A Dwelling Place and a Kingdom

Image © Topher Ayrhart 2014

Imagine two people who've known each other in passing for some time both being invited to a house concert. They show up to that home carrying all that they are - their fears, their scars, their inexpressible hearts - such eternal beauties. They long like everybody longs to be touched, to make real human contact and be known deeply. They long to deeply know another in a way that is life giving, beautiful, and holy. But they don't know how to say it. If they are two sides of a ravine that look across to the other, they may know of one another, but what will be the bridge to build a connection between them? 

Or perhaps they are disparate threads who long to be woven into a common fabric. What provision will place a pattern before their eyes to draw them both up into a shared quilting of hearts? 

Then the music begins. The storyteller steps in front of the small crowd of loose attachments and begins to sing. He begins to open his heart as an intercessor who prays with his very life for the ones before him. In the songs he utters those deep points of contact that have for so long remained unutterable or even perhaps unidentified for most. The hearts of the listeners are like dark skies in which tiny glimmerings begin to shine and constellate into knowing forms. The singer speaks in all the varied tongues of his listeners a prayer that he hopes will communicate fire from the heart of the One who made all of us - the miracle is that a common tongue, a common language begins to settle among everyone in the room. 

The last note fades into a soft 'amen' and the guitar is resting on its stand. Our two acquaintances strike up a conversation. At first they're not certain about what. They are digging to find the pearl of great price - that seed that nourished in them a possibility that there was some growing bridge between them that could hold their weight and span their distances. They turn together the pages of memory and uncover for each other what the evening has meant to them. Now with a common tongue they find expression for parts of their deep hearts that they hadn't before. Each is thankful to find another soul who knows something they know, loves something they love, has grieved in some way they have grieved. 

And so they find themselves in a room together. On the walls are paintings of lovers embracing, of a child on an untimely deathbed, of the charred remains of a house. In the air is the scent of grass, cinnamon, and old books. Still lingering in the walls are the melodies and phrases that helped build the habitat for growing friendship. They walk together in conversation from picture to picture. "The dying child was my older brother before I was born," says one. "The dying child was my firstborn," says the other. "The lovers embracing are my parents in old age," says one. "The lovers embracing were my friends and I before the fight," says the other. "The house that burned down was my selfishness that nearly ruined me," says one. "The house that burned down was my heart and body after the abuse," says the other. 

They wander around the room - forgetting the discomfort of their gray metal folding chairs. The old books, the grass, the cinnamon are there like an invisible cloud of witnesses urging them on. Has each person in the room found a new kind of space to dwell in? Have the songs and stories and eye contact and proximity accumulated to frame a room-alive for us all? Can we meet there and weep, or laugh, cry out, or just silently wait together? 

I'm a singer and songwriter so these are my reference points. And I'm thankful for the songwriters who nourish honesty, intimacy, and healing in my life and friendships. But my sister the gardener could write this in her own words. I've seen her cultivate a habitat for the neighborhood children who come to play in her yard. My brother the chef could write this in his own words. I've seen him set a table with careful ingredients not least of which are laughter, quiet understanding, and gentleness. My own Dad does it by planting trees and tending fields; my Mother with art, conversation, and kindness.

"Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God but our very lives as well." We all have the life and gifts we have, like a medium of clay or paint or words, with which we may intercede for others and cultivate a habitat where they can grow. We can make room, create a kind of space, or create a space of kindness, where loneliness is swallowed up in welcome, pain is tended with tenderness, grief is walked through in safety, and joy is grown in family. Are you and I not the disparate strands that Jesus has threaded through the needle's eye miraculously and woven into the storied tapestry of his own astonishing beauty? Are we not the stones with which God himself is building a dwelling place and a Kingdom?

------------

PS:  Thanks to all from the Rabbit Room and those who attended the Laity Lodge retreat this past weekend. I was so encouraged by you all and the 'room' you made with your 'very lives'.

Links:
www.laitylodge.com
www.rabbitroom.com
www.topherayrhart.com
www.matthewclark.net

Poem from Laity Lodge

I have more I'd like to say about this past weekend at Laity Lodge with the Rabbit Room folks, but for now I'll fulfill a favor to my friend Diana by posting a poem I wrote in Jennifer Thrafton Peterson's fantastic writing workshop. 

A quick explanation... Jennifer had laid out on the table tops hundreds of little tickets with words or phrases written on them. We were asked to wander around and make from these scattered words phrases or pairings silly as you please or otherwise. We wrote those on a piece of paper. Then we were asked to use them to write a poem of praise. I found myself giggling with veritable glee as I rummaged the word hoard. I'm still feeling the joy of this imaginative exercise!  So here's my poem. 

Glory be to God

     For wretched rhinoceros grabbing glubs!

