Let me say that again...

This weekend was wonderful - great Easter celebration, family all home at the same time - no agenda. Lots to be thankful for.

 

My son, Nathan, is a musician & very creative. While he was home he played us a piece he'd created on the computer. I'm not sure if you'd really call it a musical piece (although that's bound to spark some philosophical discussions about what constitutes a musical piece). It's more like performance art & the depth of meaning to it was really amazing (I know I'm biased, but really, it was very cool).

 

As I was listening I wondered if Nate realized all the levels there were to this thing. That's the way it is with any kind of art really - music, visual, literary, whatever - all kinds of different levels of experience. The creators of the work put themselves into it, what they want to say or project, what they hope people will get out of it, all of that. Then they put the piece out there & it takes on a life of its own - people who interact with it come at it from different places, with different expectations & experiences. That's what's so cool about it.

 

My father's been a prolific writer during his career in ministry & a while back his publisher put together a little volume of sayings collected from his writing over the years. It's called Let Me Say That Again - a line he's said at least once in every sermon he's ever preached.

 

Nate has always loved that little book & a lot of the sayings provide the content of his piece. His choices were significant, here are a few examples:

 

Most of us prefer the hell of a predictable situation rather than risk the joy of an unpredictable one.

 

On the road of life one of the most serious violations is to ignore the signal to stop, look & listen.

 

Life is life by the choices we make.

 

There's never a road so long that there's not a bend in it.

 

We should never let yesterday rob us of tomorrow.

 

We know that all of us are going to die. But do we live as though we know it?

 

The measure of life is whether you're fully used up when you die.

 

It's impossible to adequately describe the piece, but it's worth trying. Several different voices say the various phrases as a range of other sounds rise & fall. Sometimes the voices are prominent, sometimes the sounds take over; sometimes the voices echo or overlap; sometimes they're louder or softer.

 

As I listened, I felt like I was moving - like life was moving & swirling all around me - like the noise of the world was coming at me from all sides. And in the midst of it all were these voices - sometimes louder, sometimes softer, sometimes clear, sometimes muffled - but always with a message. And as I listened I wondered if I was missing it. There were times when I had to try really hard to hear the message; & there were times when I couldn't get it at all because the sound of the 'world' got in the way.

 

It was a powerful experience, hearing this piece. Not just because as a mother I was proud that my son had created something so provocative; but because this piece provided me with a metaphor & left me a question.

 

The world swirls around us, loud & blaring, filled with its own language & messages. And the church is in the midst of it, but how much? The voice of the church is heard, but how much? Is it loud enough? Or is it an echo? Is it understandable? Or is it garbled by the competing sounds of the world? The world's pace is rapid, life is moving. As the body of Christ, are we keeping up? Or are we a relic from a distant time? The motion of the world is relentless, an unfeeling churning & lurching. Are we providing safe haven from that relentless, faceless motion? Or do we contribute to that cold churning & lurching despite what we profess?

 

Nice questions for contemplation. But as a Christ follower, what am I going to do? How am I to be in the midst that loud & swirling motion? What's my next step?

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Foundational Things

I've got a great set of note cards that has a beautiful drawing of African women strutting with baskets on their heads & drums on their hips. The drawing is called Virgins Dancing by Stella Atal. I love the art, but it's the quote from Meister Eckhart that pulls it all together:

 

God is always at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.

 

I wonder sometimes if we in the church haven't gone out for a walk - a long one. We seem to put our energy into so many things - good things, important things - but then we overlook, or worse, even forget, the foundational things.

 

I'm lucky to even be writing this given my long absence from the world of blogging. These days it seems that my work demands that I write for every venue but this one. So I won't waste valuable time lecturing about what's foundational & what's not. But here's a random thought. Is it possible that it's not really about 'creating new places for new people & renewing existing ones' as the bishops & General Conference have said? Could it really be about offering the life transforming grace of God through Jesus Christ to the world?

