Reconstructing

l o g o s

Yale’s Undergraduate Journal of Christian Thought

reconstructing

v

volume 14 - issue i

fall 2022

OUR MISSION

λ ο γ ο ς is Greek for “word.” The disciple

John used “Logos” as an epithet for Jesus,

invoking language as an image of incarnation,

the Word made flesh. In Christianity,

Logos became personal. Because

Christ clothed himself in flesh, he became

a life giving light to us, revealing the truth

of all things. The Yale Logos takes on this

name because our Mission is also personal

and incarnational. We believe that by

loving Christ and our fellow learners passionately

with our whole heart, soul and

minds, we align ourselves with Yale’s pursuit

of truth and light.

SUMBISSIONS & INQUIRIES

yale.logos@gmail.com

ONLINE

www.yalelogos.com

www.facebook.com/YaleLogos

Instagram @yalelogos

DESIGN

Design by Hannah Turner

Design Team: Lily Lawler, Marcos Barrios

Photography Credits:

tinyurl.com/LogosReconstructingPhotos

Reconstructing: Fall 2022

letter from the editor

Matthew 7:25, “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds

blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been

founded on the rock.” (ESV)

Dear Reader,

As children, my siblings and I would present our parents with the Lego houses

we’d built and ask them to be our building inspectors. They would shake the

house around a little bit and put some pressure on it, and show us which parts

of our walls began to crumble. And then we would go and rebuild the weak

parts of our houses, loving the challenge of building something that would

last.

And perhaps our lives are not so different from Lego houses. When we find

ourselves under pressure, we can see the fault lines running through the assumptions

we had taken for granted. We find ourselves forced to reconstruct

the opinions and beliefs we had relied on.

But, for Christians, this should be exciting. We know how to build stronger

houses. We have confidence that the life built on Christ is one that will endure,

so even when the rains fall and the floods come, a house built on the rock—

built on a foundation of the Gospel—will stand.

So we’re not afraid of storms. We’re eager to strip away all the facades until

only God’s eternal truth will be left. And when all we have is the framework

and foundation of God’s word, we can rebuild our worldviews on the truth.

Logos originally planned to write an unthemed issue this year. But as our articles

began to take shape, we found shared themes. We were all writing about

restructuring our lives, on an individual, institutional, and societal level—from

childhood to deathbed. About reassessing our perspectives on creation, our

role in it, and our responsibility to the people we share it with.

This issue offers new outlooks on friendship, on Mary Oliver, on Transcendentalism

and on Google Calendars. But my prayer is that each of these articles

would encourage us to disassemble our habits and preconceptions and societal

expectations, and to rebuild our lives on truth. When we find ourselves

with the opportunity to reconstruct our lives, I hope we’ll ask—what is strong

enough to stand?

Sincerely,

Amelia Dilworth

Editor-in-Chief

logos . 3

masthead

Amelia Dilworth | Editor-in-chief Hannah Turner | Managing Editor Justin Ferrugia | Executive Director

staff

Jonathan Pierre Marcos Barrios Yoska Guta

Zeki Tan Lily Lawler Lukas Bacho

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Logos receives funding from the Yale University Undergraduate

Organizations Funding Committee. The Logos team gratefully

acknowledges the support of the Elm Institute, Justin and Moriah Hawkins,

T. Wyatt Reynolds, and the coaches and members of the Augustine

Collective. We invite you to get to know our wonderful staff here:

www.yalelogos.com/who-we-arevcom/who-we-are


contents

Dialectic

Justin Ferrugia

Life City

Amelia Dilworth

Re-evaluating

Jonathan Pierre

The Creator’s Commission

Marcos Barrios

Being with the Dead

Zeki Tan

In Search of Perfect Friendship

Yoska Gutta

Faces Turned Toward Glory

Lily Lawler

Growing Young

Hannah Turner

Habits of Mind

Lukas Bacho

8

11

14

18

21

26

30

33

36

logos . 5

logos . 5


rebuild

logos . 7

Dialectic

Justin Ferrugia

In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake

nearly destroyed St. Dominic’s Catholic

Church in San Francisco, California. The

Gothic church, originally constructed

between 1923 and 1948, is the seat of the

western province Dominican order—an

important church, and one that could

not be lost without a fight. Since 1984,

engineers had determined that the

brittle stone construction of the church

made it seismically unstable—and if it

was to persist until the next generation,

it would have to be reinforced. Most

modern methods of earthquake

fortification involve complex systems

of subterranean springs and slides that

allow the earth to move underneath a

building that remains stationary. This

was not an option for St. Dominic’s, as it

would essentially require the demolition

and reconstruction of the church—an

endeavor antithetical to the restoration.

The solution devised by engineers was

nothing short of medieval: they proposed

the construction of nine flying buttresses

to shore up the cathedral’s walls. [1]

Flying buttresses are an engineering

tool used since at least the 4th century

which provide lateral stability to the tall,

ill supported walls that exist in many

cathedrals. In the Gothic era, these

buttresses were used to counteract the

outward lateral force provided by the

vaulted ceiling.

As construction methods and materials

improved, the flying buttress was no

longer needed and became largely

obsolete. It was a cornerstone of the

Western architectural tradition that,

because of progress and advancement,

was no longer needed and was discarded.

Yet, in 1989, in a situation of exception,

architects and engineers used this relic

of a past time—a bygone tradition—to

reinforce and insure the longevity of a

modern structure.

Tradition is a complicated and fraught

subject. In the science of engineering,

when the central question, “does it

work?” is answered objectively by the

principles of static equilibrium, it can be

easy to revive methods that our current

age has discarded. But, in the realm of

human interaction, society, politics, and

the institutions that govern our lives and

behavior, the answer to the question

“does it work?” is far more difficult to

decipher.

The example of St. Dominic’s Church,

however, reframes the question: how

do we know when a tradition that has

been discarded can be useful to solve a

modern problem?

HOW DO WE KNOW

WHEN A TRADITION

THAT HAS BEEN

DISCARDED CAN BE

USEFUL TO SOLVE A

MODERN PROBLEM?

There is an increasing tendency to reject

traditions of the past wholeheartedly to

the point that we refuse to—or perhaps,

more modestly, are uninterested in—

studying. Much of this is justified.

Human suffering has been reduced.

The forces of inequality have been

weakened. Progress exists, but despite

the modernists’ best efforts, it is not

always linear. How, then, do we decide

which traditions to keep and which

should go? Furthermore, how do we

determine which situations call for a

return to a prior tradition? Or, in other

words, when progress can only come

about through a reclamation of prior

values or traditions?

In the Catholic Church after the 1960s

and the Second Vatican Council, this

question has plagued the mind of

the faithful and the clergy alike, often

leading to bitter disputes and even

schisms between the so-called orthodox

and heterodox, or between the “radtrads”

(short for radical traditionalists)

and the “reformists.” These debates are

often destructive.

But even outside the Church, these

are questions society must continually

wrestle with. But how? I hope here

to build a framework, much like the

framework used by engineers, by which

we can evaluate norms and traditions of

the past and present, and decide what

practices to reinstitute.

Certainly, moral disagreement exists.

And in a world where sociocultural

norms are rapidly changing, much

discord emerges when individuals do not

understand the reason for the rejection

of traditions. We all consume literature,

music, laws, common opinions, and sage

sayings—and unite these through our

lived experience. Diverse perspectives

are bound to emerge and if we cannot


achieve a sense of understanding

through open discourse, the shockwaves

from the rapid change of traditions

and cultural norms risks cracking the

foundations of families, cultures, and

nations.

As it happens, the method itself I will

propose to clarify and resolve these

disagreements comes from the medieval

Scholastic tradition and the ancient

Greek tradition before it: the Dialectic.

Though the dialectical has taken on a

new, more metaphysical connotation in

Modernity, the ancients and scholastics

understood it, in its most basic form,

as an argument or conversation. A

thesis meets an antithesis, distinctions

are drawn, and a synthesis emerges. In

his Topic, Aristotle describes dialectical

reasoning thus:

“Reasoning…is ‘dialectical’, if it

reasons from opinions that are generally

accepted. Things are ‘true’ and ‘primary’

which are believed on the strength not

of anything else but of themselves: for in

regard to the first principles of science

it is improper to ask any further for the

why and wherefore of them; each of the

first principles should command belief

in and by itself. On the other hand,

those opinions are ‘generally accepted’

which are accepted by every one or by

the majority or by the philosophers—i.e.

by all, or by the majority, or by the most

notable and illustrious of them.”

All human life deserves respect. Suffering

should be alleviated when possible. Justice

is to be sought. These are principles both

primary and universally true. Yet their

application is hotly contested. Does

euthanasia dignify or destroy life? Is a

cash bail system just, or not? These are

opinions that emanate from these first

principles, and the only way to develop

them is through the process of dialectic

reasoning.

The instinct to cast away the things of

old, to exclude from the conversation

relevant ideas or relics simply because of

their antiquity, should cause us great fear.

If we ever are to have hope of progress,

we must be open, seek out, and nurture

the opposing argument. If this sounds

legalistic, you’re right. The last vestiges

of a pure dialectical thinking exhibit

themselves most prominently in the legal

system generally and in the courtroom

specifically. Looking at democratic

backsliding and the rise of autocracy

throughout time, it is paradoxically

lawyers who are the most ingrained in

the elite in times of peace but are the

last line of defense against the rise of

autocracy—the single greatest example

of regression achieved through the

quashing of antitheses, even those most

vulgar.

To make the case for the dialectical I will

give two examples: one contemporary

and one historical. Paul de Man, a

Belgian-born literary theorist pioneered

the development of post-modern

literary thought and—along with his

great friend Jacques Derrida, an ethnic

Jew— worked, in short, to understand

Auschwitz. How had modernity and

the enlightenment led to Nazi death

camps? How had the enlightenment––

an enterprise that promised to build

itself upon human reason and exalt

human self-determination, a movement

that endeavored to move beyond God

and locate the transcendent within the

human mind— led to one of the greatest

atrocities in human history?

At the end of his life, Paul de Man taught

at Yale and was appointed as the Sterling

Professor of Comparative Literature.

After his death in 1983, a Belgian

graduate student at the University of

Leuven discovered a multiplicity of

articles that de Man had written during

the Second World War. They were

shockingly anti-semitic. Derrida, a Jew

and avid fighter against the relics of

Nazism, had to answer for his deceased

friend. In a time when universities were

struggling with the question of whether

to teach Heidegger, Derrida, as part of a

sixty page essay embraces the antithesis,

saying:

“Will I dare say ‘on the other hand’ in

the face of the unpardonable violence

and confusion of [de Man’s] sentences?