     Raise a gnat shout for savoury surgeon ice cream

     all you sizzling dinosaur faced ones! 

Enjoy more cowboy courage. 

Can't you smell, spectacular nostrils? 

Welcome home restless infant, forget that slow 

spooky dance  and open your soul to tremulous 

honesty at the end of the path, 

rambunctious sky-dancing planets, 

the mystery of ask - 

the surprising manner in which the magic 

goat's beard tucked away pampered desire. 

One last look glided tenderly alone 

and the awkwardly laughing community 

     stood fast. 

Imagine the feeling. When sculpted spiders yanked

all I wanted to be. Save the world 

pungent applesauce! 

Save us from this cleverly tunneling 

technology leviathan. From the malevolent 

raven goggles - we surrounded

by cantankerous tarantula hoards. 

I remember when the freeloading 

caterpillars thumped the sacred places. 

How could I forget how the towering wild

horses croaked glowing mushrooms - 

     we were lost then - 

The weight of the hippopotamus 

made it all seem stronger than steel. 

     But then... 

Run faster creeping venom giants! 

Nightmare held captive! 

     Finally...

Ruby heaven masterpiece. 

Praise the Lord!

Road Diary: October 2013

There's still a bit of traveling to go, but the bulk of touring for this month has ended and the verdict is in: it was wonderful! If I had to give a single thematic word association to the tour it would be: Hospitality.

Omaha, NE at the Lantrip's

Hospitality is at the core of the music my friends (Abbye West Pates, Jeff Pates, and Brian Mulder) and I make. On this tour over and over again we were amazing at the hospitality of those who hosted us in their homes, re-arranged their living rooms for house concerts, cooked us meals, and listened with care and grace to our songs and stories.

As people opened their doors and hearts to us beautiful memories bloomed. On the ride home we recounted some of our favorite moments from our travels - long slow conversation over a laden breakfast table with the Sisoukrath family,  late night basement jam sessions with the Hightower family, enthusiastic after-show talks at the Lantrip's in Omaha, sweet tears and friendship joining grief and expectant joy with the Hendersons, deep rest and lots of vinyl listening with the Johnsons, a packed room bearing witness to years of community in Holland, Michigan, Hymns and Psalms poured over us in Indiana, and an old friend's church welcoming a night of telling the Story of Redemption to cap it all off.

Becca pours coffee and spins the vinyl for us in Oshkosh, WI

All that and we got to do what we love- play these songs we've been living into existence for the last many years. Deep gratitude is also due to my friends. Being around three other people day in and day out for three weeks solid, sleeping in a new place nearly every night, and spending long hours in a car has the potential to create stress for even the closest of friends - but I couldn't ask for more graceful, kind, and humble folks to travel alongside. Some the richest moments were uncovered in the daily conversations we carried among us.

Tom and Deb Henderson hosted us as an Adoption Fundraiser in Minneapolis, MN

Thank you all for making room for us and making what we do possible! If you are interested in booking a concert email me: matthew(at)matthewclark.net

What is the greatest gift you've ever gotten?

Last weekend a dear old friend and his little daughter drove several hours to visit me. Many times over the course of the weekend, I felt such a joy simply to share the same room with them. To look across at the chair that I've never seen my friend sitting in and find him there. To have his daughter's laughter fill a room that had not yet known it.

Two old buddies are happy to get a visit.

A long time ago another friend of mine told me that the greatest gift you can give another person is a visit. Now I love words so my mind begins making connections...

1. Visit - vision:  These words are made out of each other. That's why we say, I'm going to go see so and so, because we are going to vision/visit them. A rich word like behold works well here. I'm going to deeply behold, look into, understand and celebrate another person as I perceive their true dignity and personhood in Christ.

2. Visitation: When Mary pregnant with Jesus visits Elizabeth pregnant with John the Baptist, they pay each other great honors. They make room for each other just as room has been made within them for the Messiah and his Herald. They are caught up in divine visitation, and what spills over is the beauty of human hospitality and joy.

3. Visit in prison: I've been told that one of the biblical understandings of visit has to do with attending to a prisoner. Now attending is a rich word. It's made out of words like tender, to tend, attention, tension, tenet, tendon, and so on. The imagery is one of reaching out to hold on to and care for something or someone. To touch them and their needs.

All of these have to do with the giving of oneself in deep, actual Presence physically, mentally, resourcefully, emotionally - all of which are of course spiritual. When we make the choice to visit another person we are showing great respect (a word which means to re-spect or again-spectate/repeatedly-look at). We are telling them, in essence, that we deeply enjoy and love to be near to all that they are.

