Murder-Song Monday: Stagger Lee

Talking 'bout the bad man . . . Stagger Lee!

Franklin and Piper on Pride

I've come across two quotes this morning on the subject of pride.

First, from the Autobiography of Ben Franklin:

In reality there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history. For, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

And from John Piper (preaching on Romans 12:3):

Inflated views of ourselves are very dangerous to our soul. In America we believe the opposite, especially advertising agencies. Exalting the self is not perilous; it is profitable. On the billboard behind our church on 6th Street you can read a McDonalds ad: “Me, myself and my salad.” Advertisers, educators, counselors, human resource managers, coaches, politicians, and pastors will give an account some day for how they exploited the suicidal tendency of the human mind toward pride.

Paul does the opposite. He does what love demands. He warns against it in verse 3: “I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.” In other words, Paul makes the first task of the renewed Christian mind the obliteration of pride and the cultivation of humility. What’s new about the renewed mind? Pride is put to death; humility begins to grow.

The Piper quote is from a wonderful sermon (here), which I was led to by the inimitable Journeyman.

3 Things

1. There is some remarkable thinking going on over at The Jesus Paradigm.

2. And at Moore to the Point.

3. And the always worthwhile Skye Jethani says, I Read Dead People.

Saturday Morning Musings

I like this. Writing about the theology of Augustine, Edmund Hill said:

Augustine seems to have perceived, though he never explicitly defined this perception, that it is of the essence of Christian truth to be dramatic, to be an encounter cast in dramatic form between God revealing and man believing.

This is as opposed to the abstract statement of truths about God and man. Yes, I like it very much. For more about Edmund Hill and his thinking per Augstine, go here.

Well, if it is not a drama I don't know what it is. Read the Psalms, you'll see. Yesterday I saw a drunk man get off a bus, then saw him stagger and stumble almost under the wheels of the bus. Inches, that's how close he came. He lay in the street for a few moments while his somewhat less inebriated friends gathered around him. He seemed to be okay, and was trying to pull the I'm-alright-it's-no-big-deal thing that people do.

Drama. A drunk falling down in the gutter, that's nothing, compared to the long story that lies behind it all. Hidden. Too sad, too full of hurt, wrong choices, crushed hearts. It is the glory of Jesus to demonstrate that our story can have a different ending than we have any right to believe possible, and show us why. But before he does that, we find ourselves at a very dead end, characters in a story that's going nowhere.

"Oh who can save me from this body of death?"

I know that God can save the drunk man in the gutter. Can lift him out of the mire, put his feet on a rock, as they say. If He does, it will be another story of God revealing, and man believing. This is why our calling is ultimately to be instruments of that revelation. That's the modus operandi of the Kingdom. Jesus is new wine. Talk about that.

I'm pretty sure I need to get back to church. Subdue by chronic dissatisfaction with things as they are (in churches) and get with some folks who love God. Because the drama of God revealing and man believing unfolds in the hearing. God revealing and man believing happens by hearing. In other words, speaking broadly, it happens relationally, among a hearing and believing people.

The Solution

Check this out:

It sounds backward, but the path to holiness is through (not beyond) the grace of the gospel, because only undeserved grace can truly melt and transform the heart. The solution to restraint-free immorality is not morality. The solution to immorality is the free grace of God—grace so free that it will be (mis)heard by some as a license to sin with impunity. The route by which the New Testament exhorts radical obedience is not by tempering grace but by driving it home all the more deeply.

It's from The Radical Gospel, Defiant and Free, by Dane Ortlund. [HT: Justin Buzzard]

Friday Songbook: April in Paris

I've been reading The Rise and Fall of Popular Music, by Donald Clarke, for about 6 months now (little by little). It's not a great book, but I'm interested in the social history of popular music, and it has revived my interest in Swing Era music.

Looking around for a better books on the subject, I've stumbled on the lovingly written Easy To Remember: The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs, by William Zinsser. Easy to Remember contains brief chapters on many of the great composers and lyricists of the period, and Zinsser's appreciative commentary is one part musical education, one part memoir of a life of avid listening, and a third part historical biography. All together it makes Easy to Remember a very easy to read book.

The Swing Era was an era of masterful songwriters who worked within a very strict format, but whose music was "opened up" by the great jazz performers of the era. April in Paris boasts lyrics by Yip Harberg, who wrote Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (featured here in the Friday Songbook series--and to whom I will certainly return once or twice more) and of course all the lyrics for the much-loved songs of The Wizard of Oz (listen to any of the "If I Only Had..." songs and tell me the man is not a genius!).

Anyway, April in Paris! What a mood this song creates. Of countless fine versions, I choose Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's, because it's lush and beautiful and yet gentle and restrained, lovely and perfect.

Conversations with Men: A Summary

One man speaks of his exploits on a motorcycle.
Another man of how he told his boss just where to get off.
One man says when he was young he could run like the wind, he could really fly,
and another tells of a big storm, long ago, and he was far from home.

One man speaks of a woman who turned on him for no reason,
and another of a woman who loved him, but he didn't love her back.
One man speaks of all the drugs he used to take, back in the day,
and another of how he heard the voice of God in his heart.

And then there's all the men who say,

if only my father had been there for me,
if only I had (or hadn't) placed that bet,
if only my teachers hadn't conspired against me,
if only I had been sober,
if only my mother had been kinder,
if only my wife had been happy with what she had,
if only I could have told here how I feel,
instead of saying what I said, or saying it differently,

or if I hadn't lied,
or if I hadn't trusted the wrong people,
or if I had just kept my mouth shut,
or if all my hopes hadn't shattered on the rocks of circumstance.

And then there are those who remember how something felt:

how it felt like a dream,
or it felt like a kick in the gut,
or it felt like flying,
or it felt like sex.

