Tommy Wilson - PK

I'm just getting into Woodrow Wilson: A Biography by John Milton Cooper, Jr. I had not known previously that Wilson was a "p.k." (preacher's kid!) - but Cooper makes much of the fact that Wilson grew up in a Presbyterian manse.

This paragraph really interests me: "Even after Tommy (Wilson's full name was Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the middle name coming from his mother's maiden name - and he was called Tommy as a child) started school, he spent Mondays, which was a minister's day off, with his father, who took him to see sights he thought 'might interest or educate a boy.' Afterward, his father would have Tommy write an essay about what he'd seen. After his son had read the essay aloud, Dr. Wilson would say, 'Now put down your paper and tell me in your own words what you saw.' Tommy would then give a shorter, more direct account and his father would respond, 'Now write it down that way.'" (page 20)

I wonder what would happen if preaching was taught that way? And not just preaching by the ordained but the practice of "testifying" in less formal ways to God's work in the world that all Christians are called to. See it, write it, say it, write it again in a shorter, simpler, direct way. I am reminded of those great scenes in "A River Runs Through It" where another Presbyterian minister is teaching his sons to write, and insists that they learn to edit down to the heart of the matter.

In his great work, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute and Advocacy, Walter Brueggemann explores the process of doing theology in the Old Testament as a move from the particular to the general- from verbs to adjectives to nouns. So one first has a saving experience and says, "YHWH saves." After some number of those experiences, the verb becomes an adjective: YHWH is saving." Eventually the claim becomes a noun: YHWH is Savior. The effect is that over time, it becomes more of who YHWH is and not only what YHWH does. But it also represents a move away from particularity to generalities and that is always a risk. Brueggemann notes that in order to maintain "generalizing nouns" Israel must be regularly prepared to return to the more particular adjectival claims and behind those to verbal sentences of testimony.

What I think that means is that it is not enough to say that God is Savior or Friend or Comforter, but to learn to see (and then speak of) the God who saves, befriends, comforts. We must be prepared to return to particulars by learning to see God in the midst of our ordinary activities. Because if we aren't careful we just keep repeating the nouns without opening our eyes to the experience. I wonder what it would be like to teach young people, confirmation students, and adults to go out into the world on a Monday morning or a Saturday afternoon with their eyes and ears open to seeing God, and then to write it, tell it, and re-write it focused on first-person verbs rather than generalized nouns. I wonder what it might be like for me to work on that a bit!