Brainwaves

Monday marks the final day of this year’s CATS testing for the upper levels of northern Kentucky’s elementary school system. We’ve only five weeks left of this particular annual trek through educating the troops. Graduation is right around the corner and you can sense the knowledge of that fact permeating everything taking place within those hallowed halls. While study doesn’t just come to a halt, the focus shifts. It’s no longer so much about data being stuffed into their brain as it is about simply preparing them for life as it will be in the new environment. There will yet be an orientation visit to the other facility, complete with introductions to teachers and extra curricular opportunities. Fifth Graders, especially, are aware that it isn’t just summer break, but “good-bye” that’s right around the corner……

In truth, this time around has been a hard one for me. For the first time, two of my charges have been a part of my experience there since meeting them as Third Graders; and to watch them now advance with my having failed, for the most part, to increase and strengthen their educational skills makes me sad. Indeed, it was encouraging to overhear the teacher, Friday, speaking to herself as much as anybody else: “They can only do what they can do; and you can expect no more than that they try.” I’m learning. A different lesson, it seems, with each new assignment. Nonetheless, when the Aspergers girl, as we gathered our crew for the bus ride home, turned to us and, out of the blue, announced “I sure gonna miss youse guys!”, my heart just melted……

First Round: “Don’t all religions teach basically the same thing?”
Second Round: “Isn’t it enough to be sincere?”

If we escaped the initial Sunday school class in this series with no disagreement, it was not to be on this occasion. At one point, some poor lady, nearly in tears, offered to take her membership elsewhere, but refused to see any harm in the multi-religious flavoring of 9/11’s memorial service. Likewise, it was also easy to see I shocked the entire room with my own expressed view of Christianity’s misuse of the Bible. Indeed, one person who couldn’t grasp how the Gospel could be delivered without declaring Hell the only other alternative to Jesus asked me my purpose in visiting the Youth Detention Center. Somehow, though, our differences of opinion did not separate us from that which tied us together as a church. At no time did anyone speak in anger and we parted company with handshakes and smiles………….

Surely believers ought to be able to gather, discuss their faith, and leave as friends. To agree to disagree. In fact, it seems to me that “debate” ought to be healthy. Who among us, after all, has truth packaged and framed: one size fits all? In possessing the Book, it does appear that some of us think ourselves to have achieved the latter; but if the Book be right, what we actually have acquired in Christ is an internal Spiritual guide able to lead us as we go. Considering that we remain part of the navigational system, however, a stumble is about as good as it gets; and, if that is so, why not just focus on the reality of that relationship when we witness unto others? If a sword needs to be swung, why not leave it in the hands of the Holy Ghost? He, as far as I’m concerned, remains both the door unto and the leader of any arbitration along these lines…………

Is Hell an actuality? Will there, of a certainty, be a final day of reckoning wherein the souls of some men will be eternally separated from God? Surely scripture bombards us with much evidence of both; and, I have no problem, therefore, addressing either issue with whomsoever. It’s the part where we think ourselves capable of ascending unto His throne and passing out condemnation via our own understanding that troubles me. Does not the Word, itself, declare that judgment should start within our own temple? In truth, it’s always been somewhat strange to me that Christians should get so disturbed if it be suggested that they, themselves, might one day “come up short”, when the Sermon on the Mount, if nothing else, puts it right there in our face? Where is it written, I ask, that our declaration of Jesus automatically opens Heaven’s gates?.......

There is a journey to make, unto each of us a call; and, in the end, the separating of the sheep from the goats remains His decision, not mine.

My mother will turn eighty-five in August. She lives in one of those high-rise for the elderly communes and is but a ten minute drive from my own home. I visit her, however, about once every three weeks and, for a long time, it was less than that. We watch television together for an hour or so, the conversation capable of being recorded and replayed next time around. She calls herself a “survivor”; and maybe, rightly so: Her generational package being all gone and her second husband, somewhat younger than her, the only one of four marital companions yet living. A palsy stroke awhile back has her face partially frozen. Her eyes, now mere slits, let her read with the help of glasses passed down to her from one of the other tenants. A doctor, for any reason, is vehemently refused. She is what she has made herself to be: opinionated, lonely, and lost as to why none of her prodigy ever come to see her…..

If, in spite of my worship of Dad, there was never any real relationship between us, it is also pretty much a fact that his death is the biggest element of any real connection between Mom and me. She had been the discipliner of the two. The one who put the wooden paddle to my rear end on occasion. The one who, in my teen years, often embarrassed me with orders that left me “out of the group”. In later life I came to understand many things a lot better; but it remains, even so, that within the scope of our entire journey together, we have never talked about who we are and why we are who we are. She is simply “my mother”; and the spiritual umbilical cord that yet binds us is, in actuality, nothing more than an experience shared over six and a half decades. I love her “out of that journey” and find myself feeling a bit guilty at times in the traversing of it. I know her; but I don’t “know” her…..

