Summer Plans – Busted Once More!

I always start summer with ambitious plans of what I am going to get done or caught up on. You know—like the photos that haven’t been organized in two or three years, much less carefully crafted into a memory book! The neglected gardening—all my outdoor potted plants have died. The deep cleaning of the how-did-it-get-so-nasty corners of the house, that I am sure I just cleaned weeks (or was it months?) ago.

For the past few summers, those plans have been thwarted, oh so easily. Summer 2006, I twisted my wrist while in Italy and had to have the loose screws and steel plate (from a year 2000 horse accident) removed from my right arm. All I did that summer was some light study and type on my blog.

Summer 2007 was a massive travel summer. I spent half of June studying at Ohio State University (Digital Media and Composition Institute) in Columbus, Ohio. In July, our family spent a week in North Carolina, including a memorable visit to the Outer Banks. Then later that month, we traveled to Canada, visiting Wasaga Beach (Lake Heron), Toronto’s CN Tower, and Niagara Falls. {See 2007 blog entries}

This summer would be different! My older children had summer jobs, and the youngest had plans to break up the monotony of summer with various friends and family members. No travel. No study. Just rest, recovery, and catch up.

Yeah, right! The second Tuesday of June, I slipped on the stairs in my house and landed squarely on my back. Sprained it. And for the rest of June, I could barely vacuum, much less tackle any “projects.”

Didn’t really get to resume my blog either—as planned. But I did get to read. I read more books in June than I can remember ever.

• I read CSI type-detective thrillers by James Patterson (about five of them I think), which deep, intriguing titles, like The Lifeguard and The Beachhouse.
  
• I read two historical novels by Thomas Quinn set in 15^th century Venice (The Lion of St. Mark and The Sword of Venice).
  
• A book on personal finance by Dave Ramsey.
  
• Finished Field Notes on a Catastrophe (UAB’s freshman discussion book for the fall) about global climate change.
• I am still reading Matthew Pearl’s novel The Dante Club, set in 1865 Boston with the poets Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes as the main characters.
  

But my favorite—the one I digested slowly one chapter at a time—was Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew.

Yancey writes in thoughtful, yet transparent, prose, his undisguised quest always caught in a tension between his probing intellect and his often tested faith. I admire these qualities in his writing—for he always situates his journey amid the rich spiritual and literary context of great writers and thinkers, such as Leo Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, and Henri Nouwen.

And yet, these are presented as fellow sojourners. Their remarks glimmer like stars, adding sparkle and beauty to the chasm of the universe, but lacking the brilliance of the sun to light the way.

In the final analysis, the Jesus that Yancey wants to know is the one that is separated from its contemporary cultural construct—the thinly bearded Caucasian male that pats children on the head and gazes into the distance, detached from the horrors of the world we live in. He wants to know, like I do, the Christ of Christianity, separated from the iconic identity that centuries of European artists created to pacify power-hungry patrons and to justify medieval oppression.

Who is the real Jesus? The Jesus of the Gospels. The One who is called both the Lion and the Lamb. Who is this Jewish rabbi who preached a revolutionary message (love even your enemies), but shied away from staging a revolt against Roman oppressors? The man who claimed to be God and forgave those who nailed him to a cross. Who is that Jesus?

My back has recovered, and now I am on to those projects. I did get some rest. But Yancey’s book will stay with me, long after the summer is over. And I will be the better for it.