What could possibly attenuate the

fault?…But one must have the courage

to answer injustice with justice. And

although one has to condemn these

seances, which I have just done, one

ought not do it without examining

everything that remains readable in a

text one can judge to be disastrous…

Therefore, I will dare to say, this time as

before, ‘on the other hand.’” [2]

Derrida’s point in this short passage and

the essay as a whole is not to be tolerant

of evil, but to search desperately to find

the other side of the coin. The insidious

evil of the 20th century posed a complex

problem for academics. What is to be

done when good ideas are born from

the minds of those who cooperate with

or perpetuate great evil, the existence

of which leaves scars that will persist

for centuries? Derrida’s answer is, in

part, “be not afraid.” In an essay on

forgiveness, Derrida acknowledges

without hesitation that “...yes there is the

unforgivable.” But, he asks, “Is this not,

in truth, the only thing to forgive? The

only thing that calls for forgiveness?” [3]

DERRIDA USED THE

TOOL OF FORGIVENESS

AND SYNTHESIZED A

PATH FORWARD.

I argue that Derrida’s enterprise

defending his friend Paul de Man was

dialectical in character for the simple

reason that, after a time and a place when

the “true” and “primary” axioms of

humanity were forgotten, he reclaimed

these axioms and rather than rejecting

the man who rejected the axioms,

Derrida used the tool of forgiveness and

synthesized a path forward.

This is a high stakes, and incredibly

complicated example on which

reasonable people will disagree for

logos . 9

centuries. How, though, does the

dialectical enter into our lives as

students, young academics, and young

professionals?

I’ll explore another example. I was

recently at an event with a person in a

position of leadership at the Yale Law

School. As one would expect from

someone in a leadership role at one of

the most prestigious law schools in the

world, this person has been both praised

and criticized for the handling of several

free speech issues. In this context the

discord and polarization that exists in the

United States and around the world was

discussed—especially in the legal field.

In so doing, the speaker demonstrated

the power of the dialectical admonishing

the attendants to never reject the counter

argument. Paraphrasing one of the most

salient points, the speaker said that the

day when we collectively cannot find an

opposing argument will be the day that

discourse and progress dies.

Derrida’s “on the other hand” is not

only a powerful tool, but essential for

moral progress.

This essay began with the question:

how do we know when a tradition that has

been discarded can be useful to solve a modern

problem? As it turns out, the answer to

this question comes to us in the form of

a forgotten tradition: the dialectic. The

dialectic gives us both a powerful tool to

discover which traditions enable us, and

which ones corrupt us. It stabilizes our

dialogue, and gives us the scaffolding

to build empathy with our interlocutors

and, perhaps, if we are lucky, to forgive

the wrongs they make.

The seismic upgrade project that added

the flying buttresses at St. Dominic’s

Church in San Francisco cost 6.6

million dollars. They are constructed on

concrete piers many feet underground.

In reality, the level of engineering and the

construction––in short, the application

of this medieval solution––was adapted

to the common era. The ingenious

solution will serve the church for years

to come. I suggest we see a lesson in the

story of St. Dominic’s to search through

the good customs we have inherited for

those that can buttress us and stabilize us

for years to come.

[1] Hurley, Fr. Michael. “The Feast of the Dedication

of St. Dominic’s Church - Pastor’s Corner.” St.

Dominic’s Catholic Church: Pastor’s corner.

Accessed January 6, 2023. https://stdominics.org/

resources/pastors_corner?id=678.

[2] Derrida Jacques, Like the Sound of the Sea Deep

within a Shell: Paul de Man’s War. Critical Inquiry, Vol.

14, No. 3, The Sociology of Literature (Spring, 1988),

pp. 590-652

[3] Derrida, Jaques: On Cosmopolitanism and

Forgiveness. Routledge London, England (2001)


Life City

Amelia Dilworth

Sometimes when I look at my Google

Calendar, I think of each hour as a city

block, and all my events as buildings

I’ve constructed in the city of my life.

And sometimes, I think—this this is not a city

I’d want to live in.

I wouldn’t want to live in a city with

buildings so close to each other, with

no green space for play or recreation.

I wouldn’t want to live in a city with so

many schools and offices but only a few

ice cream shops and swimming pools.

I do try to build a beautiful, desirable

city for myself—but I find the city

easily becomes overrun with unusable

surface parking lots in between classes,

and overscheduled with buildings

constructed one on top of the other.

I think about Central Park—in a place

as densely built up as New York City,

the city would be unlivable without

a place for freedom. Giving up land

in the heart of New York City for

green space may feel like a ridiculous,

radical, irrational sacrifice. How many

billions of dollars could that land be

worth if it was used for real estate?

But without Central Park, the whole

city would be worthless. If that same

amount of green space were chopped

up and divided into little medians

throughout the city, that would be an

easier sacrifice—but it wouldn’t have

the same impact. New York would be

a different city without that space for

rest and recreation.

And it’s hard to take time off—to

build parks like this across our own

lives. But science is clear that we think

better when we give ourselves time to

rest rather than constantly engaging

in long-term, high-intensity mental

stimulation. Neuroscientists have found

that “when we are resting the brain is

anything but idle and that, far from

being purposeless or unproductive,

downtime is in fact essential to mental

processes that affirm our identities,

develop our understanding of human

behavior and instill an internal code

of ethics.” [1] We actually need rest

to learn, be creative, and process the

information we receive from work.

In 2021, The Wall Street Journal

reported that half of the people using

Microsoft Teams “respond to chats in

five minutes or less,” and there was

a 10% increase in emails answered

after working hours. [2] During the

pandemic, remote work sprawled

across the boundaries between home

and office, now capable of colonizing

every moment of employees’ time—

resulting in unprecedented stress,

burnout, and resignations. [3]

The white-collar American workforce,

which most college students intend

to join, is working more than ever

before. And they’re also more stressed

than ever, leading to “lack of interest,

motivation and energy at work,”

“cognitive weariness,” and eventually

“[raising] the risk of degenerative

brain diseases such as dementia and

Alzheimer’s.” [4] Overwork and

chronic work stress makes us worse

employees, at a cost to our own minds.

Maybe hyperproductivity is, actually, a

waste of time.

In Leviticus 23:22, a passage from the

Old Testament, God tells the Israelites,

“And when you reap the harvest of

your land, you shall not reap your

field right up to its edge, nor shall you

gather the gleanings after your harvest.

You shall leave them for the poor and

for the sojourner: I am the Lord your

God” (ESV).

God gives the Israelites a zoning code

that prevents them from sucking all the

logos . 11

possible worth out of their land. And

if we view our time as land, this means

that God calls His people to let others

benefit from their blessings, instead of

working to the point of exhaustion.

God isn’t saying, “you shall not sow

your field right up to its edge, so you

can build a golf course.” We aren’t

leaving unharvested time in our lives

for self-serving leisure—we’re leaving

time to do good. Harvesting time

but sharing it with the “poor and the

sojourner” might look like leaving time

to volunteer, time to vote, time to bring

food to a sick neighbor.

Our society often sees time as a

dichotomy: work, or pleasure. But

the approach to urban planning/

time management/agriculture/social

justice outlined in Leviticus suggests

that life should include some time to be

productive, without being profitable.

The cities of our lives were never

meant to be factories and warehouses

from dawn to dusk with extractive

pleasures lurking on the weekends.

This is where the Central Park

metaphor falters: New York City

reaps its fields all the way to the

edges, building on every inch of the

island. Central Park isn’t wild and

unscripted and sublime—–it has

carefully measured boundaries. It has

hotdog stands. Central Park is the bare

minimum required to keep functioning

at an unsustainable, break-neck speed.

Central Park only made the

surrounding real estate more valuable,

squeezing even more worth out of the

land. And, when it was built in 1858,

Central Park displaced a thriving Black

neighborhood. Beneath the illusion of

freedom and rest, Central Park is an

exploitative real estate maneuver built

on stolen land.

If we see our calendars as land,

Christians would argue that God is

calling humans to a type of rest even

more precious, more costly, than property

in Manhattan. A time of genuine

freedom.

GOD IS CALLING

HUMANS TO A TYPE

OF REST EVEN MORE

PRECIOUS,

MORE

COSTLY,

THAN

PROPERTY IN

MANHATTAN. A TIME

OF GENUINE FREEDOM.

In Deuteronomy, God commands

his people, “Observe the Sabbath

day, to keep it holy. As the Lord your

God commanded you. Six days you

shall labor and do all your work, but

the seventh day is a Sabbath to the

Lord your God. On it you shall do no

work…. You shall remember that you

were a slave in the land of Egypt, and

the Lord your God brought you out

from there with a mighty hand and

an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy

5:12-15, ESV).

And I think that college students like

myself, with our overfilled Gcals and

five-year career plans, understand

better than anyone else in a modern,

technological society that “not

reap[ing] your field right up to its

edge” comes from the same ethos as

keeping a Sabbath, because time is our

land. It’s our investment in our future,

so we aspire to be as productive and

fruitful as possible. We reap and sow

extracurriculars and classes on every

acre of our schedule. Productivity is

not inherently bad—but we’re afraid

of giving up time in our schedules to

worship an unseen God the same way

that ancient people must have been

afraid of sacrificing the best of their

harvest and sharing the remainder


with the poor.

But I’ve found that being willing to

sacrifice time and space requires

believing in a God who is worth your

time. In Deuteronomy, God tells the

Israelites to remember that He brought

them out of slavery to remind them

why He deserves their time: He is the

God who redeems, who provides, who

brings his people life and freedom.

He is a God who is worth more

than anything I could do for myself.

Christians today aren’t called to follow

Old Testament commandments, but if

we serve the same God, living for Him

still requires prioritizing Him above all

else. Christians believe that we don’t

just owe Jesus a seventh of our week,

we owe Him our entire lives.

BEING WILLING TO

SACRIFICE TIME AND

SPACE

REQUIRES

BELIEVING IN A GOD

WHO IS WORTH YOUR

TIME.

So I don’t want a God I can fit into

my schedule like getting a flu shot or

changing the Brita filter. A convenient

God wouldn’t be worth serving. My

God is more than a church service in

my Gcal— He is the master of Time

itself. He isn’t a single building in the

city of my schedule, He’s the one who

created the earth and the oceans that

roar over it. Time was never mine

to begin with. My life and my land

belong to Him.

A CONVENIENT GOD

WOULDN’T BE WORTH

SERVING.