Jesus has paid us the ultimate honor. He has visited us. He has come to look long and deeply at us. He has come to find a place of dwelling in the flesh which when he created it he created with the capacity to welcome Himself. He has come to reach out and care for us. He has died and risen so that we may mirror his visitation eternally in his Presence as his guests. And if visiting is done well, everyone finds themselves finally at home.

Should you make bad art? Yes!

My brother Sam is a potter and sculptor. (click here) He's really good. There are a lot of old coffee mugs and creatures of his scattered around our family's homes. Sometimes I've picked up a mug that was heavy and awkward and ugly or seen a sculpted dragon that was lumpy, poorly detailed, and expressionless. In short, Sam used to make bad art. Which is exactly why he makes good art now.

Robot Mug by Sam Clark

I am a songwriter and guitar player. I've been doing it for around 20 years now, and sometimes I dig around in the old computer files and find songs from early on that are absolutely terrible (there are plenty of terrible new songs too)!

In our instant gratification society, we expect shortcuts to everything. A sense of craftsmanship is lost to us due to mass manufacturing. In turn, everything looks the same and everything seems perfect. Since we are seldom involved in the processes of making the things we use, we rarely see the reality of how things come to be. That process is messy, mistake-ridden, slow, thoughtful, and wonderful.

Some of the very best parts of being human are the parts that can never be mass produced or experienced in any kind of efficient manner. Can you mass produce character quickly? We try with endless self-help books, but character must be developed over the long haul like becoming a master violinist.

We can't expect to make good art at the first. But we must begin. So if you want to make good art, then start making bad art and keep going. Chesterton said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."

Jamaica Orphanage, New Kids Album, and a stolen bank account?

The last couple of weeks have been an adventure! I just returned from Montego Bay, Jamaica where my friend and fellow singer/songwriter Andrew Best and I recorded the last vocal tracks for a new children's album at Robin's Nest Children's Home. But it almost didn't happen!

Yeah Mon, good times wit de Robin's Nest Kids!

So I got to the airport a week ago, walked up to the check-in kiosk and realized that my passport was a three hour drive away in a drawer by my bed. There was no way to get it in time to make my flight. So I spent some time on the customer service line booking a new flight for the next day. BUT when I tried to pay for the flight: "Sir, I'm sorry but your card is being rejected, perhaps you should call your bank and get it cleared up."

Next, I call the bank: "Sir, have you been withdrawing hundreds of dollars every day from an ATM in Florida for the past week? Your account is eight hundred dollars overdrawn." What!?  So my account was completely drained by someone who had stolen both my card number and somehow knew my pin number too. All the customer service folks were great though I must admit.

Thankfully, I got the money together and my friends Abbye and Jeff Pates helped me buy a new ticket and Delta even waived the two hundred dollar transfer fee. I drove home and got my passport and made it to Jamaica only a day late (but more than a few dollars short).

We had a great week with the kids at Robin's Nest. Next, I'll be mixing in the studio the next few weeks. Andrew and I are excited to finish the CD! It will be available later this Fall and the sales will go to support the orphanage.

Visit the Robin's Nest website for more info: www.robinsnestchildrenshome.org

Knowing and being known in the digital age

I sat with a newly-met pastor recently. I sensed a kind of trustworthiness in him and a shepherd's heart so I opened up a little more than I might to most folks I've only known for a little while. At one point we talked about being vulnerable and he commented that sometimes as a preacher his congregation would be amazed at how vulnerable he could be in his sermons, but that even vulnerability can be something we carefully calculate. He said even he knows how to be 'vulnerable' without really putting himself at risk.

I have close friends who know a lot about me. They see me and love me still. There's always a deep desire to be known - to really be vulnerable and true. It's hard enough to be honest with ourselves, isn't it? In many ways, I don't even want to know who I really am! I'd gross myself out!

It's no wonder that our society feels very lonely. It's no wonder we feel unknown. We have a hard time being honest with ourselves and in a digital age what others know of me is exactly what I choose for them to know. I'm all for keeping in touch and sharing a kind of connection over the internet, but the truth is it's a very calculated knowing, isn't it? There are no short-cuts to intimacy.

I'm deeply grateful for the ones in my life who know me and challenge me to be honest with myself and with God. I'm thankful for a God who doesn't baby me - even his grace on the cross is a call to come clean about the reality of my need for him. My need for Jesus is all I have to offer him. (Brennan Manning says children get into the kingdom not because they are innocent, but because they are in touch with their incompetence!) All my heroism and good ideas are really just shame morphing into a kind of pride (most of my coping mechanisms are efforts to achieve atonement for myself).

My love and my life is nothing to write home about. So much failure. But Jesus' eyes are open wide. His mercies are open wide - thank God because his mercy is all I've got. It is enough.

What Happened in Wisconsin...