And they say,

back when I was in the Navy,
back when I was slim,
back when I triumphed over all my foes,
back when I fought for a righteous cause,
back when I had all the girls chasing after me,
back when I was young,

way back when.

The Story of Fire

Theirs was the story of fire,
day by day, that inexplicable light
descending in long dramatic arcs--
trajectories of gold--

while night by night
their flickering hearths
flashed forth in characters of flame
a nimble pantomime.

What teller maker singer builder
filled the sprawling stage of space
with these blazing soliloquies,
His combustible voice

booming from the shadowy balcony--
singing His story home.

Murder-Song Monday: Caleb Meyer

This is one of the most brutal and dramatic murder-songs ever. There is an amazing toughness about the narrative voice, as of one who has endured much. It is a murder-song, but also a ghost-story. Written by Gillian Welch, but it has all the feel of a traditional ballad. It is lyrically sparse, feeling almost claustrophobic, like many murder-songs of the past, as if the singer is carrying on a long and burdensome conversation with herself.



BTW, Joan Baez's version is beautifully told.

Saturday Morning Musings

From the Gospel of Luke:

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.” (Luke 13:10-21 ESV)

Note:

1. Jesus healed (in an instant) a person who had been afflicted for eighteen years by a crippling disability.
2. It was the kind of world where such an act might be minimalized, even objected too, by jealous and power-hungry men. 
3. Jesus, with but a few words, put the objectors to shame.
4. People rejoiced.

Now note this.  When Jesus healed the crippled woman, as momentous as that may have seemed, I think Jesus saw it as a mustard seed.  That is, what that act would germinate into was going to be bigger by far than one woman relieved of her terrible pain.

Similarly, the putting to shame of the religious police . . . a mustard seed.  Right away people are rejoicing.  Not only because of the healed woman, but because of the shamed religious busybodies.  

Think about this: when people gaze on Jesus, the rejoicing that follows is but the early signs of a great and spreading kingdom-tree in which many will be able to make their home.

Similarly, even so apparently prominent a deed as this, witnessed by many, from a world-perspective is quite unknown, like leaven in bread.  And yet it is bread that will one day feed millions.

What am I getting at? The thought that is stirring in me is that out kingdom-deeds are mostly (at least by any system of measure we are used to) small, local, even quite secret. On the one hand, the more we try to claim some leadership spotlight, the more we pine for "influence," the more in danger we are of becoming like the objectors. And on the other hand, why are we so dissatisfied with planting seeds? Why do we not trust in the leaven?

Friday Songbook: I Thought about You

This Friday series is all about me indulging my love for the music of the the 2nd quarter of the 20th century. I've been calling it "the great American songbook," as many others have done before me. Songwriters from Tin Pan Alley to Hollywood were providing a near flood of music, and ever since then singers and musicians have been interpreting them in wildly divergent ways. Indeed, one of the strengths of these songs is their flexibility. Their composers provided the melodic starting-point for a thousand jazz combos, would-be crooners, and even rock, punk, and bluegrass singers. And the songs continue to be re-interpreted, re-recorded, and thus rediscovered by each new generation.

Last week I featured the rather starkly realistic 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,' but most of the songs of the depression era were remarkably sprightly and optimistic. One might even say, escapist. Ultimately, more than anything else they were romantic. The best of them expressed love and longing without ever seeming merely adolescent. During the war, many songs were about missing a loved one who was far away.

Lyrically, the vocabulary and the rhyming were often deceptively simple. Aspiring writers and poets can learn a lot from their use of single-syllable words, understatement, and impressionistic imagery. I could pick a hundred examples, by a myriad of composers. One of my favorite lyricists was Johnny Mercer. His songs had an easy conversational tone, one person speaking to another. Mercer wrote way too many great songs for me to name here, but a few are my particular favorites are 'That Old Black Magic,' 'Skylark,' 'Blues in the Night,' 'Come Rain or Come Shine,' and 'Moon River.' The following example, I Thought about You was written by Mercer with composer Jimmy van Heusen. Frank Sinatra's well-known version swings, and seems to have the tone of joy when lovers are reunited, but when Billie Holiday sings it, you feel she is mourning the increasing gulf that seems to be opening between her and the one she loves. She makes it a more poignant song by her vocal interpretation.

2 (and a half) Rants

Sippican Cottage rants quite skillfully about the American educational system. Gorgeous snip:

Devotees of the modern approach to learning don't like it when you point out that critical thinking requires knowing things, hard factual things, so you can tell if someone's pulling your leg or not. They'd rather that critical thinking consist of half-remembering the prejudices of your teacher on cue. But they can't even get the kids to remember those. Taking that word out of Huckleberry Finn and another hundred billion in school loans oughta do it.

And then there's Jeff Dunn at the Internet Monk (which, btw, is rounding into a very fine group blog), who rants here and then again here on the prevalence of self-help teaching in the church. Like this:

If you are striving to be a winner in this world, I would avoid Jesus if I were you. He wants you to lose. Lose your life, lose your hold on doing things your own way. But if you are willing to be a loser, then (here is where you expect me to say, “You’ll find you are one of life’s winners!” Sorry. Keep reading.) you’ll find great company. Most of the men and women we read about in Scripture were grand losers in the eyes of the world.

Oh, and see Demaris Zehner's response to Jeff. She's not exactly in hearty agreement with Jeff, and she makes some strong points for her team.

The Gardener

These poems almost always come to me as I walk, or are inspired by something I've seen while out walking. In this case, both. Sometime last year, walking past an assisted living facility, I saw the man described in this poem. Then, just this morning, he came back to my thoughts complete with a story to tell, so I tell it here.

