Monthly Archives: July 2009

July 30, 2009 · 7:39 am

Serve the Children

The heat reminds me of Texas.  When I was in Junior High, it was nothing to spend an afternooon in 100 plus degrees playing tennis alone, beating a ball against a wall across the street at the elementary school on a surface littered with gravel, so that the ball always took crazy, unexpected bounces.  Why I thought that was fun, I have no idea.  But I loved it, the deep concentration of trying to keep up with the mostly dead little ball, sweat dripping into my eyes, the salty feeling of what it meant to work hard at something that was just fun.  Just fun.

Across the street this morning, a man with a garbage can climbs into the back of a truck, a flatbed truck with sideboards, and dumps yard waste–maple leaves and branches.  Dust bursts from the pile like an advertisement for the heat of the day.  It’s doubtful he’s having fun, mercury climbing.   My perch is fine: the concrete slab at Javasti’s keeps it cool for now, and I can easily imagine sitting here the entire morning.  I have two sermons to finish, worship planning issues to resolve, and as always, futures to prep for.

During our mornings at camp, (I’m not speaking this morning, so I came back into town last night to see the family and take care of some things that needed handling), we’ve been talking about the Image of God.  I’ve also been using some coaching questions to challenge the people about what God is trying to do in their lives at this particular juncture, questions like “If God were to personally guarantee the success of the ministry dream that’s inside you, what would you begin doing differently in order to make that dream of ministry a reality?”  Or “What is is the one thing holding you back from taking the first steps toward that call to ministry?”    Doug Collier, the man with whom I am sharing speaking duties at Pleasant Valley Christian Camp, has an amazing story about what it means to answer the call.  Doug is a CPA who, in 1997, began a not-for-profit called Serve the Children.  To make a long story short, Doug and his team have been going into war-torn Liberia, where they have been approaching child-combatants (child soldiers, ages 8-14, roughly), and offering them a trade:  “Give me your AK-47, and I’ll teach you a different way to make a life.”   Stunning stuff.   Serve the Children currently serves over 1000 kids, teaching them to read and write, offering them hope in a devastated landscape, changing lives in dynamic, practical ways. (FYI, Christian Relief Fund also works in Liberia.)   Hearing Doug tell just a couple of stories about his work there, the dangers of it (I’ve never had an AK-47 pressed against the back of my head while lying face down), and the successes of repairing these children in this war-torn country…we were all pretty inspired.

So it’s hot…the world still needs changing…

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July 26, 2009 · 1:30 pm

Off to Family Camp

It’s Sunday afternoon after a long, but invigorating morning of worship and preaching.  I’ve got about a half hour left and then it’s off to Pleasant Valley Family Camp.   Whether or not I’ll be able to post from there remains to be seen, but hopefully I’ll have some cell phone range for tweets.   Lots to write about when I get back, so check back in.

Have a great week…

Peace…

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July 25, 2009 · 6:44 am

True Voices

It’s going to be hot today.

A massive garage sale opens in the church parking lot around 9.  Two of our members have decided the next moment in their lives is to be lived in Kenya, working with orphans there (if I have my story straight), and this garage sale is the first financial salvo thrown in the direction of their new call.  (Bye-bye foosball table…it’s been fun.)  I’ll be playing music indoors 10-12, practicing with the worship band led by a young man who wants to be a career worship leader, and he’s got the tools to do it.  Then it’s giving a band member a ride home, then home for a quick clothes change, then off to Taproot Theatre to give a curtain speech.  (That’s a new one.)  Then home to finish prep for tomorrow’s sermon and next week’s Pleasant Valley Family Camp, where I will spend the mornings talking to campers about identity, and the Imago Dei.  And finally, time spent with a couple of friends, and sleep.

Back to identity.

Sometimes I don’t feel much like myself.

When people say such things, I always wonder, “Who else do you feel like?”  And with that word “feel” right in the middle of the sentence, I figure the whole chain of thought is suspect.  How else to say it other than some of my actions as I move through the days seem…well…disconnected.  Disconnected from what?  From myself.  From my understanding of the ways God has taught me to move through the world, and through my life.  It’s not the discomfort of trying new things, or being out of the comfort zone.  Frankly, there’s exhilaration in that, deeper connection.  No, this is drifting, speaking from somewhere other than my center.  Spitting out outlines, but carving few poems.  Meetings with people I care for concerning important events, but few songs getting sung.   Or singing songs, but not making much music.  There’s the old nightmare that all actors suffer: I missed my entrance, I don’t know my lines.  Or worse.  You forget the play you’re in.

