Brainwaves

Teaching Sunday school, for me, was a journey all its own. About a year into my conversion, that little, old-time holiness church I had embraced couldn’t get anyone to teach their teens and so they approached me with the task. Me who knew no more Bible than what that short span of time had allowed me to devour. Me who had not yet walked long enough in the way for life and the Holy Ghost to enlighten me as to the Gospel in its reality. It was, indeed, a lesson for me as well as them. One learns along the way, you see, that the mission isn’t about cloning replicas of yourself, but helping others to become disciples of Christ. Rather than trying to impress people with how well you’ve conquered the Book, you realize, somewhere in there, that what the job involves is simply sharing Him as the Book conquers you! It remains a step-by-step process by which, at times, the veil parts and you gain another piece of the puzzle to ponder, allowing you only what you’ve always possessed: your perspective; the ego ever a challenge to overcome…

Thus my personal definition of “sin”, as previously stated: “a refusal on our part to involve the Creator in the basic truth of who and what we are”. I’ve just seen too many simply puffed up in their “calling” and sat with more than a few “holier-than-Him”s whose conversation and manner revealed their old nature wasn’t buried half as deep as they thought it to be. For that matter, this old man, himself, has too often discovered his humanity still alive and well for me to believe the above terminology only applies to serious transgressions, the status of “serious” depending upon where each of us decides to insert any one item on our “Thou-shalt-not” list. There are those who have said to me, concerning someone struggling with addiction, “They do what they do because it’s what they want to do!” They’ll get no argument from me there; but the statement holds just as true regarding our temper and our tongue. Indwelt by the Spirit or not, between the head and the heart yet remains enough rope for us to hang ourselves. Thank God for grace…

Some may consider that last commodity, via the Apostle John’s declaration of both it and truth having “came by Jesus Christ”, to be a gift singularly assigned to New Testament converts. One has only to consult their concordance, however, to realize, as a part of the Creator’s character, it has been around for as long as He has. Noah and Moses knew it. David, while not giving us the exact word, speaks of that “man unto the Lord imputeth not iniquity” as being blessed, but goes on to say that having a spirit in which “there is no guile” also plays a part in sealing the bargain. In other words, just because mercy is shown, it doesn’t mean we can’t yet make a mess of what we walk in; and, if we’re willing to admit it, making a mess of things is what we do well. It’s in making such a confession, though, that we find His patience and His faithfulness, honesty being the best policy in a relationship where He already knows us from the inside out. The wording in His contract reads the same for the alcoholic, the homosexual, and the guy in the third pew back:
“Come unto me and I will give you rest”…

With no intent whatsoever to mix recent political accusations into his sermon, my pastor’s Easter message was on the subject of prejudice. Punctuated by three video clips, it, in truth, didn’t hold a lot of theology other than his saying: “This is us. This is who we are; and only through God can we hope to eliminate it.” As he preached, though, my thoughts returned to an experience once shared with an African-American fellow known to me via a twenty year on-the-job relationship, a good friend with whom I often discussed cultural history as much as anything else. I would have told anybody my inventory on racial bigotry was clear. Then one day, with me on the computer and him standing right there next to me, from some deep inner well inside my brain, an old childhood counting arose and, unconsciously, I began to sing: “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe; catch a-” Suddenly realizing just where the words of that particular song went from there, I stopped and turned to discover my buddy grinning at me. Lesson learned and not since forgotten…..

Indeed, it went with me afterwards, on this occasion, into our Sunday school class, where we, for some strange reason, entered into a Biblical review of the Resurrection and where this old man, still trying to digest all of the above along with last week’s lesson put on the table, did what he usually does and threw a bit of chili pepper into the present meal being served. Seven days prior, in defining “sin”, I had suggested that it was not simply a list of “Thou shalt not”s, but a refusal on our part to involve the Creator in the basic truth of who and what we are. In taking that even farther, however, and stating my personal belief to be in a divine deliverance coming through God’s grace, not all in the room were in agreement with me. “We do that which we want to do” was the general consensus; and “we must give account for that which we do!” Finding no quarrel, nor desiring one, and well aware it was the teacher’s portion to enlighten his congregation, I hushed. Who knows? It could always be that my own perception of the matter needs to be re-examined…..