There is this man
who lives in the assisted
living facility, the one
on State Street, across from
the closed up church
with the no trespassing sign
on the big wooden doors
and the pigeons settled
and cooing in the loft
of the bell-less steeple,

and this man, this man
once kept a garden,
this man and his wife,
in their back yard,
the most beautiful
garden, with big red
tomatoes to die for,
snap peas and green peppers,
lettuce and kale and parsley,
and sweet strawberries
like red jewels,

and this man’s wife
through all the years
would bring him lemonade
and she’d call him dear
as he weeded on his hands
and knees, down among
the string beans,

as he built soil,
as he dug and hauled
and pruned and grafted,
as he whistled, as he hummed,
as he strode from tool shed
to garden to tool shed
again, again, again,
from season to season,
from year to year,

and she’d say--he
would always remember
her saying--this will be
a salad for the ages.

He never dreamed
of a world without her,
or a world without
a garden to tend
and make prosper.

Sometimes, he palms
the butter knife from
the breakfast commons,
and drops it in his pocket,

and later can be found
out on the treeless plaza
among the benches and
the pigeons, down
on his hands and knees again,
scratching up the little weeds
that grow between the bricks.

And on his face you’ll see
anger and perseverance and shame,
for they have taken his tools,
his tools are gone, and they
will come for him soon
he knows, they will come
for him, though his work
is not yet done.

Embarrassed by Old Things

My mother's generation had a love/hate relationship with the past. I suppose we all do. We choose carefully what we'll talk about--the early triumph that grows larger with each telling, or the early victimization, which grows similarly more decisive, more defining, every time we think of it.

But back to my mother's generation. My mother is nearly 80. She spent her early years on a farm in Indiana, and for a while there was not even any indoor plumbing. After her Dad died in an industrial accident at the Cummins Engine plant in Columbus, her mother moved the family into town. In other words, she took part in the massive demographic exodus from country to town that marked the first few decades of the twentieth century.

In doing so, they came up against good old fashioned social prejudice. Being "country" in the Columbus high school was a label you wanted to avoid. Country meant out-houses, gingham dresses, no phone, and infrequent trips to the theater (thus no knowledge of the latest fashions, the latest heart throbs, etc.). So, when you moved to the city, it was best to put country things behind you forever. And to some extent that city snobbery may have seemed to make some sense. Just imagine a child's awe at progressing from a sometimes snake-infested outhouse to flush toilets in a warm gleaming bathroom where hot water emerged magically from the tap upon command.

Perhaps that's part of the reason that my mother's generation held so strongly to their belief in technological progress. New inventions would make life easier and easier. To cling to "the old ways" was completely counter-logical to them. Even canned vegetables purchased at the grocery store was progress. For another example, I can remember when we got our first color TV. From that day on my parents would not watch a black-and-white movie. Why watch black-and-white when you can watch color?

My mother grew up hearing the Grand Ol' Opry on the radio every Saturday. But in high school she learned to love Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, etc. They were modern, whereas the Opry was backward. They were city, the Opry was country. Zoot suits vs. straw hats.

See, this was something more than simply disliking country music. This was a kind of embarrassment about the past, and an eagerness to put it behind us. So, whereas country music was extremely popular in the 30s (think Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family), right alongside big band and swing, by the late 40s it was only a regional phenomenon, associated by northerners with the "backward" South.

But embarrassment with the past is, by definition, embarrassment with our roots. My mother always seemed a little embarrassed by her Hoosier accent, for example, and tried without success to kick over the traces. For a country girl in the town, facing the threat of social ostracism by your classmates because your mother made your dress by hand, it became important to brush over those traces of your past. Never show your roots. Never get caught trailing behind in the parade to a glorious future.

But the next generation, growing up in the 60s, was deeply troubled by the modern. There is a cliche about that generation rebelling against their parents, but for some that rebellion meant a rediscovery of the "hidden" past. We would rediscover the things of the past that our parents had seemed to want to bury forever. It was the young folkies and hippies, after all, who unearthed the roots of rock music (when much of that music had grown slick and glittery), and in so doing re-invigorated country, blues, and bluegrass. Old blues and bluegrass players who had been cutting records as far back as the 30s found their careers revived on the college circuits. It was the most important musical contribution of my generation, in my opinion.

Listening to bands like the Stones and the Animals (and soon the Allman Brothers), we began to understand that rock 'n' roll had its roots in the Blues. I can well remember buying Lightnin' Hopkins records (and Muddy Waters, and B. B. King) from the discount bins at the local department store, simply because I'd read on the back of an Animals record that these men were among that band's musical influences. Blues music was a revelation to our generation, and it came to us straight out of the past. And discovering the Blues, we inevitably discovered its close cousin, country music.

Bob Dylan was hanging out with Johnny Cash. Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Mary, and even the Grateful Dead were dusting off old bluegrass numbers. Not to mention The Byrds, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, as well as songwriters like Kris Kristofferson, all of whom helped to turn a younger generation to a form of music that our parents had repudiated. When Ray Charles sang Hank Williams, when Janis Joplin sang Kristofferson's Bobby McGhee (first performed by country singer Roger Miller), when the Byrds sang Merle Haggard, and when Willie Nelson shucked his tie and grew out his hair, country music was clearly no longer a relic of the past.

As I've grown older, I've grown less and less "contemporary." I discovered old movies, old books, and old music when I was a teenager, but my love has only deepened with the years. For many, nowadays, embarrassment with the past has been replaced by nostalgia for old things and old ways. Too much, it seems, has slipped away. And quite remarkably, we live now in an era when a new generation of musicians, not having to work through embarrassment to appreciation, is freely experimenting with "old time" music. We're living in a wonderful moment for lovers of traditional music.

