"Why seek ye the living among the dead?" Luke 24:5
The women who walked to the tomb that morning had no idea it was Easter morning. Their best friend and teacher had died. For them it was the loneliest and darkest moment of their lives. That's the way Easter begins for all of us. The joy of resurrection is not possible without the reality of death. They had brought spices to anoint the dead body of Jesus. But there was no body. There was only an empty tomb.
Regardless of what you believe about Jesus having died and coming to life again, the story of Easter is very true. It is possible for any of us to die and live again. We need not look any further than our own psyches and emotional systems. And we need to ask ourselves the question "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"
And why do we keep anointing the same dead things as if we can cover up the decomposition and the stench?
We all live among dead things like worry, regret, and fear. We live among a pantheon of negative emotions. These emotions always appear to be very alive, very real but they don't really exist. Well they only exist in our minds and emotions. If they are only in our minds then why don't we simply change our minds? Isn't there a pantheon of positive feelings that are just as real? But how can I say that these emotions are real when I've just said the negative emotions are not real? They are real because no matter what things seem like at the moment, everything is going to be ok. Even if the things you worry about, regret and fear come to pass, the reality will remain that you're going to be ok. None of those things can end your life unless you choose to end your own life. The life forces that were born when a single-celled organism was born millions of years ago will still live. And even if something destroys every living thing, everything, then life will find a way to begin again.
Those life forces surge in you.These life forces have a multitude of definitions in religions and cultures over several thousand years. But they all come back to one simple truth, "Life will find a way."
As a teenager, struggling with darkness and despair, the words came to me, "David, if everything is going to be all right, then everything's all right." I can tell you that everything did not feel all right for a very long time. The truth though, the reality is that everything was all right because everything is all right.
But how can I say that? When we look at all the hate and horror in the world things certainly don't appear to be all right ? That's just the point, you don't have to only look at all the hate and horror in the world. No matter what has just happened in Belgium, Iraq, South Carolina or Chattanooga, you choose what you see. You can see the devastation and the carnage, or you can see the living things. The living things of love, hope, beauty and healing always survive. These things are just as true. They are the only things that are eternally true. "But the death is still there", you say, "The loss is still real." These things are only an empty tomb. You can fill that emptiness with whatever you choose. You can feel the tomb with anger, hate, depression and despair, to you can fill it with life.
Today is Easter Sunday, 2016. Just like that first Easter morning, the illusion is that death and emptiness is the end of the story. Those men in dazzling white said to the women, "He is not here. He is risen!" That is the message of Easter. That is the truth. That is the choice. You can choose to anoint the dead or celebrate the living. It is no more difficult to live in the light than to embrace the darkness.
Those women ran back to tell the disciples what had just happened, "and they believed them not." Just because they didn't believe them didn't make the story untrue. It was only untrue for them. The reality of the risen Christ was very real to those women. The men then had a choice of whether to believe them or not and they chose not to believe. Their unbelief didn't change the truth.
When life gives us an empty tomb, we always have a choice. It's Easter. Choose life. "He is risen ! He is risen indeed !"
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Monday, March 21, 2016
The Next Thirty Years
"My next thirty years will be the best days of my life...
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here in my next thirty years." Tim McGraw
When I heard the song the first time, it struck me as a real possibility. "What if I live to be ninety-two? What if I live another thirty years?"
When I think about my first thirty years and that I could tack that on again, the thought is quite staggering. During my first thirty years I lived an entire lifetime with my immediate family in Enterprise, Alabama. During my first thirty years I earned three college degrees; I got married. I had a son. He became two years old in my first thirty years. Those first two years of his life was a lifetime in and of itself. Rolled over. Cut teeth. Learned to walk. Learned to talk. Even demonstrated some basic math skills.
In those first thirty years after nineteen years of school, I fulfilled a "lifetime" vocational dream. I enjoyed two years, struggled for another two and just walked away. And in year thirty, I started over again.
