Christ brings life to all apart from any particular acts of merit on their part.

So, was God just to apply Adam's sin to us? Yes, but not in the way in which we are used to thinking about justice applied. We quickly lose sight of the covenantal, corporate, and relational aspects of sin and punishment, and when we lose sight of these we are also likely to lose sight of God's goodness.

* Michael Horton has a very nice discussion of how a covenantal reading of the fall helps to make sense out of original sin in his Lord and Servant (133-146).