The past is alive and well. If we take off our "presentist" glasses, we might learn to appreciate that. Last year I took my mother back to her hometown of Columbus, Indiana. We saw the movie theater where she used to watch double features for a quarter (provided she'd done her chores). We saw the Cummins plant where her dad, my grandfather, was killed. And we stopped by the ice cream parlor which was the place to be for a teenager in the 40s. It was a wonderful journey for all of us, and it reminded me that the palimpsest of history is all around us.

Martin Luther song

Well, the two major themes of this blog lately have been Americana music and Christian spirituality. Here's something that brings the two together:

Murder-Song Monday: The golden Vanity

This song, 'The Golden Vanity,' is a ballad about a heroic cabin-boy and a deceitful captain. At one time music answered our need for stories and our thirst for adventure every bit as much as TV does for us now. I can see some kid in the hills, some kid who'd maybe never even seen the ocean, hearing this song and going misty-eyed with dreaming. They call this a "traditional" song, meaning no one knows who wrote it. I love it as story, and I love it as song. Also, I love Crooked Still.

How I Got Over

If the tattoo-sleeved shirt-tailed 20-something worship leaders of today, with their fog machines and colored lights, had even a fraction of the authenticity of Mahalia Jackson, I'd be significantly more interested in contemporary worship music.

Sunday Meditation

Read through any three or four Psalms in one sitting, not so much looking for personal inspiration or encouragement, but simply to hear the voice of the Psalmist. He is surrounded by enemies. He is often confounded, because it seems at times that God--the God who parted the sea or made water pour from a rock--is no longer in control. Sometimes the Psalmist cries out for vengeance. Other times for mercy. His world is a world of conflict. It is a world enmeshed in debilitating confusion and complexity. The Psalmist is often quite desperate, and the only place to turn is toward God. In the midst of all his troubles, and despite his doubts, he always remembers and trusts in the promises of God.

As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;
when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. (Psalm 17:15 ESV)

In his letter to the Ephesian church, the Apostle Paul says that the "eternal purpose" of God was realized in Christ Jesus, and that as a result we have "bold access" to God (Eph. 3:11-12). Or to put it another way, such access, "bold access" (i.e., "I shall behold your face in righteousness"), was the eternal purpose of God, and this purpose was realized (made real) in Christ Jesus. That is the Gospel in a nutshell.

I cannot read the Psalms apart from this knowledge. The knowledge, the understanding, that it is Christ who will someday fulfill all the longing of the Psalmist for order, justice, peace. For an end to tears, to hate, to doubt, and to trouble.

This longing, arising out of desperate circumstances, voiced by Psalmists, poets, and Blues singers through the ages, is the human condition, and to voice it is to say the most honest thing we can at times. For an example, listen:



But such expression is not the last word. It is an important beginning, but it is not all there is. Sometimes you feel lost and helpless, like a "motherless child," but then there is Jesus. He fulfills the eternal purpose of God. He is bread. He is new wine. He is the promise of a family. In the midst of all the sheer confusion he gets our attention by saying outrageous things like this:

Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. (John 14:19 ESV)

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:51 ESV)

Or this:

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:1-8 ESV)

That is the most powerful "nevertheless" in the English language. God will give justice. God will put right. God is better by far than any corrupt judge, and furthermore, in Christ Jesus he has fulfilled his purpose to give us bold access.

How's that? Because in Christ God's justice was "speedily" fulfilled. That work is finished. You, believer, have been delivered from wrath, "speedily," at the Cross. What is left but to go to Him, the righteous judge, boldly and in thanks? This is the Gospel of Christ.

And yet, nevertheless, how bold will he find us when he comes? Or will he find us still trying to earn bold access, dividing our trust between Christ (a little) and our own strategies (a little more than a little).

What can be greater than "bold access" to God? No one can bar us from that door. No one can stand against that access, for God has set aside everything that once blocked the way (our sin), doing so by the blood of Jesus, and confirming his triumph by his resurrection life. "Because I live, you too shall live."

As Nate says so well here, and Tullian here, the Gospel is not some check-off on a sort of eternal W-4 form. It is meant to be grasped, ingested, and lived. Because the world is in deep trouble without it.

Friday Songbook: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

This Friday series is going to be fun for me, because I get to research the great songs and songwriters of American musical history. I love the music of the 20s and 30s, not only the often brilliant songwriters, but the great performers as well. We opened the series with Ellington performing Take the A Train. This week, I've been thinking about the music of E. Y. "Yip" Harburg. He was the lyricist behind The Wizard of Oz, It's Only a Paper Moon, among many other great songs. And he wrote the simple yet stunning lyrics for Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

It's interesting to me that the melody is a Russian lullaby, fondly recalled by the song's composer, Leo Gorney. Humm the tune of "Dime" to yourself, and the Russian-ness of it will become fairly obvious. The contribution of Eastern European immigrants to American pop culture during this period is remarkable.

"Dime" was almost the very theme of the 30s, and became huge hits by the likes of Jolson, Vallee, and Crosby. I've been sampling these various versions, and I love them all. I also very much like the contemporary version by the inimitable Tom Waits. But the version I want to feature is by Dr. John and Odetta. Odetta's singing after the piano break ("Say, don't you remember, you called me Al") is incredibly poignant, and of course the bluesy rendering, stripped of the 30s era Salvation-Army-style horn section you usually hear, seems to suit the lyrics well.

3 poems (2nd edition)

It's a longish post, all of which is more than worth your time, but the main reason I'm linking is the poem by William Stafford. The Thoreau quote is awesome too. Oh heck, be sure you read the whole dang thing, and thanks to Nance Marie for tipping me to this one.