A man ought to be, in my opinion, convinced of what he believes, while remaining open to the tug of the Holy Ghost. None of us, after all, knows it all; and, to me, the hardest thing to learn is that the journey is best accomplished out of your “belly”, not just your head. While the Book is certainly a foundation for our faith, it remains that we, ourselves, are the temple being erected upon it and the Spirit, not man, is in charge of construction. He, alone, is holy and without error. We, on the other hand, even re-connected to the possibility of walking in His presence, are yet prone to missing the mark. To the best of my memory, the only place in Scripture where Jesus “laid down the law” is the Sermon on the Mount. From beginning to end, what one finds there is a dogma impossible for any of us to achieve on our own and what we should gain is that, in calling a spade a spade, He actually illustrates the futility in alphabetizing and prioritizing a denominational list of “no-no”s, when the real heart of the matter is simply man’s inner carnality. Giving that to Him is individually navigated…..

“Christ didn’t come with a dogma, but a directive to Follow Me. Neither did He come to establish a credo, but to re-affirm a connection: for it means nothing if He stepped out of that grave, but hasn’t yet stepped into me”….

With Easter upon us, I delivered the above words to the men at the rescue mission Wednesday evening. Such theme was on my heart and, as it turned out, my two compadres who preceded me but opened a door to so utilize the few remaining minutes. Though my original intention had not been so, I began with that scene in “Horton Hears a Who” where the hero and the people on that insignificant speck are trying to communicate with each other through a broken drain pipe. “Can you hear me now?” the mayor of that tiny world yells as loudly as he can to his unseen savior on high. Even so: much of Christianity. When the work of Christ is reduced to an example of death having been conquered, assurance of our own victory then rests in a faith that cannot be verified until that day arrives and our journey here a matter of carving out just what it is we do believe…

In Corinthians, the apostle Paul puts it this way: “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are in your sins”. He takes nothing away from the stone being rolled away, immediately adding that: “If, in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are, of all men, most miserable”; but those latter words of his first statement should shake us as we sit in our pews, convinced we possess keys to the kingdom via our individual doctrinal truths. He make it clear (to me at least) that, except the reality of a risen Savior be confirmed within us, we yet walk by nothing more than our humanity. Indeed, this is exactly what Jesus tried to tell Martha, just outside her brother’s tomb, in equating Himself with that resurrection force, and what Paul means when he speaks of counting all things but “dung” that he might know Him “in the power of His resurrection”...

This Sunday we celebrate, once again, an escape long ago accomplished from a bondage that we each must eventually also face, ourselves. We can, and do, deal with such fact in a great number of ways, including a simple surrender unto an assumption that it is: the end of the road. Turn off the light. That’s it. There ain’t no more. If that approach, though, is not acceptable, we can reach for straws and create our own fantasy exit, taking the plot and running with it. You like the idea of checking in with St. Peter at the gate and being assigned your personal set of wings and harp? Why not? It’s your script. Base it on your version of the Bible or Hollywood’s portrayal of such experience. When push comes to shove, it’s your choice of diving boards for that great leap into darkness. Me? Give me His hand, reaching through the veil, just as I have known it all along…

In my sorrow. In my confusion. Up from the depths of all that I am. He lives…..

I remember being a Fifth Grade safety patrol performing my duties at Sixth and Main, facing the bitter cold of winter beneath several layers of clothing and gaining an inner warmth from a thermos of steaming hot tea that my mother always sent with me…..

I remember games of dodge-ball and kick-the-can, an empty peach basket nailed to a telephone pole in front of the house, the only basketball hoop we could afford, and the attempts to conquer each other’s marble collection via contests played in the gutter of that old, cobblestone, brick street that stretched from Main, curving north midway and connecting with Sixth at the other end as it passed beneath the C&O railroad tracks…..

I remember escaping the city to what I thought of as “the country”, indeed a new life where my feet, for nearly three months that first summer, hardly knew a pair of shoes as I explored the fields and woods in every direction, fishing the creeks for whatever would grab the bait, collecting hickory nuts to sell at the local grocery store, forming tunnels through the bales of hay stored in some old farmer’s barn. Ducking beneath a bit of brush once brought me eyeball to eyeball with a blue-racer looped in the branch of a small tree. I haven’t had any fondness for snakes since…..