This is the only way I can find real,

genuine rest—to fully surrender

control to God, to rejoice in the fact

that He always has and always will

provide for me.

So I’ve found that taking time to go to

church when I have homework due on

Monday, or pausing to read my Bible

even on a hectic morning, are the

choices that actually bring me peace.

I do enjoy being busy—but I don’t

need an over-structured calendar to

feel fulfilled. I can’t harvest time with

God—but I can’t harvest swimming in

the ocean or watching the sunrise from

the mountaintop, either. I refuse to

build office parks in the most beautiful

parts of my city. I’ll reconstruct the city

of my life around Him.

I write all of this, but I must confess—

again and again I find myself building

my city into the edges of a rising

ocean, raising skyscrapers into sandy

desert winds, wondering how long I

can get away with an unsustainable,

deceptively “productive” life.

But when hurricanes come and

earthquakes rumble and the teetering

metropolis of my overscheduled

life begins to crumble, I’m forced to

remember that I’m not in control—

He is. When the water sweeps away

my streets I remember that we aren’t

all-powerful.

And it’s comforting to remember

that I’m not the architect of my own

destiny. I don’t have to have the shaky

city of my whole life planned out.

When I’m awash in unexpected

delays and my schedule falls apart, I

remember that God is the one who has

dominion over time and space, not me.

He calms the sea because he spoke it into

existence. When my days feel fuller than

ever, that’s when I need God most.

So, God, teach me to let my land rest

and to let my soul be still. Teach me

that time and space belong to you. And

when I forget these things, when I’ve

built my own cities and say I did this

for myself—let the hurricanes thunder

onto my shores, bring me to my knees,

remind me that I am made to serve the

God who saves.

[1] Ferris Jabr, “Why Your Brain Needs More

Downtime.” October 15, 2013. https://www.

scientificamerican.com/article/mental-downtime/

[2] [3] Te-Ping Chen and Ray A. Smith, “American

Workers Are Burned Out, and Bosses Are Struggling

to Respond.” December 21, 2021. https://www.

wsj.com/articles/worker-burnout-resignations-

pandemic-stress--11640099198

[4] Bryan Robinson, “How Chronic Work Stress

Damages Your Brain And 10 Things You Can

Do.” May 2, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/

bryanrobinson/2022/05/02/how-chronic-work-

stress-damages-your-brain-and-10-things-you-can-

do/?sh=1bfcf4165795

logos . 13

Re-evaluating

Jonathan Pierre

I’ve found a growing sense of unrest

recently with believing things to be true

merely because they’ve been handed to

me as such. This isn’t the way anyone

should accept things to be true in

faith, in the same way that answering

“It’s always been done this way” is an

insufficient response to “Why are things

done like this?” in business. As someone

who grew up in the church, I’m realizing

how many surface-level truths I’ve

been conditioned to accept with little

scrutiny. Questions like “Why did Jesus

have to die for our sins? Couldn’t God

have just changed the rules?” and “Why

are we born sinners? Isn’t that unfair?”

have laid in my blindspots, underneath

assumptions that I didn’t deliberately

take up.

I believe that Jesus is the way, the truth,

and the life. I’m realizing, though, that

just knowing the end destination doesn’t

satisfy me. I desire to know all the lines

of reasoning that point to Jesus as Lord.

I want to know for myself why what I

believe is true. As an analogy, I don’t

want to just know the street address but

the directions for how to get there. I

want to ‘reconstruct’ my faith from the

ground up.

I have vivid memories of laying on the

floor of my sophomore dorm room,

frustrated by the logic of faith and

overwhelmed by questions that felt too

much to contain. I felt a disconnect

between the zealous high schooler I

was when I first came to faith and the

person I had become—a college student

drowning in an entropic web of doubt,

afraid of what I might find if I dared to

ask the questions.

IF I BELIEVE THAT JESUS

IS LORD, I SHOULDN’T

BE AFRAID TO PEER

BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

I’ve since learned that there’s merit in

doing this kind of investigating of my

faith. If I believe that Jesus is Lord, I

shouldn’t be afraid to peer behind the

curtain. If I want to live a life of long

devotion to God, at some point along the

way, I’m going to be faced with doubts

that force me to critically examine what

I believe.

The risk I find in building my faith

on a foundation of merely subjective

experience is that when I face the suffering

that every Christian is promised to face

(2 Timothy 3:12, ESV) and the doubts

come rushing in, my faith is prone to

come tumbling down like Jenga blocks.

When things get tough in life, I’m going

to need a tried and tested, objective truth

to lean on. One that posits that God is

real, good, and faithful.

I’m inspired by the story of the Berean

Jews in Acts who, in receiving the

message of the Gospel, “examined the

scriptures daily to see if these things were

so” and then “therefore believed” (Acts

17:11-12, ESV). They took the message

that they were handed and worked

out their faith with reason, in order to

establish for themselves the truth of what

they heard.

BEING HERE IS AN

OPPORTUNITY

TO

DEFINE,

SCRUTINIZE

AND SHARPEN OUR

BELIEFS.

For those who have committed to

following Jesus, building this foundation

of reason for why we believe what we

believe equips us to better defend our

faith. As Jesus’s disciple Peter instructs

in 1 Peter 3:15: “always [be] prepared to

make a defense to anyone who asks you

for a reason for the hope that is in you”

(ESV). What Peter doesn’t say is that

it’s tough to defend something that we

haven’t thoroughly defined for ourselves

yet. At the same time, questions we get

that we don’t know the answers to reveal

our blindspots. This is why I feel a sense

of urgency to do this “reconstructing”

while I’m still at Yale. Never again will I

be surrounded by this many intellectuals,

both Christians and non-Christians alike.

Being here is an opportunity to define,

scrutinize and sharpen our beliefs.

I’m confident that intellectually engaging

with our faith like this honors God. This

semester, I’ve found myself meditating

on the part of Hebrews 11:6 that says

that God “rewards those who seek Him”


(ESV). The Greek word for seek, ekzeteo,

means “to seek out, investigate diligently,

scrutinize.” [1] Another translation says

“to seek out for one’s self.” God takes

pleasure in us working out for ourselves

why we believe what we believe and,

in doing so, building a personal faith in

Him that has fullness and depth.

Jesus tells us to “love the Lord your

God…with all your mind” (Matt.

22:37, ESV). What would fully loving

God with our minds be if we put aside

our faculty of reason when it came to

matters of faith? If living for Jesus is

the most important thing, then isn’t it

logical to devote our minds, with all

of their capabilities, to our pursuit of

Him? I believe it’s an act of faith to even

engage in this questioning and bring our

frustrations to the smartest person there

is. God is faithful to give answers. And

we can have peace in asking the hard

questions because we know that Jesus is

Lord.

IF GOD IS THE SAME

GOD THAT CREATED

ALL THINGS BOTH

SEEN AND UNSEEN,

WOULDN’T IT BE A

BIT UNDERWHELMING

IF WE COULD

UNDERSTAND ALL OF

IT?

The caveat to doing this kind of

questioning in a way that glorifies God

is to maintain intellectual humility. It’s

foolish to rely absolutely on our own

wisdom. If God is the same God that

created all things both seen and unseen,

wouldn’t it be a bit underwhelming if we

could understand all of it? The apostle

Paul writes that “the foolishness of God

is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Cor.

1:25 ESV). God’s existence, sovereignty

or goodness shouldn’t be dismissed

because of our finite understanding.

This necessary humility before God is

why the psalmist writes: “O Lord, my

heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not

raised too high; I do not occupy myself

with things too great and too marvelous

for me” (Psalms 131:1, ESV).

Whether you’re a believer in Jesus, a

skeptic, or somewhere lost in the middle

this is a nudge to not be afraid to ask the

tough questions. Faith doesn’t have to

be anti-intellectual—there are answers

to the questions you have. Explore the

doubts instead of letting them fester.

Put on intellectual humility. Engage in

hard conversations. I expect that this

process of reevaluating, relearning,

reconstructing—whatever you want

to call it—is a lifelong one. One that,

like our lives, will have mountains and

valleys. Many questions we ask might

never be answered. But, of course, that

doesn’t mean that they’re not worth

asking.

[1] Thayer Joseph Henry et al. Thayer’s Greek-English

Lexicon of the New Testament : Coded with the Num-

bering System from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance

of the Bible. . Hendrickson 1996.

logos . 15


restore

logos . 17

The Creator’s Commission

Marcos Barrios

I walk into the clearing and freeze. The

grass is lush and bright, the sunlight

plays off the trees, a gurgling stream

winds past. I stand there in awe, soaking

in the gorgeous sight. Striding into the

grassy center I sit down, feeling the light

breeze rustle my hair and the sun warm

my skin. I take a breath and smell the

subtle aroma of nearby wildflowers. All

of a sudden I hear a rustle across the

clearing. The branches start to tremble.

Heavy steps thud in the distance.

Chirping fills the air and I see bright

colors flash through the canopy. The dirt

beneath my feet sifts and vibrates. And

then BOOM. An explosion of creatures

leap out of the tree line, pour out of the

sky, erupt from the ground. A flurry of

feathers, scales, and fur of every color fill

the clearing. I crane my head to glimpse

the lumbering beasts towering over me. I

watch as countless small critters scuttle

across the ground. The air buzzes with

the flapping wings of thousands. The

atmosphere pulses with life. I soak in the

wonder and joy of it all.

One of the creatures steps forward. His

muscles glide under his pelt as he takes a

silent step, the light playing against his

spots. He strides towards me, stopping

just within reach. I gaze into his bright

eyes and a flicker of recognition passes

between us. He lowers his front paws

and puts his head to the ground. I stick

out my hand and tenderly place it on his

head…

And then it comes.

An idea.

A word.

A name.


In chapter two of Genesis, tucked

between the creation account and the

fall of man, is a curious story we often

overlook. Its significance is unparalleled.

It’s the very first action of humanity

detailed in scripture, the only look at

humans in the Garden of Eden before

the fall, and one of the first interactions

between God and man. This narrative

reveals that humans were purposefully

created to be commissioned by and

collaborate with God as unique, free,

creative beings. It is a clear template

of God’s intended relationship with

humanity and a vision for what eternity

with God will look like. Ultimately, it

inspires us to believe in the beauty and

potential of being made in the image of

God.

