Much running around. But with it some understanding of things and greater familiarity with this great city. I will one day be ready to write about the city, that enthralling concept in life and Biblical theology.

If you’d like to see where we live, or how to reach it in Alimentador from Portal 80, then click here. We are right between the numbers 4 and 5.

It’s the second to the last night for us in our old place—almost all packed, and I’m thinking it was wise of me to cut down the library to 200 or so for this move; Epstein is right, a good number for books is 300, though I doubt I’ll stick to it. Anyway, the neighbors are having a party (have been since about noon, apparently). Loud music after dark just so we remember why it is we want to leave—though running from loud neighbors in Bogota is a bit vain.

One thing you might consider, the taxi from the airport to us just got a whole lot cheaper than it used to be. I bet we can get there in less than 15 min. We have a spare room or two if you want to come and visit!

Luke 4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

What was it that appeared to him
of all the splendor, wealth and power
of all the kingdoms of the world
time’s Babel and the devil’s tower?
Perhaps imagination
was what the devil lacked. Had he
not seen the splendor of the court
of God? To show preposterously
the mud and brick of Babylon
of Egypt, Greece, all humankind
to one who knew . . . the devil’s not
that dumb but rather blind.

It must be he did not believe
what Jesus quoted him before;
the word came without power—
in his deafness—so he must ignore
the truth and say, “This man is just
another man susceptible
to all the splendor, wealth and power
of the leopard and the bear,
the lion and the awful beast
with crushing feet and crushing teeth—
the lust of empire in one moment’s time . . .”

What happened in that moment’s time?
A flash of insight, what it meant
that strange, distorted meaning
and all the awfulness it lent
a vision conjured not of dreams
but an unresting adversary
who sought to call and not to call,
to picture in obscurity
not kingdoms but his blinding pride,
who thought he held and offered
a lie more splendid than the truth.
How little must have suffered
in a moment that could never last
of that obscure deceit our Lord.
One moment-long it all held fast
and then it vanished in a word.

I don’t know if you know about modality in English verbs, but those of us who start to teach English start to cease believing in the future tense. The future, tense, as you will already know, is formed by using the auxiliary “will.” But upon examination, “will” is found to resemble awfully that class of verbs we use to express modality: possibility, ability, obligation, etc.

Then you start to teach the uses of the present and present continuous, which we like to use to express the future (My flight departs tomorrow; I’m going to travel to Aruba), you really begin to question the future tense. Could it better be classified as modality?

The thing is slippery. No doubt the concept of the future exists, and perhaps the English future tense is on the whole an aspect of modality, but when you think of explaining it as such, you run into complications.

It probably has to do with the uncertainty the future brings up. If you “will” to do something, you’re really saying you have the desire and have so decided. But what if you’re talking about another agent? Take the arrival of a plane: when ought it to arrive, or should it, or will it? If you say the plane will arrive on time, you’re really making a statement about what you believe.That’s no way to explain something to basic English students.

The future is that way, it’s uncertain. The plane will arrive on time, for example, is more certain than The plane should arrive on time, or even The plane ought to arrive on time. But is it as certain as, The plane arrives at 11:30—with the present tense?

You probably noticed the modal use of “will” in the first paragraph: as you will already know. Try to classify that as a future tense! Perhaps somebody will classify it as a sort of anticipation by the writer of the occasion of the reading; but haven’t you ever heard it spoken? You probably have, and it was meant as a present (it is an amplification, but not an uncommon one, of As you know). It could be a present meaning of the future tense, the way we have a future meaning of the present tense. But what if you classify it as a modality of belief on the speaker’s part? I’m sure you know, or, I believe you are informed that . . . It works, and it makes more sense. The speaker is checking, or doing it for rhetorical effect, or buying time to think with circumlocutions. But the speaker is not saying that the knowledge will come subsequently.

We substitute “will” for the more exact “do” in the situation above—we certainly never say As you do already know, though it does seem logical under the circumstances—because “will” has a modal function and “do” does not. I am certain of it. And the suspicion that is growing, is that it never really ceases to have it.

Muero porque no muero —Theresa of Avila

There are two sorts of impatience. One is the impatience of the shallow with the ways of deep spirituality, the other is the impatience of the spiritual for the end, for something even better. And the relationship between them is that one ought to give way to the other. An impatience of quantity ought to give way to one of quality. We need to be slow and deep because true spirituality requires time.

Time for what? time to approach our prayers, time to study Scripture, time for meditation and reflection. Our age is all against it because the religion of prosperity must receive its dues in time; it has a devouring impatience of quantity.