How well do any of us, though, grasp what makes the other person “tick”? How much do my own daughters understand me? They may be familiar with my nature, my personality and my character, even some of my history; but the human animal is, as it has been from the start, an enigma as individual in its explanation as snowflakes in their unique patterns. Surely if any of us should attempt to comprehend, we must first begin with ourselves; and, while I would not wish to completely dismiss the Freudian psychologists of this world, it does seem to me that the best avenue to take in such pursuit is some one-on-one with THE One Who designed the product, the One Who has known us from our mother’s womb. Mom and I may never bridge the gap. I can, however, find in the flow of prayer a salve for the wound, medication that not only helps on this end of the situation, but gives guidance at the point of contact……

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! After an unusual spell of cold weather, this area awoke, Thursday, to a bit of a warm-up accompanied by the normality of April showers; and the sound was no more than everyone’s rubber-soled tennis shoes traversing the wet hallways around the front entrance of the school. Sometimes, during the day, when the occupants of the building are all at work within the classrooms, the “clomp, clomp, clomp” of a single pair of dress shoes can quickly catch your attention, filling the corridors with a dull echo. Every afternoon, though, with the dismissal of the first wave of bus riders, you could run through this place from one end to the other with aluminum buckets on your feet and any noise you make would simply be buried beneath the excitement of kids going home……….

On this occasion, however, it was early, it was a drizzly, gray day outside, and we all were well aware that, while summer vacation is clearly in sight, the fact remains that we yet have six weeks of “work” to accomplish. I was reminded of Tony’s words to the men down at the mission Wednesday evening. Speaking of a recent weekend vacation trip he took with his family in Gatlinburg, he told of leaving his home in northern Kentucky with the nine-year old daughter in the back seat, deeply enrapt in a gospel song of praise. With an Ipod in her hands, earphones on her head, she was oblivious to all else and filling the car with her own rendition of the music. No problem as far as dad was concerned; but he was amused when, less than thirty minutes into the five hour drive, she surfaced to ask if they were there yet………..

Even in Christ, not all moments are full of sunshine. Every second isn’t charged with the electricity of who we are in Him. Life still goes on both around us and in us, circumstances often confirming unto us that we don’t just battle “the flesh”, but a mental enemy within as well. Paul and Silas, at one point, found themselves having been beaten “with many stripes”, locked in a jail cell, and left to lick their wounds. In the darkness they began to sing. So often in this journey I have found that out of an inner well flows melody. Though nothing seem to make any sense in the present situation. Though the world, as you know it, lay heavy upon you. Though the next breath is filled with but a mundane continuation of routine existence. Peace abides if you can just relax and fall into the gift He has given………..

***(Got a letter yesterday from the Governor’s secretary that my employment insurance problems have been resolved!)

We have just begun a new series in Sunday school, investigating different religions of the world and questioning whether Christianity has, indeed, any “God-given” authority to claim its individuality in a relationship with the Creator. There were fewer than twenty of us in the class. Amazingly, we navigated the forty-five minutes or so seemingly with no discord. Lest anyone, however, think that we merely waved, like banners, those same pieces of chapter and verse that have long been utilized to indict unbelievers, try to remember that this old man participated in the discussion. When the teacher spoke of Jesus being “the only way”, I asked what was really meant by such declaration. After all, if our stand, as a people, is solely wrapped up in isolated fragments of the Word that we, ourselves, have defined, doesn’t it actually just boil down to a debate over whose book is “the real deal”?.............

In the first place, Calvary was never about establishing a new code of ethics, any more than it exists to provide a “Get out of Hell” pass for everyone whose name is registered on the roster of their local assembly. Likewise, in the second place, the Bible isn’t a “Build Him Yourself” manual wherewith we simply fashion the Almighty to our own liking, pronouncing, as we go, blanket judgment upon all who don’t agree with us. It was Gandhi who, when asked why his admiration of Jesus didn’t lead to his own conversion, replied: “If I ever meet a true follower of what He taught, I might consider it.” He, even as Tolstoy, after reading the Sermon on the Mount, then framed it as the singular demand for every believer to achieve. The question for me, however, is whether his inability to grasp the truth of a living Savior was a matter of his own making or accountable to a Church void of any such evidence….........

What is it the world sees when it looks at the various elements of that which claims to have been founded “upon this rock”? In the midst of overwhelming nonsense, what is it that we extend as an answer for peace: Our guarantee of possessing complete understanding in all things, or a manifestation wherein He speaks for Himself? If others view us with distaste, perhaps we ought to re-examine, not just the outer layer of the “ho-ho”, but also that which serves as a filling? Maybe the only food we’re putting on the table is stale, stuffed with too much of us and not enough of Him? It’s written in the Gospel of John that Jesus needed no man to testify of Him, for He “knew what was within man”; and I’m of the opinion that hasn’t changed. If what we preach and practice doesn’t flow out of an inner well given to us via the Cross, all we’re really talking is, indeed, just another religion……….

