The Restless Hearts Are Taking A Rest

by Dan Masterton

Dear readers,

It's pretty crazy that, right now, I'm writing the 416th post for a blog that reaches back almost ten years. I still remember the authentic, not-kidding-you-should-do-it nudge of my old friend, Michele, during a college faith-sharing group that pushed me to actually kick this thing off with a first post back in October 2009.

Over the years, things have evolved. I started as a curious and growing undergrad, looking for a place to share fresh, raw ideas about theology and spiritual life, and then friends and companions have helped carry the blog forward to fun and exciting places.

For a good while, guest reflectors shared about how they live their vocation in whatever place they are at in their life, and twenty-one authors animated the explorations of the72.

Later, as the wildness of the 2016 election geared up, I sought to emphasize the centrality of Catholic Social Teaching in the discernment and conscience of the Catholic citizen. Through speech analyses, candidate evaluations, and honest reflections, #MoreThanRedAndBlue kept CST at the heart of our election fever.

And, finally, The Restless Heart became plural, as three intrepid and faithful writers jumped into the pool with me, and Jenny, Rob, and Dave dove in to our communal work. Later, we added three more to our fold, and with Laura, Erin, and Tim, The Restless Hearts became what it is today -- a vibrant, varying crockpot of reflection on theology, spirituality, social teaching and social justice, ministry, education, and the realities of faith lived richly.

I always tried to keep the seven of us grounded in the realities of what I hoped our blog would be: for readers, a place to receive hearty input and engage their hearts of faith; for us as writers and peer editors, a place for authentic reflection, constructive accompaniment, and, most of all, vocationally rich fun.

Over the last few years, we've missed a few Mondays and Thursdays or taken a week off now and then. But, recently, life has caught up with most of us a little more than it used to do. Marriages, childbirths, personal tragedies and challenges, job and school transitions, and the ebb and flow of family and professional life have impacted the calculus of how we each spend our time.

To help each of us get a firmer handle on stuff as well as to best discern the shape of our blog going forward, I've asked the crew to take a sabbatical -- an earnest, thoughtful rest. I may still post a new piece once in a while, but there won't be regular action. We'll be back in a little while and offer an update on our gameplan to continue this online ministry with all of you.

In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you:

• Thoughts on the types of posts?
• Thoughts on the frequency and timing of posting?
• Thoughts on new directions we could go?
• Interested in contributing?
• Just want to share that you read and enjoy it?
• Care to offer a prayer or blessing?

Send me an email or leave a comment on our Facebook Page or my Twitter account. I'll respond to everyone who chimes in and bring your thoughts into our reflection.

In the meantime, thanks for reading and following. May your hearts remain restless until they rest in God!

-Dan

No Accounting for Taste

by Jenny Lippert

Recently, my husband and I were hit by a wave of nostalgia for oldies Christian music. I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but we soon found ourselves amazed at how many Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, and DC Talk songs we still remembered all the words to.¹ Most significantly, through this jaunt back in time, we rediscovered the earthy, honest music of Rich Mullins, which came back to me like an old childhood friend. Roll your eyes as much as you want at the lyrics of “Awesome God”, you still get the sense that it’s at least a more honest attempt at worship than a calculated marketing piece to a bland Christian demographic. And this quality of honest attempt and failure I have found these past couple of months to be a Rich Mullins theme. Through a bit of youtube rabbitholing, I found myself not only remembering how much I had enjoyed his music (and still do), but also found myself developing a deeper affection for the man himself.

Referred to as the “uneasy conscience” of Christian music, he retreated from the evangelical Christian music scene to move to a Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. When asked about why he chose to move, he responded, “I think I just got tired of a White, Evangelical, middle class perspective on God, and I thought I would have more luck finding Christ among the Pagan Navajos.”² Woah.

I dislike sentimentality. Fluffy talk and feely-goodiness activates my gag reflex and makes me want to punch something. It isn’t real, it isn’t genuine, and it isn’t nourishing. This aversion to empty niceties or sweet nothings also extends to art and music. If it savors of something secondary--something which depends on pre-conditioned responses to saccharine symbology, count me out. This is why the music of Rich Mullins so appeals to me, I think.

In between songs at one of his 1997 concerts,³ he brought up the idea of taste. Quoting Picasso, he said he believed that “good taste is the enemy of great art.” He explained, “Good taste has all to do with being cultured and being refined and if art has to do with anything it has to do with being human. And one of the reasons I love the Bible is because the humans in the Bible are not very refined. They’re pretty goofy if you want to know the whole truth about it.” He goes on to say that he doesn’t believe God has any taste.

Initially, I found this statement jarring. If you were to say about another person that they had no taste, it would be pretty insulting. So, why is it so hopeful when asserted about God?

I started thinking about what “taste” is, and why we seem to value it so much. One type of taste, that is preferences for things, is pretty innocuous. You like vanilla ice cream and I like chocolate. Okay.

The type of taste that Rich Mullins is talking about, though, is an ideal or standard that we set up for ourselves--a way for us to separate ourselves into “in” groups and “out” groups.

I started to reflect on all of the ways that I brand myself, what circles I desire to be a part of, and what circles I would refuse to associate with. Even as someone who considers herself rather contrarian and wannabe-edgy, I still cling to certain identities--certain tastes--because they are comfortable. I have my “in” group, and though I may be willing to step out of it for a moment in the name of “charity,” goodness knows I will return to it. My self-identifcation with a clean and easy cliche--a life that I’ve imagined for myself--allows me to ignore those broken, sinful, and weak parts of myself.

But this isn’t reality. And if Scripture is any indication, it seems that God really doesn’t have any taste in terms of his “in” and “out” groups. He chooses the goofballs and the screw-ups and the uncultured. He chooses elderly immigrants to father his people. He works through jealous brothers to save His people from starvation. He uses sinful kings to build up His kingdom. He makes a pagan prostitute a heroine who harbors His spies. He uses his eccentric cousin, clothed in a hair garment, to proclaim his coming. He chooses a peasant girl to be His home on earth.



In short, he chooses humanity. And any attempt I make to insulate myself in anything less than human insulates me from Him. The taste of human standards is not God’s taste. And the more I align myself to human cliques and ideas, the more opaque my life becomes, the less I can be used by God. I make myself into the Hallmark cliche that I so despise.

God glories in our weakness far more than in our “perfect” lives. As Rich said, “[Be]cause God takes the junk of our lives, and he makes the greatest art in the world out of it. And if he was cultured, if he was as civilized as most Christian people wish he was, He would be useless to Christianity. But God is a wild man.”

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1 This may or may not have led to listening to “Secret Ambition” on repeat for the next few days...What a throwback.^↩

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2 This whole interview, despite the poor recording quality, is well worth watching.^↩

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3 Again, the whole bit is worth watching.^↩