Mentors in Marriage - Warfield & McQuilken

I just read a moving post from Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds on B. B. Warfield, a theological giant and former Principal of Princeton Theological Seminary (1887-1902).

Justin had just read comments on the life of Dr. Warfield from Kim Riddlebarger. Specifically, he was touched by Warfield’s commitment to his wife in the midst of her long term illness. Here are some of the highlights:

Soon after marrying Annie Pearce Kinkead, who was also from noble stock, the newlyweds journeyed to Leipzig. . . .
During their stay in Europe an event occurred that would forever change the Warfield’s lives. While walking together in the Harz mountains, Mr. and Mrs. Warfield were caught in a violent thunderstorm. Annie Warfield suffered a severe trauma to her nervous system from which she never fully recovered. She was so severely traumatized that she would spend the rest of her life as an invalid of sorts, becoming increasingly more incapacitated as the years went by. Her husband was to spend the rest of their lives together giving her “his constant attention and care” until her death in 1915 (Allis, “Personal Impressions of Dr Warfield,” 10). B. B. Warfield could not have foreseen just how constant and difficult a demand this was to become, and how, in the providence of God, this would impact his entire career.
. . . Warfield’s remarkable literary output is, no doubt, in large measure due to the frail condition of his wife and his amazing devotion to her. With the pen he was a formidable foe, but as O. T. Allis recalls, “I used to see them walking together and the gentleness of his manner was striking proof of the loving care with which he surrounded her. They had no children. During the years spent at Princeton, he rarely if ever was absent for any length of time” (Allis, “Personal Impressions of Dr Warfield,” 10). Machen recalled that Mrs. Warfield was a brilliant woman and that Dr. Warfield would read to her several hours each day. Machen dimly recalled seeing Mrs. Warfield in her yard a number of years earlier during his own student days, but notes that she had been long since bed-ridden (Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen, 220). Read the rest of this post here.

In reading this testimony of love and commitment, my mind went back to the early 90’s, and I remembered reading an article in Christianity Today by the President of Colombia Bible College (now Columbia International University) Robertson McQuilken. McQuilken had resigned from Colombia to care for his wife who was in the throws of Alzheimer’s. Her is an excerpt from his resignation speech:

Murial McQuilken died in 2003. Her husband cared for her to the very end.

Read the article I read in 1990 from CT —- “Living by Vows” —- along with these follow-up articles — “Murial’s Blessing” & “The Gradual Grief of Alzheimer’s” (Interview shortly after her death)

Failure & Imagination at Harvard

I hate sitting through commencements but I love to read or watch some of the unique and insightful words from commencements speakers who address these excited and talented graduates.  I ran across one today that captured my attention.

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivered the Commencement Address at Harvard entitled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,”

With wit and candor she encouraged these new graduates to make a difference in the world amid times of failure and to harness their imaginations to help the hurting and oppressed in the world. 

Here are a few quotes that stood out to me:

On the Benefits of Failure - “So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

On the Power of the Imagination - Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

On Helping the Voiceless & Powerless - If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

Click here to listen or read this address.

Hope Managment

John Ortberg, pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian, wrote an excellent reflection on hope as it relates to leaders at the blog - Out of Ur. Here is a quote:

“The church is in the hope business. We of all people ought to be known most for our hope; because our hope is founded on something deeper than human ability or wishful thinking. Martin Luther King was fond of citing Reinhold Niebuhr’s distinction between hope and optimism. Optimism believes in progress; that circumstances will get better. Hope, however, is is built on the conviction that another reality, another Kingdom, already exists. And so hope endures when hype fades.”

Check out the complete article here — John Ortberg on Hope Management

Also, you can hear some of Ortberg’s sermons here. I listen to him weekly on my ipod and love it!