Showing items filed under “The Rev. Canon Dr. Victor Lee Austin”

Signals

A friend, new to Dallas, was telling me about driving around here. “I’m really surprised,” he said, “how many cars have broken signal lights.” Hello? “They must not work; they’re never used.”
    That was a few months ago. I should show him the latest D Magazine with its list of 52 things you have to do in Dallas. No. 51: “Refuse to use turn signals. . . . Nothing is a bigger giveaway that you’re not from around here than a blinking taillight.”
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    I’m against cultural relativism: some cultures can be worse than others in some respects. There are many things I like about Dallas, but they don’t include the way people drive. I am impressed, however, that this particular bad driving practice has made a top list in a glossy magazine. Drivers here are famous for not signaling their intentions.
    This is not a good cultural practice. Other driving cultures are better than ours. We should be famous for something else.
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    Have I told you this one before? There was a study about how a single driver can make an important difference in heavy traffic. It’s easy: just keep a safe distance between you and the car in front of you. A safe distance is the distance you cover in two seconds; it is obviously longer when you are driving faster. Keep that space in front of you and other drivers will dart into it. Don’t lose your cool, just pull back a bit and recreate the space.
    What happens is a study in fluid motion. One driver doing this and the whole system actually starts working better. A few drivers and pretty soon it’s much better.
    It’s interesting how humans work together, and how we can learn to work together.
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    Good driving requires cooperation, and cooperation requires communication, and that’s what signal lights do: they communicate from one driver to another.
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    Is this column about driving? Yes and no. It’s about being human. It’s about not being wrongly angry, about helping others with whom we share a common space and, for a while, a common journey. Intelligently flowing traffic is not a bad picture in an everyday mode of holy communion.
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    Out & About. Sunday, April 22, at 6 p.m. I am giving the spring theology lecture as Theologian-in-residence of the diocese of Dallas. It is called “Friendship: The Final Frontier.” It’s at Church of the Incarnation, 3966 McKinney Ave. A reception follows, and (it is hoped) a book is also to follow. The reception, however, will come before the book.
    The following weekend I am preaching at All Souls’ Church in Oklahoma City: Saturday, April 28, at 5:30 p.m., and Sunday following at 8, 9:15, and 11 a.m.

Posted by The Rev. Canon Dr. Victor Lee Austin with

After the Resurrection, Then What?

Saint John’s Gospel has an extra chapter. By the end of chapter 20, in which Jesus reveals himself to Mary Magdalene and then to the disciples without Thomas and finally to Thomas, one might sense the thing is at its conclusion. Indeed, the writer says that many more words could be said, but these have been written for the sake of the reader coming to faith. End of story. Why then chapter 21?
    It begins with Simon Peter saying he’s going fishing. Altogether, seven disciples are there in the boat. They spend a fruitless night fishing, then a word from (the unrecognized) Jesus results in a miraculously great haul of fish. On shore, they have a meal with Jesus, whom they now recognize. Along with the fish, the meal includes bread.
    What’s going on here? I think we are being shown that, after the resurrection, life continues. To put it more precisely: we are shown that the life after resurrection is in continuity with the life before. Earlier, the disciples were fishermen. Earlier, they saw miraculous signs that Jesus did. Earlier, they had meals with Jesus, including a meal in which bread and fish were multiplied. This now, in John 21, is their old life continuing with their Lord who is, now, with them from the far side of death.
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    I used to think otherwise. I used to think that the resurrected body was a completely new thing, discontinuous from the body I now have. But along the way one of my teachers told me that Aquinas insists on material continuity. Aquinas says the resurrected body must be continuous with the mortal body I now have. Obviously my body will be changed, but it will also be the same.
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    Why is this important? Imagine a forged copy of a Rembrandt painting. In this forgery, the canvas is made to be the same as a canvas that Rembrandt might have used (for instance, if you performed carbon-14 dating on it, it would go back to the correct century). The paint would be the same as his, the brushstrokes would be perfect imitations, everything about it would say: this was made by Rembrandt. But in fact, it is a contemporary forgery done with such skill that it is indistinguishable from an original.
    Why then would we call it a forgery? Because it lacks material continuity with Rembrandt. In fact, it is not a painting he did.
    Similarly: if you or I are given new bodies that have no connection with the bodies we now have, there is a serious question about whether our identity has survived. If we believe that the body is an essential part of being human, then it matters that the resurrection body be in material continuity with our mortal body.
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    How do you know that the cat that comes out from behind the sofa is the same cat as the one who you saw go behind the sofa a minute ago? You know it because it’s the same body.
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    The 21st chapter of John, it seems to me, wants to show us what material continuity means: that each of us will have a personal story with connections and continuities from our life now to our life in the resurrection. If we are fisherfolk now, for instance, that will be part of our identity then.
    In the resurrection, nothing that is real will be lost.
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    Out & About. I am to preach at St. Matthew’s cathedral on Sunday, April 15, at the 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. services: 5100 Ross Ave., Dallas.
    On Sunday, April 22, I am to give the spring theology lecture, “Friendship: The Final Frontier,” at Church of the Incarnation, 3966 McKinney Ave., Dallas. I have been researching and thinking and writing on friendship for some time; in this lecture I intend to draw out how achieving friendship is the culmination of a fully human life, as well as being the frontier of the life to come. The lecture beings at 6 p.m. in the church itself; there will be a reception following. (The lecture follows choral evensong at 5 p.m.)

Posted by The Rev. Canon Dr. Victor Lee Austin with

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The Rev. Canon Victor Lee Austin. Ph.D., is the Theologian-in-Residence for the diocese and is the author of several books including, "Friendship: The Heart of Being Human" and "A Post-Covid Catechesis.: 

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