“Now the Lord God had formed out of the

ground all the wild animals and all the birds in

the sky. He brought them to the man to see what

he would name them; and whatever the man

called each living creature, that was its name. So

the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds

in the sky and all the wild animals.” (Genesis

2:19-20, NIV)

This story directly follows the magnificent

description of God’s creation in Genesis

1. God has just spoken into existence

every aspect of the universe, including

all of the creatures on the planet. As

His grand finale, God distinctly creates

Adam in His own image and gives him

dominion over the Earth. It’s in this

context that the story appears. In it, God

does something unexpected, inviting

Adam to participate in the creation

process and name the animals on His

behalf. This brief exchange profoundly

illuminates the nature of man, the

nature of God, and the character of the

relationship between them.

In our first look at humanity, Adam faces

the daunting task of giving a meaningful

name to all of God’s remarkable animal

creations. With remarkable capacity,

he successfully christens countless

animals according to their kinds,

distinguishing species from one another

and recognizing patterns in creation.

He shows imaginative prowess, rational

decision making, and willful choice.

Ultimately, Adam models an author,

scientist, and artist commissioned by

God. This story beautifully demonstrates

Adam’s creative human rationality and

agency.

God endows all people with the ability

to think, imagine, and dream. It’s what

separates us from the rest of creation.

All of human culture—science, music,

politics, agriculture, and every other kind

of activity—incorporates our rational

faculties. We find fulfillment when we

express ourselves and create through

words, movement, or art. To give up our

reason or creativity would be to give up

our humanity. This story clarifies that

part of our human purpose is tied to our

identity as rational, creative beings.

TO GIVE UP OUR

REASON OR CREATIVITY

WOULD BE TO GIVE UP

OUR HUMANITY.

God’s role in the story is equally

illuminating, revealing key aspects of

His character. God asks Adam to do

something He easily could have done

Himself. The Psalms declare that God

already named the billions of stars in the

universe: “He determines the number of

the stars and calls them each by name”

(Psalm 147:4, NIV). He doesn’t need

Adam to participate in His creation. God

chooses to give Adam the opportunity to

create. In this act of humility, God steps

back and recognizes Adam—the mere

creature that he is—as a capable being.

God is present in the garden, watching

Adam use his newly formed mind,

curious to see what he will do. Like a

father who watches their child color or

play, God enjoys seeing the height of his

creation using their gifts. The following

verse confirms that: “whatever the man

called each living creature, that was its

name” (Genesis 2:19, NIV). God didn’t

go after Adam and fix his work, editing

the names Adam chose. Certainly,

God would have chosen better, more

beautiful, more meaningful names for

the animals. But like a father hanging up

the messy scrawl of their child’s artwork

on the fridge, God proudly displays the

work of His image bearer.

BUT LIKE A FATHER

HANGING UP THE

MESSY

SCRAWL

OF THEIR CHILD’S

ARTWORK ON THE

FRIDGE, GOD PROUDLY

DISPLAYS THE WORK

OF HIS IMAGE BEARER.

Many think that God is distant and

uninterested, but this story paints a

picture of a God who is intensely curious

about humanity, who loves to work with

us and watch us think, dream, and

imagine. God cares, respects, and values

His creation. This story showcases His

humility and love. It reminds us of His

continual presence.

Finally, this story helps define the

relationship between God and man.

Man’s purpose is realized when he

collaborates with and depends on God.

Only when Adam is commissioned

to work is the fullness of his humanity

showcased. In other words, God creates,

and Adam contributes his share,

glorifying God and fulfilling himself. In

this story, God is clearly the provider.

Everything in the scene—the animals,

Adam, the ground they’re standing on,

and the air they’re breathing—is first

created by God. God Himself brings

the animals to Adam to name. Adam

simply takes what he’s been given and

contributes his mental capacity and

will. The result is an expanse of divinely

created animals with human-created

names in a collaborative masterpiece

that reveals the glory of God.

Humans were made to collaborate with

God, working and creating to glorify

him and fulfill our souls. Unfortunately,

logos . 19

we try to use our human ingenuity

outside of relationship with God. We

attempt to build and construct our own

wills according to our plans. But when

God is not part of the process, we lack

the resources and inspiration we need to

truly thrive. “Unless the LORD builds

the house, the builders labor in vain.

Unless the LORD watches over the city,

the guards stand watch in vain” (Psalm

127:1, NIV). Adam’s success in the

garden depended on God’s provision;

our fulfillment and satisfaction in life

depends on God’s grace and relationship.

Our purpose was always to have

authority over God’s creation and

combine our free will and imagination

with God’s power and blessing. God

wanted to rule the Earth with Adam,

giving him dominion and decisionmaking

power. The same applies to us,

even in a fallen world. God provides

each of us with talents, skills, and

opportunities to fulfill the commission

of building the kingdom of heaven on

Earth. He waits and watches to see what

we do with the tools we’ve been given,

excited to see our choices and creativity.

He respects our ideas and decisions and

encourages us to have faith and believe

in impossible things. Ultimately, the

possibilities with God are endless, and

He yearns for His creation to join Him

in His work.

HUMANS WERE MADE

TO

COLLABORATE

WITH GOD, WORKING

AND CREATING TO

GLORIFY HIM AND

FULFILL OUR SOULS.

Jesus commands His disciples to spread

His gospel message to the ends of the

Earth. The history of the church has

been the history of God’s people acting

like Adam, working under the guidance

of the Holy Spirit and utilizing the

imaginative power and free will of their

“imago dei” nature to accomplish God’s

will. The result is a beautiful masterpiece,

a family of God working in the world to

heal, to deliver, and to love.

Indeed, humanity is cursed with sin,

and we all fall short of the glory of

God. But Adam’s story reconstructs

our understanding of being made in

the image of God. It inspires us to

work with Him to develop and expand

His creation. And unlike Adam, God’s

provision of Jesus as our savior gives us

new life in Christ and peace with God.

It comes with a commission to advance

His gospel and build His kingdom in

a life full of adventure, wonder, and

joy. Believers can trust God has given

them everything they need to fulfill the

purposes of their lives.

The dynamic between God and man in

Genesis 2 is God’s intention of life with

Him, unmarked by sin. Therefore, we

can expect a similar, if not a higher and

more complete, version of life in the age

to come. Believers have great hope for

an eternity of cooperation and creation

with God. A world where everyone is

participating in accomplishing God’s

will in a way that fulfills and satisfies our

true creative nature as humans. Genesis

gives us the first look at the beauty of

the proper relationship between God

and man, and our purpose is to live out

that relationship now and forever. Adam

named the animals. We are helping

build the Church. The only question left

is: what’s next?


Being with the Dead

Being with the Dead

Zeki Tan

I was only three when my grandfather

died on a remote mountain top in

China. I remember climbing on his

coffin as it was being lowered, trying

to get one last glimpse of his face.

The mourners gasped as my quickthinking

mother pulled me away

before I joined him in the grave. With

tears in my eyes, I strained to view his

coffin as he descended further into the

ground, disappearing completely.

Perhaps my attempt to remain with

my grandfather’s corpse is a little

extreme, but it reflects a human desire

to be among the dead. The mourning

process can be described as an attempt

to re-constitute our relationship with

the living when they have transitioned

into a different state of being. Our

loved ones may pass away corporeally,

but they somehow live on—in the

art they created, the memories they

imprinted on the living, and the

possessions they left behind.

In my home country, the Philippines,

it is common for people to visit their

deceased loved ones on All Saints’

Day, set up tents and picnic blankets,

and spend the night sleeping next

to their tombstones. Philosopher

Nicholas Wolterstorff rightly

understood that “we live among the

dead, until we join them.” [1] Even in

New Haven, thousands of miles away,

I regularly stroll through the Grove

Street Cemetery, a stone’s throw

away from my residential college, to

be with the dead. In this eighteenacre

“city of the dead,” thousands of

souls ranging from nameless infants

to world-renowned academics rest in

immaculate plots tended by a platoon

of gardeners. [2] The dull, lifeless

gray tombstones contrast sharply

with the lush, lifegiving green plants

surrounding them.

logos . 21

The desire to cling to our dead seems

so intrinsic to the human experience,

which makes the prevailing culture

so unusual for attempting to push the

dead away. We use euphemisms to

numb the experience of death, saying

that someone has “passed away”

instead of “died.” We move the resting

places of the dead farther away from

the dwelling places of the living. The

Grove Street Cemetery is one example.

It was established in 1796 to replace

the New Haven Green as the city’s

primary burial ground. The Green

marked the town center, whereas the

Grove Street Cemetery was then on its

periphery.

WHEN

MY

GRANDFATHER

DIED

ON THAT MOUNTAIN

TOP, GASPING FOR AIR,

WHAT WAS ON HIS

MIND? DID HE REGRET

MAKING THE TRIP MY

FATHER HAD ADVISED

AGAINST? DID HE

WISH HE COULD SEE

HIS CHILDREN AND

GRANDCHILDREN ONE

LAST TIME?

In a way, modern medicine fulfills the

same purpose. Hospitals and nursing

homes cordon off the sick and elderly

for health reasons, separating them

from the people they love and trust

most. This culture of isolation was

on full display during the Covid-19

pandemic, in which many people died

alone in the hospital, their families

denied visitation under lockdown rules.

How did these people feel as death

approached? Perhaps they still had

dreams to fulfill, places they wanted

to visit, or people they wanted to see

when Death came knocking. When

my grandfather died on that mountain

top, gasping for air, what was on his

mind? Did he regret making the trip

my father had advised against? Did

he wish he could see his children and

grandchildren one last time?

In the mid-15th century, two texts

were published that spawned an entire

genre of religious texts called the ars

moriendi–the art of dying. In a society

where the next plague outbreak, war

or famine was never too far away, ars

moriendi texts provided a degree of

comfort and stability to people anxious

about their mortality. Ars moriendi texts,

while offering useful advice, were not

so much about ensuring that the dying

had extra-soft pillows, hot tea and

their favorite books at their bedside

(although who wouldn’t want those

things?). Rather, ars moriendi texts were

an exhortation to cultivate virtues over

a lifetime.

The ars moriendi texts outlined five

common temptations faced by

Christians throughout their lives, but

especially near death: lack of faith,

despair, impatience, spiritual pride and

avarice. Christians could be tempted

to renounce their faith in God as they

lay dying; they could also lose hope in

God’s ability to forgive them of their

sin. They might become hostile and

bitter toward others as they lost the

ability to bear their suffering patiently.

They might fret about how they would

be remembered, and thus become

too proud of their achievements

while overlooking their sins. Finally,

attachment to earthly possessions

could prevent medieval Christians

from accepting their mortality and

instead make them more anxious and

uncertain about the afterlife. To resist

these five temptations, the ars moriendi

texts provided advice on how to

adopt opposing virtues. Faith instead

of unbelief, hope instead of despair,

patient love instead of impatience,

humility instead of pride, and

generosity instead of avarice.

