Hunter Dansin

Home for my words

Living with Contentment

“I have lived with less than I need, and I have lived with more than I need. I have learned the secret of walking the road of life. Whether I am well-fed or hungry, whether I have more than I need or not enough.”

— Small Man to the Sacred Family in Village of Horses (Philippians 4:12 First Nations Version)

I have seen and heard the famous sequel to this verse used as a motivational statement so often that the context quoted above surprises me. Paul does not say “I can do all things through Christ” after listing his staggering achievements and hardships. Instead, “all things” in this context refers to literal things: his material needs. What can we learn from this during lent?

In America we should probably identify with Paul's statement about living with “more than I need,” but if we're being honest I think that many of us feel the opposite even if we live far above the poverty threshold. I know I do. My broken nature craves more and more without satisfaction, and the modern economy is built to take advantage of and stoke my greed. Last Christmas I decided I wanted a nice analog watch, so I innocently searched “best watches under fifty dollars.” I now have six watches, and while I have been responsible with my purchases, I still spent far more than I planned to, and I constantly find myself suppressing the urge to “research” more. This is a frivolous example, but it demonstrates how external greed can interact with our internal greed to trick us into discontentment even when we live in the richest nation on earth. And so insidious is our broken nature that we can view almost anything as a product. Whether it be what is on our wrists, the people we love, or the hobbies we find joy in, our selfish nature commodifies them so easily.

As Christians the need for contentment goes far beyond the life changing magic of tidying up. While the benefits of de-cluttering and buying less are important, they cannot exceed the benefits of contentment to our soul. Note that Paul has lived with more and less. His solution to the problem of discontentment and varying levels of material success goes beyond what is material and points to our savior, Jesus. How sweet the grace of God, that we can find rest for our souls no matter whether we are rich or poor! That we can look beyond our treasures to the Treasure of Eternal Life in Christ!

I wish I could say that I have been learning contentment through the discipline of giving up a material comfort during lent, but if anything, this lent season has brought more sharply into focus just how impossible it is to be content without Christ. Without my material comfort, there is less to distract me from the restlessness that I use the comfort to cover up. And yet it is also teaching me that contentment, much like fasting or abstinence, is a daily, hourly, minute by minute discipline. We cannot just decide to give something up, just like we cannot just decide to be content. We must endure the pain as we walk the road of life, depending on the grace of our savior Jesus, who gives us strength.

Read more about the First Nations Version of the New Testament here: https://firstnationsversion.com/book/first-nations-version/

#lent #reflection #contentment


First, thank you for reading! To echo a sentiment from Thomas Hardy, I greatly regret that I will never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.


Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

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February actually felt like winter, both physically and spiritually. I felt like I was hunkering down and just surviving. Nothing extreme happened, but I just barely maintained a writing habit. This month is looking pretty busy as well, but I'm going to try and keep chipping away.

Writing

I am now at the end of any previous draft material, so it is exciting but also difficult to keep pushing. One page at a time though. I also wrote a lent reflection, which I will post on here after this. Subscribe if you want to read it!

Audiobook/Music

Work on the audiobook fell to the wayside. I'll get to it eventually. I've been playing more guitar and feeling some of the old amp/gear lust I felt in high school (I used to watch the proguitarshopdemo YouTube religiously). In the end though, a good guitarist can make almost anything sound good, and my gear is more than adequate. I've been transferring some tracks to audio.com, which will be the new home for my music. I'm kind of amazed that it exists, and really grateful for an ad-free, unlimited platform to share and collaborate on.

I also entered the TinyDesk concert for the first time. Thank you to my friend for encouraging me to do it. You can watch my entry here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4jY1hLQ_sM

Podcast

I think we're coming out of hibernation. Hopefully you will hear something by the end of the month!

