Michael Stark - Untruth: Musings with Kierkegaard on Christian Living in a Fractured World

Untruth

UNTRUTH

Musings with Kierkegaard on Christian Living in a Fractured World

Michael Stark

For my parents, Tom and Maureen

First published in 2018 by

Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd

1 Spencer Court

140 142 Wandsworth High Street

London SW18 4JJ

2018 Michael Stark

The right of Michael Stark to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978-0-232-53313-2

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Phototypeset by Kerrypress Typesetters, St Albans, AL3 8JL

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Glasgow.

Acknowledgements

Journey is a central theme in this book. And much of the process that led to writing this book can be summed up by that same word. This book has been an idea for several years now, and I am deeply grateful that I have been given the opportunity to write it.

Many thanks to the team at Darton, Longman, and Todd for their wonderful collaboration. To David Moloney and Helen Porter specifically, I thank you for your patience with a new author and for the many encouraging notes and feedback throughout the process. Seeing this project come together has been rewarding.

Special thanks to my good friend, Brandan Robertson for introducing me to the team at Darton, Longman, and Todd. Brandan, your friendship, wisdom, and guidance have been incredible. Keep doing your important work.

Ellen Haroutunian, one of the many wise voices in my life, thank you for reading through many chapters of this book. Your comments, suggestions, and guidance have been invaluable to me. Your voice is important for so many. Im thankful for your leadership, and also for the many nights where you and Aram have hosted for Armenian food. What a joy those nights have been!

Isaac Archuleta, my dearest friend, my confidant. You are the closest thing Ive ever had to a brother. You too, have offered so much to this project. Your suggestions on tone and direction made this project come to life. But more than that, you are an inspiration. You model a life of compassion and empathy that help me understand what it means to be Christ-like. Your fingerprints are on these pages.

To what I call the Kierkegaard community, the many folks who study and discuss this great thinker, I cannot thank you enough. From the discussions in conference rooms to the shared pints at pubs afterward, youve helped me understand the influence of Kierkegaard and the vastness by which his thoughts have impacted so many spheres of life. To always be welcomed into these conversations is truly a gift.

To the many other friends and family who, through our conversations and relationships have contributed to this book in intangible ways that perhaps remain unknown to you, thank you for always being with me. Heather and Justin Bartlett, Annie Dimond, Kyle Dykema, JD and Emily Dykes, Brad Homan, Darin Lammers, Ryan Taylor, James and Amy Timmer, Wilson Skomal.

To my former students, thank you for allowing me to learn with you. The opportunity to be your teacher is one of the greatest blessings of my life. Thanks for keeping me humble and making the classroom a space of discussion and fun.

To Tom McGee, my mentor and my friend. Youve been with me for years, and you will be for many years to come. Youre not off the hook yet! The countless hours and days spent with you have helped shaped who I am. Your presence has been life-giving. Youve seen me at my lowest, and perhaps one day well see whatever the highest looks like. But whatever may come, I know your counsel is always by my side.

And finally to my parents, the grounding voice in my life. Thank you for modeling a life of love.

Musings

The crowd is untruth.

The Single Individual

The Wilderness

I quite wonderfully dont have it all together. You might think that this is an obvious admission. My friends will happily agree with you. Despite my best efforts, all the things I do not know far outnumber those I do.

The quite wonderfully part of that statement is relatively new in my life. I wrote it down in a little notepad I carry with me in my REI hiking pack. I was down in Tucson, Arizona visiting my family for our yearly Thanksgiving gathering. They live just a few miles from Saguaro National Park, and, on this occasion, we all ventured out together to explore this beautifully rugged land.

The narrative Ive told myself throughout my entire life lacked those two key words that deserve emphasis, quite wonderfully . I am far from the first to carry the I dont have it all together message with me wherever I go and in whatever I do. Its only been in the last few years that Ive edited the narrative that infiltrated my thoughts. And it requires constant and ongoing work to recognize the value of those two words.

Those two words have already changed a life that has been plagued with self-doubt and fear into one of embraced mystery and the whimsical experiences of truly coming to appreciate yourself.

As life has its way of surprising you, I started shifting this message towards something positive amid a turbulent and uncertain period of my life. Here I was, a late-twenties aspiring academic who had a couple good collegiate-level teaching positions to start my career. And in what seemed like a blink of an eye, the aspiring came off that title.

And not in a good way.

I no longer ticked the theological boxes that the institution wanted me to check. I was kindly asked to leave.

Being thrust into the wilderness without any warning can ravish the unexpected traveler on lifes journey. I certainly was no different. It is in the moments when so many factors in life are decided for you that the feeling of overwhelming loneliness can overwhelm you. Yet it is here, in the wilderness, where the opportunity to discover yourself more deeply occurs. Maybe its the old proverb of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps that carries you on. But sheer survival instinct does not produce the affluence of self that each of us so deeply deserve. There comes a point when we have to stand up, with our integrity intact, and proudly declare that yes, I dont have it all together. And Im quite wonderfully enjoying the process of figuring it out. This acknowledgement is one central to our theology. We never stop growing. God never stops growing alongside of us. As we expand in our nature, Gods love expands accordingly.

The enjoyment of this process, however, is not without its share of vulnerability and fear.

The moments when we become untethered from our security mechanisms bring forth a feeling of floundering, aimless wandering, and uncontrollable fear. Tolkien was correct when he wrote, Not all those who wander are lost, in The Lord of the Rings , but it sure as hell feels like I have been lost a few times.

Im not alone in this state. We are in a time of seismic shifts. New social realities and languages are forming. The tremors of these changes are felt throughout the world. From the geopolitical level, all the way down to our immediate neighborhoods, it feels as though there is a fierce game of tug of war happening. We are the rope in the middle.

It is no wonder much of the world seems to be operating with a heightened sense of alert. Change is scary. When the change involves things we hold dearly values, morals, beliefs we feel at war. We are ready for battle to defend our positions.