Last weekend I packed up the car and headed to William's Bay, Wisconsin for Under the Radar's Escape to the Lake Conference. Do you know about Under the Radar?  It's an online radio show/podcast featuring the "The best music you've never heard" from independent Christian artists. "Gourmet music" as host Dave Trout puts it. Most of the singer/songwriters I admire most have found a home on www.radarradio.net. Even I've gotten to land there lately! You should definitely check it out if you love high quality, non-mainstream Christian music.

Top to bottom, L-R: Jon Troast, Myself and Andy Gullahorn, Tim Coons

Nick Flora, Eric Peters, Andy Gullahorn

Group session, Christa Wells and Nicole Witt

Escape to the Lake was part Conference, part retreat, and part music festival. I loved that it was small enough to really get to know most of the folks there. I made some wonderful new friends at the meal table, around the late-night campfires, and in the small songwriter rounds. So many wonderful people and a great variety of excellent and creative performers and storytellers. I can't wait to return next year!

I was especially honored to get to share the stage at the opening concert with some amazing songwriters. Eric Peters, Nick Flora, Tim Coons, and I did a songwriter's round to kick the weekend off. Nick Flora graced the crowd with a forth of July cover of Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA". All wept, of course.

Rich Mullins has been a big influence on me over the years and recently a movie has been made about his life (Ragamuffin Movie). Rich's brother Dave showed up to share with us about the project. He was a delight and I'm even more excited to see the film after his Q&A. Afterward, I sat and shared conversation and milkshakes with Dave in the late night. I was thankful for his lack of pretension and his kindness. It was a gift to sit with him (and it was my 33rd birthday!).

Overall the best part of the weekend was the focus on people. Every component kept its center in the reality of the life of relationship that Jesus purchased for us by his death. The time was filled with good connection to people - whether through food, music, conversation, nature, rest, beauty or milkshakes. A beautiful time. Thanks Under the Radar and friends!

How to make Elephant noises for Jesus

Nearly a year ago a friend of mine asked me if I'd help create a recording of kid's music. She runs an orphanage down in Jamaica called Robin's Nest Children's Home. I'd never made a children's album. It sounded really fun.

So I called up my friend Andrew Best who is a fantastic kid's songwriter and we got to work. We got to travel to Jamaica last October to meet the kids and the staff. They taught us some songs and we came back and wrote some more. One of my favorites is about elephants trying to climb trees. You may not be aware of it, but they find this task particularly difficult. Real stubby fingers - afraid of heights and so on.

Tonight my brother Sam (a potter and sculptor) and I were recounting the day's activities. In the aforementioned elephant song,  Andrew and I had done some ridiculous muppetty scat vocal soloing and elephant trumpeting. Sam described singing the Dukes of Hazard theme song with an adult Down's Syndrome friend earlier in his day.

I realized that mine and Andrew's elephant noises and Sam's crooning of the Dukes of Hazard theme had been real ways of participating in Jesus' Kingdom life with our God-invested gifts. Isn't that wild? It's incredible to me the variety, joy, and beauty available in the life and kingdom that Jesus has opened to us. Just like I know of no other God more beautiful than Jesus, I also know of no other God whose rule brings such joy and fun.

-------------

More about Robin's Nest Children's Home: www.robinsnestchildrenshome.org

More about Andrew Best: www.andrewbestmusic.com

More about my brother Sam's art: www.etsy.com/shop/samclarkart

Go and Teach Now: Pt. 2 "Missionaries are Complete Weirdos"

It took me a long time to begin to actually care whether other people heard the Gospel.  Of course, I knew I was supposed to care, but honestly I didn't see that desire begin to come true till my mid-twenties.

As I look back now,  I can see where it began. Last time I told you about how my youth minister Richard showed me that anyone can follow Jesus (not just 'professionals') and challenged me to read the Bible and pray daily.  Well, after being our youth minister for a little while, he left. This great new role model moved away! Far away! In fact, he moved all the way to Germany. He became a missionary.

Now this may not seem like a big deal, but Richard was the very first missionary I had ever known in real life. I had only heard about these weird people who are so fanatical that they'd trapse around the globe to tell people about what Jesus had done for them. I could not relate at all to those bizarre people called missionaries. Total weirdos.

One night before he left, Richard asked us what it meant to be a missionary. An awkward group of awkward teenagers held their characteristically awkward silence. He went on to explain that all Christians are missionaries. We are called to enter into the work of God in the world. We have a mission from Jesus and everything we do is involved.

One of the best ways my youth minister did youth ministry was to leave and be a missionary. We were his support team on the ground back home so we kept in touch and were a part of the work. I had a real friend who wasn't a complete religious freak but whom I deeply admired... he was pretty normal... and he was a missionary? Yes. I learned those two years he was away that missionaries are real people, living a real life as workers with Jesus.

