A Laetare Sunday Update from the Clemmons, on Mission
Levity Blip, Winters in the World, What's Next, Winterscenes cont.
Dear friends & family, &c.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today is Laetare Sunday, a blip of levity in the otherwise austere season of Lent. The name comes from Isaiah 66:10: “Rejoice ye with Jerusalem (Laetare Jerusalem), and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her.” It marks, more or less, the midpoint of this season of repentance and fasting and almsgiving.
In some churches (none I’ve been to), they break out some silly-looking pink vestments for the occasion, and the weighty Lenten purple blushes. It’s a whisper of Easter, a needful reminder that though we are miserable sinners who do well to dwell upon the incomprehensible weight of our sins individual and collective, God remains constant— our salvation and our rest.
I admit I have not kept the most austere of Lents thus far. Too many indulgences in our family’s fasting, too few genuine patterns of prayer, my fist still a little too tight in giving things away. Sometimes these little laxities have been occasions of grace and gratitude; sometimes they’ve been deliberate avoidance of dependence on and encounter with God. These failings, too, I offer to God for forgiveness, that I may be cleansed of my sin, and strengthened to serve him in newness of life.
After offering our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving this morning, we will gladly enjoy some lighter feastfare today--some grilled meats, perhaps, and a little college basketball?--and in so indulging we will give thanks to God for his undeserved and manifold gifts.
But then--again by grace--we'll take back up the fast. We will deny our greedy souls and gluttonous bodies, remembering that our life comes from and ends in God, that we need his Word more than bread, and his listening ear more than vapid entertainments. And what joy is set before us.
Find below brief updates on what has been and what will be.
Peace of Christ,
Zack
Winters in the World
A while ago I started Eleanor Parker's Winters in the World as my diversion-from-other-reading-I-should-be-doing book. I haven't gotten too far yet, but her opening chapters on winter have been delightful.
In the world which existed prior to the modern conveniences I've always known--electricity and furnaces being the most significant in this case--you can imagine (and really only imagine) how brutal ancient and medieval winters were. It became the common parlance to name a person's age by saying how many “winters in the world” they'd had. This winter in our world has not been so drastically dark or cold, but it's had its moments. We’ve had lingering seasons of passed-along illnesses, weeks or weekends lost to fitful coughing or stubborn fevers. But who hasn't?
Living in Alabama means Spring comes early anyway. The fairie-caps were drooping by the first week of February, new varieties of daffodils surprised our border-gardens, the redbuds and dogwoods have already bloomed and greened. And there’s been much good over the past couple of months:
Erin has been teaching more than expected--a few ceramics classes out of our home, but also as an instructor at a local art institute run out of Samford University. Most excitingly, Erin and her mother have a gallery show currently running at the Carnegie Visual Art Center in Decatur, AL. Erin also completed her third half-marathon with a disconcerting nonchalance.
I preached a somewhat morbid sermon on the death and life of Baptism at Christ the King in early January, and since then I’ve been teaching a 12-week Sunday School class on Digital Technology and Christian Discipleship. (That's the boring title, the more interesting, rejected titles included “Delete Yr Account: The Christian Imperative for Neo-Ludditism” and “What Hath Silicon Valley to do with Jerusalem?: Tertullian for the Digital Age” and “Please, for the love of God, Stop Blindly Accepting Digital Progress.”) The class is an almost coherent mishmash of Scripture and Illich and Postman and Berry and Debord and Cardinal Sarah and Andy Crouch and Brad East and LM Sacasas and Alastair Roberts, and it’s a lot of fun. We’ve just finished the section of the class I call “Provocations,” where I defend a thesis like “Christians should not have WiFi in their homes” and we have a followup conversation/debate. I’ve found that taking up what’s perceived as an extreme position helps awaken the possibility of change in what seems otherwise like an inevitable technological environment. Flannery O’Connor’s “large and startling figures” and all that. I was also able to take on a few of our church’s Epiphany Home Blessings, which I’m excited to make an annual habit.
Eleanor, Ames, and Virgil continue to lengthen, and to find new forms of creative expression, to see new glories in creation and new places on earth, and to contribute their fair share to the world’s theater of the absurd. To wit, we’ve recently entered a major Reptile Phase to coincide with the ongoing Bug Phase.
What’s Next
This is basically a teasing title, because the short answer is--as it is always--I don’t know. We moved to Birmingham so I could continue my theological training and acquire a professional credential (as it were). That, at least, is clearly in view. In one month and ten days, Lord willing, I’ll graduate from Beeson as a putative Master of Divinity (ha).
Between now and then I have about as dense a month of work as I’ve had in these three years. I'll keep teaching at Christ the King (wrapping up the Sunday School class mentioned supra, plus an evening teaching this week in our Lenten series on the Decalogue [for whatever reason I was assigned Murder and Adultery]), and prepping a new Arts Event for Eastertide. I have approximately 5 books to read, 4 papers to write, and 3 sermons to compose before the semester’s end.
I was awarded the James Earl Massey Student Preaching Award (at which I’m humbled, honored), a consequence of which is that I’ll preach in Beeson’s final chapel service of the semester. (If anyone’s interested in showing up/tuning in, that’ll be April 18th at 11:00am, livestreamed here.)
Many of y’all (and I dare to presume there is a plural “you all” on the other end of this newsletter) are probably most interested in where and what we Clemmons will get up to once all that is over. Alas, I haven’t the news to share. There are some lively possibilities, but given the entirely contingent nature of each, it's probably best neither to presume nor to discuss them publicly at the moment. Rest assured, you all will know soon after we do.
We are greedy and grateful for your continued prayers, especially in this March-April month, that God would be going before us and that we would listen and obey.
WinterScenes cont.
photos from Birmingham, AL and Montgomery, AL, January-March 2023
Status Board
Reading: In preparation for a sermon I gave on sexual identity from Matthew 19 and Genesis 1 and 2, I read Abigail Favale’s recent book The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory. It’s just a gift of a book—it knows what it's about; and speaks to a contentious contemporary morass with clarity and grace and more clarity. Highly recommended. I also had a great time with Cuyahoga, which is a ramblin’ novel in the grand American tradition of the tall tale.
Listening: I’m just a funk guy now, so I was more than pleased when Vulfpeck released their new album, Schvitz. This cover of Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” will warm your spirit, and not just because the performance inexplicably takes place in a sauna.
Viewing: Nothing worth recommending, I’m afraid.
Food & Drink: My friend Manny brewed a pristine black IPA and a scotch ale which led me immediately into a prayer of gratitude. Not for public sale, alas.
Prayer Requests
The best way to support us is to join with the Son in remembering us before the Father. If you’d like to pray with and for us, here are some things you can remember:
that God would provide the right job for Zack (and the family), and would make the decision for the next phase of ministry clear
that Zack would finish his graduate education with diligence and persistence, and that his chapel sermon in particular would be faithful & his preparation something less-than-excruciating
that Erin would find times of genuine rest in the midst of her own busy season, and that her gallery reception on March 24th would be a great encouragement
that our children would delight in the Lord’s world, and would come to know and love him ever more deeply
We’d also like to pray with and for you! If you’re reading this, you’re probably already in our prayers, but we’d love to know more specifically what we can pray for. You can text us, of course, or you can email us prayer requests at clemmonsonmission@gmail.com
We’re the Clemmons family–-Zack, Erin, Eleanor, Ames & Virgil–-living & studying & working in Birmingham, Alabama for sake of God’s Kingdom.
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