These past thirty years were to be even more significant than the first thirty. The most consequential event of this second trimester was that a biochemical imbalance I had battled my entire life was diagnosed and treated. This diagnosis paved the way this last twenty-four years for a level of satisfaction and enjoyment that I never knew existed during my first thirty years. "Remember that this medication was found by trial and error. The discovery of the usefulness of this medication was mostly due to a series of lucky accidents." Francis Mondimore, M.D. Lucky. I was very, very lucky.
Something else happened during year thirty that made the "next thirty years" (this coming thirty years) financially possible. A life insurance agent introduced to me the concept of the time value of money(TVM) . He used an investment of twenty-five dollars per month as an example. He knew that I had twenty-five dollars. He calculated this money invested at three different interest rates to my age sixty-five. I had managed to earn a high school diploma and three college degrees, and had never seen this powerful financial concept demonstrated. If TVM is the train, then dollar-cost averaging and compound interest are the engines. All of a sudden funding a meaningful retirement within our ability to do so seemed possible. But the benefit was not just the future, but the present. Not only did applying this concept change our lives, but four years later I passed the Series 7 and 63 to become a financial advisor with IDS Financial Services. Besides helping dozens of clients manage their money more effectively, every spring I spoke to a local high school home economics class. I passed out compound interest tables and demonstrated--you guessed it-- the time value of money. I hope that at least a few were paying attention.
I know all too well how quickly life can be snatched away. I do not pretend to assume that I will be granted another thirty days, let alone another thirty years. However, both of my grandmothers and my great aunt lived well into their nineties. So even my own family has proven that it can be done.
What if I am given another thirty years? That means I have a third of my life yet to live. Another third !! What could I accomplish with a third of my life? If I knew for sure, would I need more education? Have we saved enough money? Is it time to start a new career? Would I need a new hobby? Would I at least need a new car?
"My next thirty years will be the best days of my life," he sings. I really can't fathom thirty years, but I can somewhat comprehend 10,957 days. So then, will I wake up tomorrow to the first of my last 11,000 days? No, I would be a fool to do so. Tomorrow I'll wake up to tomorrow. Well, I hope to anyway. And then the next day and the next day. I plan to live this "next thirty years" one incredible day at a time. But just in case I do actually live thirty more years, I think I'll get braces.
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here in my next thirty years." Tim McGraw
When I heard the song the first time, it struck me as a real possibility. "What if I live to be ninety-two? What if I live another thirty years?"
When I think about my first thirty years and that I could tack that on again, the thought is quite staggering. During my first thirty years I lived an entire lifetime with my immediate family in Enterprise, Alabama. During my first thirty years I earned three college degrees; I got married. I had a son. He became two years old in my first thirty years. Those first two years of his life was a lifetime in and of itself. Rolled over. Cut teeth. Learned to walk. Learned to talk. Even demonstrated some basic math skills.
In those first thirty years after nineteen years of school, I fulfilled a "lifetime" vocational dream. I enjoyed two years, struggled for another two and just walked away. And in year thirty, I started over again.
These past thirty years were to be even more significant than the first thirty. The most consequential event of this second trimester was that a biochemical imbalance I had battled my entire life was diagnosed and treated. This diagnosis paved the way this last twenty-four years for a level of satisfaction and enjoyment that I never knew existed during my first thirty years. "Remember that this medication was found by trial and error. The discovery of the usefulness of this medication was mostly due to a series of lucky accidents." Francis Mondimore, M.D. Lucky. I was very, very lucky.
Something else happened during year thirty that made the "next thirty years" (this coming thirty years) financially possible. A life insurance agent introduced to me the concept of the time value of money(TVM) . He used an investment of twenty-five dollars per month as an example. He knew that I had twenty-five dollars. He calculated this money invested at three different interest rates to my age sixty-five. I had managed to earn a high school diploma and three college degrees, and had never seen this powerful financial concept demonstrated. If TVM is the train, then dollar-cost averaging and compound interest are the engines. All of a sudden funding a meaningful retirement within our ability to do so seemed possible. But the benefit was not just the future, but the present. Not only did applying this concept change our lives, but four years later I passed the Series 7 and 63 to become a financial advisor with IDS Financial Services. Besides helping dozens of clients manage their money more effectively, every spring I spoke to a local high school home economics class. I passed out compound interest tables and demonstrated--you guessed it-- the time value of money. I hope that at least a few were paying attention.
