A Comedy Tonight

Last updated on: July 12, 2015 at 4:18 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

A Comedy Tonight 2015-07-12T16:18:35-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is where the future will be made.

All my children will be legal adults by the start of next month. This is not sad to me, because, for good or bad, I have been there for every year of their lives. The law is just now recognizing what has been true for a good while: there are not “kids” left to sit at the “kids’ table” this Thanksgiving. Three out of the four can toast the feast legally!

To know who you are, part of which is where you have been, is vital.

Dante found himself lost in Divine Comedy, but whether he plunged down to his roots in Hell or up through Purgatory to Paradise, the poet found people he knew. He lived in a real city and loved real people living and dead. They were capable of inspiriting him, infuriating him, and in the case of the blessed Beatrice, inspiring him.

Sometimes I wonder as I walk our neighborhood if enough of us know each other to have this sort of connectivity. We have no good or bad examples that are real . . . and so our fiction is becoming a shadow of fictions we have seen. If I want to relate to students, I compare a problem to something they have seen on Netflix or in theaters. Even then, the fictions are so diverse that there are few figures that we all have in common.

Facebook helps. I like seeing people’s lives (or some part of them) unfold that otherwise I would only hear about in a Christmas newsletter. Little other’s Grinch, Facebook is not enough, but it is something. The problem is making it the only thing, but my Surface doesn’t make me commit this error.

We need heroes that we know, men and women like my Dad, my pastor, his wife, and so many of our friends. I am blessed to have coworkers who are friends . . . we laugh and work together. They teach me every week as we pursue a nearly impossible dream. They insist that I not be Quixote and ground the dream in reality. Good friends stick by us as we blow it and inspire us to get up and keep going forward. Family is also real: nobody who knows us well thinks we are perfect, but we all love each other even when we disagree. God help me, but all this gives me a center, a stability, that makes navigating these dark times possible.

Oddly enough, we need cautionary tales from people we know. We must love our enemies, but we can also learn from them. We don’t have to preach sermons when we see the speck in our brother’s eye because it reminds us to see the giant plank of wood in our own eyes! Real people irritate us in ways that make sin manifest. Nobody can turn off the local pest, the troll, the difficult co-worker. They are real and there is no remote to speed us through the icky bits. Yet Jesus forces us to acknowledge our pains and use them to do surgery on self.

Rare is the person not in pastoral, psychological, or prophetic ministry called to publicly call out another’s faults. We learn from reality, but too often I retreat from reality to the virtual reality of books, games, or video.
Historical ignorance adds to this problem of disconnectedness.

Dante knew the past of his city, of Italy, and of the classical world. He felt at home with men who were not super heroes. The odd thing about the Divine Comedy written at the height of the Middle Ages is that it is almost prosaic compared to a superhero film. Dante used the best science of his day to write and his miracles are mostly the internal kind we experience daily if we pay attention.

How can we have roots if we purge the ugliness from our history? God is moving in Houston and Houston has a history. The city was named for a great, but flawed man. I should know his story if I am to live in his city. Our heritage is one of greatness, space city, and sorrow, segregation. Both the greatness and the sorrow are still with us.
Whenever I feel lost, and sometimes I do in these exciting if dangerous days, I look to my community, my past, and history. There are no children, for now, in the Reynolds’ house, but there were: I know that story and keep learning more as the grownup children “talk!” We go forward joyfully because we know where we have been: for good and all.

Culture

Spiritual Reflections

Previous Post

July 11, 2015

Work Together: Happening in Houston

Next Post

July 13, 2015 Talk Less

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

John Peter James Paul

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »