In his book Simply Christian, N.T. Wright writes: "The arts are not pretty but irrelevant bits around the border of reality. They are highways into the center of a reality which cannot be glimpsed, let alone grasped, any other way. The present world is good, but broken and in any case incomplete; art of all kinds enables us to understand that paradox in its many dimensions. But the present world is also designed for something which has not yet happened. It is like a violin waiting to be played; beautiful to look at, graceful to hold-and yet if you'd never heard one in the hands of a musician, you wouldn't believe the new dimensions of beauty yet to be revealed. Perhaps art can show something of that, can glimpse the future possibilities pregnant within the present time. It is like a chalice: again, beautiful to look at, pleasing to hold, but waiting to be filled with the wine which, itself full of sacramental possibilities, gives the chalice its fullest meaning. Perhaps art can help us to look beyond the immediate beauty with all its puzzles, and to glimpse that new creation which makes sense not only of beauty but of the world as a whole, and ourselves within it."

I love these paintings by Hobie Porter. I love when some put a breath of fresh air into something very traditional.

Eric Liddell is famous as the "Flying Scotsman" who won gold in the 1924 Olympics, whose story was told in the film Chariots of Fire. He withdrew from his best event because of his unwillingness to run on Sunday, and won a race he had only begun training for a few months before. If you saw the film, you know that in 1925 he left Scotland to serve as a missionary in China, where he lived until his death in 1945.

Tonight I'm delivering a toast at The Hall of Men, a group of fellows who gather a couple of towns over from me once a month. A keg of wholesome beer is tapped, dinner is served, the toast is given, psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and drinking songs are belted out, and pipes and cigars are lit.

The toast is always in honor of a great (man) saint of old. I've chosen to toast Eric Liddell, to praise him for the courage he showed in sacrificing his life for others in God's name.

Everyone knows Eric Liddell as a world-class sprinter. Not many know that Liddell played in two Five Nations tournaments ('22, '23) for the Scottish national rugby union side. He started all seven of the matches he played in, scoring four tries (the equivalent of touchdowns) during that time. Although he looks a little bigger in the photo above (note the Scottish Rugby Union thistle on the chest) than he did during the Olympics, Liddell was a smaller speedster sort. He played wing way out on the edge of the field, waiting for opportunities to exploit his speed when the ball was spun out to him.

I'm a huge guy; in fact, I'm almost too big for rugby. Unlike American football, there's a legitimate argument to be made that rugby union is still a code (version) of soccer. There's a lot of kicking in the flow of play, play is very fluid, the clock is a running clock, and most players have to play all 80 minutes of almost non-stop action because substitutions are limited. There aren't any world-class rugby players built like American offensive linemen; those guys would be useless on a rugby pitch. So when I speak of forwards, those are the "big guys" in rugby terms. The physical equivalent of fullbacks and linebackers and strong safeties and tight ends in American football.

Everyone on the team has to carry the ball at some point in the game; everyone has to protect the ball at some point. The game is too fluid for there to be complete specialization. Nonetheless, it is the job of the back line to move the ball with skill and speed, and of the forward pack to secure possession of the ball as the team moves the ball downfield. Every time a man is tackled he must release the ball, and his teammates need to throw themselves over him to knock their opponents off the ball. There are a bunch of rules concerning how this should be done, but the basic idea is that you lower your head and try your best to blast the guys trying to get over your teammate and to the ball. If you don't succeed in blasting them off, or if things are too messy, you might have to stand there and take your blows as the opposing team's forwards slam into you. You must hold on until the scrum-half can get the ball out of where your teammate was tackled and get it back into the hands of runners. This fight over the ball that happens every time a man is tackled, which in rugby is every three or four seconds, is called a ruck.

You don't necessarily want your ruck to look like the one pictured here, but you get the idea. The guy at the bottom has been tackled and must release. The ball will be stolen unless the forwards blast their way in. What has happened in the picture is something of a stalemate, which should be good enough to get the ball out.

Whenever a runner breaks the initial line of defense, it is important that he have supporting players following him, either to field a pass, or to be in a good position to get to the tackled player first. If a man is tackled without any support, he is isolated, and will lose the ball either through a clean steal, or being penalized for not releasing. Because support is so crucial to maintaining possession of the ball, runners try to get tackled near forward support. This is usually done by running toward the middle, but it's not uncommon when a runner is on the loose to see him zigzag or slow down slightly in order to give the big strong guys time to get to him and help secure good ball.

The forwards and inside backs are busy people throughout the match, and depending upon the game the fullback can be very busy. These players do the bulk of the work that it takes to possess the ball and win a match. Wings do a lot of...well...let's be charitable and call it "positioning". They don't do a lot of running or tackling or being stepped on or any of the other staples of rugby life on the pitch. Nonetheless, they are vital. Without the threat of breakaway speed defenses can pinch in. And when a team is pushed back, there's nothing like a big run to relieve pressure.