 

The whole creating new places thing sounds like a good idea, but what kind of new places for new people are we talking about? I'd like to assume that when the bishops (or whoever it was) came up with such a catchy phrase they were talking about creating communities of faith living as the body of Christ. Even better, I'd like to assume they were talking about communities of faith living as the body of Christ & committed to proclaiming the gospel of the Messiah Jesus in order to bring people into a life transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. I'd like to think they were expressing a commitment to evangelism. But somehow I wonder. Nobody's really talking about Jesus in any of this - at least not out loud - & God forbid we use the dreaded 'E' word. So who knows? The way things are going these new places for new people could wind up being coffee shops for fellowship (not a bad thing in & of itself). Or free trade stores to promote a more just form of capitalism - again, not a bad thing - but not quite the same thing as connecting people with the source of life abundant.

I don't know what to make of it really. So I wonder. Because as good as it sounds, it still feels like we're out on a walk - a long walk.

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An amazing day...

Yesterday was an amazing day! Historic. So many vivid memories it's hard to process. There've been plenty of people dissecting all the symbolism so I won't go there. But two images stand out for me. They're not profound really but illustrate for me this feeling of 'new day' that so many people have been talking about. The first is Little Sasha giving her new president dad a thumbs up after he took the oath. The second was the sea of cell phones & digital cameras that lit up the room as the President & First Lady entered the Youth Ball. For me, those two images round out the whole new day concept pretty nicely.

 

As I return to the routine of my studies & work, the words of Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural Poem, Praise Song for the Day, stay with me.

 

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business,

  walking past each other,

  catching each others' eyes or not,

  about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise.
All about us is noise and bramble,
  thorn and din,

  each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem,
  darning a hole in a uniform,

  patching a tire,
  repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere

  with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum

  with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky;
A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words,

  words spiny or smooth,
  whispered or declaimed;

  words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
  the will of someone

  and then others who said,
  "I need to see  what's on the other side;
  I know there's something better
  down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe;
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead
  who brought us here,

  who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

  picked the cotton and the lettuce,

built brick by brick the glittering edifices
  they would then keep clean
  and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle;
praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign;
The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm,
  or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love,
  love beyond marital, filial, national.
Love that casts a widening pool of light.
Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,

  anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise
  song for walking forward in that light.
 

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp - anything can be made, any sentence begun. For this to truly be a new day, it will have to be about more than President Obama. It will have to be about each of us. What will we make? What new sentence will we begin?

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Tagged with book meme...

Okay, I've been "tagged" with "book meme" by Todd Stepp who was tagged by Fr. James Gibson at Sanctus. According to what Todd's blog says, this is the way the game works:
 
I am supposed to:
1) Pick up the nearest book - that would be The Resurrection and the Son of God by N. T. Wright - another short bit of light reading that has been occupying my time…
2) Turn to page 123
3) Find the fifth sentence, and
4.) Post the three sentences afterward.

 

Okay here goes…

"We might suggest that the likely turning-point in the sequence - the moment when somebody really begins to think in terms of human beings themselves actually dying and actually being given a newly embodied life at some point thereafter - is to be found in Isaiah's servant passages. That is where, supremely, the hope for the nation and land becomes focused on an individual, or at least what looks like an individual; even if this is a literary code for the nation as a whole, or for a group within the nations, there are signs in the text itself, as well as in subsequent interpretation, that at least some of the 'servant' passages in Isaiah may have an individual, representing the nation, in mind. That is where, we might also suggest, the belief that Israel's god will restore the nation after exile breaks through into the belief - albeit not yet expressed very clearly - that he will restore the nation's representative after death."

 

Hard to believe, but that's really only THREE sentences. I'm sure you're all impressed with me now!!

 

I'm supposed to tag five more people - hmmm… I don't know how to do that!! But hey! Consider yourself tagged & grab the closest book & check it out - page 123, 5th sentence, next 3 sentences. Who knows - it may be worth posting!

 

As an FYI - I leave for the UK on Monday. Hopefully I'll have more to post when I return. Happy Thanksgiving!!

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