Beth and I celebrated our 43rd yesterday, a number that somehow brings to mind the two of us doing a Tim Conway shuffle to the center of the dance floor and holding each other up for a few bars of the Anniversary Waltz. In truth, we merely dined at Red Lobster with another couple who beat us to the preacher back in ’64 by two days. There were no gifts given. No formal attire. Just the four of us enjoying each other’s company and sharing the moment, the journey taken. And it is, in my opinion, the latter, made up of a whole bunch of the former that encompasses the value of then item. However one might wish to define the driving force which initiated the merger, “love”, in my book, anyway, is a product of a lifetime together. Like fine wine, it improves as it ages……..

I visited another site this morning where the subject considered was the human body as it travels toward eternity. Let’s face it: my physique, at no time, has ever even come close to resembling Michaelangelo’s statue of David. Until I went into the Navy, my framework had absolutely no muscle to it and any weight gained during boot-camp was quickly lost when all that exercise and forced labor became history. It is beyond my imagination what could have turned my wife’s head to consider me a “catch”. She, on the other hand, from the very beginning, has always looked good to me, her beauty born out of who she is, not just “paint and polish”. In truth, all these years later, the “package” is still attractive, the woman inside only that much more entangled around my heart…….

In the Bible, Christ is expressed as being “married” to the Church, the apostle Paul using such description to counsel relationship between husband and wife. In comment elsewhere, I wrote of it being possible “to live a role” in an attempt to see “God in me”. The difference is in finding God a Reality who abides within. When that happens, all the struggle of trying to be as He would have you to be becomes more a surrendering unto that inner connection. Perfection is then no longer something I achieve. Grace is no mere definition determined by the Book, but an assurance revealed along the way. The Gospel becomes more than my translation of it. “Love”, after all, is more than a word. It is the “knotting” of two spirits in such a way that they become one, in each other, and in Him……..

Our Resurrection Sunday sermon was mostly composed of a series of video clips and a story about Arnold Palmer having once suffered a twelve stroke count on a tournament par-five hole; but, then, Pastor Terry seldom gets into deep theological parsing of Scripture. His understanding of chapter and verse boils down, for the most part, to three main items: (1) People need God; (2) God loves people; and (3) People need each other. I have no problem with that, having had my fill of loud, charismatic preachers trying to sell the Holy Ghost for a donation to their ministry. Religion, in my book, anyhow, is “worship without the Almighty’s seal of approval”. Whether a message from the pulpit or a song from the choir, I believe it is God’s signature that completes it. Abel’s sacrifice was received; Cain’s was not. I find it no different today. If the fire doesn’t fall, it might behoove us to re-examine our offering; and, at the same time, take note that arson is still a criminal offense........

In John’s Gospel, the blind man is asked by the Pharisees: “Where is He?” To me, that is a valid question worthy to be put to any Christian yet today. Are we, as a church, we merely promoting a program? A doctrine? Our own ego? Can it be said of us that we, in truth, bear witness to that miracle we claim to have taken place within us? Not some “uniformed” adherence to that which our denomination demands; but solid evidence of a risen Savior. If Jesus, Himself, is indeed the Way, the Truth, and the Life, in substituting our own understanding for those first two elements, do we not, in such manner, end up either counterfeiting the third or dismissing it altogether? I’m of the opinion that within every service, within every born-again believer, there runs a river; and if we, as a body, do no more than meet and leave without the reality of His presence having been somehow manifested among us, we gain little more than fulfilling our weekly obligation to the clan. Manufacturing our own encounter accomplishes even less.......

Moses once stood in the cleft of a rock atop Sinai and was shown God’s glory. The rest of Israel had just been found guilty of being content to camp at the base of the mountain, bowing down to idols of their own making. Even so today. When salvation is reduced to mere definitions capable of being stretched and bent, adjusted to shape our own image of Him, are we any less guilty of idolatry? When the only breath our gatherings possess is that which we, ourselves, pump into it, we may go home smug in our perception of what it’s all about, but it leave us with our existence, both present and eternal, determined by our own thinking. I want more; and while I recognize that there’s a lot of nonsense out there, a lot of hoopla labeled “the real deal”, if the foundations of our faith rest in anything, it is in the promise of a tangible relationship made available unto us, through Christ, with our Maker. I want that. In my sanctuary as well as in a prayer closet. Have we, as a people, lost the “cloud” along the way?.........

