Such a Great Cloud

            There is a cloud hanging over all of us. No! It’s not Marx’s specter of communism; do not mistake it for that. It is a ghost-filled misty mass casting its colossal shadow over every move we make. I only began to feel its damp effects recently, but since then, the cloud has been growing.

           My discovery began on a partly cloudy (I am referring to real clouds now) day in Oxford, England. I was on a double-decker public bus, headed away from the city-center in search of C.S. Lewis’s church and grave. My habit of flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants had led me there with no tour guide, no map and no idea of their whereabouts except that they were, “That way,” as directed by a bookseller. I followed my heart, and exited the bus at a stop next to a locally owned flower shop in what I figured was the general vicinity of the church.

            “How fortuitous!” I thought. Well, it may have been something more vulgar, but I like to think of my past-self speaking a semi-Victorian English. Anyway, “How fortuitous!” I thought, “I can purchase a flower to place on or next to the grave.” I entered the shop and bought a Gerber Daisy for a few odd pence in my pocket from a kind woman working there. She happened to know the location of the church, and provided me a map, and a penciled path on that map to the church. A narrow, winding walkway through suburb neighborhoods, under lush hedge-arches and along quaint stonewalls brought me to the church and its graveyard. It was a humble, stone Anglican building with a walled cemetery and a few leafy trees on the grounds. At the gate, I met an aged gardener, sitting on a stone eating a sack lunch with his calloused hands. We were the only two around, and after approaching him, I said, “Is it okay if I  . . . ? ” and pointed to the cemetery beyond the gate.

            “Sure,” he said indifferently, and I entered. There was no wind; I was completely alone, and everything growing in that graveyard was green. I walked from headstone to headstone, my little daisy in hand, looking for ‘the one’ and not caring how quickly I found it. At last, there it was! A simple slab with an empty flower holder at its base. I put my flower in it, stepped back and took a picture with my iPhone (see picture above). Immediately I felt like I had committed some terrible sacrilege or at least an embarrassing faux pas, so I put my phone away and blushed a little. When the shame had passed, I just stood there feeling overwhelmed. I prayed and thanked the LORD for His Spirit’s work in this man’s life; the allergens in the air may have forced a tear or two out of my eyes. I did not know then what was overwhelming me. I think I know now. The answer can be found in two passages—one from C.S. Lewis himself and the other from Holy Scripture:

            “You must not think that I am putting forward any heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature [at death]. Nature is mortal. We shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive” (From The Weight of Glory).

            “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1, NIV).

            The cloud! That ever-growing cloud of witnesses was swelling over me and I was feeling its cool mists.  The moment in that silent cemetery awakened me to one idea: C.S. Lewis is not dead. He has joined that ‘great cloud of witnesses.’ I did not have a false sentimental picture of him looking down from heaven smiling on me. No, I was thankful for God’s work in him, and felt the weight of that work—the weight of glory.

            From that day to this, the cloud has been growing, or rather my awareness of it has been growing. Every book I read, from McCullough’s John Adams to Metaxas' Bonheoffer; From Beacher Stowe to Boreham; from Augustine to Ambrose; from Dickens to Dostoyevsky the cloud has been building to cumulonimbus proportions. God’s work in those men and women has continually reminded me of the fleeting nature of nature and the unwavering power of our creator, even in his flawed children.

            I left my flower there and made my way back to the bus stop, feeling thankful for that moment in the graveyard when I was surrounded not by the dead but the living. The weight of glory has been hard upon me ever since, as it should be upon all of us,

            “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2, NIV).

R.Eric Tippin
May 11, 2012
Tippin Dental Group

A Birthday Tribute to Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton was born one hundred and thirty-eight years ago this month into the Pax Britannica and prosperity of Queen Victoria’s reign. He grew up a normal—if a somewhat absent minded—young man. But at a young age, God gave Chesterton a capacity for joy seemingly unmatched in any of his contemporaries.

He seemed to take nothing seriously, calling the cosmos cozy in Orthodoxy and writing lines such as, “Woe unto him that considereth his hair foolishly, for his hair will be made the type of him.” But this supposed flippancy was only his keen ability to prioritize the truly important from everything else. He took two things very seriously: friendship and the Christian faith; though it is refreshing that he was able to laugh through discussions of these things as well.  In his letters, in his essays, in his books, and in anecdotes told of him, he was consistently lighthearted and full of loving optimism. At a young age he pondered in all honesty, and maybe a bit of naiveté,  “I wonder whether there will ever come a time when I shall be tired of any one person.” He also found immense pleasure in life’s tangibles,

“I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people. When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we touch the deepest philosophy”1 (From a letter to his wife, postmarked 1899). 

Chesterton gloried in “The birthday present of birth,”2 and Christians should be truly thankful for the birth and life of a man with such an expansive mind and spirit-filled, joyous character. History’s geniuses have a poor record when it comes to joy and mirth. The celebrated genius of Edgar Allen Poe was drink-inflamed, and disturbingly dark; Nietzsche went mad; Alexander the Great’s violent mood swings are legendary; even Bernard Shaw’s hilarity was tainted by a vicious and unfeeling belief in eugenics. But Chesterton, his genius uncompromised, enjoyed life, lived temperately and used his powers for defending the faith he loved, singing (completely out of pitch) all the way.