Barry MacSweeny's No Such Thing. Read it a few times. It's worth it.

And a little beauty by L. E. Leone, found at the wonderful blog, Robert Frost's Banjo.

And speaking of Robert Frost, it was he who said that a poem "begins in delight and ends in wisdom, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life—not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion." I'll buy that.

In January

[In which I continue my poem-a-month challenge. This be the latest.]

Strange, how in December
we represent high hope
by slicing down
an evergreen.

Then,
in January,
with little regret
we litter the curbsides
with their gayly tinseled corpses.

Oh see how the brown needles
stipple the filthy snow.

Who now remembers
their season of conjured confidence,
happy-talk and the high gleam
of a store-bought star.

Carried away, all carried away
in trash-trucks to land-fills.

Who wonders, and who weeps,
when faith's so cast aside, so shuffled off
like some mere seasonal delusion?

What does it mean, what can it mean,
to be so briefly green and growing,
and then, so carelessly
forgotten?

Randy Alcorn's If God Is Good (2)

In chapter 2 of Randy alcorn's If god Is Good Randy begins by defining "the problem of evil and suffering." Simply stated:

If god is all good, then he would want to prevent evil and suffering. If he is all knowing, then he would know how to prevent it. And yet . . . a great deal of evil and suffering exists. Why?

Randy makes several points in this chapter that I consider extremely valuable. First, this is an age-old problem that crosses barriers of time and culture. It is the central theme of human storytelling. The difficulty of this issued has been grappled with by Christians from the beginning, and the problem of evil is often expressed in the Bible itself (Hab. 1:2-3, Ps. 10:1, Ps. 42:9, Ps. 44:23-24).

Randy's key point in this chapter is, there are no tidy solutions. Although the Christian worldview is "the only one that adequately deals with evil and suffering, there are nevertheless no pat answers that square all the circles and satisfy our troubled hearts. He writes:

I've read books by atheists and Holocaust survivors, , and have interviewed dozens of men and women who have endured extreme evil and suffering. the more I've done so, the more I've asked God to give me wisdom--and I've discovered that wisdom begins with the humility to say there's a great deal I don't understand. (p.22)

Next week: a summary of chapter 3: What is evil and how does it differ from suffering?

"the funny, shocking, surprising, subversive teaching of Jesus"

Will Willimon's new book, Why Jesus?, sounds refreshing indeed. It sounds like a book about Jesus that does not convert him into a theology professor, a life coach, or a therapist! Amazing!

I learned about the book from two posts by Chaplain Mike at Internet Monk (Part 1, Part 2). Mike says:

In my Christian experience, the funny, shocking, surprising, subversive teaching of Jesus has often been quenched by analysis and exposition. We’re not good listeners. It’s hard for us to stay in the moment with Jesus the Storyteller. We want the explanation, the moral, the lesson. We want the punchline to be clear, the message to be practical and edifying. We resist being left hanging. We don’t want Jesus to respond to our questions with even harder questions. We’re impatient. We want the answers so that we can pass the test. Now.

Blog Plugging

I really hope you go over to Jesus Paradigm and read his post, Some More good News about Tents. It's a good post, and just may make you happy, even.

RE-POST: The Inward and the Outward

[This a golden oldie from my Mr. Standfast days. A commenter recently brought it to my attention, so I thought I'd share it with the rest of you.]

The outward is deteriorating, wasting away, but the inward is being renewed day by day. That's what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16. Elsewhere: Jesus says, it's not what you take in that stains you, but what you put forth--what comes out of you (Mt. 15:16-20).

I've been thinking about the inward and the outward. The inward I will define as, well, the soul--the ineffable me (if you're looking for anything more precise, you've come to the wrong place). The outward: everything else, including my own flesh. Now, the outward has a formative effect on the inward. This is of course a commonplace notion. The way I think and feel, how I interact with the world, who I am, is to some immeasurable extent a product of these influences. This is the presupposition of behavioral science.

The Romantic poets, prizing the inward above all else, saw that influence as entirely deteriorative. The original self, at birth, is unsullied. The wasting process has not yet begun. Ah, but shades of the prison house descend around the growing child. That's life, my friend! Get used to it.

I think just about everybody labors under some form of this presumption. We do assume that the outward wastes away at the inward. We never "get over" this. The impact of childhood abuse, for example, lasts forever; or so the assumption goes. Victimhood, according to this mindset, inevitably becomes our definitive status. Life is simply a series of action and reactions which have a text-book certainty of outcome.

Here's an example. Somebody does something to harm us. We react, naturally, with anger. We begin to shy away from that person, even to despise him. Or perhaps we strike back. Or smear his good name. In any case, if the act was terrible enough, we will never quite forget it. Every time we think of it, the old anger returns. And it's all quite natural and understandable. The act was, after all, sheer evil. No one can blame us.

Now, this distortion of the self by the world, the inward by the outward, is the basic blueprint for our understanding of life on earth. It's how we see the world. But is it really inevitable? I am not suggesting that the Christian can or should simply rise above the world like some sort of Zen-master. But there is this thing called redemption. The closed system of action/reaction has been broken open and a new power has entered into the equation, making all things new.

You see, everyone understands and agrees that the world is fallen and sinful, even if they use different descriptors. The question, then, is how do we who live in the world overcome the world? Jesus answers, I have overcome the world (John 16:33). It's not your job at all. Please trust me on this.

So when Jesus says, the world can't stain you, only you can stain yourselves by what comes out from your heart, he is announcing the release of the self from the bondage of the world. The point is to see to the disposition of the heart. To partake of the cleansing power of the blood and live a different kind of life altogether.