FAITH INSTEAD OF

UNBELIEF,

HOPE

INSTEAD OF DESPAIR

Some may say that ars moriendi texts

only made sense in an era where death

was always at the forefront of people’s

minds. With the advent of modern

medicine, people no longer need to

worry about making it to the next

week. The vast majority of people

alive today are now expected to live

well into their eighties and nineties.

Modern medicine has ushered in

an age of vastly improved health

and material comfort, giving us the

illusion of immortality. Rather than

using the extra time to prepare for

death, however, many would rather

forget that it will one day happen. Yet

pretending that death is avoidable does

nothing to alleviate our natural fear

of death, nor does it prevent it from

actually happening. A brief glimpse

of Sheol–an illness, an accident, or a

natural disaster–easily rekindles such

fears.

We must acknowledge our mortality as

an inevitable outcome of our present

condition, and thus acquire all the

guidance and support we can get as we

approach death. Dr. Lydia Dugdale

writes that “we are relational beings,

and dying is a community affair. It takes

a village to flourish while dying.” [3]

Family, friends, priests and physicians–

connections and conversations with

people we can trust are absolutely vital

to prepare us for death. A community

can also be guided by those who came

before–tradition, or what Chesterton

called the “democracy of the dead,”

[4] expressed through rituals that

show us “what to do when a living


person becomes a corpse.” [5] Death

rituals provide physical representations

of ars moriendi to a community. The

mourning clothes, the prayers, and the

flowers create a familiar atmosphere

so that those still living can rehearse

for their own death. Even my periodic

walks through Grove Street Cemetery

are a ritual reminding me of my

mortality. The liturgies, prayers, and

rituals outlined in ars moriendi texts

weave death into a community’s social

fabric, linking past, present and future

through a common understanding of

our demise.

WE

MUST

ACKNOWLEDGE

OUR

MORTALITY AS AN

INEVITABLE OUTCOME

OF OUR PRESENT

CONDITION,

AND

THUS ACQUIRE ALL

THE GUIDANCE AND

SUPPORT WE CAN

GET AS WE APPROACH

DEATH.

On its own, integrating death into

our daily lives through ritual feels

distressing. For all of us who have lost

loved ones, death rituals may bring

back painful memories of loss and

trauma. Ars moriendi texts only make

sense when they are framed within the

Christian narrative of God redeeming

humanity and giving us hope for

eternal life. One cannot contemplate

a meaningful death without first

having hope in their resurrection

through Jesus Christ. Secularization,

however, has shattered that worldview,

creating a spectrum of unsatisfying

alternatives. Some fight tirelessly to

evade death through determination

and ingenuity. For instance, Jeff Bezos

has reportedly invested in Altos Labs,

a biotechnology start-up attempting to

logos . 23

prolong lifespan–perhaps indefinitely–

by reprogramming cells worn down by

stress, disease and genetic mutations.

[6] Never mind that we are, as Tolkien

writes, fighting the long defeat, waging

war against an enemy who appears to

be gaining ground every day and who

will eventually prevail over us. [7]

ONE

CANNOT

CONTEMPLATE

A

MEANINGFUL

DEATH

WITHOUT

FIRST

HAVING

HOPE IN THEIR

RESURRECTION

THROUGH

JESUS

CHRIST.

On the other hand, there are those

who acknowledge their mortality

and believe in a syncretic version of

reincarnation and the afterlife. For

instance, a 2017 innovation that made

headlines on international news was

the tree burial pod, in which one’s

corpse is buried in a biodegradable,

egg-shaped capsule. [8] On top of the

capsule a tree is planted to absorb the

nutrients from the corpse, ensuring

that the deceased lives on in the tree.

In 2020, a Korean documentary

featured a grieving mother who

interacted with a digital recreation

of her deceased daughter through a

virtual reality headset. [9] The virtual

girl’s physical features and voice did

not exactly match the original, yet she

was “real” enough for her mother to

say goodbye and move past three years

of mourning. In a way, this digitized

copy brought the dead girl back to life,

but only in a virtual environment.

WE WANT OUR

DEAD IN MATERIAL,

BODILY FORM.

These narratives all possess some

fragment of truth. Those who try

to extend lifespan through human

innovation correctly believe that

eternity is a part of the good life, and

death is not. On the other hand, those

who find ways to keep the memory of

their loved ones alive rightly recognize

that death is intimately connected with

new life. Yet these explanations seem

unsatisfying. An indefinite lifespan in

a world plagued by evil and violence

would be tormenting. Burying our

dead in tree pods and claiming they

create life dances around the question

of why people die in the first place.

If we’re being honest, we don’t

really want the tree. Nor do we want

digitized copies of our

loved ones. We want

our dead in material,

bodily form. Threeyear-old

Zeki wants

his grandfather back.

Ultimately, it is the

Christian narrative

that fulfills, rather

than negates, these

secular alternatives

for what follows

death. The

Scriptures affirm

eternal life as a

desirable thing

promised

to us–God

would not

have placed the Tree of Life in the

center of the Garden of Eden if it

were otherwise. Yet eternal life is not

attained by fruitlessly attempting to

extend human lifespan, or by conjuring

false, inadequate “resurrections”

through technology. Rather, it is by

giving up such meaningless striving,

instead patiently waiting for a future

where Jesus Christ, who has overcome

death, makes all things new. It is a

future in which our mortal, sickly

bodies are transformed into immortal

ones that do not get sick, experience

pain, or pass away. We must be with

the dead, not away from them, to

prepare ourselves for this future.

Therefore we should not lock the gates

of the cemetery at night. We should

allow people to die at home with

friends and family instead of being

left to die on their own in nursing

homes and hospitals. We should cease

shrouding the experience of death

in euphemistic language, instead

having open conversations with our

community about it. Life is our first

and only rehearsal, but we have the

opportunity to rehearse death many

times over a lifetime, and rehearse we

must.

LIFE IS OUR FIRST AND

ONLY

REHEARSAL,

BUT WE HAVE THE

OPPORTUNITY

TO

REHEARSE

DEATH

MANY TIMES OVER

A LIFETIME, AND

REHEARSE WE MUST.

I may never know if

my grandfather died

believing in the Lord. I

struggle to reconcile

his lifestyle

with my own


understanding of the good life. He

lived to excess, smoking two packs a

day and drinking heavily, sometimes

falling asleep on the roadside. He

gambled away his meager wages on

mahjong. Throughout his life he pursued

pleasure over virtue. However I think

even he borrowed unknowingly from

the ars moriendi playbook. He sought

community, dying in the company

of his drinking buddies. He knew

his time was short, which drove him

to spend his limited time doing what

made him happy. He did not strictly

adhere to all the ars moriendi virtues,

but I know he was a generous man,

at least to me: when I turned one he

hurriedly bought me an oversized trike

with the little money he had. When he

climbed that mountain to die, he was

performing a ritual in which he saw

himself ascending toward the heavens.

Perhaps he did die well, in a way he

saw fit.

In the end, maybe the precise wording

of our prayers or the hymns we sing

do not matter as much in facilitating

a good death. I am comforted most by

the distinctly Christian hope in which

ars moriendi is rooted, rather than the

rituals. Yes, we go through the motions

of life, our first and only rehearsal. With

only one rehearsal, we won’t perform

very well. Yet it is worthwhile to strive

for a more virtuous life, rehearsing

death many times over a lifetime,

because the Scriptures promise bodily

resurrection through Jesus Christ. This

is why the entrance gate to the Grove

Street cemetery reads: THE DEAD

SHALL BE RAISED. As T.S. Eliot

succinctly wrote: “In my beginning is

my end. In my end is my beginning.”

[10]

[1] Nicholas Wolterstorff. Lament for a Son.

Published 1987.

[2] Grove Street Cemetery. https://www.

grovestreetcemetery.org/

[3] [5] Lydia Dugdale. The Lost Art of Dying.

Published 2021.

[4] G.K. Chesterton. Orthodoxy. Published 1908.

https://www.chesterton.org/democracy-of-thedead/

[6] Antonio Regalado. “Meet Altos Labs,

Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever.”

Published September 4, 2021. https://www.

technologyreview.com/2021/09/04/1034364/

altos-labs-silicon-valleys-jeff-bezos-milner-betliving-forever/

[7] J.R.R. Tolkien. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Published 1981.

[8] Paula Erizanu. “The biodegradable burial pod

that turns your body into a tree.” Published January

11, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/

world/eco-solutions-capsula-mundi

[9] Caren Chesler. “AI’s new frontier: Connecting

grieving loved ones with the deceased.”

Published November 12, 2022. https://www.

washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/12/artificialintelligence-grief/

[10] T.S. Eliot. “Four Quartets.” Published 1943.

http://philoctetes.org/documents/Eliot%20

Poems.pdf

logos . 25

In Search of Perfect Friendship

Yoska Gutta

After coming to the States at the age

of 4, I moved around several times

and attended a total of five different

schools. Right before I switched to my

third school, my mother sat me down

for a conversation on the importance

of making friends. She had noticed

that it wasn’t exactly a priority for me

before. I don’t remember much about

this conversation, but I do remember

her briefly listing the qualities of a

good friend—kindness, patience,

honesty, loyalty, and the like—qualities

she emphasized I should have, and not

just look for in others.

On my first day at that new school, I

met a girl in my science class. She was

the smart, welcoming girl everyone

loved. I didn’t quite know if she had all

the other traits my mother described,

but I figured if I had them, then there

was no reason why this friendship

wouldn’t work. And it did, for a little

while at least. We would eat lunch

together and partner up for class

activities. She would save me a spot in

line and I’d bring her an extra snack

bar. As far as I could tell, these were

the early stages of what would one day

become a lifelong friendship. But one

morning, I arrived at school expecting

to find my friend, only to realize that

somewhere between saying good-bye

last afternoon and seeing each other

that morning, she had decided we

weren’t friends anymore. I couldn’t

figure out why.

Although this is just a minor example

of a failed friendship, I believe each

of us can identify similar experiences

in our own lives. Maybe someone

we considered a close companion let

us down or even betrayed our trust.

And while we may all try, again and

again, to find that perfect friendship,

this brokenness tends to follow us into

every relationship. Contrary to popular

belief, I don’t think our fallouts with

others are due to the

flaws of a select few

individuals. Rather,

this constant failure

is due to a deep

insufficiency that

runs rampant

within each of

us. One that prevents

us from being, and finding that whole

and perfect friend that we all seek.