As far as it concerned Chesterton, he acquired no personal enemies, but made a point to endear himself to those lambasting his person in the “The Daily Mail” or “The Times.” Men such as H.G. Wells and G.B. Shaw with worldviews diametrically and militantly opposed to Chesterton’s thought of him as a friend, and a dear one.

Cultural change and language mutation—the products of time passing—will eventually force most names into the choking mists of history, but the name of Chesterton should not disappear into that ancient fog uncontested. His perspective was unique and truly valuable to Christians. He brought mirth to the Gospel and joy to Orthodoxy—two traits that need a good dusting in Christian literature.

R. Eric Tippin
Tippin Dental Group Staff Lounge
May 3, 2012

[1] Ward, Maisie (2007-12-28). Gilbert Keith Chesterton (Sheed & Ward Classic). Oak Grove. Kindle Edition. 

[2] Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) (2009-10-04). Orthodoxy. Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. 

The Ironic Era

After a few moments of consideration, I thought I ought to make a quick mention today letting everyone know that we have now squarely moved from the "postmodern era" into the "ironic era." These transitions are always a little nebulous and hard to pin down, but now there is little doubt the switch has taken place. I'm sorry the transition has already past (maybe a week ago) and I did not announce it on the very day of the new era's arrival. However, during the last few years the postmodern era was showing its age and has now officially moved on to better things at another company. Although I could take the time now to go into all of the details concerning the whys and wherefores of this shift, I have come to the realization that this would only be a redundancy and a preempting of all the social commentators and academics of the foreseeable future fleshing out the intricacies and cultural trends that have brought us here and have anchored us, in our present state, securely in the ironic. I must say I have already enjoyed parts of this new era, but also severely dread other out workings of its designs. Because these eras are quite all-encompassing, I would begin going through each area of your life and seeing which things can stay or must go. Finally, the last item I wanted to touch on after announcing this change in era is one of the greatest losses going forward. The thing surely to be missed the most is sincerity. 

 …and an example has been requested from Mr. E.T. to get the new era off to a shotgun start. The destructive aspects of this new period are too painful to be the first examples given. However, picking from the crowd of friendly looking runners let us choose from one social commentary this very week in the cultural commerce curator center over at the Bureau of Trade. So, in the enjoyment of the new, here is a portion of their Daily Communique on the ninteeth of April:

"The Star Treatment: Racism and xenophobia are the new red carpet

There are movie stars, and then there’s Shah Rukh Khan. Some call him India’s Tom Cruise — but that understates his fame [...]. If pressed, we’d say that the American equivalent of SRK, the king of Bollywood, might be Heinz Ketchup: He’s sweet, he’s lightly processed, and he’s everywhere. Bollywood produces 1000 titles a year (compared with Hollywood’s 500) reaching an audience of 3 billion, which makes Khan — who stars in no fewer than five films per annum, and produces dozens more — a very busy man. Last week, when he took a break from triple-threating and shilling for his vanity musk “Tiger Eyes by SRK” to accept an award at Yale, America gave him a different kind of “special treatment”: summary detention. TSA didn’t see an international film star — they saw a Muslim in a private plane headed toward New York, and they held Khan for hours before the Indian consulate and the U.S. State Department intervened. (Giant chagrin.) “Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to America,” said Khan. What can we say? A little humility is never a bad thing, but America doesn’t need to support the recovery by seeding the business of humiliation."

The ironic era is here when catagorizing frees us to commentate from above categories! More examples are suited up for this trackmeet and not all are so friendly. But keep heart; we have recongized and categorized them in order to deflect their impact with ironic observations!

With all sincerety, 

Phillip Tippin
Mowing my Lawn
Roeland Park Kansas 

Special thanks to Instagram for retro filtering our image of my record player spinning Copeland on the iPad.

Watching the Hunter (An Oil Selection)

   
Watching the Hunter
Oil on Panel
Eberle Adolf

A Hunting We Will Go
Overland 
Through the rye 
Gun in hand 
Bird in sky 
Calling out to the world below 
A-hunting we will go 

Every field 
Ripe and fine 
Every man 
A friend of mine 
On the trails that we name or know 
A-hunting we will go 

Throw some light on me 
Tell me what you see 
Every mystery grows like a vine 
Reaching out to the sun for a while 
And holding the soil 
forever and ever 

Now the sun 
Has not stirred 
Rusted gun 
Fallen bird 
Side by side in the world below 
A-hunting we will go 

-As Performed by Hem

 

Enjoy more from the annals of art in our Oil Journal

Gerald the Robot - A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Hans. He lived with his grandmother in a tiny house on the outskirts of a small town near the Canadian border. Every day Hans would go to school, study, and walk back to the tiny house again. When he walked in the front door his grandmother would greet him with a question:

“Welcome home Hans! Did you make any friends at school today?” and every day Hans would reply with great sadness,

“No, Grandmother, the other scholars seem disinclined to make my acquaintance.” And the grandmother would always respond,

“Maybe it’s because you talk like an encyclopedia, you foolish boy! I was going to give you a slice of this warm blackberry pie I just baked, but now I think I won’t. That leaves me with the responsibility of eating the whole thing; so I shall grow fat and, most likely, die of heart disease, and it will be all your fault!” So Hans would go to his room downcast, without any friends or any pie.