Even today that reality continues to make its way into my heart. 

To be continued...

---------------

This blog series is a reflection on how a longterm friend's life of discipleship before God has shaped my life. I hope you'll visit  www.goandteachnow.com and see what Richard is up to these days as he lives and teaches in Honduras.

Why are people valuable?

In 2008 I flew to East Asia to visit a friend working there. One of the most fascinating things to see through the little airplane window on that long flight was when the sunrise revealed a vast snow-plain in the high north. As I looked down and saw no dwellings, no footprints or roads, just wide white frozen land I had the feeling of seeing some place that no one had ever seen before. It was uninhabited. Untouched and unknown. I imagine there's some undiscovered species of snow mouse hiding out completely alien to any human in history.

Snow plains in the Arctic Circle

In Perelandra, C.S. Lewis writes:

"[Unpeopled creation] waits not until created people have seen it or hands handled it to be in itself a strength and splendor of [God]"

There are places in this created universe no one may ever see other than God himself. He knows very well the undiscovered species in the High Northern Ice that no human being may ever meet. And it glorifies him no less for being unknown to us. Jesus is alive and 'holding all things together'. It is a glory far beyond our comprehension that our Creator is present to, knowing, and glorified by even a rock on a lifeless planet a million light years away. He delights in that rock.

What strikes me this morning is how much more then is it true that we who bear his likeness, for whom he took on flesh and died, are valued by him. Not for our usefulness. Not for our achievements or whatever. But because he created us. There is a deep sense of uselessness in me that is haunting. A constant ringing in my ears of the offense my unholy heart is to God. You don't need me to describe it because you have it too and you know all about it, don't you?

I know of no other religion that places such a high intrinsic value on persons or gives an adequate reason for human value as Christianity. People are intentionally crafted by a personal loving God who invested his own personhood into them. When we rebelled, he put on our likeness and purchased us out of the death we had earned. There is no other God more beautiful than Jesus.

Go and Teach Now: Pt. 1 "Me and Jesus in Jr. High"

     Nearly twenty years ago now, I was a teenager in a little town in Mississippi. I had become a Christian at a Summer camp called Camp Soaring Hawk in Purdy, Missouri around 9 or 10 years old but I grew very little between Summers. No one back home had been connected to my camp experience.

     When I was in Jr. High our church got its first full-time youth minister. His name was Richard. I remember sitting on a couch with him in the youth room early on and he said to me, "Who is Jesus to you, Matthew?" I said something like what you would expect, "He's my best friend. My personal savior." As time went on, I watched Richard closely.  He seemed to know something. He was a different kind of Christian. I knew it was his 'job to be a Christian' but that's what puzzled me. I knew it wasn't just his job. He really knew Jesus. Jesus was real to him. The Bible was real and true to him. I'd never seen anyone take this stuff so seriously and I was drawn to his faithfulness and we became friends.

     One Wednesday night at Bible study, Richard stopped the discussion and got very serious. "Guys, I went to a school and got a master's degree in Bible teaching," he started, " but I want you to understand that's not where what I'm teaching you is coming from."  He explained that you don't have to go to a special college to know Jesus or be a professional to follow him. Each one of us could know him. He challenged us, "I'm teaching you what I'm teaching you, not because I'm a seminary grad but because I get up and read the Bible everyday and pray. Will you decide to do that too from now on?"

     I didn't feel a big feeling. I didn't experience a powerful change. It wasn't a big deal. In fact, that's why I started reading the Bible and praying everyday - because it just didn't seem that difficult. I just started doing it. "Sure, why not?" I said to myself.

To be continued... 
   

Chesterton, Songwriting, and the Wonder of Common Things

Today's Headline from "The Daily Exception"

Once I commented to a mentor of mine that I wish I could see through the lenses that G.K. Chesterton had acquired, to which he replied, "No, you see what gave him clarity was that Christ had removed his lenses so he could see more truly." One clarifying truth that I thought was hilarious (Isn't Chesterton always showing us the cheer of truth?) was his comment on journalism not representing reality: 

"It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding...Hence the complete picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual." 

The News is in the business of reporting exceptions to the rule, abnormals, unusual things. Too much news will certainly depress you. So who will speak up for the things too common to report? the constant beauties of normalcy that we stomp past?

Songwriting and poetry are what I travel in, but the arts in general are in a business opposite to journalism. Da Vinci painted a mere smile in the Mona Lisa. Frost noticed a fork in the road. Herbert reported on household chores and sunlight through windows. Do you see? Poetry is in the business of noticing the normal and celebrating how exceptional it really is. Jesus is The Poet. Who else could transfigure plain bread, wine and a dinner table till their commonness shone through with the piercing blaze of eternal glory?