Go back to Paul. He claims there was a significant change in our standing vis a vis the world when we were born again. The whole trajectory of life has changed. We are renewed inwardly. We go from dark to light, from a life that is essentially a downward spiral to death, to one that is upward to light and life. If this is true, it is a fact that cuts across the text-book certainties of the behaviorists. If this is true, then the wasting effects of the world are essentially temporary and superficial, because that which is within is being renewed day by day, is growing in grace, and is moving always from responses of faith and trust to yet more responses of faith and trust (Rom. 1:17).

This is life in the Spirit. This is being saved. Living as children of light. It is not pie-in-the-sky be-happy-ism. There is still the outward wasting away that Paul speaks of. The world is still the world and the flesh still the flesh. But the evil one is not battling for the outward. It is primarily a spiritual warfare that has engendered this state of things, because Satan is a spiritual being who is after our souls. Thank God that we do not fight with merely human weapons!

Murder-Song Monday: You Led Me to the Wrong

Ola Belle Reed. She was truly "old time." A preservationist of mountain music, her voice seems to come out of a time long past. In this murder-song, the "narrator" is going to his execution with no apparent regret. He did what he thought right, killing his best friend for courting his girl. This is a piece of Americana more vivid than anything you will read in the history books.

What about church? (4)

So far in this series about church I've talked about the things I've got a problem with, things I definitely want to avoid. Religion, which is essentially synonymous with legalism, was one. Religion is definitely a deal-breaker. The least hint is likely to guarantee no return visit. The alternative to religion is the gospel, of course. More on this in a moment.

Also in this series, I worried over the issue of promoculture in the church. Promoculture is our culture, we're embedded in it, and it is a culture that is promiscuous about the truth, for it's purpose is profit, not knowledge. The wider culture is heavy with promotional rhetoric, endeavoring to entice, urge, cajole, convince, rather than to enlighten or encourage. And yet promoculture is rampant in the church.

Finally, in the third and most recent post, I highlighted the "pastor-centered" problem. Or call it the pastoral mystique. This one is so entrenched, it will be hard to avoid, but perhaps at best there will be a good deal more emphasis on the reading of the Word and less on the reading of the sermon. This is not to disparage all the hard work of many fine pastors, mind you. But look at it this way: we are often encouraged to think of the church body as our family, and yet no family I know sits in rows and listens to the patriarch for an hour every time it gets together. It's far more likely they would get together for food and conversation. There's just no getting around the fact that for modern evangelicalism, despite all the talk about family, the church is more aptly compared to an audience than to a family. My ultimate point here is that the audience-church template can actually inhibit the family-forming possibilities within the congregation.

Before this series of posts ends I hope to rise to the occasion of describing what I'd really hope to find in a church, but I want to address the question first that a friend of mine recently brought up. That question is this: is the church--any particular church--alive or dead?

This question makes me cringe a little, because I fear we draw our definitions of these words from the culture. Anyway, alive usually means passionate, while dead means staid, routine, dreary. Alive is up-tempo, dead is lugubrious. Alive is emotional, dead is formal, restrained, subdued. You get the picture.

I'm not exactly buying into all this, but I'm not exactly rejecting it either. There is such a thing as a dead church. I know this because Jesus warns about it here:

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
“‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ (Revelation 3:1-6 ESV)

In this quote you see that aliveness and deadness have everything to do with incomplete "works."

for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.

The key correction to this, you'll notice, is not to hurry out the door to dispense charity somewhere, thereby getting back on God's good side, but to remember something!

Remember, then, what you received and heard.

Something you've seen, something you've heard. A message. Remember it, and repent. This is the the foundation that precedes "works." Here's the ESV Study Bible note concerning the Sardis passage:

The church in Sardis is in a deep spiritual coma, approaching death but not beyond Christ's summons to wake up, to strengthen what is about to die, to remember and keep the message of grace that the church had received and heard, and to pursue the holiness that flows from grace.

And here's the upshot of all this for me. A church may be noisy or quiet, rocking or meditative, hub-bubby or contemplative, but none of this has to do with real aliveness or deadness.

If recollection of the Gospel message--what we have seen and heard--is the foundation that precedes or underlies holiness, then the key thing in a church, the thing to be looking for, is a congregational experience that brings that message back to our attention. Whether through the music, the prayer, the reading of the Word, and yes even the sermon, we are having the message of the Gospel called to mind again. It might at times be disconcerting. It might make us repent. It might make us at other times feel like dancing. But aliveness and deadness in a church has nothing to do with worship styles. It is simply a measure of Gospel mindfulness. That's all.

Friday is for the Doe-See-Doe (returns)

Around here I hope the music will serve as a little break from all the chatter. Also, I don't know a lot of people who share my love for both old time Americana music as well as the great crooners and swing era jazz. For that reason, while I'm making Americana a regular feature for my Murder-Song Monday posts, I'm going to end the work week with some historic swing music and some of my favorite crooners. sampling from the great American songbook. I'll start the series off with The Man.

Bread

Deuteronomy 8:3

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:3 ESV)

John 6:32,33

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:32-33 ESV)

John 6:51

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:51 ESV)

Matt 6:11

Give us this day our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11 ESV)

Prayer for 2011

This is Frank Viola's prayer for 2011:

My prayer for 2011 is that God would use me to be a vessel to bring life, peace, freedom, comfort, and encouragement to everyone I come in contact with. That I would do no harm to any soul, that I would do nothing to add to their pain, that my speech and conduct would always lift-up and never tear-down, that I would always think the best of them, not judge their hearts, show compassion, and strive to be a peacemaker and live in peace with all people.

I think I'll make it mine, as well.

Frank's post is here.

