Soren: I don’t think you should be dismissive.

Wilder: Hmmmm…

Soren: Let me ask you this, WHY are you disposed toward dismissiveness?

Wilder: Honestly?

Soren: Honestly.

Wilder: Because I feel defensive.

Soren: Instead of being defensive and dismissive, perhaps you should simply notice these inclinations, and name them, and then decide on a better course of action.

Wilder: Ok. Yeah. That sounds wise.

:::

Wilder: Why aren’t we scared of the dangers of consumerism, commercialism, and commodification-ism? Why aren’t we scared of these forms of recklessness?

Soren: What do you mean?

Wilder: Well, if I take someone to West CLT at 11p, they seem noticeably anxious. But if I take someone to Myers park, they seem completely at ease.

Soren: Yeah. What’s your point?

Wilder: The Boss of the universe very definitively says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” What if He had said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is living in a low income, high-crime neighborhood, to enter the kingdom of God“? It seems like we would ‘really pay attention’ to that statement, and we would regularly wield it as a super salient reason (justification) for avoiding West CLT! …So why don’t we AVOID wealth (at least sometimes); and/or why aren’t we more cautious around and amidst wealth for similar salient reasons?

Soren: You know, sometimes you’re a real pain in the neck!

[one week later]

Soren: I’ve been giving some thought to what you said.

Wilder: What did I say?

Soren: You know, that thing about Myers Park and West CLT that you were talking about last week?

Wilder: Go on.

Soren: Well, I was thinking, “Country clubs are costly, and Adoption is costly.” And it really seems like The Boss of the universe is more in favor of one costly endeavor than He is the other.

Wilder: Yep.

Soren: Yeah.

Wilder: Yep.

Soren: I have an acquaintance who says, “Adoption is reckless.” But I would say my acquaintance’s prioritization of a sybarite lifestyle is reckless.

Wilder: Yep. …I’m gonna say, “Reckon. Receive. Risk; or Hear. Harbor. Hazard.”

Soren: You say that bro! You say that all-day-long!

Wilder: Yeah. I will. …And, what is SUCCESS? If you ask the Pharisees (the high-‘achieving’, educated, socially elite, mainstream connoisseurs and celebrants) you’ll get one answer; and if you ask Jesus of Nazareth (the vagabond, itinerant, wilderness wandering rabbi, who appointed uneducated/common men to be apostles, a teacher who preferred the “platforms” of mountains and lake-sides) you’ll get a very different answer.

:::

Soren: I’ve been thinking about Sabbath.

Wilder: Oh man, I hate the Sabbath!

Soren: Why?

Wilder: You can’t do anything on the Sabbath. It’s all about following rules of perfunctory religious performance, and abstaining from stuff that’s fun.

Soren: No way man!

Wilder: What?

Soren: The Sabbath isn’t primarily about being separated from the world, it’s about being set apart as God’s treasured people! It’s a special relational day with God! It’s like a holiday! …It’s a day to embrace the freedom to NOT be preoccupied with getting, and instead relishing what God has already given! Sabbath is a day of liberation! A day to cease our frenzied attempts to ‘make stuff happen’ and ‘prove ourselves useful’; and instead to simply BE the treasured children/sheep of God!

Wilder: Okay. I’ll admit, that sounds better than what I thought about the Sabbath.

Soren: Yep.

:::

Wilder: I’ve decided to be a supernaturalist!

Soren: What does that mean?

Wilder: It means that I will now become extremely subversive (like Rahab, and Ruth, and Boaz, and Jonathan, and David, and Daniel, and Esther, and Joanna). And it means that I will savor the paradox of what’s truly true. And it means that I will participate in a mysterious phenomenon of soil, and seed, and death, and germination, and resurrection, and life & joy to the fullest.

Soren: What’s gotten into you!

Wilder: An invisible person!

Soren: What?!?

Wilder: His name is Spirit! Holy Spirit! …or Ghost of Christmas present if you like!

Soren: You are out of your mind;

Wilder: I am not out of my mind, most excellent Soren, but I am speaking true and rational words. Perhaps – deep down – you know that what I’m saying is REAL and GOOD, and to you I speak boldly.

Soren: In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?

Wilder: Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me might become such as I am.

:::

Soren: I saw a huge man – probably over 7′ tall! – and a little baby standing on the beach today.

Wilder: Go on.

Soren: And the baby said, “Man! The ocean is huge!” And the giant man said, “You only say that because you’re so tiny.” And the baby said, “I’ll admit that I am much smaller than you, but compared to the ocean, we are BOTH microscopic!” And the giant man said, “Well, yeah… that’s true I guess!”

Wilder: What else?

Soren: Then the giant man said, “Well, if we must admit that we are small compared to the ocean, then let us tell the ocean to accommodate our preferences.” And the baby said, “Like what?” And the giant man said, “Let’s tell the ocean to not be salty, and let’s tell the ocean not to be deadly.” And the baby said, “Try it.” And so the giant man shouted at the ocean to be domesticated and desalinated. But the ocean did not change at the giant man’s command. So the giant man became disgruntled with the ocean, and he turned his back on the ocean, and he refused to look at the ocean. And 2 years went by, and the giant man did not look at the ocean in that 2 year period of time, and subsequently the giant man reinterpreted the ocean breeze, and the smell of the salt air, and the sounds of the waves to be things other than what they really were. And the baby tried to tell the giant man that he was self-deceived, but the giant man rebuked the baby saying, “What do you know! You’re just a little baby! Don’t tell me I’m wrong. There’s no way a giant man like me is wrong, and tiny baby like you is right!”

Wilder: What else?

Soren: And the giant man begat little giants and he inducted them into a system of automation (i.e. the giant had “authorized” and “authenticated” and automated his back-to-the-sea doctrines and dogmas of all the reinterpreted sounds and smells). And the baby – who was getting ready to board a ship which he had built in collaboration with the Creator of the sea – said (as he was leaving the safety of the shore), “The giant man has established a system of automation which frees him from that which makes us free.”

Wilder: Anything else?

Soren: And everyday the giant man would mandate and oversee sand castle building competitions for his kids. And the giant man’s offspring would frantically build sand castles – anxious toiling, and turbulently quarreling amongst themselves with cancerous comparisons and competitiveness …because they were all desperately trying to win the approval of their despotically deceived and deceiving father, and because they were racing against the fiercely denied reality of the tide and its inevitable arrival whereupon all their carefully cultivated sandy efforts and exertions would be washed away.

Wilder: Is that all?

Soren: There is one last thing …before the baby left on his dangerous voyage across the salty and hazardous sea he left a sign for the giant man (just in case he should ever choose to turn and face the truth). And the sign read, “You are never not small. Embrace this as the beginning of your salvation. Your damnation is predicated on your desire to become something bigger than small. You are small but not insignificant. The Maker has made you like a seed. And if the seed falls to the ground and dies, then it will miraculously rise from the dead and bear much fruit!”