A New Friend

I had the opportunity to meet with Earl Palmer recently at University Presbyterian Church. Our conversation focused primarily on his experiences in full-time church ministry. I asked him numerous questions and he responded with the wisdom and thoughtfulness that any person seeking a conversation with him would expect and desire.

I asked him how he has stayed fresh in full-time church ministry over the years and how he has avoided mediocrity? He immediately responded to the question with, "Preaching and finding ways to teach others how to study Scripture in a way that the Bible and Jesus Christ comes to life!"

I also asked him about his favorite authors and he shared a list that challenged me to expand my reading selections. He said, "Pick an author and befriend him or her. Read and read that author until you feel like you know them and they have known you as you interact with their writings."

A few days ago, I picked up G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy off my book shelf. I had purchased the book years ago after hearing Earl Palmer mention it in a sermon. I had saved the book until a time that seemed right and now is that time.

I read the first chapter where Chesterton focuses on why a person who relies solely on logic will go mad because he or she attempts to control the world. I was struck by these words,

Poetery is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite... To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. A poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

I was challenged to consider how I as a logician (ask anyone who knows me well about this) attempts to get "the heavens into" my head and that sometimes causes my head to split.

He goes on to share that sometimes thinking less is a path to life for those who think too much...

I found a new friend. Chesterton helped me reflect on my life in a manner that I haven't since I read Augustine's Confessions years ago. Thank you Earl Palmer for your wise words and for introducing me to a new friend.