When the wing does get the ball, it's usually way out on the edge near the sideline. If he gets past the first defender, he has to decide whether to cut inside to where help is, or to try to get as many meters as possible, and run the risk of being tackled without any support. If he chooses the latter, when he is tackled he must release, get to his feet, and try to pick up the ball again. If he does this, he will be pummeled, but he will have bought his team another second of time for support to arrive. Or perhaps another small back who has the speed to run with him will be there. Perfect, some support....except that the support is in the form of a small man who has very little hope of winning the ball. His only job is to ruck over and hope he can take the blows long enough for help to arrive.

Forwards often get annoyed at backs for outrunning their support, but objective forwards know that sometimes making forty meters then losing the ball is worth it...and hey, there's a small chance help will get there.

Here's where the cheesy sports metaphor happens. You and I are like the forward pack. We worship God with his people, we go to church, we work, we marry, we make babies, we make friends, we plant gardens, we establish. We are exactly how God's Kingdom advances in this world; we control the game and maintain possession of the ball. So if the forward pack is like the parish, the people, perhaps it can be said that the other backs are our pastors and elders and bishops and deacons and theologians and scholars and great men of any stripe. These are the ones who make the decisions. When to retreat and live to fight another day. When to wade into the fracas. When to try to slip past the defense. When to command the forwards to slam headlong into the defense. This is the Church, fighting its war against a determined enemy. Occasionally the players take a big hit, but every play is bruising.


The forward pack/people of God are the Kingdom, the possessors and conquerors, marching forward. The backs/pastors lead the pack and attempt to guide and pace them, then work off of their good work to make more substantial gains. But where does the wing belong, living outside the regular life of the rugby pitch, seldom carrying the ball, seldom rucking, seldom hitting?

In 1941, several years into the Sino-Japanese War (which was about to become part of World War II), the British government advised all its citizens to leave China. Eric Liddell sent his wife and children to Canada, but he stayed in China, moving to a rural ministry that aided the poor and sick. Although he protected his family, he was willing to put his life in danger to continue doing the work that he was called to do. In 1943, Liddell was interned at a Japanese camp, where he was known as a leader and peacemaker. In 1945 he died of a brain tumor, the effects of which had surely been exacerbated by hunger and overwork. Only in the last few years has it been revealed that, as a well-known athlete, Liddell was named in a prisoner exchange program between the Japanese and the British. He turned down his spot, giving it to a pregnant woman. He died as he inevitably would have in or out of the camp: of a brain tumor. He died a martyr.

For you and I,the things that were mentioned above as part of the life of the forward pack (being with God's people, going to church, having a job, a family, friends...) are not optional. They are the things God wants from us. The same is true for the backs. They must lead, they must decide, they must dirty their hands and throw themselves into the fray with us whenever necessary. But who are the wings in this rugby ecclesiology? Martyrs and missionaries. Go, live far away, where God's people are not. Go, live far away, where there are no churches. Go, live in such a way that you are denied payed work. Go, live in a place where you may not marry for fear of your family's safety. Go, live where you will have no friends for Christ's sake.

Go run as far as you can, away from where the strength is. Run knowing that when your work is done, it has only just begun. You must get to your feet, and die to self. You must get to your feet, and try to ruck over, even though your visible support is very far away, and the man across from you is much bigger and stronger. Look, here is a teammate who is isolated. The opponent's forwards are bearing in. You can be there first, of course; you're the fastest. Buy us all time. Buy it with your body. While you are being pushed and beaten and stepped on, help is on the way. The scrum-half seizes the ball and whips it out, just as you finally fall backward, unable to stop the inevitable. But the ball is out; the woman is safe.

Forwards often envy the wings. The stories a good wing gets to tell are way better. He does the sorts of things that will be in the write-up the next day, even though they never would have been possible if the forwards hadn't done all the grunt work. But here is the burden of the wing: he knows that if he has some success and breaks off a big run he'll be out there alone, maybe with one friend, and they'll have to do their duty.

Eric Liddell was willing to die far from his wife and daughters, surrounded by enemies. And it doesn't seem as if there was any great agonizing about it, either for him or for his family; it was the work he had been called to do. And for that, he is to be praised. Thanks be to God.

Joffre has been posting videos from the "Ask Doug" series and I finally got a chance to sit and watch some myself. I highly recommend checking them out. I especially enjoyed the birth control , childrearing, and theonomy ones. Here is a link.

Started my seeds. I used old egg cartons and my tupperware bin's lids. I set these up and have started seeing seeds popping out . I started weeding the garden. We are even reading The Secret Garden to the kids right now. Then we had snow all day yesterday. Aargh! I can't wait till spring.