High-school lessons learned, I remember leaving behind an old 1953 Chevrolet Blair, my family in complete disruption due to the untimely death of my father, and boarding a prop plane that carried me to another world: California coffee houses, sunny beaches, and Big Sur; then back across the continent to launch from New York City, finally land in Nice, France and begin to sail the Mediterranean. Marriage, three daughters, and my conversion to Christ: milestones marking my existence, each event mentally recorded and points in time that yet live, not as “history”, but as moments that, to me, happened but yesterday. What seems weird is the guy in the mirror and the click of the calendar count that happens every October. The outer shell and the spirit within, somehow, are not a match. Where did this old man come from? When did he arrive? I don’t recall…..

March madness or not, Beth and I took our grand-daughter to see “Horton Hears a Who” yesterday afternoon and I openly admit to being thoroughly entertained. You know my mind, however: While they saw the usual characters and plot that one finds within a Dr. Seuss creation, elephants, silly-looking kangaroos, and a tiny civilization living on an insignificant speck blowing through the former’s existence, indeed, their fate resting in the hands of a great, intangible “voice in the sky”, what I perceived was a brilliant piece of theological science fiction. The kids, obviously, were laughing too much to ponder whether or not Horton’s world was nothing more than another speck beneath someone else’s microscope; but not this old man. If “a person’s a person, no matter how small” played well to a theater full of children, it yet remains that I saw the Gospel’s message also set forth within the movie’s theme…..

Yesterday, our Sunday school class finished that series on “Invisible Warfare”, Chip Ingram’s view of demonic influence being leveled against the body of Christ. I have enjoyed the discussions, but nonetheless found the book to be just one more example of the Church’s present state of affairs. While Satan, no doubt, is an enemy that each and every believer ought not take for granted, yet the Bible gives us assurance of his having been already defeated by Jesus long ago. It just makes sense to me, therefore, that my best defense is a complete surrender unto the resurrected reality of that One who abides within. Where we fail, in my opinion, as an ecclesiastical community of disciples, is in not recognizing the battle, be it directed against hell or our humanity, is better won via that connection than it is through our vanity swinging our personal interpretation of the Book. Little is much if God is in it…..

Until the last few days, my knowledge concerning the sixteenth President of the United States was probably minimal. Born in Kentucky, author and deliverer of the Gettysburg Address, the Great Emancipator, assassinated while in office. It’s recorded that Lincoln, at the offset of the Civil War, said to one of his generals: “If you’re not going to use the Army, I’d like to borrow it for awhile”. His memorial in D.C. sits with the bridge going to Arlington just to its rear, the Viet Nam Wall and the Washington Monument’s pool immediately before it. To learn, however, that he was the grandson of a servant woman bearing the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Virginian plantation owner was news to me. To read of his childhood years being spent in such abject poverty, living in nothing more than back-woods, dirt-floor hunters’ cabins was not all that shocking; but hearing that his family actually endured one severe winter sheltered only by a three-sided shed with the front completely exposed to the weather was a bit more than I expected. Even more, such up-bringing appears to have remained a part of who he was throughout his life. Self-educated through borrowed books, he took no interest at all in his appearance, was accused of being lazy when it came to manual labor, and became our Commander-in-Chief mainly because of his wife’s plotting and the mysterious forces of fate…..

It’s not that the facts lessen my respect for the man at all. I’m not disillusioned to find that he never belonged to any church and did his best to avoid religious discussions. If his manners appear different than I might have expected, his heart was manifested via the charity he extended unto others and I’m quite content to leave his destiny between him and his Creator. His marriage was merely a matter of his having been handcuffed to honor his word, his latter years given to maintaining that commitment regardless of circumstances, and his own welfare hindered through a compassion that over-rode any sense of self-promotion. My reason for addressing such subject is not to point a finger of ridicule at Honest Abe, but to note how often our perception of people falls short of taking in “the whole story”. That fellow at work whose personality is quite unsociable, whose views do not correspond with ours. The relative whose whole approach to their financial affairs makes absolutely no sense to us, whose attitudes give reason to avoid them in general. The human experience, whether one examines it from the perspective of politician, celebrity, or just the guy next door, is an enigmatic meal to digest, to say the least. Only God knows each of us in our entirety; and only in as much as we allow Him to steer us in our horizontal relationships can we know love as it should be…..