In closing, here's a poem I wrote along these lines:

Breaking into a Walk

Gave the car a break and chose a long walk home
Along the busy road-race, the exhausting speedway.

I was a moving stop-light with my bright red shirt.
It's the one with the cross at the center of the letters "SOS"

I walked on the side of the road without sidewalks.
That's where the flowering trees grow their inviting blooms

That hang like waterfall foam, white and baptismal.
You can't wade into their scent from a far

Or hurried pace. This subtle fragrant kingdom is
Only found when the six cylinders wont shoot straight

And you find yourself unarmed- hands freed from the wheel of time,
With pendulum feet down the grassway like a child on a swing.

That's where the clean wind spills over the chalice edge-
Meadow air communicating through a tear in the curtain.

Becoming more Human

      I'm reading through a Leon Morris book called "The Atonement: its meaning and significance". It has been fascinating and encouraging to study what Jesus' death on the cross means more deeply. I'm also having fun with a little experiment: I'm recording my first audio book. I decided to read Morris' book aloud. Then I thought, "Why not record it?".  Pretty fun! 

One of my favorite angry, kill-joys.

     This morning I've been thinking about my perspective on God's punishment of sin. Many times I've thought of God like an angry giant who wants to stomp on all the little peons who aggravate him. And we've all heard him described as a 'cosmic kill-joy' - unable to have any fun himself and certainly unable to stand anyone else having any fun. 

     But what if there's another perspective? What if there's something much bigger at stake than God's anger or sullenness? I'm beginning to ask, "Does sin make me more or less alive? Does it increase my humanity or diminish my humanness?" If I were to walk into my brother's pottery studio right now and smash his pottery, what would that do to me? It would communicate to him that I consider the effort of his gifts and craft to be without value. I would be stomping on his joy. And me, it would make me less of a brother, less of a friend. I would lose some of my humanity in the process. 

     God punishes sin. In a very real way when we sin we punish ourselves. Ultimately God receives our punishment himself. God created a beautiful thing: humanity. Sin makes us less human - causes decay in the deeply beautiful image he invested in us at Creation. The surprise is that we are the angry giants who stomp on others and crush dignity. We  are the killers of our own joy. Jesus is the great defender of dignity, beauty, joy, and our only hope for becoming truly human. 

PS.  Psalm 96 is an example of the joy and relief that the whole Creation is to experience. Surprising to me is that the Psalmist tells us the source of all the rejoicing is God's "judgement"! Facing the truth of our brokenness and learning God's better way is healing. 

Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for he comes,

    he comes to judge the earth.

Francis Schaeffer Trilogy Blog Pt. 4

     In yesterday's blog I wrote about how the new approach to truth as being left up to each individual (loss of external absolutes) and the pick-and-choose-mix-and-match method of truth (loss of logical antithesis) moved from philosophical circles, to high art, to pop culture. In the end the message becomes clearest in John Lennon's popular song loaded with philosophical/religious agenda, Imagine: "Imagine there's no heaven... no hell... people living just for today... no countries... nothing to... die for".  In essence, you'll find peace when you come to terms with the absolute meaninglessness of everything. Nothing worth living for, no hope ahead of you, just 'eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.'

     "Only Christianity, of all the world's religions, has produced a real interest in man...we believe that man, in the presence of the God who is there, is truly wonderful," says Schaeffer. Christians believe the life of a human is so valuable it is worth dying for. In fact, it is so valuable that even God himself considered it worth dying for... why? So that we could live for more than just what we can grab today. So our imaginations could run wild with beautiful possibilities of the varieties of nations, a future habitation of unspoiled beauty and freedom, and an endless life of utterly healed relationship.

     "Christianity is not romantic; it is realistic. [It is] realistic because it says that if there is no truth, there is also no hope and there can be no truth if there is no adequate base, " says Schaeffer. Lennon's Imagine is romantic at best, nihilistic at worst - despite it's seemingly peaceful, hopeful feel. But Christianity makes no bones about the inadequacy that every human being knows is present in humanity. Christianity is not romantic about things magically getting better. It does not even call on its adherents to take a leap of faith and believe based on feelings alone. Christianity is not a blind hope or a blind love.

     In an age wherein we feel like we are flailing in a free-fall because anything more solid than our feelings and romantic hopes has been removed from beneath us, Christianity has a stable footing on which we can rest. But in a culture which has, for the most part, lost its ability to conceive of absolutes and logical engagement with truth, how are Christians to communicate the comfort and relief of Jesus' bestowal of belovedness (a gifted external absolute) both in creation and at the cross to our fellow strugglers?