I DON’T THINK OUR

FALLOUTS

WITH

OTHERS ARE DUE

TO THE FLAWS

OF A SELECT FEW

INDIVIDUALS. RATHER,

THIS

CONSTANT

FAILURE IS DUE TO A

DEEP

INSUFFICIENCY

THAT RUNS RAMPANT

WITHIN EACH OF US.

But this was not always the case.

Christianity’s narrative about

humanity’s origins

describes a time when

we lived in perfect

harmony. This is

outlined

in the first

book of

the Old

Testament,

specifically

in Genesis

1:26 where

God creates

A d a m ,

giving him

purpose and

instruction on

how to live. Adam

receives dominion

over the Garden,

responsibility to name

and care for

everything around him,

and one commandment:

to not eat from the tree

of the knowledge of good

and evil. Yet God, noticing

Adam’s loneliness, says “It is

not good that the man should be

alone,” and declares that “[He] will

make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis

2:18, ESV). Even though the animals,

like Adam, were a part of creation,

they were not the kind of companion

he needed (Genesis 2:21, ESV). When

God finally creates Eve and unites

her with Adam, there is harmony

in the Garden and between them.

They were naked and unashamed,

an illustration that indicates that they

were completely pure, lacking any

hidden malice or deceit.

Interestingly enough, the very first

people to get friendship right were also

the very first people to mess it up. Not

even a chapter after Adam and Eve’s

union, this display of perfect harmony

is lost when they eat from the tree of

knowledge of good and evil— the one

thing God asked them not to do. As

a result of their disobedience, shame

and accusation emerge, causing them

to hide from God, and turn against

each other. But, the hostility we see

between Adam and Eve did not emerge

in isolation from their hostility with

God. When Adam sinned, he broke

God’s trust—and in fracturing

his friendship with God, he

also ruined his friendship

with Eve. From that moment

on, despite every effort we

make, humans have found

themselves both in enmity

with God and strife with

each other.

In this same manner, the

Christian believes that

the insufficiency and


tensions

we see in our

friendships today

are a consequence

of humanity’s loss of

friendship with God. Since

that moment in the Garden,

humans have continued to

break God’s heart and betray

His trust. And as we build on this

fractured foundation, many of us,

much like the girl in my 4th grade class,

end up hurting and letting one another

down too. But no matter how hard we

try, or how many times we apologize,

we cannot create that original, perfect

environment again. Yet, the Christian

finds hope in what Jesus can do and

has done for the brokenness we see.

Christ lived perfectly. And because

He did, God chooses to forgive our

brokenness and forget the ways in

which we have fallen short in our

friendship towards Him. In Christ,

He grants us a true second chance.

What is more, He invites us into a new

friendship where we can be in perfect

harmony again. But this harmony is

maintained not by what we do, but by

what He does: continuously covering

our failures by His grace and mercy.

In this new friendship, we are able

to once again enjoy the privilege of

knowing a truly good friend. The best

kind of friend a person could imagine.

One who perfectly embodies each of

those traits my mother told me about

and more.

Our greatest encouragement is that

He did not sit disinterested, expecting

us to grovel our way back to Him,

one good deed at a time. Rather, He

became like us: taking on flesh and

blood, and dwelling among the very

people who betrayed Him. He then

died for us, absorbing the penalty we

deserved. This is what Jesus is referring

to when He tells His disciples that

“Greater love

has no one

than this,

t h a t

someone

lay down

his life for his

friends”

(John

15:13,

ESV).

Jesus is

calling

them (and us) friends. He does not call

us traitors or liars or murderers or even

sinners—not because we don’t deserve

those titles, but because that’s what

love does. In this love, the betrayed

looks at the betrayer and says I call you

friend. We see this heart in Romans 5:7-

8 too: “For one will scarcely die for a

righteous person–though perhaps for

a good person one would dare even to

die–but God shows His love for us in

that while we were still sinners, Christ

died for us” (ESV).

IN THIS LOVE, THE

BETRAYED

LOOKS

AT THE BETRAYER

AND SAYS I CALL YOU

FRIEND.

Do we love like this, though? I’d argue

mostly not, and reasonably so. For many

people, what may be gained in receiving

this kind of love does not nearly

compare to what may be lost in giving

it. The thought of loving in this way

fills us with anxiety and fear, possibly

because we recognize a brokenness

in others that almost guarantees our

disappointment. But interestingly

enough, Christ, though seeing that

same reflection of brokenness in us,

still extended this love to us. A love that

was bookended by sacrifice and death.

One that continually gave itself up

for us, committedly willing our good,

especially when it came at a high cost.

Yet, He did not extend this love for

us to simply receive it, but to also

reciprocate it. Jesus outlines what this

reciprocation looks like, in John 15:12,

saying “This is my commandment, that

you love one another as I have loved

you” (ESV). He further emphasizes

this commandment by qualifying it as

the condition of friendship with Him

(John 15:14, ESV). And then again,

in verse 17, Jesus says “These things

I command you, so that you will love

one another” (ESV). Three times in

the span of just six verses, He explicitly

establishes a link between friendship

with God and friendship with others:

we are His friends if we do what He

commands, and He commands that

we love each other as He loves us.

When God created Adam in the

Garden, He also saw it fit to bless

Him with a companion suited just

for Him. And in this blessing, God

established perfect friendship between

Him, Adam, and Eve. Unfortunately,

this harmony was forfeited because

of their disobedience, and since that

moment, humans have struggled to

recover what was lost. But just like

in the Garden, we see in the Gospel

that God, through Christ, redeems

both our friendship with Him and

lovingly extends that redemption to

our friendships with one another.

Reconciliation between us and God is

not intended to just be a means to an

end–better friendship with others. But,

the latter will always follow the former

for anyone who is in true friendship

with God. For it was never God’s will

that man should be alone.

logos . 27


reimagine

logos . 29

Faces Turned Towards Glory

Lily Lawler

Mary Oliver’s final collection of

poetry, titled Devotions, begins with

the poem “I Wake Close to Morning.”

She asks in her poem:

“Why do people keep asking to see

God’s identity papers

when the darkness opening into

morning

is more than enough?”

When I first read this poem, I felt

its meaning settle into my soul like a

word I’ve been reaching for finally

spoken. In just nine lines, Mary Oliver

had captured the marvel I felt every

time I witnessed nature’s beauty in

movement. Each sunset with clouds

draped around it and every birdsong

I heard in the morning pointed my

face towards God’s undeniable glory.

The infinitely unfolding beauty in this

world was enough evidence for me

that God is present with us.

THE

INFINITELY

UNFOLDING

BEAUTY

IN THIS WORLD WAS

ENOUGH

EVIDENCE

FOR ME THAT GOD IS

PRESENT WITH US.

Similarly, Oliver’s time in nature

pointed her towards an undeniable

existence of God. She was a famously

solitary poet, renowned for her

attention to the magnificence of the

ordinary in nature. Her work has

always carried spiritual tones, but as

she grew older her poetry increasingly

employed Christian imagery. In much

of her writing, including this poem,

Mary Oliver confesses her faith in a

Creator whose works are so clearly

evident in the large and small wonders

of this world.

EVEN IF MARY OLIVER

WASN’T A CHRISTIAN,

COULD WE CONSIDER

HER POEM CHRISTIAN

ART?

Despite many of her poems centering

on faith and Christianity, such as

Gethsemane and Six Recognitions of the

Lord, Mary Oliver never publicly

identified herself as a Christian. In

one of the rare interviews with her

before she passed away, she revealed

that although she was interested in

Christianity as a child, she took issue

with the resurrection. Despite her

struggle to place her faith fully in the

Christian God, her poems have struck

the hearts of Christians like me who

also see God’s beauty reflected in the

world around us. At some point in

reading her work, I couldn’t help but

wonder: even if Mary Oliver wasn’t a

Christian, could we consider her poem

Christian art?

If we define art as a creative product

attempting to convey beauty and

meaning, then I would argue that

Christian art is that which holds

Biblical standards of beauty, goodness,

and truth. The Psalms describe God’s

glory as beautiful (Psalm 19:1, ESV),

and that all He is and does is good

(Psalms 145:17-19, ESV). The New

Testament further reveals the Gospel

of Jesus as the truth (John 14:6, ESV).

If God is beautiful, good, and true,

then products of human creativity that

have these qualities are what I would

categorize as Christian art. Based on

this definition, I would consider Mary

Oliver’s poem to be Christian art—

despite her skepticism of Christ.

Secular artists who, like Mary Oliver,

don’t believe in the Christian God

may be surprised when Christians

find connections to their faith

in nonreligious works. I believe

this is because Biblically defined

beauty, goodness, and truth are

comprehensible even by those who


may not agree with, or know the

meaning of Christianity. As we have

seen with Mary Oliver’s poetry, one

need not believe in the truth of what

they are saying to make it any more

or less so. Say for example, a person

who doubts the existence of gravity

makes the statement, “Gravity makes

things fall.” Regardless of their belief

in the subject, their statement is true

according to an external standard that

maintains the force of gravity. Truth

exists independent of us. Our writings

and musings about God don’t make

Him any more or less real precisely

because He exists beyond us.

I believe that when we see the fragments

of truth embedded into the works

of Mary Oliver, we catch glimpses

of the beauty of Christ. In movies

about heroic sacrifice, paintings that

inspire awe, or poetry about God’s

perfect divinity, art moves us because

it reflects threads of the Gospel. Both

Captain America and The Lord of the Rings

narrate the rise of a hero from the

most unexpected of places, scorned

and ridiculed as inconsequential only

to become the savior to the story.

One of these is a story threaded

intentionally with Christian themes by

J.R.R. Tolkein, a professed Catholic,

and the other is a Marvel movie. But

as a Christian, I find that the two

stories have equal ability to reiterate

the Gospel of Christ: that God sent

His son Jesus to die for us and give us

salvation from death. Biblical truth is

not only conveyed in literal words, but

also through the messages and themes

of art.

THE PURSUIT OF

TRUTH INCLUDES THE

COURAGE TO LOOK FOR

GOD’S FACE IN EVEN

THE MOST BROKEN

PARTS OF THE WORLD.

All art, not just art made by Christians,

has the potential to reflect God’s

beauty, goodness, and truth. It is

up to believers, however, to discern

art that recognizes beauty from art

that glorifies sin. Oftentimes, I see

Christians shunning anything that

has been made in the secular world,

or by non-believing artists. However,

if Christians close their eyes in fear of

seeing any of the ugliness of the world,

they also blind themselves to the

beauty in the world that God has given

us. The pursuit of truth includes the

courage to look for God’s face in even

the most broken parts of the world.

