I still remember reading Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl after it came out in 2009. I was an English major studying theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. I went from reading Romantic poets, Jonathan Swift, and rhetoric to delving into the mysteries of Reformed theology. Along the way, I was somehow convinced that theology should be true but bland, instructive but not expressive, biblical but not beautiful. That, of course, is ridiculous. And, for the record, it is not reflective of the greatest theologians I read. But it was a phase in my assumptions. Clarity was king for theology: the biblical truth, clearcut and consistent. No garnishes. No gushing on with imagery about the love of God or the glory of Christ. No personal artistry.
But then I read Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl. I grabbed another student in the library. "Hey! I didn't know we were allowed to do this. Did you know that?!" Some understood what I meant right away. The rest looked at me funny. All that to say, N. D. Wilson was a welcome voice in my theological development, not just because of what he said but because of how he said it. His writing reawakened the slumbering English major inside me. It was a simple call to remember: words are not just bricks to be stacked with mortar. They are winds to be wielded, gifts we receive and direct elsewhere. And they are powerful for divine reasons. Words, after all, originate with God, not with us.
What I Loved
We so often lose a sense of God-tethered awe in the world. We need help to regain it. That's what this book offers. It goes into specifics of strange truths and looks at life from alternate perspectives: ant colonies, autumn leaves, the ancient water of the world and all its travels in time: from the mouth of cows to the bellies of clouds. We need strangeness to embrace the beauty of familiar truth over and over again. Strangeness is an ally, not an enemy. Amidst the strangeness, the familiar truth Wilson focuses on in this book is the nature of our world as spoken. Ours is an uttered world, full of mystery and meaning that have the power to sweep us up into worship of the speaking God.
My favorite part of this new Author's Collection edition is actually the Postlude. But that's because I'm a writer, and this is where Wilson recounts some of his own history as a published author: the struggles and victories, the uncertainties and providences. It is deeply fascinating to me whenever I get a glimpse into the life of another writer. It's like looking into the window of someone's house at night-time.
Favorite Quotes
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the new Author's Collection edition (2024).
- "I look around at the stuff of the world and I ask myself what it is made of. Words. Magic words. Words spoken by the Infinite, words so potent, spoken by One so potent that they have weight and mass and flavor. They are real. They have taken on flesh and dwelt among us. They are us. In the Christian story, the material world came into existence at the point of speech, and that speech was ex nihilo, from nothing. God did not look around for some cosmic goo to sculpt, or another god to dice and recycle. He sang a song, composed a poem, began a novel so enormous that even the Russians are dwarfed by its heaped-up pages. You are spoken. I am spoken. We stand on a spoken stage" (22).
- "Tree, God says, and there is one. But He doesn't say the word tree; He says the tree itself. He needs no shortcut. He's not merely calling one into existence, though His voice creates. His voice is its existence. That thing in your yard, that mangy apple or towering spruce, that thing is not the reference of His word. It is His word and its referent. If He were to stop talking, it wouldn't be there" (41).
- "The world cannot exist apart from the voice of God. It is the voicings of God" (88).
- "This universe is a portrait in motion, a compressed portrait in motion, a miniature, inevitably stylized, for it is trying to capture the Infinite. The galaxies are each one fraction of a syllable in a haiku of the Ultimate" (96).
- "God has the authority to shape a soul with His voice, bind it to matter, and send it into history. And He has the authority to sever my soul from my body and call it to another part of the stage. He has the authority to reuse the matter from my flesh in daffodils. I'm not worried. I'll get more. There is no evil in His voice calling us to cross the Jordan, whether He calls us singly or in droves. There is no evil when He tells us to lay our first flesh down, no more than when He sends a caterpillar into its cocoon" (100).
- "Do not mourn the leaves" (156).
- "You have nothing in and of yourself. You and I are made of clay and spit. Any holiness of ours is polluted beyond our petty comprehension. I have nothing to offer Him but a bent neck, a neck He helped me bend. I have nothing to offer Him but filth, and He has taken it. He exchanged it for blood like wine, and His own body broken like bread" (162-163).
- "We are dying. We must die. The road is well traveled. We need not fear the dark, for the way is lit with Christmas lights. . . . We are in winter, where the light dies and blood runs cold. But we are not forgotten. Wet, ripped from trees and trampled, we will not be lost, for we are His words, and when His voice calls, we will come. . . . Let us go into the ground, and our faces will find the sun" (179).
What I Would Have Liked
This is one of those books that I really wouldn't alter. Wilson does spend a good amount of time addressing the "problem of evil," that is, how a good and all-powerful God can govern a world with so much suffering in it. And that issue is always relevant. But perhaps he could have spent less time on that and more time on delving into the spoken nature of reality and our meaning within it. But that's not something I'm strong on. He does a fine job dealing with such a heavy theological topic in conversational language.
Should You Read It?
Yes! Wilson is one of my favorite contemporary writers, for his creativity, passion, and God-worshiping expressions. Not all theology can be this poetic. Books like this are special instances of truth meeting beauty. So, treasure them.