Francis Schaeffer Trilogy Blog Pt. 3

     In the last blog I wrote about how the breakdown in the concept of truth moved from the philosophies into the world of art. Van Gogh is just one example of an artist who hoped to find ultimate meaning through human artistic expression, but fell short. In the end, the Dada-ists chose randomness and created art which had at its heart the goal of propagating their chaotic and destructive worldview.

     Schaeffer next turns to music and general culture. The decay of a cohesive approach to truth through absolutes and healthy logic (antithesis) is becoming pervasive. The musique concrete movement presented its chaotic, deconstructive compositions as if to say, "All is relative, nothing is sure, nothing is fixed".  With such a strong relativist sensibility being thrust forward "the possibility of finding any universal which could make sense of the particulars is denied".

     Modern Cinema soon became a powerful avenue for widespread communication of modernity's approach to truth. "The so-called 'good' pictures have almost all been developed by men holding the modern philosophy of no certain truth and no certain distinctions between right and wrong," observes Schaeffer, and, "...the films they produce are tools for teaching their beliefs". In the 1960's Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up carried this tag-line: "Murder without guilt, love without meaning".

     Schaeffer's last example of the relativistic approach's popular infiltration is The Beatles' Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rather than disconnected individual songs, this album, which expertly weaved together a conceptual whole, effectively communicated "psychedelic music, with open statements concerning drug-taking, [and] was knowingly presented as a religious answer".

Francis Schaeffer Trilogy Blog Pt. 2

     Last time I wrote about the historical shift in society's concept of truth. Absolutes were absolutely abolished and logical opposition (antithesis) was done away with. The deconstruction of a coherent concept of truth started in the philosophies (which Schaeffer says are really anti-philosophies) and then spread their influence into the Arts.

     Optimistic Humanism is the hopeful search for an answer big enough to contain a reason and meaning for all things with the starting and ending reference point located only within humanity. The philosophers were led to despair. To the point that Sir Julian Huxley proposes that people would be better people if they believed in a god, even though there is no god. The optimism ran out, just like our humanness runs out, we need a bigger source, a bigger picture outside of ourselves. 

     The artists came along, namely the Impressionists. I really like Van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet and others. Schaeffer points out that they were following the influence of the humanistic philosophers before them - trying to find a universal meaning from the resource of their own artistic accomplishments. Generally, they all ended in despair, some in suicide.  As admired as Van Gogh's work may be, he came to the end of himself and his art in despair. Where was truth, where was ultimate meaning to found? These questions went hauntingly unanswered. 

     The next step was to believe that there was no such thing as any real external organizing reality. No truth, no meaning, just chance, just randomness. So the Dada-ists were born. Even their name was randomly chosen by sticking a finger in a dictionary. They set out to deconstruct meaning, destroy organization through the medium of art. Marcel Duchamp was "brilliant and destructive - and he meant to destroy" Schaeffer says. They created art that subtly deconstructed one's meaningful sensibilities. Schaeffer comments, "Always the observer is involved and is deliberately destroyed," and elsewhere, "[Duchamp] causes the viewer to make himself dirty." 

"These men are dying while they live; yet where is our compassion for them?" asks Schaeffer, "They are struggling with their appalling lostness." 

Francis Schaeffer Trilogy blog series Pt 1

     Good old Amazon delivered Francis Schaeffer's Trilogy to my door yesterday and I began reading it last night. The God who is there, Escape from Reason, and He is there and He is not silent all in one volume. My goal for this series is to write quick summarizing reflections on what I'm reading.

     There has been a major shift over the last 200 years by 'a change in the concept of truth'. And this change has taken such a deep rootedness in our mindset that it has become the new prevailing
approach.

     There was a time when most people were working from the same basic approach. Namely, that there is a such a thing as an Absolute and a such a thing as an Antithesis.  So an Absolute, for example would be to say the stop light is red and to know that it is red for me, for you, and for everyone. Red is what it is for everyone. The reality of its redness transcends opinion, circumstances, etc. An example of Antithesis would be: the stop light is red therefore it is not blue. If A is true, then non-A cannot also be true.

     The major shift in the concept of truth that now prevails throws out Absolutes and Antithesis. So when I say the stop light is red the present mindset might reply, "Oh what is red really? How can anybody know for sure if there even is a such a thing as definitely red? Red is probably just a concept, not a reality." Ironically, the only absolute is that nothing is allowed to be absolute.

     Likewise, with Antithesis, if I say the stop light is red therefore it is not blue I might get replies like, "Well, maybe it's red to you, but maybe it's a little bit blue to me. What gives you the right to say what's not blue? Maybe what I see as blue is what you see as red."

     The result of all this is that the basic grounding principles of logic, reason, and truth have been re-worked so pervasively that our whole approach to life becomes one of instability, imprisonment to individual perception and distrust. We've been taught that the only truth is that you can't know what's true, that the only thing you can believe in is what you feel is true. That doubt is the only real source of identity.