The task entrusted to followers of

Christ is to seek out and point to the

beauty, goodness, and truth in the

world. In Philippians 4:8, Paul charges

believers:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever

is true, whatever is noble, whatever

is right, whatever is pure, whatever

is lovely, whatever is admirable—if

anything is excellent or praiseworthy—

think about such things.” (ESV)

We are not just placed in this world to

stumble across these holy qualities, but

to truly meditate upon them and the

Gospel they reflect. The world is often

not a beautiful place, but yet there is

still beauty in our broken world. We

are blessed with the gift of discernment

so we can wade through the murky

waters of life and find the shimmering

specks of beauty that are reflections of

God’s light. In this seeking, we may

also come to find reflections of His

beauty, not only in art, but in each

precious sunrise and speckled face that

walks this planet.

Mary Oliver’s poems reveal a person

who was constantly searching for

God’s countenance in the world

around her. Christians should strive to

imitate her nature, even though Oliver

never managed to fully surrender

logos . 31

her life to Christ. When I read Mary

Oliver’s poetry now, I experience not

only the exaltation of reading truth

written beautifully, but also a profound

sorrow. How could I not when I see

someone so close to the truth that they

are capable of writing about it, but

never reaching that point of grace?

Inside our hearts as Christians, we

eternally yearn to see the thirsting man

drink and the blind man see, precisely

because we know too well this hunger

that can only be satisfied by Jesus.

Oliver, even in her resistance to Him,

writes about her own yearning to see

Jesus “on the shore, / just walking, /

beautiful man.” [1] Ultimately, only

God knows the state of her heart

when her last breath came, but I am

hopeful that in her final moments of

life, Oliver finally witnessed the full

radiant beauty of Jesus that she had so

long sought after.

If Christians limit themselves to

consuming art that is exclusively made

by other Christians, then we run the

risk of missing the beauty that can be

found in art made by non-believers.

There is beauty in both Christian and

secular works if we strive to realize

the full splendor of the Gospel in the

half-truths of the world. Perhaps in our

vocal appreciation and admiration of

Christian art, secular artists may find

an unexpected deeper meaning within

their own works. Only by seeking

out the beauty, goodness, and truth

in the world do we seek out God’s

face and only by calling it out can we

turn ourselves and others towards the

loveliness and light of His glory.

[1] Mary Oliver, “ The Vast Ocean Begins Just

Outside Our Church: The Eucharist.” 2006.


Growing Young

Hannah Turner

Alejandra catches sight of me in the

crowd of caretakers and runs over to

ask if we could go to the playground.

Yes, we can, as our afternoon schedule

accommodates it. She runs to meet

her friends on the columpio redondo,

taking on the responsibility to push

the overloaded, upcycled rubber tire.

I sit on a bench and watch laughter

overtake their group. Another au pair

joins me to talk about how the day

ahead looks: busy.

I think in blocks of time as I plan

which bus we will need to take to get

to basketball, swimming, or English

class on time. And then I strategize

how we can make a smooth transition

into these activities. When the time

comes for us to leave the park,

Alejandra pleads with me to stay and

questions why she even has to go to

her afternoon class. Why do we have

to talk in English, too, instead of the

language she knows, Spanish? These

were pressing questions for the sixyear-old.

I took this as a teachable

moment for Alejandra. Sometimes,

I explained, we have to do things we

don’t like because of the person we

can become later on. For instance, I was

there to help Alejandra become fluent

in English even if she did not always

want to speak it.

As the months went on I realized,

however, Alejandra taught me more

than I taught her. I made sure we spoke

English everyday and went to all her

afternoon classes, but it was simply in

being present with her that I grew the

most. I thought back to the scene at

the park, and Alejandra’s desire to stay.

Children do need structured routines.

But often the structure we impose, or

obey is saturated with expectations

which—if not met—destroy us.

WE TEND TO VALUE

THE CHILD FOR WHAT

THEY CAN BE RATHER

THAN WHO THEY ARE.

I realized that we tend to value the

child for what they can be rather than

who they are.

G. K. Chesterton, a late-modern

philosopher, commented that

“because children have abounding

vitality, because they are in spirit

fierce and free, therefore they want

things repeated and unchanged.

They always say, ‘Do it again’; and

the grown-up person does it again

until he is nearly dead. For grown-up

people are not strong enough to exult

in monotony.” [1] Children simply

are. As Chesterton argues, they live a

vibrantly present life. They recognize

an inherent value in day-to-day things

for what they are. This is something I

noticed in Alejandra. With her I saw

my weakness: I had adopted a cultural

perspective that devalues the vibrant

life that is found in the child.

As a result, we lose appreciation for the

pure, present being that Chesterton sees

children embodying. We prize children

as the building blocks of our future,

and desire to raise them into society’s

next leaders. Even before they start

school, we ask children what they want

to be when they grow up. Teaching

children to have goals (career-focused

or otherwise) is still beneficial. And

those of us who know the struggle of

adulting know that time is a precious

resource and we use money nearly

every day. The difficulty is not in

teaching responsibility or wisdom, but

in the dangerous implications we make

about a human being’s value. When

we view ourselves, those around us, or

children as failures for not reaching

certain goals, we deny our inherent

worth.

We are left lacking an ability to wonder

and living in a society that revels in

production and consumption over all

else. As a child, I would brim with joy

logos . 33

navigating the labyrinth that was the

elementary school scholastic book

fair. Libraries were a never-ending

supply of intoxicating narratives.

Today, the majority of books I read

are for classes, and I only dream about

the day when the fifty-three “Want

to Read’’ books on my GoodReads

move to the “Read” bookshelf. My

life fundamentally shifted when

reading became a measure of my

intelligence. On a societal level, the

university reinforces this mindset: each

student needs to gather classes and

experiences to put on their CV and

boast on LinkedIn. Personal interest

and even sleep are afterthoughts to

what will make us look the best. The

United States especially glorifies the

striving for material wealth rather than

the building of a family. Social media

only exacerbates these realities as we

compare our lives through platforms

which constantly promote the goods

we can get to be the “better” version

of ourselves. This hustle-culture,

career-centric, money-hungry life has

not propelled us into a better reality,

but rather a more anxious reality.

THIS

HUSTLE-

CULTURE,

CAREER-

CENTRIC,

MONEY-

HUNGRY LIFE HAS NOT

PROPELLED US INTO

A BETTER REALITY,

BUT RATHER A MORE

ANXIOUS REALITY.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that

my generation, Gen Z, consistently

sees this prioritizing of what can be

in their lives and is more likely than

any past generation to report mental

health concerns. According to the

American Psychological Association’s

Stress in America Survey, Gen Z

is significantly less “likely to report

very good or excellent mental

health” when compared with other

generations. [2] The effect of the

internet and pandemic may have


contributed to this in a unique way. We

are the first generation to have grown

up with social media, and most of us

are constantly online. This has big

implications for our mental health in

terms of both comparison and constant

communication. [3] Further, Gen Z

has to face the increased job insecurity

and other socioeconomic losses that

the COVID pandemic caused. [4] [5]

While these effects are clearly evident,

I wonder if some of this anxiety can

be attributed to our predisposition

to regard things for what they could

be rather than for what they are. Our

society makes us feel as though we

need to be someone uber successful

in order to have meaning. If we don’t

secure that post-grad consulting job,

we feel less than those around us. We

internalize these expectations too: if

we don’t appear to have our lives as

together, or like we’re having as much

fun as that person on social media then

we are not living life well. Although,

if everything is a means to an end–

whether resume points or Instagram

content–nothing means anything.

With this perspective, this feeling of

meaninglessness is often clear: life

loses its vibrancy, and we feel anxious

and empty. We have trouble finding

meaning in unglamorous, nonproductive

day-to-day activities, like

walking around the city or making

a meal. However, when I look at

Alejandra I see a different way to view

life. I see life full of meaning because

she valued life simply because it was

life. She begged me to read books with

her. She ran around the city for hours,

finding novelty in every shop or person

we passed by. She delighted in making

her favorite meal (spaghetti) and

teaching me step-by-step the special

way she did it (with heaps of tomato

sauce).

I don’t want to live in perpetual fear of

not measuring up–to my own egregious

expectations or anyone else’s. I don’t

want to live a life that feels meaningless

because I am trying to use everything

I have to get something better. I want

to be more like Alejandra. I want to

have this child-like perspective that

values what I have, and life itself, for

what it is.

AS WE’VE GROWN

OLDER

WE’VE

INCORPORATED

AN

EFFICIENCY-METER

INTO THE PURPOSE

OF OUR LIVES. MY

QUESTION IS, WHY?

This child-like living would be

beneficial for us all because I think we

all seek to find purpose in our lives. As

a child the purpose was just to live. In

practice, however, we don’t value life

this way. As we’ve grown older we’ve

incorporated an efficiency-meter into

the purpose of our lives. My question

is, why? Why have we lost the strength

to exult in monotony? Why are we not

drenched in wonder by the consistency

of the sun’s rising and setting, nature’s

springtime growth, or our own

heartbeat?

I’m not sure how exactly this adapting

of a child-like perspective, this growing

young would look.

For one, this perspective would not

worry about tomorrow, or excessively

grumble about the past. Nor would

this perspective throw caution to the

wind. We would instead construct a

perspective that recognizes pain, loss,

and despair as real without forsaking all

the love and hope that is equally real.

We would value ourselves for being, not

just for what we can be. We would be

present. In my life, this would look like

eating more meals with friends rather

than catching up on my work. The

weekends would be spent gradually

completing that “Want to Read”

list. My walks to campus from my

apartment would be spent admiring

the ember leaves and soaking in every

last bit of sunlight instead of making

sure I reply to all my texts. Somehow, I

think I would feel more alive.

[1] Chesterton, G.K. “Orthodoxy.” 1908.

[2] Bethune, Sophie. “Gen Z More Likely to

Report Mental Health Concerns.” Accessed

December 21, 2022. https://www.apa.org/

monitor/2019/01/gen-z. https://www.apa.org/

monitor/2019/01/gen-z

[3] Naslund, John A., Ameya Bondre, John Torous,

and Kelly A. Aschbrenner. “Social Media and

Mental Health: Benefits, Risks, and Opportunities

for Research and Practice.” Journal of Technology in

Behavioral Science 5, no. 3 (September 1, 2020):

245–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-020-

00134-x.

[4] Ganson, Kyle T., Alexander C. Tsai, Sheri D.

Weiser, Samuel E. Benabou, and Jason M. Nagata.