Ravi Zacharias, in “Recapturing the Wonder”, quoted several ancient Greek philosophers. The first, fellow, Parmenides, observed: “Whatever is, is. While things may appear to change in form, in substance they are permanent. Just as energy can not be created or destroyed, but is always there in some form, so life has an indestructibility to it.” Heraclitus, however, not being willing to accept such theory, would argue: “Whatever is, is changing. You never step into the same river twice, for the river is in constant flux and out of flux; and therefore the only thing permanent is change!” Up stepped Cratylus, then, to exclaim: “Not only do you not step into the same river twice, you do not even step into the same river once! Why? Because the river is not the only thing changing! You are changing as well; and the same you is never constantly you. With the passing of each and every fraction of a second, your physical and mental makeup is imperceptibly in transition”….

Thirty-five years ago, Christ captured my heart, and a small, old-time-holiness assembly began to count me as another member of the flock. It was a lot of “legalism”, pure and simple; but the Spirit flowed in our altar, confirming the reality of His presence in our midst. The grace of God, at times, was so thick you could almost swim in it; and yet, within the scope of my own personal journey, I watched as the “call of God” would puff some up, cost others dearly, and prove itself in all as life took its toll. Converts came and went, the back door swinging just as often as the one in the foyer. Our children grew, married, divorced, and battled the world like everybody else. Why not? They had witnessed the business meetings as well as the worship service. Despite all our claims of our humanity having been buried in Him, it wasn’t all that hard to find witness of the grave not being dug too deep. My theology tended to evolve along the way. Why shouldn’t theirs?….

I find it appropriate, therefore, that Mr. Zacharias should conclude his quotes with one by another famous thinker. “Even nostalgia,” Yogi Berra once said; “isn’t what it used to be.” To which I can only add: “Nor is the future ever quite what we imagined it would be.” Indeed, the only immutable piece of the puzzle, to me, has proven to be the One who created it in the beginning. Most certainly, in looking back, I do not regret the path taken; but I learned long ago that the only difference in me, as a believer, is Christ “in” me. For me, that doesn’t equate to some immediate transformation that took place at the moment of my acceptance into His kingdom; nor does it signify some level that I have managed to achieve since. It isn’t a catchy phrase coined by the apostle Paul. Christ simply is; I am; and He remains faithful to me in spite of the latter. When questions and disappointments come, whether concerning me or others, He rises to meet me out of an inner well, often when I least expect it….

“The Christian faith is really not one that calls us to a higher ethical life. It challenges us to remember that, by our own efforts, we cannot produce a truly spiritual life. Ceremony has the power to soothe and mollify the conscience, but ceremony no more changes reality than outward behavior guarantees love. It is to this ‘Greater-than-the-temple’ that we bring our temples, our bodies; and find, in that communion with God, where wonder lies. To violate that in the process of seeking physical, material, or even spiritual sensation, is to seek a sensation without finding the source of wonder” ……….... Ravi Zacharias, Recapture the Wonder

Talking with a friend this past Friday morning, I mentioned my aversion to most anything that even resembles a modern-day, packaged-to-sell, celebrity approach to dispersing the Gospel. She showed me a John Wesley devotional she was reading; then also noted her enjoyment of the above author’s radio broadcasts; and that led to my offering to share with her a couple of his books that I happen to own. In fulfilling that promise, I thumbed through the one, revisiting portions highlighted during my original perusal. The entire book is a good read, but this paragraph, in particular, accompanied me to Sunday school to introduce a lesson entitled: “Getting a Grip on one’s Spiritual Life”. Its theme was centered upon prayer, as possibly corrupted by ecclesiastical teaching; and, within the framework of such discussion, we had been asked to write two words that described our attitude and motivation in the early years regarding church attendance. In the space provided, I wrote without any hesitation (a) conviction; and (b) expectancy. When next requested, however, to note what it was that now moved me to go, I just as quickly penned “wishful thinking”…………..

There are those who might think my comment reflects a disappointment in my “recent” move from one congregation to another, the old group being more demonstrative in its Pentecostal heritage. In truth, it is not. I long ago learned that loud, exuberant manifestations don’t always equate to a Holy Ghost move of God; and if my new surroundings fail me in any manner, they do so no more or less than that which I encountered elsewhere. Television evangelistic theology has inundated almost all that calls itself Christian; and where it has not appears to me, anyway, to be just as far afield of the real deal on the other side of what Christ brings to us. Nonetheless, I have hope. Nonetheless, I yet know wonder. It springs eternal in my belly. I find its witness in the wind. The lead singer gets lost in the words of the hymn the choir is bringing forth and, through her praise, a river of His presence begins to fill the sanctuary. As the pastor speaks of a vision to minister to the less fortunate around us, tears run down his face and connect with my heart. I no longer recognize the landscape, but just beneath the surface there is water for all who thirst…………