I know all too well how quickly life can be snatched away. I do not pretend to assume that I will be granted another thirty days, let alone another thirty years. However, both of my grandmothers and my great aunt lived well into their nineties. So even my own family has proven that it can be done.
What if I am given another thirty years? That means I have a third of my life yet to live. Another third !! What could I accomplish with a third of my life? If I knew for sure, would I need more education? Have we saved enough money? Is it time to start a new career? Would I need a new hobby? Would I at least need a new car?
"My next thirty years will be the best days of my life," he sings. I really can't fathom thirty years, but I can somewhat comprehend 10,957 days. So then, will I wake up tomorrow to the first of my last 11,000 days? No, I would be a fool to do so. Tomorrow I'll wake up to tomorrow. Well, I hope to anyway. And then the next day and the next day. I plan to live this "next thirty years" one incredible day at a time. But just in case I do actually live thirty more years, I think I'll get braces.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
The Gift of Wings
Aer.o.dy.na.mics: Aerodynamics is the study of how gases interact with moving bodies. Because the gas that we encounter the most is air, aerodynamics is primarily concerned with the forces of drag and lift, which are caused by air passing over and around solid bodies.
I spent this past week with my wife in San Diego, California. We enjoyed a week with our son, his fiance and his daughter, our granddaughter.
Our son's apartment faces the San Diego Bay. It is less than a half mile from the bay and less than a quarter mile from the San Diego's International Airport. His front deck affords a spectacular view of hundreds of sailing vessels and the only runway of the airport. I couldn't look at one without seeing the other.
I enjoyed the company inside, but I spent a lot of time on that front deck. As I simultaneously viewed the sailboats and the jets coming and going, it occurred to me that the same laws of aerodynamics apply to both the seagoing and air-going vessels. In the case of the planes, the wings are horizontal and the lift is vertical. With the boats the wings are vertical and the lift is horizontal. The boats could no more move forward than the planes move upward without the properties of aerodynamics at play.
But it was neither the sailboats nor the giant passenger jets that demanded most of my attention. It was the hummingbirds. As many hours as I have spent enjoying watching these miraculous creatures, it was the first time I had ever viewed them while seeing and hearing jumbo jets in my field of vision and in my hearing. The constant roar of the massive jet engines in the distance was incredible. But simultaneous with this roar was the silent flight of a multitude of these tiny birds right in front of my face.
You might think the birds were intimidated by the lighting and thunder of those jets, but I don't think so. While the birds may have appreciated both the relative immensity and the noise, they had no reason to feel the least bit inferior. "Whereas you can reach a takeoff speed of 170 miles per hour in a matter of seconds, can you hover indefinitely in one place? I can. Can you fly backwards nearly as quickly as you can fly forward? I can. Can you reach your cruising speed in a piece of second jetting off in any direction you choose? I can. Although you can fly non-stop to South America on 60,000 gallons of jet fuel, can you fly non-stop the same distance on a few ounces of sugar water? I can. Whereas your massive engines sound like an earthquake, can you chirp? I can."
Hearing the turbines roar while watching the hummingbirds, I enjoyed imagining that it was the birds that were making all that noise. If their buzzing was magnified several hundred times, then how loud would it be? Ok, not that loud, but it was fun thinking about it.
All of us from time to time are intimidated by other people. We see someone who commands the attention of thousands and think, "If only I could be like them. If only I had more and could be more and do more. If only I had their talent, their money, their fame." If you are tempted to think that way then stop and take a quick inventory of your own relationships, gifts, abilities and resources. Put them in the form of a question and answer that question with "I can." And if it makes you feel any better, then add, "And they can't" You may at times feel insignificant and grounded, but just keep moving forward and you'll be flying again before you know it. Aerodynamics is an amazing thing.