When I was young I used to play by candle light. My father would go to the capital and returned bearing gifts, and at one point it was a steady supply of large, interesting candles. The reason for his choice was the not infrequent power failures. For those times each of us now had his own personal candle.

What we would also do would be to rise before five, light our candles at the stove and then go play by candle light. Much singed hair, I remember, and the smell of it, but I also have the mixture in my memory of the pleasure, the secret delight and the light of a candle.

When I began to work overnight during my last months in the USA, I was growing rapidly in my understanding of poetry. I was done with seminary and moving toward more freedom of investigation and perhaps of inquiry. I worked four ten-hour shifts with the result that I entered into the long life of the night, especially on my days off. I occupied myself very naturally with reading, writing, music and as well began to draw.

The writing of stories and poetry, the moments of communion with God, the varied reading from my not inconsiderable library and the creative discovery not only of poetry but also some of the rudiments of drawing, in the night, with the regular going out for walks, all came together in a golden way, like the flame of a candle in the darkness: a taste of a better life to come.

Our age, in its structure of living, it its ways and turnings is against this sort of life, though the age is disorganized enough to permit it at random. And this sort of candle life cannot be sustained merely by itself. It requires a purpose, a society into which it contributes and from which it draws sustenance. And my question is, is this function within the purposes of the church?

What else will connect with the spiritual vitality we need and which the religion of prosperity denies? Still, I am not sure the fostering of such society is in the purposes of the church, but such society has to be very close to a church because there really does not appear to me any other place to give the ideas it needs the kind of shelter and nourishment these require.

Which is the point at which our present spiritual impatience swims into view. That is something the church can and ought to resist, spreading by means of doctrine, instruction and application the ideas that form the basis of a life that values deeper spirituality and along with that, or for that same reason, deeper life in general. It is part of its paradoxical mission that the sort of spiritual impatience it fosters has a way of filling all of life, but at the same time opens the door of expectation for something better, more complete.*
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*Dawson examines the change from the monasticism of withdrawal and contemplation to the rise of the mendicant orders, friars active in the world in service and preaching. What was it in Western Civilization that cause this? He points to the thinking of Augustine, the contrast between the city of man and the city of God. The principle at the heart of the first is the love of self, that at the heart of the second is love of God. And this spiritual principle working itself out in the world while always looking beyond it is what transformed the spiritual benefit of withdrawal and contemplation into an active force in human society.

The official statements of any institution are usually the last thing on my reading list unless I’m looking for trouble. Too boring and too fake, or too silly, like a resolution (forgive my persistent lack of formality on this point, but they’re just ridiculous most of the time and pointless, unless one is looking for trouble). So I was not aware of Central Seminary’s ETHOS STATEMENT ON FUNDAMENTALISM & EVANGELICALISM.

Since I don’t watch TV but still have the modern habit of entertainment, I keep an eye on the sap flowing from some of the trees and found that It’s Official: Central Baptist Theological Seminary Refutes Its Historic Separatistic Position.

Refutes seems like the wrong word, but then I don’t think the chap meant to put Refines.

Yay!–I thought–perhaps a tussle will emerge. Well, for reasons that are pretty obvious what is shouted in some corners of North Dakota isn’t heard a lot of places elsewhere. I saw and somewhat partook in some of the online response to the non-merger of the school from which I graduated (not the mother of my soul because there’s one true mother of MY soul: Northland International University, formerly, and in my day, Northland Baptist Bible College, may she rest in peace). But lost in all that was this:

Because of these differences, we do not believe that complete cooperation with conservative evangelicalism is desirable. Nevertheless, we find that we have much more in common with conservative evangelicals (who are slightly to our Left) than we do with hyper-Fundamentalists (who are considerably to our Right), or even with revivalistic Fundamentalists (who are often in our back yard). In conservative evangelicals we find allies who are willing to challenge not only the compromise of the gospel on the Left, but also the pragmatic approach to Christianity that typifies so many evangelicals and Fundamentalists. For this reason, we believe that careful, limited forms of fellowship are possible.

I hope the part about the Right works out.

The world often forgets the truth below displayed, and I feel it is part of my solemn duty to post a regular reminder:

One of the chaps I was in school with reflecting on the effects of living in another country. He’s not the only one who says these things, I was just hearing them from another place the other day. This concern with proficiency in one’s own language is real. And there are only two responses that one can have to it: give up or struggle on, both of which have their own peculiar effects on the person’s character and personality.

The whole thing is baffling sometimes, and you never quite escape the feeling that you’re losing, and like David in Chile, that you ought to apologize beforehand because you know there’s something crucial you’re going to miss because you’re not really a part of the place in which you find yourself.