With most of the snow melted and the suspicion that Spring is slowly gaining victory over the persistent chilly breeze in this neck of the woods, the last few days have found my mind stirring a mixture of ecclesiastical subjects, each encountered through different venues. The other night, I re-opened a Buechner paperback and was reading the old man’s slant on what was spoken by Daniel in prayer. “O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto Thee”, the prophet cried; “but unto us confusion of faces”; but, in searching that particular verse out, I learned that modern translations render the last three words as “open shame”. Personally, however, the King James suits me better because, while the latter may certainly be due us concerning our commitment to what we claim to believe, it’s easy for me to visualize the shock we will register on that day when we discover that we’re nowhere close to being as smart or as holy as we thought we were…..

With such thought bouncing around in my brain, though, I followed a friend’s link to a site I used to visit quite frequently. To my memory, this fellow’s earlier writing had often given witness to my own spirit as he inwardly journeyed through a departure from ministry. Then we just disconnected, for whatever reason. It was good to now find him full of life and into the call of Christ from another perspective than that which had troubled him while working within the sanctuary; but it was not all that surprising to learn him now defining the faith as having been divided into “sub-cultures”. In fact, I am in agreement with just about all of his assessments, but wonder what he might think of my own response to the final question that he poses. “What would touching your community look like”, he wants to know, “without an agenda, without intended results? What if we left our comfortable pews and asked to be let back on the playing field?”…..

In my opinion, although the idea of vacating the building and returning to the arena might just possibly evolve into “the real deal”, it’s not enough to simply learn to love one another. Walking in the Holy Ghost involves more than works and begins in realizing the reality of what we profess. Either He actually lives and affords unto us tangible confirmation of such truth, verification that then flows through us in a manner enabling others to see Him as the source of our charity, and a manifestation that accepts responsibility for the stumbling that we bring into the procedure, or we possess nothing more than what we, ourselves, bring to the table, a program and a doctrine self-created and believed along the way. What we have lost, recovered, and then once again obscured in an attempt to manufacture it on our own is that which Jesus brought to the table: His life in the next step! His potential, His assurance, His direction as we go! God save us all…..

Friday, our local school board, rather than keeping our kids out of harm’s way, elected to open their doors as usual and begin another day despite a huge snow storm bearing down on us. A friend tells me that it’s a no-win situation because, either way they go, there are always those parents who don’t like their decision. Be that as it may, the plan on this occasion was to dismiss two hours early and avoid the blizzard; but Mother Nature didn’t get their memo and when, at 10:30, things began to look bad, panic set in. Escape was now rescheduled for noon; but the roads, by that time, were already clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic. One by one, individual buses would appear. It was a mess. My drive home with my grandchildren would take over an hour, but was achieved without incident. By 1:00 Saturday, though, this area of northern Kentucky was “buried” beneath 10-14 inches of snow; and since the country, other than taxes, doesn’t recognize our little corner of the neighborhood, there wasn’t much to do other than wait for the son-in-law to liberate us with his tractor……

This morning, then, with the main highways clear, three of us remembered to set our clocks forward and managed to navigate the distance between here and the Youth Detention Center. Guilt sometimes accompanies on that journey, knowing that all I possess to share with such congregation is a thought, a whisper of what I think to have been His voice, but one leaving me with no clear definition of any particular path to follow in my presentation. I’ve learned, however, that preparation doesn’t necessarily mean having a three-point sermon in hand as you approach the pulpit. When Hebrews declares unto us that “without faith, it is impossible to please Him” for those who come to God must “first believe that He is”, we must examine such verse, not just as it co-exists with others, but also as our understanding of it is taught to us via a day-by-day relationship with our Creator. What Christ brings to us is a Reality who meets us where we are! Indeed, it is that connection, as we find it again and again in our life, establishing in us “the gift of God” and framing our image of Him as we go……

They were surprised to see us, I think, at the Center today, in lieu of the weather. When we pushed the button and announced our arrival, some young fellow told us the service had been cancelled. Then he laughed, buzzed us in, and a female guard came, apologizing for his sense of humor, came to escort us into the gymnasium “sanctuary”. If we cared enough to come in spite of such conditions, she said, then it was only right that we should have church, even if she, herself, was Jewish, repeating that last bit of information as if it might offend us. It did not; and so she now began to tell us of her son, stationed in Iraq and just recently very badly wounded in a Hummer attack. Tears filled her eyes. Only he and the driver survived. Would she mind if we prayed with her? She did not; and there, in the reception area, we crossed the boundaries of what we believed, simply believing in Him who loves us all. It had nothing to do with anyone’s individual “spiritual level”, but everything to do with a divine Presence in our midst. Truth does not need my fancy words; just a surrendered heart through which to flow……