I spent this past week with my wife in San Diego, California. We enjoyed a week with our son, his fiance and his daughter, our granddaughter.
Our son's apartment faces the San Diego Bay. It is less than a half mile from the bay and less than a quarter mile from the San Diego's International Airport. His front deck affords a spectacular view of hundreds of sailing vessels and the only runway of the airport. I couldn't look at one without seeing the other.
I enjoyed the company inside, but I spent a lot of time on that front deck. As I simultaneously viewed the sailboats and the jets coming and going, it occurred to me that the same laws of aerodynamics apply to both the seagoing and air-going vessels. In the case of the planes, the wings are horizontal and the lift is vertical. With the boats the wings are vertical and the lift is horizontal. The boats could no more move forward than the planes move upward without the properties of aerodynamics at play.
But it was neither the sailboats nor the giant passenger jets that demanded most of my attention. It was the hummingbirds. As many hours as I have spent enjoying watching these miraculous creatures, it was the first time I had ever viewed them while seeing and hearing jumbo jets in my field of vision and in my hearing. The constant roar of the massive jet engines in the distance was incredible. But simultaneous with this roar was the silent flight of a multitude of these tiny birds right in front of my face.
You might think the birds were intimidated by the lighting and thunder of those jets, but I don't think so. While the birds may have appreciated both the relative immensity and the noise, they had no reason to feel the least bit inferior. "Whereas you can reach a takeoff speed of 170 miles per hour in a matter of seconds, can you hover indefinitely in one place? I can. Can you fly backwards nearly as quickly as you can fly forward? I can. Can you reach your cruising speed in a piece of second jetting off in any direction you choose? I can. Although you can fly non-stop to South America on 60,000 gallons of jet fuel, can you fly non-stop the same distance on a few ounces of sugar water? I can. Whereas your massive engines sound like an earthquake, can you chirp? I can."
Hearing the turbines roar while watching the hummingbirds, I enjoyed imagining that it was the birds that were making all that noise. If their buzzing was magnified several hundred times, then how loud would it be? Ok, not that loud, but it was fun thinking about it.
All of us from time to time are intimidated by other people. We see someone who commands the attention of thousands and think, "If only I could be like them. If only I had more and could be more and do more. If only I had their talent, their money, their fame." If you are tempted to think that way then stop and take a quick inventory of your own relationships, gifts, abilities and resources. Put them in the form of a question and answer that question with "I can." And if it makes you feel any better, then add, "And they can't" You may at times feel insignificant and grounded, but just keep moving forward and you'll be flying again before you know it. Aerodynamics is an amazing thing.
Friday, March 11, 2016
The Wounded Healer
Bro.ken: Separated into parts or pieces by being hit or damaged.
"All human beings carry their own wounds, their own difficulties of relationships and their own anguishes." Jean Vanier
"There's thorns on the cactus tree. There's thorns on the rose. There's thorns in the heart of me that nobody knows." Anastasia's Eyes, Dan Fogelberg
"Cause I'm broken when I'm open. And I don't feel like I am strong enough." Broken, Amy Lee and Seether
"Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses... For a compassionate person nothing human is alien; no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying." The Wounded Healer, Henri J.M. Nouwen,
"Then I see your face, I know I'm finally yours. I find everything I thought I lost before. You call my name. I come to you in pieces so you can make me whole." Pieces, Red
Several years ago while going through a very difficult period in my life, the most difficult period in my life, I told my counselor that I didn't know what to say when people asked, "How are you?" I told him that I thought they wanted to know and that I tried to explain. He said, "When somebody asks, "How are you?" they are being polite. The appropriate response is "I'm fine, how are you? And leave it at that."
The next time someone responds "I'm fine", search her face. If her eyes betray her, ask in another way. "Everything going pretty well for you these days?" But if you ask, be prepared to listen. You don't have to talk; just listen. You can make all the difference.
