"A Serious Way of Wondering" by Reynolds Price

For years Reynolds Price has been developing a large collection of significant works addressing areas of faith, understanding, interpretation of the Bible, morality in the modern world, and struggles with being a person of faith who has less faith in the traditional institutions that support Christian faith. It would stand to reason that one of the reasons that Price and others have been struggling with faith and understanding outside the traditional church is that there is a forgetfulness of the person of Jesus and his actions beneath platitudes and cliques. The "What Would Jesus Do?" fad, or WWJD fad, ends up to be a shallow exercise if there has not been clearheaded thought and reflection on what he did do in his times and finding modern analogies to those actions. (It also losses focus because the real question is what will we do.) To think that Jesus would never have placed himself in a position to be "tempted" by drugs or the advances of a homosexual displays a forgetfulness that Jesus was open to all who came to him without a morality filter to cut off people that were taboo. It is also naive to think that Israel in the time of Jesus was homosexual free or drug free. Alcohol is a drug and if I'm not mistaken, Jesus made more wine when the guests at a wedding drank their hosts wine too fast. Instead of a sobriety speech, he made MORE wine. Homosexuals are a percentage of every society no matter how backward their morality. So I think it is safe to assume that Jesus did come into contact with homosexuals and that they may possibly have made an advance. Remember Jesus was all about intimacy (what Ivan Klima call the Ultimate Intimacy) and this could have been mistaken for something else. We don't know, but we can find certain analogies in his dealing with others in society who were looked down upon or cast out. As Price tells us, he broke down the barriers (which were built of falsity) and touched people were they stood - open, embracing, defenseless.
A Serious Way of Wondering shows us why we need writers like Price to bring us back to the reality of Jesus in History with real people doing real things. The beauty of his reflections on the suicide is ample proof that Price is neither writing for the pouch line, nor writing to take people to task for their pain and hurt (ala most evangelicals and even Dante). We on the outside are there because we want to fully engage the texts and the truth of biblical Christianity without buying into a set of presumptions that have nothing to do with the text of Bible or with Jesus' life. Price opens the door to serious wondering / reflection because we really can't be too sure what Jesus would do in all circumstances. In his day, many people thought they knew exactly what the Messiah was going to do and as we now see clearly, they were a bit presumptive. With Price, I hope for a little more wonder and little less rigidity. If this way of wondering seriously means that one is an outlaw Christian, then sign me up.

I highly recommend Reynolds Price's A Serious Way of Wondering to all readers. If possible see also Palpable God, Three Gospels, and his Collected Poems. Anyone interested in writing should have his Learning a Trade: A Craftsman's Notebook, 1955-1997 - it is a rare glimpse of the artist at work in his studio - words.