I found these two coming down the stairs and had to get a picture.

Ask Doug - Magic in Literature from Daniel Foucachon on Vimeo.

Hey all. This is the first in what is likely to be a longer (read: book-length) project on the place of violence in the life of the Christian and the Kingdom of God. This is a quick toss-off introduction, but I'd love to get some feedback so that I can explore the most fruitful paths the next time I pick up ink and keyboard. All comments are welcome! The next topics I am likely to explore are a discussion of what violence is, followed by a study of those God has called in times past to protect and vindicate the people of God from his enemies. If you haven't read my post of a few months past entitled Modesty, Violence, and Rest: An Immodest Ramble, I think you'll find it helpful.

Christians know that their religion is exactly as Celsus, a Roman opponent of Christianity, described it centuries ago, a faith for "...foolish and low individuals, and persons devoid of perception, and slaves, and women, and children..."1 Paul told us as much, as did the Lord Jesus himself. God has, from his earliest condescensions to mankind, made a habit of conversing with whores, little brothers, the lame, and the left-handed. That is to say, God has made a habit of exalting the lowly and bringing down the mighty from their thrones; and in order to rub salt in the wounded heads of the powers and principalities, he has used stupid, stubborn, and despised people to accomplish the exaltation of his Kingdom and the desolation of the City of Man.

God's people have been told from the beginning, and often have to be painfully reminded, that their victories and conquests come not from their own strength, but by dint of God's own mighty and outstretched arm. Christians often are confused or hesitant about the place of violence in their lives, to no small degree because of this fact. It is God who saves us, not we ourselves. And we know that God does more than save our eternal lives, although that is the greatest gift he gives to each individual. It is he who saves of from poverty, and shame, and night pestilence, and day arrows, and every trouble and curse that comes upon man. If we are saved from these things, it is God who does it. What, therefore, are we telling God when we do violence to our enemies? Are we suggesting to God that here we wish to take this particular salvation in our own hands?2

Most Christians are not pacifists. Nonetheless, we are haunted by the fear that any violent act is sinful and lacking in trust. The problem here is that God has called certain of his people to be willing to do violence. If we fail to equip those people properly, they suffer because we have diverted them from their proper place in life, and we suffer, because those God would use in his everyday vindication and protection of his people have turned out to be milquetoasts (would it be fair to call them pussies?).

In a perfect world, there would be no violence. Perhaps it is better said tha in the life of the world to come there will be no violence. Perhaps this world is the best of all possible worlds, despite the mockery of those who hate us. In this world there is sin and death, and there are murderers and stalkers and defamers and bearers of false witness. There are oppressive dictators and obnoxious bosses. God save us from them. God saves us from them. Kings tremble before the war machine of God's Kingdom because it has a lot of little swastikas painted on its nose. God's Kingdom has a mighty army, and marches forth to assail the gates of hell itself. God cast Satan out of heaven violently, Jesus crushes the head of the serpent violently, and the Son of God goes forth to war with his train of women and children and the despised to conquer.

There is a sense, because God's Kingdom exalts the weak, in which violence is to be despised. But this I mean in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Violence is not to be hated; that is reserved for the violence of evil men. Violence is to be thought little of. If the first are to be last, it is we who would have been first in the world of flesh who must be the ones willing to pick up the onerous burden that violence imposes. We will see elsewhere that God calls people to violence, and those of us who are best able to bear it, he calls to at least a willingness for direct, confrontational, and sometimes physical violence.

Our Kingdom is a kingdom at war, and our war is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities in the heavenly places. Those are the ones we are after, and those are the enemies we are, by God's grace and action, conquering. Those are the high towers we march against to besiege. Nonetheless, their minions come out against us. They desperately sally out to attack our front lines, and our baggage trains, and our supply lines, and our farms, and our factories, and our villages.

Of course every Christian is called to take some sort of role in this great conflict. But we need to keep the enemy in the trenches, not raiding through the villages. Goblins have always wanted to sneak into the nursery, to eat or kidnap our young. Some of us have been given the duty of staying up at night to kill sneaky goblins.

I will elsewhere more full develop the idea that violence is the burden of men. But it must be brought up from the outset. Everywhere male humans go, we either carry it ready to use, or stoop under its weight. There is no escape from violence for men; the world is a violent place. Christian men must hold to an ethic of violence. Whatever that might look like, the ethic of violence must take certain principles that will be in place until Resurrection Day into account.

The bizarre culture of manhood America displays is not the product of too much or too little violence. It is the product of a false choice. Men are told that they must put violence aside at all costs or become monsters. Most men choose the first. A few choose the second, and prey on the first.