"All human beings carry their own wounds, their own difficulties of relationships and their own anguishes." Jean Vanier
"There's thorns on the cactus tree. There's thorns on the rose. There's thorns in the heart of me that nobody knows." Anastasia's Eyes, Dan Fogelberg
"Cause I'm broken when I'm open. And I don't feel like I am strong enough." Broken, Amy Lee and Seether
"Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses... For a compassionate person nothing human is alien; no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying." The Wounded Healer, Henri J.M. Nouwen,
"Then I see your face, I know I'm finally yours. I find everything I thought I lost before. You call my name. I come to you in pieces so you can make me whole." Pieces, Red
Several years ago while going through a very difficult period in my life, the most difficult period in my life, I told my counselor that I didn't know what to say when people asked, "How are you?" I told him that I thought they wanted to know and that I tried to explain. He said, "When somebody asks, "How are you?" they are being polite. The appropriate response is "I'm fine, how are you? And leave it at that."
The next time someone responds "I'm fine", search her face. If her eyes betray her, ask in another way. "Everything going pretty well for you these days?" But if you ask, be prepared to listen. You don't have to talk; just listen. You can make all the difference.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Going Barefoot
"There are no unsacred places: there are only sacred places and desecrated places." from How to Be a Poet by Wendell Berry
Until reading this line from this poem, I had never thought about the word "desecrate" to mean "de-sacred." In some ways there's no difference between "desecrate" and "de-sacred", but it just struck me as different. To desecrate is to violate or defile a sacred place. It's something that can be restored. To commit an act that results in a place becoming"de-sacred" means that this once holy place is no longer sacred at all.
You cannot find "de-sacred" in the dictionary. But if you Google it you can find quite a discussion. One person even makes the point that just because a word is not in the dictionary (yet) doesn't mean that it's not a real word. Another person who entered the discussion said he was only Googling his username that he had made up only to find the conversation about his name in full progress.
Have you ever Googled "google"? I never had either. Until now. I was afraid my computer might explode. But when I hit "Enter" the search simply resulted in links to google.com.
Berry says that "there are no unsacred places", no non-sacred places. Then he removes the double negative with "there are only sacred places." In Genesis chapters one and two, after God creates each part of His, well, creation, He says that it's good. It's all good. Some might say that God also created evil or evil wouldn't exist. I think that God didn't create evil, He only created the possibility of evil. From the very beginning He gave the humans who He created a choice between only good and the knowledge of good and evil. That fruit tree wasn't evil; it contained the possibility of evil. For that matter, the fruit that Eve and eventually Adam consumed wasn't evil, it was just forbidden. If you tell a child not to go in the street, it's not because the street is evil; the street is forbidden for reasons the child doesn't need to understand.
"There are only sacred places and desecrated places." Some people believe that the Garden of Eden still exists. The reasoning is that just because God banned Adam and Eve from the garden doesn't mean that He destroyed it. These people believe that those angels with the flaming swords are still standing there protecting the entrance to the garden. I, too, believe that the Garden of Good and Evil still exists. You're looking at it. Your computer is not evil. And the internet is not evil, but right at your fingertips are the possibilities of much good and of much evil. Lives have been saved through the internet and lives have been destroyed. The internet couldn't care less.
God told Moses to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. Was the bush burning and not consumed because it was holy ground? Or did it become holy ground because of the burning bush? Berry says it doesn't matter, that there are no unsacred places. Every place is a sacred place. Or used to be.
Growing up I normally wore shoes. But when I visited my cousins on their family farm in Auburn, Alabama every summer, we always went barefoot. At first the sticks and stones were very painful, but by week's end callouses had formed and I was very comfortable. Thinking back to that farm that has long since belonged to someone else, it was indeed holy ground. How I would love to have one of those days to do again. If I went back there and lit a tree on fire, I would not be surprised at all if it never burned to the ground.
Can't find much sacred about your present circumstances? You can't see anything that's very special? Thank your cornea, pupil, lens, iris, retina, optic nerve and occipital lobe that you're reading this. And take off your shoes.
Until reading this line from this poem, I had never thought about the word "desecrate" to mean "de-sacred." In some ways there's no difference between "desecrate" and "de-sacred", but it just struck me as different. To desecrate is to violate or defile a sacred place. It's something that can be restored. To commit an act that results in a place becoming"de-sacred" means that this once holy place is no longer sacred at all.