     Schaeffer points out that as Christians we must not remain ignorant of this shift if we are to communicate truth into a society that no longer knows how to approach truth. How do we do this?

Mr. Miyagi on the importance of Liturgy

 This morning in Genesis God instructs the Israelites through Moses in the details of the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. They are about to be expelled from Egypt by an exasperated Pharaoh and spared from the final plague of death and destruction. How? By participating in a strange new liturgy that involves painting your doorposts with lamb's blood and excluding Egyptian yeast from your diet for a week. God is teaching his people the meaning of his actions and forming their ability to participate in his life through these liturgies- activities that the people do together.

 I wish I could remember the reference, but someone pointed out that most church services are formed on a modern 'Crusade' model. A big concert and a big name speaker (maybe an altar call) and you go home. This was a specific model with a specific purpose: mobile evangelism. On the other hand, churches used to shape their worship around formational practices called liturgies. Things like responsive reading, unified singing, shared silence, kneeling, creeds, prayers, teaching, offering, communion, and a beautiful variety of creative participatory practices to shape the Body through rehearsal.

 For the most part now we have a big music component and a huge speaking component. Probably an offering. The songs we sing most likely will have been provided via a corporation thats main focus is to make money off of Christians (don't fool yourself, the Christian music industry is very much an industry). The music will likely be led by a powerful solo vocalist that most people cannot follow (Most Christian worship music is actually written to showcase solo vocalists, not to accomodate congregations. The Gettys would be just one familiar exception).

 The sermon will be around 40 minutes out of an hour long service. It will be a monologue - a single-voiced expression of worship. Participation in the sermon is mostly passive, like watching a TV program. In fact, in some churches the sermon literally is a TV program projected onto a screen from a remote location with no flesh and blood presence.

 What do solo worship performances and huge monologues do to congregations? I want to ask how these models shape us? How do they form us? How do they form us physically, mentally? How do they form our imaginations (the imagination is the place where capacity for action is cultivated). In my opinion this model of worship is shaping a passive individualism. The singing is about me (solo performer) and the sermon doesn't involve me (passive monologue) and there's an offering (consumers were provided a service, please tip your servers).

 How do you think about liturgies? Are they boring? Pointless? Worn out by repetition? How does simultaneously saying a series of statements of belief over and over again for years shape one's imagination (capacity for action)? How does kneeling as a congregation train your body and mind? What does hearing all the voices in a room sing together do to your soul over time? What happens when the words of a certain prayer become a part of your DNA? We know that childhood trauma and abuse can radically distort human formation and leave a person wounded-possibly for a lifetime. We call them wounds and they are, but aren't they ruts in the road to get stuck in left by sad family liturgies? What if the church's 'worn out' liturgies have the opposite, positive formational power to heal and form real humanity in us? What if they accomplish this so incrementally that the only way it can happen is without us noticing until much later?

 I think of Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel-son in Karate Kid. Mr. Miyagi gives Daniel-son seemingly disconnected but very particular tasks. Painting the fence, waxing the floor, paint the house and so on. Daniel-son does them over and over and is frustrated because the Karate teacher is not teaching him anything, he thinks. When Daniel-son confronts Mr. Miyagi he finds that all those worn out repetitive patterns were slowly working the 'yeast of karate' into the dough of his own muscles and imagination. He couldn't see it, but he was actually being formed into a karate champion by a very wise teacher who spent almost no time monologuing. Mr. Miyagi knows liturgy's formational power. So does Israel's Deliverer who not only delivers Israel from Egypt but also from the ways of Egypt. Real transformation into the People of God.

Love is in the Ruins

Dale Kuehne mentioned Walker Percy's "Love in the Ruins" yesterday on the Q-ideas webcast. Dale's next book will carry that same title. That phrase has been lingering with me today and ended up finding it's way into a little tune I mostly borrowed from Malcolm Guite's song about Ruth called "Redemption Song".

Love is in the Ruins
Click here to listen to a recording:  


love is in the ruins if it is anywhere at all
love is in the hard ground that breaks the necessary fall
love is in the flesh, the dust that fills our final breath
love has lived before all things and outlives every death

love is in the quiet, like a heart in shock and stilled
love is in the leaving when trusting has been killed
love in the restless, wordless, scream of prayer
love is in the empty hollow of despair

love is in the blood when lover's friendship dies
love is weeping tenderly as the selfish game expires
love is in the losing when we gladly fail to win
love is in the gut-shot ache for innocence

love is in the hunger, in the taste of broken bread
love in the time it takes to grieve the dreams that never lived
love is in the anger when the wrong is recognized
love is in confusion crawling past enemy lines