The book spoke of technology forcing families to leave their farm-land homes and find employment in the cities. In my day, the computer has completely restructured business and the world, in general. Once more men have lost their source of income to machines and been told to survive as best they can. Just what miracle opens a door, though, for a forty-five or fifty year-old fellow who only knows those skills he’s conquered over the last three decades or so? Schooling costs money and, in the meantime, there are still at least a few mouths to feed and bills to pay. The railroad merged, again, and again, and again. Reagan killed the unions; and clerical jobs were reduced, within my neck of the woods, anyway, from over four hundred to less than twenty-five when I retired…..

Somehow, I managed to hold one of those remaining positions. Many took the option of a buy-out along the way, their odds of succeeding via such venue calculated to have better chances than what I perceived. Others saw hope in transferring all they possessed to another location with the company. Life as it is. If liberty and freedom are indeed the basic premise upon which this nation rests, money yet remains the name of the game. It may not be good if wealth, rather than the Creator, drives a man’s heart, but the truth is: somewhere in there a paycheck holds it all together, and a government “of, by, and for the people” doesn’t necessarily mean Uncle Sam is looking out for you. Determination, grit, prayer, and people helping people hang in there goes far, one step at a time….. When the Fifth Grade teacher was summoned to some sort of conference unexpectedly Monday, I found myself invited to teach the Social Studies class. The lesson concerned the industrial revolution that began in the 1800s and we talked a little about how a canal system works, how engines, whether powered by steam or gasoline, were no more than gears turning other gears, and how inventions change society in a number of ways. Just how much the kids grasped about progress, even while bringing to us convenience and a better way of living, also affecting the financial welfare of many is debatable. Neither am I sure how well young minds comprehended the truth of my longevity being a short span for so much to have evolved. The hour, however, was definitely not boring…..

Conversation with two men yesterday, both of whom are close, personal friends, has punctuated my thoughts this morning, driving them deeper down a path already under consideration. The first discussion too place via a telephone call. We had not talked in months and his voice was like medicine to this old man’s soul. An anointed man of God, in my opinion, his life and his calling was nonetheless nearly destroyed some years back by false accusations that the church world, in general, refused to fully investigate before it condemned him to anathema. His family poured themselves into the husband and father they knew him to be; God proved Himself to be faithful, taking him slowly, step by step, through the darkness; and a few friends hung in there during the interim. A decade or so down the road, his words to me now were of restoration; but his use of the term wasn’t restricted to where the journey has taken him in ministry. Rather, we spoke of how the Spirit of Christ manifests His presence within the whole scenario, bringing healing and lessons learned to both the afflicted and the accusers, working His grace in the hearts of all who would recognize their need of Him…..

The second discourse, then, occurred as the two of us leaned over a handrail, watching a basketball game unfold on the gymnasium floor below. This fellow and I have long been partners in outreach and, by now, well know both each other’s character and the struggle involved with any pursuit of Him. If that seems to suggest some inner desire to chase the flesh, while such temptation indeed might come to anyone on occasion, the greater battle lies in the deceit of one’s own heart. Too easy it is to develop wrong attitudes concerning the ecclesiastical muck and mire in which we swim while following Him. The sanctuary, whether one speaks of the body or the building, is sanctified only by the confirmation of His reality abiding therein. Our humanity isn’t extinguished by our conversion, a matter we, ourselves, prove on a daily basis. So when my buddy asked me, with a trace of tears in his eyes, asked me if I believed his offerings at the rescue mission to yet be God-given, I knew the sincerity behind the query and identified with his need to know. Things such as fatigue, illness, and just-plain-being-too-busy-in-doing-good can sidetrack us; vanity can kill us; and self-examination is a healthy practice…..

Christianity isn’t casual. It isn’t my kingdom; it’s His. My earthly father disciplined me, taught me a few things, and loved me enough to walk with me in life as it came to me. I find my relationship with Him no different.…..

I visited my old church this evening. Good fellowship. Great worship. No tug on my heart otherwise…..