You cannot find "de-sacred" in the dictionary. But if you Google it you can find quite a discussion. One person even makes the point that just because a word is not in the dictionary (yet) doesn't mean that it's not a real word. Another person who entered the discussion said he was only Googling his username that he had made up only to find the conversation about his name in full progress.
Have you ever Googled "google"? I never had either. Until now. I was afraid my computer might explode. But when I hit "Enter" the search simply resulted in links to google.com.
Berry says that "there are no unsacred places", no non-sacred places. Then he removes the double negative with "there are only sacred places." In Genesis chapters one and two, after God creates each part of His, well, creation, He says that it's good. It's all good. Some might say that God also created evil or evil wouldn't exist. I think that God didn't create evil, He only created the possibility of evil. From the very beginning He gave the humans who He created a choice between only good and the knowledge of good and evil. That fruit tree wasn't evil; it contained the possibility of evil. For that matter, the fruit that Eve and eventually Adam consumed wasn't evil, it was just forbidden. If you tell a child not to go in the street, it's not because the street is evil; the street is forbidden for reasons the child doesn't need to understand.
"There are only sacred places and desecrated places." Some people believe that the Garden of Eden still exists. The reasoning is that just because God banned Adam and Eve from the garden doesn't mean that He destroyed it. These people believe that those angels with the flaming swords are still standing there protecting the entrance to the garden. I, too, believe that the Garden of Good and Evil still exists. You're looking at it. Your computer is not evil. And the internet is not evil, but right at your fingertips are the possibilities of much good and of much evil. Lives have been saved through the internet and lives have been destroyed. The internet couldn't care less.
God told Moses to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. Was the bush burning and not consumed because it was holy ground? Or did it become holy ground because of the burning bush? Berry says it doesn't matter, that there are no unsacred places. Every place is a sacred place. Or used to be.
Growing up I normally wore shoes. But when I visited my cousins on their family farm in Auburn, Alabama every summer, we always went barefoot. At first the sticks and stones were very painful, but by week's end callouses had formed and I was very comfortable. Thinking back to that farm that has long since belonged to someone else, it was indeed holy ground. How I would love to have one of those days to do again. If I went back there and lit a tree on fire, I would not be surprised at all if it never burned to the ground.
Can't find much sacred about your present circumstances? You can't see anything that's very special? Thank your cornea, pupil, lens, iris, retina, optic nerve and occipital lobe that you're reading this. And take off your shoes.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Illusions of the Sunlight
So many people think art is supposed to mean something. In visual art and written art such as prose and poetry, it is a typical thing to try to figure out what it means. I have come to accept that the art stands on its own as beauty and truth and that it doesn't have to mean anything. It certainly doesn't have to mean anything in particular.
Nearly two years ago I found a song on Spotify. I do not remember how I found the song. The song is "Shattered" by a group called Trading Yesterday. Spotify not only introduced me to this song, but to the entire album that includes this song. When I'm listening to music, I enjoy Googling the song and the band to learn more about both. In this case I only learned that the band had broken up years ago.
But I also learned that the writer and the singer was a man named David Hodges. I typed David Hodges into the Spotify search and it opened an entire universe of music. Although I have enjoyed hours of his music, I return to where I started with "Shattered" time and time again. Even after listening to this song perhaps hundreds of times, I still don't know what it means. All I know is that the words and the music speak to something deep within me. There is a mental and emotional healing aspect to the song for me. I start and end many days listening to this music.
Shattered begins with "Yesterday I died. Tomorrow's bleeding. Fall into your sunlight." The song had me at "fall into your sunlight." Whatever the "sunlight" is, it's a place I want to find. And to think all I have to do is "fall". When I fall I just step where there's nothing below me and gravity does the rest. Falling requires absolutely no effort on my part.