One day, as Hans was sitting in his room—having just been reprimanded by his grandmother and denied his piece of pie—he had an idea. It was such a good idea that he said it out loud:

“I will engineer and fabricate a robot to be my friend. Maybe then Grandmother will grant me a portion of that pie.” So Hans set to work making calculations, cutting sheet metal, testing power cells, screwing screws, programming software and dreaming of pie. He worked seven days and seven nights on his robot, and after the seventh night, it was completed. “His name will be Gerald, and we will be the best of friends,” said Hans, full of joy, “But first I must give him a worldview to believe in and act upon as all men have and do. I must set to work immediately, studying which mode of thought will make Gerald the best robot he can be.”

This is just what Hans did, all the time dreaming of the piece of warm pie he would get from his grandmother when she found out what a wonderful friend Gerald the Robot was to him. After five days and nights of study, Hans made his decision: “Gerald will be a Buddhist robot! He will deny the root of suffering: desire, and lean to empty his mind in meditation.” So he taught Gerald the Robot the teachings of Buddha and the eightfold path to Nirvana. When Gerald’s education was complete, Hans said to him, “Now, Gerald the Robot, be a good Buddhist and be my friend!” But Gerald ignored Hans completely and walked outside where it happened to be raining. When outside, he sat down in the pouring rain, crossed his robot legs and turned his own power switch off. There he sat and sat and sat, rusting away, his robot mind empty. Hans was distressed and called out to him, “Gerald, my robot companion, Buddhism has made you a poor companion; all you do is sit in the rain, rust and empty your robot mind! Now I shall have no pie.”

“You certainly will not!” his Grandmother interjected from behind him, “That robot friend is no friend at all. Oh! What a burden you leave on me to eat all this pie. I can feel the heart disease creeping up on me at this very moment! Oh my arteries! Oh my heart!” So she went away and ate all the pie.

Hans was perplexed, a little sad and very hungry. He said to himself, “If Gerald the Robot is to be a good friend I must bequeath him a different worldview.” So he set about finding a better worldview for Gerald. He tried nineteenth century German philosophy, but this only made Gerald launch a military campaign against Hans’ neighbors and write books lambasting the idea of the miraculous. He had no time to be Hans’ friend. So Hans received no pie, and his Grandmother grew ever fatter and nearer to her inevitable heart failure.

In desperation, Hans continued his search for the worldview which would make Gerald the Robot a good robot and a good friend. But Jean-Paul Sartre made Gerald suicidal and Woody Allen made him silly; social Darwinism made him vicious and domineering, and Hedonism made him embarrassing. Marxism seemed promising at first; it made Gerald a good sharer. But soon he was going around telling married couples their marriages were annulled by the state and taking the neighbors' property by force and sharing it. Of course the Grandmother heard complaints about Gerald the Robot’s tirades, suicide attempts, loose behavior, bad jokes, military campaigns and redistribution of the neighbors’ property and she continued to eat all the pie she made (a substantial amount, as shown by her now enormous size). All day long she would moan about the state of her arteries and her heart.

Now in despair, Hans decided to turn to what he saw as an outmoded worldview: Christianity. He had no real hopes that this would make Gerald the Robot a good robot or a good friend, but he saw no other way. One night, he took Gerald into his room, programmed basic Christian orthodoxy into his robot mind and went to bed. The next morning, Hans awoke to the sound Gerald confessing all the sins of his former worldviews and praying for forgiveness.

“What is this?” said Hans, “Why, Gerald the Robot seems humble and full of contrition. This is a promising turn of events.” From that day forward, Gerald the Robot was a new robot, a better robot. Though he sometimes fell back into despair, silly joking and vicious rhetoric, he always repented of these things and did good deeds with even more vim and vigor than before. Of course, Hans’ Grandmother noticed this and said,

“What a good friend you have in Gerald the Robot, Hans!” Gerald the Robot would always respond,

“What a friend I have in Jesus, grandmother. He saved me from my old bad robot ways.”

“How pleased I am in your new friend, Hans!” Hans’ Grandmother would say, “Would both of you like some pie?”

“I do not eat pie, Grandmother, for I am a robot,” Gerald the Robot would reply. But Hans would say,

“Yes, thank you kindly, Grandmother.”

So Hans and his Grandmother would eat the warm blackberry pie together and stave off Grandmother’s heart disease. In time she returned to a healthy grandmotherly weight, though she never regained her former figure. And Hans, his Grandmother and Gerald the Robot lived happily ever after.

The End

R. Eric Tippin
April 5, 2012
On Applewood Lane, Newton, KS 

(Hat-Tip Emry N. Tippin for the Drawing)