Reading/Listening

I read Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin and loved it. There is a great podcast in which Dr. Cornell West says that James Baldwin wants to be an honest man. He tells the painful truth with so much tenderness and passion, and the story of salvation and the struggle of faith resonated with my soul. John's (the main character's) conversion is some of the most visionary and powerful writing I have encountered.

For listening I enjoyed Son House, and also discovered Earl Hooker, who as far as I can tell is a criminally underrated blues guitarist. He has an effortless style and a great amount of restraint when playing, but the effect he achieves is really impressive. I found him because I was looking for some examples of slide playing in standard tuning, as I'd like to use the slide more.


Here's a quote from Go Tell it on the Mountain:

“Out of joy strength came, strength that was fashioned to bear sorrow: sorrow brought forth joy. Forever? This was Ezekiel's wheel, in the middle of the burning air forever — and the little wheel ran by faith, and the big wheel ran by the grace of God.

“Elisha?” he said.

“If you ask Him to bear you up,” said Elisha, as though he had read his [John's] thoughts, “He won't never let you fall.

“It was you,” he said, “wasn't it, Who prayed me through?”

“We was all praying, little brother,” said Elisa.”

#march #update #jamesbaldwin


First, thank you for reading! To echo a sentiment from Thomas Hardy, I greatly regret that I will never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.


Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Patreon | Podcast | Mastodon | Twitter | Github

Well, what a month. I feel like I am just now getting over the hangover from 2023. I turned 30. All my creative endeavors were a struggle, but I struggled on. Not looking forward to this year because of the election... But I have decided to show my work by my actions rather than my words, as far as that is possible for a writer...

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It came out a while ago but you remember before you had a son that you liked The New Order so you get it on a sale because you are a Daddy now and you can't let your money show that video games are a priority even though sometimes it feels like they are the only place you are really important or needed.

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Another year has gone. Didn't get much done in December as the latter half of the month was all for family. Did a lot of traveling. Tiring but worth it to share the joy of our kids. I have been reflecting on how, when we meet with family, we are often just as challenged as we are refreshed; and I am sure some families are more often challenged by each other. Living apart (in our case in different states), means that we develop different routines that are not always good for us. What we eat, when we get up, the things we meditate on and distract ourselves with. Visiting family can help us reflect on our strengths and weaknesses, if we take enough time to stop focusing on others' deficiencies...

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Wow, November went fast. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Thanksgiving cut into writing time and overall productivity this month — but seeing family was worth it.

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“Now what you need is some old coat hangers. Put 'em in your trunk in case you get the midnight special.”1

“I still don't know what you mean.”

“You will, and you'll need those coat hangers to wake you up if it comes.”

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Book 2/3 and Audiobook

I have decided to start doing semi-regular updates for what I am working on and what I am reading and consuming. At most I will publish one once a month.

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A moment of vision faithfully commented on.

Content warning: This essay contains discussion of rape.

In Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, after Tess tells her new husband that she is not a virgin and he rejects her, Thomas Hardy describes a scene in which the husband sleepwalks, carrying Tess through a field, over a river, to an abandoned stone coffin outside of a run down Abbey. He lays her in the coffin and falls to the ground asleep. Then Tess sits up in the coffin. This scene is one of Hardy's “moments of vision,” a moment that Virginia Woolf described as a passage in which both author and reader seem “to be suddenly and without their own consent lifted up and swept onwards.” It is perhaps vain to attempt to discern the meaning of this passage. Hardy himself, who stated in the explanatory note of the novel that “novels are impressions, not arguments,” might deplore such an effort — but I am the reader, and as Woolf also wrote about reading him, “it is for the reader, steeped in the impression, to supply the comment.” 1

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In 2244 AI generates all artistic entertainment consumed by humanity. Art made by artists does not sell. Movies, holo-novels, real-novels, games, albums, and all imaginable forms of past and future media are simulated and generated by the content delivery mechanism at the rate of a few seconds per media. In the event that a human does make something on their own, it is drowned in the cosmic ocean of content and never seen by anyone but the creator.

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