"and finding answers is forgetting all the questions we call home." Rainer Maria Rilke tells us to "Live the questions." Hodges tells us to "forget the questions." This is very difficult for me to do, but the song challenges me over and over again to do exactly that.
"And this day's ending. Is the proof of time killing, all the faith that I know. Knowing that faith is all I hold." If all I have to do is fall into the sunlight, then I also accept that the faith is not what I hold, but the faith holds me.
"There's the light. There's a sun. Taking all shattered ones. To the place I belong, and his love will conquer all."
This light I fall into and this faith that holds me takes me to the place I belong. Where is this place? And how do I know when I get there? For me the song is a reminder that I'm already there. The place of departure is actually a place of arrival, a still point in time that moves forward by itself. All I have to do is constantly fall forward. Inertia is just as powerful as gravity. After the initial push, inertia acts on its own.
"and his love will conquer all." Whose love will conquer all? God we might assume, but the song doesn't say. Maybe it's the love of this shattered one for himself. Another of my magnificent obsessions is Tori Amos. She sings in "Winter" "When you gonna love you as much as I do?" I have learned that if I don't love myself, then God Himself can't scale that wall of arrogant self-deception. Or at least He chooses not to scale that wall.
"As reason clouds my eyes, with splendor fading. Illusions of the sunlight." The birth of every day ends in darkness. Was the sunlight ever really there?
Years ago I was alone in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. With no group to answer to, I strolled the halls at my leisure. There was a Renoir in particular that I stood before for quite some time. It was a painting I had seen photos of in high school art. But there I was trying to comprehend the very masterpiece that Renoir had painted. Its beauty was consuming. What did the painting mean? It meant that my entire life had arrived at a resting point, a point of total completion. In that moment I forgot all the questions. And I found home.
Nearly two years ago I found a song on Spotify. I do not remember how I found the song. The song is "Shattered" by a group called Trading Yesterday. Spotify not only introduced me to this song, but to the entire album that includes this song. When I'm listening to music, I enjoy Googling the song and the band to learn more about both. In this case I only learned that the band had broken up years ago.
But I also learned that the writer and the singer was a man named David Hodges. I typed David Hodges into the Spotify search and it opened an entire universe of music. Although I have enjoyed hours of his music, I return to where I started with "Shattered" time and time again. Even after listening to this song perhaps hundreds of times, I still don't know what it means. All I know is that the words and the music speak to something deep within me. There is a mental and emotional healing aspect to the song for me. I start and end many days listening to this music.
Shattered begins with "Yesterday I died. Tomorrow's bleeding. Fall into your sunlight." The song had me at "fall into your sunlight." Whatever the "sunlight" is, it's a place I want to find. And to think all I have to do is "fall". When I fall I just step where there's nothing below me and gravity does the rest. Falling requires absolutely no effort on my part.
"and finding answers is forgetting all the questions we call home." Rainer Maria Rilke tells us to "Live the questions." Hodges tells us to "forget the questions." This is very difficult for me to do, but the song challenges me over and over again to do exactly that.
"And this day's ending. Is the proof of time killing, all the faith that I know. Knowing that faith is all I hold." If all I have to do is fall into the sunlight, then I also accept that the faith is not what I hold, but the faith holds me.
"There's the light. There's a sun. Taking all shattered ones. To the place I belong, and his love will conquer all."
This light I fall into and this faith that holds me takes me to the place I belong. Where is this place? And how do I know when I get there? For me the song is a reminder that I'm already there. The place of departure is actually a place of arrival, a still point in time that moves forward by itself. All I have to do is constantly fall forward. Inertia is just as powerful as gravity. After the initial push, inertia acts on its own.
"and his love will conquer all." Whose love will conquer all? God we might assume, but the song doesn't say. Maybe it's the love of this shattered one for himself. Another of my magnificent obsessions is Tori Amos. She sings in "Winter" "When you gonna love you as much as I do?" I have learned that if I don't love myself, then God Himself can't scale that wall of arrogant self-deception. Or at least He chooses not to scale that wall.
"As reason clouds my eyes, with splendor fading. Illusions of the sunlight." The birth of every day ends in darkness. Was the sunlight ever really there?