3 Poems

You may have noticed, you who pay attention to the poetry posts here at WF, that my favored poetry prompt is bird watching. Almost all of my poems feature birds. That's why I was attracted to this lovely example of bird-inspired poetry By Simmons Buntin. The language here flows in a birdsong-like torrent. It's really outstanding, and you'd better read it!

John Hayes' January Morning is really, really wonderful. Really. I want to write something half that beautiful someday.

And a haiku from Wendell Berry. It's amazing how such a small form cab carry so much weight. A well-made haiku is a tiny diamond, and this one is particularly fine.

The Daily Office Lectionary

I'm enjoying reading the daily office lectionary these days (from the Book of Common Prayer). I decided back in December to go with some sort of Bible reading plan in 2011, and looked at quite a few options before settling on the lectionary. I've been reading all the Scripture passages in the morning, but may fiddle with the routine from time to time. Todays readings, fyi, are here.

Randy Alcorn's If God Is Good (1)

I picked up a free copy of Randy Alcorn's book, If God is Good, from the publisher a while back, in return for which I was to write about it here at WF. I've been reading it very slowly and feeling like I've been neglecting my side of the bargain.

So what I thought I'd do, rather than review the book in one sitting, is to write about it in a series of posts. This will allow me to slow down and read the book with care, rather than rushing in order to get to the review in a timely fashion. And besides, it's definitely a book for digesting slowly, and thinking about deeply. I'll go chapter by chapter, briefly recapitulating Alcorn's main points. And I should add that one of the reason I'm doing this is because I whole-heartedly agree with Alcorn's premise that how we think about suffering will affect how we think about God and about life. There are few matters as important as this.

The central question motiviating Alcorn to write this book is a familiar one:

If god is good . . . then why all this evil and suffering? {p.2)

In this first post in the series, I simply want to re-state a few of Alcorn's main premise-points from the book's introduction. These are not attempts to answer the question, only fundamental insights to keep in mind as we wrestle with that question.

• Seeking answers to these questions should turn us to Jesus in a fresh way.
• We each bring our own burdens to the journey.
• The faith that can't be shaken is the faith that has been shaken.
• God's Word is central to gaining eternal perspective.

Alcorn recounts some wonderful stories as illustrations of these points. As we begin this reading journey, perhaps with a little trepidation, Alcorn simply wants to remind us,

This book won't work magic or make your problems disappear. But I hope god will use it to help you, regardless of the difficulties you face. He offers us profound, moving, and surprising insights that can feed our minds, warm our hearts, and give us the strength to face a world that is not what it once was, or what it one day will be.

Last Christmas Post (I promise)

Heck, I know Christmas is long past and the whole debate about putting Christ back in Christmas and all that (the Christmas "culture war") has been mothballed for another 11 months or so (only to be brought out again next year in a debate as ritualized as live Natitivities at the megachurch down the road), but I just had to point out this hilarious post posted on Dec. 20 over at Missions Misunderstood.

Is it a “win” for Christians if secular businesses say “Merry Christmas?” Is that part of our mission on this earth? Is a coerced profession of Christmas our mission? I’m no expert in degrees of God-honor, but “If you don’t say Christmas we’ll go elsewhere to buy the Chinese-made junk we don’t need” doesn’t seem like it’d be that high on the list.

The post is titled, God Is Most Glorified When Wal-Mart Says Merry Christmas. Gotta love it.

What about church? (3)

In this ongoing series, I've pinpointed religion and promoculture as things I hope to avoid as I look for a church. Not that I really expect to find a church that's completely free of these things (we're only human, after all), only that I will look out for these things, and be wary.

In future posts I hope to move on to some of the more positive things I'll be looking and listening for, but let's just add for now--on the negative side of the ledger--pastor-centered. I'd sure like to avoid that if I can. You know, this is where it is believed that God speaks to the congregation primarily through the pastor's sermon. This leads to all sorts of odd behavior.

In the worst cases, people even adopt the pastor's preferences, liking what the pastor likes, reading what the pastor reads. I mean, really, I've seen ridiculous examples of this. I've seen people adopt the preacher's political views. I've seen them switch their coffee preferences to match those of the leadership. I've seen people take up cigar-smoking because the pastor smoked cigars (seriously). I've even seen people for whom The Shack is too cerebral go out and buy whatever book the pastor recommends (but no other . . . only the pastor's choice is "Spirit" led).

Sheesh.

In truth I've known only one pastor who actively encouraged that sort of thing, while the rest have harbored, I suspect, a somewhat bemused attitude about it all. Still, most have held a high view (shall we say) of the importance of their weekly sermon.

Here's the thing: I don't think that God's preferred way of reaching us is primarily through our pastor's sermons. God's strategy for getting through to us ordinary pew-folk is not, OK, I'll send the Holy Spirit to the pastor's study, inspiring him about what to preach next Sunday, and it will be just what all three-hundred people in the church really need to hear this week.

No, I really don't think it works that way. Nor do I think that, when the pastor is a great orator and can stir the passions of the congregation with his preaching, that's definitely the Spirit's doing. The history of oratory is checkered at best.

Instead, give me conversation between friends, perhaps over a meal (before, during, after). I'm really not looking for a 50-minute "lesson" from my pastor/teacher/guru/spirit guide.

What's the alternative? The more I think of about it, the more I realize that worship, prayer, the reading of the Word, the sharing of needs and blessings, and a meal, would be just fine. Is preaching really supposed to be the be-all and end-all of church practice? Who decided that? And how has that practice worked out so far, generally speaking? Hasn't it engendered a largely passive follow-the-leader mentality? One man talking, several hundred listening, then filing out to the parking lot wondering, what did he say? Oh yeah, I remember, sin is bad.