Christian men must pick violence up. They have no choice. Although violence is a fruit of evil doing, it is not in itself evil. Evil violence is the imposition of the will of the stronger over the will of the weak, to the detriment of the weak. Good violence, proper violence, is the preservation of the will of the weak against the will of the strong, to the benefit of the weak. This is why judges must be vindicators and avengers. That sounds more personal and violent than Americans would like, but that is their calling. They are there to save the widow from the ruthless man.

Good, evil, and violence are complicated things. Any ethic of violence is bound to be complicated, and bound to dwell in gray areas where questions of authority haunt every decision. But the Christian man must be willing to use violence, for he has his wife, his children, and his neighbors to consider. Every Christian man is in some small, limited way, an avenger and a vindicator. He must be a modest avenger.




1 Origen, Contra Celsus, Ch. 59

2 This is to say nothing, of course, to that perennial objection to violence by Christians: what of the command to love our enemies? It is not my intent to engage directly with pacifism here. Instead, as I explore how God uses and calls us to use violence, readers who buy what I'm selling can quietly put pacifism back on the shelf, and come interact with the world in the world God made.

A few of we The Bird & Baby Philosophy Club folks were given a tour of Thomas Creek Brewery here in Greenville, South Kackalacky. Big bearded Bill, an architect for 42 years, and now co-founder (along with his son) of his second dream career, showed us around.

Definitely a worthwhile visit, not least because of the free samples. We got to walk around the place with small glasses of the Pump House Porter and the Up The Creek IPA.

We went from (forgive the lack of technical, aka correct terms) the mashing tanks to the fermenting tanks to the filters and finishing tanks to the bottling machines. And the whole thing was done at a leisurely Southern pace that was occasionally frustrating ("What's next, what's next?") but mostly led to an easy back-and-forth as Bill and our little group asked questions and discussed beer. If you live in the area, try calling them and setting up a tour.

I have to be honest and say that until yesterday I was not familiar with a good few of their beers. Besides the ubiquitous (in this area) Amber and Red, I had had their porter, which I like, although it can be a little fruity. The Amber and the Red are forgettable, to be honest, but the sad thing about it is that most local grocery stores stock only those two Thomas Creek brands, which does them a disservice. Still, you can pick up all their beers at Whole Foods in Greenville.

If you haven't had the Up The Creek, do it. It's an "extreme beer", but it's not as outrageously floral as you might think. It's smooth, with a touch of an almost creamy Belgian element of dark fruit and spice. Buy some.

There's a great post over challies.com about what happens when God sees you Google.

With each passing day our little Swaits become more fully Swait! Renata and I faced off across a Scrabble board while Joffre Jr. bounced between teams. Renata acquitted herself well, scoring over a hundred points in a game in which we didn't use any of the modifiers on the board. It was fun to watch them learn to think with the tiles and the board; Joffre kept wanting to spell words and just plunk them down on the board, regardless of whether they touched other tiles or not.

I think there are going to be some epic battles around here in a few years.

My sister visited over the weekend (arriving late Wednesday, actually). I had a very busy weekend already on the books, but I was able to hang out with Jennifer and little Alex a little, especially Saturday morning. Jen and I went out to the yard, I lit up a pipe, and the kids had a blast running around. Little Joffre mastered climbing on top of the playhouse Grandparents Floyd gave us.

Earlier in the week Kimberly and Jennifer took all the kids to the zoo. For three days that was all I heard about from all the kids. Here's Renata with cousin Alex.

Here are the chitlins hanging with Aunt Jen at the playground outside the Greenville Zoo. Renata learned to swing on her own, which she's very excited about.

On Saturday everyone went over to Furman University to watch my rugby team (St. Andrew's RFC) play the Gastonia Gargoyles. Besides a mind-blowing gaffe early in the match, I played well, which is important to one when there's an audience. And we won! There's me being brought down. The skinny dude behind me scored two tries, which just goes to show being smart is better than being big or fast in rugby.

The kids had fun hanging out at the field. Ward's already built like a prop!

Jennifer took a while to get around to child number two, but it's currently in utero and on the way! Expect delivery late summer. Let the cousinage blossom!

I read this post over at Femina today and really loved it. It is an insightful post about women being to transparent or confessing too much to their peers.

I was interviewed by an old friend from high school, Faydra, about having four kids. Check it out here at her blog ,Groundspeed. She interviewed people according to how many children they had and posted the answers each day. Fun idea.

I had a lot of fun making this wreath yesterday. I wrapped yarn around a styrofoam wreath mold and then added the bird and crocheted flowers. My friend made one using strips of cloth pinned to the form instead of yarn and it is really great. You can switch out the fabric. I decided on yarn because I had some nice colors . The colors weren't perfect for our red door but I still like it. The bird pattern is from here. The original idea with yarn is from here.

Ward and I are tired of the cold. We're ready for Spring!