Years ago I was alone in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. With no group to answer to, I strolled the halls at my leisure. There was a Renoir in particular that I stood before for quite some time. It was a painting I had seen photos of in high school art. But there I was trying to comprehend the very masterpiece that Renoir had painted. Its beauty was consuming. What did the painting mean? It meant that my entire life had arrived at a resting point, a point of total completion. In that moment I forgot all the questions. And I found home.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
New Life
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22
"In freedom from sin and freedom from law they were empowered by love to rejoice in the right, to bear all things, to be patient and kind. Out of the inner fountains of the spirit of Christ there would flow forth love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Not as lawgiver of a new Christian culture but as the mediator of a new principle of life—a life of peace with God—Christ did and does this mighty work on the creation of a new kind of humanity". Richard Niebuhr
As I drive around northwest Georgia, I drive by a lot of churches. I have noticed over the years that many of those churches, regardless of their denominational affiliation, have the words "New Life" in their name. The "New Life Fellowship" seems to be a favorite. I hope that is the case. I hope that the members of that church have experienced a new life in Jesus and have become a flock of happy pilgrims filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
"In freedom from sin and freedom from law they were empowered by love to rejoice in the right, to bear all things, to be patient and kind. Out of the inner fountains of the spirit of Christ there would flow forth love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Not as lawgiver of a new Christian culture but as the mediator of a new principle of life—a life of peace with God—Christ did and does this mighty work on the creation of a new kind of humanity". Richard Niebuhr
As I drive around northwest Georgia, I drive by a lot of churches. I have noticed over the years that many of those churches, regardless of their denominational affiliation, have the words "New Life" in their name. The "New Life Fellowship" seems to be a favorite. I hope that is the case. I hope that the members of that church have experienced a new life in Jesus and have become a flock of happy pilgrims filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
However, I know by experience that many Christian churches offer their members new rules, new expectations and new doctrine instead of new life.
The Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Galatia detailed his struggles with those who substituted "new life" with "new rules and doctrine." The same spirit of Phariseeism permeated the early Christian culture just as the scribes and Pharisees were a constant thorn in the flesh to Jesus Himself. The dictionary definition of Phariseeism includes "a hypocritical observance of the letter of religious or moral law without regard for the spirit of the law."
What I think Paul was offering, which is stated again by Richard Niebuhr, is a community of no religion, a community of basic goodness. John Lennon sang "Imagine nothing to kill or die for or no religion too" not to say "Be an atheist; don't believe in anything" but to say to live in way that is not bound my definition and doctrine. Simply live together in peace.
I was the choral director of a local high school for several years. One semester we rehearsed "Imagine" and performed it in our spring concert. The song bothered more than a few of my students, but all but one accepted my explanation and sang it anyway. While we sang, she sat. They could deal with "no heaven", "no hell", "no countries", "no possessions", but they couldn't get past that "no religion" part. And I certainly understand. However, I explained, just like Paul explained to the first century church, that there are powerful and wonderful things that transcend any particular doctrine and religious boundaries. I explained that a non-Christian who exudes goodness and kindness is better than a professing Christian who embodies hate and exclusion. Paul must have exploded with joy as he wrote those nine God-given attributes of "new life", against which no religion of his day had laws.
Neibuhr suggests that if we will practice this new doctrine of peace there will result "the creation of a new kind a humanity." People may say that he's a dreamer, but he's not the only one. "New life" is not a new idea, nor is it only a Christian idea. In 1864 at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said "That from these honored dead we take increased devotion ...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom". There it is again "new birth", "new life".
In the marvelous movie Resurrection about a faith-healer who struggled with her gift and her own faith, at a very low point in her life she stopped on a lonely highway to fill up with gas. Posted in the window of the very old and very remote filling station were the words "God is love and vissa verssa." On a self-help tape series years ago I heard, "If you want to transform your life and your relationships, change 'do the right thing' to 'do the loving thing'. " Need to find new life in your own heart and your relationships? Practice love and new life will be close behind.
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