I picked up one of Frederick Beuchner’s books this morning, and as always, he reminded me, called me back.   (I started to title this “Reading Beuchner.”)  Beuchner always speaks in his own voice.  It’s not a preacher’s voice–it’s a man’s voice.  A writer’s voice.   It’s a Beuchner voice, which I’m pretty sure is the only one God’s interested in him using.   One of the realities of speaking to a church is that old temptation to speak in a voice the church wants to hear rather than the one God actually placed in you.   It’s subtle, not overt, and frankly, not a thing that anyone is even thinking about.   No one says, “Stop speaking that way.  Speak like this.”  But in the world of eternal stakes being played out in committee meeting after committee meeting, the perpetual name of this earnest game is persuasion, and as with any group of humans gathered, there’s a certain amount of lobby and spin, sweet and sarcastic, intentional and un.   It’s “not their bad”, as the kids might say…people just hunting truth in the best way they know how, letting you know in strong tones they’re pretty sure they’ve found it.

After those two paragraphs, I feel more like myself.

It’s simple, really.  Worship in spirit and in truth.  Live that way, too, because it’s all worship, it’s all grace.  Jesus knew we’d worship him in lackluster and falseness, mostly, so he reminds us.   The words I say, he tells us, are life.   Peter heard him, and years later, told a church that if anyone was going to speak, he should do it as if God himself were speaking.  Maybe he was remembering that day Jesus told them about  words that had life in them.

Enough.

I’m far too busy to be still today.

But as Martin Luther might say, I’m far too busy not to be.

Thomas Merton says the search for God leads to the self, while the search for the self leads nowhere.

Using the voice God gave me…

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July 24, 2009 · 5:57 am

Finding Time for TED

TED

A friend told me about TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) about a year ago, and I ignored him.  He brought it to my attention again last week, and I finally broke down and checked it out.

I’m not yet officially hooked, because I haven’t had time to log the hours it will take to benefit from what’s there, but the thought crossed my mind that I need to give up films and TV for a year, substituting TED instead.  Ideas Worth Spreading, indeed.

I’ve only watched a couple of things, but it’s easy to tell this is a great source of the best kind of inspiration–inspiration with substance, quality, and passion.  Benjamin Zander’s piece on falling in love with classical music (Chopin) is delightful, and I was reminded how much I envy teachers who can use pianos as they teach.  (The best class I ever sat in on was taught by a classical pianist who was brilliant and funny and amazing all at the same time.  If you ever get a chance to sit in a class with Jeremy Begbie, don’t miss it.)   And when, as he was teaching everyone in the crowd to love classical music, he encouraged us to bring to mind a person we loved who was no longer here.  That seemed like an affirmation of some kind, since it was the 21st anniversary of my dad’s death.   As so often happens, I didn’t get to finish the piece–another meeting–but I saw enough to know that TED is going to be a part of my online life for a long, long time.

Creativity, mathematics, music, biology, design of all kinds…check it out.   Lots of the talks have been rated “jaw-dropping.”  And I don’t know about you, but I can use all the truly jaw-dropping inspiration I can get

Can’t wait to dig in…

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July 23, 2009 · 6:58 am

How Music Rescues

I don’t know anything about Dr. Karl Paulnack, of the Boston Conservatory, but I’m thankful for him anyway.

A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to an article by Paulnack, an address he gave to a group of parents about the place of music and art in the world.  A classical musician, Paulnack says a few things that I’ve haven’t heard in just this way before.

One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us.

He then recounts a few stories to illustrate: the appearance of major music and art in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, the role of music in the healing process that followed Sept. 11, 2001, and finally how one of Aaron Copland’s compositions helped a veteran connect with a torturous, lost memory.

...music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects.

This makes sense to me.  I have no idea what Paulnack’s faith orientation is or isn’t, but he’s striking at a truth here.  Dallas Willard might use a definition like this to illuminate what someone means when they say that music and art are “spiritual.”  Perhaps this is why, as I peruse, and am perused by, the invisible relationships in my internal world, the pressure and desire to write is growing more insistent.

Just in case you don’t bother to click the link to read the article, I leave you with his last three paragraphs.  Argue with the notion of music and art saving the world if you will (as Christians we must), but get behind the gist of it.   Rescue is a dynamic process, a day-to-day work that I have no doubt the Christ intended to have music and beauty be a part of.

This is what Paulnack said to a group of entering freshman:

“If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”

Yes, in the end, art will leave us short.  But functions like this may have been very much what God had in mind when he placed this part of Him image in us.

I am writing…

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