“Job Insecurity and Symptoms of Anxiety and

Depression Among U.S. Young Adults During

COVID-19.” The Journal of Adolescent Health:

Official Publication of the Society for Adolescent

Medicine 68, no. 1 (January 2021): 53–56. https://

doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.10.008.

[5] Panchal, Nirmita, Rabah Kamal, Rachel Garfield

Published: Feb 10, and 2021. “The Implications

of COVID-19 for Mental Health and Substance

Use.” KFF (blog), February 10, 2021. https://www.

kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/theimplications-of-covid-19-for-mental-health-andsubstance-use/.

logos . 35

Habits of Mind

Lukas Bacho

I was recently out to coffee in New

Haven with a friend when a woman

approached us and asked if we could

spare any change. When this sort of

thing happens, I can usually answer

“No, sorry,” with a clear conscience,

since I don’t tend to carry cash. But

this time, three realizations made me

pause: I had a few small bills in my

wallet, my friend’s eyes were on me,

and we had just been discussing our

Christian perspectives on intrinsic

human worth. It felt like a pop quiz of

my faith sent from God. So I fished my

wallet out of my bag, produced five or

ten bucks, and held them out to her.

She thanked me and walked away, but

my face burned. Would I ever do a

good deed out of anything but guilt?

WOULD I EVER DO A

GOOD DEED OUT OF

ANYTHING BUT GUILT?

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry

David Thoreau, with whom I fell

uneasily in love over the summer, spent

a lot of strong words on the subjugation

of the will to prevailing ideas of good.

Their writing is intoxicating, almost

ideological in its totalizing effect. Yet,

as a Christian reader, I felt I had to

square each arresting sentence with

Christian ethics as I knew them,

and it was these two authors’ tirades

against philanthropy that caused me

to suspect that they had seduced me

with a morally vacuous spirituality.

For all of their mystical contemplation

on the junction of self and nature,

Emerson and Thoreau can come off

as indifferent or even scornful toward

other people. I worried that their

maxim of “self-reliance” indulged my

tendency to self-absorption and my

attraction to a socially disengaged—not

to mention privileged—contemplative

life. Consider these lines from “Self-

Reliance”:

Then again, do not tell me, as a good

man did to-day, of my obligation to

put all poor men in good situations.

Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou

foolish philanthropist, that I grudge

the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to

such men as do not belong to me and

to whom I do not belong. [1]

Out of context, this passage seems

unsalvageable, but let us humor

Emerson for a moment. The outburst

comes amid a larger critique of

conformity, which begins as one exits

childhood and enters adulthood,

surrendering “the integrity of your

own mind” to “badges and names, to

large societies and dead institutions.”

What Emerson lambasts here is not

Christlike aid to the marginalized,

but philanthropy, with all of today’s

condescending connotations. (Indeed,

his privileged audience consists of

those for whom philanthropy is an

option.) He hastens to add that that

there are those for whom he “will

go to prison if need be,” but that

donating to “your miscellaneous

popular charities” or shamefully giving

a dollar to the man on the street are

deeds devoid of moral value, reflective

of one whose “virtues are penances.”

When he writes, “What I must do is all

that concerns me, not what the people

think,” he may have in mind something

like Kant’s categorical imperative,

which is a moral obligation whose

power lies in the fact that it is universal

yet determined by each individual

will. [2] Emerson’s ethic, like Kant’s,

is not anti-Christian but Christlike.

Jesus is concerned not just about our

deeds, but also the motivations behind

them. All three men would rebuke my

sheepish surrender of a few dollars to

that woman on the street, even as they

would approve of the act itself.

Is this reading of Emerson a reach?

Thoreau, though his renegade spirit


cannot always be trusted, clarifies

that it is not. [3] We should balk at

his assertion in “Economy” that the

poor people he has met “have one

and all unhesitatingly preferred to

remain poor.” In the same essay,

however, he follows Emerson in

arguing that “Philanthropy is not love

for one’s fellow-man in the broadest

sense.” He continues: “Philanthropy

is almost the only virtue which is

sufficiently appreciated by mankind.

Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is

our selfishness which overrates it.”

Thoreau admonishes us to value “the

flower and fruit of a man” rather than

his “uprightness and benevolence,”

which are merely his stem and leaves.

He might say my abashed attempt

at philanthropy is the product of a

culture that cultivates the performance

of morality over the all-embracing,

agape love Christ demonstrates. (What

does this mean for effective altruism

and evangelical mission trips?)

Here, in Thoreau’s formulation, is the

Kantian injunction to act out of duty

rigorously defined: “[One’s] goodness

must not be a partial and transitory

act, but a constant superfluity, which

costs him nothing and of which he is

unconscious.” That curious phrase,

“which costs him nothing,” offers

a key to understanding the passage

from Emerson above. Dollars and

cents are the language of transaction;

belonging to others—which should be

our aspiration—is the lesson of Cain

and Abel, the language of fraternity.

If I give to the woman on the street,

it must be out of nothing less than

filial duty and neighborly love. In the

face of such a lofty moral standard,

one cannot but assent to Thoreau’s

Calvinist confession: “I never knew,

and never shall know, a worse man

than myself.”

SHORT OF THE MORAL

STANDARD EMERSON,

THOREAU, AND EVEN

JESUS PROVIDE, IS

NOT A GUILT-RIDDEN

PHILANTHROPY

LIKE

MINE BETTER THAN

NONE AT ALL?

My original annotation beside the

Emerson passage I quoted above reads

“the part incompat. w/ Christianity.”

But I now see that such a reading is

a misguided oversimplification, even

if Emerson’s words are not the first I

would choose to express his point. Still,

a larger question looms: short of the

moral standard Emerson, Thoreau,

and even Jesus provide, is not a guiltridden

philanthropy like mine better

than none at all? Let us take one of

Emerson’s most biblical paradoxes

as a jumping-off point. Just before

the passage at hand, he echoes Mark

10:29, declaring, “I shun father and

mother and wife and brother when

my genius calls me.” In context, I take

this to mean that being true to one’s

principles is more moral than being

beholden to social custom or filial

decorum. Yet in “Man the Reformer,”

he calls love “the one remedy for all

ills,” writing, “We must be lovers,

and at once the impossible becomes

possible.” This sentiment echoes Mark

10:27—“For mortals it is impossible,

but not for God; for God all things are

possible”—and seems to encourage

the Christian approximation of faking

it till you make it: Sell your possessions

and give the money to the poor, even if

your motive for doing so is the promise

of salvation. The pretense of love,

with its attendant transformation of

your material conditions, will usher in

genuine love. And there is no question

that Emerson intends not just love,

but the same elimination of social

inequality that Jesus preaches:

logos . 37

The State must

consider the

poor man, and

all voices must

speak for him.

Every child that

is born must have

a just chance for

his bread. Let

the amelioration

in our laws of

property

proceed

from the

concession

of the rich,

not from the

grasping of

the poor. Let us

begin by habitual

imparting.

It is worth pausing

to marvel that this

passage and the one

above on philanthropy

were produced by the

same mind in 1841. Now,

how does one move from not

belonging to humanity to being

a lover of it? Emerson’s “habitual

imparting” sounds a lot like Christ’s

ethic of acting generously even

before one feels generous. We

must teach each new generation

the “equitable rule” that

“no one should take more

than his share, let him be

ever so rich.” Of course,

this is the rule of Jesus.

As Emerson put it, “This

great, overgrown, dead

Christendom of

ours still keeps

alive at least the

name of a lover

of mankind”—

and the fact that

Jesus is the only

person to ever

become a true

“lover” must not

discourage us

from aspiring to

his standard.



THE FACT THAT JESUS

IS THE ONLY PERSON

TO EVER BECOME A

TRUE “LOVER” MUST

NOT DISCOURAGE US

FROM ASPIRING TO HIS

STANDARD.

The Emersonian vision for humanity

that links “Man the Reformer” to “Self-

Reliance,” the social to the individual,

is manifest in the following parallel

passages. From “Man the Reformer”:

“He who would help himself and

others should not be a subject of

irregular and interrupted impulses

of virtue, but a continent, persisting,

immovable person”; and from “Self-

Reliance”: “the great man is he who

in the midst of the crowd keeps with

perfect sweetness the independence

of solitude.” Self-reliance is in fact

about thinking independently, not living

independently. It is about existing in

society without succumbing to the

prevailing model for how one ought

to do so. It is about loving God and

loving one’s neighbor at once. For

Christians, it is

about how to retain

the countercultural

spirit of a religion

after that religion

has become

cultural.

Thoreau’s cabin

at Walden Pond

dominates the

popular

view

o f

transcendentalism, as well as the

American imagination more generally.

Unfortunately, it has muddled

the spirit of “self-reliance.” The

starkness of Thoreau’s experiment

and its rhetoric—“I went to the

woods because I wished to live

deliberately”—was a major source

of my fear that transcendentalism

was individualism, and self-reliance

what passes nowadays for “self-care.”

Another essay could be devoted to the

perils of taking Emerson too literally,

as Thoreau might have done. Suffice it

to say that history has shown the perils

of doing Scripture the same injustice.

WHERE THOREAU MAY

HAVE FAILED TO UNITE

THE

THEORETICAL

AND PRACTICAL, AND

EMERSON IS SOMETIMES

C O N F U S I N G ,

JESUS

SUCCEEDS

WITH

STARTLING

DIRECTNESS.

The good news is that, where Thoreau

may have failed to unite the theoretical

and practical, and Emerson is

sometimes confusing, Jesus succeeds

with startling directness. He has his

parables, yes, but he also has his

commands. His injunction to the rich

man to “sell what you own, and give

the money to the poor” could not be

more explicit, and the Gospels ought

to be at the center of any Christian

conversation about civic engagement.

Together, Christ and Emerson tell

me that I was right to feel shame

after helping that woman, but not

because I should necessarily have

acted otherwise. Christianity proposes

that giving poor people money is

not a moral deed divorced from the

rest of my life, but one that reflects

my standing in relation to humanity

writ large. The hope is that, by freely

giving to and exchanging words with

strangers, my heart will gradually

soften, and with time I will cherish

rather than tolerate my neighbor.

[1] All the material quoted from Emerson in this

essay can be found in the 2003 edition of Nature

and Selected Essays, published by Penguin Classics.

[2] Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.

“I should never act except in such a way that I

can also will that my maxim should become a

universal law.” (tr. James Ellington)

[3] All the material quoted from Thoreau in this

essay can be found in Walden (as it appears in the

2004 Macmillan Collector’s Library edition).

logos . 39

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