Anyway, here's a truly radical suggestion. One way of doing things that might guard against the pastor-centered tradition is to practice the liturgy, which centralizes Scripture and the Lord's supper, not preaching. In fact, you can do away with preaching altogether and still have a profoundly meaningful worship experience. But in the typical evangelical church of my experience, if you did away with the preaching, you would simply have a big gap in the service with people milling about and wondering what to do with themselves.

Hey, that's not a bad start.

Murder-Song Monday: the Cold Rain and Snow

Start of a new series (because every blogger needs one). I'm not sure how long this one will last, but I know there are an awful lot of great murder-songs in our musical heritage. Plus, the phrase "Murder-Song Monday" was irresistible to me.

For a murder-song, this one's fairly understated. In fact, that's the beauty of this lyric. This seems to be the rumination of a man alone with his guilt, replaying his self-justification {"she ran me out in the rain and snow"), and seeing, over and over, "her cheeks as red as the rose." This seems to be an old English ballad. It has been recorded numerous times, most famously I suppose by The Grateful Dead. Rowan's voice is plaintive and lonely, and seems to me to shiver with unspoken regret.



The Be Good Tanyas also do a nice version.

Book Chatter

I like book bloggers. I'm glad they're out there. Each one of them seems to read lots more books than I ever can in a year. Plus, I really like those book bloggers who read old books at least some of the time. In other words, they're not exclusively committed to the contemporary.

Many book bloggers feature reading challenges. That's where you commit to reading a certain number of a certain kind of book, or a series of books on a certain theme, or with a certain common thread (10 coming-of-age books, or 12 time-travel books, or one Zane Grey western per month, or whatever, or every Hugo Award novel). In other words, many book bloggers are sort of obsessive-compulsive about reading. Me too. Maybe a little.

But I'm only a part-time book blogger. A once in a while book blogger. But I read a fair amount and I do like to give myself reading challenges. Like the (currently on-hold) challenge of reading through human history by reading interlocking biographies. Now that's a challenge. I started with Julius Caesar (you have to start somewhere), and made my way through a few generations until I finally got really tired of the Roman Empire. I then amended the challenge to include novels, not just biographies, so that I could spread out a little, wandering further afield. Anyway, it's on hold. I'm somewhere in the second century. Long way to go.

Mostly, lately, the way I find novels is by wandering the aisles of my local library. The trouble there is that my local library seems to be weeding out the old books, stuffing the shelves with contemporary murder mysteries and romance novels (two forms I'm not excited about, sorry). The truth is, in many things I'm just not into contemporary.

The best two novels I read last year were William Maxwell's They Came Like Swallows (1937), and So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980). They were amazing. I'm interested in reading others like them. Glimpses into the past, congering up from out of mostly ordinary memories, the extraordinary portrait of a time and place. These kinds of books are like complicated artifacts, beautiful and strange, and strangely familiar.

My reading challenge for 2011 is simply to read outstanding books this year. I want the end-of-the-year list to be evocative of many glorious hours of reading happiness. I've seldom kept such a list in past years, not often, but I'll do so here at the blog, along with a sure-to-grow list of books I just might want to read and don't want to forget about. Because, you know, there's nothing quite like a good book.

I predict the next five minutes will be simply splendorous!

Church promoculture icon Rick Warren has given the next decade a catchy promoculture handle: The Decade of Destiny. Is this something like the guy in the parable who said, "I'm going to fill my barns with grain, then build new barns and fill them with grain too"? To whom some other dude who knew something the first man didn't know said, "Fool, don't you know you're kickin' the proverbial bucket tonight!" Anyway, I would like to say to Rick W, "Ummm, the next decade will probably be much like the last one, only a little worse/better, with some significant highs/lows. And some of us will probably kick the bucket!" But I guess that wouldn't be polite.

In a similar instance of New Year's hysteria-drumming (aka, excitement instigation), a friend of mine said on Facebook, "Let's all get excited about the coming year!" Actually, I think he used maybe three exclamation points at least. And ALL CAPS. I wanted to reply, "What for?" But, you know, like I said, it's kind of impolite to not get excited when somebody is shouting, "LET'S GET EXCITED!!!" So I let it pass. I'm not a pessimist mind you, not in the least. I'm just not an excite-amist, that's all. If you seem to want to make me one, well, I'm probably going to be suspicious about your motivation.

BTW, here's the best and most optimistic list of new year's resolutions ever! All quite doable.

Oh, and then there's this:

In the future, we’re all experts. We’re all slim and muscular and tidy, and have written the Great American Novel, too, if our New Year’s Resolutions are to be believed. New Year’s is a time to post the intellectual version of the FREE BEER TOMORROW sign.

Heh. That comes from a post called I Predict Next Year Will Be Worse Than Last Year. Where’s My Check? It's very funny.

Carter Beats the Devil

I'm really enjoying Carter Beats the Devil. This is an historical novel featuring as its main character a vaudeville magician named Charles Carter. Carter and many other characters in this book really lived, so this is one of those historical novels that weaves the fiction with the history, and it's hard to know where the seams are. Not that it matter, I suppose.

The thing is, this is an engaging read. I'm really enjoying it. The scene where Carter is cuffed hand and foot, locked in a mail sack, and stashed in a big wooden shipping crate, which is then tossed into San Francisco Bay by stupidly evil secret service goons . . . that scene . . . is amazing! I was reading it while waiting in line at a blood drive. My number was 151. This lady came over to where I was sitting with a few other people and began shouting my number. "Number 151? Number 151?" Louder each time. She was maybe six or eight feet away from me, but I didn't hear her at first, until maybe the third time (I'n not sure), when her voice startled me out of my book. It was just like being shaken awake in the middle of an especially vivid dream. The lady said, "That must be a really good book!"

And it is.